by Emily Forbes
She hoped she might not have to leave again at all.
Charli reached the top of the path and stopped in front of the memorial. It was a simple structure made of stone and wood and metal. She ran her fingers over the fifteen names etched into the metal before sitting at the base of the monument. She turned her back to the path and faced west towards the setting sun.
‘Charli?’
She almost didn’t turn around, thinking she was imagining the sound of her name, but then she heard it again.
‘Charli?’
She looked up, not quite able to believe what she was seeing.
‘Pat!’
He was smiling at her and his arms were open. Before his smile had time to stretch across his face Charli was on her feet and in his arms. He scooped her up and she buried her face into the curve of his jaw, inhaling his scent. Tears flooded her eyes. It felt so good, he felt so good. He felt like home.
He set her down on her feet but kept his hands on her waist, keeping her close. She tipped her head back to look at him and lifted her hand to his face, checking that he was real. The dark stubble of his beard grazed her palm as he turned his head and kissed the soft flesh at the base of her thumb. Her stomach flipped as his lips grazed her skin. He was definitely real.
‘What are you doing here?’
She had spent the hours of the long plane flight working out what she wanted to say but now that he was standing in front of her she couldn’t remember how, or where, she’d planned to start. Her heart was pounding and her body trembled a little with nerves.
She looked up at him, at his familiar smile, and as she looked into his green eyes the fog that had surrounded her for the past few weeks lifted. Her world was suddenly brighter and her outlook immediately seemed more positive. She still had no idea how he did it, how he had such an effect on her and her sense of well-being, but just having him there, with his arms around her, made her feel as though there was light at the end of the dark tunnel she had found herself in.
He looked pleased to see her but was he ready to hear what she had to say? She had to take the chance.
‘I came to see you,’ she said. Encouraged by his smile, she continued, ‘Getting on the plane to go back to England was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I thought it would be okay because it was my choice, I thought it wouldn’t hurt so much because I was the one leaving, but I hadn’t counted on leaving my heart behind. I told myself I was going off to a new job, a new future, a new life, but it wasn’t the future or life I wanted.’
‘No?’
She shook her head. ‘No.’
‘What do you want?’
‘I want you. I want us. I want a chance at being together, in whatever form that takes.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘I’m positive. And there’s more I need to say. Even if it’s still too soon for you or if you don’t think we have a future, I can’t leave things unsaid. I need to be brave. I need to know that I’ve gone after what I want. You might not want another wife. You might not want a stepmother for Ella but I want a chance to be a part of your life. To be with you. I love you.’
He cupped her chin with his fingers and tilted her face up to his. He bent his head and covered her lips with his. He wrapped his right arm around her waist and pulled her to him and kissed her firmly. She closed her eyes as she tasted him, as she melted into his embrace, surrendering to his touch, as everything came rushing back. He was so familiar. He was home.
God, she’d missed him.
Her lips were swollen and cold as his mouth left hers but his fingers traced the curve of her face. ‘I can’t believe you are here,’ he said. ‘Do you know, I was planning on coming to you?’
‘To me?’
He nodded. ‘I was just trying to work out the logistics of time off and who would look after Ella and then I was coming to find you.’
‘Why?’
‘To tell you I never should have let you go. I didn’t realise what I was losing when I let you go. I want more time with you, time to make a new life, new memories, a future. I lost the chance to make something special with you and I had no idea how much it would hurt, what it would cost me to say goodbye. I will always love Margie, she’s part of who I am, she’s part of Ella too, but she’s also part of my past. You are my future and I love you.’
‘You love me?’
‘I do.’ He nodded again and wrapped her in his arms, his hug familiar, warm and comforting, and there was nowhere else she wanted to be. ‘I should have asked you to stay but I didn’t think I could. I didn’t think it was fair to ask you to give up everything and take us on. I knew you had reservations about being a stepmother and I think you had reservations about me too.’
‘I would have stayed if you’d said you loved me but I didn’t think you really needed me. I didn’t think I would ever be important enough and I didn’t want to be second best. But I’ve regretted leaving ever since. It was a mistake. I missed you and I should have told you how I felt.’
‘You’re not second best.’
‘It’s okay. I’m happy to be second to Ella. She should be the most important person in your life, she deserves that, it’s what I always wanted from my own father. I just need to be in your heart too.’
‘You are definitely in my heart. I loved Margie and I love Ella but I also love you. Love isn’t finite,’ he said. ‘I’m not afraid to love again. There’s room in my heart for all of you. Do you trust me?’
‘With my life. You saved me once already.’
