by Becky Wicks
Hurrying to the house phone, she made a call. He listened to the hushed voice, then heard what sounded like a gasp. When she came back, Liv was pale.
‘I phoned Mum’s house and Freya was there. I spoke to her,’ she said, raking a hand through messy hair. ‘She said she came to the house and saw us both together in the window. I tried to tell her we weren’t doing anything... But she’s just so...’ Liv made an ugh sound and turned to get her keys. ‘I’ll go and get her.’
‘No,’ he said, feeling his heart rate spike. ‘I’ll go.’
Driving to Weesp, still with no answer from Freya’s switched-off phone, Lucas considered that the old him might have given in and acknowledged that she was as infuriatingly independent as they came. Deep down he knew he needed more from her, after what he had already been through. But half the time Freya didn’t think she needed him. Not only that, she didn’t even trust him... Why else would she have disappeared when she saw whatever it was she thought she saw him and Liv doing through the window?
She’d run to her mother’s house, though, which meant she was talking to her again, at least. Gritting his teeth, the city roads turned into countryside, and the trams became sheep, and he pulled up eventually just out of view of the house with the green shutters and thatched roof. He sat there a while, considering how he’d been at this crossroads before, and done nothing.
He’d made the mistake of not going after a woman he’d cared for once. After a while he’d come to realise it had been the right decision, but he wasn’t letting this one get away so easily. Because this one he truly loved.
* * *
Freya felt terrible already for overreacting and hotfooting it all the way here, but her old defence mechanisms had kicked in hard after seeing Lucas and Liv so close together in the window. She hadn’t told her mother what she thought she’d seen—it had taken her this long to get this far. Plus Liv had been adamant on the phone.
‘He’s crazy about you, Freya, and if you think I would do something like that to you, you’re crazy too. I’m not Beatrice, and Lucas is not Johnny!’
Freya knew that was true. Regret and shame were making her feel queasy. ‘What’s happened?’ her mother said, patting the sofa beside her.
Her mother had let her in, dressed in purple PJs, and Freya felt bad for keeping her up with her jet-lag, but she really hadn’t seemed to mind. ‘Is this about your heart surgeon? Liv mentioned him, by the way.’
Freya let out a deep sigh and sat down. ‘I’ve just messed up,’ she admitted, looking around the room at the easel, the piano covered in photos of her mum and Stijn’s travels, the satisfied-looking black cat now draped on another chair in the window. ‘I thought I caught him cheating on me but...well, it’s not like I’ve given us a real chance to even be together. And I know I was imagining it.’
Her mother crossed her legs in her robe, pulling them up on the couch. ‘Well, no one could blame you, after what happened with Beatrice. Let me see him. You can tell a lot about a man by his eyes, you know. Does he have trustworthy eyes?’
‘I don’t know, you tell me.’ Half amused, Freya pulled up the photo on her phone that she’d taken at his parents’ windmill. Zooming in on his handsome face, a pang in her stomach almost brought her to tears. She’d been avoiding his calls for the last hour, letting old habits creep back in without giving him the benefit of the doubt. She knew she’d overreacted, leaving so fast, running on impulse. Seeing them in the window together had been the ultimate trigger.
Back in the bar that time, Beatrice and Johnny had sprung apart when they’d seen her heading over with their drinks, but not before she’d spotted the look on her friend’s face. Pain. Desire. Guilt. That had been weeks before she’d even caught them on the couch, making out in front of the window. It had made her feel sick for months, years even, knowing she’d failed to read the signs. She hadn’t thought about that in a long time, not until she’d remembered seeing Liv’s hand move over Lucas’s in the cafeteria...and then seeing them touching in the window at the house. What were they even doing there together?
Her mother was still studying the photo on her phone, her brow furrowed.
‘I know that woman, that’s Mira. She’s in my life drawing class. I bought her an elf when I went to Iceland. We have coffee sometimes, after class.’
