Reunited at the Altar

by Kate Hardy

  ‘I simply wanted to shock you into realising what you were doing and stop you pushing me away all the time.’ Her eyes filmed with tears. ‘But it backfired. You divorced me. It wasn’t supposed to be like that.’

  He hadn’t wanted the divorce, either. He’d wanted Abby—but he’d tried so hard to be unselfish, to unshackle her from the mess he knew he’d become so she would have a chance to be happy. ‘It’s nearly five years.’ He rested his palm against her cheek.

  She turned into it, kissing his palm, and it felt as if he’d been galvanised. ‘And neither of us has really moved on, have we?’

  No. They hadn’t. That was a problem they needed to solve, because they couldn’t go on like this.

  Though there was a solution. An insane one. She might say no if he suggested it, and he’d accept that. Then again, she might say yes. And how he wanted her to say yes. His heart thumping, he said, ‘Maybe we need closure. To get things out of our system at last.’

  ‘Closure. Getting things out of our system. Maybe you’re right.’ Her eyes were sea green. ‘The bride and groom have slipped off to their honeymoon suite. We don’t have to be here any more.’

  So she was thinking along the same lines that he was? ‘We could get a taxi. Go...’ No. It wasn’t home. Nowhere had felt like home since she left him. Not the flat they’d shared, not the college rooms he’d moved into after the divorce, not the flat he’d bought when he’d accepted the job in London. ‘Back to the cottage,’ he finished.

  She was silent for so long that he thought she’d changed her mind. But then she nodded. ‘I’ll text my mum and say I’m fine but I have a bit of a headache and I’m going home for an early night, so nobody worries about me.’

  He stole a kiss. ‘Good thinking. I’ll do the same.’

  And from there it was easy.

  A taxi was there in five minutes.

  They didn’t say a word to each other all the way back to the centre of town. They didn’t need to. He paid the taxi driver, unlocked the door and ushered her inside.

  ‘Coffee?’ he asked.

  ‘That’d be nice.’

  While the kettle was boiling, he switched on some music then held out his hand to her. ‘Dance with me?’

  She took his hand and let him draw her into his arms. They swayed together, and when his mouth found hers the rest of the world felt a million miles away.

  Coffee forgotten, he carried her up the stairs to his bed. Unzipped her dress and hung it neatly over the back of a chair, then let her strip off his tailcoat and waistcoat.

  ‘Nice,’ she said when she’d undone his tie and shirt, then ruffled his hair and grinned. ‘You always did look sexy when you came home from the lab, all dishevelled because you’d stuck your hands through your hair like an absent-minded professor while you were thinking about a problem and it never occurred to you to look in a mirror or comb your hair before you came home.’

  She remembered? Warmth spread through him.

  ‘And you’ve always been the sexiest woman I’ve ever known,’ he said, his voice husky with longing.

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Yeah. The day we got married. Me in that crumpled suit and you in that pretty summer dress.’

  ‘You and me, always. That’s what we said. And it didn’t happen.’ Her eyes filled with sadness.

  He kissed her. ‘Let’s remember the good stuff, not the bad.’ The beginning of their marriage, all those years ago.

  And maybe tonight would be closure.

  Closure on all the hurt and pain between them.

  A chance to move on.

  And maybe tomorrow the future would look bright instead of bleak.

  CHAPTER SIX

  ABIGAIL HALF OPENED her eyes as the light filtered through the curtains.

  Then she was instantly awake.

  Her own curtains had blackout linings. These ones didn’t—because they weren’t her curtains. This wasn’t her bed. And the man spooned against her, with one arm wrapped round her waist holding her close to him, hadn’t slept in the same bed as her for nearly five years.

  Oh, help.

  Had this just been the worst mistake of her life?

  Maybe it was the wedding that had got to her; it had brought back memories of her own wedding day and how happy she and Brad had been. And it had been, oh, so easy to fall into his arms yesterday. To kiss him in the garden. To let him carry her to his bed when they’d caught a taxi back to his cottage.

