Chapter 2
SARAH
At the self-service bag drop at London’s Heathrow Airport, Sarah looped the tag through the handle of her suitcase and moved out of the way for the next person.
She checked the board again. So far so good.
The flight to Bern was on time. From there she was booked on a transfer bus which would take her to Winterbruck and right to her grandparents’ door.
She felt her stresses begin to fall away as she reached passport control.
She was going to the Swiss Alps, her happy place.
Being at the traditional Swiss chalet always felt like something out of a storybook, an escape from the real world, and it brought back happy memories of her dad.
They hadn’t been back in winter since he’d died; her mum always wanted Christmas at home in Oxfordshire, and there had been no persuading her otherwise.
Sarah had sent letters to Grumps and Nanna at least once a month ever since she was a little girl, but her latest letter had been less of her usual chatty correspondence and more of a plea for help.
She’d tried to word it to sound casual, like there was nothing particularly wrong, and when she followed it up with a phone call neither Grumps nor Nanna had asked any probing questions.
But then they wouldn’t, would they? They were easy-going, not like her mum, who was making her feel stressed the closer they got to her big day, which was less than a month away.
She had her own doubts, or maybe just pre-wedding jitters, but her mum’s voice in her head didn’t help at all.
Right from the moment she got engaged, her mum had questioned whether Sarah was rushing into this and was way too young to get married.
And any moment where Sarah looked like she might have some doubt in her mind, her mum leapt on it and wanted to talk it out.
Sarah knew she was only trying to help and that her heart was in the right place, but it was all too much.
She’d had the same jittery or uneasy feeling the day she and her mum – along with Rhys and his mum – had looked at wedding venues, and the only thing that had helped was after they’d seen a few and she and Rhys made the decision to have their wedding in a marquee at his family’s property in Northumberland.
Sarah had felt herself relax and breathe for the first time in a long while when that choice was made, until she realised the wedding was still going to be huge.
And she couldn’t admit her overwhelm or panic to anyone, not her mum who she’d always been really close to, and definitely not to Rhys.
She didn’t want him to think she didn’t love him, or that she didn’t want to be with him. She wanted both of those things.
Some days Sarah felt like her mum had finally accepted that this was happening – she wanted to help organise the wedding, after all.
But she knew deep down her mum thought this was a mistake, and she remembered how they’d got into another argument about it last week at the bridal boutique while she was having a dress fitting.
Every time Sarah put on her wedding dress she felt like a princess.
Once the veil was in place that day, she’d stood and looked at herself in the mirror.
She couldn’t stop smiling. Her dark hair curled beneath the sparkling tulle veil and over her bare skin in the ivory off-the-shoulder lace dress, and the beads and sequins in the material shimmered beneath the lights.
You couldn’t control when you fell in love.
So what if she was only twenty, at an age when her best friend, Keira’s commitments – aside from her job – were nightclubbing and weekends away with her boyfriend.
She’d fallen for Rhys, and on New Year’s Eve, she would put on this dress for real and marry the man she loved.
Her mum had already told her how beautiful she looked, how stunning the dress was, but now the shine in Chrissie’s eyes faded as she stood behind Sarah. ‘Sarah, are you absolutely sure about this?’
Their gazes met in the mirror, but not for long.
‘Why can’t you just be happy for me?’ The problem wasn’t the question itself but more Sarah’s own doubts.
And she didn’t want her feelings to be something else her mum fixed, like she’d tried to fix everything else throughout her life.
She wanted to find her own way, make her own decisions, whatever they might be.
‘It’s my job to worry. I don’t want you to make a mistake.’
‘We’ve had this conversation, Mum. Many times. I’m the same age as you were when you got married.’
‘But your dad and I weren’t that different in age. Rhys is twenty-seven. A whole seven years older than you. He’s got his life started and you’ve barely been in your first proper job for a year. I gave up a lot of myself—’
‘I know!’ She hadn’t meant to raise her voice, but the words just burst out of her before she could stop them.
‘I know you didn’t have a career with Dad in the RAF and all the moving around, you’ve told me.
But Rhys and I aren’t you and Dad.’ Rhys had worked overseas for two years previously; he’d bought his own flat that she’d moved into last month; he was established in his job.
