Sancia laughed. ‘Ready? Querida, I’ve been ready for more than ten years. I was just waiting for your father to come to his senses and come after me.’
The fact that Sancia and Ernest had never actually got around to divorcing should have been a clue, Rosa thought. But at least it made things easier now—a vow renewal on the island was much more special than having to go to the mainland for a formal remarriage.
Anna held out her arms for her daughter, and Rosa handed her over, feeling a brief pang of emptiness as she did so.
It didn’t last long, though. She pressed a hand to her stomach, and remembered that wherever she roamed now, she did it with company. First Jude, and, soon, their child.
Looking down at the path at her feet to hide her smile, Rosa thought how much this would have terrified her a few years ago. Not now, though.
Now, it all seemed like the biggest adventure she’d chased yet.
‘Right, that’s the first signal,’ Anna said as the music changed. ‘Everyone ready?’
They’d agreed that they’d walk their mother down the aisle together. It just felt right, since they were entrusting her to their father again. They both had their own lives to live now—Anna and Leo on the island, and Rosa and Jude wherever the mood took them.
Leo appeared to take the baby from Anna, and reclaim his seat at the front. Then Sancia linked arms with both her daughters, and they prepared to walk down the aisle, just as Anna had nine months earlier, still barely showing, to marry Leo. Jude and Rosa had managed to avoid the big showy wedding so far, and Rosa wasn’t entirely looking forward to telling her mother that, technically, they were already married. She had a feeling that Sancia wouldn’t feel the quick register office service when they were passing through London on tour would really count.
But it counted to Rosa.
Right until the moment she said yes, she’d been half afraid she’d run—and she knew Jude had, too. But when it came down to it, she knew that their love was far more binding than any piece of paper or jewellery.
Really, what more could she give Jude than her heart, anyway? And he’d had that all along.
‘It’s so wonderful to have both my girls together on the island again,’ Sancia said, squeezing them close as they waited for that second change in the music, the one that told them it was time to start walking.
‘It is nice to all be together,’ Anna agreed. ‘Rosa, will you come again for longer, later in the summer?’
‘We’ll try,’ Rosa replied, as the music changed and Anna signalled for them to take their first steps. Rosa grinned as she saw Jude waiting with her father up ahead. ‘But come winter we’ll definitely be here for a few months,’ she said, not thinking.
‘Really?’ Sancia stopped walking, a pace before the aisle started, and Rosa realised that the middle of her vow renewal service might not have been quite the right time to tell her mother this news.
Oh, well. Timing had never been her strong suit. Or not blurting things out the moment she thought of them.
‘Why, Rosa?’ Anna had a small line between her eyebrows.
Rosa shrugged. ‘Well, I need you both to teach me everything you know about babies. And pretty fast.’
Sancia squealed, embracing her tightly, and Rosa saw her father rolling his eyes over her mother’s shoulder.
‘You made her smudge her make-up,’ Anna said, with a sigh. But Rosa knew from the grin on her face that her sister was happy for her.
‘Come on, Mama,’ she said, disentangling herself. ‘Dad’s waiting.’
‘Oh, he’s waited this long,’ Sancia said. ‘A few more moments won’t make a difference.’
‘Besides,’ Rosa agreed, smiling at Jude at the other end of the aisle, ‘the best things in life are worth waiting for.’
* * * * *