Mother of the Bride

by Caroline Anderson

  ‘Can’t you do that while you’re down there doing other weddings, and then order them—you surely don’t print them, do you?’

  She shook her head. ‘No. I edit them on my laptop, save them when the couple are happy and get the disk processed by a specialist firm. It’s one of the joys of digital photography. And that’s another point—we’ll need a photographer. I wanted to talk to you about that.’

  He lifted a brow. ‘That’s your department. Got any ideas?’

  ‘Yes—and most of them involve me taking the shots!’

  ‘No,’ he said firmly, his eyebrows scrunching down in a frown. ‘It’s your daughter’s wedding. You can’t take the photos.’

  ‘No, I know I can’t, but I know a man who can,’ she said with a slow smile, and Rob smiled back, the frown clearing.

  ‘I was hoping you would. What about Jenni? What will she think of this other person?’

  ‘She’s happy. I’ve asked her. Now I just have to ask him, see if he’s available. He might not be, in which case we’ll have to think again, but I’ll check with him tomorrow.’

  She jotted it on her to-do list, then looked up at Rob. ‘Anything else?’

  ‘Not that I can think of. So is that the lot?’

  ‘I believe so, for now.’

  ‘Thank God,’ he said, rolling his eyes. ‘In which case, as it’s a lovely day, why don’t we go for a little stroll?’

  She studied him warily. She knew him and his little strolls of old. ‘Sure. Anywhere in particular?’

  He shrugged. ‘Wherever you like. I don’t mind.’

  ‘There was a glen you took me to, the first time I came up here with you. It was beautiful—so peaceful. I’d love to see it again, maybe take some photos, but I have no idea where it was and I don’t suppose you remember.’

  ‘I remember,’ he said, his voice suddenly slightly gruff. He cleared his throat and stood up, easing out the kinks in his shoulders with a hearty stretch that made her heart beat just a little faster. ‘You’d better change into something warm—jeans and a jumper. I’ll see if I can find you some boots. Will Jenni’s fit you?’

  ‘Oh—yes. We tend to share them.’

  ‘I might have known you wouldn’t have a pair of your own,’ he teased, his voice soft now, and she huffed a little.

  ‘I’ll have you know I walk a lot!’

  ‘On pavements. That doesn’t count.’

  ‘It most certainly does! I walk miles.’

  But he just grinned, and said, ‘Tell me that when you’re at the top of the ridge,’ and opening the door, he ushered her out, that smile still playing around his eyes and making her heart do funny things.

  Things it should have got over years ago.

  ‘Ten minutes,’ he said. ‘I’ll meet you in the kitchen.’

  And he disappeared off down the back stairs, leaving her to sort herself out.

  It really was the most glorious day.

  Rob had a small rucksack—‘because I know you’re going to want to take your fleece off’—and before they left, he smothered her in insect repellent.

  She felt like a child, standing with her face upturned while he squirted Deet on his hands and rubbed them together, then wiped them over her cheeks, her brow, her temples, under her chin and down her throat, over the pulse that she knew was hammering under his fingertips.

  But he couldn’t have noticed, because there wasn’t so much as a flicker of reaction, and when he’d done that he gave his hands another squirt and threaded them through her hair, gently massaging the spray into her scalp before stepping back and doing the same to himself before dropping the bottle into the rucksack.

  ‘Right, let’s go.’

  He turned away, the dogs at his heels, and she followed him, her eyes fixed on his back, trying not to notice the flex of taut muscles as he strode up the steep slope behind the castle, heading for the path that they’d taken before.

  She didn’t think about his muscles for long, though, because her own took over in protest. After a short while she started breathing harder, then her thighs started to ache, and she concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other until they reached the top of the rise, by which time her thighs were screaming and Jenni’s boots were beginning to rub.

  She was hot, too, but there was no way she was giving Rob her fleece to carry, so she tied it round her waist and slogged on without a word.

