Page 70 of Winter Nights at the Bay Bookshop
‘It’s the most stunningly perfect dress I’ve ever seen.’
He slipped his arm around my waist and dropped a kiss on the top of my head.
‘You’d look incredible in it,’ he said, his voice hoarse, and I wondered if his mind had galloped way ahead in time like mine had. Was it too soon to be thinking that this was the man I was going to marry and that I wanted to sayI doin this dress?
* * *
I drove straight home after work and nipped into Green Gables for a quick change before joining Mum, Dad and Hendrix in the main house.
‘Your dad’s on the verge of bankruptcy,’ Mum said, giving me a start before I clocked that he and Hendrix were playing Monopoly and Hendrix was thrashing Dad as usual.
I kissed Dad on the cheek and ruffled Hendrix’s hair which he pretended he hated, but I knew he really liked it because it was our thing that we’d done for years.
‘Okay, I’m out,’ Dad said, dropping a feeble quantity of low banknotes onto the board. ‘You win, Hendrix. Again.’
Hendrix jumped up and ran a lap of honour round the lounge, his hands in the air.
‘You’re such a child,’ I said, laughing at him. ‘Do you do that at work?’
‘All the time, but apparently it doesn’t help land planes.’
‘Is that curry?’ I asked, sniffing the air. ‘It smells amazing.’
‘Hendrix made it,’ Mum said.
‘Seriously?’ My brother’s lack of skills in the kitchen was legendary. He was the only person I’d ever met who could burn cereal.
‘Seriously,’ he said. ‘Daisy’s been teaching me some simple dishes. There were a few incidents at first but I’ve found my cooking mojo and am actually enjoying it.’
Hendrix’s girlfriend was a commis chef in a Michelin-starred restaurant between Leeds and Bradford and she loved her work there but was just as happy creating simpler dishes at home.
‘How did your date with Lars go?’ Mum asked.
‘I never said it was with Lars. Have you had the spies out?’
Hendrix thrust his hand in the air. ‘My fault. I couldn’t resist a peek and, when I described who’d picked you up, they both knew who it was.’
I should have known somebody would be watching – a hazard of living at home, not that I minded. Without going into the gushy details, I told them that Lars and I were officially an item. They were all really pleased for me, and Dad, who’d spent the most time in Lars’s company, said he thought we were perfectly suited, which meant a lot to me, although he did add jokingly thatif he breaks your heart, I’ll have to hunt him down and kill him.
‘You know what? I don’t think he’d ever do that to me,’ I said.
Mum smiled at me. ‘Glad to hear it. Aw, it’s lovely to see our three babies all so happy.’ She focused on Hendrix and I got the impression I was missing something. I looked at him quizzically.
‘I’m going to ask Daisy to marry me,’ he said.
‘Oh, wow! That’s brilliant news.’ I launched myself at my brother and hugged him tightly. ‘When?’
‘We’re going out on Thursday night. It’ll be five years since our first date so I thought it was about time I popped the question.’
‘I’m so pleased for you both.’
‘Sounds like it’ll be a race up the aisle between you and your brother,’ Dad said.
‘Lars and I aren’t…’ But there was no point denying it. They were all looking at me knowingly and they were right. I genuinely believed that, after a couple of false starts with Ewan and Wes, Lars Jóhannsson was the man I was going to marry. That beautiful midnight-blue dress popped into my head and what he’d said earlier about how I’d look in it and my heart raced. With my sister expecting, my brother engaged, my best friend getting married, Justin out of my life and my broken heart healed and being properly cared for, it felt as though my Christmas sparkle might finally return.
36
LARS
