‘Oh, Dawny.’ His eyes glistened with emotion as his hand reached out to take hers, shyly, like a little boy and a little girl in the playground. ‘I will make you so happy.’
‘You better had,’ said Anna from behind him, lugging one of Dawn’s suitcases. ‘Dawn, couldn’t you get suitcases with wheels on like normal people?’
‘I’m not normal,’ grinned Dawn.
‘You’re telling us,’ laughed Raychel, struggling with the other case.
Samuel hopped out of the bus and jokingly muttered about women really being the weaker sex as he lifted the cases effortlessly on board.
‘Take good care of her,’ said Christie to Al. ‘Despite the fact that she’s a nightmare and our nerves are in shreds and we will all need stress counselling after today, take really good care of her.’
‘Yes, ma’am, I promise you that I will,’ said Al Holly, wearing the sloppiest grin a mouth could form into. He put his arm around Dawn and squeezed her into his side. They fitted perfectly together and between them they were giving out vibes that could have fried a passing egg.
Then Dawn leaped forward and hugged each one of her friends in turn. Big squashy hugs full of happy strength. She saved the biggest one for Christie.
‘You’ve been wonderful,’ she said. ‘I’ll never forget all you’ve done.’
‘Be happy, my darling girl,’ said Christie. ‘Go and be loved and enjoy every minute of it.’
‘Take care, I’ll miss you so much,’ Dawn beamed, blowing them all a big kiss. ‘I love you all. I’ll be in touch, I promise.’
‘You better had be,’ said Anna. ‘You barmy cow.’
Al Holly took Dawn’s hand and pulled her gently onto the bus and they saw Dawn’s grinning face framed in one of the windows as the bus engine started up. The four women stood and watched it drive away and grow smaller as it travelled down the road. Their arms were sore from waving by the time it had disappeared.
‘Whoever said that life was dull in Barnsley ought to come and live here for a bit,’ said Raychel.
‘What now? Shall we go back to the Dog and Duck and get some cake?’ said Anna with innocently raised eyebrows.
‘Well, I don’t know about you three, but I think a glass of champagne might be in order.’
‘I’ve got no money,’ said Anna. ‘I’ve just tipped my purse into Dawn’s hand.’
Christie smoothly produced a Visa card from her sunny bag.
‘Who needs cash these days?’ she said.
Epilogue
27 June – The following year
Anna stood in the walled garden behind Darq House in a sumptuous black gown and closed her eyes. She pulled the fragrance from the red, red flowers that she carried into her lungs and sighed with contentment.
‘You all right, love?’ said Christie, dressed also in black, a much shorter ensemble with fancy ruffs at the sleeves and neck. Her own inimitable style. Even in black she looked colourful.
‘Ohhh, yes,’ said Anna.
‘Such a beautiful day too,’ said Christie, tipping her head upwards. The sun was gently lowering, its edges melting into the blue of the sky. The Pennines stood misty in the distance.
Grace wended her way towards them, carrying a bottle of Dom Perignon. Behind her, Raychel followed with four glasses. Both of them were in stylish black suits too.
‘Do you remember this date last year, we were drinking champagne then too?’ said Christie as Grace poured her a glass.
‘When Dawny became Mrs Crooke.’
‘And now she’s Mrs Holly and singing her little heart out.’
They kept in regular touch and, thanks to the wonders of webcam, they could see that smile still bursting out at them from the screen. It was a smile that they suspected was like the sun and never went out.
‘Beautiful ceremony,’ said Grace, sipping the cool, sparkly champagne.
‘Absolutely!’ said Raychel. ‘And you look gorgeous, Anna.’
‘Thank you,’ smiled Anna. She felt gorgeous too. She was only in her forties and she was going to look back on this decade some day with the sure and certain knowledge that she had sucked it dry.
‘Hear hear,’ added Grace.
‘There were some fantastic black dresses in the congregation,’ said Anna.
‘Oh, hark at her! She’s gone all fashiony already. She’s only been Mrs Darq for two hours and she’s turned into Zandra Rhodes.’
‘Great idea having a black wedding,’ said Raychel.
‘Aye well, that’s what happens when you marry one of the undead.’
‘Is he undead, really?’ asked Raychel.
‘Some parts of him are very much alive,’ said Anna with a cheeky smirk.
