Bride for a day, p.1
Bride for a Day, page 1
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Books. Change. Lives.
Copyright © 2014, 2022 by Carolyn Brown
Cover and internal design © 2022 by Sourcebooks
Cover design by Stephanie Gafron/SourcebooksCover image by Ruth Black/Shutterstock
Sourcebooks and the colophon are registered trademarks of Sourcebooks.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without permission in writing from its publisher, Sourcebooks.
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.
All brand names and product names used in this book are trademarks, registered trademarks, or trade names of their respective holders. Sourcebooks is not associated with any product or vendor in this book.
Published by Sourcebooks Casablanca, an imprint of Sourcebooks
P.O. Box 4410, Naperville, Illinois 60567-4410
(630) 961-3900
sourcebooks.com
Originally published as Love Is the Answer in 1997 in the United States of America by Precious Gem Romance, an imprint of Zebra Books. This edition based on the paperback edition self-published by the author in 2014 as Bride for a Day.
Contents
Front Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Excerpt from Magnolia Bay Memories
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Author’s Note
About the Author
Back Cover
Dear Readers,
In 1997, I started my writing career with four contemporary romance books written under the name Abby Gray. Writing was going to be my vice, and no one was going to know about it, but alas, my sister was so happy I was finally published that she put articles and congratulatory ads in three newspapers, and everyone found out.
Sourcebooks has given me the opportunity to bring those four books up to date. The story line is the same, but major changes have been made. This is one of those books that started out in 1997 as Love Is the Answer, then went to Bride for a Day when I reissued it about five years ago. The title is staying the same, but the cover and content have changed. I hope you all enjoy this brand-new edition with Cassie and Ted’s story.
Twenty-four years and more than a hundred books after I got that first call back in 1997, I still have a special place in my heart for all my characters, but Bride for a Day is extra special because it’s one of those first four books that kick-started my career in writing romance.
Like the old saying about it taking a village to raise a child, it takes more than just writing or rewriting a book to put a finished product in your hands. I’d like to thank all those who helped make this edition of Bride for a Day possible, starting with Sourcebooks and Deb Werksman for giving me the opportunity to rewrite the story. Then to my agent, Erin Niumata, and Folio Management for everything they do for my career. To my husband, Charles Brown, who doesn’t mind eating take-out one more night so I can finish another chapter. And most of all to my amazing readers. You all are and will always be important to me.
Until next time,
Carolyn Brown
Chapter 1
Cassie frowned at her reflection in the cracked mirror above the lavatory in the women’s restroom. She wanted to blend in with the folks in the convenience store and café combination, but since she was almost six feet tall and had red hair, that was nearly impossible.
“I need a scarf or a hat to cover up this telltale red hair.” She pulled a brush through the tangled red curls that framed her oval face. “I should just slap a sign on my backpack that says Return Me to Cecil Gorman.” She pulled her hair up into a ponytail, wrapped a rubber band around it twice, and hoped it was time for the bus to leave. She only had to walk down one aisle, past half a dozen booths, and out the door without running into the two policemen who had come into the place right after the passengers all piled off the bus.
In a few minutes, folks would begin to reboard the bus. In less than an hour, she’d be across the Texas state line and into Oklahoma. Not that it mattered which state she was in if Cecil wanted to come looking for her. When Deana died, he had told Cassie she had a choice—she could either get out of his house or do what he told her. She had no money and had taken care of Deana, his wife, for two years. She had no place to go. Her mother had died before her sixteenth birthday. She had no job because Cecil had insisted she give up her college scholarship and take care of Deana when she got lung cancer.
What Cecil told her meant she was being sold to a man who ran a sex trafficking ring out of Houston. He must have thought he gave her no way out, but she had taken the wedding rings her grandmother had left to her, pawned them, and bought a bus ticket to Oklahoma City. That was as far as she could get away from Cecil on the amount of money the pawnbroker gave her.
If the authorities said she had to go back to Cecil’s place out in West Texas, they could just put her body in a pine box because she would never go back, not if she was still breathing. Her life would end right there in Lindsay, Texas, at a convenience store at the age of twenty. She would rather be dead than sold into the sex trafficking ring that Cecil had already gotten half payment for. She just needed a place to hide out for a little while. Hopefully, he would get tired of looking for her, and she would never see him again.
“Send me some luck, Mama,” she whispered. “I don’t even mind living in a trailer again. Living there was better than living in that house with Cecil anyway.”
He was a long-haul truck driver, and things weren’t so bad when he was out on the road for a week or more at a time. But when he came home for a day or two, everything was tense and even Deana acted different. Those days, except for cooking, cleaning, and taking care of the outside animals, she stayed in her tiny room.
