The Last Day of Winter

by Shari Low

  ‘Aye, I will, ma love, as soon as I give up drinking, swearing and hoping Pierce Brosnan will track me down for a wild night on the town.’

  Avril rolled her eyes in frustration, just as she’d been doing for decades. If there was a gold medal for showing disapproval of your mother’s vices, that girl would have won it years ago.

  She’d just managed to straighten up after the last cough escaped from her, when Cammy gave her another hug. ‘I can’t tell you how much I love you for this, Josie.’

  ‘Sorry, Cammy’ she quipped tartly, with just an edge of flirtation. Bugger, this trying to act normal lark was tougher than she thought, but she had to keep it going. ‘It’s too late to be declaring your feelings for me now. I don’t succumb to married men and you’ll be one of those by the end of the day. If you have feelings for me, you should have said so before now when there was still time for us.’

  Everyone at the table was laughing now, including Pearl, who had just got out of her seat and gave Josie a quick cuddle as she passed. ‘You’re absolutely right, Josie,’ she joked. ‘But your loss is our Caro’s gain. Just off to the loo. Will we get a chance to catch up later? I want to hear all your news.’

  ‘Absolutely, Pearl. It’s great to see you, pet, you’re looking smashing,’ Josie said, as Pearl nimbly headed off in the direction of the lobby.

  Josie had a thought. Maybe she could go after Pearl, grab her while she was away from the rest of the guests and tell her about the Caro situation? Perhaps Pearl had some other insight into where her niece would go? It wasn’t much of a plan, but it was a start.

  Just as Pearl headed out of the room, another familiar face appeared in the restaurant doorway and made her way towards them. Actually ‘made her way’ was the understatement of the year. ‘Sashayed like the goddess that she absolutely was’ probably best described the newcomer’s entrance. Despite Josie’s devastation over her health, despite her current ‘lost bride’ fiasco, despite the fact that she was now going to have to keep a huge secret from her children for the whole of the rest of the day, she couldn’t help the grin that crept across her bright red lips.

  ‘Well, well, well, today is full of surprises,’ Cammy bellowed, as he threw his arms around Stacey Summers.

  ‘Ah, Stacey ma darlin’, it’s smashing to see you,’ Josie said, meaning every word, as she wrapped the lass in a tight hug. Stacey’s mum, Senga, had been one of Josie’s best pals for years, and they’d all banded together to raise this girl, and Michael and Avril, and all the others that were born to members of their merry group of working mothers who juggled cleaning jobs, friendships and families.

  ‘You get younger every time I see you, Aunt Josie,’ Stacey chirped back. Although they weren’t actually related, they’d been family forever and Stacey had called her Aunt Josie since she was a tiny mite.

  Josie stretched back so that Stacey was at arm’s length and she could see into her beautiful cobalt eyes. ‘How are you doing, gorgeous?’

  ‘I’m great, Aunt Josie. Life’s good.’

  Josie immediately tensed, her emotional alerts sending a warning signal to the ends of her nerves. Stacey looked stunning. Her smile was wide. She was saying the right things. But she’d known this lass since she was a babe in Senga’s arms, and she could see when there was something not quite right with her. That big wide lip-glossed smile didn’t reach her eyes. Och, what was wrong? Whatever it was, now wasn’t the place or time to ask. She made a mental note to catch her later at the wedding. If there was going to be a bloody wedding! Time to get out of here and get back to searching for the runaway bride. Michael, Avril, and whatever was troubling Stacey, would need to wait until later.

  ‘Right, you lot, it’s been a slice of heaven, but I’ve got far more important things to do and people to see,’ she announced, before delivering a round of kisses to everyone there. ‘I love you all and I’ll see you later,’ were her parting words, before she charged back up the stairs to search for Pearl. She spotted her across the lobby, chatting to a tall, tanned bloke with grey hair. She couldn’t see his face because he had his back to her, but she knew everyone on the wedding guest list and she was fairly sure he wasn’t one of them. It was only a small wedding – about forty people in total. Actually, thirty-nine now that the bride wasn’t coming.

