His Runaway Bride

Mike had been working up to taking her to Maybridge, gauging her reaction to an alternative lifestyle; her excitement over the house had made him realise that it was going to be a non-starter.

‘Right. Well, I suppose if you’re both happy with it, that’s all that matters.’ Cal clearly wasn’t convinced, but let it drop. ‘When are you supposed to be moving in?’

Mike dragged himself back from some place where he wasn’t expected to live to this monstrosity of a house which his father, with all his plans apparently about to be fulfilled, had sprung on them as a wedding present. There had been no prior consultation because his father had known what his answer would be. The cunning old fox had relied on Willow to do his dirty work for him. And since she’d clearly loved the place, he’d choked back the ‘thanks, but no thanks’. There was no way he could refuse it.

Realising that Cal was regarding him with a look that suggested his face was betraying his innermost thoughts, Mike quickly answered, ‘The house is supposed to be ready when we get back from honeymoon.’

‘You don’t sound…’ his friend hesitated as he sought for the appropriate word ‘…optimistic.’ Mike ignored the underlying invitation to say what he really felt and kept quiet. ‘Ookaaay.’ Cal stretched out the vowels in acknowledgement that, as a topic of conversation, it was going no further. ‘I’m sure you and Willow can live without carpet for a week or two. And there’s no hurry to furnish the nursery,’ he added, in an attempt to lighten the atmosphere, gesturing at the giveaway decor of the second bedroom. ‘Unless there’s something you’re not telling me? It would certainly explain the prodigal’s unexpected return to the fold—’

‘My father’s trip to intensive care provoked my return,’ Mike declared. ‘It was never my intention to stay in Melchester.’

‘Until you met Willow.’ Until he met Willow. ‘Does she know how you feel about stepping into your father’s shoes? I only ask because when we were having a drink last week, I got the distinct impression that she thinks you’re taking the fast route to businessman of the year.’ He waited. ‘That you’ve got accountants’ ink running through your veins.’ Then he added, ‘She doesn’t know about Maybridge, does she? You haven’t told her.’

‘Mind your own business, Cal.’

‘I’m your best man. This is my business.’

‘You’ve met her. She’s old money, centuries-deep breeding.’ Mike’s gesture conveyed unspoken volumes. ‘She was simply marking time, doing the social stuff at the newspaper until one of the local chinless wonders invited her to become his Lady Chinless Wonder and breed little chinless wonders.’

‘Excuse me? Have you actually read any of the stuff she writes? Listened—’

‘I have to live with the Chronicle, Cal. I’m not prepared to sleep with it.’ He held up his hands. ‘Okay, okay. If there was a prize for writing up the gardening club’s committee meeting I’m sure she’d get it. But you can understand why I haven’t suggested she move in over my workshop in Maybridge and live off what I make with my hands.’

‘What you wouldn’t do for your father, you’ll do for love? In your shoes, I have to admit I’d do the same.’ He looked around, then grinned. ‘Maybe the nursery should be a priority after all.’

‘This is my father’s idea of a subtle hint. He could give a steam hammer lessons.’

‘The heart attack hasn’t slowed him down?’

‘Heart attack? I’m beginning to suspect that it was nothing more serious than a bad bout of indigestion.’ But it had done the trick. Brought him racing home, full of guilt, to take over managing the Chronicle and its sister magazine, the Country Chronicle while his mother took the old man on holiday. A long holiday. He should have run then, smelt a rat the moment his holiday-hating father hadn’t objected to a six-week cruise. ‘I don’t know. Maybe I’m just being cynical. Whatever, it’s reminded him of his own mortality.’ He gestured at the wallpaper. ‘Hence the rabbits.’

‘That’s it? No other problems?’

Mike dragged his fingers through his hair. ‘Well, I have to get my hair cut before Saturday,’ he said, making a determined effort to shake off a sense of doom.

He loved Willow. She’d been the one bright spark in the darkness when he’d been forced to come home, take up the reins of the family business while his father convalesced.

He’d walked into the office that first morning, his mood as black as the Chronicle’s headlines when she’d cannoned into him, her belongings scattering across the floor. She’d dived after her phone to check that it wasn’t damaged before rounding on him with a sharp, ‘Why don’t you look where you’re going?’

About to put her right about who hadn’t been looking, he’d caught his breath and there had a been a small, still moment when everything, including his heart, had seemed to stop. Then she’d grinned and said, ‘Oops. Bad mistake. Memo to brain. Don’t yell at your new boss until you’ve been properly introduced.’ When he’d continued to stare at her, his tongue apparently stuck to the roof of his mouth, she’d added, ‘You are Michael Armstrong? There’s a photograph of you on your father’s desk—’

‘It’s Mike,’ he’d said. ‘And I’m not the boss. Just standing in his shoes for a couple of weeks.’

‘Oh well, hello, Mike.’ She’d stuck out her hand. ‘I’m Willow Blake.’ Then she’d given a little yelp. ‘And I’m late.’ And then he’d been watching her run for her car with a smile on his face that would have given the Cheshire cat an inferiority complex.

