by Lynne Graham
She certainly didn’t love him now!
‘Damn it, I think I need one of those!’ Noel rasped at her continued silence, moving to the drinks tray to pour himself a glass of brandy, and then drinking it down in one swallow.
Cally looked at him, still bewildered, not really sure what to say to him. But it appeared she needn’t say anything yet; Noel hadn’t finished what he wanted to say!
‘Thirty-six years it’s taken me to find the woman I love and want to marry,’ he ground out harshly. ‘And she’s in love with a man who has been dead for over a year!’ He shook his head in self-derision. ‘How stupid can I be?’ he snarled. ‘You—’
‘Whoa,’ Cally squeaked breathlessly. ‘Could you go back a couple of sentences?’
‘To where?’ Noel rasped. ‘To the fact that you’re in love with—’
‘No!’ she cut in excitedly, getting slowly to her feet as she stared at him in disbelief. ‘The bit about the woman you love and want to marry,’ she prompted as he scowled at her.
‘You.’ He nodded impatiently. ‘Cally, from what Jane Shaw told me of her ex-husband, the man was a womanizer and adulterer long before you even became involved with him. And he continued to be so until the day Jane Shaw left him three years later and took her children with her!’ he added contemptuously.
‘Jane left him...?’ Cally repeated in shock.
‘Three years after his relationship with you.’ Noel nodded tersely. ‘What is it, Cally? Thinking of all the time you could have been with him if you had known—?’
‘Noel, shut up,’ she gently interrupted him, crossing the room to stand in front of him, her gaze steady as she looked up at him. ‘I don’t love Michael, not now, not then,’ she told him succinctly. ‘I cried just now because—it was relief, Noel. Relief! I know it’s selfish of me, but now I need never worry about him trying to take Lissa from me,’ she said simply. ‘I didn’t know Michael was married when I met him, was flattered by his attention. I was only eighteen, Noel, I didn’t even know what real love was at that age; I doubt that many people do. I do know that Michael could be vindictive, and that if he had learnt of Lissa’s existence—!’ She shook her head. ‘I was worried you might think I should have told him about Lissa’s birth.’
‘You’re saying he would have tried to make some sort of claim on her?’ Noel guessed harshly. ‘He would have had to come through me first!’ he assured her grimly. ‘And you made the decision you thought was best for you and Lissa. I would have supported you whatever had happened.’
Cally smiled. ‘I didn’t know what love was then—but I do now,’ she said huskily, reaching up to tentatively touch the hardness of his jaw. ‘Noel, you’re the first, and only man I’ve ever loved,’ she murmured, her breath catching in her throat as she waited for his response to her declaration.
He continued to look down at her unmovingly for several stunned moments, and then the frown cleared from his brow, his eyes blazing deeply blue as he reached out to grasp her arms. ‘Do you really mean that?’ he finally choked out.
Cally gave a radiant smile. ‘Oh, yes.’ She nodded with certainty.
‘And you’ll marry me?’ he pushed forcefully.
Cally swallowed hard, not sure she could quite believe this was really happening. ‘Lissa—’
‘Already has me, and every other member of my family, firmly wrapped about her adorable little finger,’ Noel assured her warmly. ‘Any other reservations?’
Maybe one or two! But none of them really seemed to matter if Noel loved her and wanted to marry her! Except, perhaps one...
‘What is it?’ Noel asked concernedly as he saw her frown.
She drew in a deep breath before answering. ‘Carol.’
‘Hmm.’ The frown settled back on his own brow at the mention of his ex-fiancée. ‘That could be a little harder to explain...’
Cally blinked. ‘Because you still love her?’
‘No—because I never did.’ He sighed. ‘Cally, don’t look at me like that!’ He groaned as her eyes widened incredulously. ‘The reason this is hard is because—even though I didn’t love her, I don’t want to be ungentlemanly.’
Cally thought back over the last few days, of Noel saying his mother was looking forward to being a grandmother soon, of Hester’s own comments on the same subject—and everything became suddenly clear.
