Fairytale Come Alive (Ghosts and Reincarnation #4)(5)

By some miracle, Dougal had come away unscathed except for a few cuts and bruises.

Annie had not fared so well.

In fact, for two days, it was touch and go if she would survive.

Isabella’s father forbade her to return to Scotland to be with her friend.

It nearly killed her to be away from Annie and Prentice and Dougal.

But she didn’t disobey her father.

Something happened while Annie fought for her life. Not only did Fergus blame Dougal and Annie’s mother, Clarissa (who was divorced from Fergus and still lived in Chicago but she flew to Scotland when Annie was injured) blamed Dougal, but also Dougal blamed himself.

The minute Annie was stable; Fergus had her moved to a hospital in Edinburgh. The minute Annie was able; Clarissa had her flown home to do her rehabilitation.

Annie did everything she could within her limited power at the time to convince everyone that Dougal wasn’t at fault (and she failed).

However, she didn’t do anything to try to convince Dougal she still loved him.

Her face had been scarred, quite badly.

And her body…

It didn’t bear thinking about.

One day when Isabella had taken her to rehab, on the way home, Isabella had gently tried to find a way through Annie’s disheartening stubbornness.

“Really, Bella, do you think Dougal, Dougal, should be saddled with me? Like this?” She pointed to her face then lifted up her weakened arm and jiggled it, before she dropped it and looked out the window. “He’s a Scottish god. He’s the best looking man I’ve ever laid eyes on. He should marry a supermodel, not a freak show.”

“Annie –” Isabella tried, her already broken heart splintering.

“Shut it!” Annie had snapped, her tone nasty, something, at that time, Isabella was used to. Since the accident, Annie had been nasty, very nasty and very often, to everyone including (and especially) Isabella. “I don’t want to talk about it.” She paused for emphasis then finished, “Ever.”

Being a coward, Isabella didn’t bring it up again.

However, two years ago, Annie had had to go back to Scotland. Fergus was ill and he needed his daughter.

Unsurprisingly, Annie had run into Dougal.

She’d had plastic surgeries (three of them) and the scarring had been significantly diminished (but there was still some minor disfigurement). She’d gained back the full use of her arm but, when she grew tired, her gait would weaken and she’d walk with a slight limp.

Miraculously, with a good deal of patience exhibited by Isabella, Mikey, Clarissa and Fergus, Annie had also regained her zest for life and her sense of humor (but, unfortunately, she’d kept her stubbornness).

Dougal, Annie reported to Isabella, was ravaged by the very sight of her and did anything he could to avoid her and did it spectacularly well, much to Annie’s dismay. Although she never said this, Isabella knew it to be true by the sheer amount of time Annie spent talking about it.

In the intervening years, Dougal had been married and divorced.

The divorce, Annie found out (much later), was because the woman he married hadn’t been Annie.

Within months, with Isabella’s subtle guidance during Annie’s many telephone calls which centered mostly on Dougal and the lack of times she’d run into him, which she found increasingly frustrating since she was spending any time away from her father in the attempt to run into Dougal but telling herself she was doing errands or the like, Annie had decided to win him back.

This was an effort doomed to fail.

Dougal, evidently, could be stubborn too.

Heartbreak, it was Isabella’s vast experience, did that to you.

Fortunately for Annie (distressingly for Isabella, though she never said a word, and Annie did her best to be gentle whenever she mentioned it), Annie recruited Prentice and his wife, Fiona.

Four years after Isabella left, Prentice had married Fiona Sawyer.

Isabella knew Fiona and she liked her a great deal. Fiona was pretty and lively and very, very funny. They’d been friends and Fiona often spent time with Annie and Isabella or, with Fiona’s boyfriend Scott, they’d be a threesome going to movies or the pub or to the beach to build a fire and sit in the sand and snog.

Scott and Fiona, obviously, had broken up.

Prentice and Fiona had two children, Jason and Sally and, according to Annie, Fiona had not lost any of her spirited liveliness.

Isabella was glad to hear that, as much as it killed her. Prentice deserved that.

Prentice deserved everything.

With Prentice and Fiona in the mix, Dougal didn’t stand a chance.

And the Scottish romantic fairytale came alive, which would, this week, end in happily ever after.

Unfortunately, Prentice and Fiona’s romantic fairytale was not to be that long-lasting. After Fiona complained of headaches she’d been diagnosed with a brain tumor and, shockingly to everyone (most especially Prentice, for obvious reasons) she’d been dead within months.

That was a year, one month, three weeks and four days ago.

Fiona didn’t live to see her two friends blissfully wed in a week’s worth of festivities to celebrate the happy ending it took twenty years to come about.

And Prentice was a widower with two motherless children facing a week’s worth of festivities as best man to his best friend whilst the girlfriend who’d heartlessly jilted him was maid of honor.