The Great Escape (Dilbury Village #2)

by Charlotte Fallowfield

  ‘Why me? Why, why, why?’ she cried, a pink hue settling on her cheeks as her eyes darted around, looking for cover.

  ‘Disaster Carter,’ I reminded her as I bent forward, clutching my sides and gasping for air between snorts of laughter.

  ‘It’s not funny,’ she wailed as she scurried sideways, trying to take some kind of shelter behind a tall green leafy plant that stood against the granite wall. She angled some of its larger leaves to protect her modesty as more laughter broke out behind me when people obviously spotted her predicament. ‘Could this day get any worse?’

  ‘We could have just landed in Dubai, and you’d be imprisoned for breaking their indecency laws,’ I chortled, trying to pull myself together.

  ‘I’m pretty sure being naked in an airport is indecent in any country, Georgie. For God’s sake, stop laughing and go and find my suitcase before I’m arrested or give someone a heart attack. And hurry, it’s damn cold with all this air conditioning blowing on me. And I don’t fancy getting greenfly bites or having them decamp to nest in my private bush!’

  ‘I don’t think greenfly live in Mexico, let alone bite humans,’ I replied as I stripped off my long cream waterfall cardigan and hurried over to where she was hiding. ‘Here, put this on and watch the hand-luggage. I’ll go and retrieve our cases, then you can find some toilets to go and get changed for real.’

  ‘I’ve had enough, Georgie. Seriously, I’ve just had enough of my life sucking,’ she replied, her eyes filling with tears. I shielded her while she quickly slipped her arms into my cover up and wrapped it tightly around her, making it look like a wrap dress that just about protected her modesty.

  ‘Oh, sweetie, don’t cry,’ I coaxed, pulling her from behind the plant and giving her a much needed hug. ‘I’m sorry for laughing, but I promise after a few cocktails, you’ll be laughing about it, too. It’s how we deal with the crap life throws at us, you know it is.’

  ‘I know,’ she sniffled as I rubbed her back. ‘But I think we’ve had enough crap thrown at us now. It’s someone else’s turn.’

  ‘It sure is,’ I replied as I deposited a kiss on top of her head, then scurried off to find our cases. Never had truer words been spoken.

  I’d felt sorry for myself for a long time after I broke off my engagement, when I’d found out my fiancé Greg was a lying, cheating piece of scum who’d been having an affair with slutty Rowena the barmaid from our local pub, The Cock & Bull in Dilbury. It had been the lowest point of my life, but I’d had Abbie to help me get through it. I’d also had my parents, not to mention our lovely neighbour and good friend Daphne, the young-at-heart octogenarian who lived in Honeysuckle Cottage, right between Abbie’s and mine. But I’d had nowhere near the traumas poor Abbie had experienced in her life, and she didn’t even have any parents to lean on either. She thought she was weak when she occasionally gave in to a rare pity party, but she was one of the strongest women I knew. I was so proud to have her as a best friend, regardless of my parents’ feelings about her not moving in the right circles.

  I smiled as I waited at the carousel, everyone watching the black rubber slowly moving around, waiting for the first cases to come tumbling down the chute. I could remember meeting Abbie like it was yesterday, not five years before. I’d lived near my parents in Cheshire and was getting fed up of trekking to Shropshire every time I wanted to see Greg, who’d lived in Shrewsbury at the time. When my grandmother passed away and left me a sizeable inheritance, I’d decided to put it to good use. I’d been a dog lover for as long as I could remember, so training as a dog groomer and occasional dog walker and pet sitter had been the natural choice for me, despite my parents’ disappointment. But with the money from Grams, instead of working for someone else, I decided to use it to set up on my own, and to find a house with enough land to allow me to have a salon in my back garden.

  Dilbury couldn’t have been a more perfect location and was only a fifteen-minute drive from Greg’s house. Dilbury is the quaint old English village you see in the movies, having just as much charm as the far more expensive and highly sought after area of the Cheshire footballer belt, where I’d never have been able to afford to buy a house. I had the advantage of still living in beautiful countryside, and there were no dog grooming businesses anywhere near my location, which meant I got all of the countryside dog lovers’ business, as well as people from the nearest towns coming to me via word of mouth. I worked from home to suit me and got to make friends with a vast array of doggy characters, from Portia the poodle, a pedigree show dog, to Mr. Sumo, Abbie’s flatulent and grumpy old bulldog. And he was how we’d met.