She looked up at Noel with shadowed eyes. ‘You were going to marry her because you thought she was pregnant,’ she said hollowly.
‘Yes! No!’ He gave a pained grimace. ‘Yes...’ he acknowledged heavily as she continued to look at him. ‘That day two months ago, when I asked if you would have dinner with me, I knew then how attracted I was to you, but—by sheer coincidence Carol came to see me later that afternoon,’ he recalled bleakly. ‘She said she was pregnant. That the baby was mine. We had been involved, briefly, a few weeks earlier, so I had no reason to doubt her. I wasn’t in love with her, but if the baby was mine... That’s the reason I didn’t call you as I had said I would.’
‘Oh, Noel!’ Cally sighed, moving forward to rest her cheek against the hardness of his chest, loving him more than ever; Noel had been going to do the honourable thing Michael would never have dreamt of doing in the same circumstances.
‘She’s the sister of an old school acquaintance.’ He began to talk. ‘We met quite accidentally, at a party, and once we both realized that I knew her brother Sean, we spent the rest of the evening together. He and I weren’t close friends, you have to understand, but we knew each other enough for Carol and I to exchange anecdotes about schooldays.’ He gave a humourless smile. ‘We went out together for a couple of weeks, nothing serious—or so I thought!—just having fun. I’m not an angel, Cally—’ he looked down at her openly ‘—but in my defence, I really thought that we both looked on our friendship in the same way.’
‘Until she told you she was pregnant,’ Cally stated evenly.
‘Yes.’
‘And was she?’
‘No,’ he bit out abruptly. ‘She wanted a quick wedding. I wanted to wait until my family were over here for Christmas. I couldn’t see what difference it made whether she was six weeks pregnant or ten.’ He gave a shake of his head. ‘Obviously it mattered to Carol—because she wasn’t pregnant at all, had just decided, for some reason, that being my wife was what she wanted.’
Cally shook her head at his naïvety; Noel was rich, handsome and charming—but most of all rich. It was the oldest trick in the book, of course; Noel was just too sincere and up front himself to have seen it that way. But Cally certainly didn’t think less of him for what had happened; in fact, she just loved him more!
‘What happened next?’ she enquired gently.
He drew in a harsh breath. ‘I invited my family over for Christmas so that they could meet Carol. We would get a licence and be married at New Year. But Mrs McTavish fell over and broke her arm. For which I will be eternally grateful!’ he added forcefully.
‘I beg your pardon?’ Cally gave a choked laugh as she raised her head to look up at him. ‘What does Mrs McTavish have to do with anything?’
‘Sounds incredible, doesn’t it?’ Noel allowed ruefully. ‘But with Mrs. McTavish out of action, and my family due to arrive anyway—’
‘It was left to Carol to arrange Christmas!’ Cally realized knowingly. ‘She didn’t want to do it,’ she guessed.
Noel’s brow rose. ‘Didn’t want to do it. Had no intention of doing it. Didn’t see why a man in my position couldn’t get himself a new housekeeper. In fact, Carol didn’t want to spend Christmas here at all, and fancied going to Canada skiing instead. Something that I didn’t think was a good idea when she was pregnant. Her exact words when I insisted we stay here were, “If this is what being your wife is going to be like, being nothing more than a skivvy”,’ he mimicked, ‘“then I would rather
not bother, thank you very much!”’ He paused, his face pale now. ‘For good measure, she admitted that there was no baby. There had never been a baby. And if she had her way, there never would be a baby!’
Cally closed her eyes as she could easily visualize his pain at being told these things. One thing she now knew about Noel—and which Carol had obviously realized too!—was that, despite what Cally had accused him of two days ago, he was very family oriented. He was also very aware of his responsibilities, and would have seen Carol’s baby—his child—as his prime responsibility. Even if that had entailed marrying a woman he wasn’t actually in love with.
Which made him so much more a better person than Michael could ever have been.
As if she had needed any convincing of that!
She smiled up at him indulgently. ‘I can see, my love, that you need someone to look after you—possibly two someones,’ she teased.
