Love at the Little Wedding Shop by the Sea - Jane Linfoot Page 0,96

yet completely right. My mouth’s already watering, anticipating how he’ll taste. I’m listening to the pounding of the waves, telling myself this is real. Then, as I part my lips and close my eyes, there’s a scuffle. A bark. And as Merwyn collides with my knee I jump sideways and Nic lets out a shout.

‘Merwyn, what the eff?’ As Merwyn gallops away again, his tongue lolling out, Nic lets out a groan. ‘Well, thanks for that mate.’ He pulls a face at me. ‘Probably for the best. That wasn’t very professional of me, was it, Milla Vanilla?’

As I rub at the tingling skin on my wrist, Merwyn dashes back with Abby who’s panting even harder.

She tugs at Nic’s denim jacket and points along the beach to the higgledy-piggledy wooden building with the deck in front. ‘That’s the Surf Snack. Me and Daddy have our hot chocolate there.’

I’m staggering as I realign myself. I just manage to get it together enough to smile as I think how much cuter Abby’s name for The Surf Shack is than the real one.

And then the moment moves on and from the way Nic’s grinning down at her, I can tell he thinks so too. ‘I heard they do a great Frozen sundae in there.’

I’m blinking in surprise. ‘You did?’

He gives me a nudge with his elbow. ‘Keep up, Milla, I thought ice cream was your specialist subject – and comforting miserable sailors.’ He holds out his hand to Abby. ‘How about we race Milla?’

Abby gives him a hard stare. ‘Actually, Daddy carries me on his shoulders for this bit.’

I can’t help laughing at her. ‘Hitch up your princess dress, and we’ll ask if Nic will do the same.’

Nic’s smiling down at her. ‘It’s a few weeks since I carried a princess in a long dress, isn’t it, Milla?’ He grins at me over the top of her head. ‘Let’s see what we can do.’

As his eyes widen for a moment and lock with mine again, it’s like he’s acknowledging what we just missed. I’ve got Merwyn to thank there … nothing to do with how awkward it might have made the run up to the wedding. I should be grateful for the lucky escape. For saving myself from a guy whose life statement means, however delicious his touch is, he’ll always walk away. And I suppose back there I caught him at the same kind of weak moment I had the day he was making pancakes on the boat. When all he wanted was some human touch to make him feel better. Nothing more.

Abby’s eyes are so wide I’m laughing again. ‘The princess Nic carried was much heavier than you, Abby, but I’m told he did a great job.’ I whistle for Merwyn. ‘Good boy, come and have your lead on.’

‘If your royal highness is ready?’ Nic sends Abby a wink.

Then he swings her into the air, wedges her on one shoulder and strides off across the shingle as if he’s done this every day of his life.

And all I can think as I hurry after them is not that I’m going to smother my triple vanilla ninety-nine in raspberry sauce and then totally demolish it. It’s that, looking at how natural Nic is with Abby, he wasn’t born to be an effing playboy. What a waste that would be. He was born to be a dad. And if there’s a tiny voice inside my head as Merwyn and I bounce up the broad bleached wooden steps to the Surf Shack, screaming, pick him, grab him, jump him and have his babies, well, I really didn’t hear it.

Chapter 28

Sunday, ten days later.

The Potting Shed, near Okehampton, Devon.

Gone fishing.

For our first proper wedding fair we’ve not only come two hours from home, we’re actually over the county border, in Devon. But the change of area means that as well as the regulars we’ve also got new exhibitors too, and the walled-garden location couldn’t be prettier, in the most low-key, on-trend way.

The Potting Shed is a newly-opened restaurant venue with a kitchen filled with starry chefs, set in a cluster of simple single-storey stone farm buildings below wide, shallow-pitched slate roofs. What makes it so special isn’t just the converted cart sheds with their hewn-timber roof trusses, and the scrubbed stone walls that set off the simple designer furnishings. On the entrance side there’s a wide gravelled car park, with Casper’s fleet in a shimmery line on one side of the doorway, and the Brides Go