The Accidental Family (7 page)

“I was thinking wings,” Izzy said. “Glittery ones.”

“And I was thinking of ponies,” Bella said, catching Izzy’s enthusiasm and making her momentary reticence seem like a passing whim. “I thought we could ride ponies down the aisle. That would be really cool!”

The word “aisle” made Sophie think of a million different things at once. But principally churches, dresses, guests, an actual wedding that would result in an actual marriage that would mean she had made a real and life-changing decision that would be finally finalized in about the most final way that a decision possibly could be. With a legally binding contract. Suddenly she found that she was the one who was “mostly” glad she had agreed to marry Louis Gregory.

“Well, we can sort out all the details later,” Louis said, catching the look in Sophie’s eyes and peeling himself off the banister to help her to her feet. “For now we’re going to Newquay to get Sophie’s engagement ring resized.”

“Can we wear this?” Bella asked him, gesturing at her bridesmaid-meets-Vegas outfit.

It would have been churlish to refuse.

•      •      •

It wasn’t a long journey to Newquay, but it had been a very loud one.

“Aunty Sophie,” Izzy had asked. “Who will you be once you and Daddy are married?”

“Who will I be?” Sophie had glanced at Louis, who was driving. “I’ll be me, of course.”

“Mrs. Sophie Gregory,” Louis said proudly.

“I’m not changing my name,” Sophie said without thinking. She glanced at Louis, unable to read his expression from his profile. “I mean, no one changes their name these days, plus I’ve got my professional reputation to think of. Sophie Mills has a reputation in the events industry. No one will have heard of Sophie Gregory.”

“But, Sophie, you don’t have a job anymore,” Bella pointed out with her usual clarity. “No one cares what you’re called.”

“Don’t have a new job
yet
, Bella,” Sophie corrected her, noticing how Louis kept his eyes on the road, his expression set in neutral. “But I will have one and, well, I’ve been me for a long time now. I’m used to it.”

“Could I change my name to Princess Izzy, Queen of Ice?” Izzy piped up. “I’m not used to my name at all!”

“The second you turn eighteen,” Louis told her, soliciting an extended “not fair” moan from the rear of the car.

Sophie did not mention the other niggling anxiety that had popped into her head the second Louis mentioned her potential name. She’d already taken Carrie’s children, admittedly according to the wishes of her friend, and now she also had her dead friend’s husband. To take her name seemed to be going too far, as if she were really trying to step into the shoes of that mythic first wife, just like a latter-day second Mrs. de Winter obsessing over Rebecca.

“How about Mrs. Aunty Sophie?” Izzy hazarded.

“I like ‘Sophie Mills,’ ” Bella said, providing Sophie with an unexpected ally. “And just because her and Daddy will be married doesn’t mean she won’t be our aunty Sophie anymore.”

“Exactly,” Sophie said.

“But what if I want to call her—” Izzy began.

“GIRLS!” Louis had raised his voice to cut across whatever Izzy had been about to say. “That’s enough questions, you’re giving Sophie a headache! Look, we’re here now. Stop shouting and show me how pretty and ladylike and bridesmaidsey you can be. Because only quiet, respectable, ladylike girls can be bridesmaids.”

“With wings,” Izzy muttered under her breath.

“At all,” Louis said.

“Except,” Bella had told him, looking at him from beneath her bangs, “that we are your daughters and so we are definitely going to be bridesmaids
at all cost
.”

Sophie followed the Gregorys through the shopping crowds from a slight distance. She knew Louis had guessed she was a bit overwhelmed by the maelstrom of feelings, opinions, and questions the girls had thrown at her, and she loved the fact that he knew her well enough to give her this small distance from them while she adjusted to everything that was happening. The very fact that he had discovered that about her gave her joy in itself. It was evidence of how their relationship had deepened since they’d first met. And she had discovered that she wanted to make him happy, and that she’d do more or less anything to do that. That had to be love.