‘You and Lissa?’ he said hopefully.
‘Me and Lissa.’ She nodded.
‘How do you think Lissa will react to that?’ he voiced his concern. ‘There’s only been the two of you for so long.’
Cally smiled confidently. ‘I think having you as her daddy is going to make the dolly she’s been wanting for Christmas for so long fade into insignificance.’
Noel gave a relieved smile. ‘And how about you?’
Her smile became mischievous. ‘Well I don’t want you as my daddy—’
‘Idiot!’ His arms closed about her possessively. ‘How will you like having a husband?’
A husband. Something she had never, ever dreamt of having. Until Noel.
Her eyes glowed confidently as she looked up at him. ‘As long as it’s you, I’m going to love it!’ she assured him.
‘Oh, it’s going to be me,’ he said with certainty, holding her tightly against him. ‘I love you, Cally Turner.’
‘I love you too, Noel Carlton,’ she responded emotionally.
What a wonderful, wonderful Christmas this was going to be, after all.
What a wonderful life they were going to have. Together...
* * * * *
A Bride for Christmas
Marion Lennox
Contents
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER ONE
‘TELL me again why I’ve bought this wedding salon.’ Guy Carver was approaching Sandpiper Bay with dismay. ‘You didn’t say this place was a hundred miles from nowhere.’
‘You want to expand.’ On the line from Manhattan, Guy’s partner sounded unperturbed. ‘Sandpiper Bay makes more sense than any other place in Australia. I told you...’
‘You told me what?’
‘It has the world’s best surf,’ Malcolm said patiently. ‘It’s surrounded by arguably the world’s loveliest National Park, and half Hollywood owns property at Sandpiper Bay. Where are you now?’
‘On the outskirts. It looks...’
‘Don’t judge until you see the town. Even my wife thinks Sandpiper Bay is great. She’s furious you’re doing the planning and not me.’
‘As if you could plan a Carver Salon.’
‘What’s there to plan?’ Malcolm demanded. ‘Order a lake of ice-grey paint, give the widow a paintbrush and take a few days off.’
‘I don’t have time for a few days off,’ Guy snapped, irritated by his partner’s cheerfulness. ‘I need to be back in New York on the twenty-sixth for the Film Conglomerate do.’
‘We can handle Conglomerate with our hands tied. Spend Christmas on the beach.’
‘Or not.’ Christmas was a wasted day as far as Guy was concerned, and he had better things to do than surf. This year he’d timed this trip deliberately so he’d be flying home on Christmas Day. Christmas mid-air would get him as far away as was possible from useless sentiment.
He’d joined the coast road now, and he had to admit the place did look spectacular. Sandpiper Bay appeared to be a tiny coastal village bordering a shimmering sapphire sea, with rolling mountains beyond.
‘So what am I looking for?’ he demanded of Malcolm.
‘A shopfront on the beachfront shopping strip. It’s called Bridal Fluff.’
‘Bridal Fluff?’ He didn’t explode. His voice just grew very calm. ‘Did I hear right?’
‘Sure did. The ex-owner’s one Jenny Westmere. Widow. Apart from her dubious taste in naming her salon, she sounds competent. We’ve offered her twelve months’ salary to make the transition easier.’
‘There can’t be a transition from Fluff to a Carver Bridal Salon,’ he said grimly. ‘I’ll gut the place.’
He was turning into the main street now, and what he saw made him blanch. Bridal Fluff was indeed...fluff. The shopfront was pastel pink. The curtains in the windows looked like billowing white clouds, held back with pink and silver tassels. A Christmas tree stood in the window, festooned with pink and silver baubles, and a white fluffy angel smiling seraphically down on passers-by. The name of the shop was picked out in deeper pink, gold and silver. ‘What the...?’
‘Don’t judge a book by its cover,’ Malcolm said hastily, guessing what he was seeing. ‘We don’t need to give this woman any organisational role. We’re just keeping her on the payroll to keep the locals happy. Every other salon we’ve acquired, the previous owner has been so chuffed to be associated with the Carver salon that the takeover’s been a piece of cake. The bottom line is money. I’ve checked the books. I said it was a good buy and I meant it.’