‘Are you serious? You know Lucas’s mother?’ Freya shook her head, studying the photo—which had led her here, in a way. Her mother put an arm around her and pulled her in, and to her surprise she leaned in for comfort. ‘If he’s anything like his mother, he’s wonderful.’
Lucas had trustworthy eyes, too, she thought now; she’d known that the second she’d met him. Thousands of people put their trust in him every year, and he had put his trust in her, even knowing she might just run away, like his ex had. Like she had just done.
‘I’m an idiot, aren’t I?’ she said with a groan, just as the doorbell made them both jump.
* * *
Lucas was dressed in a summer cotton shirt with tiny pineapples for buttons, dark blue jeans and bright green laces in his trainers. The picture of summer in Amsterdam, standing in her mother’s doorway.
She watched him shake Elise’s hand, and heard her mother mumble something about elves and Iceland, and drinks in the fridge, and then she excused herself. It was all a blur. Freya’s heart was a hammer.
‘I don’t know what to say,’ Lucas said, stepping towards her when they were alone. They met in the middle of the living room and the cat leapt from the chair and started curling round their legs.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, reaching for him. ‘I didn’t mean to treat you like I don’t trust you, or Liv. I just got...’
‘Scared?’
He took her hands and then her face, fixing her with vivid blue, searching eyes, and she almost melted. ‘You got scared that you might like me more than you planned to like someone here. Scared that you might want to stay in one place and pin yourself down for a while, so you made up another story that would allow you to leave again.’
Freya was so stunned she could barely answer.
‘Am I right?’ he said, holding her at arm’s length.
‘You are,’ she conceded, in awe of how well he knew her. Most men would have left her to her own devices by now, deemed her a waste of time, yet here Lucas was, because he saw past her emotional blocks and crashed through all her walls, and he still wanted to be with her.
‘Freya, you happen to be the most frustrating, difficult—’ he lowered his head to hers ‘—intoxicating, infuriating...’
She smiled under his lips as he kissed her. ‘You’re so many things but that’s exactly why I love you. I wasn’t about to let you run away from me. I will never do that,’ he vowed.
He loved her? A new lease of life seemed to open itself up in front of her suddenly. ‘But, Lucas, what were you and Liv doing? I went to your place to find out about the surgery on Anne Marie, and to tell you why I couldn’t make it this afternoon. My mum just showed up from the airport!’
‘I know, I figured that out, it’s OK. You had no choice, we were fine, it went well. I’m going to be a godfather to that baby. And I’m going to be a damn good one.’
‘That’s amazing news, I’m so happy for you.’ Freya wrapped her arms around him. She had no doubt he’d be an incredible godfather, and maybe even father too.
What was she thinking? She was getting way ahead of herself—which was most unlike her—but, still, she could suddenly see it all in her mind’s eye. She could picture the kids running about that huge house, with the dog, maybe more than one dog, like Anouk used to have.
He curled one big hand through her hair and kissed her again. This time she really did melt into him, so much so that she almost forgot she was in her mother’s house. ‘We can stay the night here, there’s a spare room,’ she started to say, but he was already leading her back to the doo
r, back to the car. ‘Where are we going?’
‘You want to know what me and Liv were doing?’ he said. ‘You’re going to have to come back to Amsterdam.’
* * *
‘I can’t believe you did all this.’ Freya was standing in the kitchen with her hands over her mouth. He’d had to blindfold her, coming back to the house, but as soon as she’d seen the new mosaic floor tiles and newly fitted top-of-the-range appliances in the kitchen she had squealed in excitement.
‘I love it all,’ she was saying, trailing a balloon around with her across the new blue rug in the hallway and back again. ‘How did you find time to do all this today without me knowing?’
He encircled his arms around her, breathing in her lily scent. ‘Well, you were supposed to be at work on the late shift, but your mum ended up helping us too by keeping you busy, without her even knowing.’
