Back Where We Belong (The Cornish Bay Collection #2)

Prologue

Bex looked at herself in the mirror and took a steadying breath.

Okay, this wasn’t a disaster; she didn’t really hate the dress and think it made her look ridiculous, like a mountain of marshmallows that had been swallowed by a cloud – she was just panicking.

The nerves were getting to her. That was all.

It was probably no surprise with her sister, Briony, being so cynical about the idea of the wedding. Bex wanted Briony to be excited about her big day, and to love Liam almost as much as she did, but she didn’t. If anything, Briony seemed to actively dislike him.

‘It’s quite common for brides-to-be to have a wobble about whether they’ve made the right choice at this stage.

’ Susie, who owned and ran the only wedding dress shop in Port Agnes put a comforting hand on her shoulder.

‘But there’s no need for you to have any doubt. You look perfect, doesn’t she, Briony?’

‘Yes, she really does look perfect.’ Briony was younger by three years but even twins couldn’t have had a tighter bond.

They had the same hazel eyes with flecks of green, but Bex had dark hair that was usually cut into a pixie style, which she had grown down past her shoulders in preparation for the wedding.

Whereas Briony had long, wavy, blonde hair and freckles across her nose like the archetypal Cornish surfer she was whenever she got the chance.

Bex was the sensible one, choosing to stay at home instead of going off to uni, to avoid putting any extra financial pressure on their mum.

Briony was the free spirit, not really planning anything much in advance and happy to follow whatever path fate sent her down, without thinking about it too much.

The fact that they were so different might have been the reason they got on so well, and there was no one Bex trusted more than her sister.

Briony was saying all the right things and she was smiling, but there was something in her tone, something in the way she’d emphasised the word look that didn’t feel quite right.

‘I just feel… I don’t know. Not like me.

’ Bex frowned again, smoothing down the front of the dress.

This was the final fitting, the last chance to make any changes, although God knows what could be done at this stage.

The dress suddenly seemed to have an awful lot of ruffles.

It was very of the moment, according to Susie.

The noughties were about to usher in the 2010s, whatever they were going to be called.

The tenties? Surely not, although right now the word tent felt horribly appropriate and the dress Bex had chosen suddenly seemed huge.

At least on the bottom half. The top was a fitted strapless bodice, but the bottom was made up of horizontal tiers of organza, layered over one another.

‘You’re not supposed to feel like you on the wedding day, you’re supposed to feel like a princess.

No one goes strolling down to Mehenick’s Bakery for a crusty cob in a dress like that!

’ Bex’s mum appeared behind her in the mirror, the warmth of her smile immediately settling some of her nerves.

Donna Deyes might have a very ordinary-sounding name, but she was a superhero as far as Bex was concerned; the woman who seemed able to sort any problem either of her daughters experienced, and who had raised them for the first fifteen years of Bex’s life without much help from anyone.

Least of all her deadbeat father, who had come and gone from the family home like it was a hotel with a revolving door.

That was probably Donna’s only shortcoming – that she hadn’t drawn a line in the sand far sooner and told Jeffrey Davis to get out and stay out.

Bex knew it was because her mother had desperately wanted the marriage to work, for her daughters’ sakes, but a clean break early on would have been so much better for them all.

They wouldn’t have grown up praying for their father to return from the home of whatever woman had been keeping him occupied in the meantime, and yet dreading it too, because they knew more pain was just around the corner.

Donna had been of a different generation, and her parents had been heavily involved in the church, raising her to believe that keeping the marriage together at all costs was better for the children than admitting the whole thing had been a terrible mistake.

But their parents’ toxic relationship had given both Bex and Briony a twisted perspective on what a marriage looked like, with one person doing all the work to keep the marriage going and the family afloat, emotionally, financially and practically.

As for the other person, if she based it on her father’s role, it was all about making false promises, lying, cheating, letting people down, and taking a thousand times more than you gave.

