Free Mr. Wrong (A Homespun Romance) by Geeta Kakade Page A

hanger.  She had bought it last year for a wedding and worn it only once.  The girl who’d got married had invited all the preschool staff to her wedding and Kate had bought the dress on the off chance of meeting Mr. Right at the affair.  Pulling it out, she ripped the dry cleaner’s plastic cover off and held it against her.
    The color of a green blue Australian opal, the silk whispered sensuously against her skin.  The halter neckline tied in a provocative bow, the ends of which peeked saucily out on either side of her neck, the bodice draping elegantly over her breasts while the slim straight skirt stopped just above her knees. 
    With the wearing of the dress, she seemed to become that other woman, the one she almost feared.  Cool, practical Kathryn McArthur vanished, swallowed up by this full blooded woman with a tremendous awareness of her body’s needs.  Brady’s Katie.
    Struggling with the impulse to rip off the dress and don her one alternative, the black skirt and peach blouson top, Kate hesitated staring at herself in the mirror.  Her chin tilted a fraction and she decided to leave it on.  It was her birthday after all, the first she’d ever celebrated.  Ever had cause to celebrate.
    She had a right to make it memorable.
     
    Brady took her to a restaurant that looked like an English cottage on the outside.  Even the flower beds had been faithfully reproduced to enhance the feeling. The table in the window he had reserved earlier looked out on a manmade stream with a small bridge over it banked by a riot of spring flowers.  The call of birds in the spring air made the sweetest music Kate had ever heard.  A black swan sailed past and Kate’s breath caught in her throat.  She turned to Brady and the stars outside seemed to have slipped into her eyes.
    “Like it?”  asked Brady inordinately pleased by her reaction.
    Katie’s zest for enjoyment surprised him.  She was like a child with her responses, spontaneous, untrammeled.  He wanted to share the world with her not just a day on the beach, dinner in this place.
    Kate nodded in reply to his question but said nothing as the wine waiter approached them and Brady ordered champagne.
    “Brady,” she hissed duty bound as soon as the man had glided away.  “You can’t keep on like this.”
    “Like what, sweetheart?”
    He watched the nervous flicker in her eyes at his use of the endearment.  His Katie looked so beautiful tonight.  She always did but today in that silky thing she was wearing she looked as if she ought to be on the top ten list of most beautiful women in the world.  Her freshly washed curls glimmered in the subdued lighting and her skin had the radiance of a pink pearl. 
    He’d liked to have given her a string of those, seen them nestling against her skin, reflect some of its silky sheen.  Brady made a mental note to get a string and give it to her after they made love the first time.
    “Brady you can’t carry on spending money as if it were water.  I don’t want you to run up huge bills because of me.” 
    It was an effort to concentrate on her words when her lips curved so seductively, the glimmer of her gloss a personal invitation to taste their ripeness.
    “This isn’t because of you,” Brady assured Katie, “This is because of me.  I wanted to take you out tonight very badly, believe me.  As for the bills what’s money for if you can’t enjoy it?”
    The minute the words were out, he wished them unsaid.  Kate stared at him as if he had sprouted two horns and her face paled.
    Will you never learn Kate McArthur?  You know he’s kin to Grasshopper Green and you still let him talk you into spending time with him?
    “Katie,” Brady reached for the hand on the table, calling for the spirit of his Irish grandfather to help him out of this one.  In person.  “Katie I’m not running up big bills.  I got some money back in taxes this year and I wanted to celebrate your birthday with you.”
    Kate stared at