  The way levelled out then, to her relief, running along the back of a ridge and heading out into the hills above the village. They were walking in woodland, scrubby trees and rhododendrons mostly, interspersed with conifers and gnarled, twisted birches with nothing but the odd scuttle in the undergrowth to disturb the peace. The path was broader here, and he held back until she fell into step beside him.

  ‘OK?’

  ‘I’m fine,’ she lied, wishing she’d put thicker socks on. ‘You?’

  He eyed her fleece and gave her an enigmatic smile. ‘I’m fine,’ he echoed. They walked on in silence for a while, but unlike some of the silences they’d shared recently, this one was companionable.

  ‘We used to do this a lot,’ she said, after a while. ‘Before Jenni.’

  He gave a small grunt of acknowledgement, and draped his arm around her shoulders, giving her a brief hug. ‘We did. Seems a long time ago. Lot of water under a lot of bridges.’

  ‘Tell me about it,’ she muttered, and she was just wondering if it would be a totally stupid idea to slide her arm round his waist when he dropped his and moved away, leaving her feeling ridiculously bereft.

  But he was only heading up a narrow path, turning from time to time to help her up a tricky bit, and every time he did that, every time he wrapped his warm, hard hand around hers to steady her, she felt a jolt right down to her toes. Crazy. She had to keep this in perspective, remember that he was only doing this so they could be friends, looking to the future, to the time when they would be grandparents, though how they were meant to be grandparents when they’d hardly even managed to be parents was a mystery to her.

  With any luck Jenni and Alec wouldn’t be in any hurry to start a family, though, and maybe by the time they did she would have got her feelings for Rob under control.

  Huh. Fat chance, she thought, and tripped over a root she’d failed to see. His hand flew out and steadied her, solid and reliable, there for her in the way he should have been all those years ago, and as she trudged after him she tried to work out when it had all gone wrong. Before Jenni, maybe? When he’d gone away to the navy and left her behind?

  No. They’d been blissfully happy whenever he’d been at home, which had been quite frequently at first. It was only once he’d gone to sea that the gaps had been longer. Too long.

  She gave a little shiver, suddenly oppressed by the trees, but then it opened out, the woodland giving way to glorious open country, glens and mountains stretching away in front of them, gilded by the spring sunshine, and they paused to take in the view while she got her breath back.

  And it was spectacular. The colours were amazing in the sun. Greens and golds and purples and a rich, peaty brown— it was beautiful, as lovely as she’d remembered it, and she felt her heart lift. ‘It’s just stunning,’ she said in awe, reaching for her camera, and he smiled.

  ‘It is, isn’t it? I never get tired of it.’

  ‘Even in the rain?’ she teased, turning to fire off some shots of him, but he just shook his head, his smile wry as she kept on shooting.

  ‘Never. We need the rain. The whole ecosystem of the peat bogs and granite escarpments depends on it.’

  ‘Including the midges,’ she said, slapping her neck ruefully, and he pulled the bottle of insect repellent out again and reapplied it, his fingers firm and deft, setting her heart off again and sending shivers of aching need racing all over her body.

  ‘You used to do this before,’ she murmured, and his eyes darkened, locking with hers, the expression in them guarded. For what seemed like an age, they stood there, eyes l
ocked, his pupils dark with some nameless emotion that made her want to cry.

  ‘That was a long time ago, Maisie,’ he said gruffly, and recapped the bottle as he stepped away from her, giving her room to breathe. He threw the bottle back in the rucksack, turned on his heel and set off again along the ridge, following the path to the head of the glen while she trailed behind him and cursed her stupid overactive hormones.

  Except, of course, it was nothing to do with hormones, and everything to do with the fact that she still loved him, and always had.

  CHAPTER SIX

  HE could hear her breathing hard behind him, but never once did she make a murmur, and after another short climb he stopped and turned towards her.

  She couldn’t have been looking, her eyes trained on the path, and she cannoned into him, her soft, warm body colliding with his chest with a breathy ‘Oomph’, and his hands came up to catch her.

  She felt so good. Too good, and holding her was making him ache for her all over again. He still hadn’t got over holding her that morning, when he’d taken her into his arms and hugged her, and if he didn’t let go of her soon, he wasn’t going to be able to. He steadied her, then let her go, stepping back and dragging in some of the fresh, moist air before he did something stupid like kiss her.

