by Lynne Graham
‘Does he have any idea what he’s letting himself in for?’ Lorna had demanded. ‘A country wedding salon...’
‘It won’t be a country salon for long. Currently the international jet-setters and the rich locals bring their own planners. Carver wants that business. I’m guessing most locals will stop being able to afford him.’
‘Just like the rest of the businesses in this town,’ Lorna said, grimacing.
‘Sandpiper Bay’s changing.’
‘It’s being taken over by the jet-set,’ Lorna agreed. ‘Every property within a twenty-mile radius is being snapped up at extraordinary prices by millionaires who spend two weeks of every year here.’
‘We can’t stop it.’ Like Lorna, Jenny was ambivalent about the changes to their rural backwater, but there was little choice. ‘The guy acting for Carver said if I didn’t agree then they’d buy out the old haberdashery and set up in opposition. We’d be left with the brides that couldn’t afford Guy.’
‘Which would be most of our brides.’
‘Right. I’d go under. As it is, my wealthy brides subsidise my poorer ones.’
‘Which is why you’re a lousy businesswoman.’ Lorna gave her daughter-in-law a subdued smile. ‘Like me.’
‘Which is why I’m selling,’ Jenny said firmly. ‘We have no choice.’
So the arrangements had been fine. Sort of. Up until now it had been phone calls and official letters, with the business operating as normal. Only there was suddenly a lot more business, as people heard the news. Jenny was fielding phone calls now from as far away as California, from brides thrilled with the prospect of a Guy Carver wedding. She’d put them off, not clear when she’d officially be running Carver weddings, not really believing in the transition herself. But now the man himself was standing in the doorway.
‘I’m looking for Jennifer Westmere,’ he said, in a rich, gravelly voice, and Jenny’s current bride gasped and pointed down.
‘She’s here.’
Jenny pushed aside a few acres of tulle and gave Guy a wave. ‘Mmphf,’ she said, and gestured to the pins in her mouth.
‘I’m here on business,’ he said enigmatically, and Shirley, the mother of the bride she was looking after, gave a sound that resembled a choking hen.
‘You’re Guy Carver. You’re taking over this salon. Ooh, we’re so excited.’
Guy stilled. Uh-oh, Jenny thought. One of the stipulations in the contract was that this takeover be kept quiet until the salon had been transformed to Carver requirements. But that hadn’t been stipulated until the third phone call, and in the interim Lorna had managed to spread the news across Sandpiper Bay.
There was nothing she could do about that now. She watched as Guy sat, crossing one elegantly shod foot over the other. ‘Carry on. I’ll watch,’ he said, his voice expressionless.
Great. Jenny went back to pinning, her mind whirling.
The man was seriously...wow! He was tall and dark, almost Mediterranean-looking, she thought, with the sleekly handsome demeanour of a European playboy. Not that she knew many European playboys—to be honest, she didn’t know a single one—but she imagined the species to have just those dark and brooding good looks. He looked almost hawk-like, she decided, and she also decided that the photographs she’d seen in celebrity magazines didn’t do him justice. His magnificently cut suit and his gorgeous silk tie screamed serious money.
Actually, everything about him screamed serious money.
There was a Ferrari parked outside her front window.
Guy Carver was sitting in her salon.
Was he annoyed about the lack of confidentiality? Was he annoyed enough to call the deal off?
‘What’s the problem with the dress?’ Guy asked in a conversational tone, and she mmphfed again and waved a hand apologetically to the bride’s mother.
‘The hem’s crooked,’ Shirley Grubb told him, beaming and preparing to be voluble. ‘Kylie’s not getting married in a crooked dress.’
‘When’s the wedding?’
‘Next Thursday.’ Shirley looked smug. ‘I know two days before Christmas is cutting it fine. We were so lucky to get the church. It’s just this dratted dress that’s holding us up.’
‘When was the dress ordered?’
