Summer of Love

by Sophie Pembroke

  Lily rolled her eyes. ‘I have stayed here before, remember.’

  ‘I know. But –’ Ignoring her, Lily pushed open the door, catching a glimpse of Cora’s wince as she did so.

  ‘Wow.’ Standing in the doorway, Lily took in the scene. ‘Just… Wow.’

  ‘Sorry,’ Cora said, bustling past her to move a box of sample wedding favours off the bed. ‘It’s just there’s so much stuff to sort through, with the wedding, and then people started sending presents, and there’s nowhere else to put them…’

  ‘So I see.’ Across the far wall, wrapped gifts were stacked three high. The bookcase under the window appeared to be entirely filled with wedding-related books, and there were two dining chairs with different styles of chair covers either side of it. Lily opened the wardrobe, and found more boxes – this time filled with what appeared to be samples. Sample napkins, sample fabrics, sample invitations, sample ribbons… ‘Is this a box of sample cutlery?’

  Cora shut the wardrobe door. ‘We were looking at hiring some in. Look, I’ve put a hanging rail up in here for your clothes.’

  ‘It’s got six bridesmaids dresses hanging from it,’ Lily pointed out.

  ‘Well, one of them is yours. Anyway, I’m sure you haven’t got many clothes with you. I mean, you won’t be staying long, will you?’

  ‘Hopefully not,’ Lily said, trying not to stare at Wedding Central. It was hard, given that she was entirely surrounded by it. ‘I’m hoping I’ll find somewhere of my own, soon.’

  ‘Oh.’ Cora’s face fell into a frown. ‘I mean, you’re welcome here for however long you need, you know that. I just thought…’

  Lily glanced up, away from the stack of engagement cards on the bedside table. ‘You thought what?’

  ‘Well, that you’d be moving back in with Edward, once you’ve got everything straightened out.’

  Staring at her, Lily tried to think of a way to make it any more obvious that she wasn’t getting back together with Edward. ‘Cora, I told you. We’re done, me and Edward. I won’t be getting back together with him.’

  ‘I know you feel like that now.’ Cora sat on the edge of the bed and smiled up at her. ‘But once things settle down… You were together for seven years for a reason, Lily. I know you’re not the sort of person to just throw that away on a whim, any more.’

  It was the “any more” that stung the most. ‘Maybe I am that sort of person. Maybe I just forgot that about myself.’

  Cora’s eyes widened. ‘Lily. I just… You know all I want is for you to be happy. But I want you to think about what you’re giving up. And…’

  Finally, something clicked into place in Lily’s head. ‘This isn’t just about you wanting us to both get married this summer, is it? What’s going on, Cora?’

  ‘Of course it’s not!’ Cora shook her head. ‘Yes, it would have been lovely, but it’s not the most important thing. It’s just… Alex was asking, the other day, how you ended up with Edward. And I remembered that horrible summer, while I was at university, when you moved in with that…’

  ‘Bastard,’ Lily finished for her. ‘You’re scared I’m going to do something stupid.’

  Cora gave her a watery smile. ‘It’s not entirely without precedent.’

  Sinking onto the bed beside her, Lily sighed. ‘Okay, you were right, then. I’m not that person any more, Cora. I’m not going to put myself in a position to be hurt like that. But I can’t be tied down to someone who expects me to be something I’m not, either. I can’t be the person I was with Edward. I feel like… like I slept through the last couple of years, somehow.’

  ‘And now you’re waking up,’ Cora said, sadly.

  ‘I am. And I’m not quite sure who I’m going to be without Edward. But I know I’m going to be happier for it.’

  Cora squeezed her arm. ‘I’m sure whoever new Lily is, she’ll be magnificent. All the other versions were, after all.’

  Lily rested her head on Cora’s shoulder. ‘Thank you for letting me stay.’

  ‘Any time. Sorry you’re sleeping in Wedding Central.’

  ‘That’s okay.’ And actually, Lily found, she really didn’t mind. All the chaos and the clutter… It was a good reminder of what a narrow escape she’d had.

  * * * *

  It was a relief to get back to Tiger Lily on Sunday morning. Wedding Central was a much better temporary abode than Evelyn’s house, but it still wasn’t home. It wasn’t hers like Tiger Lily was.

