by Lynne Graham
Their last stop was back at the farm. Santa had arranged for his wife to collect him from there. Santa emptied the remains of his sack onto their veranda, and then drove away in state in the town’s police car.
‘Now dinner,’ Lorna declared, and Guy wondered how he could eat any more. But of course he did—and how could he ever have thought he couldn’t? He remembered the sophisticated Christmases he’d endured as a kid. There was no comparison. He ate turkey and gravy and crispy roast potatoes and every sort of vegetable he could imagine with relish. Then Jack demanded he light the pudding—and how could he not eat pudding after that?
‘Brandy sauce, brandy butter, cream or ice-cream?’ Lorna asked.
Jenny grinned and said, ‘He’ll have all four, Mum, just like everyone else.’
And Guy looked across the table and thought, She’s calling Lorna Mum and suddenly...suddenly he wanted to do exactly the same.
If he married Jenny he could...
Henry was down on the floor, subsiding into an afternoon nap with Patsy, and Guy thought, I wonder what the quarantine regulations are for taking dogs into the US.
‘It’s not going to happen,’ Jenny said softly, and he looked across the table and saw a flash of sadness behind the laughter that had been there all morning.
It was as if she knew that what he was offering was serious—but it wasn’t enough.
He couldn’t leave her.
He couldn’t.
‘No one sleeps before the washing up,’ Lorna said.
And Guy heard himself saying, ‘I’ll wash up. That’s my Christmas gift to you.’ He’d brought excellent wine and chocolates as gifts, but he knew now that they were dumb gifts. Sure, they liked them, but mangoes were better.
‘I won’t let you do it alone,’ Jenny said, and grinned. ‘Nobility is my middle name. Jack, Lorna—that means you sleep. Immediately. Henry and Patsy already are asleep. Guy, into the kitchen.’
‘Aren’t I the boss?’ he asked, and everyone smiled.
‘Not around here, mate,’ Jack told him, gripping his wife’s hand and holding it tight. ‘The women in this family make the rules.’
So they stood in the kitchen, and he washed and she wiped, and suddenly the noisy fun gossip faded to nothing. There was a silence which should have been a contented silence, but it was...tense.
‘Jenny?’ he tried softly, but when he glanced at her, her smile had faded and her face was rigid with strain.
‘Don’t say it, Guy,’ she whispered. ‘This is my family. This is my place. I’m not going anywhere.’
* * *
THE WEDDING WAS due to take place at five p.m. They left at three. Only Patsy opened one eye and wagged a weary tail as they departed.
They drove in Jenny’s wagon as they had final supplies in the back. ‘Everything’s there,’ Guy told Jenny. ‘I ran a final check before I came to your place.’
‘And I ran a final check before everyone woke up,’ Jenny retorted. ‘Too many cooks, Mr Carver?’
‘Double-checking doesn’t hurt anyone,’ he replied as they drove down the magnificent eucalypt-lined driveway of Anna’s mansion. There was a cluster of expensive cars parked in front, obviously belonging to in-house guests. Within two hours there’d be hundreds of cars.
‘I’ll check the bride; you check the groom,’ Jenny told Guy, forgetting she was the employee again, but acting on a rule they both knew. The most important duty in any wedding ceremony is to make sure you have two live bodies willing to say I do.
They rang the bell, a butler opened the door—and here was the first discordant note of the day. A man’s voice was raised in fury.
‘You can’t do this, you bitch. I’ll ruin you. I’ll see your name raked across every tabloid and it’s no holds barred. If you call this off just because of some moralistic damned scruples then I’ll see you in hell. Have you got any idea of what this’ll do to your PR?’
Before they had time to step inside—and before the butler had time to do what he should have done in times of crisis—refuse admittance—Barret himself shoved his way past them. They stared after him as the movie star disappeared behind the house. There was the sound of a motor being gunned into life—and then the squeal of a car being turned too fast and driven too fast away.
‘There’s your groom, Mr Carver,’ Jenny murmured, wincing. ‘Now for the bride.’