‘Then trust that I need you in my life. I fell for you the moment I first saw you and I started to fall in love with you and your courage and your spirit while you were trapped, and then I continued to fall in love with you a little more each day, but I didn’t realise it until you left me. Until I was trying to live without you. I don’t want to live my life without you. I love you and I want us to be together. I want you to share your life with me. And Ella. With us.’
‘Do you think I can do it? Do you think I can be a stepmother? I haven’t had a great experience.’
‘I know you’re worried about that but Ella adores you and she doesn’t need a stepmother. She needs a mother. All you need to do is love her. She doesn’t remember Margie and that’s something that I had to learn to deal with, but I don’t want her to forget you too. I don’t want to lose you as well. I want to spend my life with you. I want a future with you. We’ll figure it all out. Together.’
As the sun dipped below the mountains and the sky turned pink Pat dropped to one knee and held her hands. ‘Charli, I want to give you the peace, stability, happiness and love that you deserve. Will you do me the honour of becoming my wife? Will you love me and Ella? Will you make us a family? Will you marry me?’
Charli beamed as she pulled him to his feet. She had tears of happiness in her eyes as she said simply, ‘I will.’
She tilted her face up and kissed him, savouring the feel of his lips on hers. She’d had a million questions but none of them seemed important any more.
Patrick loved her. Nothing else mattered.
EPILOGUE
‘ARE YOU READY?’
Charli heard her father’s voice as he knocked on the closed door.
‘I’m ready.’
Charli couldn’t keep the smile off her face. She was getting married. Patrick was waiting for her at the edge of the lake. She felt as if she were dreaming. She could hardly believe that she could be so lucky. That this was actually happening. There had been no disasters. Everything had gone seamlessly.
She ran her hands down the front of her wedding dress, smoothing out the non-existent creases.
Harriet and Amy kissed her on her cheek and wished her well before leaving her to have a few minutes alone with her father. They had helped her to get ready, doing her hair and make-up and buttoning her into her dress. Butterfli
es danced in her belly as she thought about the person who would help her to undress later. She knew how lucky she was to be surrounded by friends and family, people who loved her, and she was so grateful. She was thankful that she’d been rescued and that Pat had been patient and taught her how to love him.
‘Charlotte, you look beautiful. So like your mother.’
She knew she looked like her mother but today she was going to let that support her and give her strength. She was happy and ready for the next stage in her life. She had completed one year as a medical officer at the Princess Elizabeth Hospital, working with Harriet and the medical staff who had looked after her following the landslide. She was loving her career and had been accepted into GP training in Victoria but she was also ready now to become a wife and mother. With Pat beside her, she was ready for anything.
‘He’s a good man, your Patrick, and a lucky one to have found you. I know you’ll both be very happy.’
Charli could see tears in his eyes. She wasn’t going to lose it before she got married. Today was a day for smiles, laughter and happiness.
‘Thanks, Dad.’ She tucked her arm into the crook of his elbow and kissed his cheek. ‘Shall we go?’
Pat’s mum was waiting outside the door with a very excited Ella.
Charli stepped out onto the wide veranda of the lake house and looked down to the water. White wooden chairs had been set out in rows facing the lake and the guests had taken their seats. She was vaguely aware of Pat’s father and Victoria in the first row with the twins who, amazingly for fifteen-month-old boys, were actually sitting still. Daniel sat alongside Victoria and Charli knew he’d have his eyes on Amy. She looked for Harriet among the hospital staff but saw her sitting with Pat’s paramedic mates. Interesting, she thought with a smile.
The string quartet from the local high school began to play and the guests all swivelled in their seats, turning to look at the bride, but now Charli only had eyes for Pat.
He was standing at the end of the grassy aisle on the bank of the lake under the wooden arch that she had watched him build. Heat flushed her cheeks as she thought about those late autumn weekends when he’d worked bare-chested in the sun, building the arbour.
He was flanked by his brother and Amy and he was smiling at her as he waited, and Charli had to stop herself from running to him and throwing herself into his arms. Looking at him now, she couldn’t believe she had once been scared to love him. She was a different person from the one he had first met. She was confident, secure, loved and happy. He had taught her how to open her heart and how to love.
Ella was getting impatient. ‘Now, Charli?’ she asked as she tugged on her hand.
Charli nodded and Ella took off down the wooden steps and skipped along the aisle, scattering pink and white rose petals from her basket. Charli and her father followed at a slightly more sedate pace.
Pat scooped Ella up when she got to the arbour and gave her a kiss before setting her down at his side. Charli passed Ella her bouquet to hold and Pat shook Jack’s hand before taking Charli’s hands in his.
He was grinning at her, his green eyes sparkling with love. ‘Do you want to get married now?’ he asked.
Charli smiled back at him. ‘I do.’