‘Oh, she’s had it for years,’ Shirley told him, ready to be friendly. ‘When Kylie turned sixteen I said we’ll buy your wedding dress now, while your father’s still working and while Jenny’s here to organise it. No matter that you don’t have a fella yet. Just don’t put on too much weight. That was four years ago, and now we can finally use it.’
‘Um...right,’ Guy said mildly. ‘When’s the baby due?’
‘Mid-January,’ Shirley said, and beamed some more. ‘Aren’t we lucky we got the dress made? When we ordered it I told Jenny to leave heaps to spare at the hem. I was six months gone with Kylie before my old man did the right thing, and here’s Kylie got her fella the same way. Hot-blooded, we are,’ she said, preening. ‘It’s in the genes.’
Guy appeared to be focussing on the tip of one of his glossy shoes. Wow, Jenny thought. Guy Carver chatting to Mrs Grubb. Has he any idea what he’s getting into?
She went on pinning. It gave her breathing space, she thought. So much tulle...
‘Why did you choose Bridal Fluff to organise your wedding?’ Guy asked conversationally, and Jenny winced. She just knew what Shirley would say, and here it came.
‘Lorna—that’s Jenny’s mother-in-law—and me went to school together. Lorna won’t charge me.’
Ouch. This technically wasn’t her salon any more, Jenny thought. Nor was it Lorna’s. It belonged to Guy.
‘So this arrangement was made a long time ago?’
‘When we were girls. Lorna always said she’d plan my wedding, and any of my kids’ weddings and any grandkids’ weddings, and when I rang up last month she said sure.’
‘Lorna isn’t planning your wedding,’ Guy said mildly. ‘It seems Jenny is. And Jenny works for me.’
For the first time Shirley seemed unsure. Her mouth opened, and failed to shut again.
‘You mean,’ she said at last, ‘that we have to pay?’
It was time to enter this conversation. Jenny carefully removed the remaining pins and set them into her pin box.
‘Any arrangements I made before Mr Carver purchased the business will be honoured,’ she said. ‘I’ll take care of Kylie’s wedding.’
‘And the rest of them?’ Shirley looked affronted.
‘Maybe in my own time,’ Jenny said. ‘Not from this salon.’
‘Well...’ Shirley was about to start a war, Jenny thought, and Shirley’s wars were legion.
‘Leave it, Ma.’ For the first time Kylie spoke up. She was a pale, timid young bride, and only the fact that her prospective husband was even more timid than his fiancée—and totally besotted—made Jenny feel okay about the wedding. But now Kylie had a flush to her cheeks, and she turned to Guy as if she was trying to dredge up the courage to ask him something important. ‘Mr Carver...?’
‘Yes?’ Guy was staring down at Jenny—who was meeting his look and holding it with a hint of defiance. Things were about to change in her life because of this man, and she wasn’t sure that she liked it.
‘When did you buy Bridal Fluff?’ Kylie asked, and Guy turned and gazed at the bride.
It wasn’t a great look, Jenny thought ruefully. The first of her brides that Guy was seeing was a waif of a bride in a vast sea of tulle. Her dress had been made when she’d had a size eight waist. It had been close fitting then. Now two strips of satin had been sewn into the waist to accommodate her advanced pregnancy. Jenny had attached a loose-fitting lace camisole to disguise the bulge a little, but it was no small bulge. The fact that the bulge kept changing meant that the hemline kept changing as well.
This was not one of her most elegant brides.
‘Do you officially own this place yet?’ Kylie asked, and Guy nodded, with what appeared to be reluctance.
‘Yes.’
‘Then I’m a Carver Bride,’ Kylie said, suddenly ecstatic. She held her hands together in reverence. ‘Like in those glossy magazines we buy, Ma. I’m the first Australian Carver bride. I reckon we ought to phone some reporters.’
‘No,’ Guy snapped, rising and looking at Kylie in distaste. ‘You’re not a Carver Bride. You are Mrs Westmere’s responsibility. My takeover was supposed to be confidential, and the name-change won’t happen yet. There’ll be no Carver Brides until my people are here and we can get rid of this...’ he gazed around the salon with distaste ‘...this fluff.’
