Unexpected Lessons in Love Read online

  Lucy Dillon

  * * *

  UNEXPECTED LESSONS IN LOVE

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  How to help stop puppy farming

  About the Author

  Sunday Times bestselling author Lucy Dillon grew up in Cumbria and read English at Cambridge, then read a lot of magazines as a press assistant in London, then read other people’s manuscripts as a junior fiction editor. She now lives in a village outside Hereford with her husband, a Border terrier and an otterhound.

  Lucy won the Romantic Novelists’ Association Contemporary Romantic Novel prize in 2015 for A Hundred Pieces of Me, and the Romantic Novel of the Year Award in 2010 for Lost Dogs and Lonely Hearts. You can find out more at www.lucydillon.co.uk, follow her on Twitter @lucy_dillon, on Instagram @lucydillonbooks or find her on Facebook at www.facebook.com/pages/LucyDillonBooks.

  Readers Love Lucy Dillon …

  ‘An extraordinary book. I cried so many times reading it … my new all-time favourite’

  ‘A lovely heart-warming book that is full of creativity, friendship and self-discovery’

  ‘A sheer delight to read … I laughed, cried and fell in love with all the characters’

  ‘Uplifting, joyous, bittersweet and completely inspiring’

  ‘Loved this book, I didn’t want to put it down’

  ‘Beautiful, just beautiful. Had me sobbing buckets!’

  ‘An excellent book with great characters, both human and canine!’

  ‘A wonderful book full of honesty, beauty, love and forgiveness. You’ll need the tissues!’

  ‘A beautiful, heart-warming story which had me sobbing at the end’

  www.penguin.co.uk

  By Lucy Dillon

  Where the Light Gets In

  All I Ever Wanted

  One Small Act of Kindness

  A Hundred Pieces of Me

  The Secret of Happy Ever After

  Walking Back to Happiness

  Lost Dogs and Lonely Hearts

  The Ballroom Class

  For more information on Lucy Dillon and her books, please visit her website at www.lucydillon.co.uk

  www.facebook.com/pages/LucyDillonBooks

  @lucy_dillon

  @lucydillonbooks

  For anyone who’s ever heard that little voice in their head – and had the courage to take its advice.

  Prologue

  Brooklyn Bridge, October

  Jeannie was walking with Dan’s hands over her eyes but she wasn’t worried. Right now, here in this delicious champagne bubble of a moment, she was wrapped in a bliss that she’d never believed you could feel in real life.

  So far their long weekend in New York had been one romantic surprise after another. Dan had planned it in secret, but he’d chosen everything Jeannie would have chosen herself: a morning spent browsing the vintage shops at Chelsea Market, then an afternoon crunching through copper leaves and sipping hot chocolate in Central Park. Cocktails and oysters, yellow cabs and multicoloured Times Square lights, sneaky kisses as they rode the crowded subway: every second had felt as if the two of them were starring in their own movie.

  The hotel was so gorgeous Jeannie could have happily spent the whole weekend in their tiny super-chic room, with its soft rugs and even softer lighting. And of course, with Dan. Just thinking about Dan’s tanned skin against the crisp white bedlinen gave her a hot rush of happiness: there were some highlights Jeannie wouldn’t be sharing with her mum when she got home.

  Today, their last day, had started with eggs and coffee at a deli counter, then they’d joined a downtown walking tour around the haunts of Jeannie’s eighties’ pop heroes, where Dan had patiently taken selfies of them outside Blondie’s rehearsal rooms, and Madonna’s actual flat. Sure, it was just bricks and windows, but to Jeannie, these streets were where the soundtrack of her life had bubbled up out of nowhere, from musicians who’d once struggled just like her. Her soul had lifted when the tour guide talked about their setbacks and successes, and she’d kissed Dan with grateful love, wondering if he knew how much it meant to her that he’d obviously heard the things she hadn’t said.

