A Wedding in the Sun: A laugh-out-loud getaway romance full of sunshine from Leonie Mack

1

‘He punched me in the arm, Mum! He’s a little shit.’

Jo paused, grumbling inwardly as the busy airport around her faded at her daughter’s words. Ben couldn’t take a little responsibility for his kids’ emotional stability at a time like this? Another ten days and the ‘little shit’ would be their stepbrother.

‘I’ll be there tonight,’ she assured Liss, hoping her daughter couldn’t hear the tightness in her voice. Tonight, she would turn up for the happy pre-wedding festivities for her ex-husband and the beautiful woman he was marrying. Sarcasm would only protect Jo from the shards of her marriage for so long.

‘That’s hours yet,’ Liss complained. ‘This whole time Dad’s made us look after Oscar.’

Her grip tightening on her suitcase, Jo swallowed some choice words for her ex-husband and wondered what she could say to placate her daughter when she agreed wholeheartedly. Ben should be supporting them through all the changes in their family, not forcing them to babysit, as though that was the only reason they were invited to this wedding that would create his new family. And from what Jo had seen of seven-year-old Oscar, he was a little shit.

‘I don’t even want to be here!’ Liss cried. ‘I’m seventeen. I’m not a flower girl! I don’t want to stand up with Mónica like she’s my new best friend, and the dress she bought is hideous!’

‘I thought you liked it,’ Jo responded to the easiest part of that sentence. She pressed the back of her hand to her forehead, as though that would slow down the spinning of her thoughts. ‘I just assumed it was what all the kids wear these days.’

‘Mum! I didn’t think I had a choice so I was nice about it. If you thought it looked ugly, you should have said something! I don’t even want to go to the ceremony. I’d rather be at school!’

Jo didn’t appreciate the reminder that the kids were missing school for this farce. The requirements of Mónica’s Spanish family seemed to be more important in the schedule than the children’s education and apparently the wedding was such an important occasion that it involved more than a week of ‘festivities’.

‘Maybe we can choose something else when I get there,’ Jo said, grinding her teeth. Ben even needed her to sort out the kids while he married someone else. God knows there was no other reason she’d attend his wedding. ‘Put Declan on?’

There was some rustling and then an inarticulate grunt, which was the usual greeting from her fourteen-year-old son.

‘Hey, Dec, hang in there, okay?’

‘Yeah, Mum.’

‘If Oscar gets too difficult, just let him play with your phone,’ Jo suggested, trying to tamp down on her worry.

‘I’m not going to let him touch my phone!’ Dec exclaimed, as though he’d rather be punched in the arm than let a seven-year-old near his prized possession.

Jo stifled a sigh. For all she knew, Mónica was one of these anti-screen mothers who would be horrified and Jo really shouldn’t feel satisfaction at the prospect of riling up Ben’s bride. Urgh, the word ‘bride’ made her gag.

Shaking off the awkwardness, she hitched her rucksack back onto her shoulder and started walking again, peering along the check-in desks for the one marked ‘Zaragoza’.

‘I’ll see you soon anyway, sweetie,’ she said to Dec.

She got another mumble in farewell before Liss came on again for a few more gripes that Jo was very willing to indulge. But despite her sympathy for her daughter, there was no point in escalating the already insufferable situation.

She softened her voice and said, ‘I’m sure Dad doesn’t realise that you feel sidelined and Oscar⁠—’

The name of Ben’s future stepson got stuck in her throat as she caught sight of a familiar figure at the check-in desks and whirled around, turning her back. She’d forgotten she’d see him at the wedding. If she stayed very still, perhaps he wouldn’t see her. Even if he’d heard his son’s name, he wouldn’t imagine the woman with her hair coming out of its clip and an ancient Fjällräven backpack would have said it.

He wouldn’t recognise her. He was just the ex-husband of the soon-to-be wife of her ex-husband – which was complicated enough to give her a spontaneous migraine. But he was also her former Parent Teacher Association nemesis and she didn’t want to risk having to talk to him right now, on what was shaping up to be one of the worst days of her life. There wasn’t even a word for the relationship she had with that man – although awkward was one, certainly, even though she hadn’t seen him in three years.

His voice reached her ears: the burr of his Spanish accent, the animated tone, raised in indignation at that moment.

‘Mum?’ Liss prompted her over the phone.

