Cinderella’s Wedding Wish

the sound of the sea every morning. She walked along the cliff and breathed the clean air, and told herself that she was happy.

But she wasn’t. She was lonely.

There was silence and space and light, but there was no one to talk to, no one to laugh with, no one to exasperate her.

No one to make her heart jump just by walking into the room.

No Rafe.

You don’t know how to be happy. His words echoed endlessly in Miranda’s head, and her heart twisted with pain. She had been happy when she was with him, but it was too late to realise that now. Even if he hadn’t wanted such a different life from hers, there was no way Rafe would ever forgive her for that plate of spaghetti.

She shouldn’t have done it, Miranda knew, but she had been so angry and so hurt. And so bitter with herself for wilfully ignoring all those sensible warnings in her head that had kept telling her it could never have worked. Why hadn’t she listened to them? Rafe was too handsome, too charming, too desirable for a girl like her. She had known that he could never love her.

She had thought he liked her, though. Miranda couldn’t bear to remember the contempt in his voice that night. The truth had come out then. He thought she was boring, repressed, cowardly…Oh, God, here came the memories again, like a cruel fist grasping and tearing at her entrails.

Miranda took her hands from the ladder and covered her face with them instead. She tried to breathe through the pain, but still the hot tears came, squeezing out from beneath her lashes, no matter how desperately she willed herself to hold them in. She mustn’t cry. She mustn’t.

If she started, she would never stop.

Drawing a shuddering breath, she brushed the treacherous tears from her cheeks furiously. In the end, Rafe had sent her a cheque by express courier the very next day, and she had gone straight out to hire a car, ignoring Rosie’s pleas to wait and talk to Rafe when they had both calmed down. She had never been back to his house to collect her clothes. None of them really belonged to her, and she wouldn’t wear any of them again anyway. Instead, she packed up her few possessions and drove down to Whitestones, and she had been here ever since.

And now she was here, she would make the best of it. She would be happy.

Determinedly, Miranda grasped the ladder, and set her foot on the first rung. She would survive. She would be happy. She would unblock that gutter. She could do this.

She got as far as the sixth rung before the ladder lurched to one side and she froze with a whimper of fear. Her heart was hammering in her throat, and all she could do was grip the ladder and stare fixedly at the brickwork, too terrified to move in case she dislodged the ladder further.

Now what? She was either going to have to stay up this wretched ladder for ever, or fall off, in which case there would be no one to find her. It had been stupid to try and do this alone.

‘Are you on your way up, or your way down?’

The achingly familiar voice made Miranda start so violently that the ladder jerked away from the wall momentarily and she gasped with fear even as her heart leapt with incredulous joy.

Rafe. Rafe. He was here and suddenly the world was glorious again-or it would be if she dared look down to see him.

‘I’m stuck,’ she said.

‘No, you’re not,’ said Rafe. She felt him take hold of the ladder and steady it. ‘I’ve got you,’ he said. ‘Come on down.’

Biting her lip, Miranda inched her hands lower and forced her right foot to reach down for the rung below. Very gradually, she made it down to the next rung and then the next, and the next, and the last two were easy, although her knees were shaking when she finally had both feet back on the ground and she could turn and look at Rafe.

It might have been him that was making her knees weak. He was dressed like a million other guys in jeans, with a jacket over his shoulder and a long-sleeved cotton shirt pushed casually above his wrists, but he looked so gorgeous and vital and immediate that it was all she could do not to throw herself at him and shower him with kisses while she patted him all over to make sure that he was real.

He was real. ‘What on earth were you doing?’ asked Rafe conversationally, as if the last time they had spoken they hadn’t flayed each other with bitter, angry words.

‘Trying to unblock a gutter,’ said Miranda, trying desperately to steady her reeling senses. She was so happy to see him that she couldn’t think straight. ‘What are you doing?’

‘Trying to unblock my life,’ said Rafe. ‘And bringing you a present.’

‘A present?’ she echoed blankly. Perhaps this wasn’t real? Why, when she had dumped a plate of spaghetti on him, would he bring her a present? Why would he come at all? Her heart was hammering again, but this time with frantic hope. ‘What sort of present?’

‘Wait here and close your eyes.’

It felt so surreal that Miranda simply did as he ordered. She sat down on the verandah steps and closed her eyes, tipping her face back to the sun and enjoying its dazzle behind her eyelids.

Please don’t let this be a dream. Please don’t let him be gone.

But, no, there were footsteps on the wooden verandah behind her. She felt him crouching down beside her, and the next moment a soft, squirming body was placed gently in her lap.

Miranda’s eyes flew open to see a puppy sprawled across her knees. It had huge paws, floppy ears and a velvet soft coat, and it was licking her hands and wriggling with pleasure.

All the breath leaked out of her. ‘Oh…’ Her throat was so tight, it was all she could say for a while. She looked up at Rafe. ‘He looks just like Rafferty,’ she managed, but her voice was cracked and constricted and she was very close to tears. All of her childhood, she had dreamed of a puppy just like this one.

‘He’s an Irish Setter,’ said Rafe, obviously pleased at her reaction. He sat down beside her on the step and reached over to scratch the puppy’s head. ‘I couldn’t get a mutt in case it didn’t look right.’

‘Is he really for me?’

‘He is, but you might not want him when you see what he eats! I warn you, he chews everything. I only had him in the house for about an hour this morning, and he’s already ruined two pairs of shoes, my best tie and the remote control for the television!’

Miranda laughed shakily and lifted the puppy so that they were nose to nose. ‘Are you very naughty, darling?’ she asked him, and the puppy’s long pink tongue lapped eagerly, trying to reach her face.

‘I thought he’d be company for you,’ said Rafe, watching her face alight with laughter. ‘It must be lonely down here on your own.’

Her smile didn’t fade, but some of the light seemed to go out of her. She glanced at him, confused by his thoughtful gesture, even more confused by her own reaction. He had given her a beautiful puppy, and gone to all the trouble of finding one that would look like her beloved Rafferty. How could she not be grateful to him? She ought to be ecstatic. But if he thought she needed company, that meant he wasn’t planning on staying.

Well, what had she expected?

‘It’s really kind of you, Rafe,’ she said. ‘Thank you. I love him.’ She fondled the puppy’s ears. ‘I don’t deserve him after I threw spaghetti all over you.’ She glanced at him. ‘Is it too late to say that I’m sorry?’

‘Not if I can say sorry too,’ said Rafe. ‘I think we both said and did things we regret that night, but in one way it couldn’t have worked better. After that spectacular end to our engagement, I got plenty of sympathy!’

Miranda made herself smile. ‘So our plan worked?’

‘You could say that.’

‘Well…good.’ She kept her smile in place. It was enough that he was here, she told herself. He had brought her a gorgeous puppy, and was prepared to be friends again, even after she had behaved so appallingly. What more did she want? ‘So, have you found a fiancee yet?’

‘I have,’ said Rafe, and her heart sank lower than she would have believed possible when she was holding a wriggling puppy. ‘At least,’ he qualified, ‘I’ve decided who I want to marry, and now I’ve just got to persuade her to agree. That’s why I’m here, in fact. I need your advice.’

‘You want my advice?’ Miranda gaped at him. Didn’t he