* * *
ANNA, SURPRISINGLY, SEEMED to still be in control. She was sitting on the second top step of the great staircase, as if her legs had given way, but as Jenny approached she even managed a shaky smile.
‘That’s two less guests for the wedding,’ she murmured. ‘We’re minus one groom and we’re minus one bridesmaid. Happy Christmas.’ She sniffed. ‘Oh, help.’
‘Happy Christmas to you, too,’ Jenny murmured, and sat down beside her while Guy looked on from below stairs. ‘Um...was that what I think it was? Have you just called off the wedding?’
‘You bet,’ Anna whispered. ‘I may live to regret it, but I don’t think so.’ She looked down to her butler. ‘Max, I won’t be needing you for a bit.’
‘Should I start phoning a few people?’ Max asked, sounding horrified. ‘Maybe I can stop a few coming.’
‘There’s three hundred people coming to this wedding,’ Guy said. ‘They’re coming from all over the world, and the wedding’s less than two hours away. Our chances of stopping the crowd are negligible.’
‘In that case go and have a stiff drink,’ Anna told the butler. ‘Or two.’
‘Stay sober, Max,’ Guy warned. ‘We’re going to need you.’
‘Yes, sir,’ the butler said. He looked at his mistress in concern. Then he looked from Guy to Jenny and back again. ‘Fix it if you can,’ he said softly. ‘I don’t think she’s seeing what she’s done.’
‘I’m seeing what I’ve done all too clearly,’ Anna retorted. ‘I found him with one of my bridesmaids. In Georgia’s bedroom. In Georgia’s bed. I haven’t done anything. Barret, on the other hand...’
‘Can you verify this?’ Guy asked the butler, and Max nodded.
‘I was coming upstairs to remind Miss Anna that you were to be here at three. Miss Anna was standing at Miss Georgia’s bedroom door looking...’
‘Gobsmacked,’ Anna said, and suddenly she giggled. It sounded dangerously close to hysterics. ‘You saw them, too, didn’t you, Max?’
‘Yes, miss. But...’
‘There are indeed buts,’ Guy said gravely. ‘I’d imagine Barret’s heading straight back to Hollywood. Anna, if he’s true to form he’ll slur your name in every ear that matters. People expect Barret to play around. They won’t feel sorry for Barret. They’ll feel sorry for you.’
‘I don’t care,’ Anna said, defiant, but Jenny saw the tremor in her fingers and knelt to sit beside her and take her hand. To her surprise, the woman gripped and held. Hard.
‘Where’s everyone else?’ Guy was asking, and Jenny thought, He’s done this before. He’s coped with disasters like this.
‘We had eggnog for brunch,’ Anna explained. ‘Barret made it. Everyone’s half-drunk already, so they’re sleeping it off. Or I thought they were sleeping it off. I don’t know how Barret managed...’ Her voice trailed away in disgust.
Good, Jenny thought. If she was up to technical thinking then maybe other sorts of thinking were possible, too. She glanced down at Guy, their eyes locked, and she could see that he was thinking exactly what she was thinking.
Guy had agreed to do this wedding because he felt sorry for Anna. Nothing had changed. And if Anna had to be protected...
‘No one must feel sorry for you,’ she said, and Guy nodded, as if he’d just been about to say the same thing.
‘What do you mean?’ Anna demanded, and Guy took over.
‘Anna, you’ve
just come out of rehab. Everyone’s looking at you. If I know Hollywood, they’re expecting you to fail, and they’re half hoping you will. Half the people coming to this wedding will be coming out of curiosity.’ He hesitated, but then he went straight to the hard question. ‘Did you touch the eggnog?’
‘I drink soda water,’ she said stiffly, and Guy nodded.
‘I knew you’d say that. It’s why I’m giving you a Carver Wedding. You deserve a second chance. But, the way I’m seeing it, this could be your ruin. Unless we turn it around. Unless we make this into a celebration regardless. You’ve ditched all the other bad habits. Barret was simply the last habit you ditched.’
‘What...?’ said Anna.
‘Let’s get this organised,’ he said, striding up the stairs to join them. Anna and Jenny were still sitting on the second top stair. They shifted sideways and he sat down, too, so Anna had Jenny on one side and Guy on the other, with Max watching, stunned, from below. ‘We need to move fast.’
