Page 61 of A Wedding in a Week

I hold her for much longer. “Thanks, Mum.” I pat the cool bag and take the thermos of tea she’s filled. “And thanks for all of this.”

“You’re so welcome.” For a moment, she’s pink and pretty like in the wedding photo on the wall behind her. “You’re all set.” She frowns. “Or almost. Hold on.” She darts back to the kitchen, coming back with a buttonhole that’s seen better days but still smells sweet, which is how I end up jogging across fields dressed for a wedding.

Maybe I wasn’t the only person who set a timer—Marc’s waiting for me.

He sits on the five-bar gate leading to the headland, slipping down from it to take the thermos, freeing up one of my hands to lead me to where he and Hayden have been working, only it hasn’t been on tents, like I expected.

My arch is on the headland.

It frames a sunset view of glinting water and of Kara-Enys in the distance, exactly like I pictured.

“Come and see the tent.”

I do, immediately seeing why they needed more time—there isn’t only the tent that Hayden promised down in the sheltered hollow. He and Marc have strung what looks like a thousand fairy lights around it. They flicker here where the headland blocks the sunset, turning this spot almost magical.

Marc shows me the photos he’s taken of it to add to our presentations, and they’re exactly what I imagined but couldn’t make happen without him, so perfect I choke on repeating what I just told Mum. “Thank you.”

“Thank Hayden,” Marc says quietly while easily as pink with pleasure as my mother, the red in his hair clashing as much as ever, and I flood with something so strong I can’t breathe around it. Can’t speak around it. Can’t do anything but nod.

Hayden must have dug into the cool bag up on the headland. I hear him shout, “Okay if I dig in?” but it’s Marc who answers.

“Go ahead.”

Marc still holds my hand. Still meets my gaze. Still only has eyes for me, and I’ll have to breathe soon. I’ll have to. I can’t yet, or talk, so Marc fills my silence, only he does so much more than that, like he’s filled far more than my role on this farm or plugged more than the gap left in my family. He’s filled me with hope for a different future, leaving no room for doubt or second-guessing.

Marc gives another example. “Hayden and I talked while we worked. About you and me. I told him I hadn’t expected this between us, or I wouldn’t have agreed to meet him, but it’s been a long time coming. Us, I mean.”

I clasp his hand tighter.

Marc doesn’t flinch or pull free. He only says, “I told him how you’ve always been it for me.”

Everything that’s waited for so much longer than a week wants to spill out, or unfurl like new leaves do from each seed I plant on this land. They reach for the sun the same way I now reach for the right words.

I feel the same about you too, isn’t enough. Nor is I want you to stay no matter what happens tomorrow.

Hayden calls out again, and I can’t hate his interruption, not when wanting to tell Marc something that only needs three words leaves me speechless.

Would saying them be too much too soon?

Hayden saves me by bawling from the headland, “You two don’t want any of this food, right?” and Marc grins. He also tightens his own grip and tugs me back up the slope to where Hayden proves he wasn’t ever the right man for Marc. He can’t be, not when he holds up a scone he’s broken open to spoon cream onto first instead of jam, the heathen.

He does say, “This is fucking delicious,” so I’ll forgive him. He also adds, “I’ve got to go,” and I could learn to like him as much as Marc must to put together a proper cream tea for him, jam spread first like it should be. Only he doesn’t give it to Hayden.

He holds it to my lips.

I know I take a bite. I watch him do the same as I chew and swallow. He also pulls out his phone and asks for a final photo. “Before you go, yeah? A last one of me and Stef with the sunset behind us?”

Marc puts me where he wants me, which is under an arch that’s now studded with gorse, dark green sprigs flecked with bright bursts of yellow.

Marc plucks some. “Ow. Shit. Fucking thorns.” He pokes the gorse in with my buttonhole rose, then sucks a finger he must have pricked several times already while making this last shot fit his vision for Love-Land Weddings.

Because that’s what this is, I realise, another symbol of wild moors meeting the sea with my farm wedged between them, all coming into stark focus the moment he asks, “Want to hold hands for it?”

I want a lot more than that, but I say, “I do,” regardless, my turn to flush at how full-on that comes out sounding.

Marc loops his arms around my neck first, unfastening my sling and murmuring, “You know we’re doing this all backwards, don’t you?”

“What do you mean?”

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