What she needed to do, Sophie decided, was to take baby steps. First step: she
was
in love with Louis Gregory. The wild leaping of her heart whenever she stood next to him proved that conclusively—she had already taken that step and she thought she’d adjusted to the news rather well, what with all the sex and happiness it entailed. Second step: she had very recently agreed to marry him,
which would take a bit of getting used to, but she was confident that she would get used to it because, after all, she had got very used to step one alarmingly quickly. Third step: she’d have to think about some sort of wedding eventually, although she’d read in an old edition of the
Tatler
she’d found in the doctor’s surgery when Izzy had a chest infection that long engagements were the latest trend, so perhaps it didn’t have to be that soon. Fourth step: that would be the actual being-married-to-Louis step, the part where she moved out of the Avalon and in with him and the girls. Then there was the fifth and final step: the whole rest of her life with Louis and the girls, the rest of her natural life being fully married.

As her heart was gripped by a sudden vision of eternity, Sophie decided then and there not to dwell on any of the steps past one and two. One and two really were the only pertinent steps right now. After all, she hadn’t even told her mother yet that she was engaged, and everybody knows that nothing is really ever true or real until you’ve told your mother.

As long as she had a little more time simply to enjoy being in love with him and getting her head around being engaged to him, then Sophie was certain she’d be able to deal with the other issues eventually. After all, now that she’d said yes, there was no going back.

The ring would be ready and perfectly sized within a couple of hours, so Louis suggested lunch. Bella suggested bridesmaid shopping and Sophie suggested the pub. In the end they compromised by going to the Bell, which was located next to a bridal shop and served food all day. As Sophie sipped her gin and tonic, she watched Louis and the girls talking, planning, laughing. They, the Gregorys, were a family now. A proper unit, something they had not been until very recently. And Sophie was proud that in some small way, she had helped make that happen. Or in a rather large way, actually, she admitted to herself, quietly blowing her own trumpet.
After all, it was Sophie who had taken Bella and Izzy in when all she had to offer them was microwavable frozen dinners and a one-bedroom flat with a neurotic cat. And it was Sophie who had employed a private detective to track down the girls’ father after Carrie died. Sophie had stood guard over Bella and Izzy while she tried to work out if the wildly handsome stranger who happened to be their father was friend or foe, and it was she who had done her best to reconcile the three of them even when Bella insisted that she hated the father who had once abandoned her. Sophie had bonded them back together and she had done it for Carrie, for her dear friend who for so many years had always been the best, most free, and wildest part of her.

Sophie looked at Louis, brushing a lock of dark hair from his eyes as he laughed at something Bella said.

On many of the nights she spent alone in the B & B, Sophie sometimes wondered if she would ever have fallen for Louis if she hadn’t met him in that way and at that time. If he hadn’t been a confused man, a jilted husband suffering from guilt and loss? If she hadn’t loved the woman he’d once loved or fallen for his strange, lost daughters so hard, would she have felt the same way about him?

“Hey, Wendy? Wendy Churchill, it is you!”

Sophie was snapped out of her thoughts as Louis called after a woman who had walked past their table. “Don’t try and pretend you don’t know who I am!” Louis teased her jovially.

Sophie studied the woman’s face as she slowly turned to face Louis. Perhaps a couple of years older than Sophie, she had reddish hair pulled back into a ponytail.

“Louis Gregory,” the woman said slowly. “Last I heard you’d moved away.”

“I came back.” Louis grinned as he stood up. “And so did you by the looks of things! Last time I saw you …well, it was over twenty years ago.”

Sophie blinked as her betrothed stepped away from their table
and engulfed the woman in a huge bear hug. She was smaller than Sophie, qualifying as petite, with slender hips and narrow shoulders, and the sort of pretty elfin looks that Sophie hadn’t realized until that very second she despised.

“How long since you lived up north?” Louis asked, glancing at his girls. Izzy was doing her best to get the entire contents of one mini-sachet of ketchup onto a single French fry. Bella, though, was staring hard at this Wendy woman from underneath her bangs and listening intently to every word being said. Bella liked to know everything that was going on, she spent much of her young life trying to ensure that no piece of information, no matter how trivial it might seem, ever got past her.

“Moved back down here about a year ago. I’ve got my own business—running costs are lower here and I missed it, it’s always been home.” Wendy smiled. “What about you? Where did you go and why did you come back?”

“Well, it’s a long story, but basically I lost my wife in a car accident. I came back to look after my two daughters, Bella and Izzy.” Louis gestured at his daughters.