Cassie couldn’t stay in the bathroom another minute if she planned to reboard the bus. She took a deep breath and looked at her reflection in the dirty mirror one more time. “I look like you, Mama,” she whispered.
Her mother had worked as a waitress at a diner out in the middle of nowhere in a little community called Maryneal. She brought home enough money to pay the bills, and Cassie had grumbled about having to ride the bus twenty miles morning and evening to the nearest high school.
“I’m sorry, Mama.” Cassie wiped a tear from her mossy-green eyes with the back of her hand. “If I knew then what I do now,” she muttered, “I would never have said a word.”
Her mother must have known something wasn’t right a few weeks before the aneurysm burst in her head because she’d handwritten a will, leaving her few meager possessions to her daughter including the wedding rings that Cassie had pawned for money. There was a personal letter to Cassie telling her that in the event of her mother’s death, arrangements had been made for her to live with the other waitress, Deana, and her husband, Cecil.
Everything changed in Cassie’s life after that.
“I miss you so much,” Cassie said. “Send down a miracle and help me stay away from Cecil for a few months, just until I can claim my inheritance, and if possible, could you help me find a job when I get to Oklahoma City? If you were here, you’d shoot him yourself for selling me like I was nothing more than one of Deana’s goats.”
The heavy rock that she seemed to carry in her heart from the day that she and Deana scattered her mother’s ashes got even bigger two days after she had graduated from high school. That was the day they found out Deana had terminal cancer. Cecil laid a heavy guilt trip on Cassie.
“You’ve studied that nurses’ aide stuff at the vo-tech these past two years, and you owe us for taking you in so that you didn’t have to go to foster care in some gawd-awful place. You can pay us back by taking care of Deana while I’m out on the road making a living to put food in your mouth and pay the bills to keep a roof over your head,” he had said.
“But I’m enrolled in college this fall. I’ve got a full scholarship to finish studying to be a nurse.” She remembered tears flowing down her cheeks.
“You owe us, girl,” Cecil had growled. “And besides, you are still just seventeen. I can call Social Services and turn you over to them. You want to go to foster care?”
; “Please,” Deana had begged. “I don’t want someone I don’t know coming in here to take care of me.”
Cassie couldn’t say no to Deana, but she’d cried herself to sleep for a week, and when college started that fall, she had cried for another week. Last week Deana had lost the battle with cancer, and Cecil came home to have her cremated. Cassie hoped that she might start to college as soon as the spring semester began, but the lady she talked to at the school said she would have to wait until fall when the new classes for nursing began.
“Last night was awful, Mama.” Cassie sighed and turned away from the mirror. “First he tried to force me into bed with him, and then he went into a rage when I fought him off. This morning he told me that he’d sold me to a man who runs a little sex trade. I had no money, so I had to hock Granny’s wedding rings. Why am I talking to you? You can’t help me.”
We always talk about everything, her mother’s voice whispered in her ear.
Cassie took a deep breath, opened the bathroom door, and locked gazes with a uniformed policeman. He nudged the second one on the shoulder and nodded toward Cassie. They split up, but she could easily see they were trying to box her in. Her heart skipped two beats, fluttered a couple of times, then began to race. A fine sweat formed on her upper lip. The aroma of fried chicken wafted over to her, and her stomach growled. She’d love to walk right over to the deli and buy even just one chicken strip, but she couldn’t afford to spend her last few dollars on food.
She imagined the chill of the handcuffs around her wrists. She scanned the diner connected to the bus stop, but the exit door was on the other side of the policemen, who had not taken their eyes off her.
She considered dashing back into the restroom and crawling out a window, but the only one in there was right up next to the ceiling. Evidently, her mother didn’t have a lot of power in heaven because she hadn’t provided a miracle or sent any help.
Those who help themselves get help. Her mother’s words came to her mind.
That’s when Cassie saw a young man sitting alone in one of the booths. She smiled and waved when she caught his eye. Pretending she didn’t know there were two policemen between her and freedom, she forced her jelly-filled knees to carry her around the ends of the display shelves, past the potato chips that really looked good, and over to where he was sitting.
She slid into the booth across from the cowboy and watched the bus pull away from the curb. The time had come to swim or drown, and she’d come too far now to have to throw in the towel. Hopefully, this man wasn’t a serial killer, or married, or both—or worse yet, someone Cecil had sent to find her.
