Chapter 3 #2
Amanda did sound like a powerhouse of a mother.
‘Seven kids is amazing,’ Cherry said. ‘What was it like growing up with six siblings?’ She would have loved even one, had often dreamed of the hubbub of brothers and sisters barging into each other’s rooms, staying up all night giggling.
Home would be a place you felt crowded but never lonely.
‘I think the only word is mental.’ Sean chucked some loose change into a busker’s guitar case. ‘It’s quite nice having a big family, now we’re all grown up, although I’ll maybe stop at two when I have my own.’
‘You want kids then?’ She hoped she didn’t sound like a clingy female trying to pin a man down. But Sean’s response suggested he heard nothing of the sort.
‘Aye, definitely. You said you wanted to stick their pasta art on the fridge, didn’t you? Your kids’ pasta, that is? Or mine. Or ours. Who knows?’ He slung his arm around her shoulder.
‘I did say that.’ Cherry was comforted by the closeness. ‘I want a full-length portrait of me, with slender penne limbs and a mix of wholewheat and normal spaghetti hair, framed on the fridge. Or in the Met.’
‘It will happen; you just have to believe.’
It was uncertain if this was a response to the Met idea or the pasta on the fridge. Either way, Sean sounded convinced.
‘Yes, well, so they say… So you’re after a country wife then?’
He stopped on the path, moving out of the way to let people pass, but perhaps it was an excuse to look at her with a suggestive smile. ‘What’s a country wife? If she’s like you, then yes.’
Cherry pretended she hadn’t thought about this a million times already. ‘I think she’s someone with childbearing hips who bakes scones barefoot and is sexy in wellies on the school run.’
‘Hmm.’ Sean feigned contemplation, but the corners of his mouth lifted again in amusement.
‘I like a good scone, and...um, childbearing hips…’ He brushed down the cotton of her dress at her hips with reassuring palms. ‘But she doesn’t have to be from the country.
In fact, I might prefer something different.
I just like the idea of a family. A house filled with love, you know? ’
The sweet scent of roasted cashews and summer heat wrapped around them.
Sean’s character, and the image he conjured up, was so visceral that Cherry was almost in that home with him.
She saw the two of them standing by a Scottish hearth, holding each other.
Fast forward to winter, if that were the case.
‘Yes, I know what you mean,’ she said. What he wanted was what she wanted too.
The sticking point for some time had been how to make it gel with her itinerant poker career.
But Sean seemed to shift the pieces of her life puzzle so that the end picture became clearer.
Achievable, even. Something that felt this right couldn’t go wrong, surely.
As the afternoon drifted on, they lazed under a tree on the Great Lawn in Central Park, Cherry’s head on Sean’s lap, the sense of being completely at ease and totally electric with arousal not passing her by for a moment.
‘Cherry.’ He stroked the hair at her temple.
‘Mm-hmm.’ She was too warm to do anything more than murmur.
‘Would you sit up for a second?’
The seriousness of his tone brought her round.
She shuffled up to face him. What was going on?
There was something in those green irises that she hadn’t yet experienced.
A wavering. A seriousness underpinned by uncertainty.
Was he about to say that he was terminally ill? Already had a girlfriend? A wife?
‘Cherry, will you marry me?’
Cherry’s heart ricocheted, and her breath hitched so tight she nearly choked. Oh my God! They’d talked about this but, somehow, Sean had managed to take her completely by surprise.
‘I’d get down on one knee, but I don’t have a ring and… Well, this isn’t the most conventional proposal anyw––’
She grabbed his face, the words bursting out of her.
‘Yes! Yes, of course I’ll marry you, Sean.
’ There was no need for a bended knee or a ring to know the answer.
Sure, they could go back to Scotland together and be boyfriend and girlfriend, but that seemed lacking somehow.
Juvenile. Her feelings for Sean were not juvenile.
They were whole, fully formed and very adult.
He searched her face as if to check she was serious. ‘Oh, thank fuck. I was scared for a second that you’d say no––’
And true enough, she saw traces of hesitancy. So far, he’d exuded only confidence, but there was a disquiet there from putting himself on the line, mixed with relief that it had all turned out okay. He needn’t have worried.
‘As if I’d say no. I’m besotted with you, Sean Butler, and being your wife would be an honour and a delight.’
Sean’s unerring confidence flowed back in, in the form of the most gorgeous smile Cherry had ever seen.
‘Besotted is a good word,’ he said. ‘In case you haven’t noticed, you have knocked me off my size thirteens, Cherry Paradise. And I can think of no greater honour or delight than being your husband. Let’s get a licence and get ourselves married in a New York minute.’
Two days’ later, under an inferno of July sunshine and a small blaze of pink confetti, Cherry and Sean tripped down the steps of City Hall and into married life together.
‘Welcome to your new husband, Mrs Butler.’ Sean held her waist as she tipped back, teetering on one white Manolo.
‘Thank you, Mr Butler. Welcome to your wife.’