  Now they were on Brooklyn Bridge, and Dan was promising her the view of a lifetime if she just kept going, one, two, three more steps.

  ‘There,’ he said, but he didn’t uncover her eyes straight away. Jeannie put her own small hands, neat enough to fly across the fretboard of her ukulele, over Dan’s long fingers. He had clever, strong vet’s hands, hands that treated injured dogs and birthed calves. A chilly breeze was blowing off the river below, but between Dan and Jeannie, there was a rose-gold glow.

  She leaned back into his body, not wanting the moment to end. The light was just fading from the sky, and Jeannie’s whole soul rang with music, like euphoric birdsong surging through her veins. Her best friend Edith had assured her that happiness like this was impossible in real life. But for once, Edith Constantine was wrong. So wrong.

  ‘Ready?’ There was a slight tease in Dan’s voice; suddenly she hoped he hadn’t taken her to the edge of the bridge. Jeannie wasn’t good with heights. She scrabbled to remember if she’d told Dan that – there were moments when she forgot they hadn’t yet reached the boring ‘user manual’ stage of knowing each other. Allergies to marzipan, fear of crows, stuff you only mentioned when you’d run out of interesting things to talk about.

  ‘Ta da!’ Dan pulled his hands away and she gasped as the glittering Manhattan skyline rose in front of her, a black and silver collage of lights and towers that sparkled out of the dusk.

  ‘Wow!’ Jeannie turned within the tight circle of his arms so she was nose to nose with him. Dan was handsome from any angle. The breeze flipped his blond hair into his eyes, unusual deep denim-blue eyes, and Jeannie had to remind herself that this was actually her life. It felt too perfect, too romantic, to be real. Yet it was. This was love, at last.

  ‘I’m so happy!’ she blurted out and, to her amazement, Dan’s eyes glistened just like hers. He blinked, as if he couldn’t quite believe how perfect this moment was either.

  And then it happened. In what seemed like slow motion, Dan unwrapped his arms from around her, stepped back and dropped to one knee. There were people walking across the bridge; some stepped around him with a tut, but others saw what was going on and stopped, indulgent smiles forming on their lips.

  Jeannie blinked. No, wait. Was this … what she thought it was? Her heart thudded against her ribs. Was Dan going to propose? She hadn’t even dared imagine this moment, and now she was in the middle of it. A proposal … that was a moment that only happened once. In your whole life.

  Suddenly Jeannie felt dizzy, as if Dan had taken her to the edge of the bridge.

  ‘Jeannie McCarthy,’ Dan was saying, and now the passers-by
had stopped, gathering into clumps along the sidewalk. ‘I know we’ve only known each other for five months, but they’ve been the happiest five months of my life. Will you marry me?’

  Manhattan rose behind Dan like a second, bigger crowd of well-wishers, smiling at the lovers, twinkling its lights like stars. Phone cameras were surreptitiously raised; breath was held. Jeannie felt as if all New York was waiting for her response.

  Dan gazed up at her with those melting blue eyes. He was gorgeous, intelligent, and he’d flown her to New York to propose. Jeannie shook herself. What more could she ask for? What more did she want?

  Her mouth opened before she had time to answer that in her head.

  ‘Yes!’ she said, and everyone on the bridge applauded.

  CHAPTER ONE

  The following May

  Jeannie McCarthy was twenty minutes and four miles away from Longhampton Town Hall when she had the first thought about her impending marriage that she couldn’t push to one side.

  That thought was: I can’t breathe.

  To be fair, the claustrophobic sensation in her chest was partly down to the dress she was wearing. Jeannie’s wedding gown was a corseted fairy tale of a frock, with tulle underskirts that whispered with every movement and delicate ivory roses swooping across the satin sweetheart bodice. Not something Jeannie would normally have chosen – her style was more harem pants and/or Docs, depending on the weather – but she’d so been startled by the vision of elegance facing her in the mirror that the decision somehow felt out of her hands. She looked right in it, like a real bride. The boutique assistant had covered her mouth with her white-gloved hands, while the owner rushed over to the fitting room, congratulatory flute of Prosecco at the ready. ‘That’s the one,’ she’d breathed, nodding reverentially. ‘Trust me, darling, that’s your dress.’

