One Winter Weekend

Chapter 24

Chapter 24

S he tucked her bags safely away in her room and went down the street to a cosy restaurant that was just gearing up for the dinner rush. There were lots of other tourists out and about at this hour too, but Lucy had no trouble getting a small corner table and her dinner arrived quickly.

She had a little trouble choosing what to order—there were so many delicious things to choose from, and this would be her last dinner in Venice—but finally, she picked out fried crab and pasta with an anchovy and onion sauce. Fried doughnuts and strong coffee for dessert prepared her for the walk ahead of her, to find that cursed bridge.

Unfortunately, there was one small detail Lucy had overlooked in her planning: she couldn’t remember where, exactly, the bridge was located.

She had a map of Venice and she thought she knew the name of the area, but now she realised that she was somewhat off on the name. It hadn’t seemed important at the time—why would it be? She wasn’t planning on going back there—but now she belatedly realised that she had a bit of a search ahead of her.

It took the better part of an hour, but eventually, she had circled several possible bridges on the map and was methodically setting out to each one.

The first bridge was a bust; not only did it not bear any locks at all, it was made of solid stone whereas the one she wanted was wrought iron. Another had some padlocks on it, but it was so close to the busier tourist districts that Lucy was almost certain it couldn’t be the right one. Nonetheless, she checked each of the padlocks, wanting to be certain.

It was getting late now, and it was getting cold too. Lucy was discouraged, and she muttered under her breath as she marched to her last location. Stupid romantic ideas, stupid lock, stupid bridge in the middle of this stupid city… She thought she might start crying if she got mad enough, and she took a deep breath to calm down. It was just a symbolic thing, after all. Nothing to get all worked up about.

When she turned onto another street, suddenly she knew she was in the right spot. She walked to the middle of the bridge and gazed out over the quiet water. If she closed her eyes, she could picture it all: she and Dominic standing her under a snowy sky, their breath coming out in puffs, writing their initials on a lock and then locking it around one of the metal rails on the bridge. What a silly, romantic, yet lovely thing to do.

She opened her eyes and knelt in the fresh snow, feeling for the lock. There were a few on the bridge, and her fingers were getting cold when she found theirs. Feeling in her pocket for the key, she was about to unlock it when she heard footsteps crunching in the snow.

Lucy dropped the lock and stood up. A man was standing at the foot of the bridge, hesitating.

“Hello?” she called out cautiously.

“Lucy?”

Lucy froze to the spot. It can’t be! There’s no way…

But even while her brain was denying it, her eyes confirmed that Dominic was, indeed, standing in front of her now. He walked hesitantly onto the bridge, shoulders hunched up in his coat against the cold.