Reunited at The Altar

He laughed back. ‘Or maybe we could go out for breakfast. Though not in Great Crowmell—maybe somewhere a bit further down the coast.’

‘Breakfast.’ Where was he going with this? Was this some kind of date, or did he have something more serious in mind?

‘We need to talk,’ he said.

‘You have a point.’ At least if they were out somewhere, she could always leave and get a taxi home if things got too much for her. If they had breakfast next door, or even here, it could be awkward. Better to be somewhere that had an escape route. ‘I’ll meet you next door in twenty minutes.’ Which would give her enough time to shower, wash her hair and change.

‘Twenty minutes,’ he said.

And the way he brushed his mouth against hers was so sweet it almost made her cry.

Fortunately nobody spotted her going from his cottage to hers. It wasn’t exactly a walk of shame, but as she was still wearing her bridesmaid’s dress it would be obvious that she hadn’t slept in her own bed, and she’d hate someone to see her and gossip about her. Especially as she didn’t have a clue right now where this thing between her and Brad was going. Was that kiss just now a goodbye or a hello? Was he going to say a final goodbye to her over breakfast? Was that what he’d meant by closure? Or did she dare hope that last night had meant something to him, just like it had meant something to her, and he’d ask her if they could maybe try again?

Could they make it work, this time?

Then again, today was the last full day on his lease of the cottage. Brad was due to go back to London tomorrow, and for all she knew he might have decided to return today. He’d been away from the lab for a week, and she knew he’d be itching to get back to his work.

She’d better not hope for too much. It would be naive, foolish—and, worse, it would be setting herself up to have her heart broken all over again.

Brad knocked on her door twenty minutes later. Like her, he was dressed casually in jeans and a T-shirt. ‘Ready?’

No. Part of her was terrified. ‘Sure,’ she fibbed, and walked over to his car with him. He drove to a larger town a few miles down the coast, and they found a café that was part of a chain. As they sat down, Abigail felt almost too sick to eat.

As if he’d guessed, Brad said gently, ‘You need to eat and so do I.’

She ordered coffee and an almond croissant; she could do with the sugar rush. Brad, as she could’ve predicted, chose a full English breakfast.

She crumbled half the pastry on her plate and forced herself to eat the other half.

And then she looked at him. ‘So. Closure. I assume you’re leaving either today, or tomorrow morning before eleven because that’s when the cleaners come in to get the place ready for the next holidaymakers.’

He tipped his head on one side, an old gesture that made butterflies swoop in her stomach. ‘I was planning to go back tomorrow. But it doesn’t have to be that way.’

She frowned, not understanding. ‘How do you mean?’

‘You and me. We can’t go back.’

So this was goodbye, then. ‘Uh-huh.’ She couldn’t trust herself with actual words.

‘We’re different people now. Older. Wiser. And maybe if we’d met for the first time yesterday at the wedding, we might have...’

He actually blushed.

‘Well, I wouldn’t have been quite such a troglodyte with you,’ he said. ‘It’s not my style. But I would have asked to see you again.’

He was still attracted to her. Just as she was still attracted to him.

‘And if we’d met for the first time yesterday, I wouldn’t have gone from the wedding reception straight to your bed,’ she said.

‘That’s not your style, either,’ he agreed.

‘But if you’d asked me out...’ Was that what he was trying to do now?

That meant this all hinged on her.

She could say no. Leave the past in the past.

But saying yes didn’t mean that she was trying to recreate the past, either. She knew what he meant. If they’d just met for the first time, they’d maybe start dating. Take things slowly. See where things took them.

But that was the problem. They couldn’t do that. Not when they lived more than a hundred miles apart. It wasn’t a commutable distance, and she didn’t want a weekend-only relationship. Particularly as she worked at least part of every weekend. ‘Your life’s in London,’ she said.