Gina was still laughing long after Nalisha had wafted sensuously out of the pub’s door.
It was halfway through the afternoon when Kam returned.
Gina’s heart did its usual double flip when she saw him. ‘All done?’
‘Yeah.’ He grinned. ‘We’ve worked miracles, haven’t we? We make a good team.’
Gina pushed her curls behind her ears and started to pull a pint. ‘We do.’
Because they did. In more ways than one.
Kam smiled at her. ‘And is that for me?’
‘Yes – why?’
‘Because –’ Kam slid behind the bar ‘– desperate as I am for a pint, I need something else more.’
Gina tingled. ‘Not here … Not now …’
‘Yes.’
Oh God … ‘This is supposed to be a secret.’
‘It is a secret,’ he said, very close to her, his breath peppermint warm against her skin. ‘And it’s a very sexy secret.
Although how we’ll keep it any sort of secret for much longer, I have no idea.’
‘Nor have I.’ Gina’s hand trembled on the glass. ‘Still, it’ll be fun finding out.’
Kam took the half-filled glass from
her hand. ‘I want to shout it from the rooftops. Tonight would be a good time.’
‘Tonight belongs to Jay and Erin. As does next Saturday.’ Gina looked at him and smiled. ‘We’ll have to try to be discreet. After that, I think we might go public – if you want to, that is.’
‘God, I want to. You have no idea how difficult it is not to talk about you all the time. It’s like being a teenager.’
Gina moved away from him and called along the bar, ‘Sam! The lager’s gone off this end! I’m just going down to the cellar to change the barrel! Can you keep an eye on things up here? Ta.’
She grinned at Kam. ‘Oh dear. I’m such a feeble little thing … You know, I might need a nice big strong man to help me change that barrel.’
‘I think you might,’ Kam laughed, almost reaching the cellar door before her. ‘Oh, be careful on the steps in those heels, shall I help you …’
After kicking the door shut behind him, silencing the happy roar from the pub, Kam swept Gina off her feet and carried her giggling down the steep stone steps and into the cool, dark cellar.
She laughed into his neck. ‘Not the most romantic place in the world. All these utilitarian pipes and gauges and barrels and crates. However, there is a little storeroom just past the mixers where we keep a pile of emergency blankets for lagging when the frost gets really bad.’
‘How convenient.’ Kam kissed her, carrying her across the cellar and into the storeroom. ‘Oh God, Gina, I’m sorry but I’ve got to say this.’
No! She screamed silently. No, please don’t. Not now. Finish with me later, but not today. Not now. Not ever …
‘I love you.’
Love …? She blinked at him in the
half-light as she sank down into the pile of blankets. Love? No one had ever loved her before. No one.
‘Sorry.’ Kam stretched out beside her. ‘Is that too soon? I had to tell you, Gina. This is a first for me. Being in love. Madly, insanely in love. I don’t care if you don’t feel the same way, maybe one day you will, but …’
‘You are crazy.’ She took his beautiful face between her hands. ‘Of course I love you. I love, love, love you.’
He smiled at her, kissed her lips very gently then trailed his finger down her face and her throat.
‘Thank God for that. And how long does it take to change a barrel?’
‘Me? Oh, about three minutes.’ Gina pulled him against her, loving everything about this sensational man: his beauty, the feel of his hard body, the scent of him and the way he needed her. ‘Or in this case, at least half an hour.’
Now it was Saturday night. Only a week to
go before the wedding. Seven short days to go …
Erin jigged up and down.
It was her hen night. Although things weren’t going exactly as she hoped.
‘Where are we going?’ Erin asked for the millionth time. ‘Why am I blindfolded? This is insanity. We’re supposed to be going to Newbury for dinner and cocktails.’
‘There’s been a slight change of plan.’ Bella giggled on one side of her.
‘Just trust us,’ Sophie whispered on the other.
‘I want to go to Newbury and I don’t trust either of you.’ Erin was totally disorientated behind the satin eye mask. ‘Tell me what’s happening?’
‘Just hold our hands,’ Bella said, ‘and do exactly what we tell you to do. You’ll love it, Erin, I promise.’
Stumbling, unable to walk very well because of the combination of her heels and the special hen-night, slim-fitting LBD, and now madly irritated
by her just-mascaraed-by-Deena’s-Top-Girl-eyelashes catching on the inside of the blindfold, Erin sighed.
‘OK. I know we’re still in the village. We’ve only just stepped outside Uncle Doug’s cottage. If you haven’t got a helicopter waiting on the green to whisk me off to Monte Carlo or somewhere exotic after all this, I’m going to have a major tantrum.’
