What if you had a second chance at first love?

Susannah and Rob were childhood sweethearts. But as with most early love affairs, they broke up, moved on and now find themselves in very different places.

And not entirely happy - who is?

A chance meeting between them sends shockwaves through their lives. What happens when your first love makes a surprise reappearance? Is fate telling you it's time for a second chance . . . or should you simply walk away and let the past become ancient history?

But Susannah and Rob just aren't able to forget the way they were . . . and the world is about to discover the consequences of their reunion.

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June

The kiss, like everything else about the day, was
picture-perfect. Not too chaste, not too intimate. The
groom, an ideal several inches taller than the slender
woman beside him, took his bride’s face in his hands,
tender and possessive. He laid his forehead against
hers for a second or two before their lips met. Her
eyes shone with tears of joy. There was an appropriate
collective sigh among the congregation. It was like
watching a Hallmark card come to life.
First married kiss over, the beaming newly-weds
turned to face the congregation, their cheeks touching,
her retroussé nose wrinkling in shy self-deprecation,
and the veil that had been lifted from her face a few
minutes earlier framed them both in a cloud of fairytale
tulle.
The vicar raised his hands in an expansive gesture.
‘Ladies and gentlemen, Mr and Mrs Hammond,’ and
the whole church erupted into spontaneous applause.
In the second pew on the groom’s side questions
raced through Susannah’s brain so fast she could
barely put them in order.

1. Since when did we applaud in church?
2. How is it that my little brother is old enough to get
married?
3. Was I really ever as naive as they appear?
4. Just when did I get so cynical, and so bitter?

The answers didn’t come quite so quickly. Except
about the clapping. It was modern. Not for the first
time, Susannah found herself strangely at odds with
the practices of her own generation. This wasn’t a
performance. This was a solemn, dignified ceremony.
Her ‘baby’ brother Alexander was thirty-three. Not
young to marry, by most people’s standards. It was
the fact that his being thirty-three meant that she was
thirty-nine that choked her a little bit. She remembered
him being born so vividly – a living Tiny Tears,
a six-year-old girl’s dream come true.
Yes, yes – of course she’d been that naive – all that,
and more. Naive and delirious with the same joy she’d
seen on their faces, and certain, so very certain, that
she’d be married for ever. She’d stood at that very
altar, exactly where Alex and Chloe stood now, and
she imagined she’d felt exactly as they did (though she
also remembered a disconcerting sensation that the
strangely uncomfortable garter she was wearing was
slipping down her thigh towards her knee). The
certainty was the part that had deserted her. She
couldn’t have lived without him. Back then, she’d have
viewed it almost as a physical impossibility – that her
heart, the one she’d just finished giving him, would
literally stop beating in her chest if he wasn’t beside
her. She wasn’t certain about anything any more.
And the getting cynical and bitter part? That . . .
that question she couldn’t answer. If she’d known it
was happening – if she’d stood apart from herself
and watched – she wouldn’t have let it. Would she?
Chloe was radiant. Really. Everyone said it about
every bride – it was one of the required words for
days like today – but it wasn’t true about every bride.
At least, not as true as it was about Chloe today. (Had
everyone said it about her? Was it true, about her?)
Chloe was Canadian and, actually, she always ‘glowed’
with North American wholesome health. All straight
white teeth and smooth blonde waves. She looked,
Susannah acknowledged, particularly lovely today.
Her dress was a long sheath of heavy ivory duchesse
satin. Elegant and timeless, it suited Chloe perfectly.
As she passed, she shook her bouquet slightly at
Susannah in triumphant greeting, and Susannah felt
herself shaking her clenched fi sts in response, her
shoulders hunched.