Thomas remained still, then his expression slid into something crumpled and worried-looking. He breathed out heavily, took his hat off and swept his fingers through his hair. “Rose...”
Rose sniffed and looked away, blinking up at the ceiling. “I don’t want excuses, Thomas. Katie warned me from the start, didn’t she? I was an idiot to–”
“Rose...” Thomas suddenly dropped his hat to the ground and moved deftly towards her. One hand slid around her waist and the other was reaching up to sweep her hair from her face. “Rose...” He was whispering and it was making her want to cry and blush at the same time. She tried to pull away but Thomas met her eyes and said, slowly, “There is nothing between Fleur and I.”
“Oh, she’s just a bit of fun but I’m special? Is that it?” Rose shook her head but felt herself leaning into the warmth of his fingers on her cheek.
“You are special. Yes. You’re the only girl I’ve ever...” Thomas swallowed hard and licked his lower lip. “Fleur was upset because Rossi broke up with her. I was being a friend, that’s all.”
“Rossi?”
Thomas nodded and rolled his eyes. “She’s been chasing after him all summer. I knew they’d started seeing each other but it turns out it was just a fling for him and a bit more serious for her.”
“But the kiss Thomas. I saw you–”
“You saw Fleur kiss me. But you obviously didn’t stick around too long or you’d have seen what happened next.”
“What happened next?”
Thomas leaned in closer, so that his forehead was almost touching hers. “You’d have seen me stop her. And you’d have heard me tell her that there is only one woman in the world who I want to be with.”
“Oh.” Rose was blinking back tears, but at the same time she could feel her lips spreading into a grin.
“And, I told Katie. I told her–”
“I know. I spoke to her–”
“Then you know – you know I told her that you’re the only one for me, Rose. Not just the only one. The One.”
“The One?”
“Rose – I broke every speed limit in the country and spent three hundred Euro so I could catch you and beg you not to go. So I could...”
Rose bit her lower lip and held her breath.
“So I could tell you that I am madly, deeply, crazy-stupid in love with you.”
Rose laughed. Because it was so absurdly wonderful she couldn’t think of anything else to do.
Thomas raised his voice. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he yelled. “This woman is the most incredible, kind, smart, funny, and brave person I have ever met in my life.”
Rose was blushing furiously, giggling, and saying, “Shhhh, shhhh.”
But Thomas continued. “And I – Thomas Goodwin – will love her for the rest of my life.”
“Thomas!”
All around them, people began to clap and whoop. And, for the first time in her life, Rose didn’t mind in the slightest that she was the centre of attention.
Opening up her lungs and taking a deep breath, she shouted, “I love you too!”
And then, finally, Thomas swept her up in his arms, whirled her around, and kissed her.
When he put her back down on the ground, he balanced his hat on her head and ducked beneath its rim so that he could look deep into her eyes. “So, Remarkable Rose, will you stay with me?”
“Maybe,” she said, grinning. “Just, maybe.”
Epilogue
Six Months Later
“Are you looking forward to seeing her?” Thomas wrapped his arms around Rose’s waist and nuzzled into her neck.
They were standing on the terrace, waiting for Katie’s taxi to arrive. And Rose felt horribly nervous.
Smiling, Thomas turned Rose around and cupped her face in his hands. “It’s going to be fine. We’ve video chatted with her hundreds of times – she’s fine with it.”
“She was fine with us dating. But will she be fine with us getting married Thomas?”
Thomas took Rose’s left hand between both of his and kissed the top of it. “She will be over the moon. And, as soon as we’ve told her, so will I. Because I’ll finally be able to see you wearing your engagement ring.”
Rose grinned, remembering the night Thomas had proposed to her under the stars by the waterfall, when they’d danced and kissed and recreated the very first time they’d realised how they felt about each other. “It will be nice to show it off.”
Thomas kissed her forehead, then the spot below her ear that always made her giggle, then just as she was about to kiss him back, he stopped and waved.
