Here Comes The Groom: Special Forces #1

by Karina Bliss

  Her adrenaline now ebbing, Jo stifled a yawn. “It’s the middle of the night.” And the third late night in a row.

  “Nonsense,” said Rosemary. “It’s only just got dark.”

  Humoring her was the quickest way to bed. Jo freed the catch on the trunk.

  “Are you looking for more jumble?” For many years Rosemary had run the church’s charity shop. As her memory faded, she’d begun filling plastic bags with her own clothes, then Jo’s, getting snippy when her granddaughter returned everything to the wardrobe. Finally Jo had the bright idea of keeping old clothes in a heap on the spare bed.

  “Jumble…no. I’ll never give this away.” Nudging Jo aside, Nan opened the lid, tossing out old linen and lace tablecloths until, with a cry of triumph, she uncovered a flat bundle swathed in silver tissue paper. Carefully she unwrapped a dress, holding it against herself as she turned to the old-fashioned swing mirror.

  “Oh, Nan, it’s beautiful.” The ivory gown had a fitting crossover bust and cascading skirt—smooth satin overlaid with filmy chiffon—and the waist panel sparkled with beads.

  “Swarovski crystal. I sewed on every one by hand. Someone’s getting married.” Her brow wrinkled. “Is it me?”

  With a sinking feeling, Jo recalled where she’d seen the dress before. Nan and Pops’s grainy black-and-white wedding photos. “No one’s getting married.”

  Her grandmother struggled with the bodice’s zip. “I’d better try it on.”

  Jo gestured to the mirror so Nan could see the difference between her own mature figure and the narrow-waisted gown. “It won’t fit anymore.”

  Rosemary looked between herself and Jo, then her face cleared. “That’s right, I got it out for you.”

  Of all the things for her to remember. “I’m not marrying Dan.”

  Rosemary’s brows rose in surprise. “You’re marrying Daniel? Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Because I’m not marrying him.”

  Her grandmother looked confused. “All right, dear, no need to snap.”

  “Sorry.” Jo rubbed her gritty eyes. “Can we please go to bed now?”

  Nan stroked the silk fabric. “You know, I made this dress. Sewed every bead on by hand. Hours and hours it took. I’ll never forget Graham’s face when he saw me. We were a good team. He had the book sense and I had the common sense.”

  “What a lovely story,” Jo said, though she’d heard it a thousand times. How Nan met Pops at a weekly dance where he’d been dragged by friends. How she’d fallen for the quiet intellectual struggling to set up the Chronicle. Pops wrote impassioned editorials and championed local causes; Nan found advertisers and made sure they paid on time.

  “My goodness,” she added, “it’s two o’clock in the morning. Time to hit the sack.”

  Ignoring Jo’s hint, Nan sat on the spare bed, absently picking up a straw hat that lay among the old clothes. “Do you know how I came to be in New Zealand?”

  “You can tell me in the morning.”

  “My friend Mary had a brother here.” Putting on the hat, Nan settled against the headboard, placing the wedding dress across her knees like a blanket. “I met her when I was a land girl—farming in the Women’s Land Army—during the war. You can’t imagine—”

  “Nan,” Jo interrupted. “You don’t want to crush that beautiful wedding dress. Shall I put it away?”

  Rosemary looked at the gown in surprise. “Now, why did I get this out? Oh, yes, someone’s getting married.” She thrust it toward Jo. “Try it on.”

  “Only if we go straight to bed afterward.”

  “Whatever you want,” Nan said reasonably.

  Turning away, Jo shrugged off her nightgown and pulled the dress on over her underwear. Even swaying with fatigue, she handled the delicate fabric gently. Her grandmother swung into professional gear, coming over to smooth the short lace sleeves and straighten the folds across the bodice.

  Rosemary struggled with the zip—they gave her trouble now—but Jo knew not to rush her and eventually the zipper slid up her spine. As Nan’s hands brushed along her bare skin, Jo shivered.

  “Your hands are freezing.” Picking up a blanket, she draped it around her grandmother’s shoulders.

  “Yes, yes, never mind that.” Clutching the blanket, Nan stepped away for a better view. “I knew it would suit you,” she said with satisfaction.

  Jo faced the mirror and felt her throat tighten. The slim-fitting dress folded beautifully over the bustline in a V that hinted at cleavage. Lacy sleeves added a touch of whimsy and the skirt flowed over her hips in a waterfall of satin and silk that contrasted with the nipped waistline and glittering crystals. Tears pricked her eyes. Rosemary’s face fell. “Is something wrong?”

  “No, it’s just so beautiful.”

