Everyone SMILES BACK

Would she ever feel a connection with the traditions he held so dear?

- Maria McAvoy

As Grace walked into the kitchen she heard Jorge laughing with his grandparents.

He glanced up and smiled warmly when he saw her. ‘Morning,’ he said. ‘Coffee?’

‘Yes please.’

His grandparents, Diego and Consuela, murmured polite greetings as she sat down, but Grace was acutely aware that the laughter had died with her entrance.

‘Did you sleep well?’ asked Jorge.

‘Mmm.’ She met his gaze, longing to be home in their little flat in Cumbria, where he’d be in nothing but pyjama bottoms. But she fully understood his sheepish request that they sleep in separate rooms while staying with his grandparents. The same thing would probably have happened if her own grandmother had been alive and she and Jorge had stayed overnight in Gran’s little terraced house.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said, looking at the remains of breakfast on the table. ‘Did I oversleep?’

‘Not at all,’ Jorge assured her, lightly touching her shoulder as he fetched her some coffee.

Still Grace felt as if she had interrupted something. But then she had felt out of place since arriving in Guatemala. While Diego and Consuela had been nothing but polite, Grace was pretty sure that they’d have preferred to have their grandson to themselves.

She suspected, too, that Jorge had yet to tell them he had asked her to marry him. Or maybe he was just waiting till he had her final answer?

‘Do you have plans for today?’ Jorge placed her coffee on the table in front of her and sat down.

She glanced up quickly. ‘I’d hoped we could do something together?’ she said.