“I won’t do it. I won’t sign the divorce petition.”
“No problem. I’ll sign it. As long as one of us has been resident here. And we qualify on just about all grounds.” Jack’s eyes narrowed. “Except impotence.”
“I’ll contest the divorce,” Callie said.
“You can’t contest irreconcilable differences.”
“Yes, I can – and that’s not all I can do. The judge can order us to attend counselling for a month.”
He waved a hand dismissively. “I’m not doing any counselling.”
“You never know. You might even benefit from some relationship counselling.”
“We don’t have a relationship,” he snarled, losing all pretence at calm.
Abby Gaines wrote her first romance novel as a teenager. She typed it up and sent it to Mills & Boon, who promptly rejected it. A flirtation with a science fiction novel never really got off the ground, so Abby put aside her writing ambitions as she went to college, then began her working life at IBM. When she and her husband had their first baby, Abby worked from home as a freelance business journalist…and soon after that the urge to write romance resurfaced. It was another five long years before Abby sold her first novel in 2006.
Abby lives with her husband and children – and a labradoodle and a kitten – in a house with enough stairs to keep her fit and a sun-filled office whose sea view provides inspiration for the funny, tender romances she loves to write. Visit her at www.abbygaines.com.
The Groom Came Back
by
Abby Gaines
MILLS & BOON
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Table of Contents
For Victoria Curran,
with thanks for your support – and your patience!
Thanks for helping me become a better writer.
Chapter One
CALLIE SUMMERS RECOGNIZED her husband the moment he walked in the door of Fresher Flowers. He, however, clearly had no idea who she was.
Her smile of welcome faded in the face of Jack Mitchell’s utter lack of recognition. Could eight years, ten thousand dollars’ worth of orthodontic treatments and a great haircut make that much difference?
Jack ducked a hanging basket of trailing clematis and stepped around the center display of post-Arbor Day markdowns. As he neared Callie, his glance skimmed her sky-blue tank—she’d grown breasts since she’d last seen him, too—and swooped down her short blue-and-white skirt to her ankles, then back up to her face. There was nothing as blatant as admiration in his gray-green eyes—more a keen observation.
You didn’t get to be a top neurosurgeon without developing powers of observation, Callie supposed. Even if his memory was somewhat deficient.
“Hi,” he said. “I hear you’re the best florist in Parkvale.” Had his smile been that sexy eight years ago?
Of course not. At seventeen, she’d viewed Jack’s twenty-six years as a source of comfort, of protection. Besides, those hadn’t been happy days.
“Good morn—uh—afternoon.” Callie’s attempt at formality to mark this one-sided reunion fizzled as she struggled to remember if it was past twelve yet; she closed at twelve-thirty on Saturdays. She