by Cathy Kelly
‘You are attracted to this woman?’
‘Yes.’
‘Sexually?’
‘Yes.’
‘And you think she might be attracted to you?’
Faenia nodded. ‘Absolutely.’
‘We can’t choose who we are attracted to. This transition is out of your control.’
Faenia had asked Nic for a coffee: she had to know if she was imagining it. And sitting in that coffee shop with Nic, she had suddenly known for sure that she was wildly attracted to this other woman. Their hands had brushed when they both touched the bill at the same time and when Nic’s fingers reached hers briefly, it was like an electric shock shooting through her.
‘I don’t know what to say,’ said Nic. ‘I’m sorry …’
‘Why are you sorry?’ said Faenia, feeling a surge of love and joy. This was wonderful, exciting and Nic was the most incredible woman in the world. Who cared what the label said: Faenia never worried about labels. What counted was how you felt about something new, not what someone else had written on it.
‘Honey,’ said Nic now, in a message that had been left the previous day, ‘I can’t do this any more. I went by the house and you’re gone. I understand if you don’t want to see me or talk to me, but please call. I couldn’t live with myself any more. I felt like Judas, so I told them. I told them all. And guess what, Melanie had guessed. “Mom, what took you so long to say it?” she said. I felt like a college kid coming out to her parents. She says we’re part of a big demographic. We’re a demographic, honey. So call me, please. If you still want to.’
The hotel curtains weren’t totally shut and morning sun was beginning to stream in through the crack in the fabric. It was nearly eleven at night in San Francisco. But what the hell, she’d wake Nic. Some things couldn’t wait.
Epilogue
In the bridal suite in Lisowen Castle, Jojo zipped up Cari’s cream dress.
‘Easier than all the little buttons last time,’ she said gently.
‘Closure, right?’ said Cari, half-turning to grin at her. ‘Making sure I am clear of all the pain of the past before I move on? I edited—’
‘— a book on it. Yeah, I know. Is there anything you didn’t edit a book on,’ Jojo teased, as she fastened the tiny popper fasteners on the wide skirt’s tight, cream satin belt.
‘I have stayed out of children’s fiction and my knowledge of epic ship battles in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries is pretty bad,’ Cari said thoughtfully. ‘The ship thing is huge. All hideous life below deck, cannon-ball wounds and people getting scurvy.’
‘Lovely. Trust you’re taking a couple of those novels on honeymoon?’
Cari grinned. ‘I am only taking seven books. Conal’s astonished. I told him I usually took ten for a two-week holiday, so I said he had to amuse me the rest of the time.’
‘Betcha he’ll take you up on that.’
‘Yes,’ sighed Cari. ‘I know marriage is not just about making love but hey, it’s fun, right?’
‘Yes,’ agreed Jojo, thinking of Hugh.
For so long, sex in their marriage had been part of a desperate attempt to make a baby. And then, sex had been off-limits as Jojo either waited to get pregnant via IVF or mourned not getting pregnant.
Actual making love had fallen so far off the scale that everything else had gone with it: affection, touching, hand-holding, a gentle kiss on the cheek. And affection made up a huge part of marriage.
Now that they’d turned off the whole baby-making part of the deal, their marriage had recovered and lovemaking was just that: two people making love to each other.
‘Now, twirl and show me.’
Cari twirled.
Jojo hated crying because her make-up had been so beautifully done, yet she welled up at the sight of her darling cousin in her second, for real, wedding dress.
This time, Cari wore a cream silk dress with a fitted bodice, a sweetheart neckline and tiny cap sleeves. The bodice swept down to a tiny waist and then flared out into a fairytale princess full skirt made with gossamer-light silk and decorated with hand-sewn roses.
‘You look beautiful,’ Jojo said huskily.
‘No crying at my second wedding,’ joked Cari. ‘At my third, maybe, when I’ve gone overboard with the plastic surgery and all.’ She went to the mirror and looked at herself. ‘Faenia has the most incredible taste.’
‘Yes,’ agreed Jojo. ‘I look at her work and I realise I know nothing. The people she’s dressed—’
‘—and the clothes she’s dressed them in,’ sighed Cari. ‘Incredible. Do you think she’d write a book …?’
The week they’d spent in San Francisco with Faenia and Nic had been so much fun for many reasons. Ostensibly, they were there to find the perfect wedding dress for Cari, but they’d managed to fit in visiting so many wonderful places, spent ages in Schiffer’s, the department store where Faenia worked, and Cari had adored being in the city where Armistead Maupin, one of her favourite writers, had set his glorious series of books.
‘I loved those books, too,’ said Nic, and across her head, Faenia and Cari had exchanged a grin.
‘Stop smirking at each other,’ said Nic, who may have looked like a delicate Southern rose with those fluffy blonde curls and wide-eyed blue stare, but was as sharp as they came and didn’t miss a thing. ‘Yes, how ironic, I liked a book with many gay characters and I was afraid to say I was a lesbian in case my children would hate me. So sue me, girls!’