  She had absolutely no idea what would happen today. They’d both said they needed closure, but had this been the wrong way to do it? There hadn’t been any kind of closure when they’d got divorced. The whole process had all been cold and distant, done through their respective solicitors, and it had left her with so many unanswered questions. Had she not been enough for Brad in the first place, that he’d let her go so easily? Or should she have tried harder to fight for her marriage?

  Maybe she ought to leave. But right now she was warm and comfortable, with his arms wrapped round her, and she didn’t want to go anywhere.

  How stupid was she, trying to cling on to the past?

  They couldn’t go back. She knew that.

  But making love with Brad again hadn’t got him out of her system. At all. If anything, it had made her realise just how much she missed him. She filled her life with work—and she loved her business, her staff and her life here—but she knew perfectly well that she kept herself busy to stave off the loneliness. And, although she’d dated a few men during those years, nobody had ever managed to make her feel even the tiniest bit the way Bradley Powell had. So the fairest thing to do had been to keep all her relationships platonic and just not bother dating.

  But what now?

  How would Brad feel, when he woke?

  Would he think last night was a huge mistake? Or...

  She didn’t dare let herself hope.

  Either she’d fidgeted so much that she’d woken Brad, or he was awake already and was waiting to hear the change in her breathing to tell him that she was awake, because he said softly, ‘Good morning.’

  ‘Um, good morning,’ she said awkwardly, wriggling round to face him.

  He stroked her face. ‘Sunday morning. I do actually have food in the house, so I could make pancakes, if you like.’

  It was the best thing he could’ve said to make her relax again, because she had a flashback to the only time he’d ever tried to make her pancakes, one Sunday morning back in their Cambridge days. She laughed. ‘What, and set the smoke detector off?’ He’d burned the pancakes so badly that the alarm had shrieked madly, and he hadn’t been able to stop it. Although she’d finally managed to make it stop by flapping a damp tea towel beneath the smoke detector, the noise had woken everyone in their block of flats and she’d had to bake a massive batch of cookies to mollify their disgruntled neighbours.

  He laughed back. ‘Or maybe we could go out for breakfast. Though not in Great Crowmell—maybe somewhere a bit further down the coast.’

  ‘Breakfast.’ Where was he going with this? Was this some kind of date, or did he have something more serious in mind?

  ‘We need to talk,’ he said.

  ‘You have a point.’ At least if they were out somewhere, she could always leave and get a taxi home if things got too much for her. If they had breakfast next door, or even here, it could be awkward. Better to be somewhere that had an escape route. ‘I’ll meet you next door in twenty minutes.’ Which would give her enough time to shower, wash her hair and change.

  ‘Twenty minutes,’ he said.

  And the way he brushed his mouth against hers was so sweet it almost made her cry.

  Fortunately nobody spotted her going from his cottage to hers. It wasn’t exactly a walk of shame, but as she was still wearing her bridesmaid’s dress it would be obvious that she hadn’t slept in her own bed, and she’d hate someone to see her and gossip about her. Especially as she didn’t have a clue right now where this thing between her and Brad was going.
Was that kiss just now a goodbye or a hello? Was he going to say a final goodbye to her over breakfast? Was that what he’d meant by closure? Or did she dare hope that last night had meant something to him, just like it had meant something to her, and he’d ask her if they could maybe try again?

  Could they make it work, this time?

  Then again, today was the last full day on his lease of the cottage. Brad was due to go back to London tomorrow, and for all she knew he might have decided to return today. He’d been away from the lab for a week, and she knew he’d be itching to get back to his work.

  She’d better not hope for too much. It would be naive, foolish—and, worse, it would be setting herself up to have her heart broken all over again.

  Brad knocked on her door twenty minutes later. Like her, he was dressed casually in jeans and a T-shirt. ‘Ready?’

  No. Part of her was terrified. ‘Sure,’ she fibbed, and walked over to his car with him. He drove to a larger town a few miles down the coast, and they found a café that was part of a chain. As they sat down, Abigail felt almost too sick to eat.

