Fairytale Come Alive

Chapter One Romantic Fairytale Come Alive

Isabella

Twenty Years Later…

“This is so exciting,” Mikey cried from beside her in the limousine, practically jumping up and down in his seat.

Isabella looked out the windows thinking that this was absolutely, positively not exciting in the slightest.

She watched Prentice’s village slide by, happy the windows were tinted and no one could see in. The limousine, undoubtedly not a common vehicle to glide down the cobbled streets, was causing quite a stir and everyone was stopping to look.

She recognized more than one face.

Each recognized face caused her heart to contract and her breathing to go erratic.

She curled her fingers into her palms, tight, feeling her nails dig into the flesh painfully.

And familiarly.

The pain, as it often did, calmed her breathing, if not her heart.

“Isn’t this quaint!” Mikey declared also staring out the window and Isabella bit back the desire to explain that the British didn’t like it overly much when Americans described their homes as “quaint”.

She bit back the desire because he was very excited and she loved him.

There were two people she loved on the entire earth, Mikey Bruce and Annie McFadden. Therefore, she’d rather slit her own wrists than do one, single thing that might quell his incalculable glee.

And, for Isabella Austin Evangelista, that was saying something.

“Picnics and dinner parties and log throwing,” Mikey kept talking, “I can’t wait!”

Isabella struggled with her earlier thought because Mikey could be stubborn and so could Annie (to say the least, about both of them) and she wanted to try to curb his disappointment and Annie’s annoyance because they’d had, Isabella knew, about five hundred conversations about the Highlands Games demands Mikey was making on the upcoming festivities.

Therefore, she said softly, “There isn’t going to be log throwing, Mikey. Annie explained that.”

Mikey turned his gaze to Isabella and waved his hand. “I’ll talk her around.”

“Please, she has everything planned as she wants it. It isn’t like you can throw together an event like that on the spur of the moment.”

Mikey’s eyes narrowed and Isabella pulled in a breath.

“I’m sorry but this is a romantic fairytale come alive. A Scottish romantic fairytale come alive. When that happens, you can do anything you want! And a Scottish romantic fairytale come alive means log throwing!” Mikey declared.

He was not wrong. Well, he was about the log throwing, but not about the other stuff.

Annie and Dougal getting married, after twenty years and all that had happened in between, was most definitely a romantic fairytale come alive.

Even though she was happy for her friend, very happy, staggeringly happy, Isabella’s fingers tensed and the nails embedded deeper into the flesh of her palms.

Mikey looked back out the window and so did Isabella.

Twenty years ago, as her father had told Prentice, they’d gone back to Chicago the very day Prentice walked out of Fergus’s house.

So confident in their love, so confident in Isabella, he didn’t even look back.

The next week had been the worst in her life (until the week after, of course).

And this was also saying something.

One could say Isabella’s life had been filled with “worst weeks”.

That was just the worst of them.

Her father had been furious at her “tryst” with “the fisherman” and also about her keeping it from him for over a year. He took every opportunity (and when there weren’t opportunities, he made them) to describe to Isabella his extreme displeasure.

And when he did, he did this at length.

Sometimes for hours.

Isabella had been heartbroken.

So heartbroken, for the first time in her life, her father’s verbal tirades barely affected her.

All she could think of was Prentice and that awful, awful, awful meeting in Fergus’s living room. The way he looked, his anger, his disbelief, his frustration, all of it pouring off him in waves and crashing against her.

And there was not one thing she could do about it.

Not that first thing.

Not that she would have.

She knew better.

And, it must be said, Prentice deserved better.

However, in an unusual moment of courage, three days after their return, she approached her father and told him he’d been wrong. It wasn’t a “tryst” and Prentice wasn’t just “a fisherman” and even if he was, she didn’t care. She loved him, she wanted to marry him and she wanted to spend the rest of her life with him in his village and that was that.

Her father struck her.

Open-handed and brutal.

When her head swung back he did it again.

He had struck her before in her life, not often, seventeen times to be exact (she’d counted, adding those two, it made it nineteen).

But he’d never done it twice in a row.

