His Perfect Bride?

by Louisa Heaton

  ‘You think we’re soul mates?’

  ‘Don’t you?’

  She grimaced. ‘It’s hard to think clearly up here.’

  The wind blew them slightly and she gasped and gripped the rope tighter.

  ‘Are you kidding? This is the clearest I’ve ever thought! Lula? Lula, you can do this. Listen to me. You need to feed the rope through your right hand, nice and slow. As you do that you need to walk your toes down the side of the building. Little bits… That’s it. Keep doing that.’

  They were moving again, but he could see she was still terrified. Her legs were trembling and kept losing contact with the tower. He kept pace with her, staying level, making reassuring comments as she kept the rope moving.

  ‘There are thousands of successful marriages in this world, Lula, where couples don’t have children. Our happiness together is not based on that being the only criteria.’

  ‘Easy for you to say now.’

  He could hear the shakiness in her voice. ‘Easy for me to say because it’s true. I love you, Lula! Would I have come all this way—would I be abseiling down this tower for you—if I didn’t love you?’

  She looked at him and met his gaze. ‘No.’

  ‘You’re my everything. I’ve been lost without you in Atlee Wold. Everything seems darker without you there. You put light into my life.’

  Lula stopped. ‘Light?’

  The ground was getting closer, but they were still very high.

  He reached out and laid his hand upon hers. ‘Beautiful, bright light. It doesn’t matter to me if we don’t have children because I’ll always have you, and if we decide that we want to have them in some other way, then that’s good, too! We could get cats or dogs—they can be our family in the meantime. And if cats and dogs are too tame for you then we’ll get something crazy—like an alpaca or a snake!’

  She smiled at him. ‘I’ve always wanted a house rabbit.’

  ‘There you go! Lula, tell me you’ll come back with me. That you’ll come back with me and marry me and be with me in Atlee Wold!’

  Lula looked up at how far they’d come. She’d done some of it on her own, but she’d accomplished far more with Olly at her side.

  ‘Olly? Will you wait for me at the bottom?’

  He frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I think I can do this now. It’s not far. Let me finish this abseil on my own. I’ll meet you at the bottom and we’ll talk then.’

  ‘Are you sure you can do it on your own?’

  ‘Abseiling? Yes.’

  Olly nodded and rappelled down the last few feet to the bottom. She heard people clapping and cheering as she got closer and risked a glance down. It wasn’t far. There were people, and boats on the water. All those faces looking up—looking at her. It felt right to finish the abseil on her own. It had been her challenge and she was determined to complete it—as she had done all the others. It was just that on some occasions, such as this, it helped to have Olly at her side.

  Did she always have to do stuff alone? The way she had her entire life?

  No. She didn’t.

  She’d found her mother at last—was there any reason she couldn’t have Olly, too? Apart from the one thing she feared…?

  But if she lost him because she walked away now, wouldn’t that hurt just as much? She’d already faced that fear and lived through the pain of losing Olly once. But he’d offered a lifeline. A second chance. And there was no reason not to take it because if it was true what he said—that he could be happy with just her—then wouldn’t they both be happy for many years together? Wasn’t that worth more than worrying about something that might never happen?

  What was that saying? ’Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all…

  Her heart soared at the possibility of hope. Hope that she could consider being with Olly and going back to Atlee Wold and Patrick and her mother and all the other wonderful people she’d met there.

  As her feet touched the ground she felt Olly’s arms embrace her and he turned her round to shower her face with kisses. She could hardly breathe, but that didn’t matter—because Olly was there and together they could face anything! Wrapping her arms around him, she pulled him tight before they had to separate and remove their harnesses and helmets.

  The man at the bottom presented them both with a T-shirt. Written across it was I took the scenic route.

  Lula looked at it and laughed.

  She’d done it!

  *

  Sitting in a cafeteria overlooking the waterfront, Lula stirred her tea and stared at Olly. She couldn’t get enough of just looking at him. At one time she’d thought that she would never see his face again, and today here he was—her knight in shining armour, who’d rescued her from a tower!

  ‘Would you really consider having a pet snake?’ she asked, smiling.

  Olly reached out and took her fingers in his own. ‘I would do anything for you. You know that.’ He smiled, then had a thought. ‘Just don’t expect me to hold it.’

  ‘I quite like boa constrictors…’

  ‘If that’s what it takes.’ He squeezed her fingers and smiled.

  ‘We could also have a dog, if you wanted something a bit more traditional. I am prepared to compromise.’

  Olly lifted her fingers to his lips and kissed her. ‘All great relationships are based on it.’

  ‘Is that what you think we’ll have? A great relationship?’

  ‘I don’t think it. I know it. I feel amazing when I’m with you. I feel alive—I feel the whole world has woken up and I can see everything so clearly. It’s right that we’re together.’

  ‘And if I wanted to pursue…other things…would that affect us?’

  ‘Other things? What? More crazy stunts?’

  She looked at him. ‘Children. Babies. I want them, Olly. I spent so many years telling myself that I didn’t, but I was lying to myself. Maybe I am a traditionalist at heart? But fertility treatment can be hard. Difficult. It can break people. That’s what I’m scared of. Right now I know I can’t have kids, and I’ve accepted that, but if we go down other routes and I accept the hope that I might get pregnant somehow…but it all fails anyway…I’m not sure I could live with the disappointment.’