  When I’d moved in and walked around the village dropping off flyers, she’d been my first customer. She’d warned me that he was a cantankerous old bugger, and had been astounded when he’d rolled over for a tummy rub from me. She’d insisted on staying, in case he got grizzly with me as I washed and bathed him, then I’d given him a massage, something he’d always loved when her father had been the masseuse. Since he’d died, Sumo hadn’t let anyone touch him, so I’d been her last resort to try and cheer him up, and she’d been stunned at how well he took to me and to me touching him.

  We’d started chatting and had continued talking all afternoon and into the evening, when we’d shared a bottle of wine or two and had a pizza delivered. Our friendship had blossomed from there and she’d been my rock when I fell apart after Greg and I broke up. She’d slowly built my confidence back up, and her crazy antics had kept the balance of tears firmly weighted on the laughter side, rather than the misery. I was determined I was going to be as good a friend to her now that she needed me to cheer her up.

  I threw a look over my shoulder to where she was leaning against the wall, my cardigan wrapped around her tightly, and grinned as the cheerful piped Mariachi music came through the loudspeakers. She giggled and straightened up, then started doing a sort of Irish jig on the spot as she pulled a funny face, making me laugh. It was supposed to be me making her laugh, not the other way around. But that was pretty much the way we were. She always teased me that I was too uptight and needed to “chillax” a bit more and not worry about what people thought of me. Easy to say when you didn’t have the weight of your well-to-do parents’ expectations weighing down on you, or had a year at the finest Swiss finishing school, where “how to be a lady” had been drummed down your throat at every opportunity, but Abbie’s carefree nature was rubbing off on me. I was definitely more fun, and had more fun, since she’d wormed her way into my life.

  Yes, Mum and Dad might not totally approve of my choices in life, including my “common” best friend, and profession, but I wasn’t getting rid of either just to please them. Sometimes a girl had to have her priorities right and stand up for the things that made her happy, and that didn’t always involve marrying a man for his money or sticking with a bunch of hoity-toity prim and boring friends. No, dog grooming and Abbie were the perfect fit for me. I was so much happier with both of them in my life.

  Chapter Two

  Instant Attraction

  ‘MRS. CARTER, CONGRATULATIONS,’ BEAMED the hotel porter as he piled our cases onto a shiny brass trolley.

  ‘Again, it’s Miss Carter,’ Abbie stated with an air of exasperation, as we stepped away from the open-air reception desk and followed him across the black granite lobby. He just shot a smile at us over his shoulder as he continued walking past the central fountain, then took one of the paths that led out from under the bamboo canopy, weaving its way between some lush vegetation to head to our villa. ‘Seriously, what’s with all the congratulations and the “Mrs. Carter” business since we arrived?’ she asked me as we tried to keep up with him. What he lacked for in height, he made up for in the speed his short legs moved. It was quite comical to watch.

  ‘I’ve no idea, but they seem to be treating us like royalty or something,’ I confirmed, reaching up to touch the beautiful white flowers tucked into our hair. We’d been given them the moment a limousine had arrived
to pick us up from the airport. Abbie swore she hadn’t booked a limo, but the driver had insisted it was all part of “the package,” along with the champagne and chocolates that were waiting for us inside. Add to that the receptionist’s perplexed face when he’d offered us the keys to our private villa and Abbie had told him she was sure we’d only booked a standard suite, and we were all confused. But he’d insisted we were in a villa, and we’d decided it was pointless arguing with him. ‘Exactly what package did you book again?’ I asked.

  ‘I didn’t book a specific one, I don’t think,’ she replied, both of us panting slightly to be moving so quickly in the heat, which we weren’t accustomed to. ‘It was a last-minute booking. I just said I wanted to be anywhere but England, preferably somewhere tropical with free alcohol, and this is what the travel agent came up with.’

  ‘Well, we need to send her a thank-you bouquet when we get back, as most last-minute packages aren’t usually anywhere near as glamorous as this.’

  ‘Tell me … about it,’ she huffed. ‘Jesus, he’s nippier than Usain Bolt. I feel like I’m trying out for the hundred-metre sprint.’