Rose turned around, already blushing furiously. In the distance, a silver taxi cab was pulling through the ranch gates.
Rose waved too and her stomach somersaulted.
It was a half-a-year since Rose had agreed to stay in Italy with Thomas. Since then, she had become the ranch’s new accounts manager and had spent long glorious days helping with the horses, doing the accounts, and marvelling at the fact that she’d gone from a box cubicle in a high-rise office block to a desk that looked out at nothing but hills, horses, and blue skies.
She had not, however, seen her best friend in person. Katie’s work had been incredibly busy and Thomas hadn’t been able to leave the ranch either. Rose could have visited alone, but she’d been too nervous. So, they had video chatted and texted and emailed. And it had all been fine. Normal.
But now that they were about to come face-to-face, Rose felt her stomach lurch.
She wanted it to be just the way it used to be between them, and she was terrified that Katie would find it too strange to see her best friend and her brother as a couple.
Rose had asked Thomas to wait until they were sitting down for dinner before he told Katie about their engagement. But, typical Thomas, he just couldn’t control his excitement.
They’d barely finished hugging and saying hello before he grabbed his sister’s hands and announced, “We have some news.”
Rose widened her eyes at him, praying he’d take the hint and at least let Katie get settled. But he ignored her completely.
Katie raised her eyebrows at them. “News?”
Thomas was grinning and, although Rose was annoyed that he wasn’t keeping to what they’d planned, she couldn’t help feeling a little flutter of pride that he was so thrilled to be marrying her.
“Yes,” he said. But then he couldn’t seem to get the words out. He faltered and started to blush. And eventually, Rose stepped in.
“Katie,” she said, slowly. “Thomas asked me to marry him. And I said yes.”
For a moment, Katie’s expression didn’t change. She looked from Rose to Thomas and back to Rose, utterly speechless. But then her lips spread into the most enormous grin and she let out a squeal. She waved her arms and jumped up and down and threw herself at Katie, then at Thomas, hugging them and saying, “I can’t believe it! You’re getting married!”
When she finally pulled away, she was crying.
“Katie?” Rose looked at her friend, utterly bemused.
Katie swiped at her cheeks. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m just so happy to see you both and this is the most amazing news.”
“It is?” Rose glanced at Thomas, who was beaming from ear-to-ear.
“Of course it is!” Katie replied. “My best friend and my brother getting married? It’s the best news in the world.”
Rose’s heart felt so full that she couldn’t contain her joy any longer. And soon she was crying too – tears of utter happiness.
“Rose!” Katie said, grinning. “We get to plan a wedding!”
“Uh oh.” Thomas rolled his eyes. “I feel like I’m letting myself in for trouble here.”
“You most definitely are,” Rose replied. “Now, Mister Goodwin, where’s that gorgeous ring?”
Thomas reached into his pocket then, in true Thomas-style, still wearing his ridiculous red cowboy boots and his enormous smile, he knelt down in front of her and asked her one m
ore time:
“Rose, will you marry me?”
“Yes,” she replied. “I absolutely will.”
THE END
Thank you for reading Love in Tuscany. You can catch up with the characters of Rose and Thomas, thirty years later, in my new series Heart of the Hills. Book one, A Heart Full of Secrets is available now.
1
As usual, the late-afternoon train from Cambridge to Kings Cross was heaving with passengers. Noticing the scraps of paint she hadn’t managed to weed out from beneath her finger nails, Lottie adjusted her bag on her shoulder. She contemplated putting it on the floor between her feet but, with not a single spare seat in the carriage, she was squeezed in next to the door and didn’t want to lose it in the shuffle when they stopped.
Beside her, jostling closer than necessary, a man in a long black coat sneezed into his hand and looked around as if he was wondering where to wipe it. With no one offering him a tissue, he settled for shoving it into his pocket. When he looked up, he smiled, letting his eyes flit towards the pendant that hung around Lottie’s neck. Lottie looked quickly away and tried to focus on the scenery that was chugging past the window.
