LITMIR.BIZ

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the cancellation insurance covers a no-show at the church.’

      ‘What about a double no-show? Do you get a bonus?’ she asked flippantly, anything to stop herself from bursting into tears. Why would she cry when she was so happy? When everything had turned out so well? She might be a runaway bride, but he was a runaway groom. So that was all right. Wasn’t it? ‘Or do you have to pay a penalty?’

      He stood up. ‘I’ll get that coffee.’

      ‘No. Really. I must go.’ She got to her feet. Mike stood up, too. Then they both stood there, uncertain how to end it. A kiss seemed inappropriate. Shaking hands, ridiculous.

      ‘I’ll look out for your byline in the Globe, Willow.’ That sounded so final. She didn’t want it to be that final. If only she could turn the clock back to that night he’d asked her to move in with him. If she’d just said yes… ‘You made the right decision, you know. You should always go for the dream. My mistake was forgetting that.’

      ‘We didn’t talk much about our dreams, did we?’ she asked sadly. He lifted his shoulders, let them fall in a hopeless gesture that said it all. ‘If we hadn’t been in such a rush to get married…’ What was the point of ‘ifs’? What was done, was done. ‘Where will you go?’

      ‘Somewhere. Nowhere. Get lost for a few days. You?’

      ‘I’m going to try my hand at the business end of interior design for a change. Help out a friend who needs a hand with some decorating.’ A kiss, she realised, would leave her weeping a puddle onto the floor and she stuck out her hand. He took it, but she didn’t linger, withdrawing her fingers almost before he’d touched them. ‘Goodbye, Mike. Have a nice life.’

      She spun round and walked quickly away while she still could. It was too late for regrets. ‘Go for the dream,’ he’d said and maybe he was right. But it seemed a pity that life could only find room for one dream at a time. She hoped hers was big enough to make up for the hollow ache deep inside her.

      Mike watched her walk away and knew that nothing in his life would be as hard again. He wanted to shout her name. Go after her. Tell her how much he wanted her, needed her, loved her still. But then what? He’d suggested to Cal that she had simply been marking time at the Chronicle until she got married. He’d been wrong about that. Wrong about so much. She wanted the Globe. London. And she’d got it.

      As for him, well, he loved her, but not, apparently, with sufficient heat to compromise his own life.

      Or maybe he was being hard on himself. Maybe he loved her just enough to realise that in time he would come to resent her for making the compromise necessary. That she would resent him for making her choose.

      He slumped back into his seat, giving her time to leave the car park. He couldn’t face the awkward little smiles, the nods, as they made their way to their respective vehicles. The silly shrugs of people who have already said goodbye but can’t seem to get away from each other. Saying goodbye once had been hard enough.

      So he picked up the newspaper that she’d left on the table. It was folded back at a piece about some cottages being renovated to provide holiday accommodation for kids. Kids who had nothing. Which put his problem, that of having too much, into perspective.

      Willow switched on her cellphone, ignored the message-waiting icon flashing importantly at her and then realised she hadn’t brought the paper with her. She could buy another, but going back would risk walking into Mike again. Walking away three times in one day was never going to be possible.

      It hadn’t been easy saying no to the honeymoon. It wasn’t Mike she’d walked away from. It was the life being his wife would slot her into. She’d begun to realise that before the Globe’s job offer had dropped on her doormat. That had been her escape route, not the reason for needing one. She still loved Mike. She always would.

      Which was why, instead of going back for a paper, she searched her notebook, flipping back through it until she found Emily’s number.

      ‘Willow? I thought you were getting married today.’

      ‘There’s been a change of plans,’ she said with determined brightness. ‘It was mutual, but rather public and I need a bolt-hole for a few days. I wondered if you’ve got a place for an apprentice painter?’

      ‘At the cottages, you mean? You bet. It’s a bad time of year to get volunteers. The men are all too busy with gardening or painting their own houses while the sun shines. The women are all too busy nagging them.’

      ‘Well, you’ve got me—full-time, if you want me. Can I stay there?’

      ‘Well, I suppose so. It isn’t furnished, but the water and electricity are all laid on. You just have to throw the switch, turn the stopcock. You’ll be on your own at night, though. Will you be all right? Maybe you’d be happier at the village pub. I can give them a call—’

      ‘Thanks, but I’d rather keep a low profile right now.’

      ‘Okay. Well, I’ll meet you at the cottages, then. I’ll bring a sleeping bag and a few provisions to see you over the weekend.’

      Mike stared at the paper but, instead of words, he just kept seeing Willow’s arrow-straight back as she’d headed for the door, walking out of his life. And he thought about what he’d said when he’d asked her to marry him. About wanting her there every morning when he woke.

      That hadn’t changed. Not by a heartbeat. One chance. Two dreams. There had to be a way to make it work and the table rocked as he leapt to his feet and, slamming the door open with the flat of his hand, he raced after her. There was no sign of her little yellow car in the car park and for a moment his heart plummeted. Then a flash of sunlight on a windscreen, just at the corner of his vision, sent him spinning round.

      It was Willow. Not heading for London, but going back the way she’d come. Going home after all? Surely not… And suddenly the words that he’d been reading so mindlessly came into focus. Made sense. Decorating. Helping someone, she’d said.

      He dashed back into the services and rescued the paper from the woman who was cleaning the table and scanned the page again, this time absorbing every detail. And the details made him smile. It was the perfect opportunity to start over, on the ground floor. And this time he would show her exactly who he was and what he did.

      The minute Emily left, Willow set to work. She had nothing else to do. She wasn’t hungry and, despite a certain lassitude, the result of reaction to the day’s events, she knew she wasn’t going to sleep any time soon.

      She opened a tin of paint, a glorious shade of sky blue for the day room. A place for the children to play games when the weather was too bad to be outside, a place for them to gather at night for stories and singing. She stirred it with an old wooden spoon provided for the purpose, picked up her paintbrush and began.

      She’d been going for about an hour when she heard a car pulling up behind the cottages. Emily had been so worried about leaving her on her own that Willow wasn’t particularly surprised, just curious at how inventive she’d be with an excuse for coming back to check on her.

      Easing her back, putting down the paintbrush and flexing fingers stiff from being held in one position for so long, stiff with paint, she decided that her visitor wouldn’t need an excuse; not if she’d brought a bottle of wine with her. And some fish and chips.

      She climbed down from the stepladder, wiped the back of her hand across her cheek and went to open the door. When she saw who was there, she tried to shut it again.

      She wasn’t quick enough. Mike ducked under the low doorway and was inside while her mouth was still flapping about, having trouble with the ‘go away’ words the occasion demanded.

      Mike, in paint-spattered jeans and a T-shirt that might once have been black, might once have had sleeves. Mike, with a sleeping bag rolled up beneath his arm.

CHAPTER

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