Lucas had planned it all, and he’d hired a twelve-man team he knew would do the best job in the heritage house. The designer stove top, copper piping through the sink, the new wooden table big enough for dinner parties...he’d had them in all afternoon, working hard and fast to get the surprise ready in time. Liv had been only too happy to help.
‘Did you do all this just so I wouldn’t sell it? I mean, it’s beautiful,’ she said, running a hand along the polished old-school windmill tiles again. She smiled. ‘Even these have scrubbed up well.’
‘I did all this,’ he said, sweeping her hair aside to kiss her neck, ‘to give you the best chance of selling...but, yes, secretly I was hoping you’d want to live in it.’
Freya laughed, crossing with him to the window. ‘I think Shadow and I will be very happy here,’ she told him. His arms snaked around her waist as they took in the moon shining on the canal below. ‘I can’t thank you enough, Lucas.’
‘It was your sister, too. I don’t think she wants you to move very far away again either. She was talking about moving back here herself. You know, Freya, there are a lot of people who think this city is much better when you’re in it.’
Freya leaned back into his chest and sighed in what he thought, for the first time, might be contentment. She’d taken Liv aside when they’d got back and he’d watched them hug it out. Liv hadn’t been upset. He had a feeling Liv knew that Freya had a habit of creating reasons to push people away; maybe she’d even been expecting Freya to do it. Maybe he’d been expecting it too.
He was glad he’d gone after her anyway. He wouldn’t have done that for anyone else...he never had before. Then again, he’d never met a woman like Freya before either.
‘I love you, too, Lucas,’ she said suddenly, as if she was reading his thoughts about her.
He froze behind her, wondering if his ears had deceived him. She turned in his arms then, looked up at him, slightly worried that he hadn’t responded. ‘Did you hear me?’ she said, pressing her hands to his heart over his shirt.
‘I heard you.’ He felt a smile take over his entire face before he lifted her up and carried her to the new table. ‘I think I’d better pin you here for a while, in case you change your mind,’ he said, but she was already unbuttoning his shirt, pinning him to her with her own legs wrapped around him.
He made easy work of removing her top, smiling as he felt her warm hands trail up and down his back as he stood between her legs at the edge of the table.
‘I was thinking, I’ve never been to Vietnam before. I’d like to come travelling with you...as long as Fred is being cared for, and I’m not gone too long at any one time. Because I can’t keep putting my life on hold for ever. I’d rather live it with you.’
‘We’ll make it work,’ she said, kissing him excitedly. ‘I’d love nothing more, you and me in Vietnam for a while. As long as we can come home together afterwards.’
‘Here is home, is it now?’ he said teasingly. ‘I never thought I’d see you willing to put your wings away.’
Freya grinned. ‘I’m not putting them anywhere. But it’s nice to know I’ll aways have a safe place to land. Even nicer to know you might come places with me.’
Lucas just smiled and kissed her. He had so many ideas for places he wanted to take Freya Grey. But for now he would start in this kitchen.
EPILOGUE
One year later...
‘I KNEW IT! I knew those tarot cards were right!’ Liv was clapping her hands in front of the laptop so loudly that Freya had to turn the volume down on their video call. ‘The cards showed a wedding was coming up, remember? I knew it would be yours! Congrats, you two, I always knew you were sickeningly perfect together!’
Lucas snaked one arm around Freya and she held her hand towards the screen again so Liv could get a close-up look at her ring. Liv peered closer in wonder at the sparkling diamond and Freya felt tears spring to her eyes again as the ocean lapped the sand gently outside the open door.
Lucas had proposed to her the night before on the moonlit deck of their luxury beach villa on a private beach in Koh Lanta. ‘I was waiting for Thailand,’ he said, dropping a kiss on the top of her head and making her heart swell. ‘I would have proposed earlier this year, when we were in Vietnam, but the ring wasn’t ready. It had to be just right, and we had to be in the right place.’
‘It was worth the wait, but I would have said yes anywhere,’ she told him, nestling into his shoulder against the headboard. ‘Even in that rickety shack, that night the storm trapped us inside.’