She used to make this trip all the time, living for the long weekends that she’d spent with her university roommate, and best friend in the world, Sophie Hatton. Back then, in the first few years after they graduated, the second she’d boarded the train she’d felt a whoosh of excitement at the prospect of escaping into Sophie’s glamorous life for a couple of days.
When they were students – at Durham, one of England’s most prestigious institutions – they’d spent hours talking about how they would continue to live and work together long after graduation. But Sophie had studied business and Lottie had studied Fine Art, so the chances of that actually happening had been slim from the get-go.
As it turned out, Sophie had secured a job before they even graduated. A London firm that her father was connected to had offered her the most eye-watering salary – and a whole bundle of bonuses to go with it. Lottie, on the other hand, had moved home to Cambridge and remained jobless and penniless for nearly a year. At first, her parents were delighted to have her back. But eventually, they’d started hinting that perhaps she needed to specialise in something because, as much as they’d have liked to, they simply couldn’t afford to support her long-term. So, she took an online course in illustrating for children’s books and had started to build her portfolio.
Growing her illustration business to the point where she was making an actual living out of her work had been a long, hard, slog. Many, many times Lottie had considered giving it up; drawing for fun not for work, getting a job at a supermarket because at least it would be a reliable income. But she’d persevered and, ten years later, she was living what she’d come to realise was pretty much her perfect life; alone in her grandmother’s old cottage, miles from anywhere, she spent her days creating art and walking her giant scruffy rescue dog, Duke.
Her nearest city was still Cambridge, but it was a fifty-minute drive to get to the outskirts and then another fifty to navigate the city-centre traffic and nudge her way to the station. So, she tended to avoid it as much as possible. In fact, she was aware that she’d become something of a hermit since moving so far away from civilisation.
To start with, despite their polar-opposite lifestyles, she and Sophie had remained as close as ever. While she was taking her illustration course, Lottie had worked at an accountancy firm in central Cambridge, just minutes from the train station, so it had been easy. She’d whizzed off to London two, sometimes three, times a month and spent most of her meagre savings keeping up with whatever plans Sophie concocted for them.
These days, however, the journey and the parties and the drinks were beginning to feel wearisome. Now, she visited just a couple of times a year. Less, if she could get away with it. And Sophie had never – ever – visited Lottie at the cottage. But they had always had one thing in common, one thing that kept them bound together and in constant contact via phone or email: neither of them had any interest in settling down, or finding a husband, or even a boyfriend for that matter. Over the years, their experiences with men had been equally disappointing and heart-breaking, and so the glue that held the two of them together had always been the fact that they were happy, independent, single women.
Recently, though, Lottie had noticed things beginning to shift. Sophie had been making increasingly poor decisions about who she dated – mostly unavailable and inappropriate work colleagues – and had been pestering Lottie to try online dating with her.
“It’ll be fun if we do it together, Lotts. We can compare notes.”
“Sophie, I can’t think of anything worse,” Lottie had replied, rolling her eyes into the phone.
“But how else are you going to meet someone? You barely leave that pokey cottage of yours.”
Remembering the conversation, even now, Lottie flinched. Sophie had never spoken about Lottie’s lifestyle disparagingly before and the way she said ‘pokey cottage’ had given Lottie a knot in her stomach that refused to budge for hours after she hung up the phone. In fact, since then, Lottie had been avoiding Sophie’s calls altogether. She’d even contemplated coming up with an excuse not to visit this weekend. But she couldn’t; it was Sophie’s 35th birthday. Big things were planned, although the fact Sophie hadn’t shared what these things were was making Lottie’s skin feel prickly with nerves.
“You come to London often?” A gruff voice intruded on her thoughts and she looked up to see the man who’d sneezed staring at her. He repeated his question. “I said, you come to London often?”
“Mainly just this time of year,” Lottie replied, switching her bag to the opposite shoulder and wobbling as the train hurtled through a station.