‘I have to go, sweetie. I’m checking in my bag.’

‘Dad said we can’t come with him to collect you from the airport,’ her daughter said glumly.

‘What? Why not?’

‘Mónica’s husband is arriving on the same flight and we won’t fit in the car with all your luggage.’

Jo’s stomach dipped, wishing she’d had that information before she’d almost run into him. Glancing his way before she could stop herself, she saw him raise his hands in frustration, gesturing to a guitar case. At least Liss couldn’t see her eye-roll.

Adrian Rivera Morales – oh, sorry, Adrián, pronounced with an accent – and his blasted guitar.

‘I really have to go, but I’ll be there soon and we’ll work things out. I know it doesn’t feel like it right now, but we’ll find a way to have a good time together. After the family party is over, we’ll be down at the beach for a few days before the wedding.’ The wedding in a pretentious castle on the coast north of Valencia in Spain.

‘Yeah, we’re going to the beach in Peñíscola,’ Liss said with a snort, ‘where you’ll drink all the⁠—’

‘Liss!’ Jo warned her in a low tone. If her daughter said ‘cocktails’, Jo would dissolve into laughter herself and hysterics might alert Adrián. Even an innocent cola joke would have pushed her too far right now. ‘I’ll see you soon! Love you. Bye!’

Ending the call with a stifled groan, Jo stowed her phone in her backpack and hesitated. Would Adrián be gone yet? Risking another glance over her shoulder, her frustration rose again to see him still arguing with the man at the check-in desk.

‘I’m sorry, sir, but if you wanted special care taken with this item, you should have booked an extra seat,’ the man said calmly.

‘I talked to someone on the phone a week ago and they assured me the instrument was booked!’ His voice was even higher than it had been before.

‘The luggage is booked, sir. Here, I could put a fragile sticker on it for you.’

‘¡Ay! You think a little sticker will stop your staff from throwing this around like a rugby ball?’ She heard his exaggerated sigh from where she was standing and peeked over her shoulder again, wondering how long she would have to hide before he finished berating the poor man for doing his job. Why was he even bringing a guitar? The flight was in sardine-class with a low-cost carrier.

Adrián shoved his hands through his unnecessarily long, curly hair and grimaced. He had a moustache and a goatee too and that air of self-importance that only an attractive man can get away with, not to mention a thick gold chain that always peeked out of his collar as though he were a hip-hop star.

‘How much is an extra seat?’ he asked, his voice tight. Jo unfortunately understood the reluctance to shell out more money for an ex’s wedding. She was annoyed enough that she had to take time off work to attend a family party in a place with too many z’s in the name before the actual wedding the following week.

‘The flight is fully booked, I’m sorry.’

Jo clenched and unclenched her fists as Adrián lost it, Spanish curses tumbling out of his mouth and his arms gesticulating wildly. He slapped the counter in frustration.

‘Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to⁠—’

‘Fine!’ Adrián cried in a tortured tone. ‘Take it into the hold! Sit on it and toss it to each other and if anyone asks, tell them your airline damaged a palosanto de Rio guitar made by Ricardo Martín Gonzalez himself!’

‘If it’s damaged, you can download a claim form from our webs⁠—’

‘I don’t need a claim form! I need my guitar to arrive in one piece!’

‘This seems like a good instrument case, sir. If I just put the sticker on it⁠—’

Maybe he would decide not to get on the plane after all, Jo thought with expanding hope. Imagining Ben collecting them both from the airport made her nauseous.

With one last melodramatic choke, Adrián pushed off the counter and stalked away with a dismissive wave, as though he couldn’t bear to watch his precious guitar disappearing down the conveyor belt. Jo used her last dregs of human compassion to challenge the unkind thought that there had probably been a good reason Mónica had divorced him.

What fun this wedding was turning out to be!

Jo was nearly ready to turn around and go home ninety minutes later when she stepped onto the plane and caught sight of that familiar head of dark curls a few rows away, in an aisle seat, just to make her afternoon worse.

It was a small aircraft with a single aisle – even though the flight was booked out, not that many people wanted to go to Zaragoza on a Wednesday night. Two of them probably didn’t want to go to Zaragoza at all.

She wondered why Adrián was coming. Surely as the father instead of the mother he could have pleaded paternal incompetence and claimed it would be awkward if he turned up. For once, she wouldn’t have resented a man for that.