  Fuck it. Two choices. Storm over there and interrupt Pearl, then interrogate her for clues as to Caro’s whereabouts. Or just bolt on over across the road to the Kibble Palace and hope that Caro was there.

  She pulled out her phone and shot off a quick text to Val.

  Any sign of the wandering bride?

  Three little dots immediately started flickering on the screen, showing that Val was typing a response. Josie knew she might be in for a wait. Val’s aptitude with modern technology was up there with her ability to get her Spanx on in less than five minutes – it rarely went well but it was frequently entertaining.

  Her phone buzzed. Val.

  No.

  Succinct and straight to the point, yet it had still taken about twenty seconds and Val had probably broken two nails in the process of typing it.

  Okay, interrupt Pearl or not?

  Josie made an executive decision.

  Not. She could see Pearl smiling and making conversation. There was no way she would be so laid back if she thought there was anything amiss.

  Nope, there was nothing to be gained from worrying her. Instead, she crossed the lobby at warp speed and burst out on to the wet street outside. She dodged a group of buskers with brass instruments and strings and tried not to swear as she weaved around the random people that were blocking her path until she got to the pedestrian crossing that would hopefully get her across the road without being hit by one of the many vehicles navigating the busy four-way junction. ‘Och, I could get hit by a bus tomorrow,’ she’d always say, if anyone chided her for doing something dangerous, like her last parachute jump, or when she went water skiing on her seventieth birthday in Torremolinos, or when she climbed up on to a bar top, spraying a bottle of champagne to welcome the new millennium. The altercation with the bus didn’t seem like such a terrible option right now. Over. Done with. No suffering. No lingering, waiting for the life to drain out of her.

  I could get hit by a bus. The thought again. Then the pain. The grief. The fear of what was to come and how it would affect the people she loved, how it would drag everything out and make it so much worse for her and for them.

  Josie glanced up at the pedestrian light. Red man. Do not walk.

  Fuck it.

  She stepped off the kerb. She waited. Waited longer. Nothing happened. No bloody bus.

  Heart racing, she stepped back on to the pavement.

  Those twisted Gods were interfering once again.

  Well, sod them.

  She’d be going soon, but first she had work to do, weddings to save, and then, she promised herself, she’d leave on her own terms, not theirs.

  Eighteen

  Stacey

  She almost hadn’t come. Mainly because her mother had threatened to grab her ankles and hang on until Stacey saw sense. In the end, Senga had thrown her arms up in despair and told Stacey to do ‘whatever act of bloody foolishness’ that she had to do.

  ‘I’ll be waiting here with a bottle of wine and a relationship counsellor to help you deal with rejection when you get back,’ had been Senga’s last words before Stacey had closed the door and made her way down the path to the waiting taxi.

  She’d dressed carefully. A super-tight red pencil skirt that clung to every curve and ended below her knee, so it was both incredibly sexy and conservative at the same time. On top, she wore a black, long sleeved, off-the-shoulder bodysuit that showed off her tan, but again, wasn’t tarty or provocative. Her coat was black, Jaeger, a beautifully cut wool blend that grazed her ankles, with enough padding in the shoulders to make reminiscent of a forties movie heroine. Her hair fell in glossy dark waves, her make-up was minimal: just a bit of mascara, a touch of smo
ky eyeliner and a nude lip. Classy, but with a hint of wow. That had been the look she was going for and she hoped she’d pulled it off.

  On the way to the hotel, she’d changed her mind a hundred times. On the grand scale of bad ideas she’d ever had in her life, this one was pretty near the top. Number one on the list, however, was doing nothing after Cammy left LA, just waiting for him to realise he shouldn’t have left and for him to remedy that by coming back to her. Definitely top spot on the stupid scale.

  That’s why she couldn’t turn back now, couldn’t stop herself. She had to see him, had to tell him why she’d just crossed an ocean to speak to him.

  It was his laugh she heard first when she entered the restaurant, followed by his booming voice.

