Excerpt of Marriage Lost and Found by Trish Wylie

"HAPPY birthday, Abbey."

It was approximately the twenty-fifth time she'd heard the words, but it was nice when they came from people who knew her so well. It made turning thirty not quite so bad.

It made turning thirty and having the party in the tiny town she'd once called home seem bearable. Just.

"My, my, sweetness, has the entire population of this tiny place turned out for you?" Karyn Jamieson, her closest friend from the city, leaned towards her. "Is there anyone who isn't related to everyone else here?"

Abbey smiled. "Not really. Welcome to small-town life."

"This place doesn't qualify as a town. A town has more than one main street, and there's a place name at either end of that street, not just the one end."

Karyn had driven up in the dark from Dublin and in the previous evening's dim light had driven right through the town before she'd even realized she was in it. That happened a lot when people visited Killyduff. In truth, the people of Killyduff quite liked it that way.

Outsiders were treated like escaped convicts, eyed with suspicion and questioned at every available moment. The Gestapo would have had nothing on the deadpan inquisitors of the inhabitants of Killyduff. Abbey knew that only too well. Karyn and a handful of other courageous souls made up a meagre group of friends from Dublin who had been brave enough to make the trip to be with her.

But still, a part of Abbey — a very small, carefully controlled part — would have missed not having her celebrations 'at home'. Not that she was likely to confess that fact to her mother in the current millennium. After all, she'd done a lot of her growing up here. It couldn't do any harm, on a momentous occasion such as a thirtieth birthday, to take a step back and remember where she'd come from. That didn't of course mean that she wasn't highly optimistic about her fortieth birthday being celebrated somewhere entirely more interesting.

She reached out and patted her friend's forearm. "One more day, pet, and then you can head back to civilization."

"Mmm." Karyn looked sceptical. "But at the first hint of me wearing anything vaguely tweed in origin I want you to shoot me."

Abbey laughed. The thought of Karyn in tweed was quite something. If it didn't come straight off the pages of a fashion magazine she wasn't interested. "I promise."

"Happy birthday, Abbey." Abbey smiled her best 'birthday smile' as she was hugged and kissed on the cheek by the local postman. She swapped pleasantries about how much she'd grown up and how the good life was treating her in the city. Then she turned back to her friend. "Promise me something in return?"

"Name it, birthday girl."

She leaned closer. "Promise me that next year we'll celebrate in Antigua."

Karyn's eyes sparkled. "From your mouth to God's ears, sweetie." She nudged her hard. "But maybe you should speak to the lovely Paul about that one."

Abbey's dark eyes swept across the room to Paul. He was every mother's dream for her daughter, and at that moment Abbey's mother was predictably glued to his side. Elizabeth Jackman adored him, in an almost hero- worshipping manner. Probably relieved her argumentative daughter had actually managed to find a man at all. But somehow, in his designer suit with his magazine-cover good looks, he seemed out of place in the tiny country hotel where all great Killyduff parties were held.

She smiled as he nodded across at her. He was just such a great guy. She kept telling herself that. A great guy, ideal for the new life she'd made for herself. Handsome, wealthy, successful, patient. Husband material.

The smile disappeared from her face when he looked away. So why did it feel as if there was still something missing?

She took a sip of her drink. "If Paul had his way it would be a honeymoon."

Karyn gasped. "He proposed?" 'I guess it's the next logical move, isn't it?" 'Have you accepted?" 'I'm thinking about it." Her friend's perceptive green eyes studied Abbey's face intently for several moments. "So why aren't you grinning like an idiot and making a big announcement about now? This would be the perfect place. Your mother would be thrilled."

Abbey thought for a moment, considered hiding behind the shadow of a small untruth and then decided to unburden instead. "I just don't know that I want to be married —" She hid her face in her glass to stop anything further from escaping her lips.

"You try really hard to hide behind this career-girl image, don't you?"

It crossed Abbey's mind that there were a great many larger things she hid.

"No. I believe in marriage, in partnership, in the whole spending a lifetime with one person. I really do."

"You're just not sure that someone is Paul." 'I should be." Her eyes flicked across the room to him again. "He's perfect."

"Obviously not." Karyn's eyes followed the same path. "Or you would have said yes by now."

"Maybe. Maybe I'm just not ready yet. What can I say?" She smiled ruefully at her friend again. "I'm screwed up."