Lucas grinned, no doubt remembering that passionate night on his first medical mission to Vietnam, when the howling winds and rain had ravaged the camp. ‘How could I forget what you did when—?’
‘Ew, guys, I’m still here!’ Liv called Shadow over, and Freya sniggered. She’d almost forgotten they were on a video call. Liv was housesitting at Anouk’s while they were on holiday. She loved looking after Shadow as much as Fred and Mira did.
Lucas’s parents took the dog every other week. Shadow had helped give Fred a new reason to get up and go for long walks, instead of feeling down about not being able to drive. He was stable for now in the family home, and Freya loved their Sunday lunches in Weesp, when she and Lucas would join them, and Elise and Steijn, to swap travel stories and remind Fred of all the meals he still loved.
‘How’s the new job going?’ Freya asked her half-sister. Liv had left the UK and her ex firmly behind and had taken an accounting job for a PR firm in Amsterdam. Conveniently she’d also taken a studio apartment just around the corner.
‘Better than my cooking,’ Liv said now. ‘Mum’s coming here this afternoon with Mira and I promised to make a cake from some Icelandic recipe, but it’s a bit...er...’
She walked their video call to the kitchen and Freya felt a pang of homesickness suddenly as she saw the beautiful space Lucas had redone, with Liv’s help, just over a year ago. Who’d have thought back then that Anouk’s house would come to feel so much like home to her, or that she would be engaged to the most handsome heart surgeon in the Netherlands...even the entire world?
They’d been on a medical mission and several holidays since she’d extended her contract, so she had the best of both worlds now. Roots and wings. She’d never been so happy...except when Liv used every pan in their kitchen to create another disaster.
Liv panned over to her cake. It was a flat blob of brown in the bottom of a cake mould. Lucas let out a snort and Liv sighed comically, before dropping it on the floor for Shadow to eat. The dog wolfed it up hungrily while they all laughed. ‘Make sure he gets every crumb,’ Lucas ordered.
Since Lucas had sold the houseboat and moved in, he’d become chief homemaker, much to Freya’s amusement. He took huge pride in keeping things in order, and their dinner parties were highly anticipated amongst their friends and families.
Sometimes she swore she could feel Anouk’s warm presence looking over them all fondly as they cooked and drank wine, and played games, and filled the place with la
ughter, just like she’d wanted. What would she make of their engagement? Freya wondered. Would she burst into tears of delight, like her mother had this morning?
When they’d hung up the call to Liv, they walked barefoot hand in hand along the empty beach as the moon beamed down on pure white sands. When they stopped to put their feet in the ocean she looked at the trail of footprints they were leaving behind on the shore. His were so much bigger than hers, but together, side by side, they left a path of perfection.
‘One day there will be another set of footprints to go with those,’ he said, wrapping his arms around her from behind as the breeze whipped up her hair. ‘They’ll be tiny, and they’ll go everywhere we go.’
‘A boy or a girl?’ she wondered out loud. She’d often thought about the children they might have. It used to feel like an impossibility, but now the thought filled her with excitement.
‘A girl, then a boy.’
Freya turned in his arms, smiling. ‘Oh, really? You have it all planned out, do you?’
‘Either way, I promised Ruben a playmate for Oscar. You wouldn’t want to let a friend down, would you?’
‘No, sir,’ she said, smiling at the thought of Lucas’s godson, whom he adored more than life itself.
‘I can’t do this alone,’ Lucas said. ‘I’m going to need your help getting started.’ He tightened his hands on her waist and urged her closer by her hips in her bikini and sarong. ‘We can start right now if you like.’
She laughed, looping her arms around his shoulders. ‘You wouldn’t want me pregnant on our wedding day, would you, Dr Van de Berg? What would people say?’
Lucas chuckled softly, and his lips curved into the kind of smile that still sent butterflies flocking to her insides and made her feel blessed to be alive. ‘I think they’d say you were radiant, magnificent, ongelooflijk.’