  ‘Well, well, well, today is full of surprises,’ Cammy bellowed, as she reached the table and he threw his arms around her. She flushed to a shade that she was pretty sure matched her skirt and half of the decorations in the room. Just being near him, seeing him after three years, her heart was thudding out of her chest. There had been a glimmer of hope that when she saw him she’d immediately realise that she felt differently, that the hype had been more than the depth of her longing for him. Now she knew that wasn’t the case. Even the heat of his body as he held her was making her tremble. God, she loved him. Every single bit of him. She might have blurted something out right then and there, in front of a whole table of strangers and a few familiar faces, if she hadn’t spotted a major fly in the marriage-disrupting ointment.

  Aunt Josie. Someone she absolutely adored, and a woman who could sniff out suspicious behaviour a mile away.

  Damn it.

  Thankfully, Josie was in a hurry, so they just had a quick exchange before the older woman tore off out of the restaurant at a speed that absolutely was not normal for a woman of her age. Josie was a force of nature. Stacey didn’t even want to contemplate what she would do to her when she found out why she was here. The thought made her shudder.

  ‘Are you okay?’ Cammy asked.

  She wanted to answer with a casual smile, but her words seemed to have been swallowed by the fact that she could feel his hand resting gently on the small of her back and it was causing her brain to temporarily shut down. This was bloody ridiculous. She was a grown-ass woman who was acting like she was sixteen and in the presence of the hottest guy in school. Get it together, she warned her lovestruck inner teenager.

  She almost wept with gratitude when Avril stepped forward and squeezed the life out of her. ‘How are you, you old tart? Damn, you get uglier by the year. Terrible when people let themselves go like this.’

  Even in her state of high anxiety, that made her chuckle.

  Avril’s brother, Michael, nudged his sister out of the way as he hugged her next. ‘Ignore her. Jealousy has always been her biggest flaw. It’s made her hair turn blue.’

  Stacey was still laughing when Cammy pulled out the chair next to him and gestured to her to sit next to him. As soon as they were both seated, he made the introductions. ‘Everyone, this is Stacey. Stacey, this is Caro’s Uncle Bob. That was his wife, Pearl, who nipped out to the loo a few minutes ago.’

  Bob reached over to shake her hand.

  ‘And this is Caro’s cousin, Todd, and his husband, Jared,’ he went on.

  Todd was already out of his seat and leaning across the table, hand outstretched, his smile warm and welcoming. He was wearing beautifully cut jeans and a pale blue shirt, his blonde hair swept back off his face. ‘Great to meet you.’

  His partner, Jared, every bit as stylish in black jeans and a tight fitting grey Versace V-neck, followed suit, but then paused, as if something had just dawned on him. ‘USA Speed Freaks!’ he exclaimed, in an accent that was clearly American or Canadian. Stacey still wasn’t great at differentiating. ‘You’re Stacey!’

  ‘I am,’ Stacey said, grinning with gratitude for yet another diversion.

  Jared wasn’t holding back his delight. ‘This is amazing, I love that show! I can’t believe Caro never told us that she knew you!’

  ‘Actually, they’ve never met,’ Cammy interjected. ‘Stacey and I have been friends for ever and we went off to LA together a million years ago. That makes me feel so old,’ he groaned. ‘Anyway, it was only after I left LA…’ his eyes met Stacey’s when he said this and she wasn’t sure if she imagined some kind of significance to the way he said it, ‘and came back to Scotland that I met Caro. You haven’t been home since then, have you?’

  Oh, how she wished she had. Preferably about a week before he met Caro, then maybe none of this would have happened.

  ‘No, this is the first time,’ she answered, trying not to make her regret obvious.

  ‘I’m so glad you’re here. I was totally shell-shocked when I saw Ida’s tweet this morning. Why didn’t you tell me you were coming?’

  Stacey shrugged. Keeping up this level of nonchalance was excruciating.

  Because I’m in love with you and didn’t know if I’d have the courage to tell you.

  ‘Because I didn’t think I could make it.’

  Then I decided that I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t.

  ‘Then I had a last minute break in filming.’

  So I’ve come all this way to make a complete arse of myself.

  ‘So I decided I couldn’t miss seeing you walk down that aisle.’