Pat leant in and kissed her as the celebrant cleared her throat. ‘I think you’re getting a little ahead of yourselves,’ she said with a smile, but Charli didn’t care. She was ready to marry Pat, ready to start their life together, ready to be a family.
‘I love you,’ she whispered to him. ‘I will always love you.’
* * *
If you enjoyed this story, check out these other great reads from Emily Forbes
Reunited with Her Brooding Surgeon
Falling for His Best Friend
One Night That Changed Her Life
A Mother to Make a Family
All available now!
Keep reading for an excerpt from The Doctor’s Marriage for a Month by Annie O’Neil.
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The Doctor’s Marriage for a Month
by Annie O’Neil
CHAPTER ONE
“NO TAKERS FOR the Nocturnal Turtle Tour?” asked Isla MacLeay as she scrubbed at her face, hoping her father couldn’t see that it was, as it had been for the past three days, stained with tears.
“Not tonight. I thought we had some takers, but...” Her father looked out at the huge expanse of beach before them. “I guess getting the sanctuary established is going to be a bit more of a task than I thought. Here you are, lassie.”
She felt one of her father’s soft cotton handkerchiefs brush against her hand. She took it with a smile she knew didn’t reach her eyes as her heart cinched tight. It was the second time this week he’d acted like a “real dad.”
If getting dumped a week before her wedding was all it took to get his attention, she would’ve faked a wedding years ago.
Before her father had found her she’d been sitting against a palm tree, next to the little tote bag that held her diary and her increasingly eclectic pen collection, almost enjoying quietly sniffling away as silvery moonlight bathed the idyllic crescent of beach, where palm leaves murmured in the light breeze as the warm Caribbean sea lapped and teased at the pure white sand.
She’d come a long way from her little Scottish home in Loch Craggen, but tonight the beach had been as far as she’d been prepared to go.
She had kissed her father goodnight when he’d pulled out yet another one of his huge folders full of plans for the El Valderon Turtle Sanctuary and, not being sleepy, had strolled to the beach for a bit of a sob, leaving the low-slung buildings of the sanctuary behind her, and losing herself to the beautiful cove which they surrounded.
The billowing foam arcing atop the waves surging in from the Caribbean Sea reminded her of a delicate glass of fizz, just about to overflow. Not that she was used to champagne being popped and poured at the drop of a hat. Her fiancé—her ex-fiancé—hadn’t really been one to plump for that sort of thing. Not for her, anyway.
Remembering his words had fresh tears rolling down her freckled cheeks. Just in case she hadn’t understood what “I’ve fallen in love with someone else” meant...he’d gone on to make it plain as day.
“How could I marry you? It wouldn’t be fair. To either of us. Sorry, babes. Now that I’ve dipped my toe into the waters of life off Craggen it’s plain as day. I’m a world traveler. And, as much as it pains me to say it, you’re a boring, rule-abiding, science nerd. It’s just not my scene, darlin’. Ciao!”
Ciao?
The man had
only flown to Italy once. He’d not even left the airport and now he was fluent?
Pffft. That showed her for falling for pretty words and a handsome face. She saw it now. Plain as the hand in front of her face. Kyle had only wanted someone reliable until something better came along. The next man she met and fell for would be a nerd through and through.
“There’s nothing wrong with being reliable as a millstone.”
When her grandmother had said it, it had sounded like a good thing.
When Kyle had said it she’d instantly heard the bell toll for the end of their marriage plans.
She couldn’t help but wonder how others might have reacted—what people who were perky flight attendants in Europe might have been inclined to say.
Not that she’d met Kyle’s new girlfriend. Girlfriend! But the rumor mill ran stronger than the mountain rivers that flowed into the inky depths of Loch Craggen. Apparently the new girlfriend was absolutely adorable and soooo sophisticated.
What was wrong with corduroy skirts, woolly tights and hand-knitted jumpers? It was cold in Loch Craggen. Even in August.
Which was precisely why she had packed just about nothing appropriate for her last-minute trip El Valderon. Was there anything appropriate, apart from mourning clothes? She wasn’t mourning Kyle, exactly. But she did feel she was mourning the loss of something intangible. Either way, she needed new clothes and had promised to take herself shopping. One of these days.
Pop! Pop! Pop!
Startled into the present, she stared with her father out into the inky darkness as the moon slid behind a cloud.
“What was that?”
Despite the late-night tropical heat, goose bumps rippled up Isla’s arms, then shot down her back.
It wasn’t a sudden chill she felt.
It was fear.
She pressed her fingers to her eyes, gave them a quick rub, then pinged them open, forcing herself to adjust to the inky darkness.
“Dad?” She couldn’t see him. He’d been right beside her a second ago!