Chapter One
The perimeter road leading to Glasgow Airport was choked up. The windscreen wipers swished back and forth. Lucy checked her watch for the umpteenth time then tried Stewart’s number again. Voicemail.
The taxi driver looked at her in the rear-view mirror. ‘You’d be better off making a run for it, hen.’
Lucy shoved a twenty-pound tip into his hand, then grabbing her suitcase and dress cover, legged it to the terminal, wielding her foldaway umbrella against the heavy April shower. This was not a good start to what was supposed to be the best time of her life.
Flicking aside a dripping wet strand of hair, she scanned the concourse for her husband-to-be.
‘Would any remaining passengers travelling to Antigua on flight BA2157, please make their way immediately to Gate Four, where this flight is now closing.’
Lucy pounced on a woman in airline uniform who radioed ahead to the gate. Poor Stewart. He must have been thinking she’d stood him up. As if.
Lucy stumbled through the doors of the departure lounge.
‘Sorry, sorry! Did you think I’d had second thoughts?’ Her voicetrailed off. The lounge was empty, except for the check-in agent, who urgently beckoned her over.
‘I can check your bag in here. You’re lucky. Another five minutes and the aircraft doors would have closed.’
Gasping for breath, Lucy watched her suitcase disappear down the chute. ‘I don’t suppose you know which seat Stewart Macintosh is in?’
‘Ask the cabin crew to put out a call for him after take-off,’ said the check-in agent, ushering her along the jetway.
A quiet wedding in Antigua had been Stewart’s idea, but there was nothing Lucy would have loved more than to have a traditional Scottish wedding surrounded by her family, friends and pupils. She’d always dreamed of being piped into the local kirk by her brother Jamie, who was a former officer in the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards, to walk down the aisle on the arm of her proud dad sporting the family tartan, and to dance into the wee small hours to ‘The Dashing White Sergeant’, ‘The Eightsome Reel’ and ‘Drops of Brandy’.
It was Stewart’s brother, Hamish, who’d approached her on the school bus when they were just seventeen and had uttered those romantic words, ‘Ma big brother fancies you. Will you go oot wi’ him?’
And that was it. While most of their friends were falling in and out of love, their relationship had survived school, college and Stewart’s move to Glasgow, some thirty miles away. Stew and Lu. Lu and Stew. They went together like haggis and neeps.
Now with steady jobs – Lucy taught at their old primary school and Stewart worked in business development – the next step was to move in together, get married and start a family – right? But as the Christmases, birthdays and Valentine’s Days passed, still the third finger on her left hand remained bare.
Much as she adored her parents, she should have moved out ages ago, but there had seemed little point when someday soon Stewart would ask her to marry him and she’d move to Glasgow.
‘Why do you want to go changing things by getting married?’ Stewart had groaned when Lucy had finally dared to confront him on the issue.
‘Because I want to be with you Monday to Friday, not just at weekends. I want us to make a home together, choose curtains, do the weekly shop, visit Ikea, take the bins out, buy plants at the garden centre – and I want to have kids. Don’t you?’
‘Aye, maybe,’ Stewart muttered.
‘Call me old-fashioned, but I want to get married. Is that so unreasonable?’
Stewart averted his gaze. He hated confrontation.
Lucy drew a steadying breath. ‘Soon I’ll be forty. We’ve been together longer than all our married friends. If you’re not willing to commit, then I need to know so I can move on with my life and find someone who is.’
By her own admission, Lucy watched too many romcoms and read too much Austen and Nicholas Sparks. She often thought she’d been born in the wrong time. Why couldn’t real life be likePride and PrejudiceorThe Notebook?
According toThe Secret, it was all just a matter of Ask, Believe, Receive.
She’d tried on numerous wedding dresses over the years, picked the venue, the menu, chosen her engagement ring, their kids’ names, and even kept a small suitcase under her bed containing baby clothes.
She accepted that manifestation took practice and didn’t expect instant results, but –twenty-two years?
Stewart was a man’s man. He loved his footie and nights out at the pub with his mates. Okay, so he might be no Heathcliff orDarcy, but he was her rock and had supported her through good times and bad – like the time he drove through heavy snow in the dead of night to be by her side when her appendix erupted, or when the family dog had to be put down. He’d never cheat on her and would do anything for her, except…
Stewart sighed. ‘Okay. It’s a deal – but on one condition.’
Lucy looked at him despairingly. ‘This isn’t one of your business negotiations, Stew.’