He hadn’t intended more than a flirtation. A brief dalliance. Nothing heavy, nothing serious. She’d taken some catching, had kept him at arm’s length for longer than he was used to. The chase had been fun, though, and catching her had been…well…as if he’d found something he hadn’t known he’d been missing. But he’d pursued her as Michael Armstrong, acting head of the company she worked for. She was a class act and he’d needed every advantage he could use to stack the scales in his favour.

And when he’d caught her there didn’t seem to be any particular hurry to explain that this was just a temporary persona. Then he’d asked her to marry him.

And had meant it.

Her slightly stunned ‘yes’, had left him wanting to shout stop the presses…reset the front page…I’ve got some real news…—drowning out the small warning voice telling him that she thought she was getting the heir to a publishing empire. Not a man who, in his real life, lived in the old hayloft above what had once been a coach house and stables. Above his workshop where he lived an entirely different dream.

Could it be that he was afraid she wouldn’t want the real Michael Armstrong? Was that why he’d put off telling her?

Once his father had driven them out to the house, handed them the estate agent’s glossy brochure, gift-wrapped, it had been too late.

‘You only have one life, Mike,’ Cal said, interrupting his black thoughts, reading his mind with frightening accuracy. ‘You have to live your own dream.’ Then, frowning, he said, ‘It’s the bride who’s supposed to be having last-minute nerves.’

‘I’d advise you to wait until you try it from the business end of the wedding banns before you make such sweeping judgements.’

‘That sounds like a bad case of cold feet.’

The inflection in Cal’s voice again urged him to confide his misgivings, but things had gone too far for that, so he shook his head. ‘I guess I thought it would be simpler. I guess I thought getting married was just a question of turning up at the church on time and not losing the ring.’

‘You can safely leave those details to me. As for the rest…’ He glanced at his watch. ‘It’s nearly lunch time. Why don’t you go and find the lovely Willow, give yourselves the afternoon off and remind yourself what this is all about?’

‘I haven’t got time.’ Cal’s brows rose slightly. ‘I’ll be away from the business for the best part of a month.’ Except it wasn’t going to be the business, any more. It was going to be his business. He’d conformed, settled down and his father was all set to hand over the minute the ink was dry on the marriage register.

‘Mike?’ She’d been waiting an hour for him, finishing the feature about the holiday cottages, tidying up loose ends. Thinking of some way to tell him about the job she’d been offered.

Leaving the paper would be bad enough, a kick in the teeth of both Mike and his father. And she’d have to travel to London every day, not always making it home, maybe. It was possible that if the Globe knew she was about to get married, they might not be so keen to have her…

Mike finally made a note in the margin of a column of figures, then looked up.

‘What is it, Willow?’

She looked at the pencil keeping his place in the margin and said, ‘Nothing. Absolutely nothing.’

She didn’t wait for his response, but walked quickly out of the building. Her car was in for a service and Mike had offered to give her a lift to Crysse’s. He’d clearly forgotten and she’d rather walk than interrupt his love affair with a calculator. That was what you got for falling in love with an accountant.

She hoisted her shoulder bag a little higher. She’d walk off the bad day with the builders, the endless queries from her mother about details, details, details. She no longer cared about the colour of the ribbons on the pew ends, or whether there would be sufficient roses in the garden for buttonholes. In a world where there were children who’d never had a holiday, never would have a holiday unless someone like Emily Wootton made it possible, such things didn’t rate a second thought.

But walking was a mistake. She was wearing new shoes and, by the time she’d gone half a mile, the deceptively soft leather had raised a blister on her heel. If she limped up the aisle, every painful step captured on video for posterity, her mother would probably kill her. Which would solve every one of her problems at a stroke. The other option was to catch a bus. As she reached a stop, she joined the queue, eased the weight off her foot and waited.

‘Offer you a lift, lady?’ She forced herself to ignore the little heart-lift as Mike pulled up beside her, an unruly cow-lick of honey-coloured hair sliding over his forehead as he leaned across to push open the passenger door of his black four-wheel drive.

‘My mother told me never to take lifts from strangers,’ she said, horribly conscious of the envious glances of women with heavy shopping bags. Then she said, ‘I thought you were busy.’

‘I was. I am. And I have a headache to end all headaches, which is why I forgot about giving you a lift to Crysse’s.’

‘I hope your stag night was worth the headache.’

‘Nothing is worth this amount of pain.’ And it hadn’t worked. No amount of alcohol or the juvenile high jinks organised by Cal, had been able to blot out the mess he’d got himself into. He glanced at the queue of people who had stopped straining to see if a bus was coming and were now all watching their little drama. ‘Please get in, Willow.’

‘How did you know I didn’t call a taxi?’ She considered taking out her phone and doing just that.

‘You were angry.’ And he didn’t blame her. ‘In your shoes I’d have walked.’