Liz Fielding - Wedded in a Whirlwind

She just nodded as he wrapped it around the freezing child.

‘I just heard it.’

‘Rosie!’ Her room was empty. Her bed not slept in. Manda didn’t know what had woken her, only that she’d known, instantly, that Rosie had run again. She turned as Nick joined her in the bedroom doorway. ‘She’s gone, Nick.’

It had been six months. It hadn’t been easy, but they’d made it and, now that Social Services were ready to approve their adoption, she’d been certain they were through the worst. And Rosie had been so excited about being their bridesmaid.

Now, with the wedding less than a week away, she’d run again.

She turned to Nick and buried her face in his chest. ‘What now?’

‘I think she may have started taking food again,’ Nick said. ‘I thought maybe she was just a little unsettled-about staying with Daisy while we’re on our honeymoon.’

It had taken a while before she’d trusted them enough to stop taking stuff from the fridge to keep in her bag.

‘But she adores Daisy. Can’t wait to stay with her and Jude next week. I thought she was sure of us. Settled.’

There had been problems before, when they’d set the date for the wedding. She’d run away then too, afraid that they’d have babies of their own and wouldn’t want her any more.

But when Nick had told her that wasn’t going to happen, had explained that Manda couldn’t have children of her own, she’d seemed to settle.

‘Don’t panic, Miranda. She always goes back to the same place. We’ll go and pick her up and get to the bottom of this.’ Then, frowning, ‘Did you hear something?’

‘It sounded like the back door. Burglars?’

Rosie’s fiercely whispered ‘Shh…’ answered that question.

‘The kitchen?’ Nick suggested.

They opened the door. Rosie had her head in the fridge and didn’t see them. The small boy, sitting on one of the kitchen stools, almost smothered by one of Rosie’s padded jackets, leapt to his feet, knocking over a mug tree, sending crockery flying as he bolted for the door.

Nick cut him off, scooped him up, holding him easily, despite his desperate struggle. He was about five years old, his mop of black hair a matted tangle and skinny as a lath, but he had huge dark eyes and the kind of beauty that would melt hearts at twenty paces.

Nick smiled at him, tucked him up against his chest and said, ‘Who’s your friend, Rosie?’

She closed the fridge door very slowly, then turned to face them. ‘He was eating out of the bins behind the supermarket. I saw him the other day and I took him some stuff. Clothes, food. On my way to school.’

‘You should have told us,’ Manda said.

‘I thought maybe his mum would come back for him. Sometimes they just get out of their heads for a while, but then they come back. Like my mum did.’

Until, eventually, she didn’t, Manda thought.

‘But she didn’t.’ Rosie’s shrug was a mixture of defiance and pleading. ‘I waited a week and then I thought, since you can’t have kids of your own, he should come and live with us. I’ll need a brother,’ she added a little defiantly.

‘Does he have a name?’ Nick asked.

‘He’s called Michael.’

‘Rosie,’ Manda cut in as gently as she could, ‘you know it’s not that easy. I’ll have to call Social Services. He may have a family…’

‘The kind that leaves him on the street. I had family like that too.’

‘Even so.’

‘I know.’ She sighed. ‘There are rules and stuff. But you can fix it. You and Nick can fix anything and, besides, you said it was a pity Jude wasn’t old enough to be a page-boy.’

‘So I did,’ Manda said, turning helplessly to the gorgeous man who’d swept her up in a whirlwind of love, made her a family of her own. ‘Nick? Do you have any thoughts about how we can handle this?’

He grinned and said, ‘I always think best with a bacon sandwich in front of me.’ He looked at the child in his arms. ‘Michael?’

And Manda felt Rosie’s hand creep into hers.

Five days later, Miranda Grenville and Nicholas Jago were married in a centuries-old London church that had been designed by Christopher Wren.

It was one of those rare perfect June days when, even in London, the flower-filled parks still wore the freshness of early summer.

As Miranda emerged from a vintage Rolls Royce on her brother’s arm, she paused for a moment while Belle and Daisy, her attendants, straightened the train of the simplest, most elegant ivory silk gown, giving the paparazzi time to take their photographs. This was, after all, the society wedding of the year.

Nothing could have been further from the circumstances of their meeting in Cordillera. Everything pristine, perfect.

Rosie, gorgeous in primrose and white organza, was almost beside herself with excitement. Michael, his hand clutched firmly in hers, was bemused in a tiny kilt and ruffles.

The plan had been to go back, visit their pool, light their fire but they’d put their honeymoon on hold until they’d settled Michael’s future.

‘Ready?’ Ivo asked.

She took a deep breath and said, ‘Not quite. I just wanted to say…’ She had a load of words, but in the end it came down to two. ‘Thank you.’ She didn’t have to say what for. They both knew. ‘Now I’m ready.’

Rosie and Michael led the way, scattering rose petals before them as, to the strains of Pachelbel’s Canon , Manda walked down the flower-decked aisle towards the man she loved.

She saw nothing, was aware of nothing but Nick waiting for her, his smile telling her that he thought he was the most fortunate man in the world.

Him, and the warm, spicy scent of the huge trumpet lilies entwined along the altar rail. Cordilleran lilies.

‘You had them flown in especially?’ she murmured as he took her hand.

‘We couldn’t go to Cordillera, so I brought it to us and tonight I’ll light a fire that will keep us both warm for as long as we both shall live.’

Liz Fieldingwas born with itchy feet. She made it to Zambia before her twenty-first birthday and, gathering her own special hero and a couple of children on the way, lived in Botswana, Kenya and Bahrain-with pauses for sightseeing pretty much everywhere in between. She finally came to a full stop in a tiny Welsh village cradled by misty hills, and these days she mostly leaves her pen to do the traveling. When she’s not sorting out the lives and loves of her characters, she potters in the garden, reads her favorite authors and spends a lot of time wondering “What if…?” For news of upcoming books-and to sign up for her occasional newsletter-visit Liz’s Web site at www.lizfielding.com.