She’d been stunned and her courage fled as quickly as it came.

She’d been weak. Such a coward.

Always, all her life, a coward.

Just like her mother.

Prentice deserved better than that. She knew that to the depths of her very soul.

“I’ll not listen to you speak of him again,” her father had told her.

She didn’t speak of Prentice again.

Never again.

Her father’s blows had left a bruise and Isabella had learned her lesson.

And she knew whatever happened in his life, Prentice would have a better one without the likes of her in it.

Two days after that, she got the call that Dougal and Annie had been in a car accident.

By some miracle, Dougal had come away unscathed except for a few cuts and bruises.

Annie had not fared so well.

In fact, for two days, it was touch and go if she would survive.

Isabella’s father forbade her to return to Scotland to be with her friend.

It nearly killed her to be away from Annie and Prentice and Dougal.

But she didn’t disobey her father.

Something happened while Annie fought for her life. Not only did Fergus blame Dougal and Annie’s mother, Clarissa (who was divorced from Fergus and still lived in Chicago but she flew to Scotland when Annie was injured) blamed Dougal, but also Dougal blamed himself.

The minute Annie was stable; Fergus had her moved to a hospital in Edinburgh. The minute Annie was able; Clarissa had her flown home to do her rehabilitation.

Annie did everything she could within her limited power at the time to convince everyone that Dougal wasn’t at fault (and she failed).

However, she didn’t do anything to try to convince Dougal she still loved him.

Her face had been scarred, quite badly.

And her body…

It didn’t bear thinking about.

One day when Isabella had taken her to rehab, on the way home, Isabella had gently tried to find a way through Annie’s disheartening stubbornness.

“Really, Bella, do you think Dougal, Dougal, should be saddled with me? Like this?” She pointed to her face then lifted up her weakened arm and jiggled it, before she dropped it and looked out the window. “He’s a Scottish god. He’s the best looking man I’ve ever laid eyes on. He should marry a supermodel, not a freak show.”

“Annie –” Isabella tried, her already broken heart splintering.

“Shut it!” Annie had snapped, her tone nasty, something, at that time, Isabella was used to. Since the accident, Annie had been nasty, very nasty and very often, to everyone including (and especially) Isabella. “I don’t want to talk about it.” She paused for emphasis then finished, “Ever.”

Being a coward, Isabella didn’t bring it up again.

However, two years ago, Annie had had to go back to Scotland. Fergus was ill and he needed his daughter.

Unsurprisingly, Annie had run into Dougal.

She’d had plastic surgeries (three of them) and the scarring had been significantly diminished (but there was still some minor disfigurement). She’d gained back the full use of her arm but, when she grew tired, her gait would weaken and she’d walk with a slight limp.

Miraculously, with a good deal of patience exhibited by Isabella, Mikey, Clarissa and Fergus, Annie had also regained her zest for life and her sense of humor (but, unfortunately, she’d kept her stubbornness).

Dougal, Annie reported to Isabella, was ravaged by the very sight of her and did anything he could to avoid her and did it spectacularly well, much to Annie’s dismay. Although she never said this, Isabella knew it to be true by the sheer amount of time Annie spent talking about it.

In the intervening years, Dougal had been married and divorced.

The divorce, Annie found out (much later), was because the woman he married hadn’t been Annie.

Within months, with Isabella’s subtle guidance during Annie’s many telephone calls which centered mostly on Dougal and the lack of times she’d run into him, which she found increasingly frustrating since she was spending any time away from her father in the attempt to run into Dougal but telling herself she was doing errands or the like, Annie had decided to win him back.

This was an effort doomed to fail.

Dougal, evidently, could be stubborn too.

Heartbreak, it was Isabella’s vast experience, did that to you.

Fortunately for Annie (distressingly for Isabella, though she never said a word, and Annie did her best to be gentle whenever she mentioned it), Annie recruited Prentice and his wife, Fiona.

Four years after Isabella left, Prentice had married Fiona Sawyer.

