Just Married! by Shirley Jump Cara Colter Page A

some reason, Sam steeled herself against the way his voice made her feel: as if she just wanted to blurt out every fear she’d ever had, lay them on his broad shoulders, let him help her carry them. It scared her that she didn’t want to be brave anymore.
    “Uneventful,” she said. She couldn’t trust herself to tell him about the store without crying, and the last thing she wanted to feel right now was more vulnerable.
    “Hey, guess who called me this afternoon?”
    “Who?”
    “The Finkles. They want to meet with us again. What do you think of that?”
    She felt as if her heart was doing a free fall, as if it was shooting down that hill in a roller coaster, only it wasn’t going to make the turn. It was going to fly right off the track.
    She’d always known she wasn’t good enough. She’d always known better than to trust life. She thought of the Sold sign swinging gently in front of her store. And of him inviting her to go the Finkles, her blowing the deal the first time.
    He’d said he didn’t care. But he’d warned her he was competitive. Had everything since then been geared to this moment? How easy it would be for a man like him, worldly and successful, to make a little bumpkin like her believe.
    He hadn’t ever said he’d given up on Annie’s Retreat. He’d said he was backing off “for the time being.”
    She thought of his eyes and his lips, the way his hand felt in hers, the way she tingled when any part of him came in contact with any part of her.
    She thought of his father saying, She’s a keeper.
    No one could have gone to such lengths to keep a pretense going. No one. But even knowing that, knowing she was being unreasonable, suddenly she could not see any way they could have a happy ending.
    This would end in heartbreak, one way or another.
    A boat pulling away from a dock and never coming back. She could not survive it again. She had pretended, ever since it had happened, that she was strong. Tough as nails. Brave.
    But she wasn’t. The truth was she wasn’t even brave enough to keep a dog; they passed through her life on the way to somewhere else, because she was afraid to keep them. Afraid to love totally.
    And suddenly she didn’t want anyone to know how afraid she was of change, good change or bad change, least of all not him. She did not want to be made weak and needy by love, she did not want to be powerless before it.
    So, she thought, I will make him despise me.
    “You planned it all, didn’t you?” she demanded.
    “From the very beginning, this is what you wanted. For me to go back to the Finkles with you, and be convincing this time. Woman in love.”
    “What are you talking about?” he asked, genuinely baffled. And then, softly, “Are you a woman in love?”
    “No!” Yes. “Would it have made you happy if I was? We could go back out to Annie’s Retreat and get what you missed out on the first time. Of course, buying my store, the bride price, was putting the cart before the horse, but why not? You’re used to getting what you want, aren’t you?”
    Stop it , she told herself, but she couldn’t. This was safer, this was easier. She had kept her life as unchangeableas she could since her parents had died. She lived in the same place. She saw the same people. She had not even allowed herself to grow up. She was not ready for the kind of change Ethan Ballard represented.
    “Buying your store?”
    “Don’t play the innocent with me! You’re just like my brothers! You had to look after me. You couldn’t believe I could make it on my own! You could get Annie’s Retreat and bail me out at the same time!
    “Get this straight, Ethan Ballard. I don’t need your help and I don’t need you!”
    His long silence told her she was succeeding at driving him away, at keeping her world narrow and safe.
    “How can you believe such a thing of me?” he asked quietly.
    “You’re the one who thought you could buy a bride,” she reminded him, something in her voice so