“Bit early for Christmas shopping isn’t it?”
Lottie smiled thinly. Her mother always told her she had a friendly face – the kind of face strangers felt the need to talk to and charity collectors saw as an easy target. “I’m just visiting a friend.”
“Oh yeah?” The man raised an eyebrow and then winked at her.
Turning away slightly, Lottie fumbled for her mobile phone and swiped open her messages. November always began with her visiting the city for Sophie’s birthday. They would see a show, eat dinner, go for drinks, and probably hang out with Sophie’s gaggle of work colleagues. Then early December would see Lottie return for the switching on of the Oxford Street Christmas lights, which usually coincided with her own birthday. But she didn’t feel like sharing this information with her newfound acquaintance. Why do I always get stuck talking to an oddball?! Train taking forever. Can’t wait to see your face. She pressed send and waited for Sophie’s reply, deliberately not looking up from her screen.
Because you are friendly and gorgeous. Meet outside theatre?
Yep. Should be with you by seven.
Lottie dropped her phone back into her bag and inched closer towards the exit as the train slowed and started its approach into Kings Cross. Now that it was dark outside, her plump, frizzy-haired reflection quivered tauntingly in the glass of the door and she was wondering whether her mustard-yellow stockings and bottle-green tunic were a mistake. Sophie would be coming straight from work. She’d be in a figure-hugging black skirt and high heels and Lottie knew that, as soon as she was beside her, she’d feel dumpy and under dressed.
Finally, they pulled into Kings Cross and disembarked. Lottie’s right shoulder was, as predicted, feeling numb and tingly – despite the fact she’d switched arms at least half a dozen times. She glanced at her phone: six p.m. Wrestling for a spot on the tube now would be hopeless – most commuters would throw their own grandmother onto the tracks if it meant they got the last available space – so she crossed past the Platform Nine and Three Quarters, Harry Potter trolley and the line of excited tourists posing with it, and emerged under the domed ceiling of the station.
When she’d first started visiting Sophie in London, Kings Cross had bee
n a large draughty space full of scraggly but hopeful pigeons ruthlessly scavenging for scraps. Now, it still had a few pigeons, but it had been transformed by an enormous renovation project and now looked more like an airport arrivals hall than a station. Under the huge brightly lit dome, Lottie passed restaurants and shops and slid into the queue for a pop-up coffee cart near the escalators.
She was texting Sophie to tell her she’d arrived when she noticed that the person behind her was standing a little too close. Praying it wasn’t the man from the train, she shuffled forward, returned her phone to her pocket, and folded her arms in front of her chest. The queue was painfully slow. Someone at the front was dithering over whether they wanted chocolate on their cappuccino.
“Forget it,” Lottie muttered, turning around and trying to extricate herself from the throng of coffee buying hopefuls. As she turned, she bumped awkwardly into whoever had been standing too close to her. She huffed and rolled her eyes and was about to say, sarcastically, “Don’t mind me,” when that same someone took hold of her arm.
“Lottie?”
She was half in the queue, half out. Tugging her arm back, she looked up. And up. Then kept looking, because the man who had hold of her was unbelievably tall… “Sam?!”
Behind them, someone grumbled, “Move up, would you?”
Lottie darted back into her spot and folded her arms in front of her chest, feeling even shorter than usual.
“How long has it been?” Sam had the same pale blue eyes, the same floppy hair, and the same tall lanky frame that he’d had at university, except now – instead of a baggy t-shirt and a questionable leather jacket – it was dressed in a crisp navy suit.
Lottie smiled and, shaking loose her surprise, offered him a slightly awkward hug; awkward because Sam stood as rigid as a statue and simply patted her shoulder rather than returning the gesture. “It’s been a long time,” she said, pulling away and stepping back into her own personal space. “What happened to you? You’re like the only person in the world who doesn’t have social media. Not even LinkedIn. Soph and I joked once that maybe you were working for MI5.”
The True Love Travels Series Box Set Page 53
