“It’s going to be fine. Why are you frowning?”
“Because I’m worried this is all going to be a giant shock for them.” Still, she had to trust that he knew what he was doing. “I suppose I always assumed that close families tell each other everything.”
“Not always. And not everything. Sharing is optional. We still have some secrets.” He shrugged and started the engine. “Let’s go. Before I take you to meet my family, we’re going for a long walk on the beach and I’m going to show you the most spectacular ruined castle. Wear all your layers. It’s going to be cold.”
It wasn’t the cold that worried her.
She tried to ignore the feeling of disquiet. He knew his own family. If he thought everything would be fine, then he was probably right.
She should stop worrying.
Her first-ever proper family Christmas. This was what she’d always wanted, wasn’t it?
Merry Christmas, Hayley.
Chapter5
Becky
She raised an eyebrow when she saw the car.
Sporty. Deep midnight blue. She tried to look casual and uninterested but inside she was as excited as a child waiting for Santa to pop down the chimney. She wanted to crawl underneath its sleek, perfectly engineered body and take a closer look at the engine. She wanted to find an open road and put it through its paces.
For the first time since she’d walked into the airport, she was relieved that nothing was flying.
But she kept her expression blank. “Midlife crisis, Will?”
He dealt with their luggage.
“It’s all about the engine. I love engines, you know that.”
She did know that. He and her brother had spent hours tinkering with cars when they were growing up and she’d hung around, handing them whatever they asked her to hand then, fascinated by the mechanics and wanting to be part of it all. In that way, and in so many other ways, she was different to her sister.
When Rosie had been playing with dolls and going toballet classes, Becky had been playing with train sets and racing cars. When Rosie had gone to ballet camp, Becky had gone to coding camp. She’d built her first game at the age of ten. She’d been the only girl in a group of fifteen boys, but that hadn’t bothered her. It had been good preparation for life. When she’d gone to university to study computer engineering, she’d been one of ten girls in an intake of a hundred and fifty, and that hadn’t bothered her either. By the time she’d graduated it had been six girls because four of them had switched courses. Becky hadn’t understood why they would do that. Didn’t they love it? She loved it. Loved it too much to care what other people thought of her or her skills. Programming was a way of solving complex problems, and she loved solving complex problems. And if she was surrounded by people who sneered and mocked her abilities, she ignored them just as she ignored the jibes that she’d only been given a place at what was considered one of the best universities in the world because she was a woman and they needed more women. Let them think what they wanted to think. Tell themselves what they needed to tell themselves.
From day one she’d focused on the work. She was insatiably curious. She wasn’t afraid to ask questions, however stupid they might seem. She studied. If she didn’t understand something she studied harder. She learned. Her marks were the best in her group. She had a natural talent, but there were other things she wasn’t so good at. Small talk. Being sociable with strangers. Making friends. None of that happened easily. She didn’t have the knack and didn’t know how to develop those skills, probably because she hadn’t had to. At school she’d had the same circle of friends as Rosie and her sister, sociable, friendly and good-natured, had done all the work. And Becky had let her.
In her first year of college she’d been on her own. She had a room on a long corridor and shared a kitchen with other students, but she usually grabbed sandwiches or ate cereal from abox that she kept under her bed so that she didn’t have to venture into that terrifying space.
In her second year she’d moved out of college accommodation and into a small apartment with Rosie.
Living with her twin was easy because it was familiar.
They understood and accommodated each other’s differences (although not without significant grumbling on occasion). Rosie wore short skirts and makeup and loved parties. Becky wore jeans and hoodies and clumpy boots and never understood the point of parties. She didn’t like the noise, she didn’t have much interest in talking to strangers and she was hopeless at flirting. She preferred being with people she knew. People she was comfortable with. People like Will, although she was a lot less comfortable with him since the wedding.
Still, this car reminded her why she and Will were friends, and it wasn’t just because he was close to her brother.
She prowled around the car, trying not to drool on it. She couldn’t criticize him for spending his money on it because she would have done the same if she hadn’t lived in London. Traffic didn’t move much so it would have been cruel and frustrating on both her and the car. And then there was the fact that she didn’t have the money. Neither seemed to be a problem for him.
She touched the paintwork reverentially. “Why were you flying up north?”
“You mean when I could have driven this?” The amusement on his face told her he knew exactly how much she loved the car. “Same reason as you. I thought flying would be the fastest way to get home. I had to see a couple of patients first thing so I couldn’t make a quick getaway.” He loaded the last of their luggage into the car.
“You’ve seen patients this morning?”
“A couple of complicated cases I wanted to check on before going away.” He slid into the car and she did the same, resisting the urge to ask if she could drive it.
She almost had to sit on her hands. “Jamie told me you’d got a new job. Congratulations.”
