Epilogue
‘Right, so summer next year is looking full,’ Sophie muttered, swiping through the calendar on her tablet as soon as the clients had left.
Ginny Weller watched her friend and colleague curiously as she packed up her things. They had a two-hour drive back to Bath ahead of them after their consultations at Great Heart that day.
‘But Elba is a good choice,’ Sophie mused, talking about the island off the Italian coast which the clients had expressed an initial interest in as a destination. ‘We’ve got a good network there. Gabi, the florist, is a genius.’
‘Are you…? Won’t you be planning your wedding soon?’ Ginny asked.
Sophie flushed the way she did when anyone mentioned Andreas. He’d been gone a couple of weeks and Ginny was keeping a close eye on her in case she needed moral support, but Sophie seemed at peace with the situation.
‘I don’t know,’ was all she said in answer to the question. ‘I guess not. I’ll do this Elba event next summer, otherwise you’ll be back-to-back with the Taymar-Sachs wedding.’
‘I’m looking forward to that one.’ She’d been thrilled when Reshma had assigned her the beach wedding in the Caribbean. She’d rarely left England before she’d started working at I Do, despite majoring in Spanish and Italian at university.
‘Right, we should head back,’ Sophie said.
‘Um, I just need a word with Kira before we go.’
‘Oh? Sure. I think I saw her with a group in the gym. Is this about the Lee-Martinelli wedding?’
Ginny nodded and rolled her eyes. Planned for over a year already, the winter wedding on New Year’s Eve seemed to get more extravagant every time she opened the file. They’d already chosen an outing to an ice cave in a glacier and now the guides from Great Heart Adventures had joined the team, the groom wanted to add off-piste skiing to the agenda.
Making her way past the reception desk with a wave for Toni, who was on the phone, she tiptoed onto the rubber flooring of the gym, peering around for Kira. The climbing instructor and adventure guide shouldn’t have been difficult to find, since her hair was bleached and dyed blue.
‘No shoes allowed in this section,’ said a gruff voice from behind her.
She whirled to find a familiar figure, standing behind her in a climbing harness and a vest top and shorts, casually coiling a length of rope. This was the nature photographer who refused to take pictures of people – and had been resolute in this refusal even after Tita had gone on about their troubles booking photographers for about half an hour. She forgot his name but she recognised the stark lines of his angular face, the long, brown hair sweeping over one eye.
‘Erm, sorry,’ she said, slipping out of her trainers and proceeding in stocking feet. She felt his eyes on her as she walked away.
‘Do you need something?’
‘I’m looking for Kira, actually.’
He gestured wordlessly to the changing rooms and apparently, that was all he was going to say, as he stood silently in front of her, his eyes dropping to the silver stud in the labret piercing below her lips.
‘Thanks.’ She managed a tight smile that seemed to make him flinch.
Shaking off the odd exchange, she made her way to the changing rooms just as Kira hurried out, slipping a hoodie over her T-shirt.
‘Kira?’
She skidded to a stop like the road runner. ‘What? I’ve got to go.’
‘I need your help – with a wedding in December.’
Ginny could see the steam radiating from Kira’s head. ‘I just did one of those – and it was bad enough.’
‘Sophie said you were great at the Lake Garda wedding,’ Ginny tried with a coaxing smile she was fairly certain Kira saw right through.
Kira crossed her arms. ‘If Will is booking me in, then I suppose he’s booking me in. What do you need in December? I assume the bride and groom aren’t going to get married on a ski slope.’
‘No, but they do want to do some skiing between Christmas and New Year. They’re staying at a mountain resort near Mayrhofen in Tyrol and getting married in a little chapel in the snow and when I mentioned about Great Heart, they immediately asked us to organise a skiing day too, so…’
‘That’s not far from where Andreas lives. Can’t he do it?’
‘He’s already busy, so you’re kind of… my last resort.’
‘Well, that’s just great.’
‘This is a kind of “no expense spared” wedding,’ Ginny rushed on, ‘and Reshma’s cleared it for you to stay the whole time and help me out. I hope that’s okay. You might need…’
‘A new personality?’
Ginny gave a stilted laugh. ‘I was thinking more, a new wardrobe.’
‘I have nice clothes,’ Kira insisted. ‘A few bits anyway. I just don’t wear them very often.’
That didn’t sound so promising. ‘Okay. And there’s one more thing. The bride’s family is organising the music for the wedding, but the singer they know has got some other event in Salzburg beforehand – a classical opera something-or-other. I’m going to be run off my feet, so I was hoping you could go and collect him. Apparently, he’s a little high-maintenance but nothing you can’t handle, I’m sure.’
‘First you want me to dress up and now I’m supposed to handle the singer too? What if I break him?’
‘Not handle ,’ Ginny rushed to qualify but cut herself off. ‘You’re joking, right?’
‘Send Toni the dates to get them into our diary,’ Kira replied in a withering tone.
‘Great! Thanks. I really appreciate it.’
Kira’s response was a snort. ‘I’m not sure you should thank me yet. After everything that went wrong at Lake Garda, maybe I’m just bad luck for weddings.’
She had to be joking this time. ‘You might be good luck,’ Ginny suggested brightly. ‘Something blue!’ Even Ginny herself realised she deserved an eye-roll for that quip. ‘But seriously, just don’t drop the rings and you’ll be fine.’
Kira grimaced. ‘Now you’ve got me freaking out about the rings. I’ll do my best, but I’d rather have a root canal, to be honest.’
Ginny didn’t understand her colleague’s aversion, but she couldn’t doubt her vehemence with that fierce expression on her face. ‘It will be beautiful: a snow-covered luxury chalet; a sauna and an open fire; photos in a real ice cave in a glacier. You’ll see. Your second wedding won’t be so bad.’
Kira blanched, but Ginny hadn’t the faintest idea why. ‘Fine, I’ll collect the bloody singer and see you there for the wedding shit. It’ll be merry Christmas and a happy new year for all! Now I have to go.’
Ginny released a slow breath as her new colleague stalked away. At least she didn’t have to sit in the car with Kira and the ‘high-maintenance’ singer for the three-hour drive from Salzburg. But she was nervous about what state they’d be in when they arrived.
Unexpected things always seemed to happen at Great Heart Adventure Weddings.