She peered at her boarding pass, holding it up to hide her face.

‘Thirteen F – it’s on the left just past the emergency exit row,’ the smiling flight attendant told her unnecessarily. Jo made her way along the aisle, inspecting the seat numbers intently enough that it was plausible that she hadn’t seen Adrián. He was reading the flight safety card with a stormy expression – although perhaps that was just his resting face.

She sensed movement as she walked past and her throat swelled uncomfortably, as she wondered if he’d looked up and opened his mouth to acknowledge her. It might have nipped the awkwardness in the bud, if only she’d had the courage to do that herself.

Oh, hi. Adrián, isn’t it? Oh, my, haha, isn’t this awkward going to the wedding of our exes? Are you on the PTA this year? Still refusing to play Santa at the Christmas Fayre? How about the choir? Are they skimming PTA money for their excursions this year as well, even though there are only two members?

Nope. There was no way she could have done that. With her instincts for self-preservation raging, she hurried to her row, flinging her suit bag into the locker over the seat and squeezing past a middle-aged woman and a young man with baggy clothes and baggier body language to reach her seat.

What had been Adrián’s problem with playing Santa anyway? Only someone a long way up their own arse would refuse to make children happy at Christmas and there was no harm in kids believing Santa had a Spanish accent.

Pulling her phone out to turn it to flight mode, she noticed she had a voice message from Liss and put the device to her ear to listen without Mr Baggy overhearing.

‘Mum, I just wanted to say sorry.’ Liss paused to take a breath and continued in a contrite tone, ‘I know there’s nothing you can do and I don’t mean to stress you out. But I just… needed to vent for a minute. I don’t even want to think about the wedding when I remember how things used to be…’ She sucked in a breath that might have been a sniff and Jo’s stomach sank. She knew what her daughter felt because she felt it too. ‘Anyway, I love you, Mum.’

Jo typed back:

Love you too, sweetie. Taking off now.

Only two hours and she’d be there to smooth things over for her kids – as best she could smooth over the fact that their father was getting married again. Liss was nearly an adult herself, but Jo was worried she’d taken the divorce four years ago harder than Declan had. She’d been old enough that she wanted to understand why the marriage was crumbling – something Jo still couldn’t answer with actual words.

Crap, now she was thinking about Ben and the twisting, crunching feeling when she saw him with Mónica that was one part disgust, two parts impotent moral high ground and fourteen parts heavy failure – with a pinch of jealousy that she didn’t want to admit to. She swiped at her eyes, gritting her teeth against tears. She was not still grieving their fourteen-year marriage, only the fourteen years of her own stupidity for thinking their marriage was worth all the sacrifices.

This was not where she wanted to be at forty-six: divorced, with a job that left her no time for her kids’ crises and in a narrow plane seat heading to a party with a bunch of strangers who only knew her as Ben’s ex-wife. If the mother of the bride was supposed to wear a nice outfit with a flamboyant hat, perhaps the ex-wife of the groom was supposed to wear a jute sack. That would have saved her bringing her suit bag with the flowing green evening dress that hopefully didn’t look as old as it was.

Rummaging in her rucksack, she tugged out her headphones, untangling them with a huff of frustration. Glancing ahead, she saw Adrián had managed to calm down now and she couldn’t help thinking he wasn’t the only one struggling with emotional outbursts today. She shoved her headphones in and sat back in her seat, closing her eyes.

It would all be over in ten days. She’d never have to see Adrián again – although the same wasn’t true for Ben and Mónica.

Listening to Pearl Jam and Radiohead and the bands that had got her through the nineties, the flight passed quickly, despite the seatbelt sign lighting up regularly as the little plane juddered its way southeast. A few times, Jo’s stomach dropped as the aircraft lurched, but she’d experienced turbulence before and, with her headphones in, she missed the murmurs of alarm that rippled through the passengers.

It was only when a flash of lightning lit up the dimming sky through her window that she sat up straight and pulled out her headphones. A flight attendant dashed up the aisle, stumbling as the aircraft heaved again and Jo gripped the armrests, trying not to let her brain wander in the direction of orphaned children.

‘Erm, this is the captain speaking,’ came a mumbled voice over the loudspeaker. ‘The predicted storm has hit a little earlier and a little more strongly than expected, so keep those seatbelts on, folks.’