  It seemed like Fate that Jeannie had found Her Dress, first off the rails. But then it had felt like Fate when Dan was the first person who messaged her the night she gave up on finding Mr Right the old-fashioned way and jumped reluctantly into online dating. From there, just a year from first date to wedding date. Not a single minute wasted. Or, as the shop owner put it, with another reassuring nod, ‘When you know, you know.’ It had all happened so fast. So very, very fast.

  Of course, the other reason for the tightness in Jeannie’s chest was the growing realisation that she was about to make a massive mistake.

  Jeannie tried to take another, deeper, breath, and nearly choked. The rigid lacing stopped her from filling her lungs more than half full, and she was pretty sure lack of oxygen was starting to affect her brain. She hadn’t taken a full breath since she’d been laced into the corset back at the bridal suite, and now her head was swimming. The chilly glass of champagne thrust into her hand before she left hadn’t helped. ‘Just to relax you!’ the hotel owner had said with a smile. More booze. Her dad had finished it off for her.

  Mrs Hicks. Jeannie Hicks.

  It sounded like a stranger. It sounded like a hiccup.

  By three o’clock, she’d be Mrs Jeannie Hicks for the rest of her life. Jeannie McCarthy, singer-songwriter, teacher, daughter, would be … someone else.

  Panic rocketed up into her throat, leaving a bitter space-dust trail behind it. Jeannie swallowed but the scorching sensation didn’t go away. She shot a sideways glance at her dad, Brian, sitting next to her in the back of the car, but he was gazing out of the window, mouthing his speech to himself, pausing and smiling intermittently, angling his head in acknowledgement of the imaginary laughter.

  It’s nerves, Jeannie told herself. It’s just nerves. It’s natural, it shows you’re taking the concept of marriage seriously, all the blogs said that. The commitment. The lifetime commitment to one person, for better or worse, richer or poorer, etc, etc.

  She leaned back against the leather seat of the county’s one and only Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow and tried to draw oxygen as far down her lungs as the corset would allow. It was only a sip of breath. Like the nibble of scrambled egg at the hotel. The blink of sleep last night. Not enough of anything to deal with the iceberg of humiliation looming towards her.

  Jeannie made herself focus on what was happening right now at the town hall. Dan would be waiting for her, welcoming the people who’d already arrived with his confident smile. She pictured him: freshly cut blond hair gleaming in the sunshine, neat and lean in his new suit – bespoke, dark blue, matching waistcoat. He’d be saying something funny to every guest while keeping his mum calm and the photographer moving, because, unlike Jeannie, Dan could do about fifteen things at once and thought so many moves ahead that she sometimes wondered if he was psychic.

  He would have no clue she was thinking this, though. A chilly sensation swept through her. What was he thinking? Was he having doubts too?

  Jeannie stared out of the window at the passing hedgerows as the car took her closer and closer to the town hall. I wish I could turn the clock back to this morning, and start again.

  No, yesterday morning.

  That wasn’t long enough.

  This time last week?

  I wish I could go back a whole year, Jeannie wished frantically. And then I wouldn’t be about to hurt so many people.

  But the thought of never meeting Dan at all … Her stomach flipped. What was she supposed to do?

  ‘OK there? Bit bumpy, these old cars, eh, love? Are you worried about your hairdo?’ Her dad’s hand reached for hers, and the comforting grip of Brian’s big fingers made tears well up into Jeannie’s throat. ‘Soon have you there. Not long now.’

