Authors Notes: This is a bonus chapter that I wrote last night and finished this morning because it was my way of dealing with a demolition job that someone saw fit to send me, anonymous of course, but then aren't spiteful people always anonymous? Thank you from the bottom of my heart to all the people who sent me reviews saying lovely things about this story, and to the FB group who were so supportive last night when I was doing my muppet bit, but however hard we try to forget them we always remember the bad things people say don't we?

I know some folks would say you have to be able to take criticism when you put yourself out there, and I'm sure that's right, but if you don't like something then just don't read it, or as my mum always said, if you can't say anything nice, say nothing. I decided to do the one thing that would help me the most, which was to write something and publish it straight away; otherwise I think I might possibly have given up.

"So, what have pot plants gotta do with the price of fish?"

"No, Nan, nothing at all really, sorry, I were just saying that we don't have to get married or nothing, that we wanna get married"

Molly couldn't help giggling, wondering whether she should remind Nan of their previous conversation on the subject of Charles and her and them being together and then decided it probably wasn't really for the best to go over old ground and to keep her gob shut "I just meant that I'm not pregnant, we're gonna get married cos I love him and he loves me and we wanna be together"

"Well, I thought you was living together already, although it ain't been that long 'as it? just a few months and you think on young lady, you just remember that he's been round the block before and I'm bleeding sure that he told her that he loved her and that he wanted them to be married and for them to be together for ever, and see where things are now"

"Nan, you're saying that like he were the one what decided to leave, but he was off fighting in a bloody war at the time, you know doing dangerous stuff in the army" Molly had her fingers firmly crossed in the back pockets of her jeans "And then his wife went and had a kid by some other bloke and she's living in Canada with him now, got married again, and they've taken Charles' little boy with them, which is breaking his heart, so can't you be nice just for once? And you don't have to tell him that I've told you all that neither" Molly knew that Charles would be mortified if he could hear her turning him into a victim of some sort by bending the timeline more than somewhat but needs must …. as Nan had told her on a million different occasions.

"Well, I suppose there aint gonna be much I can say that would stop you anyhow, is there? You're just like me when you decide on summat" She shook her head as Molly thought God forbid, before her grandmother went on "Just tell me that he's a good 'un and I'll try me very best, can't say any fairer than that, now can I?"

"Of course he is Nan, thank you, thank you, you'll love him when you get to know him"

"He's easy on the eye, I'll give you that, and as you know, Molls, I quite like blokes with pretty faces, that bloke I should of married, not yer granddad, now he had a pretty face …"

Molly knew that that was as close as she was ever going to get to any sort of apology or climb down from her grandmother and that it was probably best to shut up now and let it go. A wedding without Nan making her usual caustic comments about everybody and everything was something she didn't want to even think about but she also knew that Nan would be nice to Charles from now on, well, in her own peculiar way, and would be the first to jump to his defence if anyone had a pop at him. Her mum and dad would be fine, her dad wouldn't care very much who she married as long as it didn't cost him anything and her mum seemed to quite like Charles, as far as she was concerned he was good looking, clean, nice and polite, a proper gent, and most important of all, he had a bob or two in the bank. That alone made him perfect as far as Belinda was concerned, she had spent more than enough of her life with a bloke who thought you could keep house and bring up your kids on bleeding promises and fresh air.

-OG-

"I don't want to be difficult or anything and I promise you that I'm not being a drama queen, but why the fuck didn't you tell me that both your sisters are titchy and micro fairy sized like you and that I was gonna stick out like a frigging totem pole walking down the aisle with three of you?"

"Are you bloody whinging again? And you're always a drama queen, it's one of the things I love about you" Molly patted Grace's arm "They're me bleeding sisters so course we're all gonna be the same sort of height, aren't we? 'n I've already changed the colours so that you didn't have to wear yellow, bloody fussy Yank, I mean Jade told me she hated the pink you chose, but I told her she'd have to bleeding well put up with it"

"Yes, but she's your sister, she has to put up with it"

"Gracie, do me a huge favour, will you? cos I'm already all bloody stressed here"

"What?"

"Shut the fuck up"

"You know, your language has really gone down the john since you got with Captain Gorgeous"

"I think you might find it's the other way round actually, that his has gone down the bog since he got with me, or have you forgotten the me from before? Cos I think I'm a lot better now since I got with him"

"I hadn't noticed"

"You gonna stop whinging and tell me about Josef and why the fuck he's not here? I thought he was going to take some time off and let us see whether he's good enough for you, sort of dummy run for meeting your mum"

"Yes well, I don't think he's gonna be round long enough to meet my mom, it's not going that well to be honest"

"Really? Oh shit"

"That pretty much describes it" Grace took a deep breath and wiped a suspicious bit of moisture from under her eyes "Don't worry Molly, I won't freak and start shouting 'this should of been me' when you're walking down the aisle"

"You'd better not, not if you wanna live" Molly put her arm round her friend and squeezed "And hotels don't have aisles, well not in England they don't"

"Whatever"

"Hey are we allowed to slag him off yet, cos I never thought he was good enough for you anyhow, wanker"

"You've never met him"

"Saw his picture though didn't I? He's got squinty eyes, I don't trust blokes with piggy eyes"

"The sun was in his eyes"

"Hey, tell you what Gracie" Molly decided to ignore the issue of Josef's eyes and the sun "There'll be loads of army blokes there tomorrow, friends of Charles, so you can fill your boots, can't you? be a bit of a bonus, cos then you can go home saying "Josef? Who the fuck is he?"