But weren’t those all good things? Wasn’t it good that he was sure of himself and settled?
‘I just don’t understand what the rush is.’
‘Why did you rush?’
Her mum didn’t answer.
The bridal seamstress came to remove the veil and help Sarah out of the dress, and when she was back in her jeans and jumper she didn’t want to talk about it any more. Every time her mum shared her own misgivings, Sarah felt like she couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe.
The car journey from the boutique to Keira’s flat didn’t take long and it was done in silence except for the music on the radio. Sarah had looked out her window the entire time, thinking about Rhys.
They’d started dating in the spring after they met on a job where he’d been the lead architect adding a second storey to a beautiful Georgian house in Oxfordshire.
Rhys had returned to the property one day to take photographs to add to his website, and he’d walked into the master bedroom which Sarah was still working on.
She’d been giving a final coat of forest-green paint to the feature wall.
Sensing someone was in the room, she’d turned round from her position at the top of a stepladder, brush in hand, and noticed the gorgeous, dark-blond man in a suit.
She’d assumed he was the husband as she’d never met the house owner’s partner.
He’d smiled a friendly hello before inspecting the cornicing, and she held her breath, hoping he would be as happy as his wife was with the work she was doing.
Once he’d had a quick inspection he checked they were alone and then smiled at Sarah. ‘It’s not quite my taste, but it looks good. I’ll be back in a couple of days once the decorating is finished.’
She left the tin of paint at the top of the stepladder and made her way down. ‘You’re not the husband?’ Now she was at his level she realised he must be at least six foot compared to her five foot five.
Dimples indented his cheeks when he grinned and laughed. ‘No, I’m not the husband. I’m the architect.’
Come to think of it, now she wasn’t towering above him he did look a bit young for homeowner Portia, who was in her forties.
‘What’s your name?’ he asked.
‘I’m Sarah. Sarah the decorator.’
‘That’s your full name?’
‘Just Sarah will be fine.’ She didn’t tend to blush, and even if she did, luckily her olive skin would conceal it.
But she tended to get tongue-tied when she was embarrassed so she stayed quiet as she took the paint tin from the top of the stepladder, picked up the brush and headed downstairs, trying to ignore the fact that his footfall behind her meant he was close on her tail.
She went through the kitchen to the utility room.
‘I’m Rhys, in case you’re interested.’ He’d come all the way into the room too.
Portia must have been alerted to their presence because she trilled, ‘Yoo-hoo, everything all right?’
Rhys turned and beamed a smile at Portia. ‘That’s what we should be asking you.’
Sarah had to hand it to him – he obviously had charm. Portia was friendly with her but with Rhys she was almost tripping herself up in an attempt to engage with him.
‘Everything is perfect,’ Portia enthused. ‘And you two are perfect. You’re brilliant, amazing! I will put pictures on my Instagram – follow me?’ It all came out in one big gush of words.
Sarah waited until Portia had floated out of the room before she said, ‘I’m pretty sure that request was for you.’
He kept his voice low. ‘I only need to come back one more time when the master bedroom is finished, take some photographs.’ He checked behind him that Portia hadn’t suddenly floated back their way. ‘I don’t suppose we could coordinate visits, could we? Turn up at the same time?’
‘Why?’
‘She answered the door in a very low-cut top the last time I was here on my own, and made sure I knew that her husband wouldn’t be home for hours.’
Sarah grimaced. ‘So you need me for protection?’
‘No…’ But he smiled before adding, ‘Yes, please.’
Sarah had given him her number, he’d called, and they’d turned up at the house at the same time to do their final photographs for their respective businesses.
They followed that with a lunch, and it was the most comfortable she’d felt with anyone she’d ever dated.
She’d had so much fun, they’d talked for ages, and she’d floated into a café to meet Keira who had asked, ‘What happy pills are you on? Whatever they are, please give me some.’
She and Rhys had seen each other every evening after work for almost eight weeks before they’d gone away for a weekend so she could meet his parents, and after that she’d introduced him to her mum.
Chrissie seemed to love him, but when they got engaged and Sarah moved out of home and in with her fiancé, her mum’s true feelings and opinions had come out and they hadn’t changed since.