Jessica Hart - Barefoot Bride

So all she did was look helplessly back at Will until he dropped his hands, his expression closed. ‘That’s three times I’ve asked you to marry me,’ he said bleakly as Alice lowered her trembling arms and rubbed them unsteadily. ‘And three times you’ve said no. I’ve got the message now, though,’ he told her. ‘I won’t ask you again.’

He had stepped away from her then, only turning back almost against his will for one last, hard kiss. ‘Goodbye, Alice,’ he said, and then he turned and walked out of her life.

Until now.

Alice sighed. For a while there, the past had seemed more vivid than the present, and her heart was like a cold fist in her chest, just as it had been then.

‘Are you sure?’ asked Beth, whose blue eyes could be uncomfortably shrewd at times.

‘Of course.’ Alice summoned a bright smile. ‘It was fine,’ she repeated, knowing that Beth was afraid that tension between her and Will would mar the party she had planned so carefully. ‘And it will be fine this time, too. Don’t worry, Beth. I promise you I don’t have a problem meeting Will or his wife,’ she went on bravely, if inaccurately, as she got to her feet. ‘Will probably won’t even remember me. Now, why don’t I give you a hand unpacking all that shopping?’

Will watched anxiously as Lily took Beth’s hand after a moment’s hesitation and allowed herself to be led off to the pool, which was already full of children squealing excitedly. His daughter had looked apprehensive at the thought of making new friends, but she hadn’t clung to him or even looked to him for reassurance. He was almost as much a stranger to her as Beth was, he reflected bitterly.

‘She’ll be fine.’ Roger misread Will’s tension. ‘Beth loves kids, and she’ll look after Lily. By the time the party’s over, she won’t want to go home!’

That was precisely what Will was afraid of, but he didn’t want to burden Roger with his problems the moment that they met up again after so long. He’d always liked Roger, and Beth’s delight at bumping into him the day before had been touching, but the truth was that he wasn’t in the mood for a party.

He hadn’t been able to think of a tactful way to refuse Beth’s invitation at the time, and this morning he had convinced himself that a party would be a good thing for Lily, no matter how little he might feel like it himself. Beth had assured him that it would be a casual barbecue, and that several families would be there, so Lily would have plenty of other children to play with.

Will hadn’t seen his daughter play once since they had arrived in St Bonaventure, and he knew he needed to make an effort to get her to interact with other children. But, watching Lily trail reluctantly along in Beth’s wake, Will was seized by a fresh sense of inadequacy. Should he have reassured her, or gone with her? He was bitterly aware that he was thrown by the kind of everyday situations any normal father would take in his stride.

‘Come and have a beer,’ said Roger, before Will could decide whether to follow Lily and Beth or not, so he let Roger hand him a bottle so cold that the condensation steamed. There wasn’t much he could do about Lily right now, and in the meantime he had better exert himself to be sociable.

The two men spent a few minutes catching up and, by the time Roger offered to introduce him to the other guests, Will was beginning to relax. He didn’t know whether it was the beer, or Roger’s friendly ordinariness, but he was definitely feeling better.

‘Most people are outside,’ said Roger, leading the way through a bright, modern living-area to where sliding-glass doors separated the air-conditioned coolness from the tropical heat outside.

Will was happy to follow him. He had never minded the heat, and, if he was outside, he’d be able to keep an eye on Lily at the pool. Roger glanced out as he pulled open the door for Will, then hesitated at the last moment.

‘Beth did tell you who’s staying with us, didn’t she?’ he asked, suddenly doubtful.

‘No, who’s that?’ asked Will without much interest as he stepped out onto the decking, shaded by a pergola covered in scrambling pink bougainvillaea.

He never heard Roger’s answer.

He saw her in his first casual glance out at the garden, and his heart slammed to a halt in his chest.

Alice.

She was standing in the middle of the manicured lawn, talking to a portly man in a florid shirt. Eight years, and he recognized her instantly.

Even from a distance, Will could see that her companion was sweating profusely in the heat, but Alice looked cool and elegant in a loose, pale green dress that wafted slightly in the hot breeze. She was wearing high-heeled sandals with delicate straps, and her hair was clipped up in a way that would look messy on most other women, but which she carried off with that flair she had always had.

Alice. There was no one else like her.

He had thought he would never see her again. Will’s heart stuttered into life after that first, jarring moment of sheer disbelief, but he was still having trouble breathing. Buffeted by a turbulent mixture of shock, joy, anger and something perilously close to panic, Will wasn’t sure what he felt, other than totally unprepared for the sight of her.

Dimly, Will was aware that Roger was saying something, but he couldn’t hear it. He could just stare at Alice across the garden until, as if sensing his stunned gaze, she turned her head, and her smile froze at the sight of him.

There was a long, long pause when it seemed to Will as if the squawking birds and the shrieking children and the buzz of conversation all faded into a silence broken only by the erratic thump of his heart. He couldn’t have moved if he had tried.

Then he saw Alice make an excuse to the man in the ghastly shirt and turn to walk across the garden towards him, apparently quite at ease in those ridiculous shoes, the dress floating around her legs.

She had always moved with a straight-backed, unconscious grace that had fascinated Will, and as he watched her he had the vertiginous feeling that time had ground to a halt and was rewinding faster and faster through the blur of the last ten years. So strong was the sensation that he was half-convinced that, by the time she reached him those long years would have vanished and they would both be back as they had been then, when they’d loved each other.

Will’s mouth was dry as Alice hesitated for a fraction of a second at the bottom of the steps that led up to the decking, and then she was standing before him.

‘Hello, Will,’ she said.

‘ALICE.’ Will’s throat was so constricted that her name was all he could manage.

Roger looked from one to the other, and took the easy way out. ‘I’d better make sure everyone has a drink,’ he said, although neither of them gave any sign that they had even heard him. ‘I’ll leave you two to catch up.’

Will stared at Alice, hardly able to believe that she was actually standing in front of him. His first stunned thought was that she hadn’t changed at all. There were the same high cheekbones, the same golden eyes and slanting brows, the same wide mouth. The silky brown hair was even pulled carelessly away from her face just the way she had used to wear it as a student. She was the same!

But when he looked more closely, the illusion faded. She must be thirty-two now, ten years older than the way he remembered her, and it showed in the faint lines and the drawn look around her eyes. Her hairstyle might not have changed, but the quirky collection of dangly, ethnic earrings had been replaced by discreet pearl studs, and the comfortable boots by high heels and glamour.

Alice had never been beautiful. Her hair was too straight, her features too irregular, but she had possessed an innate stylishness and charm that had clearly matured into elegance and sophistication. She had become a poised, attractive woman.