Jessica Hart - Cinderella’s Wedding Wish

But, no, there were footsteps on the wooden verandah behind her. She felt him crouching down beside her, and the next moment a soft, squirming body was placed gently in her lap.

Miranda’s eyes flew open to see a puppy sprawled across her knees. It had huge paws, floppy ears and a velvet soft coat, and it was licking her hands and wriggling with pleasure.

All the breath leaked out of her. ‘Oh…’ Her throat was so tight, it was all she could say for a while. She looked up at Rafe. ‘He looks just like Rafferty,’ she managed, but her voice was cracked and constricted and she was very close to tears. All of her childhood, she had dreamed of a puppy just like this one.

‘He’s an Irish Setter,’ said Rafe, obviously pleased at her reaction. He sat down beside her on the step and reached over to scratch the puppy’s head. ‘I couldn’t get a mutt in case it didn’t look right.’

‘Is he really for me?’

‘He is, but you might not want him when you see what he eats! I warn you, he chews everything. I only had him in the house for about an hour this morning, and he’s already ruined two pairs of shoes, my best tie and the remote control for the television!’

Miranda laughed shakily and lifted the puppy so that they were nose to nose. ‘Are you very naughty, darling?’ she asked him, and the puppy’s long pink tongue lapped eagerly, trying to reach her face.

‘I thought he’d be company for you,’ said Rafe, watching her face alight with laughter. ‘It must be lonely down here on your own.’

Her smile didn’t fade, but some of the light seemed to go out of her. She glanced at him, confused by his thoughtful gesture, even more confused by her own reaction. He had given her a beautiful puppy, and gone to all the trouble of finding one that would look like her beloved Rafferty. How could she not be grateful to him? She ought to be ecstatic. But if he thought she needed company, that meant he wasn’t planning on staying.

Well, what had she expected?

‘It’s really kind of you, Rafe,’ she said. ‘ Thank you. I love him.’ She fondled the puppy’s ears. ‘I don’t deserve him after I threw spaghetti all over you.’ She glanced at him. ‘Is it too late to say that I’m sorry?’

‘Not if I can say sorry too,’ said Rafe. ‘I think we both said and did things we regret that night, but in one way it couldn’t have worked better. After that spectacular end to our engagement, I got plenty of sympathy!’

Miranda made herself smile. ‘So our plan worked?’

‘You could say that.’

‘Well…good.’ She kept her smile in place. It was enough that he was here, she told herself. He had brought her a gorgeous puppy, and was prepared to be friends again, even after she had behaved so appallingly. What more did she want? ‘So, have you found a fiancée yet?’

‘I have,’ said Rafe, and her heart sank lower than she would have believed possible when she was holding a wriggling puppy. ‘At least,’ he qualified, ‘I’ve decided who I want to marry, and now I’ve just got to persuade her to agree. That’s why I’m here, in fact. I need your advice.’

‘You want my advice?’ Miranda gaped at him. Didn’t he remember that terrible row?

He nodded. ‘I thought you’d be the best person.’

‘I’m surprised you’d want advice from someone boring and repressed!’ she couldn’t help saying, unable to keep the hurt from her voice.

‘You were never boring, Miranda,’ said Rafe gently. ‘I never called you that.’

‘You implied it. You said I didn’t know how to be happy.’

‘ Are you happy?’

Instantly her chin came up. ‘Of course I am. I’ve never been happier. I’ve got everything I’ve always wanted, especially now I’ve got you ,’ she added to the puppy, who was struggling to get off her lap. Carefully, she lifted him up and set him down at her feet, where he gambolled a little way before tripping over his paws and flopping down onto the grass.

She smiled brilliantly at Rafe and gestured out at the sea, which was glittering silver in the afternoon sun. ‘How could I not be happy here?’

‘Ah,’ he said, and looked away. ‘I’m glad.’

Miranda glared at his profile. Honestly, how obtuse could he be?

‘Of course I’m not happy,’ she said crossly. ‘I’m miserable . Is that what you wanted to hear?’

He turned at that. ‘It is, actually.’

His eyes held a smile, but Miranda couldn’t look at him. Biting her lip, she jerked her gaze away. ‘Probably serves me right for dumping spaghetti on you,’ she said.

To her horror, tears clogged her throat without warning, and she had to swallow painfully before she could produce a bright, bright smile. ‘Anyway, I’m glad you’ve met the right woman for you,’ she managed after a moment. ‘What’s she like? Is she nice?’

‘Well, I like her,’ said Rafe. ‘She’s different. She prefers dogs to people, can you imagine that? She doesn’t like being in the city and she hates dressing up and going to parties.’

As his words sank in Miranda’s heart began to thud. It was slamming steadily, painfully against her ribs, and, hardly daring to believe that it wasn’t a cruel joke, she turned her head very, very slowly to meet his eyes once more.

They were dark and blue and very warm. ‘She wears dull little suits and ties her hair up,’ he went on, ‘and if you watched her dealing with a photocopier, say, you would think she was really repressed.’

Miranda moistened her lips. ‘I can’t think why you would want to marry someone like that,’ she said unsteadily.

‘The thing is,’ Rafe confided, ‘only I know that when she lets down her hair and takes off that suit, she’s the wildest, most exciting, most beautiful woman I could ever hope to meet. Making love to her was a big mistake, in fact, because once I’d done that, I knew that only she would do.

‘The thing is,’ he said again, his voice very deep and low, ‘nothing is quite right without her. I’m not right without her. I tried to be. I tried as hard as I could. I told myself that I could easily love someone else, that marriage was better approached practically rather than emotionally. That’s what I wanted to feel. It’s what I felt I should feel. The trouble was that once she’d gone, I realised that it wasn’t what I did feel.’

Hope was gripping Miranda’s heart so tightly it was almost painful, and it was all she could do to breathe past the constriction in her chest. ‘What did you feel?’ she asked huskily.

‘I felt that I had found the one person I didn’t know that I had been looking for all these years,’ said Rafe quietly. ‘The one person who could make me feel complete.’

Reaching out, he took Miranda’s hand at last. ‘I didn’t think it could be you, Miranda. There seemed to be too many reasons why it shouldn’t be you, but it is you,’ he said.

His fingers curled around hers, his clasp warm and strong and infinitely reassuring. ‘Dad always complained that I never stuck at anything. I thought I had to stick at Knighton’s to prove him wrong, but I don’t. All I need is to prove to you that I love you.’

Rafe lifted their clasped hands to his lips and kissed her knuckles. ‘I’m asking you for the chance to prove that I can stick with you for ever.’

‘Rafe…’ Miranda’s heart was so full she couldn’t speak. She could just stare at him, her eyes shimmering with unshed tears as happiness seeped like sunshine along her veins.

‘I’m not asking you to leave Whitestones, Miranda. I know what it means to you. If you-and the dog-’ he added, nodding at the puppy which was snuffling inquisitively through the long grass, ‘will have me, I’ll move down here too. It’s not as if I’m short of a bob or two. I don’t need to work. I could unblock those gutters for you.’