  As if he’d guessed, Brad said gently, ‘You need to eat and so do I.’

  She ordered coffee and an almond croissant; she could do with the sugar rush. Brad, as she could’ve predicted, chose a full English breakfast.

  She crumbled half the pastry on her plate and forced herself to eat the other half.

  And then she looked at him. ‘So. Closure. I assume you’re leaving either today, or tomorrow morning before eleven because that’s when the cleaners come in to get the place ready for the next holidaymakers.’

  He tipped his head on one side, an old gesture that made butterflies swoop in her stomach. ‘I was planning to go back tomorrow. But it doesn’t have to be that way.’

  She frowned, not understanding. ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘You and me. We can’t go back.’

  So this was goodbye, then. ‘Uh-huh.’ She couldn’t trust herself with actual words.

  ‘We’re different people now. Older. Wiser. And maybe if we’d met for the first time yesterday at the wedding, we might have...’

  He actually blushed.

  ‘Well, I wouldn’t have been quite such a troglodyte with you,’ he said. ‘It’s not my style. But I would have asked to see you again.’

  He was still attracted to her. Just as she was still attracted to him.

  ‘And if we’d met for the first time yesterday, I wouldn’t have gone from the wedding reception straight to your bed,’ she said.

  ‘That’s not your style, either,’ he agreed.

  ‘But if you’d asked me out...’ Was that what he was trying to do now?

  That meant this all hinged on her.

  She could say no. Leave the past in the past.

  But saying yes didn’t mean that she was trying to recreate the past, either. She knew what he meant. If they’d just met for the first time, they’d maybe start dating. Take things slowly. See where things took them.

  But that was the problem. They couldn’t do that. Not when they lived more than a hundred miles apart. It wasn’t a commutable distance, and she didn’t want a weekend-only relationship. Particularly as she worked at least part of every weekend. ‘Your life’s in London,’ she said.

  ‘And yours is here. I know.’ His dark, dark eyes were as irresistible as a puppy’s. ‘But let’s ignore that for the moment. When you opened your new ice cream parlour, you didn’t do the whole lot in a day, did you? Just as I don’t expect a whole project to be sorted out in a day. Things take time. You need to do a critical path analysis before you start—work out what the steps are and in which order they have to be taken.’

  She couldn’t help widening her eyes at him. ‘You’re seeing us as a project?’

  ‘No. I know it sounds as if I’m being a nerdy scientist, but I’m not.’ He raked his hand through his hair. ‘What I’m trying to say is that the obstacles you think are going to be a problem at the start of something don’t always turn out to be obstacles. And, if the end result is important enough to you, then you can find ways to work around the obstacles.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘So we could agree to put the issue of where we live to one side for now,’ he said, ‘and see where things take us. Starting with whether we actually like the person each of us has become.’

  She coughed. ‘I woke up in your bed this morning, Brad. I’d say that means we still like each other—at least physically.’

  He smiled. ‘The Abby I knew would’ve been too shy to say that.’

  ‘I’m not shy any more. I’m comfortable in my own skin.’

  ‘I’d noticed.’

  Was that a criticism?

  The question must’ve shown in her face, because he said, ‘That was a compliment, Abby. Confidence is sexy.’

  ‘Oh.’ This time it was her turn to blush.

  ‘So we’ve established that we’re still attracted to each other,’ he said. ‘I have a lot of annual leave accrued. I could shock everyone in the lab and actually take some of it—and maybe we can spend some time together. See what else there is between us.’

  Her frown deepened. ‘You want to have a holiday here? With me? But I can’t just take time off from work at short notice, Brad. That’s not fair to my team.’

  ‘I know, and you don’t need to. I know the summer’s your busiest time. It would just be nice to spend time with you—say, when you’re free in the evenings or on your days off.’

  ‘What I don’t understand is, why now?’ Why had he waited five years, if he’d still wanted her? Why had he even divorced her? She wasn’t buying his knight on a white charger line.

  ‘Because I had a few conversations at the wedding that made me think,’ he said.

  ‘Conversations?’