  And she still didn’t think her mother had needed to look quite so relieved when Lily told her she was moving out.

  Still, after all the back and forth with her cases, and trying to sleep in the wedding chaos of Cora’s spare room the night before, it was lovely to be back somewhere familiar. Where everything belonged to her, and stayed where she put it. Where she could sit down and decide what to do next, without worrying about what the other occupants wanted her to do.

  Was it a bad sign that work was the most relaxing thing in her life?

  Maybe it wasn’t the work. Maybe it was being alone. Without having to obsess about how she was letting people down, or what she was doing wrong. That was the problem with relationships – even family and friends. They all expected her to be a certain sort of Lily, and that kind of thing was hard to keep up.

  Except Alex. The thought intruded, unwelcome and sneaky. Alex didn’t expect her to be anything but herself.

  Of course, he’d also made it very clear that the real her wasn’t anyone he was interested in taking on in a more intimate way, even if she wanted that. So what did it matter? Yes, it was nice to have one friendship that didn’t make her feel that she was misbehaving, just by being herself. But beyond that? Clearly she was better off on her own. Much more peaceful.

  The point was, she really needed to find a new place to live. She’d start scouring the estate agent websites and local listings that night, she decided. Rhys would surely let her borrow his newspaper and Wi-Fi connection if it meant he’d get his house back again sooner.

  The door opened, and Lily smiled up at the stranger who walked in. Just making the decision felt good. The idea of being alone felt good.

  ‘Hello!’ she said, maybe a little too brightly, as the man looked up in alarm. ‘Sorry, I’m Lily Thomas, and this is my shop. Can I help you?’

  His eyes kept darting to the glass cabinets that held the engagement rings, she noticed. A nervous fiancé-to-be, then?

  He gave her a bashful grin. ‘Charlie Frost. And I’m looking for… Well, I’m looking for an engagement ring. Even though it’s far too soon and she’s bound to say no. The first ten times I ask, at least. And her father will probably kill me. And if he doesn’t, her boss will.’

  ‘Charlie,’ Lily asked, trying to keep her face serious. ‘Are you sure you want this engagement ring?’

  When he looked up, Lily could see the love and surety shining out from him. ‘Definitely. She’s the only woman I could imagine spending the rest of my life with.’

  Lily gave a sharp nod, and pulled out the first tray of rings from under her glass shop counter. ‘Then let’s get looking.’

  Thirty-five minutes later, Charlie shook his head. ‘I’m sorry. They’re all beautiful. But none of them are quite Mia.’

  Lily sighed, and fought to keep the smile on her lips. ‘Well, I can certainly custom-make something for her, if you’d like?’

  ‘Really?’ Charlie settled into the chair opposite her desk, and Lily grabbed a sketch pad from the shelf behind her. ‘That would be great.’

  ‘Okay, so, do you have any idea what sort of things she likes? Or is there anything today that you’ve liked elements of, that we could look at putting with different settings or something?’

  Lily sat, pen poised, while Charlie considered. ‘Well, um, she tends to wear silver, rather than gold. So something like one of the white gold ones you showed me would be best.’

  ‘That’s a great start,’ Lily said, knowing they had a long way to go with this one. ‘What
about stones? Diamonds are traditional, of course, but you didn’t seem very taken with them…’

  ‘They’re all beautiful,’ Charlie repeated. ‘It’s just… Mia’s not like any other woman. I don’t want her to have a ring like all the others.’

  Lily thought of Edward’s ring, how awkwardly it had sat on her finger, and nodded. ‘I absolutely agree. That’s why a custom-made ring is a great idea. But, have you thought about bringing her in to design her own ring?’

  ‘I did,’ Charlie admitted. ‘But… this is something I need to do. I need to prove to her that I know her, inside and out, and that’s why I want to marry her. I have to choose the right ring, myself.’

  A surge of warmth and sympathy rose up inside Lily. Folding her legs under her, she leant forward across the desk, ready to write down Charlie’s every word. ‘And I want to help you. So, let’s start with Mia, since she’s the one who’ll get to wear it, every day for the rest of her life. What does she love? What’s more important to her than anything else? Apart from you, of course.’

  ‘Aberarian,’ Charlie said promptly. ‘She loves living there. She loves the sea – she walks down to it every morning. She loves the people, most of all, even when they’re being impossible. And she loves the town itself, too. The old cinema, the Coliseum. The A to Z shop. She loves it all.’

