‘No, you’ve got more than enough to do,’ Lucy insisted, rising carefully to her feet and we all rose with her. She smiled at Dad as he held out his arm. ‘Shall we?’

‘We shall,’ he confirmed with a gallant nod before turning to my mum. ‘I’ll be back in plenty of time and don’t worry about a thing. Rosalind has got this under control, haven’t you, Ros? She can do this.’

I breathed in sharply, surprise spreading across my face in a smile.

‘Yes, of course,’ I promised, my chest swelling with pride. ‘Like I said, we’ll make it perfect.’

‘Right,’ he said, pulling an umbrella from the stand by the back door. ‘Then everything’s all right. We’ll see you in a bit.’

We followed Lucy out the door and helped her into the car, choruses of good luck ringing all around her until they had backed out the drive and disappeared down the street.

‘Now what?’ Sumi turned to me with her hands on her hips.

‘Now we plan a wedding,’ I replied with a gulp. ‘And we do it really, really quickly.’

‘OK, then,’ she clapped me on the shoulder and marched back into the kitchen with a determined stride. ‘Let’s do this!’

I stood in a puddle outside the front door and looked up at the grey, overcast sky.

‘This has not been my week for good luck,’ I whispered to the heavens. ‘But if there was ever a time for that to change, it would be now.’

The sun peeked out at me from behind a storm cloud, just for a moment, before disappearing again.

‘I’ll take it,’ I said before following my friend back into the house.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

Reorganizing a wedding in a little over three hours was actually far less stressful than it could have been. Everyone involved in event planning, it seemed, was prepared for the absolute worst. The florists had barely batted an eyelid when I explained we would need to collect the flowers early and take them to the new venue ourselves. The bakers simply shrugged, put the wedding cake in a box and sent us on our way.

‘Really decent of John to give your mum and dad the bar for nothing,’ Adrian said as he span his car around the corner before firing it down the alleyway behind Good Luck Bar.

‘Really decent,’ I agreed from underneath a sea of flowers in the backseat. Pink roses, white geraniums and dozens of blushed-peach dahlias, striking me straight through the heart.

‘Well, he’s not really doing it for her mum and dad, is he?’ Sumi said from the front passenger seat, carefully nursing the wedding cake on her knee.

‘Shut up, Sumi.’

‘He isn’t?’ Adrian asked.

‘He’s totally in love with Ros,’ she nodded.

‘He is?’ Adrian gasped, grinning.

‘Shut up, Sumi,’ I said again.

She leaned across her seat to whisper in his ear.