  ‘With people who took a second chance at happiness,’ he explained.

  She couldn’t remember anyone on the guest list who’d broken up and got back together. Her confusion must’ve been obvious, because he said, ‘My mum, for starters.’

  ‘You mean your mum and George?’ She blinked. ‘I saw him at the wedding yesterday. So your mum told you about him?’

  ‘Yes. I don’t expect her to spend the rest of her life alone,’ he said. ‘She’s still relatively young. She should be enjoying life instead of being miserable and lonely and mourning Dad.’

  Abigail really hadn’t expected him to take the news so well. ‘I’m glad you recognise that,’ she said carefully.

  He narrowed his eyes at her, as if to say that of course he did—that he’d grown up in the years since Jim’s death.

  ‘I assume you met him yesterday, then, and talked to him?’

  Brad nodded. ‘He seems like a nice guy, though I’d like the chance to get to know him better, to talk to him properly away from the hustle and bustle of the wedding.’ He sighed and pushed his plate away. ‘I want Mum to be happy. And Ruby.’ He paused. ‘And maybe you and me... Are you working today?’

  ‘No. Lucy, my second in command, is in charge until tomorrow.’

  ‘Then spend today with me, Abby.’

  How could she resist those dark, dark eyes? ‘What did you have in mind?’

  ‘You. Me. A trip out.’ He gave her a sudden grin, reminding her of the teenage boy she’d married, and her heart felt as if it had done a funny little flip. ‘But we need to get you some travel-sickness tablets first.’

  She suddenly realised what he was planning. ‘You want me to go out on a boat?’

  ‘Not piloted by me, but yes.’

  ‘The Broads?’ The medieval peat diggings that had turned into a waterway system over the centuries would hopefully be calm, like a millpond. As someone who’d grown up at the seaside, Abby knew she should’ve developed a decent pair of sea legs, but within five minutes of being on a boat she usually turned green. The swell of the ocean, even at its mildest, always made her queasy.

  ‘I was thinking the North Sea,’ he said. ‘It’s been a while.’
>
  Five years. Unless he’d gone out on a boat some time this week, which she doubted—she rather thought he might have told her about it—she was pretty sure Brad hadn’t been anywhere near a boat since Jim’s death. So was this his idea of closure?

  Then again, he’d just been talking about coming back for a few days. Spending more time with her.

  It left her more confused than ever.

  ‘What do you want, Brad?’

  ‘Right now—a boat trip to see the seals at Blakeney Point,’ he said.

  She knew he’d avoided her real question, but she wasn’t sure she was ready to hear the answer; she wasn’t sure she could answer the question herself. Plus she liked the idea of the trip; it would be fun to go out and see the summer colony of common seals basking in the sunshine on the spit of sand, with their huge eyes and pretty faces. It had been years since she’d done it. ‘OK, if we can get tickets.’ It was a popular trip and weekends were usually heavily booked.

  ‘I’ll get tickets.’

  He was so sure. And it was easier to go along with him, to buy bottled water and seasickness tablets and take the medicine to give it time to work.

  He took her hand as they walked back to the car, and it felt weirdly like their early dates, when just the touch of his hand against hers made her feel as if fireworks were going off in the sky.

  This was dangerous. Totally stupid, in fact. OK, so they’d spent last night together and she had no regrets about it whatsoever—but, even though Brad had told her to ignore the obstacles, she couldn’t get away from the fact that his life was in London and hers was here. She wouldn’t expect him to give his up for her, just as she wasn’t prepared to give hers up for him.

  Wouldn’t it be better just to part now, as friends?

  By the time she’d gathered her thoughts, he’d already driven them to Blakeney, they’d picked up their tickets and were walking across the marshes towards the harbour.

  ‘Just for today,’ he said, ‘I think we should forget the past. We’re not going to pretend it didn’t happen—but we have to accept that we can’t change it. All we can do is learn from it and move on. I know I hurt you and I’m sorry. I was too young to deal with what happened. Which honestly isn’t an excuse, by the way, it’s an explanation.’