  “I sewed on every bead by hand.”

  “Really? You are so clever.” She hugged the old lady, dislodging her hat. Nan straightened it.

  “Of course, Jo, we’ll have to do something about your hair.”

  Over Nan’s shoulder, Jo took another look in the mirror and laughed. Her curls corkscrewed in all directions, dark circles gave her a panda look and her pallor would have suited the bride of Frankenstein. “Maybe we should get some beauty sleep?”

  “Good idea.” Freeing herself from the hug, Rosemary left the bedroom with a little wave. “Sleep tight.”

  “Um, can you unzip me first?”

  “Happy to help.” Her grandmother re-entered the room and started fumbling with the zip. “It seems to be a little stuck.” Jo was jerked backward.

  “Be careful of the dress.”

  For a few more minutes Nan struggled. “I don’t think…for heaven’s sake…what’s wrong with it?” Another jerk. She was getting upset.

  “You know what?” Jo stepped away. “I might keep this on a bit longer.”

  “Yes, I think that’s best,” Rosemary said, relieved. “I don’t want to tear it.”

  Jo tucked her grandmother’s arm in hers. “Let’s get you to bed.”

  “I am very tired,” she confided.

  “Well, you work so hard.”

  “I like to be busy. And tomorrow I’m making jam. The raspberries are in season.” Jo made no comment. Outside the window, autumn rain lashed the pane.

  In Nan’s bedroom, Jo pulled back the blankets on the bed and her grandmother lay down with a sigh. Jo removed her shoes but Nan balked at the hat. “A lady likes to look her best.”

  “Very true.” The silk of the wedding dress rustled as Jo bent to tuck her in and kiss her cheek.

  Nan smiled. “Snug as a bug in a rug.”

  She’d said that every night through Jo’s childhood. They held each other’s gaze in a rare moment of communication, then Rosemary snuggled into the pillow.

  “I love you, Nan,” Jo whispered.

  “Goodnight, Lizzie.”

  After a moment of shock, Jo went to her bedroom.

  Bending and twisting, she struggled to unzip the dress. It didn’t budge. Looking over her shoulder in the mirror she saw that the chiffon overlay had snagged. This joke was getting funnier and funnier.

  Resisting the urge to tear and rip she told her reflection not to panic. “Polly’s pulling extra duty tomorrow. She’ll get it off.”

  Jo lay down on her single bed, smoothing out the skirt before she pulled up the covers. Normally she slept curled on her right side. Fortunately, she was too damned miserable to quibble about things like comfort.

  Her mother, Lizzie Swann, had been an only child, wild and impetuous. She’d run off with a married man when she was nineteen. Two years later she’d come home from Australia with a baby daughter.

  Jo had no recollection of her mother, who’d died when she was two, but Nan and Pops’s love had more than filled the gap. The Swarovski crystals pressed into her skin and she turned on her side.

  Goodnight, Lizzie.

  It was the first time Nan had confused who she was.

  The first time in her life she�
�d felt like an orphan.

  Chapter Eight

  At five-thirty in the morning while Dan was sitting at the table scrutinizing farm records, Herman, dressed for farm work, walked into the kitchen and grunted hello. Then his father opened the back door, hauled on work boots and disappeared into the dawn, whistling for the dogs.

  “Great,” Dan said to his ledger. “Just bloody great.” Getting up, he closed the door. Blue crawled out from under the kitchen table, where he’d been warming Dan’s feet, and looked up at him with plaintive eyes, ears cocked.

  Dan sighed. “Et tu, Brute?”

  Blue whined. “Fine.” Dan opened the door. “As long as you can square it with your conscience.” Without a backward glance, the old dog tore off after Herman’s receding form. Dan cursed. He could just see how this was going to play out. A brooding Herman killing himself with young man’s work while Mum sat by the phone in her town house waiting for a call his pig-headed father was too proud to make.

  “Like hell.” Dragging on his own work boots, Dan followed his father to the lit barn where he found him loading feed sacks on the tray of the ATV. “Go see Mum and sort this out. You know she didn’t mean it.” After her demand for a divorce last night, Pat had thrown them out. Herman headed for the whiskey bottle as soon as they’d returned to the farmhouse.

  His big mouth had caused enough trouble for one night, so Dan had made up the single mattress in the spare room for his father and slunk off to his new bed where he was so desperate for distraction from his compounding troubles that he’d read Contented Dementia… It was surprisingly good.

  Herman threw some rope over the sacks to tie them in place. “Maybe I want her to mean it.”

  Dan stopped fondling Blue’s ear. “What?”

