Trish Wylie - The Wedding Surprise

He considered the proposal for a moment and then quirked a brow at the doorway. What harm could it do?

‘Okay.’

Caitlin waited. Then waited some more. ‘So?’

‘I’m thinking.’

‘Don’t strain yourself.’

‘Funny.’ He propped himself up on an elbow and continued to stare at the door, as if by staring harder he would be able to see through it to read her face. ‘So how come there’s no neat boyfriend around to complete the picture?’

Damn. He just would ask that, wouldn’t he?

‘Maybe I like being single.’

‘You’re twenty-eight years old. In the fifties you’d be a spinster already. Don’t you want neat little kids so you can scrub their little faces and read them fairy stories at night?’

‘That’s a second question.’

‘Oops.’

She raised herself up on an elbow and thought about her answer. To tell or not to tell. That was the question, really.

‘I used to have a boyfriend. A fiancé.’

He wasn’t surprised at the first part of her answer, but the second part caught him off guard. ‘What happened?’

She took a breath. ‘He died.’

Aiden flumped onto his back and frowned at the ceiling. ‘How?’

‘He had this stupid motorcycle that he loved nearly as much as he said he loved me.’

‘Was it long ago?’

Yesterday, she wanted to answer. There were still odd moments when it felt as if it was. But the moments were further apart now than they had been at the start. The pain she’d felt back then was a bearable numbness now.

‘Nearly five years. We met in high school.’

Aiden heard the matter-of-fact tone of her voice as she recited facts that must have hurt like hell at the time. Her perfect life had hit a glitch. A big one. And that made him think. ‘I’m sorry.’

Caitlin was surprised by the softness in his voice. It was a completely different tone for the sarcastic edge he’d had with her for most of the evening. She sank back down into the haven of her duvet and lifted the bottom of it with her legs to tuck her feet in. Those two words spoken with that softness making her reach out for a simpler form of comfort, she supposed.

She blinked upwards for several long seconds, then replied with an equally softly spoken, ‘Thanks.’

The house fell silent again, until Caitlin’s voice sounded out with, ‘So, no neat little girlfriend for you, then?’

He laughed. ‘No, nothing neat in my life.’

‘You’re this charming to everyone, then?’

‘Careful, Caitlin. I’ll get the impression you don’t like me much.’

‘Oh, and that would hurt your feelings, would it?’

‘Well, if you still think I have feelings then I’m not a lost cause just yet, am I?’

She smiled. ‘Every human being has to have a feeling on something or another. I’ll allow you that much.’

‘Cheers.’ He turned his head to smile back at the door.

‘You’re welcome.’

Aiden was surprised when it went silent again. She was quitting that easily? He was almost disappointed that she was. Not that he was up for a deep psychoanalysis of his own life. But she had told him something very personal, had allowed something painful to be talked about, even briefly. And he felt he owed her something back for that.

‘Six months.’

‘What?’

‘Six months. It’s how long I can manage to stay in a relationship with a woman, apparently.’

Caitlin thought about the unexpectedly volunteered information. ‘How come?’

‘I wear them out.’

She laughed at his joke. ‘I’ll bet.’

He smiled. ‘I guess I’m just not neat little marriage material.’

‘No kids to scrub and read fairy stories to, huh?’

The ache in his stomach came back. ‘I don’t have any experience on either of those things.’

She turned her head towards the door at his answer. ‘Your mother didn’t scrub your face and read you fairy tales when you were little?’

None of them had. They’d had so many kids in their care that it had been miraculous enough if they all made it through each day fed and watered. Fairy tales hadn’t exactly been on the menu at any stage.

‘That’s a second question.’

She opened her mouth to push him on it, but he got there first. ‘That’s probably enough to add to the lists—for one night anyway.’ The bed creaked again as he turned away from the door and switched off the bedside light. ‘Goodnight, Caitlin Rourke.’

Caitlin blinked into the darkness, her eyes adjusting to make out the dark forms of her bedroom furniture while her mind worked overtime. Aiden had more facets than he first appeared to have. And that intrigued her.

The fact that it intrigued her bothered her.

She’d never met anyone like him before. But the simple fact was in three months’ time she’d probably never meet him again.

‘Goodnight, Aiden.’

THE fixed cameras in her house were replaced by a camera guy and a sound man during the day. And by lunchtime Caitlin knew more about them both than she knew about her ‘fiancé’.

They just had an openness that she was more accustomed to. In conversation they shared information that might have been simple in its general topic but gave hints to their personalities and lives. Whereas Aiden just had a way of avoiding anything remotely like sharing. He could be an international spy for all she knew.

Except for that brief time that they’d shared talking from separate rooms across the hallway.

She struggled her way through the lunchtime rush at Maguires, the employer of her choice in Dublin city centre. The dream of having a restaurant of her own was so far off that it made sense to work somewhere she at least liked to fill the time. But with Aiden Flynn, international man of mystery, sitting at home in her house it was hard to concentrate on dish presentation.

Faking a headache, she left the restaurant and piled into her car with Mick and Joe to make the drive home.

‘So you’re taking Aiden home to meet your parents tomorrow, then?’ Mick pointed the camera at her from the passenger seat.

‘Mmm.’ She grimaced slightly at the thought. ‘That’s the plan.’

‘You worried about it?’

‘Oh, no. We tell massive porkies to each other all the time. It’s a sort of family hobby of ours.’

Mick laughed. ‘Mine too.’

She risked a massive insurance claim by glancing into the lens for a second, ‘I was kidding, Mick.’

‘Oh, me too.’

She laughed. ‘Seriously. My family is close. Really close.’ Her expression changed. ‘After Liam died they were there to hold me together. On the days when I couldn’t get up they brought me food in bed. When I couldn’t stay still my father even took up jogging to keep me company.’

Glancing back at the camera, she smiled sadly. ‘Where one of us ends the other begins. It’s just the way we are.’

‘That’s a rare thing, all right.’

‘Yes, it is.’

She wove her way through the traffic, her mind focussing on the task of not hitting another vehicle. But as they got out of the city and headed towards the suburbs her mind went back to a darker time than the sunny autumn day they were currently in.

‘Do you still miss him, Caitlin?’

The softly voiced question caught her off guard. It had been a long time since anyone had asked. She thought about it a while, played snapshots of memories across her mind, and smiled wistfully as she answered. ‘I miss the sound of his voice sometimes.’

The sound of the camera filled the silence.

‘You tend to think that someone the same age as you will just always be around. Especially when it’s someone you love.’ She continued smiling, eyes on the road ahead but her mind reliving he past. ‘Liam was always the one who lived for the moment. He used to say life was too short to just stand still.’