Love on the Scottish Spring Isle, Ebook

I don’t think I can do this.


This was the worst possible moment. April clutched her bouquet, knuckles whitening around the stems.


Just breathe.


Except the stupid dress wouldn’t let her. Part of her wished she could rip the silly bodice and watch the pearls spew everywhere. Her gaze was fixed on the polished chapel floor. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the shiny tips of her father’s leather shoes. Today, he was forced to notice her for a moment.


This was her big day, after all.


April’s heart drummed a staccato beat as she half-lifted her head, looking at the closed wooden doors in front of her. In less than one minute, they would creak open. In less than one minute, she’d begin the slow march down the aisle in her ivory lace gown. Past rows of two hundred distinguished guests. Happy and smiling with glistening eyes. And in less than five minutes, she’d pledge forever to the only man she’d ever known, the only one she’d ever…


Loved?


April blinked hard, swallowing around a lump in her throat. After ten years together, shouldn’t love come easily? Shouldn’t she ache to run into Dick’s comforting arms and never leave? Shouldn’t she rejoice at the prospect of ceasing to be April Virginia Smith and becoming Mrs Richard Williams III?


Yet all she felt was overwhelming nausea.


What’s wrong with me?


She usually did the right thing. The sensible thing. Whatever was expected of her. She wasn’t much of a rebel, that had always been her brothers’ privilege.


The organist played the first chords of the wedding march and the doors groaned open. April’s breath caught as the guests rose and all eyes turned to her silhouetted in the doorway. There were audible gasps and sighs.


Dick stood at the altar. So handsome. The tux accentuated his shoulders. The perfect guy and ideal husband. Kind and generous. Gentle and caring. Financially stable. A good man. Everybody here wanted them to get married. To be happy.


But as April took her first step, a violent sob welled in her chest. She paused, the lace train of her gown whispering around her ankles. A ripple of confusion swept through the guests.


‘What’s going on, April?’ her father hissed over the deafening music. Tugging discreetly on her left arm.


She couldn’t move.


All April saw was a grim future of polite smiles, nice cuddles, and the annual obligatory sexual intercourse to create more babies. A slow suffocation of her spirit. Was the price of marrying a good man to have no sex, no passion, no real intimacy? And was she willing to pay it?


She blinked at the altar, at Dick’s furrowed brow and pursed lips. She loved him, but—


I can’t do this.


The realisation shot through April like a million volts. Each fibre of her being was screaming. As if she had spent the past years in a foggy cocoon and now everything came into sharp focus.


Marry your best friend, they said. But April didn’t want to marry her best friend. And was he even her best friend? She didn’t want to spend the rest of her life with a man who didn’t desire her. Whose response to ‘Don’t you think we should talk about our sex life?’ was always ‘Don’t be silly, honey’.

She couldn’t lie there every twelve months and wait for Dick to soundlessly do the deed in the dark – only to hide in the bathroom for half an hour afterwards, suppressing her sobs by biting into her fist. She couldn’t be that lonely with someone. She couldn’t live a half-life until she died.


It wasn’t too late.


As if in slow motion, she saw her cramped fingers open and the bouquet – red and white roses with baby’s breath – tumble to the floor before the hem of her dress.


As the organ music stopped, as distraught murmurs and her mother’s pointed cry echoed through the chapel, April turned on her heels and ran.



‘To the airport!’ she shouted at the cab driver as she tossed her suitcase onto the backseat and slid in, pulse racing.


‘Sure? Aren’t you missing someone?’ The driver inspected her wedding dress in the rear-view mirror.


‘Kansas City International. Now. Fast as you can!’


‘All right, all right. Jesus!’ He stepped on the gas.