***
Ted Wellman had seen the redheaded woman when she came into the store with the rest of the folks who had gotten off the bus. She was a striking woman who carried herself like a runway model. He’d wondered why someone as beautiful as she was would take a bus rather than a plane. For several minutes after she disappeared into the ladies’ restroom, he tried to figure out what television show or movie he had seen her on, and finally came up with an answer. She’d been on a couple of episodes of Chuck, a series that he and his brother, John, had watched several times. A closer look her way told him that she wasn’t the character, Carina, so he went back to watching the people through the plate-glass window as he drank his coffee.
Then she came out of the restroom, locked eyes with him, and acted as if she knew him. Whoever she was, she was going to be embarrassed when she found out he didn’t have the first idea who she was or where he’d seen her before.
“Hi, honey,” she said, loudly enough for the two policemen behind her to hear. She reached across the table and laid a hand on his. “Please help me,” she whispered. “Please say I’m with you.”
Her green eyes looked desperate, even though a fake smile was plastered on her face.
Ted wasn’t sure what to do. Could this be one of those television shows where they videotaped practical jokes on unsuspecting people? He just wanted to finish his coffee, get in his trusty old truck, and go back across the Red River to Ryan, Oklahoma. He damn sure wasn’t the right person for anyone to be playing a joke on.
“Please,” she whispered again as the two policemen zeroed in on him and started toward them. “I just need a little help for a few minutes.”
“Excuse me,” the older policeman drawled. “Could I have a word with you?”
“Sure,” Ted answered. “What’s the problem, sir?”
“I’m Sheriff Bud Tucker and this is my deputy, Tommy Stevens. Who are you, gal?” He turned his focus toward the woman.
“Why do you want to know?” Ted asked.
The woman squeezed his hand and looked like any minute she would burst into tears. Ted flashed a smile her way and thought of his brother, John. There was no question in his mind that John would have helped this woman—no matter what she had done to bring the cops sniffing around. John had always been the daredevil twin, and that had gotten him killed a few years ago. For some reason, Ted thought of those bracelets that were still around. WWJD stood for What Would Jesus Do, but he always thought of the letters standing for What Would John Do. Ted and John were inseparable, looked so much alike their mother could hardly tell them apart, and part of Ted’s heart died the day his brother was killed.
WWJD? the pesky voice in his head asked.
Ted didn’t even have to think about it. He knew what John would do.
Bud, the sheriff, had turned back to Ted. “Well?” he demanded.
“I’m sorry. What was the question?” Ted asked.
“Who is this woman?” Bud asked. “We were told to be on the lookout for a runaway from San Antonio. A woman that burglarized her benefactors’ home and took things that don’t belong to her, plus she’s got some mental problems. Her name is Cassie Stewart and her uncle, Cecil Gorman, the man she has stolen from, has filed a missing person’s report. According to him, she is tall, has red hair and green eyes, and is possibly headed north. He is looking for a picture of her to put with the report. It should come up on our computers anytime now.”
Ted shook his head and said the first thing that came to his mind. “Sorry, guys. This is my girlfriend. We drove down here from Ryan, Oklahoma. Actually, we spent last night in Waco where we picked up some oil-well parts for my dad.”
The sheriff drew his eyebrows down and crossed his arms over his chest. “Oh, really! Something tells me that you’re lying to me, son.”
“No, sir. Cassie is my girlfriend, and”—he searched for something believable—“and we’re going to get married today.”
Good Lord, Brother, you didn’t have to go that far! John’s chuckle was so real in Ted’s head that he glanced out the window to see if his brother was standing outside.
He was shocked when the words came out of his mouth and wondered if he’d actually said them. He cleared his throat and went on. “My name is Ted Wellman. My dad is Clayton Wellman, and he owns oil wells in this area. You might know him.”
“Of course, I know Clayton. I host a poker game every few months and he joins us,” the sheriff said.
“Where is this uncle who’s saying Cassie”—Ted hoped he got that name right—“stole things from him?”
“Down near Sweetwater, Texas,” the sheriff answered. “You sure this is your girlfriend?”
“Yes, sir, I am,” Ted answered. “We’ve been dating for two years, but Cassie only has one uncle, and he lives up in Waurika, Oklahoma. He’s about ninety and in a nursing home.”
His lies just got bigger and bigger, but there was no backing out at this point.
The sheriff seemed to relax a bit, but then he smiled. Ted didn’t know which was scarier—the hard-ass sheriff or the nice one. One could put him in jail for aiding and abetting a thief who had mental issues. The nice one could try to trip him up, and he’d end up in jail for the same reason.
“So, you’re Clayton Wellman’s son?” Bud cocked his head to one side and stared hard at Ted. “I can see that now. You look like him when he was younger. He’s some poker player. I still owe him a hundred dollars that I haven’t paid back.”
“I’ll tell him I saw you,” Ted said. “Bud Tucker, right?”