* * *
HAD HE MADE a mistake? Guy watched as the hem-marking continued. ‘It’s a small place,’ Malcolm had told him. ‘The council has the power to make all sorts of complications, like refusing our requests to expand the building. We need to keep the locals on our side. Make an effort, Guy.’
Maybe he hadn’t made an effort. But really... Kylie, a Carver Bride? Some things were unthinkable. And what had happened to the confidentiality clause? It could be a disaster.
He waited on, ignored by the Grubbs, which suited him. Finally the hem was finished, and Kylie and her mother sailed off down the street to spread the news. Indignation was oozing from every pore.
They might be indignant, but so was he.
‘I understood this takeover was to be kept quiet,’ he said, in a voice that would have had his secretary shaking. Cool, low and carefully neutral.
It didn’t have Jenny quaking. ‘Your accountant, or whoever he is, should have said that earlier. My mother-in-law had ten minutes between offer and acceptance where that stipulation wasn’t known. Ten minutes can mean a lot of gossip in Sandpiper Bay.’
‘It means I can call the contract off.’
‘Fine,’ she said and tilted her chin. ‘Go ahead.’
He was taken aback. She should be apologising. He’d come all the way here to find the terms of the contract had been breached, and all she was saying was take it or leave it.
He’d come a long way. Maybe it didn’t matter so much. If he worked hard to get the place sleek before anyone important saw it...
That meant he also had to get rid of unsuitable clients. Fast. Clients like the Grubbs had no place in a salon such as this.
‘Why the hell did you take that pair on?’ he demanded of Jenny, watching through the pink-tinged window as Shirley tugged her daughter into the butcher shop next door.
Jenny was still on the floor, gathering pins. When she answered, her voice was carefully dispassionate. ‘It’s obvious, isn’t it? They’re local, and I’m the local bridal salon.’
‘They’ll do your reputation no good at all. And as for you being the local bridal salon... We have a contract. Unless I walk away, you’re no longer in charge. And you won’t be doing weddings like this.’
‘Right.’ Jenny sat back on her heels and eyed him with disfavour. ‘So the Pregnant-with-Tulle-and-Cupids isn’t a Carver look?’
He choked. She eyed him with suspicion, and then decided to smile. ‘Great,’ she said. ‘That’s the first positive I’ve seen. I hoped you’d have a sense of humour.’
He collected himself. ‘I haven’t.’
‘Yes, you have. I can see it. It’s a pity it seems the only good thing I’ve seen.’ She went back to gathering pins.
His jaw dropped. She was criticising him, he thought, astonished. She was on his staff. Criticism was unthinkable.
He tried to remember when he’d last heard criticism from his staff—and couldn’t.
‘You realise things are going to have to change around here?’ he said cautiously. ‘There’ll be less fluff, for a start.’
She thought about that as she kept sorting pins, and suddenly she smiled. Which threw him all over again. It was an amazing smile, he decided, feeling more than a little confounded. Somewhere his vision of the Widow Westmere was being supplanted by this girl called Jenny. This woman? Okay, a woman. Her body was slim and lithe. Her glossy brown curls were cut in a pert, elfin haircut, which, combined with her informal jeans, her T-shirt and the smattering of freckles on her nose, made her look about fourteen.
But she wasn’t fourteen. There were lines around her eyes, soft lines of laughter—but more. There was that look at the back of her eyes that said she’d seen a lot. There was not a trace of fluff about her.
This woman was a widow. There had to be some tragedy...
He didn’t need to know, he told himself. She was here for twelve months to smooth the transition. Her leaving after that would be marked with a card of personal regret. When his secretary put those cards before him to sign he could hardly ever put a face to the name.
He liked it like that. He’d gone to a lot of trouble so it was like that.
