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She and Oliver hadn’t had proper sex for a month since she’d come off the pill. She was so looking forward to tonight. And maybe if she was truly blessed she’d conceive a honeymoon baby as well. Oliver was so virile she might even have twins, she thought happily, giving him a little smile and a wink.
    Sex with Oliver was good, better than she’d ever had with her ex, in all the on and off years she’d been with him, that was for sure, and she’d swear better than Rita or Maura ever had with those two little fat frogs who were stuffing their faces with bread rolls as they waited for the next course to be served.
    Noreen knew that until she’d made the surprise announcement of her engagement, the shoe had been on the other foot and her younger sisters had looked down their noses at her and thought she was a dried-up old spinster with no life of her own. That was all changed now, she thought grimly. And how. When their mother had suffered a stroke, they’d more or less told her that she was Noreen’s responsibility, her being a nurse and unmarried with, as they saw it, no responsibilities.
    Noreen sighed. It was really the fact that she was a nurse that had been her undoing in terms of standing up for herself in that particular situation. Normally she was pretty good at standing her ground, she acknowledged wryly. She’d felt duty bound to come home from London, where she’d lived for the past ten years, and nurse her mother. She’d liked London. No one knew her. There were no prying, nosy neighbours or superior younger sisters to ask when was she going to give everyone a day out? No one knew about her life in London or knew what a disaster her personal life had been. She bit her lip at the memory of Pete McMullen and a sadness darkened her eyes.
    Stop it! Such nonsense at your own wedding. Oliver’s a thousand times the man that shit ever was, she chastised herself. Don’t even go there! Noreen sat up straight and surveyed her guests once again. There was a lively hum of chatter and laughter and the clink of cutlery against china. People seemed to be enjoying themselves. The Lake View had a deservedly good name for wedding receptions.
    She heard Oliver’s Aunt Ellie laughing at something the priest had just said. Ellie was a good old stick, stepping into the breach to look after that old rip of a termagant that was now her mother-in-law. Noreen’s mouth tightened. Cora Flynn had done nothing but put obstacles in her way ever since she’d begun dating Oliver, but Noreen hadn’t thought for one second that she would pull a stunt so low as to pretend to be ailing, to try and stop Oliver and herself from going on honeymoon. And as for not coming to the wedding, personally, Noreen was delighted but she felt it for Oliver. It was a real slap in the face for him. He’d been so good to her, the old bat. You’d think that she’d be delighted he was getting married and not going to end up a lonely old bachelor with no one to take care of him.
    Cora was a different kettle of fish from her own mother. Nuala Lynch had been a kind, quiet woman, who’d let her husband Tom bully and boss her. Tom had tried to bully and boss them all, but he hadn’t got far with her, Noreen thought with satisfaction. She’d always given as good as she got and consequently her father had no time for her.
    Tom had died drunk behind the wheel of his car, when it had gone out of control and hit a tree at high speed. Noreen certainly hadn’t mourned him and she’d actually been glad for her mother, who after an initial period of adjustment had come out of her shell and begun to enjoy a whole new lease of life freed from the bullying and bad treatment that had been the bondage of her ‘for better or worse’ marriage.
    Nuala had joined the local women’s guild and the bowling club and, with no one to cook and care for apart from herself, for the first