Guess Who Didn't Show Up to My Wedding novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: The Gate at Midnight

Cillian lets her in, and the number she called for confirmation turns out to be her sister's.

It was past midnight when I reached the Thackray Ridge gate.

It was shut, with a chain on it.

A pickup sat in front with its headlights on and its engine running.

Cillian Thackray leaned against the hood with his arms folded.

He looked the way he had at twenty-two, only broader, and with a few grey hairs at the temple.

I got out of the car.

"You drove here with a suitcase," he said.

"It's the only thing I took."

He unlocked the chain and swung the gate open.

"You can tell me tonight or you can tell me tomorrow," he said. "The cottage is made up either way."

"Tonight," I said. "It's short."

We stood in the headlights while the engine ticked.

"My family has a second group chat that I'm not in."

"They moved my wedding to the coast and let me think it was here."

"My fiancé thumbed it up."

"I left the ring on his iPad."

Cillian didn't say a word for a moment.

Then he reached over and lifted the suitcase out of my back seat.

"The cottage is up the hill," he said. "I'll drive ahead."

The pickers' cottage had two rooms, a woodstove and a quilt on the bed that wasn't mine.

He turned on the lamp and checked that the water ran.

"There's bread and cheese in the cooler," he said. "Coffee in the morning, if you want company. Or not."

I sat down on the edge of the bed.

My phone lit up on the blanket.

It was Thurston.

It had been Thurston half a dozen times since the elevator.

I turned the phone over and didn't answer.

"One more thing," Cillian said from the doorway.

I looked up.

"In March, your sister called here. She asked if Thackray Ridge had a Saturday open in September."

My stomach went cold.

"Which Saturday?"

"This one."

"Did you give it to her?"

"I took it off the calendar in May," he said.

That was all he said about it.

I was too tired to ask what it meant, and I think he knew.

"The number on the card she gave me," I said. "The one I called to confirm."

"It isn't ours. We don't have a line like that."

I took the card out of my wallet and held it up under the lamp.

It was cream-colored, with pretty gold lettering. Thackray Ridge Estate, Events.

Under it were ten digits in my sister's handwriting.

I dialed it.

It rang twice, and a woman's voice answered in the cheerful tone of someone who works at a winery.

"Thackray Ridge events, how can I help you?"

It was Mara.

She was doing a voice.

I hung up before she could say my name.

Cillian watched me from the door. "That's her?"

"That's the woman who confirmed my flowers, twice," I said.

My phone buzzed again.

It wasn't Thurston this time.

It was Mara, in the family chat I used to think was the only one.

"Willa, honey, Thurston says you left. We're all worried. Where are you?"

Then a second message arrived from her.

"Let me guess. 😘"

I stared at it.

Cillian crossed the room and held out his hand for the phone.

I gave it to him.

He read it, turned it off and put it on the shelf above the stove.

"Nobody here tonight is guessing anything," he said.

I laughed once, and it came out cracked.

"I'd like to hit someone," I said.

"There's a barrel of the second-pressing red in the cellar. I'll show you in the morning."

I didn't know whether he was joking.

He went to the door and stopped with his hand on the frame.

"Willa."

"Yes."

"I'm glad you called this number."

Then he went down the hill, and his headlights moved away through the rows.

I lay on the narrow bed under someone else's quilt.

I did not cry.

I listened to the wind in the vines until it was light enough to see the ceiling.

At six, gravel crunched in the drive.

I went to the window.

A silver sedan sat below the cottage with its engine off.

Mom was in the driver's seat.

Dad sat beside her with his hand over his eyes.

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