She dropped to her knees beside him. ‘That’s not a proposal.’ She looked stunned. ‘That’s a wedding vow.’
‘That’s okay,’ he whispered, pulling her even closer. ‘I’ve already got the wedding ring.’
Her eyes widened. ‘Pocket twenty-four?’
He nodded. ‘Pocket twenty-four. I didn’t know there was a church around here. I was hoping that we could say our own vows.’
She giggled. ‘Looks like I’m going to be a Christmas bride after all.’
He looked completely confused. ‘What on earth are you talking about?’
She smiled. ‘Well, one day I might tell you a little story...’
EPILOGUE
One year later
‘YOU’VE got to pick the best stones, Cassidy. They need to be flat on both sides.’ The blue eyes regarded her seriously before the little face broke into a broad smile. ‘That’s why I always win,’ she whispered, giving a conspiratorial glance over her shoulder towards Brad, who was standing at the lakeside waiting for them both.
‘What’s going on with my girls?’ he shouted.
Melody held her gloved hand out towards Cassidy as they walked back over to Brad.
Cassidy looked down at the blonde curls spilling out from the green woolly hat. She gave Brad a smile. This was their third visit to North Woods, Wisconsin, and Brad had finally been allowed some unsupervised access to his child. Melody was a loving, easy child who, luckily enough, seemed totally oblivious to the tensions between her natural parents.
She spoke to Brad online every week and had been happy to meet Cassidy, loving the fact that her dad had a Scottish wife. She’d even painted Cassidy a picture of them all living in a Scottish castle.
Cassidy winked at Brad. ‘Melody and I needed some time to make our plan. We think we’ve found a sixer.’
‘A sixer? What on earth is that?’ He shook his head in amusement at them both.
Melody’s voice piped up. ‘You should know what a sixer is, Daddy.’ The stone-skimming champion looked at him seriously, holding up the flat grey stone in her hand like an winning prize. ‘This stone will skim across the water six times before it goes under.’
‘Aha.’ He knelt down beside her, touching the stone with his finger, ‘A sixer? Really?’ He shook his head and folded him arm across his chest. ‘No way. Not that stone.’
‘It really is, Daddy.’
Brad’s face broke into a big smile as he straightened up and slung his arm around Cassidy’s shoulder. ‘Prove it.’
They watched as Melody took her position at the lakeside edge, narrowing her gaze and pulling her hand back to her shoulder. She let out a yell as she released the stone, sending it skimming over the flat water, bouncing across the lake.
Cassidy leaned against Brad’s shoulder. ‘One, two, three, four, five, six. Your daughter was absolutely right. It was a sixer. Now, where does she get that skill from, I wonder?’
He laughed. ‘Her dad, definitely her dad. I could throw a mean ball as a kid.’
He picked up Melody, who was shrieking over her success. ‘What a star!’ he shouted as he threw her into the air, catching her in his arms and spinning her round.
Cassidy pulled her red wool coat further around her, trying to ward off the biting cold. North Woods was nearly as cold as Glasgow at this time of year.
Brad came over and whispered in her ear. ‘Happy anniversary, Mrs Donovan.’ His cold nose was pressed against her cheek as he wrapped his arms around her waist.
Cassidy felt herself relax against him. After all her worries, all her stresses, things had worked out just fine. They’d married two weeks after his proposal in the churchyard—as quickly as they legally could.
Her gran had recovered quickly from her broken hip and recuperated back in the nursing home with some expert care. She was on a new drug trial, and although her Alzheimer’s hadn’t improved, it certainly hadn’t got any worse. The relief for Cassidy was that the
episodes of aggression seemed to have abated. She still visited her gran as often as possible but she was confident in the care the nursing home provided.
That had given her the freedom she’d needed to join Brad on a two-month visit to Australia and on three trips to the States to see Melody.
After a few tense months, Alison’s lawyer had finally talked some sense into his client and visiting rights had been sorted out. It meant that every few months they could have Melody for a week at a time to stay with them.
Brad had looked at a few jobs nearby and been interviewed for a position at the local hospital. Cassidy had just seen an ad for a specialist nurse to help set up an anticoagulant clinic and knew it was just what she was looking for. There was only one more thing that could make this perfect.
She turned round and put her arms around his neck. ‘Happy anniversary, Dr Donovan.’ She kissed him on his cold lips.
‘So how do you feel about North Woods, Wisconsin?’ he asked, his smile reaching from one ear to the other.
Cassidy looked over her shoulder at the lake with ice around the edges and thick trees surrounding it. ‘I think it has potential.’ She smiled.
He raised his eyebrows. ‘Potential? Potential for what?’
He was waiting. Waiting to see what she would say. He didn’t know she’d just found an ad for her dream job. He didn’t know that there had been a message from the hospital after he’d left to collect Melody, offering him the job he’d just been interviewed for. But all of that could wait. Right now she wanted the chance to still surprise her new husband.
She rose up on the tips of her toes and whispered in his ear, ‘I think North Woods, Wisconsin might be a nice place to make a baby.’
His jaw dropped and his eyes twinkled as he picked her up and spun her round. ‘You know, Mrs Donovan, I think you could be right.’
* * * * *