Jo forced herself to breathe out. A storm. Surely planes flew through storms all the time. Another few minutes passed, the air in the cabin still and tense as lights flicked on and the aircraft shuddered and creaked.

Then the loudspeaker clicked on again and the captain cleared his throat. ‘I’m sorry to have to tell you,’ he said, pausing, ‘that weather conditions over the Pyrenees have worsened. We can’t fly any further.’

Jo’s breath stalled. No, she didn’t want to go to Zaragoza, but she didn’t not want to go to Zaragoza either. Panic burst over her in a thousand questions without answers. Would they return to London? When was the next flight? How quickly could she get to Liss and Dec?

Jo’s hand flying to her forehead, her gaze settled on the back of Adrián’s head. She couldn’t even make this his fault.

The captain continued gravely, ‘We are preparing to make an unscheduled landing at the nearest airport.’

As she watched, as though in slow motion, Adrián turned and unerringly met her gaze.

2

Jo Watters didn’t like him.

That wasn’t a news flash, but the passage of three years should have been enough for her to make peace with the fact that the choir and not the softball team had been awarded the PTA funds. Although he shouldn’t underestimate the psychological damage a year on the PTA could inflict and she’d managed six of them.

To be completely fair, their reunion wasn’t happening in the best of circumstances either. Hurrying across the tarmac through driving rain and whipping wind to a squat terminal with ‘Tarbes Lourdes Pyrenees’ on a large sign, their evening well and truly gone to shit, wasn’t conducive to making friends. Then there was the fact that they were both on their way to their ex-spouses’ wedding – to each other.

Friends was definitely too much to ask.

He held the door open for her and she gave an enormous sigh when the shelter of the airport enveloped them. Her blonde hair was a mess around her face, her clip askew. She was a tall woman, attractive and noticeable, not to mention articulate, intelligent and persuasive. Those were his memories from that year on the PTA. She had a stud in her nose that suggested an intriguing rebellious streak.

But that evening, as she swallowed and hitched her backpack higher, looking grimly around the terminal, she didn’t look so in-charge.

‘This way, please!’ called a flight attendant and they turned in tandem to follow.

She still hadn’t said anything to him. He hadn’t greeted her either, but they fell into step as they made their way through the terminal, reluctant allies now disaster had struck. But he didn’t need to talk if she didn’t. Anything they discussed right now would probably be unpleasant anyway.

‘Are you going to call Mónica or shall I call Ben?’ she muttered as they trudged on.

Damn, he’d been right. Conversation was unpleasant. She’d been right to ignore him on the plane, even though he’d felt a little stupid trying to say hello while she was pretending she hadn’t seen him.

She rolled her eyes when he didn’t immediately answer and pulled out her phone, tapping the screen and then holding it to her ear. ‘Hi, Ben,’ she said in a tight tone when the call connected. ‘I’m really sorry, but our flight was diverted and I’m nowhere near Zaragoza.’

‘Well, actually, it’s just over the other side of the Pyrenees,’ Adrián pointed out. She levelled a sharp look at him.

‘They have to get the plane back to London so they’re putting us in a hotel for a night and chartering a coach in the morning. I’m sorry you left already. My phone was on flight mode.’

Why did she keep saying sorry?

‘I’ll call you in the morning. Can you—’ Her eyes closed briefly. ‘Yes, I know the party is the day after tomorrow. It can’t take me too long to get across the Pyrenees.’ Her gaze flitted warily to him. ‘But can you spare a thought for Liss and Dec, please? No, it’s not that they don’t like Mónica – it’s not that simple. I haven’t said anything!’ Her mouth snapped shut and Adrián shoved a hand in his pocket, looking away as though that could stop him feeling every bit of awkwardness along with her.

They had more in common than being stuck in the wrong airport.

‘I’ll see you tomorrow,’ she said firmly, disconnecting the call and stuffing her phone roughly into her backpack. ‘You could have at least moved a discreet distance away,’ she grumbled at him.

‘Because I don’t know anything about difficult relationships with exes and the complications of sharing custody of children,’ he responded casually, keeping his gaze fixed on the flight attendant who was leading them through the chaotic labyrinth of travel delays.

‘Maybe it’s better if we don’t talk,’ she mumbled.

‘That’s the conclusion I’d come to.’

They continued in silence, past advertising for perfumes and mountain sports that made him shudder at the thought and shops selling religious trinkets that looked as though they’d been imported from the blessed factories of China.

