Chapter 8
Ginny had worked herself into a state by the time she found her way back to the hotel.
She’d made the questionable decision to turn right and continue all the way around the lake, although whether that decision had been entirely conscious, when her thoughts had been a twisted knot, was a valid question.
She would never understand Rhys – especially since he would never let her. And now, on top of everything, she’d seen him naked.
Her heart was still pounding, goosebumps all over her skin, and her lungs couldn’t quite get enough air. When she closed her eyes—
She tripped on a root, which turned out to be a lucky accident. When she looked up and allowed her vision to refocus, she glimpsed the hotel up ahead, through the trees, and turned off the path just in time.
The hotel, at least, was a reminder of something she’d done well.
The white rendered building had charming wooden gables and hardy geraniums bursting from the planters on the balconies.
It was set directly on the lake, the water close enough to touch and with 360 degrees of mountain panorama but, with a start, Ginny realised the hotel was the first thing she’d taken note of since her conversation with Rhys.
‘Damn!’ She’d meant to look out for a good place for a photo shoot, but her ruminations had taken up her entire headspace and she’d forgotten.
The door flew open as she crossed the car park. ‘Ginny! There you are! Some of Andreas’s buddies just turned up and apparently there are lots of traditions that have to be observed.’ Kira was going to get eye strain if she kept rolling them like that. ‘Are you okay?’
‘Hmm? Of course.’ I saw your friend naked. That’s all. One day I’ll manage to scrub the image from my memory, but until then, I’ll be permanently mortified, so just go on as normal and ignore the decomposing remains of my dignity. ‘I just went for a walk to clear my head.’
Kira smiled at her. ‘Wow, your dating ban is really working, huh? You’re appreciating solitary walks now.’
‘I suppose so,’ she responded, her voice strained.
‘Oh, hi, Rhys!’ Kira said brightly, making Ginny jump.
She turned in horror to find him emerging from the path she’d just taken. He’d walked a few minutes behind her the whole time. Didn’t he know that normal people would go around the opposite way to avoid each other?
Kira greeted him with a hug, which he leaned down to reciprocate.
‘Hello, Ginny.’
Ah, yes, they needed to pretend they hadn’t just run into each other at the far end of the lake. ‘Hello,’ she squeaked, giving him a finger-wave that probably fooled no one.
‘I’ll…’ He pointed at the door and escaped, the lucky man. Ginny blew out her deep sigh as slowly as she could, but apparently not slowly enough that Kira missed it.
‘That was weird,’ Kira commented. ‘Were you… walking together?’
‘What? No! I didn’t even know he was there.
I must have gone around the other way anyway.
’ She cut herself off before she said anything incriminating.
For once, it worked, although she winced to realise that if they’d been going around the lake in opposite directions, they logically still would have met.
Mercifully, Kira just shrugged. ‘I thought it was too soon for you to have successfully made him like you.’
Ginny scowled at her. ‘Rhys? Like me? Tolerate, perhaps, but not like.’
‘You know it’s not personal, right? He’s just not into weddings.’
Her reply was a doubtful look. ‘Sophie finally told me about his face blindness, but I’m not sure that’s an excuse.’
‘Not an excuse,’ Kira agreed, ‘but it’s not just that. He did have a serious girlfriend once, a long time ago. They were together for years but not, like, married. He says he ended it, but I don’t think it was pleasant, whatever happened.’
‘Oh.’ She probably shouldn’t have been so surprised. Almost everyone had had a serious relationship in their lives – except her, she thought with a prick of guilt for her self-pity. ‘How old is he, if that was years ago?’
‘Too old for you,’ Kira joked, giving her a nudge with her elbow.
‘Oh, God, I’m not—’
‘I’m joking,’ Kira grumbled. ‘He would eat you for breakfast. He’s thirty-nine anyway.’
Either of those comments should have been enough to banish any lingering weirdness about Rhys, but foolish, soft-hearted Ginny was only more intrigued.
‘There are some things we must observe here, when there is a wedding.’
Lucas and Marco, two old friends of Andreas’s, sat at the bar with Ginny and Kira, nursing beers and speaking in low voices, although the groom himself was out of earshot across the room, at a table with Sophie, his head tilted sweetly in her direction – if anything Andreas did could be called ‘sweet’, when he was craggy, gruff and a little scary.
‘Andreas didn’t mention any of this?’ Lucas asked. ‘I was almost surprised to get an invitation. I thought he’d just drag himself to the Standesamt to sign away his life – the town hall, you know?’
Ginny was relieved Sophie wasn’t here for this. ‘What exactly do we need to plan for?’
‘Oh, it’s no extra work for you. We have organised the stealing of the bride and the obstacles at the church.’
‘The… what? When is all of this supposed to happen?’ Ginny imagined her carefully curated schedule going up in flames.
‘After the ceremony, we steal the bride when the groom isn’t looking and he needs to go searching for her – and there is drinking involved.’
‘Uh… you do realise—’
Marco nodded. ‘We will be drinking, not Sophie.’
Ginny’s mind raced for ways to prevent this from becoming a disaster. ‘Maybe you could kidnap her somewhere nice, where we can take some photos? I can see that being a good photo opportunity.’
Lucas scowled in thought. ‘The point is to make Andreas suffer.’
Marco elbowed him in the ribs. ‘He’ll suffer enough after the wedding day!’
Ginny met Kira’s gaze urgently, but her friend didn’t appear as alarmed as she was.
