Runaway Bride: A laugh out loud funny and feel good rom com

‘So… what, career change?’

He shrugged. ‘If you like. What do you enjoy? What’re you good at?’

I paused to think about it. ‘Well, I’ve always liked writing,’ I said at last. ‘I’ve written the odd feature for local mags, unpaid. Doubt I could make a living from it though. I’ll have to take what I can get, at least until there’s an opening to fit my experience.’

‘Hmm. Perhaps.’ He looked thoughtful for a moment.

I scanned down my list of problems. ‘It’s the first one that’s the real kicker, isn’t it? I’ve got nothing that can prove my identity. And until I have, I can’t get my ISA money.’

Jack fell silent, staring down at his fingers spread on the table.

‘When does Ethan go out?’ he said at last.

I frowned. ‘What?’

‘Just wondered if you fancied a spot of light larceny this Thursday.’

***

‘Jack, I don’t think I can do this,’ I muttered, casting an apprehensive look down the too-familiar cul-de-sac. We’d parked at the end – parking right outside the door, where anyone could get a good look at the van and report back on it to Ethan, felt too risky.

Jack had spent hours talking me into this, and being so close to home after the events of the month before was sending my heart rate into overdrive.

‘What choice have you got?’ he said. ‘You need that passport.’

‘But what if he’s there?’

‘What if he is? He can’t hurt you. He’d have to go through me.’

‘I can’t see him, Jack.’ The panic trembled in my voice. ‘You promised I wouldn’t have to see him.’

He took my hand and stroked it soothingly. ‘It’s okay, Kit. He’ll be at work for hours yet, you said so yourself. It’s a ten-minute job, then we’ll be on the road again.’

‘Far away?’

‘As far as Timbuktu if that’s what you want.’

I sucked in a deep breath, exhaled slowly, then pushed open the door of the camper. ‘Right. Okay. Let’s get it over with.’

The house looked the same as the last time I’d seen it, except that the chrysanthemums were coming into bloom and the lawn was fresh-mown. It seemed almost absurd, finding everything just as I’d left it.

Mrs Bartholomew, our elderly neighbour, was in her front garden deadheading roses.

‘Oh! Kitty!’ she said when she spotted me. ‘Well, you’re back early.’

‘Hello, Mrs Bartholomew. Um, am I?’

‘Is the course over already? Oh, or do they give you half-term like at school? We weren’t expecting you back until next month.’

I blinked. ‘Sorry – weren’t expecting me back from where?’

‘Well, from the editing course. Ethan said you’d be away at least two months. Such a shame, straight after your wedding, but I suppose it was too good an opportunity to pass up.’ She shook her head. ‘The world of work’s certainly very different than it was in my day.’

‘Sounds pretty different than it was in mine,’ I muttered. ‘Oh, er, this is Jack. He’s my… cousin.’

‘Hiya.’ Jack smiled his charming smile for her. I was sure I saw Mrs Bartholomew blush under her huge-brimmed sun hat.

When they’d finished exchanging pleasantries, all the time with me struggling to keep my anxiety from spilling out, we went round the back and I rummaged under the azalea pot where Ethan always stashed the spare key.

Jack was smirking as he followed me in.

‘He didn’t really tell the neighbours you were on a two-month residential editing course?’

‘Apparently.’ I couldn’t help smiling too. It was pretty funny, in a grim sort of way. ‘I suppose telling everyone I’m off learning the art of the possessive apostrophe is a bit less humiliating than admitting your new wife walked out on you right after the wedding.’

‘So where do we find this passport then?’

‘Bureau in the study. Come on. I want to get out of here as quickly as possible.’

Jack tiptoed after me as I made my way through the living room and up the stairs. Even though Ethan wasn’t there, it felt like our new hobby of house burglary should be conducted in stealth mode.

‘This was your home?’ Jack whispered.

‘Yeah.’

‘It’s a bit bare, isn’t it?’

I glanced around at the white walls, unsullied with anything as vulgar as a picture, and the naked boards of the floor.

‘It’s minimalist. Ethan likes that.’

‘Seems pretty sterile to me.’

I pushed open the study door. ‘It’ll be in here. Bottom drawer.’

But when I knelt and opened the drawer where the passports were usually kept, there was nothing but a pile of old bank statements. I felt a stab of panic.

‘It’s not here, Jack!’

‘What?’

‘My passport. It always lives here. Oh God! He’s not hidden it, has he? Taken it to work? I bet he knew I’d be back for it and he… bastard!’

I started rifling frantically through the drawer, chucking the bank statements here, there and everywhere as I tried to find the passport. If I couldn’t get my hands on it, the only other way I could prove my identity was with my birth certificate, and I had no idea where that was. At Mum’s somewhere, probably, and I sure as hell wasn’t going there for it. It’d taken my last shred of courage to risk coming here.

‘Kitty…’

‘It’s not here, Jack! What the hell’s he done with it? I can’t go without it.’