  Or stop it from happening.

  Aaaaargh! The very thought made her squirm inside. She was never going to heaven. Never.

  ‘Well, I couldn’t be happier that you made it. I’ve missed you,’ he said, putting his hand over hers. Anyone around the table would see it as a completely harmless gesture of affection, but only because they had no idea of the turmoil it was causing inside her. Hope. That’s what it represented to Stacey. Hope.

  Oblivious to the effect he was having on her, Cammy was now patting the pockets of the jacket that hung over his chair.

  ‘Damn it, I’ve left my phone upstairs in my room. I’m just going to nip up for it.’

  The words were out of Stacey’s mouth before she’d even decided to say them. ‘I’ll come with you.’ This was it. A sign. Foolish or not, she was going to get him alone, tell him the truth, make him understand how she felt about him.

  ‘Eh, sure,’ Cammy said, breezily as he rose from his chair and…

  He paused, his whole face changing as he saw something behind her.

  ‘Babe! What are you doing here?’

  He was out of his seat again, arms outstretched, as a woman Stacey had only ever seen in pictures slowly, almost hesitantly, walked towards them.

  Caro.

  Something inside Stacey curled up and raised a surrender flag. This was the first time she’d actually seen her in the flesh and she could absolutely see why Cammy had fallen in love with her. This woman was completely make-up-free, yet she had a natural prettiness that just shone through. She was dressed in jeans and a jumper, with a pair of black biker boots and a bright red duffle coat. None of it should work, and yet there was something so warm, so fresh, about her that Stacey immediately felt like she’d tried too hard with her own outfit and wished she’d thrown on a pair of jeans and a sweater.

  She was so busy analysing every second of the newcomer’s arrival that she only now noticed the most crucial thing of all – Caro looked upset, worried, harassed.

  She quickly went around the table, hugging everyone, but as Stacey watched her, she could see that it was the actions of someone who was going through the motions quickly so that she could get to the point of why she was there.

  When she reached her, Stacey stood up. ‘Hi, I’m Stacey. I’ve heard so much about you.’

  I’m the woman who’s in love with the man you’re about to marry. I’ve travelled thousands of miles to be here and I’m planning on telling him before he says ‘I do’ to you. Sorry about that. I’m not usually that kind of girl. But… well… did I mention I was really sorry?

  Stacey had never hated herself more than in t
hat very moment.

  Cammy couldn’t take his eyes off his wife-to-be. ‘I thought you said it was bad luck for us to see each other today, but, man, I’m glad you’re here. Sit down, join us,’ he said, smiling like this was the best thing that had happened to him all day. There it was. His love for this woman written all over his face.

  Who had she been kidding?

  He’d never looked at her like that. Not when they first met, not in the all the many years they’d known each other, not even when they were making love the night before he left California. He may have loved her back then, but seeing them together it was very clear that she had been replaced – make that surpassed – by the woman he was gazing at now.

  Coming here had been a mistake, but thank God she’d seen this before she’d blurted out the truth to him. She would just wait until everyone was back in their seats and then she would make an excuse to leave and get out of here before she made a complete fool of herself. Decision made, she zoned back into the conversation between the bride and groom.

  ‘No, I… I’m not staying. Can I just… erm… can I have a quick chat with you? In private?’ Caro said.

  Cammy looked a little confused, and everyone was staring at Caro now, bewilderment on all their faces.

  ‘Just a couple of last minute things,’ Caro blurted to the spectators around the table. ‘I won’t keep him for long.’

  ‘You guys go ahead and eat. I’ll catch up when I come back,’ Cammy said breezily.

  But Stacey was still watching Caro, and as she did so, she could feel her own eyes narrowing. There was something amiss. As Cammy lifted his room key off the table, and followed his fiancée out of the restaurant, Stacey had a feeling that it wasn’t anything good.

  ‘Would you like a menu, madam?’ the waiter was asking her now.

  Stay. Go. Stay. Go. Stay.

  She turned and flashed him her Hollywood smile.

  ‘Yes, I would, thank you.’

  4 p.m. – 6 p.m.