City Girl in Training (12 page)

‘Pity about all those clothes you bought, though. Maybe you'd rather spend the next six months com
muting on the underground to the City—just to get some wear out of them.'

‘When are you planning on leaving for paradise?'

‘Not for a couple of months.'

‘Well, that's all right. I'll take half of them back. Trade them in for a bikini or three.'

He grinned. ‘Now that's what I call a
really
good plan.' He reached for me, intent on showing me just how good a plan he thought it was.

‘I have to shower,' I said, holding him off. ‘And I'm not the only one with messy details to clear up. You have to go and see your parents, Cal.'

‘I will. Later. But I'm not going empty-handed. It's nearly Christmas and you're my gift to them.'

‘Me?'

‘The only thing I can give my father that will atone for my desertion is the possibility of a grandson. A new generation of McBrides.'

‘Now you're really getting way ahead of yourself.'

‘Way ahead,' he agreed. ‘But I think we should put in some serious practice. Starting right now. If I have your full and wholehearted co-operation?'

Absolutely. One hundred per cent. I didn't waste breath telling him. Instead I concentrated on showing him exactly how wholehearted I felt about the future.

 

Everyone came home for the wedding. It was Christmas again. A year in which I'd learned all the joys of love and of travel. Okay, I still didn't like flying, but Cal held my hand and it was getting better.
I was never going to be completely cured, of course. I liked Cal holding my hand too much.

But now the world was white with frost, the bells were clear and true and the world was lit up with fairy lights, just for us.

My brothers diverted Cal with slanderous stories of my childhood. My sister organised a hen-party to rival her own. My mother looked unbearably smug, as if she'd planned it all. Maybe she had. Well, the part where she'd chiselled me away from my old life, anyway. And she was the one who'd bought that magazine with that quiz blazoned across the cover.

My father took my arm as we stood together in the doorway of the old church and looked down at me. ‘Happy?' he asked.

‘Blissful,' I said, and then the organ began to play and we moved forward. Standing, waiting for me, his green eyes blazing, afire with love, was Cal, my dearest heart, waiting to promise me the rest of his life. Not paradise. That would be like a hero without a little grit. Too much to live up to.

But close. Very close.

And as I reached him, placed my hand in his, he grasped it firmly in his own and I knew his promise was true and that he would never let it go.