  ‘Not us. I’ll go through every step of it with you. With every ounce of my being. If it doesn’t work out then we’ll be upset and saddened, but it won’t end us. We’re stronger than that—we’re bigger than that.’

  ‘But how do you know?’

  ‘Because we’ll be in it together. Because we’ll have made the choice together. I know my own heart. Even if I can’t have children with you I will still have you. And you are so precious to me…’

  ‘And if we can? If something can be done?’

  ‘Then that will be amazing.’ He looked deep into her eyes. ‘I was so proud of you today. Conquering your fear. Finishing by yourself. Even though you scared me half to death.’

  ‘Scared you? How?’

  ‘By telling me you wanted to finish it alone. I thought you’d tell that to me, too.’

  She shook her head. ‘I couldn’t.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘No. When I left you in the village, as I drove away, my heart broke in two. I had to stop around the corner because I couldn’t drive. I couldn’t see. I was crying so much and I have never experienced pain like it. You have no idea what it took me to carry on driving. To carry on putting distance between me and you. I couldn’t go through that again. I wouldn’t survive it.’

  Olly got up from his seat opposite and slid into the chair next to her, putting his arm around her shoulders. ‘I wept like a child when you left. On my knees, in the road. I didn’t care who saw me. Then I had weeks of patients coming in and telling me that they were sad you’d left, and I wanted to rage at each and every one of them—ask them, What about me?’

  ‘What did you do?’

  ‘I hoped you’d come back. I hoped that somehow something would make yo
u turn around and come back. And then I realised that maybe you thought you couldn’t.’

  ‘I was coming back.’

  He smiled. ‘You were?’

  ‘I couldn’t bear to be away from you.’ She reached out and clasped his hand. ‘My mother told you where I was, didn’t she?’

  He smiled. ‘Accidentally. I think she was embarrassed by having me sobbing all over her kitchen floor and she did it to get rid of me,’ he joked.

  Lula smiled. ‘I’m glad she told you. Because if she hadn’t then I would have come back to you. I’ve given up my job at the surgery. I couldn’t work, I couldn’t concentrate—all I could think of was what I’d lost…’

  They looked into each other’s eyes and Olly leaned in to kiss her, his eyes closing softly as his lips met hers and the tender sweetness of their connection made his heart sing with joy.

  When he opened his eyes again and saw her dark chocolate eyes staring into his he stroked her cheek. ‘Never leave me.’

  ‘I won’t.’

  ‘You’re everything to me.’

  ‘And you to me.’

  He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small jewellery box in red velvet. Opening it, he revealed a gold ring, set with a sapphire and surrounded by diamonds that glinted and shone in the light. ‘Will you marry me, Lula?’

  She looked at the ring, then at him, at the hope in his eyes, at the love she saw burning bright from within him, and knew that she could spend the rest of her life with this man.

  ‘Yes!’

  Beaming with joy, he took the ring from its box and slid it onto her finger. It was a perfect fit and he kissed her once again. ‘I found it when I was sorting out Moonrose Cottage. It belonged to my grandmother.’

  ‘It’s beautiful.’

  ‘Like you.’

  They sank into each other’s embrace and kissed again.

  EPILOGUE

  THE MARRIAGE OF Dr Louisa Chance to Dr Oliver James took place in the village church of Atlee Wold. Lula asked Bonnie and Ruby to be her bridesmaids, and decked them out in gorgeous red satin dresses. Ruby’s daughter, Adele, toddled up the aisle, throwing rose petals everywhere.

  It was a beautiful day for a summer wedding, and the whole village turned out to see it.

  It had been a delight for Lula to return to Atlee. Everyone had been thrilled to see her, but none more so than her own mother.

  Elizabeth Love had become a changed woman. Her poor neglected house, in which the only welcome guests had once been animals, was now often filled with villagers. She and Lula would often hold tea parties to raise funds for the animals, or for children’s charities.

  Everyone knew the story of Lula and Elizabeth. And no one could miss the love story between Lula and Oliver. It became the talk of the village for many years, and three years after the wedding, when Lula became pregnant, after a lot of help from medical science, the whole village waited with bated breath for the outcome!

  She’d gone through so much with the IVF. She’d shared all her trials and tribulations of tests and the injecting of hormones. She’d never complained when she’d blown up like a balloon from all the medication and her ovaries had gone into overdrive and yet still only given up three eggs for harvesting.

  A single egg had developed and it had looked healthy.

  All their hopes and dreams focused on one tiny cell…

  Lula had been her usual unconventional self and opted to go for a home birth, in a pool, listening to rock music and stroking the family dog, Buddy. When their baby daughter had been born, eleven hours after contractions had started, they’d all let out a sigh of relief.

  The villagers knew the story of Lula’s childhood. They knew how much being a mother meant to her. And everyone had rejoiced at the safe arrival of baby Mabel.

  Tears of joy had streamed down Lula’s cheeks. She’d gone from being rootless and without family to gaining a mother, a husband and now a baby daughter of her own.

  She’d got roots. She’d got family. The two things she’d thought impossible and yet had craved her whole life.

  And, to celebrate, she added the colour green to her hair.

  *

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  ISBN-13: 9781460380192

  His Perfect Bride?

  Copyright © 2015 by Louisa Heaton

  All rights reserved. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental. This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

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