Isabella knew Fiona and she liked her a great deal. Fiona was pretty and lively and very, very funny. They’d been friends and Fiona often spent time with Annie and Isabella or, with Fiona’s boyfriend Scott, they’d be a threesome going to movies or the pub or to the beach to build a fire and sit in the sand and snog.

Scott and Fiona, obviously, had broken up.

Prentice and Fiona had two children, Jason and Sally and, according to Annie, Fiona had not lost any of her spirited liveliness.

Isabella was glad to hear that, as much as it killed her. Prentice deserved that.

Prentice deserved everything.

With Prentice and Fiona in the mix, Dougal didn’t stand a chance.

And the Scottish romantic fairytale came alive, which would, this week, end in happily ever after.

Unfortunately, Prentice and Fiona’s romantic fairytale was not to be that long-lasting. After Fiona complained of headaches she’d been diagnosed with a brain tumor and, shockingly to everyone (most especially Prentice, for obvious reasons) she’d been dead within months.

That was a year, one month, three weeks and four days ago.

Fiona didn’t live to see her two friends blissfully wed in a week’s worth of festivities to celebrate the happy ending it took twenty years to come about.

And Prentice was a widower with two motherless children facing a week’s worth of festivities as best man to his best friend whilst the girlfriend who’d heartlessly jilted him was maid of honor.

No, Isabella thought, this was not fun and exciting.

This was agony.

She came out of her upsetting thoughts and realized they were approaching Fergus’s stately manor house.

The last time she’d come from America and approached this house, she’d not been in a limousine. She’d been in the backseat of Fergus’s Jaguar and she’d been jumping around more than Mikey.

Dougal’s beat up old truck was in the drive.

So was Prentice’s beat up old Harley.

Dougal was sitting on a step.

Prentice was standing at the top, arms crossed on his wide chest, his beautiful eyes on the Jag.

Sometimes, when Isabella was feeling maudlin, she’d take out the photo frame she carried everywhere with her, she’d study Prentice’s picture and she’d try to determine the color of his eyes.

When she’d been with him, she’d done it up close.

She could, she thought then (and now) do it for hours.

They were neither green, nor gray, nor brown, nor blue.

They were all of them in an equal mixture.

They were the most beautiful eyes she’d ever seen in her life, before, or since.

Fergus had barely stopped the car when Annie was out the door, flying toward Dougal, who’d stood and was walking with long-legged strides toward her, a huge smile on his handsome face.

Isabella would have done the same but, such was her excitement, her fingers were all thumbs and she was having trouble getting her seatbelt unfastened.

At home in Chicago with her father, she was unfailingly sedate, quiet and unassuming, as her father liked her to be.

With Annie in Scotland and at university (where they’d met), she was anything but sedate, quiet and unassuming.

And, with Prentice, she could be anything she wanted to be.

Which meant, with Prentice, she could be free.

Something she’d never been in her whole life.

Prentice had not walked with long-legged strides to her when she’d finally exited the car. His eyes didn’t leave her but he didn’t smile.

Isabella felt a moment of uncertainty, even though he’d never given her any indication in the months they’d been separated that their summer romance of the year before had cooled.

She felt her step stutter as she walked toward him. He noticed it, his gaze dropping to her feet.

Then he shook his head and grinned.

That was all she needed.

She flew at him so fast he got only one step toward her before she collided with him. His foot went back to brace their bodies, his arms came around her, fierce and tight, and his mouth crushed down on hers.

“Oh for goodness sake, don’t they have boys in America?” Fergus interrupted the Snog Fest, his voice filled with amusement.

“Not like they do here, Dad,” Annie retorted, her voice happy and teasing.

Isabella didn’t reply, she was too busy looking in Prentice’s eyes and counting the colors.

“Missed you, baby,” he’d whispered and her eyes closed.

She loved it when he called her “baby”.

Isabella pressed deeper into him and opened her eyes.

“Not as much as I missed you.”

An extraordinary warmth came to his face as he gazed down on her, he grinned again and shook his head.

He had no idea every word she said was utterly true. She was the living dead when he was not with her. His presence, his touch, his kiss, brought her to life.

Like Sleeping Beauty.

Another fairytale come alive.