  Lily smiled. ‘It’s been years since I went down to the coast. Silly, when it’s so close.’

  ‘You should come.’ Charlie grinned. ‘We’re doing a lot of fun stuff there, at the moment – especially since the Film and Fish festival last month.’

  ‘I am coming, actually,’ Lily said, suddenly realizing. ‘My friends Tessa and Jack are getting married there in a few weeks. Registry office, then a service on the beach, I think. And dinner at a local restaurant –’

  ‘StarFish,’ Charlie finished for her. ‘It’s my restaurant,’ he explained, grinning even wider. ‘Looks like I’ll get to feed you in return for all your help, at least, then.’

  ‘Better make sure we get you the perfect ring, then.’ Lily scanned through her notes. ‘Okay, well, starting with the stone. If she loves the sea so much, why don’t we look at sapphires, instead of diamonds?’

  Charlie nodded, enthusiastically. ‘We can do that?’

  ‘It’s Mia’s ring,’ Lily pointed out. ‘Mia’s and yours. You can have anything you want.’

  ‘Oh yeah. What else?’

  It took another hour to hammer out all the details, with pauses to look through existing rings, and for Lily to sketch out her ideas. But in the end, they had a truly individual ring that Lily hoped Mia would love. As she waved Charlie off with promises to send him photos as she worked on it, she saw Alex across the way, unloading boxes into his new studio. He raised a hand and grinned at her, and Lily couldn’t help but smile back.

  ‘Oh, and Charlie?’

  Charlie turned back to her, eyebrows raised.

  ‘When she says yes?’ Lily said. ‘I know a great wedding photographer.’

  Chapter Ten

  ‘Don’t you come any closer, Alex Harper.’ Carrie Archer, owner of the Avalon Inn, waved her left hand at him to stop him at the front door, her engagement ring sparkling in the sunlight. ‘I’ve heard you can break up an engagement at a hundred paces, these days, and I’m not chancing it, this close to the wedding.’

  Rolling his eyes, Alex let the door swing shut behind him. ‘If you want your books back, funny lady, I wouldn’t mention it.’ Because she wasn’t the first, or even the third person to ask him about Lily’s break-up – or their subsequent wedding date. Even he was starting to wonder if it might actually be his fault.

  Carrie laughed, taking the accounts book back from him. ‘Getting a hard time about it?’

  Alex groaned. ‘I’d forgotten how much this town likes to gossip.’

  ‘Nothing better. I’ve already had Cyb and Moira in here this morning asking me what I knew about you “squiring that Thomas girl” off to some wedding.’

  ‘What did you tell them?’ Alex asked, morbid fascination winning out.

  Carrie shrugged. ‘That it was none of my business, but I’m sure you’d been entirely honourable about the whole thing.’

  Screwing his eyes shut, Alex banged his forehead against the wooden pillar at the end of the reception desk. Twice. ‘There’s nothing to be honourable about,’ he ground out. ‘We’re friends, that’s all. I had absolutely nothing to do with Lily breaking up with Edward.’

  ‘That’s not the way I heard it.’ Nate sounded amused, from his position in the doorway of the dining room. ‘I heard, you came back to town and swept her off her feet.’

  ‘Who’d you hear that from?’ Carrie asked as Alex started banging his head again.

  ‘Gran, actually, so probably she made the whole thing up. Either way, that’s the story that’s going round the place.’

  ‘I’m doomed,’ Alex said into the wood. ‘If Lily doesn’t kill me, her mother will. And if by some magical chance I avoid death by Thomas women, Cora will finish me off.’

  ‘Utterly doomed,’ Nate agreed. He sounded rather too pleased about it. ‘I’d stay out of her way, if I were you.’

  Alex lifted his head, and winced. ‘That might be a bit of a problem.’

  ‘Oh?’ Carrie raised an eyebrow. ‘And why’s that?’

  ‘Because I’m bringing her to your wedding this weekend?’

  He could still hear Nate laughing at him as he headed back out to his car.

  * * * *

  She should have known better, Lily thought, than to mention her current clothing quandary within Cora’s hearing.