Lucas continued. ‘You will need to do the waking of the bride before sunrise on the wedding day. It’s a measure against bad luck.’
‘I’m starting to feel a little sorry for Sophie,’ Kira commented. ‘She’s going to be woken before sunrise and kidnapped – plus, she’s marrying Andreas.’
Even Kira was behaving as though marriage were a life sentence.
‘Why can’t they be lovely traditions like the money dance or the Nordic bridal crown?’ Ginny muttered in reply.
‘Because we say love is blind,’ replied Lucas, leaving a pause before delivering the punchline, ‘but getting married makes you see again!’
Marco roared with laughter. Lifting his own hand to show off his wedding ring, he said sagely, ‘The secret of a happy marriage is forgiving each other… for agreeing to the marriage in the first place!’
He clinked his beer with Lucas’s and they downed half all at once.
The lobby doors opened and a young woman rushed in, with golden brown hair like Andreas’s in a knot on top of her head, followed by an older couple with the unmistakable pride tinged with overwhelm that marked them as the parents of the groom.
‘Hey, bro, sis.’ The young woman kissed Andreas’s cheek and wrapped Sophie in a hug, holding tight. This must be Andreas’s sister Caro.
Andreas’s mother greeted Sophie in a more dignified manner, but Ginny could see the sheen in her eyes from across the room. She couldn’t look away. They were all so beautifully bewildered by how much they loved each other, by the miracle of the next generation on the way.
With a gulp, she scolded herself firmly for the twinge of envy. How odd, she was jealous of Sophie’s mother-in-law. Those were not supposed to be a perk of marriage.
Willard, Laurie and Rhys approached to greet Andreas’s parents as though they’d met before, and Reshma was introduced. Kira had disappeared from Ginny’s side without her noticing and she hugged Caro as well.
Even Lucas and Marco drifted over to say hello, leaving Ginny swinging her feet at the bar. When she caught sight of Caro wrapping her arms around Rhys, she ordered another drink and called her own sister.
‘Hey, you,’ she said when Elspeth connected the call with video.
‘Why are you calling me instead of doing wedding stuff?’
‘It’s good to see you too,’ Ginny grumbled. ‘I have a small window of time before dinner and I thought I’d call my only sister. There’s a lot of family around.’
‘Sometimes I think you want your own wedding just to have a big family event,’ Elspeth joked. ‘You can just have a thirtieth-birthday bash instead. Harry and I will organise it for you.’
Ginny fought the urge to be offended, when it would be rather nice of her sister and half-brother to throw a party for her.
She wouldn’t have been sensitive to a statement like that a few months ago – not before that damn hypnotherapist had told her she didn’t actually want a partner and she’d started the dating ban. Now she was worried Elspeth was right.
‘It’s over a year until my big birthday,’ Ginny reminded her sister tartly. Rhys would already be forty, she thought in alarm. ‘And we’ve got your wedding before then. Maybe that will scratch my itch for a big family event.’
Elspeth studied her. ‘Are you agreeing with me?’
She shrugged. ‘I’m starting to see I’ve been unhelpfully fixated on dating for too long. I can sow some wild oats before settling down.’
Rhys had said twenty-eight was young to settle down. Of course he would think that.
She mumbled a curse.
Perhaps if there were more attractive, single men here, she wouldn’t be so preoccupied with him, but at least she wasn’t imagining her own white dress, as she so often did. ‘Who are Adam’s groomsmen again?’
‘Ginny! You cannot joke about wild oats and then ask me about the groomsmen at my wedding! If this is what a dating ban does to you, you should reinstall your apps in good time for next year. How long has it been since you… you know?’
‘This isn’t about sex.’
‘That long, huh?’
‘That’s it. Sisters are officially the worst. I don’t know why I called you.’
A prickle on the back of her neck made Ginny look up to see Caro and Kira a few steps away, watching her with amused smiles.
Elspeth spoke on, oblivious. ‘I suppose it must be pretty hard being so keen on finding the right person that you don’t have the opportunity to have fun with the wrong one.’
‘I have the opportunity! I just choose not to take it. Now, I do actually have to go.’
‘Chat soon,’ Elspeth said, blowing her a kiss. ‘Just no more thinking about Adam’s groomsmen.’
Ginny had the fleeting thought that she might find a real boyfriend in time for Elspeth’s wedding next summer, before she kicked herself for slipping back into that thinking. All she’d proven with this dating ban so far was that she truly needed it – she needed to believe she was okay on her own.
She disconnected the call with a whispered, ‘Love you,’ and looked up at Kira as though nothing had happened.
She was doing so well with that, until she turned to Caro and asked, ‘Are you single? Please tell me you’re single.
I’m sick of being the only single one.’ The only unfiltered one too, apparently.
‘Aw, I just got back together with my girlfriend,’ Caro said apologetically. ‘But she’s not arriving until Friday, so I could be your wingman. It’s not the greatest selection, because my brother is an old man and his friends are mostly married with kids, but we’ll find you someone.’
Kira chuckled. ‘She doesn’t want just anyone. Ginny is our resident Disney princess. She dreams of true love.’
Ginny scowled. ‘I’m taking a break from true love, remember? At least, for myself.’
‘You don’t need true love to have some fun,’ Caro drawled. ‘Now, I need to talk to both of you about waking the bride before sunrise. It’s tradition.’
Ginny groaned. ‘I’m beginning to wonder whether you all think marriage is a punishment!’
‘You’re catching on,’ Caro said with a wink.