After a very successful shopping trip to the wholesalers, the taxi driver deposited her right outside the station, and she realised if she hurried she could just make the next train, which left in five minutes. Rushing through the barrier, she found the platform and made a mad dash to the train, pulling the now quite heavy case along behind her. Thank goodness she’d brought it – although perhaps if she hadn’t, she wouldn’t have been quite so tempted. She had a ton of ideas for Amelie and Johannes’s wedding cake, and had bought ready-roll icing, a selection of bottles of colour, a roll of fancy ribbon, and some delicate sprays of moulded-icing roses, as well some speciality flour, some cake bases, dowelling, and a tiny bride and groom. If Luke had been here, she might have asked him to help make a bride and groom – with his modelling skills, he’d have been invaluable. And there she was bloody thinking about him again.
With a minute to spare, she jumped onto the train, and was about to slam the door behind her when a voice shouted urgently, ‘Wait!’ She left the door and moved a step forward. Two seconds later someone hurled themselves through the door, knocked her flying – and to add insult to injury, landed on top of her.
Blue eyes appeared as a hand pushed a shaggy mop of hair from his face.
Completely winded by the fall, it took her a second to try and catch her breath, but that failed as everything went haywire. Her pulse exploded into hyper-speed and her breath caught in her chest as she stared into the familiar face.
He grinned down at her.
Finally, she managed to haul air into her deprived lungs as the train smoothly moved off.
‘Do you think you could move your pointy elbow out of my ribs?’ she asked with a gasp, pushing at his arm uncomfortably wedged into her side.
‘Oh, sorry.’ He sat up and then reached for her, pulling her up to a sitting position. ‘We really must stop meeting like this.’
For a moment she glared at him and then thumped him hard on the arm. ‘Is that all you can say?’ she asked indignantly, although every nerve-ending in every last bit of her jumped up and down with happiness.
‘I love you. I missed you. I’m sorry.’
‘I should think so too. What kept you?’
‘Well, apparently it’s quite difficult getting off a boat when you’re halfway across the Irish Sea.’
‘Luke, I was joking. Why are you here?’
‘Because it turns out the opportunity of a lifetime doesn’t mean much when you’re missing someone so much you want to gnaw your own arm off.’
Mina laughed. ‘That’s not terribly romantic.’
‘I know, but that’s how I felt. It was awful. I couldn’t stop thinking about you. I thought perhaps when we set off, it might get better, but it was worse and the sea sickness didn’t help. Luckily I was so ill that they let me bail in Dublin.’
‘Oh, Luke.’
He gave her a naughty grin. ‘I’m also, it turns out, quite a good actor. I might have exaggerated my symptoms somewhat. It was that or jump overboard.’
‘I think jumping overboard would have been a little drastic.’
He shrugged his shoulders, those blue eyes dancing, ‘You’re worth it.’
‘Seriously, Luke. It was a big deal.’
‘Not when I was on a boat heading in the opposite direction from you.’ His tone might have been jokey, but his eyes were deadly serious.
‘But what about your career?’ Mina spluttered, still not quite able to believe he was really here. ‘The adventure?’
‘I want to try a new adventure. One with you by my side. And I hate to say it—’ his mouth quirked in what she assumed was an attempt at modesty ‘—but I’ve already been offered two other jobs, both of which are based in Geneva.’
‘Well, that’s handy.’
‘I thought so. I think if you’re going to start an adventure with the love of your life, being in the same country is a good start.’ He let out a laugh. ‘You know I love you, Mina Campbell.’
‘And I love you Luke… whatever your bloody surname is.’
‘You’re not going to believe this but it’s… Love.’
‘What?’
‘Whatever my parents named me, it was going to be problematic with a surname like that. It’s derived from “luiff”, which meant wolf, and there are ten thousand of us in the UK, so it’s not completely weird.’