  With half her clothes still at Edward’s cottage, waiting for her to gather the courage to go collect them, and a variety of outfits forgotten at her mum’s, Lily was working with a seriously restricted wardrobe. Which wasn’t a problem on a day-to-day basis. But when it came to dressing for a wedding…

  ‘I’ll just have to suck it up and face Edward,’ she said with a sigh, reaching for the glass of wine Cora had poured her with dinner. ‘I’m sure there’s something suitable hidden in the wardrobe at the cottage.’ Somewhere. It might not have seen the light of day for a while, though. For the last few years, she’d been wearing the sensible, subdued dresses Edward preferred for social occasions. She wanted something more fun for Nate and Carrie’s wedding. Something to show Alex she really was herself again.

  Surely there was something like that in her collection still?

  Unfortunately, Cora had another idea. ‘Much better plan! Why don’t you borrow something of mine? I’ve got loads of wedding outfits stashed away upstairs. We can have a fashion show after dinner!’

  Lily looked across the dinner table at Rhys for moral support, but he was focusing very hard on his spaghetti bolognaise, damn him.

  He did, at least, have the decency to hand her the rest of the bottle of red wine, though, when Cora dragged her up the stairs the moment her bowl was empty.

  ‘Come on,’ Cora said. ‘I’ve got the perfect thing for you. Somewhere.’

  Lily followed behind her, resigned to a long evening of trying things on, and settled herself against Cora’s headboard, stretching her legs out along the bed.

  ‘What about this? Or this?’ Cora yanked two dresses out of her closet and held them up for inspection. Lily had barely opened her mouth to respond when Cora carried on, ‘No, you’re right. We can do better.’

  One tedious, unproductive hour later, Cora held up yet another elegant, simple dress and jacket combination, and Lily bit back a wince.

  ‘It’s lovely. But –’

  ‘It’s not really you,’ Cora chorused along with her. Flopping onto the bed beside Lily, she sighed. ‘We’re getting nowhere, here. So, tell me. What would be you? New you, I mean.’

  Lily shrugged, and poured some more wine. ‘If I knew that, I wouldn’t be in quite the mess I am.’

  ‘If you had the right outfit?’ Cora shook her head. ‘I think you’re placing too much
responsibility on my wardrobe.’

  ‘Not just that. I just…’ Lily sighed, searching for the words. ‘If I knew who I wanted to be, maybe I could act like her. Until it becomes second nature.’

  ‘Fake it ’til you make it?’ Cora nodded. ‘Okay, then. So – think it through. Who do you want to be?’

  Leaning back against the headboard, Lily twirled the stem of her wine glass around in her fingers. ‘I don’t want to be the Lily I was with Edward. I don’t want to live my life to fit his – or anyone else’s – ideal.’

  ‘That’s a good start,’ Cora said, encouragingly. ‘We’re narrowing it down. Of course, at this rate you’re going to this wedding naked, but still…’

  ‘Shhh. I’m trying.’ Lily closed her eyes, willing a picture of the person she really wanted to be to appear. No dice. She opened them again and sighed. ‘I want to be my own person. A grown up. Someone who can take responsibility for their own life, their own future. I don’t want to have to rely on anyone.’ It wasn’t quite right, she knew, but it was close. Surely it was enough to help her pick a damn dress.

  Cora leapt up from the bed. ‘I have just the thing!’

  Lily smiled. Whatever else might be crazy in her life right now, having a dependable best friend with her best interests at heart certainly gave her an edge over the competition. She leant forward, and waited for Cora to emerge from the closet with her new life, in dress form.

  * * * *

  ‘Wow.’ Perhaps he should have tried for something more eloquent, but the smile on Lily’s face told him that his instinctive reaction worked just as well. Cora, however, was giving him warning looks from behind her, so Alex decided that it was time to get the just-wedding-buddies show on the road. ‘You ready?’

  Lily nodded, picking up a bright red bag that looked far too small to hold anything useful. Turning to Cora, she said, ‘I’ll see you later?’

  His cousin looked like she wanted to say something. Probably “Don’t sleep with Alex.” But she bit her tongue, which he appreciated.

  The Avalon Inn wasn’t far out of the town, but given Lily’s sky-high red heels, Alex was glad he’d brought the car. He’d leave it at the inn overnight, he decided. They could catch a taxi home, and he’d walk out and pick it up tomorrow. The fresh air would probably do him good at that point.