Or so she thought.

Now, Isabella watched the house get closer and she reckoned she was most likely not going to get the same greeting.

Annie had been home to Chicago three times in the last two years, two of those times she’d been back together with Dougal and, one of them, Dougal came with her.

Isabella did not see Dougal.

Although Annie made excuses, Isabella knew Dougal had no interest in seeing Isabella.

In fact, Fergus had cooled toward her after what she did to Prentice and when she didn’t come back after Annie’s accident. He’d cooled substantially.

It wasn’t until years later, after Fergus had come to Chicago and he and Annie had dinner with Isabella and her father and Isabella had run into some colleagues from work that Fergus’s warmth toward Isabella had come back.

Regardless of the outcome of the evening, Isabella found it supremely humiliating the way her father had behaved.

Her colleagues had been in a good mood, having been out for drinks, and they were loud and happy, asking Isabella to join them some time, any time.

They trotted on their merry way and her father stared daggers at them.

Then he’d turned to his daughter.

“You will not join those ridiculous people for a drink. For God’s sake, every last one of them was publicly inebriated. How crass,” her father had snapped.

“They’re just having fun,” Isabella, very unwisely, had stated quietly.

Her father halted, turned, and leaned into her threateningly (and not unusually) and Isabella could actually feel Fergus and Annie get tense.

“Are you contradicting me?” Carver Austin asked in a lethal voice that didn’t threaten punishment if her answer was incorrect, it promised it.

“Of course not,” Isabella whispered back immediately, feeling her face getting pale right before she felt the blood rush painfully into it.

“I didn’t think so,” her father replied, looked at Annie, giving her a head-to-toe, and then to Fergus. “Firm hand, good man. Doesn’t matter how old they are.”

Then he’d walked into the restaurant, arrogantly expecting them to follow.

“I think –” Fergus started, his voice sounding weirdly strangled.

Annie cut him off. “Dad, I told you about this.”

“It’s okay, Mr. McFadden,” Isabella had leapt to her father’s defense. “Honestly. He just a little –”

“Don’t say another word, Bella,” Fergus clipped and Isabella’s mouth snapped shut, mainly because he hadn’t called her “Bella” since that last summer (and no one called her “Elle” except Prentice, not in her life and she loved it when he called her that too). “Not another word.” Fergus’s eyes went to where they last saw her father, he muttered, “Christ,” under his breath and then he ushered the two women in, his arms protectively held around both of them.

As humiliating as that scene had been, Isabella was glad that Fergus didn’t hate her anymore. She’d always liked him a good deal. He was lovely, a wonderful man, a doting father, something, at least from afar, Isabella could definitely appreciate.

She was also glad he’d won his battle over cancer.

And lastly, she would be happy to see him again.

At least there was one thing to look forward to.

“Look at that house!” Mikey cried from beside her, craning his neck and moving around in the backseat, trying to get a look at the house as they rode at a crawl next to it. “It’s something out of a movie!”

“Or a modern day fairytale,” Isabella teased, Mikey looked at her and smiled a beautiful, gleaming, happy smile.

She smiled back but it felt funny on her face.

With great exuberance, Mikey vaulted out of his door.

Isabella took a deep breath and, with far less enthusiasm (in fact, none at all), she exited hers.

Fiona

Prentice Cameron stood staring out the window at the sleek limousine, watching as the effeminate man bounded out one side and continuing to watch as the beautiful, elegant woman sedately exited the other.

If Fiona Cameron had breath, she would be holding it.

She stood, ghost-like (because she was a ghost) and invisible, behind her husband and watched over his broad shoulder as his first love nodded at the driver regally then looked up at the house, her stunning face blank and cold.

God, Fiona hated her.

Years ago, Prentice had caught Fiona studying a picture of Isabella Austin Evangelista in a glossy magazine.

The picture was amazing.

She’d been wearing a dress that had to cost as much as Fiona’s entire wardrobe. She was walking, her gait wide, the slit up the front of her dress exposing thin, shapely legs, and she had on a pair of stylish, strappy, high-heeled shoes.

