Reid
It’s been a couple of weeks since Molly turned up at the store and I’m finally beginning to feel as if a weight has been lifted from my shoulders. Her apology wasn’t what did it—if you could even call it an apology—Kara is what’s got me through. Her love has made me a better man. I was enraged that Molly would just turn up like that, but through her own pain, Kara has slowly pieced me back together. I wonder why someone as flawed as me deserves to be as happy as she makes me, but she tells me she wouldn’t love me if I was flawless. In her words, the ‘perfect man’ doesn’t exist, but I don’t have to strive to be faultless because I’m perfect for her. Her words are my comfort. She would give her life for me and I know that somehow she was made for me.
I want to be her all, her everything, her life. She holds my heart in the palm of her hand and I know I can trust her with it.
Kara has been busy at work and I’ve been busting my balls, working overtime so that I can take a week off soon to take her away from here. I want to be somewhere it’s just the two of us. We need time to relax and destress. I want to show her how much she means to me and I want to start planning our wedding soon, to give us both something to look forward to. Our fresh start. The day we become man and wife will no doubt be the happiest of my life.
I’ve booked us a holiday in Wales. Kara’s grandmother comes from there and I know she’ll enjoy seeing the Brecon Beacons and places her grandmother would have visited as a child. We’re due to leave when she gets home from work today. I finished early so I could come home and pack. I’m surrounded by clothes and suitcases, you’d think we were going for more than a week. I guess that’s women for you, they pack shoes and makeup, all the things us men don’t need. Clean clothes, clean underwear, and a pair of shoes, maybe two, that’s all guys need.
Making my way downstairs with our bags, I go to load the car. Once the boot is packed, I head back into the house to make myself a cup of coffee. It’ll be about an hour before Kara gets home, so I have time to sit and look at honeymoon destinations on the internet. I’ve been thinking of going somewhere like St Lucia or the Seychelles. I know that Kara loves clear blue seas and beautiful beaches. I’m looking at possible places when my phone rings.
“Hey bro, what’s up?”
“Hey. I was just checking to see what time you guys are leaving?”
I’d asked Jase and Liam to keep on the house for us while we’re gone.
“In about an hour and a half, I think. Just waiting for Kara to finish work, then we’ll be on the road.”
“Okay, have a good time. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” Jase says with a laugh, well, more of a snort.
“Thanks bro, take it easy. Don’t work too hard while I’m off relaxing!”
“Yeah, cheers for that. Leaving me in the lurch,” he teases.
“Seriously bro, thanks for everything you’ve done for us recently. I can’t wait to take my fiancée away and spend some time alone with her, no work or interruptions.”
“If anybody deserves that, it’s you two.”
Jase and I say our goodbyes and I go back to my search for the perfect honeymoon.
***
We’ve been on the road for nearly two hours and I’m glad we’re nearly there. Kara and I have been talking about the wedding, it’s the first time we’ve really had chance to discuss anything properly. Having chosen to get married in December, we’re having a ‘Winter Wonderland’ theme. I’m not sure how on earth to even start with actual preparations, but Zoey is Kara’s matron of honour and has said she will do anything she can to help. I asked if I could choose our wedding song. I know it’s something the couple normally decides together, but I’ve found the perfect song that sums up how I feel about my wife-to-be. I initially chose it because the colour of her eyes reminds me of the sea. But also, the lyrics to the song are really beautiful and poignant. I’m not telling her what I chose until the day arrives, and she’s trying not to nag me to tell her. I can see by the look on her face and her mannerisms that she really wants to pester me into telling her, but she’s promised not to ask because I’ve sworn I won’t tell, even if sexual favours were to be offered—which was one of her initial ideas to get it out of me.
Arriving in Wales, we unpack the boot of the car and take our bags into the little cottage where we’re staying for the next week. It’s quaint and looks very at home in its surroundings. Kara takes in the surroundings and I watch her taking it all in. She looks so beautiful and very at home in such a setting. Once we’ve made sure all we need is in the house, I decide to surprise Kara with a trip to the beautiful waterfall that she visited many times as a child. Her grandmother was born in a cottage that backs onto the falls, so it has a lot of memories for the family as a whole. She once told me it was a family tradition to go to Waterfall cottage—the place her grandmother was born and raised—to have photos taken outside. I’ve seen plenty of photos of her and the family outside the place over the years, from when Kara was a child to when her grandmother passed away. Her death hit Kara hard, and she hasn’t returned to the cottage since. I’m hoping that with me by her side, she can face her past, her present, and her future, which will all contain memories of the place that means so much to her.