And as her husband kissed her, Cherry knew she’d married the right man.
She would never tire of Sean’s kiss. If she hadn’t known the moment she laid eyes on him that he was her forever, then the kiss on the dance floor had well and truly communicated that.
His strong hands, rough from crafting thousands of whisky barrels, were tender on the nape of her neck.
The soft touch of his lips was at first gentle and slow – a contrast to the feelings ricocheting back and forth between them.
It was a rare find, a man who recognised that even when fireworks were going off like a hundred Hogmanays, the kiss had to be different.
The kiss had to communicate sparks but also feelings.
Sean Butler knew this.
And Cherry was melting for him.
Melting for her new husband. And just melting.
New York City summer was in full-on pizza oven mode.
How was Sean coping in his kilt? She at least had on a white dress.
The twenty-four-hour period from the marriage licence being granted to the wedding taking place had afforded her the chance to shop for a beautiful ankle-grazing, cap-sleeve gown.
And they had bought each other rings – hers white gold with iridescent diamonds, his a yellow-gold band.
Sure, she had just married a man she’d known less than a week, but the dress and the ring mattered.
Although, not nearly as much as the fever for the man.
That was the most important thing, and she well and truly had that.
‘How many photos do you want?’ Sean’s older brother, Jamie, asked from the foot of the steps.
Not wanting to upstage Cal and Bea or worry his mum, Sean had recruited Jamie and his fiancée, Alicia, as witnesses to the wedding and sworn them to secrecy.
They could announce the marriage to everyone else back in Kinshore.
‘And do you want one where you look feral for each other?’ Jamie added.
Like wedding bells, Sean’s laughter rang through the cut and thrust of the NYC traffic. He spoke to his older brother without taking his eyes off his wife. ‘Let’s try to keep them classy, shall we? One the kids won’t cringe at down the line.’
Cherry almost had to bat back tears with her carefully mascaraed lashes.
That he was talking about a family created a bubble around them.
This was more than merely an impromptu marriage.
Sean believed in her, the same way she did in him.
The kids comment worried her a little but, my God, he made her feel whole, loved, vital.
As for his family, she wasn’t sure they had the same faith, at least not quite yet.
She’d witnessed the conversation outside the venue between Jamie and Sean.
A short but serious discussion where Jamie had inquired if Sean knew what he was doing.
Sean placated him by admitting it seemed insane, but he’d never felt clearer about anything in his life.
‘Are you sure it’s not the grief proposing?’ Jamie asked. ‘Why don’t you guys date for a while? Have a proper wedding back home where everyone can be there.’
‘Don’t worry, J... We want to be married. And we can have a party in Kinshore at some stage.’
Jamie put his hand on Sean’s shoulder, stood back and observed him, inspecting for signs of madness maybe. But there was an admiration there, too, from an older brother to a younger one. ‘Never thought I’d see the day my wee brother beat me to the altar. By the way, you look a lot like Dad today.’
‘I do?’ Something shimmered in Sean’s gaze, and Cherry saw how much his father had meant to him. She wished Jimmy Butler could be here to see his son marry.
‘Where to now?’ she asked after the photoshoot was done. ‘Wedding breakfast?’
‘Oh, aye, wedding breakfast. In my hotel room, where I am going to devour my wife.’ Sean pulled her in tighter. ‘There is no chance we aren’t feral for each other in these photos.’
Cherry suspected he was right. Here she was, marrying a man she deliberately hadn’t slept with.
It was laughable. But the kiss and illicit moments in the elevator told her everything she needed to know.
Hell, the kiss told her the past, present and future all at once.
That and what she got a glimpse of under his kilt before he’d called time on things.
‘Won’t your family be wondering where you are?’ Cherry toyed with the belt buckled around Sean’s kilt as he slotted the key card into the hotel room door.
‘Nah, they’ll be too busy panicking about getting to the airport on time.’ The door clicked open, and he spun round, simultaneously kissing and tugging her into the room. It swung closed behind them with a clunk.
‘Shouldn’t you be doing the same?’ Cherry murmured, not especially bothered about airports or check-in times. All she cared about was getting this man’s – her husband’s – kilt off.
‘Takes five minutes to chuck my stuff in a suitcase and five minutes to hail a cab. What I’m about to do to you, on the other hand, might take a while…’
‘I can’t wait. Glad you booked a late check-out.’
‘Mmm, me too. We do need to get you on the same flight, though. Might involve some last-minute admin and packing.’ Sean’s mouth lingered at hers.
‘Ah, well, I love a mad dash to the airport.’ Everything Cherry needed for now was in the suitcase she was travelling with. The rest could be sorted out later.
‘Fantastic. I love your attitude.’ Sweeping her hair back, Sean dipped his head to plant tender kisses on her neck. ‘Now, do you think we can still fit in consummating this marriage?’
‘I think it should be a priority.’
‘Good.’ He slid down one strap of her wedding dress.
And then the shrill siren of the hotel fire alarm sliced through the air.