No one could walk in those dainty, death-defying shoes with grace except fucking Isabella Austin Evangelista. She could probably run in them, dance in them, play netball in them, the bitch.

In the photo, Isabella held a beaded clutch in one hand and the other hand was lifted, holding the thick fall of her (fake, fake, fake) streaked honey-and-white-blonde fringe to the side of her temple, her eyes to the ground.

Her cheeks shimmered. Her dark brows were arched perfectly (which had to be the work of what Fiona was certain was a top-notch brow-shaper person at a posh salon). And, lastly, her lips were glossed in a way that it looked like da Vinci himself had held the lip brush to her lips.

Fiona was so engrossed in the picture, she hadn’t heard Prentice approach and didn’t know he was there until she felt his lips at her neck.

“Doesn’t hold a candle to you,” he whispered in her ear.

Even as she felt a shiver at his words, she laughed and shook the picture in front of him, trying not to be embarrassed at being caught ogling his famous, beautiful ex in a magazine.

“Right.”

His eyes had moved to the photo for barely long enough to take it in before they came back to her.

“She’s too thin,” Prentice had said.

Fiona shook her head and repeated, “Right.”

“She wears way too much makeup.”

Fiona grinned and repeated again, “Right.”

Prentice’s face hardened but his eyes got warm as they looked into hers. “She’s deceitful, untrustworthy, snobbish, thoughtless and a complete bitch.”

That Fiona couldn’t contradict.

She knew exactly what Isabella had done to Prentice, exactly. He’d told her everything.

And Fiona also knew that Isabella had not deigned to come back when her friend had been fighting for her life in hospital.

Therefore Fiona knew that Isabella Austin Evangelista was all those things.

And more.

And none of them were good.

Before she could say another word, Prentice had kissed her. Then he’d taken her to bed.

She’d never ogled a picture of his ex again.

Ah, she thought, good times.

“Prentice?” Dougal called from the doorway and Prentice turned from the window.

Fiona stayed staring out of it.

The man with Isabella rounded the car, staring up at the house with his mouth open and his eyes wide. Isabella gave him a smile that looked like butter-wouldn’t-melt and linked her arm in his.

She was wearing classy, high-heeled black boots, a cranberry-colored wool skirt that hit her at her knees and fit her like a second skin and a matching jacket that had stylish detailing at the pockets and the lapels. She had on a satin blouse in a color one shade darker than the cranberry suit and it came all the way up to her neck, circling her throat in elegant gathers. Her hair was bunched back in soft but stylish twists that led to a complicated chignon at her nape, the hairstyle so sophisticated there was no way she did it herself. The back of the suit was even nicer than the front, the skirt falling in row of knife-sharp kick pleats at the back of her knees, the same from the waist of the jacket down to the top of her arse.

Fiona let her ghostly lip curl at the idea that Isabella Evangelista had a stylist do her hair, she wore a fancy, posh suit (of all things) and rode in a limousine to a tiny, Scottish fishing village.

What a daft cow.

“You okay?” Dougal asked, entering the room and closing the door behind him.

“Why wouldn’t I be?” Prentice asked.

Dougal’s eyes went to the window and Prentice burst out laughing.

“I’m hardly pining for Isabella Austin,” Prentice said, laughter still in his voice and if Fiona had breath, she would have let it out.

“This can’t be easy for you, mate,” Dougal said softly and Fiona remembered (as she often did) why she liked Dougal so damned much.

“For God’s sake, Dougal, it’s been twenty years,” Prentice’s deep voice still held amusement. “I don’t even think of her anymore.”

“Maybe no’ but you’ll have to now,” Dougal returned.

“Aye,” Prentice agreed readily. “For a week, then she’ll be gone back to her life filled with limousines, paparazzi and posh parties and it’ll be like she wasn’t even here.”

Dougal watched his friend.

“It’ll be like she wasn’t even here,” Prentice repeated, his words low and slow and filled with meaning.

Fiona knew he’d been through this before, of course, and he had, with effort, built a life where it was like Isabella Austin had never even been there.

Dougal shifted uncomfortably.