To the rest of the world, Vladimir Darq was an enigma, a mystery and a businessman par excellence, thanks to his amazingly successful lingerie range. The Darqone creation alone was judged to be a wardrobe basic for over one-fifth of the female population in Britain, and it had taken America by storm since its Christmas launch.
Anna alone owned the man who liked to watch Harry Potter films with home-made popcorn and waltz with her in the garden. Still, there were plenty of ‘darq’ things about him to keep even Anna intrigued. His skills in the bedroom were out of this world, that was for sure.
Anna patted the bump at the front of her dress, where her baby was snug and warm and growing.
‘Christie, come round for dinner next week while Grace and Niki are away. I’m obviously not going anywhere in this state. Don’t be lonely.’
‘I will do that,’ said Christie. She winked at Grace. Grace who was going to be cruising around the Mediterranean for a fortnight with her brother. Nikita Koslov was ready to make up for a lot of lost time. Grace was both nervous and giddy about the impending trip. Shopping for fancy underwear for the first time at fifty-six had been a revelation. Especially when you took your son and his new partner along to help you choose it. But Grace had learned from young Dawn that when a chance at happiness came, to grab onto it with both hands.
The money from her divorce was finally through and a lavish spending spree for cruise clothes did her good. Gordon had been, as expected, hideously uncooperative in their divorce in the beginning. Unexpectedly, it had been Sarah who had convinced him to let go and be reasonable. His first act as a divorcé was to move permanently into his Blegthorpe caravan.
‘What date have they given you for the baby?’ asked Raychel.
‘October the thirty-first,’ sighed Anna. ‘As if it could be anything else. What about you?’
‘Feb fourteenth. As if it could be anything else!’ Raychel grinned back. She felt positively euphoric today because this had been the first day she hadn’t been sick. She hadn’t realized morning sickness lasted all day, but she didn’t really care because she was having the baby she never thought she and Ben would dare to conceive. The Siddalls were a big and sprawling family and loads of them were living in Barnsley. Thanks to Elizabeth’s persuasion, Michael’s twin sister had been willing to provide some DNA to test, once they had assurances they wouldn’t be sued by the CSA, and yes, there was a match. That meant that Raychel was not a child of incest as she had believed all her life. Michael wasn’t exactly perfect dad material, being in prison for armed robbery, but Raychel had no intention of building relationships with strangers. She had all the family she wanted in Elizabeth, John, Ellis, Ben and the women now surrounding her.
‘I’m going to have to have a big reorganization in my department,’ tutted Christie. ‘Everyone will think I’m a boss from hell because my staff are leaving me in droves!’
‘Give over, there’s a queue of applicants to work with you,’ smiled Raychel. ‘And I hope you don’t replace me because I’ll be coming back after my maternity leave. Least I won’t have Malcolm staring as my boobs get bigger and bigger.’
Malcolm was long gone. He’d tried to report Anna for crushing his conkers, but as James McAskill said, with a totally exposed sparkle of Schadenfreude, ‘There was n
o proof.’ Malcolm wasn’t about to leave things there, but there was proof, however, that he’d squeezed a young typist’s bum. What her father did to Malcolm made Anna’s knee work to his knackers look like foreplay.
Anna topped up her glass. ‘I think I’m allowed this. The baby won’t object, will he?’ She smoothed her hand over the front of the wedding gown that her husband had designed for her. Underneath it, she was wearing a loose but incredibly sexy pregnancy corset. Vladimir had made it very easily rippable-off at the back.
‘A toast,’ said Christie. ‘To Anna and her new husband and all the lovely babies to come.’
‘And to us,’ added Anna. ‘To women, because we’re bloody marvellous.’
‘To friends,’ said Raychel.
‘Both here and absent ones busy playing guitars,’ added Grace.
They all raised their glasses to each other. Then to the West. To Canada. To the Sun.
Acknowledgements
A big warm thank you to the following.
To my agent Darley Anderson and his Angels, my editors Suzanne Baboneau and Libby Yevtushenko and my publicist Nigel Stoneman, whom I drive insane on a regular basis, but I appreciate more than I can say.
To my old mucker ‘Super’-intendent Pat Casserly for patiently filling me in on police technicalities and procedures – all mistakes are mine!