***
We’re sat in the car just down the road from Waterfall Cottage and Kara is silent and unmoving. She looks straight ahead out of the windscreen of the car, so it’s hard to gauge how she’s feeling when I can’t see her facial expressions.
“That used to be a lovely hotel, you know,” Kara says as she points out of the window.
“Will you walk around with me and tell me all about this place?” I ask, my voice full of hope.
“Umm…”
I take her hand in mine and draw it to my lips to place a soft kiss.
“I’m sorry if it’s too much, Kara. We can go, if you’d prefer?”
“No, no, I…I want to be here, it’s just…”
“I know, baby. We can take a slow walk around and you can show me all the places you visited as a kid. I’m here, angel. You’ve got me by your side.”
She looks at me and flashes me a hint of that gorgeous smile.
I get out of the car and walk round to open her door. I take her hand and help her to stand. Kara smiles again and this time it looks more real.
“This is Penbont Road,” she says as we walk. “Waterfall Cottage is just up here.”
“It’s a really pretty area. If I wasn’t a city boy at heart, I’d move somewhere as lovely as this.”
She grips my hand in hers and pulls me in the direction of a beautiful cottage.
“This is it.”
Her broad smile touches her eyes this time and I can see a light shine in them as she runs her hand over the front door of Waterfall Cottage.
“What do you say we take a photo?”
“That would be perfect. I can add it to my collection.”
I grab my phone and we take a few selfies. Some funny, some serious. Once she’s happy with one for the photo album, we continue walking. She takes me around the side of the cottage and we end up stood in front of the beautiful waterfall.
“This is Pwll-y-Wrach. I’m probably pronouncing that wrong, I never did get the whole Welsh accent thing down. It runs from the River Ennig and is part of the Pwll-y-Wrach nature reserve.”
Our surroundings couldn’t be more serene. The lush green foliage is dense and overhangs the falls. It’s so beautiful that I really wish I wasn’t a city-boy at heart. Living somewhere like this would be almost perfect.
Listening to the sound of the water spilling over the rocks, I want to toe off my shoes, shrug my clothes off, and go stand underneath it. Maybe I could pull Kara under with me.
“It’s stunning. You should let me take some photos of you with this as a backdrop.”
I take my phone out and Kara poses for me. She pouts and holds herself in different poses, the fun side of her showing. I’m so glad she seems to have perked up.
“Get in some photos with me, Reid.”
I do as she asks and we take enough photos to fill a whole album.
“There’s one last photo I want you to take,” Kara says as I’m about to put my phone away.
“Okay, shoot. No pun intended.”
The sound of her laughter is like music to my ears. I’m so glad I brought her here. She walks to stand in the shallows of the water and I aim my phone to get a good shot.
“Okay, wait one second,” she calls as she finds her footing.
“You’re not getting back in my car with wet feet!”
I look to see Kara stood with the falls behind her. She’s posing with one hand over her stomach.
“You can take it now, Cariad,” she says, calling me by a Welsh term of endearment, “This will be the first picture of me and our baby.”
Shock hits me and I nearly drop my phone into the water. I can’t speak. My throat is dry and my palms are suddenly clammy.
“Our baby?” I finally manage to ask around the ball of feelings lodged in my throat.
I take the photo before I rush to Kara’s side. Taking her in my arms, I claim her lips in a bruising kiss. Our tongues dance together and it’s almost like I can taste the love, lust, and passion we have for each other, mingling with the minty taste of her breath. She wraps her arms around my neck and I lift her off her feet, droplets of water dripping from her feet to mine.
“When did you find out?” I ask as I finally break the kiss.
“I did a test a couple of days ago,” she replies as I set her back on the ground, “I wasn’t sure when to tell you. I wanted to say something straight away, of course. But with everything that’s happened recently, with Molly…I wanted to find the right time.”
“Baby, there’s no wrong time to tell me something this amazing. I can’t believe it, we’re actually having a baby.”
“Of course this means that I will either be showing on our wedding day, or we need to put our plans on hold and get married next December.”
“I can’t think of anything better than being married to you and having our baby. Either way you want to go, to have him or her here first or to have a bump showing on the day, I don’t care.”
“I don’t mind either, shall we flip a coin?”
She pulls a coin from her pocket and howls with laughter. We can’t make a decision based on the toss of a coin.
“Heads we…” she doesn’t get to finish her sentence as I draw her to me for another kiss.
I can’t believe that after everything that’s happened, I am finally going to be a daddy. Me, a daddy. It’s the most perfect gift this beautiful woman could ever give me. There are no words to describe how my heart is bursting with love, pride, and joy right now.