“You should know, Annie has these ideas about Isabella –” Dougal started but Prentice shook his head.

“It’ll be fine.”

“She says there’s reasons –”

“I know she does, she’s tried to explain them to me, without making much sense. She’s Isabella’s friend, she’d try to find some excuse for the way she behaved, no’ only to me but no’ showing up when Annie nearly died. They’re good friends, it’s natural and it doesn’t mean a thing to me,” Prentice stated and when Dougal looked dubious, Prentice approached him and said, “No’ a damned thing, mate.” Prentice’s voice became low again when he continued, “It’s been a long time, Dougal, we’ve all moved on.” Then Fiona watched as her husband grinned his devastating, wicked grin. “Except you, of course.”

Dougal relaxed and smiled back. “That’s me, stuck in a rut.”

“I’ll be sure to tell Annie you called her a rut.”

Fiona laughed a silent laugh. Annie would hate that.

Dougal’s laugh (seeing as he was alive) sounded jovially throughout the room.

The door flew open nearly hitting Dougal in the back and Annie was there.

Her hair was wild (it was always wild, a long mixture of thick, dark blonde frizz and curls, it was manic and gorgeous, just like Annie). On her petite but rounded, body she was wearing tight-fitting jeans, a green t-shirt that said, “All the other kids are doing it” on the front in yellow and blue lettering and a ratty-assed olive drab cardigan that nearly went down to her knees.

“Bella and Mikey are here!” she screeched excitedly, then turned on her Wellington-clad foot and ran from the room.

Dougal and Prentice watched her go.

Dougal sighed before he turned to Prentice. “You know I love her.”

“I do,” Prentice replied, his fantastic lips twitching.

“You know I love her a lot.”

Prentice chuckled. “I do.”

“I didn’t love her that much, mate, no way in hell I’d walk out of this room and spend a whole fucking week trying to be nice to that bitch.”

Prentice shook his head, clapped his hand on his friend’s shoulder and they both walked out of the room.

Fiona floated behind them remembering again why she really, really liked Dougal.

They followed the screeching, Annie’s mixed with an unknown, and unusual, masculine-esque shriek.

When they approached the foyer Annie and the man from the drive were in each other’s arms, jumping up and down.

Isabella Austin Evangelista (the daft cow) was standing to the side, eyes on her friends, hugging her elbows in her hands with what looked (shockingly, to Fiona’s way of thinking) like an actual genuine (but very small) grin on her perfectly lip-glossed lips.

“Bella.” They heard and her eyes moved coolly to the stairs then Fiona watched in dismay as her face melted when she saw Fergus.

Good God, could the bitch be any more beautiful?

Fiona felt Dougal go tense and Prentice stopped moving forward altogether as Isabella’s face changed again, the small grin widened, brightened and the room lit with the radiance of her smile.

Yes, Fiona thought with irritation, the bitch could be more beautiful.

“Fergus,” she breathed softly, turned and rushed quickly to the stairs and up four of them to embrace Fergus.

There was nothing cool and disdainful in her embrace for Fergus.

Then again, Fergus was loaded and obviously Isabella didn’t have any problem with men who were loaded, it was just lowly fishermen who she had a problem with.

She’d married international playboy Laurent Evangelista and he was so loaded it was unfathomable how loaded he was. Of course, he’d cheated on her very publicly then ditched her even more publicly, paid her off with an enormous divorce settlement (just as publicly) and was still carrying on with his younger version of Isabella whilst on the Riviera and in Paris and wherever-the-hell-else famous, rich people hung out.

This had, for some bizarre reason Fiona could never figure out when she was alive (nor now, when she was very dead), made Isabella even more celebrated and famous.

She had simply been the fascinating, stylish and beautiful American heiress who had finally landed the equally fascinating, stylish and handsome French-Italian playboy Laurent Evangelista.

For some reason, people took her side in the whole messy affair, then again, no one really knew the true personality of Isabella Austin except those in a tiny fishing village in Scotland.

No one could believe Laurent would throw over his lovely, soft-spoken, charity-working, fashion-designer-muse wife for a common (but younger and it was lost on no one she looked almost exactly like Isabella) strumpet.