  ‘Still think you’re fit?’ he teased to get a rise out of her and lighten the atmosphere, but she just laughed grimly and tipped back her head and met his eyes in challenge, and heat slammed through him again.

  ‘I’m fine,’ she said determinedly, but he knew she wasn’t. There’d been a hitch in her stride, just the merest suggestion of a limp, and he thought the boots might be rubbing.

  ‘Good,’ he said evenly, and shucking off the rucksack he sat down on a dry rock and pulled it open. ‘I thought we could sit here and take in the view for a few minutes before we head back. I can’t afford to be out too long, I’ve got things to do. Guests to see to.’

  Guilt brushed her eyes, and he felt an echo of it clutch his gut. He was lying—partly to save her from herself, because he knew she would go on until she was on her knees, and partly because every cell in his body was screamingly aware of their isolation.

  They were utterly alone, with only the dogs and the wildlife for company, and it was too tempting. Too—dammit— too dangerous. And he wanted to apologise for lying, but then he’d have to explain why, and he wasn’t going there to save his life.

  ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to take you away from your work,’ she said, but he shook his head, the guilt eating him.

  ‘Forget it. It was my idea to go for a walk. Here—present from Mrs McCrae.’

  And he handed her a chunk of gingerbread, then poured two steaming mugs of tea while the dogs lined up and stared hopefully at them both, just in case. Just like him with Maisie.

  ‘Not a chance,’ he told them with irony as she reached for the tea, their fingers brushing and sending a current surging through him.

  He pulled his hand back, shocked at the strength of his reaction. How could he still want her? After all this time, how could he still need her so badly? Because he did need her, and for two pins he’d have her back.

  The realisation held him immobile for a second, but she didn’t notice, she was staring out over the glen, her eyes soft-focused.

  ‘It really is so beautiful here,’ she said, her voice slightly awestruck, as if she’d only just remembered it. And maybe she had, he thought. Maybe, for the first time since she’d gone away, she was starting to remember the good times. And they had had good times—lots of them. He wondered if she was thinking about them. She wasn’t even taking photographs, just soaking it all up, her expression rapt and somehow wistful as she turned to him.

  ‘No wonder you love it so much.’

  He nodded. He couldn’t speak, because it wasn’t the countryside he was looking at, it was Maisie, and he loved her so much it hurt.

  Still, after everything, he loved her.

  ‘We had some good times, didn’t we, Rob?’ she asked, her voice soft as she echoed his thoughts, and he nodded again.

  ‘Yes, Maisie. We had some good times. Very good times.’

  She sighed quietly. ‘I loved you, Rob,’ she murmured. ‘I loved you so much, and I really thought you loved me. What went wrong?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ It was the honest truth, perhaps the first time he’d faced it. Sitting here with her now, he realised he actually didn’t know what had gone wrong. He’d always thought she’d walked away from a good marriage, but now he wasn’t so sure. She’d walked away from a situation more intolerable than he’d realised, but there had been more wrong with it than that, and maybe they’d both assumed that love alone would have been enough to make it work.

  And of course it wasn’t enough. It needed work, effort, application on both sides. And it would have helped a whole lot if they hadn’t both been kids.

  She turned back, and then her eyes narrowed. ‘Is that an eagle?’ she asked, her voice soft, and he leant closer and peered along her arm, feeling her thrill as they watched the bird riding the thermals.

  ‘Yes. The male, I believe.’

  ‘Oh, why didn’t I bring my long zoom with me?’ she wailed under her breath. ‘I wish I had some binoculars—’

  He was already reaching in the rucksack for them, and he pulled them out with a rueful grin. ‘You wanted binoculars?’

  She turned to look at him and started to laugh. ‘What else have you got in there, Mary Poppins?’ she asked him, and he gave a rusty chuckle and passed her the glasses.

  ‘Oh, now, let me see, there’s a standard lamp, and—’

  ‘Idiot. Oh, I can’t see it any more.’