He gazed around the shop, searching for something to distract him. Luckily there was plenty of distraction on offer.
‘Three Christmas trees?’ he said cautiously, and Jenny nodded, whatever had amused her obviously disappearing, the edge of anger creeping back.
‘Lorna put up the big one in the window. She organises it halfway through November and it drives me nuts. Pine needles everywhere. The one in the entrance is a gift from Kylie’s fiancé—he works in a timber yard and came in with it over his shoulder, looking really pleased with himself. Then the guys at Ben’s work brought me one. How could I refuse any of them?’
‘Ben?’
‘My husband,’ she said, and there was that in her voice that precluded questions.
‘So...’ he said, moving on, as she clearly intended him to do. ‘We have three fully decorated Christmas trees, two mannequins in full bridal regalia and one groom in what looks a pretty down-at-heel dinner suit. Plus Christmas decorations.’
‘They’re not Christmas decorations,’ she said tightly as he gestured with distaste to the harlequin light-ball hanging in the centre of the room and the silver and gold streamers running from the ball to the outer walls. ‘The ball and streamers are here all year round.’
‘You’re kidding?’
‘Nope,’ she said, with a hint of defiance. ‘We run the most garishly decorated bridal salon in the southern hemisphere. Our brides love it.’
‘Carver Brides won’t.’
She nodded. ‘You’ve made that plain. It wasn’t kind—to swat Kylie and Shirley like that.’
‘If anyone publishes pictures of Kylie as a Carver Bride...’
‘They won’t. They might be provincial, but they’re not stupid.’
‘They sound stupid. What the hell was Malcolm about, buying this place?’ Guy demanded, and Jenny’s face stilled.
‘You don’t like it?’
‘It’s a backwater. Sure, it’s scenic...’
‘Do you know the average income of our locals?’
‘What has that to do with it?’
‘A lot, I imagine,’ she said. ‘There’s two types of business in this town. First there are the businesses that provide for the original inhabitants. The likes of Shirley and Kylie. Those who you consider stupid. Then there are those that cater for the elite. We have no less than twenty helicopter pads in the shire. Millionaires, billionaires—we have them all. In your terms, not a stupid person in sight. The town has a historic overlay and a twenty-acre subdivision limit, so development is just about non-existent. In
the last ten years every place coming onto the market has been snapped up by squillionaires. You know that, or you wouldn’t have bought here.’ She hesitated. ‘You really want to get rid of the likes of Kylie?’
‘I didn’t want to imply all the locals are stupid. But if Kylie can’t afford me...’
‘She won’t be able to afford you. None of the real locals will. Why do you want me to stay on?’
‘To ease the transition.’
‘There won’t be a transition. You’ve just told Kylie there won’t be Carver Brides until your people are here. I thought...according to the contract...I’d be one of your people.’
He might as well say it like it was. ‘You won’t have any authority.’
Any last hint of a smile completely disappeared at that. ‘So the offer to employ me for a year was window-dressing to make me feel good about you guys taking over?’
‘I can’t employ you if you seriously like...’ he stared around him in distaste ‘...fluff.’
‘The fluff’s Lorna’s.’
‘Lorna?’
‘Lorna’s my mother-in-law,’ she said. She was speaking calmly, but he could see she was holding herself tightly on rein. ‘Lorna set this salon up forty years ago. She had a stroke eight years ago, and advertised for an assistant. I got the job and met Ben. Now it’s my business, but Lorna still puts in her oar. Lorna’s been incredibly good to me. If she wants pink, and the locals like pink, I don’t see why she can’t have it.’
‘Carver Salons are sleek and minimalist.’
‘Of course they are. So you’re here to toss the fluff?’
‘I’ll do the preliminaries,’ he told her. ‘That’s why I’ve come—to decide what needs to be done. By the look of it, we’ll start from scratch. We’ll gut the place. My staff will take over the rebuilding, and everything that comes after.’
‘But you’ll still employ me?’
‘We envisage a smooth transition.’