‘What...?’ said Jenny.
‘If people have flown from London and New York and wherever to see a celebration, and they don’t see one, they’re going to be disappointed,’ Guy said. ‘And it’s Christmas Day, which makes it worse. They’ll be hugely disappointed if they’re turned away without food. And hungry, disappointed celebrities can get nasty. If they don’t see you, they’ll talk about you until the next sensation happens.’
Anna shuddered. ‘Don’t.’
‘What should we do?’ Jenny asked simply, and waited.
‘We go ahead as if it was meant to happen,’ he said. ‘Anna, you need to act. When all your in-house guests wake and your other guests arrive, you greet them as if this is the best thing that can possibly have happened.’
‘I don’t know how...’
‘I know how,’ Guy said. ‘Jenny, the time to be taken for the ceremony needs to be taken up with something else. I want a map of the way to the beach—that’s about half a mile from here, isn’t it? Down through the hills? An easy walk? I thought so. As every guest arrives they’re to be handed a champagne cocktail, a tube of sunscreen and a bathing costume and sarong if they don’t have their own. Jenny, get onto the local store owners now. Tell them we’ll pay ten times face value if they have the stuff we need here in half an hour. Oh, and the camping store. I want as many folding tables as they have, plus beach umbrellas. Same price applies. Double it if you need to. As the workers arrive—our people are due here at four—they’ll start ferrying the wedding breakfast to the beach. I want people toddling over the sandhills, cocktail in hand—we’ll have people along the way replenishing glasses—arriving at the beach and seeing Anna in all her glory.’
‘All my glory?’ Anna said, gulping and looking awed.
‘You’ll be floating on a sea of flowers. You’ll be wearing a tiny bikini and holding a fruit cocktail—something non-alcoholic, but no one need know—something that looks truly splendid. We’ll have your bridesmaids—minus one, who I trust will take herself the way of your bridegroom—floating round on air mattresses. We’ll use all the wedding flowers and make them look sumptuous. And you’ll be saying Welcome to the rest of my life. This is who I am. A woman who can put on the best party in the world. It’ll make Barret look stupid and you look magnificent.’
‘But...’ Anna whispered. ‘But...’
‘But what?’
‘There’s still the celebrant,’ she whispered. ‘There’s all the pink tulle. I have editors from the top celebrity magazines flying in especially to see a wedding.’
‘They will see a wedding,’ Guy said.
‘Whose?’
He took a deep breath.
‘Mine.’ And then he looked at Jenny. ‘Ours.’
* * *
FOR A MOMENT there was nothing but silence. Jenny stared at Guy. Anna stared at Guy. And then Anna turned to Jenny.
‘You’d pretend to get married? But...’
‘There’d be no pretend about it,’ Guy said softly. ‘Anna, I love this woman.’
That’s me, Jenny thought dumbly. He’s talking about me.
‘I’ve already said I wouldn’t,’ she whispered, and Guy nodded and reached across Anna and took her hand.
‘I know. I was dumb.’
‘Excuse me, but you don’t want me sitting in the middle here,’ Anna said, sounding close to hysterics, and Guy grinned.
‘I’ve already proposed to the woman in moonlight. It didn’t work. I’m trying again. Stay where you are.’
‘Harumph,’ said Max from below, and Guy nodded.
‘You, too. I need witnesses.’
‘What...?’ said Jenny, and paused.
‘You mean what am I asking?’ Guy said. He hesitated, then ploughed on, a man making a confession before all. ‘This morning I opened my stocking and found a boat made with ice lolly sticks.’
‘So what?’ she whispered, and he smiled.
‘Let me finish,’ he said. ‘I need to. Jenny, fifteen years ago I turned my back on a career in law and used my savings to buy what must have been the most battered van our side of the Mississippi. I was so proud of that van. I used to walk round and pat it. But then...’
‘Then Christa was killed.’
‘She was,’ Guy said. ‘And the shock of her death made me think...well, that her values were true. I wanted to show myself that the sacrifice was worth it, and some warped, twisted part of my brain said the way to do that was make money.’