  ‘No. They’re elusive and they blend incredibly well with the landscape. They’re nesting over in the next glen, but it’s hard to get to—which, of course, makes it a perfect choice as a nesting site, so you were very lucky to spot him, but it tends to frustrate the guests. There are lots of buzzards, though, and that tends to get them pretty excited when they mistake them for the eagles.’ He grinned. ‘We call them tourist eagles.’

  She laughed softly. ‘That’s mean.’

  ‘No, it’s not. We don’t lie to them, but if they come back all excited and tell us they’ve seen eagles and we know they’d be really disappointed if we told them the truth, we let them believe it, even though the buzzards are incredible in their own right. Beautiful birds, but the punters want eagles. It makes them happy, and we like happy customers.’

  ‘Does that include me? Because if it wasn’t an eagle, I’d rather you didn’t lie to me. I think buzzards are just as lovely. They’re one of the things I remember.’

  His heart squeezed in his chest, and he managed a smile. ‘I’m not lying to you, Maisie,’ he assured her softly. ‘It was definitely an eagle. I’m just not sure if it was the male or the female. The buzzards have different markings.’

  ‘How can you see from that range?’ she asked, and he chuckled quietly.

  ‘One of the advantages of long sight. It makes up for the frustration of holding things at arm’s length to read the small print.’

  She smiled at that and turned back, scouring the glen for another glimpse of the magnificent bird, but it was gone, so she turned her attention to the gingerbread and he had to drag his eyes off her. Again.

  ‘Jenni tells me you’ve been renting out the cottages to holidaymakers for a while now,’ she said softly after a few minutes. ‘How’s it going?’

  ‘Very well,’ he said, nodding slowly. ‘We do low-impact holidays—boat trips, guided walks, a little fishing, some deer stalking, but only with cameras, and the fishing’s all catch and release. And to be fair the trout are pretty wily, so they don’t get caught often. The visitors come for the walking and the wildlife, mostly, but they keep us out of mischief, and it pays the running costs of the estate. It can get a bit manic, though, in the summer, with them all wanting a piece of you at the same time.’

  ‘How many cottages are there?�
�

  ‘On the estate? Twelve, but Alec’s parents have one, and the ghillie has one, and of course Jenni and Alec will have the gatehouse, so that leaves nine for letting, but two of those only sleep two.’

  ‘And the rest?’

  ‘The biggest takes eight. Our total capacity’s forty, so in the summer Saturdays can be a bit crazy, but we have a brilliant team from the village who come and clean and turn them round. And once Jenni’s up here she’s going to be joining the team full time. We’re going to use one of the rooms in the gatehouse as a reception and welcome centre for the guests as they arrive, a first point of contact, and that’ll be her focus. She’s going to be our front-of-house girl.’

  ‘Yes, she mentioned that. She’ll be good at it, I can see her doing that. She’s got your easy charm with people, always has had. Maybe it’s a shame she didn’t study hospitality and tourism. It might have been more relevant than history.’

  ‘No. She’s enjoyed history, and it’s equally appropriate. She’s been working her way through the books in the library here, cataloguing them, and she’s found all sorts of interesting old tomes. You ought to get her to show you if you get a moment before the wedding.’

  The word seemed to bring her back down to earth with a bump. She chewed her lip, so that he wanted to reach out his thumb and soothe it, then kiss it better.

  ‘This wedding,’ she said, her brow puckering in a little frown.

  He made himself concentrate. ‘What about it?’

  ‘It’s a really busy time for you, isn’t it?’

  ‘Pretty busy. Still, it won’t be a problem. The grounds are always kept tidy for the guests, and the house has been decorated from end to end in the last two years, so there isn’t much to do in that way. And trust me, we’ll have a fleet of staff to do all the to-ing and fro-ing. It’ll be pretty painless, I think.’

  Maisie wasn’t so sure. She wondered if he’d missed the point, but she’d been to more weddings than he had and she had a better idea of what was in store. Let him think the worst was over for now. There was plenty of time to disillusion him.