Grace had started to giggle despite the fact that she was still a bit upset. She wasn't ready to listen to the worst of 'brand Molly' insults yet, or for her suggestions for a solution to heartache which she knew would include sinking a whole lot of booze and some behaviour that her mother definitely wouldn't approve of. Grace had thought that Joey could be the one, that it would be her turn soon for wedding bells, even if the thought of introducing him to her mother had filled her with cold dread. Josef would certainly not be her mom's idea of Prince Charming, and now that they were on the 'outs' she was beginning to wonder whether that had been part of his attraction for her.

"What, you think I'm shallow do you?"

"Nah … well yeah …. nah, course not, you're normal, you're just like me"

"Shit"

-OG-

"How do I look" Molly twirled in front of her mirror as her three bridesmaids watched her.

"Okay, you look okay" "You look good"

Her sisters spoke at once, both following the usual Dawes family habit of understated responses, it was as if they all, Molly included, were on some sort of mission to make sure no-one ever got too big-headed or carried away with themselves.

Grace looked at them both, her eyebrows shooting upwards in disbelief at the casual tone of what she'd just heard.

"You look frigging gorgeous, I hate you" Molly and Grace both giggled "You know what? he's gonna have a heart attack when he sees you"

"Shit, hope not, I'd quite like him to stick around for a bit" Molly turned back to look at herself in the mirror and caught Grace's eye "Long way from bleeding Turkey innit?"

"Well, I don't want to say "told you so' but I did, didn't I? Over and over. All that brooding moodiness when you wouldn't put that frigging vest on and the way you kept calling him Rambo. I could see it a mile off, the way the two of you looked at each other and I remember telling you, but you just kept on saying that he didn't make your bits twitch"

"Alright, smartarse" Molly pulled a warning face at Grace and shot an anxious and somewhat embarrassed glance at Jade and Bella, it was one thing talking about your sex life to a mate, but another thing entirely to do it in front of your little sisters, even if they most probably had more varied and experienced sex lives than you did.

-OG-

"You look bloody amazing, Mrs. James, absolutely beautiful, or have I told you that already?"

"Once or twice, but don't let that stop you saying it again though will you?"

"You look beautiful; I can't believe how lucky I am"

"Are you fishing for compliments?" She giggled "Cos you bloody know that I'm the lucky one, that you're known as Captain Gorgeous"

"Only by you, and you didn't think that when you first met me, did you?"

"You didn't think much of me neither"

"Didn't I? Actually, I thought you were bloody gorgeous, bit of a challenge of course"

"Am I still?"

"What gorgeous? Bloody right you are"

"Nah, a bit of a challenge"

"Nope" he held her away at arm's length and grinned at her, his face a mask of happiness "Why? Do you want to be?"

"No"

"How soon do you reckon we can get out of here? We've spoken to everyone, we've had photos taken, cut the cake, drunk too much champagne, been nice to people we don't really like and I want to go to bed with my wife ….. now"

"Well you can't, not just yet" Molly put her hand up and stroked his cheek gently, basking in the expression in his brown eyes "Anyhow, waiting out is good for you"

"Who says?"

"Come on, let's go and get Sammie and we can walk round with him, make sure we've introduced him to everyone"

Charles' parents had made the trip to Ottawa to collect their grandson and bring him over for his father's wedding; an action that had made Molly love them even more than she already did if that was even possible. She'd been very nervous before she'd met them, absolutely sure that they'd look down on her because of how posh they were, but they'd made a surprise visit to Shamley Green one Saturday afternoon, just turned up out of the blue when Charles had been on a duty weekend so wasn't at home, but they didn't seem to mind that he wasn't there. They'd been bearing housewarming gifts and a big bunch of flowers, huge smiles and hugs and vegetables from their garden and had kept on saying how happy they were that Charles was happy, especially his mum, who was pretty tight lipped on the subject of Rebecca. When she and Charles had visited Bath, and had stayed in a house that was designed to make anyone totally awestruck, although she'd privately thought she wouldn't like to have to clean it, Molly had found out that Charles' mum hated his first wife with an absolute passion.

Sam was going back to Bath with his grandparents after the wedding was over, but just for a couple of days, and then he was coming back to Shambles Green for a week before they took him home and spent a week in Canada on a sort of delayed honeymoon.

"Your Nan's being remarkably nice; it's beginning to worry me a bit"

"Nah, don't worry about it, told you she'd come round given a bit of time, didn't I?"

Shit, Molly knew she should have warned Nan not to overdo the 'being nice' bit, although Nan being Nan she probably wouldn't have taken any notice of anything Molly had said anyway, she was always a law unto herself.

"Couldn't have anything to do with something you've said to her, could it?"

"Me? Nah, don't think so, can't think of nothing"

Double shit, what the fuck had Nan been saying to him? Molly cast around frantically for a change of subject, she didn't want to start off her married life by telling her husband great big porkies, but she definitely wasn't going to tell him what she and Nan had talked about either.

"Did I tell you that Grace and that bloke of hers are on the skids, he's behaved like a total shit, so I sort of suggested that someone here, you know, one of your mates, could perhaps be a bit of therapy for her, Grace is very into therapy"

"Is that a euphemism?"

"Yes and no" Molly giggled "Grace is into all that self-help and therapy crap, but that wasn't quite what I was talking about"

"Mrs. James I'm shocked"

"Nah, you're not"

"No you're right, I'm not" He laughed "I'll see what I can do"

"No, you won't, not you, I weren't talking about you, muppet, you're mine and don't you bleeding well forget it"

"I know" He tossed his head back, then winked at her, face alight with happiness "Lucky, aren't I?