  She turned gingerly towards him, unable to move her head too sharply in case the grips holding her tiara in place drove any further into her scalp. That was another thing she hadn’t expected to be wearing on her wedding day: a tiara. Jeannie had always assumed she’d wear a flower crown, and get married on the family farm in Dumfries, under an oak tree, with a ceilidh band. And yet here she was, on her way to the register office in the town she and her husband-to-be had only moved to the previous week. Dan had a new job at the local vet’s. Easier, they’d decided, to organise a wedding and a house move in the same place. Their fresh start together, a bold leap into the unknown, holding hands.

  None of this is like I’d imagined it’d be, Jeannie thought, with a floaty detachment. Not one thing. Apart from her dad, and this car. He’d always said he’d take her to her wedding in a Rolls. That only seemed to make it worse.

  ‘Is everything OK, love?’ Brian turned to look at her. His lanky frame was swimming in a suit that looked as if it belonged to someone else. Jeannie couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen her dad in a suit. She’d only seen him wear a tie once, and that was when his champion tup, Decker, met the Countess of Wessex at the Royal Welsh Show.

  ‘I’m fine!’ The words came out stickily, the petal-pink gloss on her lips making a clacking noise.

  ‘You sounded as if you—’ He stopped, and frowned, confused.

  Say something, yelled the voice in Jeannie’s head, but she couldn’t speak. Her head felt stuffed with cotton wool, unable to process this overwhelming urge to stop, stop, stop everything.

  A small girl on the side of the road spotted the wedding car, and waved at the shiny black Rolls with the white ribbon fluttering from the silver mascot.

  Brian waved back with the special enthusiasm he reserved for children. ‘Ah, look at the wee girl there! Come on, Jeannie, she’s waving at you! She thinks you look like a princess!’

  Dutifully, Jeannie lifted her hand, waved and tried to pull her mouth into a smile. It only deepened the worrying feeling that she was playing a bride. That this wasn’t really her wedding. That this wasn’t actually happening.

  ‘Doesn’t seem ten minutes since you were that age!’ Brian said, with a sigh. ‘Making up funny little songs for us on your ukulele. Singing all day long. Not much has changed, eh?’

  Jeannie fixed the smile on her face, pressing her lips together, keeping her wild thoughts in as she saw a
sign: ‘Longhampton 3 miles’.

  They were nearly there. Nearly there. What was she going to do?

  ‘Jeannie?’ Dad was looking concerned. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘I …’ She pushed the words out. ‘I’m … just so …’

  To her despair, Brian didn’t take the bait. ‘It’s normal to be a bit nervous, love. Uncle Charlie had to do my buttons up because my hands were …’ He waggled them in front of her. ‘Your mother was late – I thought she wasn’t coming! But she’d laddered her tights, hopping into the car too quickly.’ He sighed, the memory softening his eyes. ‘Bet it’s hard to believe, looking at us old goats now, that we were once just like you and Dan! But we were, you know.’

  Jeannie’s heart stopped. It was the worst thing Dad could have said, because it forced her to confront the thought she’d been trying to avoid for weeks: that, actually, she and Dan weren’t like her parents.

  She had a sudden flash of her mother, Sue – small and strong, always busy – and automatically pictured Dad in his overalls next to her, whistling some country tune till Sue begged him to stop. It was impossible to imagine Brian and Sue separately. They laughed and joked and drove each other mad at times, but their real communication was wordless: a language of pauses and glances shaped by the years that followed Sue’s freak accident, when all the McCarthys had had to learn a new way to be a family. That’s what in sickness and in health means, thought Jeannie. For better and for worse – it wasn’t a cliché, it was real. Life had hammered Mum and Dad’s love like a red-hot horseshoe, but it was stronger for each blow. It couldn’t have survived otherwise. They couldn’t.

  A hollow sensation ballooned inside her. How could she promise that to Dan? She didn’t know him well enough. She didn’t know herself well enough.

  With that realisation, Jeannie felt unexpectedly weightless, as if her head might detach from her body and float away. But how did you stop something like this now, minutes away from the ceremony? She couldn’t. Too many people were involved. And Dan! How could she do this to Dan?