“Good afternoon,” Bella said gravely.

“They’re yours?” Wendy Churchill said, glancing briefly at the two girls without returning Bella’s greeting. “You’re a
dad
?”

“Yes.” Louis laughed. “No need to sound so shocked, Wend! Bella is nearly seven, Izzy is four. I’m a dad twice over, and after a serious false start, I’m not doing too bad a job of it now. In fact, things are going really great and this …” Finally Louis gestured toward where Sophie was waiting to be introduced, but Wendy Churchill did not look at her. She looked back at Bella who, after a second wrinkled her nose and then wrested the pot of ketchup sachets from Izzy, choosing to ignore the stranger.

“They look like you,” Wendy said slowly, as if she were processing some other hidden piece of information.

“Do they?” Louis looked pleased. “I can see it with Bella, but Izzy is the image of her mum.”

“No, they both look exactly like …you.” Wendy stopped, glanced over her shoulder, and then seemed to collect herself. Suddenly she beamed at Louis.

“God, I’m sorry, it’s just been such a long time since I last saw you. I still think of you as sixteen, the great, tall, lanky lad you were. Bumping into you now—a real grown-up man with kids—is a bit of a shock.”

“
You
don’t look any different,” Louis told Wendy, which made Sophie purse her lips a little because if this woman was about Louis’s age, some old school friend or something, then there was no way she could look the same as she had at sixteen. Not unless she’d had wrinkles and dark roots back then too.

“Daddy, who is this lady and what does she want with us?” Bella returned her attention to the stranger. “And why is she staring at us as if we are animals in a zoo?”

Sophie beamed at her; she could always rely on Bella to ask the pertinent questions.

“This,” Louis said, finally tearing his eyes off Wendy’s face, “is my old friend Wendy Churchill. We used to go to school together.”

“And we were a little bit more than friends,” Wendy said, smiling coyly, which made Sophie want to slap Wendy Churchill quite hard.

“Oh well,” Louis chuckled, and Sophie was dismayed to see him flush. “You never wrote, you never called. You broke my heart, Wendy Churchill!”

“You never tried to find me,” Wendy added, her tone a touch more serious than Louis’s.

“Hey, you were the chucker, I was the chuckee,” Louis said. “And that reminds me, this is my fiancée, Sophie Mills.”

Finally Wendy removed her gaze from Louis’s face and looked at Sophie.

“Wow, you don’t let the grass grow, do you? I thought you said your wife only just died.” Sophie found it rather hard to maintain her fake smile.

Louis laughed awkwardly. “Carrie and I had been apart for three years when she died,” he explained, his smile faltering. “Sophie was there for me and the children when it happened. She saved all of us.”

“I, oh,
see,
” Wendy said, nodding, as if the mysteries of the universe had suddenly all become clear.

“Well anyway, Wendy.” Louis’s smile vanished. “It was nice to see you again. Take care of yourself.”

“I’ve always had to.” Her reply implied something that Sophie could not fathom, except that it was barbed with just a hint of resentment. “Good-bye, Louis.”

She stood there looking at Louis for a second longer than Sophie deemed appropriate and then made her way out through the crowds.

“What a charming lady,” Sophie said, exchanging a knowing look with Bella.

“Who
was
that funny lady?” Izzy asked, emerging from her food and slinging an arm around Sophie’s neck to kiss her, leaving a tomato-ketchup kiss on her cheek.

“She was a rude lady,” Bella said. “I didn’t like her.”

“She’s just someone I used to know,” Louis said as he watched her go, but there was a look in his eyes that belied his casual dismissal of her, a look that reminded Sophie of the fact that she knew hardly anything about Louis’s life before Carrie. He never talked about it. There were years, decades, of his life that were a mystery to her.

“When I knew her, she never used to be quite that intense.”
Louis leaned over and wiped away the smear of ketchup from Sophie’s cheek with the ball of his thumb. “I’m sorry, Soph. She was pretty rude to you, ignoring you like that.”

“Was she? I didn’t notice,” Sophie lied, more interested in finding out about this relic from Louis’s past. “Childhood sweetheart, was she? She’s probably been pining for you all these years and is put out that you’re with me. Pure jealousy, and who can blame her, hey, bridesmaids?”