*
My first surprise was the sight of the old fisherman in a suit. It made him look entirely different. He smelled different too. He entered the hallway on a cloud of Old Spice and mothballs. The suit was shiny in places, the way fabric goes when it hasn’t been set free from the wardrobe for a very long time.
‘Hi, Tom,’ I said with a broad smile, genuinely happy to see him. He was clutching a bunch of shop-bought flowers, and somehow that said more about how fond he was of Mum than anything else. ‘Are those for me?’ I asked playfully, putting out my hand to relieve him of the bouquet.
‘Don’t be daft. They’re for your mother,’ he said, shuffling a little awkwardly in a pair of shoes I bet hadn’t been on his feet for many years.
I surprised him by leaning over and dropping a light kiss on his weather-beaten cheek. ‘She’ll love them,’ I whispered. ‘And you’re looking very dapper today.’
‘Dapper,’ he said, with what was probably meant to be a dismissive snort, but I could tell from his quicksilver smile that he was pleased with the description.
Tom headed to the kitchen, where Mum’s squeal of pleasure told me he’d hit a bullseye with the flowers. Giving them a moment of privacy, I’d turned towards the stairs, my thoughts still troubled about Amelia, when the sound of a car pulling up outside the cottage stopped me in my tracks.
I glanced towards the front door and then at Amelia, who was descending the stairs. Ignoring my panicked expression, she looked beyond me at the dining table.
‘You’ve done it wrong. You’ve only set four places. There’s five of us for lunch.’
Swallowing was suddenly really, really difficult.
‘What do you mean? Amelia, what have you done?’
She gave me a tough-love stare, seemingly unaware how close I was to killing her.
‘Someone had to do it.’
I heard the sound of a car door slamming.
‘Do what? Who is the extra place for?’
She shook her head, looking almost disappointed in me.
‘Don’t be dense, Lexi.’
A knock behind me caused the blood to drain from my face.
‘Go on then,’ she urged, nodding towards the front door. ‘Let’s see this guy I was meant to be married to.’
Still blindsided, I opened the door. Nick was standing before it, looking so impossibly handsome that the breath caught at the back of my throat.
His face lit up in a long smile when he saw me. There must have been hundreds of people who’d smiled at me in my lifetime – maybe even thousands. So what was it about Nick’s –and only Nick’s– that had the ability to ignite this inferno within me? I slipped through the front door and pulled it to a close behind me, shutting out the members of my family who had crowded into the hall.
Nick looked like his alter ego today, with his black hair neatly combed and his dark-framed glasses in place, rather than the contacts he sometimes favoured. He wasn’t dressed as formally as Tom, but the trousers and blue shirt combo were a world away from the casual attire I was more used to seeing him in.
‘Hello, Lexi.’
God, how I’d missed that voice.
‘I’m guessing by the shocked expression on your face that no one told you I was coming today?’
I shook my head dumbly, wondering when the ability to speak might return.
Nick reached across and gently pulled my hand away from my throat, where it had flown the second I’d seen him. He didn’t release it from his own but threaded his fingers through mine.
‘I… I… I didn’t… I wasn’t…’
‘I’m guessing it wasn’t her scintillating conversation that first attracted you to my sister,’ said a voice behind me.
I spun around to see that Amelia had opened the front door and was standing in its frame with an exceedingly smug look on her face. I could see Tom and Mum craning their necks in the background, trying to get a better view of what was going on.
