Resisting the New Doc In Town
Page 17
‘You are. Most definitely perfect.’ He wrapped his arms around her and drew her close. ‘I love you so much, Bergan. I can’t promise that our life together will always be smooth sailing, but I do promise to love and trust you for the rest of my days. We’ll talk, we’ll laugh, we’ll cry and we’ll do it together.’
‘Yes.’ She accepted his kisses and sighed against him, occasionally glancing down at the diamond—her diamond! ‘How did you organise all of this? Was it your mother?’
‘She lit the candles. I sent her a text when I was stowing your luggage in the taxi.’
‘You fiend. And what if I’d been less than enthusiastic when I’d arrived at the airport? Or completely jet-lagged?’
‘Then the plan would have changed, but as it was, with the way you all but launched yourself at me—’
‘I did not!’ she protested hotly as Richard led her to the soft sofa, pulling her onto his lap.
He kissed the tip of her nose. ‘I beg to differ, but either way it gave me a clear indication that whatever had been holding you back had been resolved.’
‘You gave me these two weeks to figure things out.’ She nodded slowly. ‘I did and I feel as though an enormous weight has been lifted from my shoulders.’ Then she told him about the coffee stain and how Drak had drawn a perfect picture from it.
‘Remind me to make Drak a groomsman at our wedding,’ Richard said, and Bergan laughed.
‘I doubt he’d see having to dress up in some suit as a reward.’
‘Perhaps he’d make us a wedding lantern?’
‘Good idea. One we can let go and have fly off into the night.’
‘On the beach.’
‘At dusk.’
‘Perfect.’ Bergan sighed against him, smiling happily.
‘All this wedding talk isn’t freaking you out?’
She shook her head. ‘Nope. I’m right where I should be. It’s been a long time coming but finally…’ she snuggled closer, safe and secure in the protective circle of his arms ‘…I’ve found my home.’
EPILOGUE
‘BUT WHY?’ REGGIE protested.
‘I thought you would have been happy to dress up in a pretty pink party dress, Reggie.’ Bergan stood in the large white marquee reserved for the bride and her attendants, and smoothed a hand down her very simple, very plain, very elegant white wedding gown, staring at herself in the long mirror, unable to believe the woman looking back was actually her. It had happened. She’d found her Prince Charming and he’d made her the happiest princess on earth.
During the past four months, as Richard had relocated back to Australia and the Sunshine Coast, Bergan’s love for him had increased every day. She was so proud, so happy to finally be a bride—a bride with a groom whom she loved and trusted with all her heart.
‘I am but it’s just…it makes me look about seventeen years old.’
‘Oh, woe is you for having such a youthful complexion.’ Bergan shook her head, small tendrils of auburn curls floating lightly at her neck, the rest of her hair pulled into a fancy arrangement on top of her head, which had taken the hairdresser almost an hour to achieve.
‘Do you like the dress, Aunty Sunainah?’ Ruthie, the experienced flower girl who was wearing a dress identical to those of the rest of the bridesmaids, asked.
‘I’ll wear whatever it is my friend bids me wear on her wedding day, but I do have to say the style and colour perplexes me slightly.’
‘Kenz? Care to explain?’ Bergan asked as Mackenzie finished touching up the bride’s lipstick.
‘On the rare occasions, when we were in foster-care, that things actually were going smoothly, Bergan and I indulged our imaginations in planning her wedding.’
‘Not your weddings?’ Reggie asked.
Mackenzie shook her head. ‘I would change mine almost every time, unable to choose exactly what I wanted, but Bergan had this crazy idea that all bridesmaid’s dresses should be pink. Pink party dresses with tulle and lace. Fluffy and puffy.’
‘So we’re fulfilling a childhood fantasy?’ Reggie checked.
‘Exactly,’ Bergan replied, smooching her lips together to blot the lipstick. Outside the marquee, the string quartet started to play and Ruthie started jumping up and down with excitement.
‘It’s starting. It’s starting!’
‘Yes,’ Mackenzie told her daughter. ‘So get your little basket of flowers and get ready because you go down first, remember.’
‘I remember, Mummy,’ Ruthie replied, her fingers sifting through the lovely blue rose petals in her basket. ‘I have been a flower girl before, you know.’
Mackenzie only grinned at her daughter before turning to look at the blushing bride. ‘Ready?’
Bergan smiled at her friend, then, before she picked up her bouquet of blue roses, held out her hands to her friends, Ruthie included. ‘Thank you. I don’t know what else to say, but without the three of you in my life, and for the last six years beautiful Ruthie as well, I wouldn’t be here today. I don’t do friendships easily, but you’ve stuck with me through so many different things—especially you, Kenz. So, yeah…’ She laughed. ‘Thanks.’
‘Why do you brides always do this?’ Reggie grumbled as she sniffed and blinked rapidly, carefully dabbing at her eyes with a tissue before picking up her bouquet of white roses. ‘Why do you say these heartfelt words and then make us all want to cry when you know full well we can’t because we’ll smudge the make-up that took for ever to apply?’
Bergan laughed and nodded. ‘I never thought I would, but then, I never thought I’d find that one true, perfect man for me.’
‘But you did, and he’s waiting, probably rather impatiently, for you now,’ Sunainah said.
‘I think Drak’s probably more impatient than Richard,’ Bergan added. ‘Impatient to get out of that suit.’ With John, Mackenzie’s husband, and Thomas, his father, as his other groomsmen, that only left Helen, Richard’s mother, on her own, so Bergan had asked a special favour of her future motherin-law.
‘Ready?’ Helen asked, poking her head through the opening of the marquee. ‘Oh, Bergan,’ she gasped. ‘You look breathtaking.’
‘No crying!’ Reggie demanded, holding out a hand towards Helen.
‘Yes. Yes. Of course.’ Helen sniffed. ‘You’re right.’ She dragged in a deep breath and held out her hand to Bergan. ‘It’s time for me, not to give you away as happens to most brides on their wedding day, to walk you down the aisle, accepting you into our family.’
‘Is it time now?’ Ruthie demanded, and after everyone had taken a deep, cleansing breath and as the music rose to a beautiful crescendo, Bergan nodded.
‘It’s time.’ And with the happiest smile on her face she started her walk towards the only man in the world for her—her Richard.
*
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ISBN: 9781460317549
Copyright © 2013 by Anne Clark & Peter Clark
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