"Hell, aren't we all?" They looked around the room for a few minutes before two more locals sidled up to say the obligatory, "Happy birthday, Abbey." Then Karyn pursed her lips before asking, "So what's missing?"

Seat-of-the-pants passion, that moment of heart-stopping recognition that it was the real thing?

That same experience she'd had once before. She knew the answers that jumped unbidden into her mind were heartfelt. It irritated her beyond words that she hadn't managed to retrain herself better in that department. She'd known what she wanted in a husband all too clearly back in the day.

She thought again about the letter she'd sent after so much inner debate. Would it have killed him to answer her? To set her free? To allow her to say 'yes' unconditionally to Paul, the great guy who was so suited to her new life?

"I don't know." 'You should have a fling. The down-and- dirty kind."

Abbey's eyebrows rose at the statement. "You think? And how would that help exactly?"

Karyn shrugged elegantly. "It would make you see if what you have with Paul is real. I'm telling you, some wee empty fling would soon put you back on track again. Like that guy I was telling you about earlier. The one I saw checking into the hotel."

Abbey knew who she meant. Karyn had gone on about him at heated length through dinner. Apparently he was a 'bit of all right'. Abbey knew that that meant he was brief-fling material in Karyn's eyes and very little else. Abbey, however, didn't have the time or the inclination for that. It wasn't in her long-term plan.

"You should have invited him along. At least if you were drooling over him, you'd be distracted from small-town life." And from Abbey's lack of commitment to an ideal man.

They both knew how easily distracted Karyn was by a hot male.

"I did." 'Well, when he arrives you can bring him to meet Paul." Her eyes sparkled. "We can do a comparison and if he looks like the kind of guy I should fall all over I'll just drop Paul like a hot potato."

Karyn noted the sarcasm in her words. She was perceptive that way. "Oh, I'll bet you will. We all adore you for that impulsive nature of yours."

They both smiled as Abbey began to move them in Paul's general direction. She leaned her head towards Karyn as they walked. "What can I say? When you have a plan the best way to make it work is to stick to it."

Paul's blue eyes sparkled at her over her mother's head as she approached. Without a word he stepped to one side and allowed her to fill the space beside him.

"Hey, gorgeous." 'Hey." She planted a kiss on his smoothly shaven cheek and smiled as she wiped the slight smear of lipstick she'd left behind. "Missing me?"

"Abigail, you've only been away from him for ten minutes." Her mother edged closer to his other side. "He's hardly had time to miss you."

And why would he when he had her vivacious mother for company? Being a teenager under the shadow of her gorgeous mother had been difficult at times, but now that she was older she had more confidence in herself. In theory.

Paul snaked his arm around Abbey's waist and drew her to his side. "How could I not have, Liz? She's as captivating company as her mother."

Abbey smiled up at him. He always said the right thing at the right time. It was what made him such a terrific negotiator in business.

"I just hope Abigail doesn't let you get away, Paul. That kind of devotion is rare in young men these days."

"And not in Alan, Mother?" She couldn't help herself. Abbey's mother's choice in a new beau still rankled. The man was ten years younger than her and way too smooth for Abbey's personal taste, but the simple fact was he wasn't her dad. And she still missed her dad. Every day.

Elizabeth bristled at her daughter's question, a spark in her pale eyes. "Darling, I think you already know I think Alan is perfect. And if any part of his character was imperfect, he has me to smooth it over, doesn't he?"

Of course he did. Lucky guy. Abbey actually felt a small pang of sympathy for him. Her mother knew exactly how to get what she wanted out of people. The gift of manipulation.

But then who was Abbey to criticize when it came to relationships? She already carried enough of a past to sink the Titanic...

The tall man watched the small group from across the crowded room. He felt...empty, when he'd expected to feel — what exactly? A sudden burst of emotion towards the woman he'd once been so involved with?

Maybe it had been too much to expect, after all. He hadn't realized how much he'd persuaded himself it would all make sense when he saw her.

But to have flown thousands of miles to this tiny Irish town to expect one person to piece the puzzle of the last eight years together was a stretch, wasn't it?

His hazel eyes blinked as he watched her interact with those around her. Watched as she moved closer to the fair- haired man's side, smiled up at him. His stomach twisted. He didn't like that scene much. But then if he'd been in her shoes, waiting around for someone to turn up for years, wouldn't he have moved on too? Ethan discovered that even though it made sense in his mind, it apparently didn't mean he'd like it much.

Interesting. Curious, but interesting.