‘And you have,’ Anna said. ‘You’re such a success.’
‘Not a success if I can’t have my Jenny,’ he said, and his eyes were holding Jenny’s and they might as well be alone. ‘I met Jenny a little more than a week ago, and I love everything about her. I love her bravery and her honesty and her caring and her laughter. I love her son and her son’s puppy, and her mother-in-law and her father-in-law. I love the place where she lives. I was dumb enough to think maybe I could marry part of that and cart it back to New York, set it down as a possession. But it’s not like that, is it, Jenny? You refused me for all the right reasons.’
‘I...’
‘I’m not asking you that same question now,’ Guy said softly. ‘I’m asking if you’ll let me share your life. If you’ll let me take over where Ben left off—loving you, loving what you are and where you are, just...loving.’
‘Guy...’
‘I’ve been thinking,’ he went on, as if he was nervous that she’d say no before he’d fully explained. ‘After the Christmas stocking...all the way round Sandpiper Bay with Santa beside me...I thought.’
‘What did you think?’ Anna asked, awed, and Jenny thought she’d asked the right question. She should have asked it herself, but the words wouldn’t quite come out.
‘I thought I could move my base to here,’ he said. ‘I thought we could make Sandpiper Bay the wedding capital of the world.’ He grinned. ‘Though I think we’d need two sets of premises. We’ll take over the haberdashery and use part of it to incorporate Bridal Fluff. For any bride who wants fluff. And we’ll have a special rate for locals—kids who’ve lived in the district for years and can’t afford normal rates.’ He hesitated. ‘Maybe we could extend that idea to our other smaller premises, too,’ he said. ‘It takes thinking about, but then I’m not going to be working so hard in the future. I’m going to be doing a lot of lying on the beach, with our son and our puppy, and I can think things through then.’
‘Our son?’ Jenny said, astounded, and Guy’s smile became almost shamefaced.
‘It’s not my right to share Henry’s life,’ he told Jenny. ‘But if you’ll let me...I want to so much. You have no idea how much I want to share.’
‘You love Henry?’
‘Almost as much as you,’ he said, still gripping her hand, still holding her eyes, while Anna sat hornswoggled in between. �
�I thought I loved Christa, and my shock at her death left me thinking I didn’t know what love was. But I do know what it is. I know who it is. It’s you. My love. My Jenny.’
There was a moment’s stunned silence while everyone held their breath. Jenny didn’t move. It was left to Anna to respond.
‘Well,’ Anna said. ‘Well!’
‘Well,’ echoed Jenny. She shook her head, as if shaking off disbelief. ‘My thoughts exactly.’
‘Are you going to accept?’ Anna asked. ‘I only ask because...’
‘Time’s getting on,’ Max said from below, grinning broadly. ‘And I’ve thought of something. You can’t just swap from one wedding to another. There’s laws in this country. Four weeks’ notice before a wedding can take place.’
‘But we could make our promises today,’ Jenny whispered, and the whole world held its breath.
‘You mean it?’ Guy asked at last, and she smiled.
‘Of course I mean it. I shouldn’t. I loved Ben so much. But these last few days...I’ve been thinking and thinking, and the more I think the more I know Ben would say to grab life with both hands.’ She hesitated. ‘And I’ve been following your logic. Does this mean you want a shonky van again and not a Ferrari?’
‘It might,’ Guy said, cautious, and Jenny beamed.
‘Hooray,’ she said. ‘Then let’s do it. We’ll write it into the wedding vows. You get my wagon and I get the Ferrari.’
He lunged at her across Anna’s knees—and Anna, movie idol of millions, a woman who’d just been betrayed and whose wedding plans were in the dust, dissolved into helpless laughter while Guy Carver of the Carver corporation reached across her and kissed his intended bride as if there was no tomorrow.
CHAPTER NINE
GUY CARVER was a wedding planner extraordinaire. His own wedding was no exception. He would have liked to have had more than a few hours’ notice but, given the circumstances, what was achieved was little short of miraculous.