Bella laughed. ‘No helicopter.’
Damn.
‘OK then, there’s a stretch limo waiting to take us to the hot spots of London’s clubland to party with Premiership footballers, isn’t there?’
‘Nope,’ Sophie said as they made unsteady progress across the green under the still-hot evening sun. ‘Not even close.’
‘Other girls have hen nights in Prague or Dublin or Barcelona. Hen weekends even. Sometimes even hen
weeks
…’
Bella chuckled. ‘And you said you didn’t want anything like that. Keep it local you said. Keep it simple.’
‘Exactly. Oops.’ Erin stumbled and swayed. ‘A nice elegant meal out with all my girlfriends and my mum and Deena. A few cocktails. Lovely chat, a lot of laughs. In Newbury.’
‘As I said,’ Bella laughed. ‘A slight change of plan. It’s OK. We cancelled everything. Everyone knows.’
‘And,’ Sophie added, ‘at least we all look spectacularly glam.’
Erin, in her satin darkness, nodded. They did. They’d all bought new snazzy little dresses for tonight anyway, and after the wedding-hair and make-up run-through by Deena’s Top Girls, they certainly looked fit to hit the town.
Only, obviously, they weren’t going to be hitting any town tonight now.
Damn it.
Bella tightened her grip. ‘Right, now be careful here, we’re going to be going downwards a bit.’
Erin slipped and slithered and did a less than cute Bambi-on-ice on the heels.
‘We’re on the road now, aren’t we?’ she muttered as her feet stopped sliding. ‘And you two can stop laughing. You can see. I can’t. And I don’t like it. And if we’re still in the village, why is it so quiet? And the minute you let go of my hands I’m going to rip this bloody blindfold off.’
‘Stop grizzling,’ Sophie laughed. ‘And it’s an elegant black masquerade mask, not a blindfold. We’re not going to execute you.’
‘It feels very much like it. You know I hate surprises.’
‘Mmm, that was a bit of an issue. But we know you’re going to absolutely love this one.’ Bella squeezed her hand reassuringly. ‘Seriously, Erin, we’ve been friends for ever. You don’t think we’d do something you hated, do you?’
‘No, not really, but …’
‘But?’
‘But I’m a bit scared
and I’m really hungry – I haven’t eaten anything all day to be ready for tonight – and I was so looking forward to a nice dinner and …’
‘Oh, there’ll be food,’ Sophie said cheerfully. ‘You won’t starve. OK, here we are. Now step very carefully.’
Erin stepped.
She was aware of the change in air temperature. So they were inside now. The sun was no longer warming her skin. It was also very quiet. Absolutely silent. Eerily so.
‘I don’t like it.’ She shook her head. ‘I seriously don’t like it.’
‘It’s OK. I think we’re ready now,’ Bella said. ‘Just a couple more seconds.’
Oddly, Erin thought, because
she couldn’t see, her other senses were heightened. She knew that wherever they were, they weren’t alone. She was aware of other people – two, maybe? – breathing, and the scents were intensified. She could smell warm skin and lemons and hints of musk and notes of ylang-ylang and sandalwood, and, surely, hot, stomach-rumbling spices …
Sophie and Bella were whispering, and there was another whispered answer. A man’s voice. She wasn’t sure whose.
‘OK,’ Bella said. ‘We’re ready now. Erin, Sophie’s just going to undo your mask.’
She felt fingers in her hair, was aware of the sound of Velcro ripping, not hers …
Then the blindfold was off and she blinked rapidly, unused to the light.
Was she dreaming? Had she gone mad?
‘Jay?’
‘Erin?’
They peered blearily at one another in complete stupefaction.
Sophie, Bella, Gina – Gina, looking wonderful and radiant in a short strappy purple frock that showed off her endless legs – and Kam all stood back looking like proud parents and smirking.
‘You’re supposed to be in Newbury on your hen night …’ Jay muttered.
‘And you’re supposed to be at the casino with your stags …’
‘And –’ Jay rubbed his eyes ‘– we appear to be in the foyer of the village hall.’
Erin looked at Gina, Sophie, Bella and Kam. ‘What the hell is going on?’
They just laughed and looked smug.
‘You look amazing.’ Jay rubbed his eyes again. ‘Totally gorgeous.’
‘Thanks.’ Erin tried
to un-gum her eyelashes. ‘You look pretty dead hot, too.’
