Holiday with the Best Man by Kate Hardy

limbo where he’d spent two long years. ‘What if you had the chance to be swept off your feet? Would you take it?’ he asked.
    â€˜That’s really not going to happen,’ Grace said. ‘I have friends who’ve joined online dating sites or gone speed-dating, and they’ve all ended up disappointed.’
    â€˜What if,’ he asked carefully, ‘the date was with someone you know?’
    â€˜Such as?’
    â€˜Me.’
    â€˜You?’ She stared at him, looking shocked. ‘But you don’t even like me.’
    â€˜I was obnoxious to you at the wedding because I’d jumped to some very wrong conclusions about you,’ Roland said. ‘I’ve got to know you better over the last couple of days and I’ve realised how wrong I was. And I apologise for that.’
    â€˜Thank you. I think.’ She frowned. ‘You’re actually suggesting that we should date?’
    â€˜That we should help each other out,’ he corrected. ‘You want to be swept off your feet, and I need to practise my dating skills.’
    She frowned. ‘Why do you need to practise your dating skills?’
    Grace had been brave enough to tell him about her life. Roland guessed he owed it to her to be brave back. ‘I assume Bella didn’t tell you?’
    â€˜Tell me what?’
    â€˜That my wife was killed in a car accident nearly two years ago—a year before I moved in here.’
    She reached across the table and took his hand briefly, squeezing it gently for just long enough to convey sympathy, then letting his hand go before the contact dissolved into pity. ‘I didn’t know her, and it’s a horrible cliché, but I’m really sorry you had to go through losing someone you loved like that.’
    â€˜It was hard,’ he said. ‘And I miss Lynette. A lot.’ Mostly. Apart from the one sticking point in their marriage—the thing that had made him jump at the chance to get away for a few days and be rid of all the pressure. And he still felt guilty about it, even though he knew that the accident hadn’t been his fault. But part of him still felt that if he’d been here instead of a couple of thousand miles away, maybe Lynette wouldn’t have gone out in the car, and she wouldn’t have been hit by the drunk driver. Or, even if the accident had still happened, at least he would’ve been by her side when she’d died, later that night.
    He pushed the thought away. ‘But missing her won’t bring her back—and there isn’t such a thing as a time machine, so I can’t go back and change the past. Though, if I could, I’d stop the other driver from guzzling her way through a bottle of wine and several cocktails and then getting behind the wheel of her car.’
    * * *
    Now Grace understoodwhy Roland didn’t drink—and why his house was immaculate but didn’t feel quite like a home. Because he’d lost the love of his life to the selfish actions of a drunk driver. ‘That’s so sad,’ she said.
    He said nothing, but gave a small nod of acknowledgement.
    â€˜But I still don’t get why you’re asking me to help you practise your dating skills.’
    He reached across the table and took her hand, then drew it up to his mouth and pressed a kiss into her palm.
    And Grace tingled all over. Nobody had ever kissed her hand like that before.
    â€˜My friends,’ he said, ‘and my family have tried to find me someone suitable to heal my broken heart.’
    â€˜Too soon?’
    â€˜Partly,’ he agreed. ‘But I know Lyn wouldn’t have wanted me to spend the rest of my life on my own, mourning her. She would’ve wanted me to share my life with someone who loves me as much as she did.’
    For a moment, a shadow crossed his expression. It was gone before she could be sure it was there. Maybe she’d imagined it, because hadn’t he just