The only association he had with the French town of Lourdes was Catholicism, the religion his parents had all but abandoned, although the rosaries and crucifixes still made him think of his childhood, of respect and good behaviour. The last time he’d been in a church had been the one with the golden dome near Mónica’s parents’ place for Oscar’s baptism. And the next time he would find himself in a church…

The fun just never stopped today.

‘They’re using my kids as babysitters,’ Jo snapped at him suddenly.

‘And that’s my fault because…? They’re not both my exes.’

‘But he is your kid that nobody can manage!’

Even sarcasm couldn’t protect him from that shot. The bleed of hurt trickled down his spine. ‘We can’t all be model parents like you.’

Her gaze whipped to his. ‘What do you mean by that?’

‘I said you were a good parent.’

‘But you implied otherwise. I have an ex-husband and a well-developed bullshit detector, Adrián.’

At least she remembered his name. He’d wondered for a moment. She’d even pronounced it with the accent. ‘Good for you,’ he muttered, meaning it genuinely but not prepared to give up his sarcastic tone yet.

‘Yes, I work full time, but everything I do is for those kids. Why else do you think I’m tearing my hair out because we’re stuck here instead of in Zaragoza!’

‘Zaragoza,’ he muttered, correcting her pronunciation for lack of anything else to say.

‘The place is seriously pronounced Tharagotha? It sounds like something out of Game of Thrones.’

He winced at her terrible accent. ‘No, Zaragoza,’ he repeated more firmly.

‘Oh, fuck off,’ she muttered under her breath, swiping a hand through her hair. He felt the strangest urge to smile.

Adrián tried not to stare, but his gaze was drawn continually back to her as they followed the slow crowd to goodness-knows-where. Although she’d made it clear that being stuck with him wasn’t her idea of a good time, she didn’t storm off. She just walked silently beside him, thrumming with emotion.

Ben must have been a real idiot, a first-class cojón, and not only because he was marrying Mónica. What a mess – and that was just his own feelings.

After the marathon through the terminal came the hell of queuing. As a British airline, they expected the passengers to form a tortuous queue in a patient, orderly fashion. But due to a misunderstanding between the strict British passengers and the Spaniards who would wait longer to be saved the agony of standing in line, the queue became a disordered clump of people, pushing to the front for their hotel vouchers. Jo looked as though she’d like to break out the ‘f’ word again.

‘Boarding passes, please!’ called out the poor flight attendant, overwhelmed by the flood of disgruntled passengers. She had to squint at the mobile boarding passes to read the names and wrote each hotel voucher by hand.

‘¡Madre de Dios! This is going take forever!’ Adrián exclaimed, slapping his thigh in aggravation.

A middle-aged woman in front of them turned and made the sign of the cross at him rather aggressively. ‘Nuestra Señora give you patience!’

‘Oh, that’s why I’ve heard of Lourdes,’ Jo mumbled as she rummaged in her backpack. ‘A virgin in a cave was just what today was missing. And why can’t I find my phone? I just had it!’ She opened the zip all the way, still searching as Adrián’s lips twitched with a smile. ‘What?’ she asked.

‘I— nothing,’ he said. ‘Here, let me hold the bag.’

She looked up with a furrowed brow, but handed over the backpack so she could use two hands to search for the device. By the time she found it, the clump of people had thinned as the passengers received their hotel assignments and headed for the coach to the city centre.

‘Will you hold this?’ she asked, thrusting her phone at him. He took it and tucked it on top of his own as she took a swig from her water bottle, wiping her hair off her neck. Stowing the bottle, she hastily whipped her hair back up into its clip, but the effect was still dishevelled. He couldn’t help thinking it was a good look on her: a strong woman with wisps of wavy blonde hair and a penchant for wry jokes.

He was still holding both phones when their turn came, so he handed his to the flight attendant, who scribbled something hastily onto a list and handed him a pair of hotel vouchers. Jo pulled up her boarding pass in the app and the woman nodded dismissively.

‘The second coach, please. We’ll depart for Zaragoza at nine o’clock tomorrow morning from outside the hotel. Please don’t be late. Your luggage will be forwarded ready to collect when you arrive.’

‘But—’

Jo grasped the cuff of his shirt and pulled. Giving her a sharp look, he tugged his arm back.

‘My guitar⁠—’

‘She’s