Jay looked at Kam. ‘Can you please tell us what’s going on? Because this is our hen and stag night. The one night that traditionally we’re
not
supposed to spend together. And I may have to kill you.’
Kam grinned. ‘Ah, yes, but Gina told me how much you’ve both argued against tradition – and that you hate being apart – and I knew you didn’t want to go down the multiple-party Indian route either, so we thought this would be a great idea and that you’d love it.’
Erin, still completely bemused, sighed. ‘So, what’s happening? Are we all just going out together or what?’
‘Oh, definitely “or what”,’ Sophie chuckled. ‘As you’re just about to find out … Hold hands.’
Erin gripped Jay’s hand tightly. He squeezed her fingers. She was pretty sure this was going to be the worst evening of her life.
Oh, why the hell did people always have to
interfere
?
Gina and Kam threw open the doors to the village hall.
Ohmigod!
Erin blinked at the blaze of light and colour. At the rainbow of pleated silks swathing the ceiling in a canopy and dropping to the floor, at the thousands of sparkling dancing fairy lights, the tall flickering candles, the flowers, the gods and goddesses bedecked with garlands of roses and lilies, the golden cloths on the little side tables all scattered with multicoloured sequins, which glittered like a manic solar system, the long trestles with their dozens of gold and silver dishes piled high with sweet and savoury treats.
And then at everyone they knew: the whole village, their families, their friends, waiting silently, expectantly, smiling, crowded beneath the exotic canopy.
Jay squeezed her hand even tighter. ‘Holy shit.’
‘Couldn’t have put it better,’ Erin whispered. ‘And is this the
mandap
?’
‘No, that’s still at the Swan. Abbie said so yesterday. This one’s handmade.’
‘Blimey, then it’s spectacular. They’ve gone to an awful lot of trouble. I’m probably going to cry now.’
‘Ladies and gentlemen!’ Kam clapped his hands and raised his voice. ‘I give you our hen and stag! Erin and Jay!’
Then the crowd erupted in cheers and whoops and massive applause, and threw deluges of rose petals like a pale-pink snowstorm as they all rushed forwards to embrace the almost-happy couple.
Most of the women, Erin
noticed rather dizzily, picking rose petals from her lip gloss, were wearing glittering jewelled dupattas over their Best Clothes, and some of them had brightly coloured silk stoles, and some of the men were in kurtas, and, wow, there was her mum looking gorgeous in a pale-green sari, and Deena, stunning in a regal blue one, and Nalisha, pretty in pink.
East meets West. And then some.
Everyone hugged everyone else. Everyone kissed. Everyone shook hands. Everyone talked at the same time. Then someone put some madly catchy bhangra music on the stereo, and the village hall was transformed.
‘I can’t believe they kept this secret from us,’ Erin muttered. ‘No one has ever kept a secret in this village in its entire history.’
‘I know –’ Jay pulled her closer to him ‘– I never even got a hint either. It must have been Kam’s idea.’
‘And Gina’s.’
‘We’ll definitely kill them later.’
Deena and Tavish came
forwards and kissed them on both cheeks; Pete and Rose did the same. Then everyone in the hall simply lined up and followed suit, Uncle Doug and Nalisha – but not together – and Bella and Sophie with Aiden and David, and Renata and Julia, and Dora Wilberforce and all the Yee-Hawers, and even Sam and Part-time Pearl. And the rest of the villagers. And then their friends from school and college and beyond.
Erin’s face ached from smiling and her arm ached from shaking, and her cheek was covered in a hundred different lipstick traces, but it was just wonderful to know that everyone, simply everyone, had turned out tonight for this. For her and Jay.
Even if it wasn’t anything like the hen night she’d been expecting.
Gina waved and headed towards the little stage. The music stopped and Gina held up her hands. ‘We’ll have more music in a minute, I promise.’
Nook Green cheered.
‘First, I’d like to thank everyone not only for coming here tonight, but also for managing to keep the whole thing a secret. You were amazing. I don’t think Jay and Erin had a clue, did you?’
They both shook their heads and made not-quite-jokey ‘we’ll get you for this later’ gestures.
Gina beamed happily. ‘Jay and Erin had planned to have a traditional English stag and hen night. They’ve also planned a lovely fusion wedding, which we’ll all be celebrating with them this time next week …’
More whoops and foot-stamping and, sadly, one or two ribald comments.
‘So, it meant that some of the Indian pre- and post-wedding ceremonies wouldn’t get a look-in. And this seemed a shame as Kam explained to me that Indians, even those who have never actually been there, do love a good party …’