  ‘Hmmm,’ I confirmed, too breathless to reply and too in awe of my surroundings to focus on forming words. It was night now, and the sky was a deep indigo blue, bordering on black, and peppered with even more stars than we saw back in the sky above Dilbury. We were weaving our way through a lush green leafy garden, with walkways lit by flaming sconces stuck into the ground and the sound of some kind of crickets or grasshoppers chirping away in the background only adding to the tropical atmosphere. I hadn’t considered myself to be stressed when we’d come away, but Abbie’s recent pain had obviously rubbed off on me, as each minute that I breathed in the salty scent of the sea air and felt the heat enveloping me, the more my muscles started to release and relax.

  ‘We are here, Mrs. Carter,’ our porter confirmed, as he stopped in front of a beautiful white-washed bungalow with a pitched bamboo-style roof. Abbie just nodded, giving up on correcting his mistake, and let him open the door and deposit our cases inside. I quickly fished out some pesos for him and thanked him, calling on my rusty high school Spanish skills to try and be polite in a somewhat native tongue. ‘Thank you, Mrs. Carter,’ he beamed as he pocketed the notes I’d pressed into his hand and shook my hand vigorously before scurrying back in the direction we’d come from.

  ‘Oh my God, you’re Mrs. Carter now as well?’ exclaimed Abbie. ‘Do you think they just call everyone Mrs. Carter in case they forget our names?’

  ‘No idea,’ I laughed as I stepped inside our villa for the next two weeks, to find myself in a huge lounge with a dining area in the corner to my left. Soft lamps had been left on for us and showed a calming white interior, offset with metallic accents of shimmering gold, silver, and bronze. White granite flooring was cool under our feet, and the white painted walls and wooden furniture and shutters, which were folded back from the floor-to-ceiling windows, just made me feel immediately at peace. I threw open the double doors to our right as I looked for the smallest of the bedrooms, since Abbie had insisted on paying for the whole trip as she felt bad for dragging me along. ‘Wow,’ I murmured.

  ‘What?’ Abbie called behind me.

  ‘Very romantic,’ I observed as I stood facing the colossal white four-poster bed, muslin panels secured to each post, rose petals scattered in a heart in the centre of the bed, and a bottle of champagne in an ice bucket standing next to it. ‘What a sweet touch. This must be your room, I’ll go and look for mine.’

  ‘Well, don’t look back here, there’s no other doors,’ Abbie confirmed as she walked in to join me. ‘Crikey, not exaggerating with the romance, were you?’

  ‘No,’ I laughed as I walked across to the only other door, on the far wall next to the bed. ‘Well, this must be my room, but it’s odd I have to walk through yours to get to mine.’

  ‘Very odd,’ she confirmed as she scooped up a card that was propped up on the bedside table. I stuck my head in the other room, put on the light, and blinked in surprise. I was in a bathroom. A very luxurious and very white spa-like bathroom, but a bathroom nonetheless. Other than more shuttered full-length windows that must lead to the outside, there were no other doors, unless there was some hot Narnia-esque place to explore through the antique painted wardrobe that I assumed housed the towels.

  ‘Ermmm, Abbie, I think this is a one-bedroomed villa,’ I advised as I spun around to face her.

  ‘Yeah, I kind of just got that,’ she giggled, waving the card at me as I turned to face her. ‘Well, I know why they’re calling us both Mrs. Carter now. They think we’re a newly married couple who booked the honeymoon-package.’

  ‘No!’ I gasped, snatching the card off her to read. I shook my head to see “Mrs. and Mrs. Carter, congratulations on your wedding. We hope you’ll enjoy your honeymoon here with us. If there is anything we can do, please don’t hesitate to ask.” ‘They think we’re married? That we’re … you know? Seriously? And they expect us to share a bed for two weeks?’

  ‘Wow, tone down the insulted vibe. I happen to think I’d be a very good catch if I was that way inclined,’ Abbie threw back, as she raised an eyebrow and shot me an amused smile.

  ‘Sorry,’ I laughed, ‘didn’t mean it that way. I’m sure if I was that way inclined, you’d be the perfect wife for me, but why do I have to be Mrs. Carter? Why couldn’t you have been Mrs. Basset?’