‘And if it’s not...?’
‘If it’s not we’ll just have to wear it.’
Malcolm had worked with Guy for years. Guy’s reputation for dazzling event management left everyone he worked with stunned, but his personal reputation was for being aloof. Malcolm’s cheerful nature, combined with a brash business acumen that matched Guy’s, made them a formidable team. Together they’d built the Carver empire into the most lucrative events management chain in the world.
‘No need to fret,’ Malcolm was saying now, all breezy certainty. ‘You and Mrs Westmere will get on like a house on fire.’
‘Mrs Westmere?’
‘Jennifer Westmere. I told you. The widow.’
‘Great,’ Guy muttered, pulling into a parking lot by the pink door. ‘Middle-aged, frumpy and dressed in pink?’
‘Nah,’ Malcolm said, though he was starting to sound uneasy. ‘The reports I have say she’s young. Twenty-eight.’
‘And I’m stuck with her?’
‘The contract stipulates twelve months’ employment.’
‘I’ll buy her out,’ Guy said grimly. ‘I should have stuck to Manhattan and Paris and London. I understand weddings there.’
‘Then we’d miss out.’ Malcolm cheered up again. ‘Now you’re expanding the Carver Salons worldwide, it’s time we moved into Australia. Sandpiper Bay’s more hip than Sydney or Melbourne. There’s a huge buzz about the Carver Salons expanding. So go meet the lady with the pink fuzz. Make friends.’
‘Not even close,’ Guy muttered as pulled his car to a halt and finished the conversation. ‘Friends? As if.’
* * *
JENNY WAS KNEELING on the floor and tackling about a hundred yards of hemline when he walked in. It was the fourth time she’d been around this hem. The dressmaker had thrown her hands up in horror, and now Jenny was left holding the baby. So to speak.
‘I know it’s not right,’ the bride’s mother was saying. ‘We practised last night, and as she swept up the aisle I was sure the left side was longer than the right. Or was it the right lon
ger than the left? Anyway, I knew you’d want to check. It has to be perfect.’
‘Mmphf,’ Jenny mumbled through pins, and then the door swung open.
Guy Carver.
This man’s weddings were known throughout the world. He was known throughout the world. The phone call to Jenny offering to buy her premises had left her poleaxed.
‘But why?’ she’d stammered, and the man handling the deal for Guy had given her an honest answer.
‘Eight of the ten most prestigious weddings in Australia have been held within ten miles of Sandpiper Bay in the last two years,’ Malcolm had told her bluntly. ‘There’s a caveat on new businesses in what’s essentially a historic commercial district. Setting up a business from scratch would be complex. Our people have checked your premises. Your building is big enough for us, and you already have a reputation for providing service. We’ll do the rest. If you’re at all interested, then we just need to settle on a price.’
She’d named a figure that had seemed crazy. Ten minutes later the deal had been sealed.
Jenny had replaced the receiver, stunned.
‘It’s more money than I ever dreamed possible,’ she’d told her mother-in-law, and when Lorna had heard how much she’d gasped.
‘That’s wonderful. You’ll be able to buy Henry whatever he needs.’
‘I will.’ Jenny smiled her delight. Even Lorna didn’t know the depths of her despair at not being able to provide Henry with optimal medical treatment.
‘But what will you do with yourself?’
‘That’s just it. They’re offering me a job, doing what I’m doing now, only on a salary. Twelve months’ paid work, with the possibility of extending it. Holidays,’ she said dreamily. ‘Sick pay. Regular income with no bad debts.’
‘And Guy Carver as your boss? Working with someone the glossies describe as one of the world’s sexiest men?’
They’d grinned at each other like fools at that—a twenty-eight-year-old widow and her sixty-year-old mother-in-law letting their hormones have their head for one wonderful moment—and then they’d put their hormones away and thought seriously about what it entailed.
