Whose Bride Is She Anyway by Dakota Cassidy Read Free Book Online Page A

and crew showed up to give them each details for their stay on the island. God, she hated to fly.
    Some of the people from the plane traipsed in. An elderly woman with a knitting bag plopped down in a chair a few feet away. She looked tired and grumpy. Three more people filed in, each wearing the same weary look as the next. She vaguely heard Henry introduce her as jury foreman and she obliged him by absently waving to everyone while she fought the need to blow her cookies.
    Henry’s voice droned on and on about the shows rules… No contact with the outside world until the show was over, unless it was a monitored phone call or an extreme emergency. Like
death
. Never tell a soul anything other than you were going to be on the show “Whose Bride Is She Anyway? ”, because of course, that was good promo. If you’d signed the contract it meant you were in it for the long haul. No backing out, no quitting from this point on, or lawsuits up the wazoo would make you miserable for the next lifetime.
    No this, no that… Yada, yada, yada. She’d signed away nearly everything but her internal organs to get on this show.
    When Henry paused to address some technical issues the crew was having, Tara breathed a sigh of relief.
    She was disoriented, tired and overwhelmed. Long past panicked, she was working with full on freaked out. Yeah, she was on sensory overload, yet found herself ever compulsive, mentally ticking off a list of things she’d accomplished in the few hours since she’d made it on the show.
    Called Mom, asked her to water her fern. Calmed Mom down and told her it was all going to be fine. No, she’d assured her mother, she wasn’t getting married. Someone else was…
    Check.
    Called work, threatened to quit if they didn’t let her have the vacation she’d stockpiled for five freakin’ years. It was perfume,
not
the cure for cancer.
    Check.
    Breathe.
    Check.
    Tara closed her eyes and leaned her head back on the cushioned chair.
    “Excuse me…” A male voice interrupted her train of thought from the chair beside her. “You okay? ” Andy again … he was so sweet. He leaned in closer to check on her.
    She took a deep breath and wiped beads of perspiration from her upper lip. Christ, you couldn’t breathe in here. Didn’t they have air conditioning in Hawaii? “I’m fine, Andy, thank you. ”
Pass the oxygen, please.
    “You don’t look fine.” He was taking quick peeks between the people milling about at her face. A face she was sure was not doing its job hiding her utter terror.
    No shit, Columbo.
Calm, slow breaths, Tara
. “Really, I’m okay, thanks for asking. I just hate to fly and I’m relieved it’s finally over.”
    “You’re sweating. ”
    Observant too. “Yeah, I’m always bit shaky after getting off a plane. But it passes. I managed to fight the urge to run down the aisles of the plane screaming, ‘we’re going down!’” she joked.
    Andy blanched and leaned into her, his round face concerned.
    God, she hated small talk; worse, she hated sitting so closely to someone you could count the hairs in their nostrils.
    “So it’s been quite a day, hasn’t it?” He observed, way too damn cheerfully if you asked her.
    Tara gulped and smiled weakly. “Well, if you take into account that I’ve been up since three this morning and it’s now, seven in the evening, waited forever to be interviewed, left said interview thinking I was a loser, found out I wasn’t, shopped until the show’s credit card bled, then landed here, all in one jam-packed, emotionally charged day, then yes,” she giggled, “it’s been quite a day.”
    He laughed, “You looked pretty beat on the plane. We didn’t want to disturb you. ”
    “I’m sorry. I hate to fly and coupled with the long day … I was just fried. I’m sorry I didn’t get to know everyone.” She shrugged her shoulders and smiled. “So you’re a jury member…” he certainly wasn’t one of the contestants … he wasn’t exactly