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“Well, the most important thing is for you to always beyou,” says Jack, kissing me softly. “Because I really wouldn’t have you any other way.”
He swings his legs up and lies beside me on the bed; which is very daring of him, really, because Mary’s already told him off twice just for sitting on it, and she can be really quite scary when someone tries to cross her. I can see why McTavish ate all that fish now.
“I’m glad you said that,” I tell him as he gathers me up in his arms, holding me carefully so he doesn’t hurt my poor, bruised ribs. “Because I don’t think I actuallycanbe anyone else. I mean, I’ve tried to change myself a few times now, and it never seems to work out. So I think you’re probably stuck with me as I am.”
“Well, fortunately for me,” says Jack, curling himself sleepily around me. “There’s no one I’d rather be stuck with. Emerald Taylor Buchanan…”
EPILOGUE
In the end, we decide not to hold the wedding at Emerald View, like Jack had originally planned: mostly because it’s still basically a building site, and as soon as Rose found out we’d have to install portable toilets for the use of the guests, she abruptly went off the idea.
(Frankie, on the other hand, was quite keen. “It would be a bit like Glastonbury,” she said unconvincingly. “We could all sleep in tents.”)
Instead, we go with my idea, which is to have the ceremony by the side of the loch, combined with the giant marquee in the garden that Jack had been campaigning for. We allow Rose the heather archway, which is installed at the waterfront, for us to say our vows under, but I firmly refuse to carry a shepherd’s crook, or be accompanied down the aisle by Jude Paw, who I can guarantee would decide to take a poop halfway down it — probably on me.
“He can still wear the bow tie, though,” I tell Mum, who accepts the snub much more gracefully than Old Jimmy, who declares that he’ll be boycotting the event entirely when he finds out Edna the sheep will not be included in the wedding party.
“Was Jimmy even invited?” asks Jack, scratching his head when he hears this.
“No,” I tell him. “But Scarlett and Dylan are, and so is Lexie. You’re okay with that, aren’t you?”
Jack is okay with it. After Dylan came to interview me about the “kidnapping” in the hospital the morning after the crash, they had a long chat, and figured out that neither of them had even the slightest idea why they didn’t like each other.
“Ancient grudge break to new mutiny,” said Bertie, when he and Kathryn arrived just as Dylan was about to leave. “Or, in other words, I think I might know the answer to that.”
It turned out to be about grandads again, obviously. Apparently Douglas Fraser — Dylan’s grandfather — had never been happy with the way things went down with the original distillery. “The other three all had a role to play in it,” said Bertie. “But Douglas really just happened to be there at the time they came up with the idea; which meant he wasn’t listed as one of the co-owners of the business. Or so my mother told me, anyway. Of course, it didn’t matter in the end,” he went on. “The business never got started, anyway. But it seems Douglas never really got over the perceived snub — which is probably why the two families didn’t get along after the war.”
“Well, that and the terrible driving,” said Dylan, grinning. “But I think we can let that go just this once, don’t you? Truce?”
So he and Jack shook hands on it, and the ‘ancient grudge’ was settled; which just left me and Rose, and the small matter of her aiding and abetting my ex.
“I promise, Emerald, if I’d known he was planning tokidnapyou, I wouldn’t have told him a thing,” she said, putting her hand theatrically on her heart. “But I really did think he just wanted to sort things out with you, with the stolen money and all that. I’m as much a victim in all of this as you are.”
“Well, I wouldn’t gothatfar,” I said, resisting the impulse to roll my eyes. “And he didn’tkidnapme, exactly. But, look, I know how manipulative Ben can be, so let’s just try to put it behind us, okay? Fresh start?”
Rose was more than happy to agree, and, as an added bonus, she also dropped her insistence that I walk down the aisle to “Let’s Get It Started” — a suggestion I’m almost certain came from McTavish, who’s been spending a suspiciously large amount of time with her recently.
But I can’t think about Rose and McTavish right now. Because it’s the morning of my wedding. All the lists have been written. The invites have been sent. Mum’s bought a new hat after Jude Paw ate the last one, and Dad’s grudgingly agreed to wear something under his kilt, just in case he gets carried away on the dance floor. Which he definitely will, knowing Dad.
“Are you ready?” asks Frankie.
I take one last look in the mirror.
I’m wearing the same emerald green vintage dress I wore to Jack’s masquerade ball the night my life fell apart, and then somehow fell back together again. Mum was horrified, saying I’d be the talk of the town for not wearing white, but, to my surprise, Kathryn came to my defense.
“Emerald will be the talk of the town, whatever she wears,” she said — a statement I will find myself mulling over later, wondering if it was supposed to be a compliment or not. “And anyway, she looks beautiful in that dress. It goes with her eyes.”
That bit I definitely took as a compliment. And now, as I make my way down the stairs of Mum and Dad’s cottage, Frankie behind me in a black cocktail dress she picked out with absolutely no input from Rose, I feel like I’ve made the right choice for once. Because this dress might not be particularly “bridal”, but itisveryme.
And isn’t that the most important thing?
“Do you have the rings?” says Dad in a panic, as we pull out of the driveway in the wedding car Rose tracked down for us after I refused McTavish’s offer to decorate his tractor for the occasion? “And the speech?”
“McTavish has the rings, Dad,” I tell him soothingly. “He’s the Best Man, remember? And I’m not making a speech; that’s your job.”
“Oh. Aye,” says Dad, launching into another panic as he pats the pockets of his kilt jacket, looking for the piece of paper I personally witnessed him put there, and then check multiple times.
“Are you feeling okay, Emerald?” says Frankie. “It’s just, I thought you’d be more nervous than this? It’s not like you. You’re not drunk, are you? I did tell your mum it wasn’t a good idea to open that Bucks Fizz while we were getting ready.”