There’d even been t-shirts made that you could buy that said, “Up with Isabella” on the front and “Up Yours Laurent” on the back.

Since then (and it had been years), Isabella became more famous, more hunted by the paparazzi, an object of fascination. Likely, this was because no one could believe anyone who had all that money, all those good genes, all that fashion sense and a kind soul (blech, Fiona thought) could be so humiliated. It made even the common woman feel camaraderie with her because they knew if it could even happen to the likes of Isabella Austin Evangelista, it could definitely happen to them.

It also meant they were all waiting with bated breath for Isabella’s next catch, hoping he would be devastatingly handsome, romantic and he’d sweep her off her feet and heal all her considerable wounds.

Which meant that every man she even looked at was her latest lover. According to the media, she’d had scores. None of which lasted more than a few months (again, according to the media).

Which meant that somehow, fabulous, celebrated, renowned beauty Isabella Austin Evangelista had the every-woman curse of never finding the right bloke.

Which set her up as the Queen of Lonely Hearts and that made the camaraderie extend to every woman in the whole the fucking world.

If they only knew she’d simply gotten what she deserved, well…

“Good to see you,” Fergus muttered, his voice thick, his words cutting into Fiona’s ethereal thoughts. “Missed you, lass.”

Her cheek was pressed to his and her eyes were closed.

“Not as much as I missed you,” she whispered in her breathy voice.

With her paranormal senses, Fiona felt Prentice’s body turn solid.

She looked at her husband. His face was hard, his mouth tight, his eyes glittering.

Something was wrong.

As quick as it came, his body relaxed and his eyes went blank.

Fiona looked back at Isabella.

Her eyes opened and they focused on Prentice.

The coolness hit her face like an arctic snap and she pulled away from Fergus, her gaze moving to Dougal.

“Dougal,” she said softly.

“Isabella,” Dougal returned roughly and Fiona could tell he was making an effort to be polite.

She started walking down the steps in her high heels, her head turned to the side and, if Fiona had tried that, she would have fallen flat on her face.

Isabella’s eyes were on Prentice.

“Prentice.” Again, that breathy voice.

What was it with that breathy shite? Fiona thought. She’d never spoken that way when she was there those summers long ago.

“Isabella,” Prentice replied.

Fiona stared at her.

Did she flinch?

Flinch?

No, no, Fiona’s paranormal senses were heightened but no way would butter-wouldn’t-melt Isabella Austin Evangelista flinch.

And if she did, why would she, simply upon hearing Prentice say her name?

“This calls for champagne!” Annie screeched, taking Fiona’s thoughts from the impossible flinch and rushing forward, tugging the man along with her and linking arms with Isabella.

“I’ll get it,” Dougal said immediately. “Prentice, a little help?”

“Of course,” Prentice murmured but Isabella spoke.

“One moment, please.”

Everyone stopped, as they would, her voice was still soft, slightly breathy but there was something about it that made you pay attention.

God, Fiona hated her.

“Prentice,” she held her hand out toward him and Fiona would have sucked in breath (again, if she had any), then Isabella turned to the unknown man, “this is Mikey. A friend of Annie and mine from –”

“I remember you mentioning Mikey,” Prentice interrupted and before Isabella could say more, Prentice walked forward hand extended to Mikey.

Isabella dropped her hand, her gaze moved to Dougal then away as Prentice shook Mikey’s hand.

“Pleasure,” Prentice muttered but Mikey pumped his arm like their handshake was the last thing he’d do before he died and he never wanted it to end.

“Prentice Cameron,” Mikey was staring avidly at Prentice then he turned to Isabella and Annie. “Girls, you were holding out. You said he was delicious but you didn’t say he was dee-lish-us.”

Dougal and Fergus (who had joined them) laughed.

Prentice chuckled and carefully disconnected his hand.

Annie giggled.

Isabella adopted her butter-wouldn’t-melt smile, effectively removing herself from the humorous situation entirely as if she was a casual observer, not a participant.

Yes, Fiona hated her.