To my greetings card buddies – Alec Sillifant, Paul Sear, Fraz Worth and Pete Allwright for support and well-needed chuckles during the ‘Robert de Niro’ weeks. And Freya Halvorsen for her essential music at myspace.com/freyahalvorsen which soothes the most savage of beasts (i.e. me, according to the kids!).
To my pals – Cath Marklew, Maggie Birkin, Tracy Harwood, Rae Hobson and Judy Sedgewick – I’m so lucky to have you. And to master photographer and substitute brother Chris Sedgewick at www.untitledphotography.co.uk for taking the only pictures of me that don’t make me want to open a vein.
To Mr Gary ‘Jaws’ Tiplady at www.garytiplady.co.uk for being a giant in every sense of the word and giving my family such fun Bond memories to treasure – plus a stockpile of material.
To the Barnsley Chronicle, the Yorkshire Post, the Sheffield Star,
the Barnsley Eye, Sadie Nicholas, and the very dashing Darryl Smith at the Sunday Post for the amazing press support. And to the bellissima Franca Martella, Gareth Evans and all the BBC Radio Sheffield crew – who are like my family after all this time (you poor buggers!).
To Dr Peter O’Dwyer who knows I’m mental but has always made me feel more like a tortured genius. You’ve been a total brick over the years – love, good luck and much happiness to you.
To Camelia Popescu and Jaiken Struck of Kwintessential for being a brilliant translation service. Thanks to you I can now swear in Romanian as well as seduce any passing vampires. And to the super Heidi Sheeran at TalkbackThames for helping me with film-crew details in record time before little Anna arrived.
To my writer mates, Sue ‘Dalai Lama’ Welfare, Louise Douglas, Tara Hyland, Jane Elmor, Katie Fforde, the world’s best poet James Nash and the beautiful Lucie Whitehouse for not only being my friends but writers that I’m truly in awe of. As are my New Romantic buddies – Lucy Diamond, Sarah Duncan, Matt Dunn, Kate Harrison and JoJo Moyes. Thank you for letting me into your gang www.thenewromantics.org. I’m honoured to be in such illustrious company.
To Stu Gibbins who is the best designer of websites I have ever met, but I don’t tell him that in case he puts his prices up. His address is [email protected] and he’s a smasher.
To Lynsey Thompson at Toni & Guy because I can’t live without her magic scissors!
To ‘my fellow Gateway Plaza owner’ Martin Brook and Matthew Stephenson of The Brook Group. Richard Ward and Dean Cook of Bapp Industrial Supplies, David Sinclair of the Civic, Jill Craven of the Library, Louise Weigold of the Lamproom Theatre and ‘Mrs Barnsley’ Mel Dyke for being truly supportive Patrons of the Arts in our town. We have so much talent here and thanks to them, people are starting to realize we are more than flat caps and whippets – at long last!
To Emma Bruce and Wayne Smith at Morrisons and Mike Bowket and Celia Chappell at Reedmoor Distribution for giving me the sort of backing that authors usually only dream of.
To my P&O mates, Liz, Elle and Wayne ‘Mr Bump’ Baister, who own the most essential clothes shops on land – www.bertie.co.uk – and, at sea, supply me with so many laughs that I could write a book every day in their wonderful company.
To my absolutely wonderful Come Dine With Me fellow chefs for the most rock ’n’ roll week I’ve ever spent, Phil Davies, Paul Hoyle, Verene Farrell and Christian Whiteley-Mason. And to the crew lovelies, Natalie Watts, Nicole taylor, Nicola Cornick, Laura Harding, Hugh Lambert, Martyn ‘The Bear’ Brake, Russell Scoltock and Steve Grealey. And to my fabulous florist friend Gail Lawrence. You’ve all given me yet another book to write.
And last, but by no means least, to my family: my lovely mam and dad – Jenny and Terry Hubbard, who are always there for me. And my cheeky, funny, fast-growing sons, Terence and George, who make me smile, drive me nuts and fill up my heart with sunbeams.
I think you’re all ace.
Table of Contents
Cover
Author Biography
Also by Milly Johnson
Title page
Copyright page
Dedication
April
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
May
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
June
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
Chapter 79
Chapter 80
Chapter 81
Chapter 82
Chapter 83
Chapter 84
Chapter 85
Chapter 86
Chapter 87
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
A Summer Fling Page 42