  ‘Because I booked and paid,’ she reminded me, snatching the card out of my fingers to read it again. ‘They obviously think I’m the “man” in this relationship, which I’m not sure I’m too flattered by. I’ll ring them now and tell them it’s a mistake,’ she advised as she perched herself on the edge of the bed and picked up the phone. I nodded and wandered back into the lounge to look for a light switch for outside.

  I flicked a few as I peered out into the darkness. One switch illuminated a load of tiny lights embedded into the tiled veranda, then another suddenly brought to life a large shimmering blue pool of water. Holy cow, we had our own swimming pool? I was on the verge of yelling to Abbie to forget telling them we were Miss Carter and Miss Basset, non-married and non-lesbian couple, and to just continue with the charade to keep the sweet accommodation.

  ‘So?’ I asked, as she appeared before I had a chance to convince her to keep quiet.

  ‘They won’t have it. They’re insisting the honeymoon villa was booked and charged correctly. And when I asked if we could be moved to a twin room, they said they’re fully booked. I kept telling them that we weren’t married or a couple in that sense, let alone on our honeymoon, but they don’t believe me. Apparently, this hotel is a well-known lovers’ resort, catering for engagements, weddings, and honeymooners. The travel agent never mentioned that.’

  ‘Oh my God, this could only happen to us,’ I chuckled. ‘Well, as long as you’ve not been charged extra, I guess it doesn’t matter. We’ve shared a bed before and this is a huge one, we can do it again.’

  ‘Well, I know, but that’s not the point,’ she huffed. ‘Honestly, it’s one thing after another.’

  ‘Hey, as you keep telling me, “chillax.” We’re on holiday, in a gorgeous honeymoon villa with our own private pool, life could be worse. Come on, let’s take that champagne outside and have a late-night swim before we wake up and go exploring tomorrow.’

  ‘Swimming? Now?’ she replied, frowning as she looked at her watch. I walked past her and slapped her backside.

  ‘We’re on holiday in Mexico, not sleepy Dilbury where any of our antics spread around the village like wildfire. Let’s live dangerously for once. Come on, wife of mine, I want to see that hot little body in a sexy bikini before I spend the night ravishing you,’ I teased. She shook her head with a smile.

  ‘Us ravishing each other will be the only action we’re likely to see if everyone here keeps calling us Mrs. and Mrs. Carter,’ she reminded me. ‘No men will dare come near us.’

  ‘Like either of us are ready to look fo
r love again right now,’ I said wistfully as I grabbed my large case.

  ‘Well, I might not be, it’s still too raw for me and I only have myself to blame, but you’re ready to be swept off your feet again, Georgie. It’s been two years. Greg was never the right man for you, and I think you know that deep in your heart.’

  I didn’t reply as I opened my case and rummaged for one of my bikinis. She was right, of course, I knew it deep down. While I had loved Greg, and I really had loved him dearly, part of me had always known he wasn’t one hundred percent right for me. I think I’d allowed myself to just fall into the relationship with him at the start because he fit my parents’ idea of a well-mannered and well-off suitor, perfect on paper for their only daughter. They were so thrilled when I introduced him, and the more time I spent with him, the more he grew on me. There was never that instant chemistry with him though, I’d never had that feeling of being unable to live without him.

  When I’d heard our neighbour Daphne talk of how she felt when she fell in love with David, how he wasn’t just her best friend, but that they had that all-consuming need and passion for each other too, I’d realised I’d never had that with Greg. It had just been comfortable, like a pair of old worn-in slippers that you can’t bear to throw out, as you really don’t want to have to go to all the effort of trying to break in a new pair. But the more I heard of passionate love, the kind that stayed with you for a lifetime, the more I’d come to realise that while old slippers were great, you also needed to be able to stand happily in them while you watched fireworks exploding around you.

  I’d never had fireworks with Greg. And it wasn’t the way that he’d betrayed me that made me nervous of putting myself out there again either. It was the fact that despite knowing he’d never lit up my world, I’d stayed with him. It was my judgement I questioned, as I’d settled for something that was less than perfect. As I stood there holding my blue bikini, Abbie rambling on about not being able to find anything except her all-in-one swimsuit that looked anything but sexy, I decided I was never going to let myself settle again unless I was one hundred percent sure I had it all with a man. Chemistry, passion, need, friendship, and love. Every girl deserved to have it all, and not to just settle for old slippers.