Before Fiona could let the depths of her hatred settle (which would probably take a million years), the door flew open and Debs, Prentice’s sister, flew in.

Everyone turned and then they tensed.

Fiona grinned. She loved Debs.

And Debs hated Isabella Evangelista.

This, she thought, was going to be good.

Debs, as usual, didn’t disappoint.

She slammed the door behind her, took a step forward and opened her mouth.

Then she shouted, “You fucking bitch!”

Fiona looked at Isabella, her grin still in place but it faltered when she saw the cool look the heartless cow was directing at Debs who, Fiona knew, adored Isabella like a sister (once).

“Debs –” Prentice said warningly and started forward but Debs was not to be denied (again, as usual).

“I could not believe it when I heard you were going to be here.” Debs glanced at Annie and snapped, “I’m sorry, Annie, but you know it has to be said.”

“Debs –” Prentice repeated, reaching his sister and taking her by the upper arm which she yanked from his grip while her gaze snapped to his face.

“I know you’re over it because, luckily, you found a better one and married her. But me and everyone else,” Debs threw her arm wide to indicate the entire village, “wants her to know she is not welcome here.” Her eyes went back to Isabella. “So don’t think of playing any of your fancy rich girl games with any of our men this time around. Got me?”

“Who is this interesting creature?” Mikey muttered to Annie.

“Debs, really, this isn’t necessary, nor, might I add, nice,” Fergus cut in.

“I’m not known for being nice,” Debs retorted.

“You can say that again,” Mikey told her.

Debs’s eyes narrowed on Mikey. “And who are you, her newest victim?”

“No,” Mikey replied. “I’ve been her second best friend for over twenty years and if you don’t mind your manners, miss priss, I’ll be forced not to mind mine and you won’t like that. Do you have me?”

“How dare you!” Debs screeched.

“I dare easily, darling,” Mikey returned, completely unperturbed.

“Dougal, Prentice, do something,” Annie beseeched, looking like she was about ready to cry and Fiona forgot how much she hated Isabella and felt badly for her friend.

Surprisingly, Isabella forged into the breach.

“It’s perfectly fine,” she said, again softly her voice somehow carrying that weird authority and even Debs stopped her tirade and stared at her.

Then, even more surprisingly (and strangely, to Fiona’s way of thinking), she murmured, “It’s nothing less than I deserve.”

“You have that right,” Debs snapped back.

Isabella leveled her gaze on Debs and, if Fiona could still feel she would have felt a chill.

“Yes,” she said in a strong, cultured, not at all soft or breathy voice, “I do.”

Then without looking at Prentice, who was staring at her in what Fiona knew exactly was shock, or anyone else, Isabella turned to Annie and said, back to her soft voice, “I need to freshen up. I’ll be back for champagne.”

She leaned in and kissed her friend, nodded to Mikey and then gracefully and slowly walked up the stairs, arse swaying, like she hadn’t a care in the world.

Fiona’s apprehensive eyes moved to Prentice knowing he was an ass man and that was one fine ass, even as a woman she had to appreciate it. One could safely say Isabella Austin Evangelista had, somehow, since Fiona had died and seen any photos of her, put on a few pounds but, for her, they were a few good pounds which Fiona thought was distinctly unfair.

But Prentice wasn’t checking out Isabella’s arse, he was pulling his sister to the door.

“A word,” he said in his deep, warning voice that said, quite clearly, Debs was in trouble and not a little bit of it.

The door closed behind them and Annie swung around on Dougal.

“Debs is now officially uninvited to the wedding.”

“Annie, luv –”

Annie shook her head and lifted her hand. “Nope, nuh-unh, no. Un… in… vite… ed.”

Then she flounced from the room toward the kitchen.

Dougal cast an apologetic glance to Fergus and Mikey and followed her.

“I’m thinking this is going to be an interesting week,” Mikey commented blandly.

Fergus looked at his guest. “And I’m thinking you’re not wrong, lad.”

Fiona couldn’t agree with them more.

Then her mind switched to Isabella’s (possible but not probable) flinch when Prentice said her name and, again, she had to ponder what was that all about?