It might even have damaged her and Briony beyond repair, and put them off relationships forever, if it hadn’t been for two things: their mother’s unwavering devotion to them through it all, and their amazing stepfather, Ken, who had come into their lives when Donna had finally decided enough was enough.

Donna and Ken were now Bex’s benchmark for what a good marriage looked like.

And her relationship with Ken had also been the catalyst to finally enable her to stop trying to win her father’s love.

For years Bex had done everything she could to get her father to notice her, trying her hardest at school to make him proud, and leaping at every opportunity to see him.

Even when he was living elsewhere, her mother would make arrangements for Jeffrey to visit his daughters, but nine times out of ten he’d let them down.

Bex always forgave him, making excuses and believing he must have a reason, or – most damagingly of all – that it must be her fault.

Briony had wised up to their father far more quickly, keeping him at arm’s length, and yet he’d still seemed to prefer his younger daughter, which had dented Bex’s self-esteem over and over again.

Ken coming into her life had finally enabled Bex to see that all fault for the state of her relationship with her father lay with him.

Jeffrey had disappeared from their lives altogether once their mother had told him he could no longer come and go as he pleased, and he barely featured in Bex’s thoughts these days.

Except he was still there in her subconscious, perhaps even more than she realised.

It was probably the memories of their father that made Briony suspicious of Liam and so determined to believe the silly rumour that had been going around about him cheating on Bex.

She’d known it couldn’t be true, even before he’d looked her in the eyes and promised her it was all just vicious gossip.

Liam wouldn’t do that to her, and the doubts that were creeping in now had nothing to do with that.

These feelings were down to what she’d witnessed her father put her mother through and they were manifesting themselves in something that felt a lot like fear whenever she looked at the wedding dress she’d previously loved.

Despite all of that, there was no way on earth she was letting Jeffrey Davis take any more from her than he already had, and she absolutely wasn’t going to let him take the shine off the happiest day of her life.

Ken would be the one giving her away and Jeffrey didn’t deserve any part in it, not even in her subconscious.

‘Thanks, Mum.’ Bex turned around and gave her mother the tightest hug. A gesture that always felt like coming home. Donna represented safety for Bex and, if her mother said it was going to be okay, it would be.

‘I can’t believe there are only twenty-two days to go!’ Bex wrote the figure with a flourish on the days until our wedding chalkboard that hung in the kitchen of the flat she shared with her fiancé.

‘Yes, it’s coming around so fast now.’ Liam smiled, suddenly looking much younger than his three decades, like a kid with a nervous grin on the first day of school.

Bex might be six years younger, but she supposed there was no age limit to feeling apprehensive about such a big occasion.

The two of them were going to be the centre of everyone’s attention, and when Bex thought about that, the nerves made her stomach start to flip too.

Instead, she tried to focus on the fact that she and Liam were going to be married and starting the rest of their lives together.

They had so many plans that were now within touching distance.

She’d saved really hard for the wedding, not wanting to put any pressure on her mum, who’d worked as many as three jobs at a time when she and Briony were growing up, just to keep a roof over their heads.

She hadn’t wanted Ken to feel he needed to take any responsibility for paying for the wedding either and so, from the moment Liam had proposed two years earlier, she’d drawn up a budget to help them save for everything they were going to need.

It had taken some sacrifice, not being able to go out as much any more, or go on holiday, but it had been Briony who’d seemed to find the adjustment hardest of all.

‘Are you sure you want to do this? It seems crazy wasting your early twenties saving for a wedding when you could be going out having fun, or heading off travelling instead of sitting home all the time like you’re already an old married woman.

’ Briony had laughed, but it had felt forced; like an attempt to pass off something she meant every word of as a joke.

‘I know it’s not what you’d choose, but I want to get married, and have a home and family of my own.’ Bex had given her younger sister a hug then. ‘But you’re only nineteen, so I get why it seems crazy to you.’