‘Families can take news about their parents strangely,’ said Jojo with a grimace. ‘Thinking they have a life beyond you is not always easy to take.’
‘But you’re over that now, honey, aren’t you?’ said Nic, patting Jojo’s cheek in a motherly way.
‘Yes,’ said Jojo, leaning against the other woman and enjoying the motherliness.
‘Every girl misses her mama when she’s gone,’ Nic went on, ‘but Faenia and I can be stand-in mamas. Your US mamas.’
‘Thank you,’ said Jojo happily.
She had a wonderful relationship with Bess now. So much better once she’d realised that whatever else Bess was doing in her father’s life, it wasn’t trying to replace her mother. And Bess did love Jojo’s dad, adored him: it was obvious. He was happy with her and Jojo was happy for them both.
‘Can we come in?’
Jojo went to the door and Bess, Nora, Faenia and Nic stood there eagerly.
‘Oh look,’ said Nora, and she didn’t mind crying because of any amount of make-up. She’d already wiped half of it off and she hated mascara, anyway. It all rolled down your face, she felt.
‘That dress suits you as if it were made for you, Cari,’ said Faenia, beaming.
‘Perfect princess dress,’ said Nic in appreciation, ‘but no tiara. Honey, I thought we’d agreed on—’
Faenia kissed the woman she loved on the cheek. ‘You and your tiaras,’ she said. ‘We are going for simple and classy.’
‘And beautiful,’ said Bess, beaming.
‘What’s not classy about a tiara?’ demanded Nic, pretending to pout.
Everyone laughed.
‘Where are the bridesmaids?’ asked Cari, tweaking her hair a bit.
Nora laughed. ‘Well, your sister is still having an intense discussion with PJ even though I keep reminding her that she has bridesmaid duties. Trina doesn’t like the way Amy’s hair was done and she’s redoing it, and that’s it. The hairdresser is not happy, I can tell you.’
Bess shot a look of gratitude at Cari, and Cari smiled back. She understood.
Thank you for making Amy a bridesmaid, for making her part of all of this, Bess was saying.
The first time she’d said it, Cari had said: ‘Amy has brought me so much joy in work with her book, which is going to be a hit, I just know it, and I wanted to make it plain that the whole Brannigan clan are together, always.’
Bess, whom Cari had mistakenly thought was a bit of a tough nut, had welled up at that and hadn’t been able to speak. Tough nut indeed: mor
e of a meringue, Cari decided.
‘Thank you,’ Bess had finally managed to say.
There was another, tentative knock at the door.
Bess peered out.
It was Helen, wearing not a new dress but one of her old ones.
She still looked lovely, but that faintly supercilious look Bess had hated was gone. Helen had hit the real world with a bang.
Her and Kit’s home would have been sold if Edward hadn’t stepped in and paid the mortgage off.
‘Ooh you look gorgeous, Cari,’ she said, inserting herself into the room as if she might not be welcome.
‘Come on in,’ said Nora, who was now sitting on the bed.
‘We wondered where you’d got to,’ said Bess, and was rewarded by seeing Helen relax.
Nora was teaching her: not by actual lessons but by just watching. Compromise, she reminded herself.
Outside in the bar, the men were waiting.
Hugh and Paul were playing with little Heidi, who was now moving at speed and needed a sprinter to keep up with her.
‘She loves you,’ Paul remarked to his brother-in-law.
‘I love kids,’ said Hugh. ‘We’re on the adoption register now. It’s not an easy road in this country because we can only adopt from a few countries and the waiting time is long, but whatever it takes and however long it takes, I don’t care—’
He grabbed Heidi and cuddled her, while she squealed with her high-pitched laughter.
Edward, Mick and Kit wandered in after a little walk around the grounds.
‘I don’t know how you can wear these outfits, Ned,’ said Mick, pulling at his bow tie.
‘Blame your daughter for putting you into it,’ teased Edward. He wondered when Bess would be out of the room. He had a gift for her – a necklace for her wedding outfit. A tiny diamond heart on a platinum chain. Nothing that anyone else would notice but he knew she’d love it.
Conal came back from pacing outside.
‘Is she ever going to be ready?’ he said anxiously. He wanted a ring on Cari’s finger and he wanted it official as soon as possible.
His brother Jeff patted him on the back. ‘Welcome to being married, little bro,’ he said.
Also by Cathy Kelly
Woman to Woman
She’s the One
Never Too Late
Someone like You
What She Wants
Letter from Chicago (novella)
Just Between Us
Best of Friends
Always and Forever
Past Secrets
Lessons in Heartbreak
Once in a Lifetime
The Perfect Holiday (novella)
Homecoming
Christmas Magic (short stories)
The House on Willow Street
The Honey Queen
It Started With Paris
Between Sisters
An Orion ebook
First published in Great Britain in 2017 by Orion Books
Ebook first published in 2016 by Orion Books
Copyright © Cathy Kelly 2016
The right of Cathy Kelly to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor to be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
All the characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN: 978 1 4091 5370 2
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