  “Maybe I’m tired of being the bad guy.” Herman jerked the rope tight. “Tired of everything that’s wrong with our marriage being my fault.” Another loop, another jerk. “She says she needs to be needed…complains that I don’t share my feelings.” Herman tied a knot that only a knife would sever. “Would you show your underbelly to someone who holds you accountable for everything that goes wrong in her life?”

  “But you love her, Dad.” Mum might not see it but her son did.

  “And what’s it worth? Niks.” His father always defaulted to Dutch words when he was upset. “Everything we’ve built together over thirty-five years—a farm, a family—none of that means anything compared to the life Pat could have had if she hadn’t married me. I’ve worked my fingers to the bone to give that woman everything she missed out on, and none of it matters. Whether we’re in Tuscany or Timbuktu, I’m never going to be enough for her.”

  “Dad,” Dan said softly.

  “Nee, son.” His father’s voice was thick with pain and bitterness. “If your mother wants to lose the deadweight holding her back, let her, eh?”

  He started up the ATV’s engine, forestalling further argument, gestured the dogs on the tray and sped off.

  Dan packed up his pruning tools and chainsaw and drove to the Swann house. He’d make a start on the hedge with hand clippers until the household woke up because he sure as hell couldn’t stay around here watching Herman suffer.

  He hadn’t expected anyone up at six, but he met Rosemary at the front gate, on the verge of going for a walk. “Daniel, what a nice surprise.”

  “We arranged it yesterday.”

  She looked at him blankly. Dan recalled the book he’d read last night and tried again. “I thought I’d trim the hedge for you.”

  “Oh, good, it’s been annoying me. Come in.” Chatting about the garden, she led the way into the house.

  Except for that initial forgetfulness, she seemed her old self today with none of the confusion that characterized her yesterday. And nothing about her appearance was out of the ordinary. She wore pants, a neat blouse and a fleecy gray cardigan.

  Inside, she surprised him by patting his cheek. “You’re a good boy, Daniel. I never worry about Jo when she’s with you.” Dan swallowed a sudden lump in his throat. He believed he was doing the right thing with this wedding but encouragement was in short supply. Yet this woman had always given it to him.

  “Great handshake, Daniel,” she’d approved when Jo first brought her five-year-old classmate home. “Firm. And you look me in the eye. Excellent. You can always tell the quality of a man by his handshake, his posture and his shoes.”

  Dan had squirmed in embarrassment as Rosemary’s gaze dropped to his bare feet. “Except in this hot weather,” she’d added smoothly, then kicked off her elegant pumps and wandered around for the rest of his visit in stocking feet. He’d adored her ever since.

  Entering the kitchen, he saw the counter was covered with glass jars of all shapes and sizes. Over the dining chair hung an apron he remembered fondly from his childhood—hand-painted with bunches of red cherries.

  “You’re making jam today?”

  “Yes, raspberry.” Rosemary fumbled to put her apron on. “Let’s go and pick some right now.”

  Except it was late autumn, not summer. As he tied the apron strings for her, Dan thought carefully. “I saw a lot of mandarins on the tree out front. I’d hoped you were making marmalade.”

  “You always did love my marmalade, didn’t you? Well, if the mandarins are ready.” Handing him a bucket, she led the way outside again, across the damp grass.

  “I was a land girl in the war,” she said as they started picking. “My job was to grow crops to feed our boys.” She looked at him through the mandarin tree, her blue-gray eyes bright as a bird’s through the dark green.

  Dan smiled at her. “Yes, I know.”

  “Tell me, Daniel, are you still intending to join the army?”

  And because it was Nan who’d known him since he was five and she wouldn’t remember this conversation he said, “I don’t think I’d make a good soldier anymore.”

  “My younger brother Georgie wanted to be a soldier.” The fruit landed in the bucket with a soft thud. “He spent most of the war fretting that he’d miss the fun. He enlisted on his eighteenth birthday…January 5, 1945.”

  “That’s when you want to join a war,” Dan commented, “close to winning it.”

  Rosemary chuckled. She was picking carelessly, tearing the fruit off stems and leaving behind tufts of exposed inner rind, torn fragments of veined white. “Georgie loathed fruit and vegetables,” she said. “He’d only eat potato. When I was chipping away at the frozen earth to plant the bloody things in Somerset I’d tell myself he needed them in Normandy.”

  She cupped a mandarin in her hand, as though trying to warm herself with it. “At least it was summer when he died. The soil would have turned more easily when they buried him.” Nan dropped the mandarin on the grass. “You have to keep planting,” she said, her voice as rusty as an old wheelbarrow, “you have to bring life back from the earth.”

  He caught her hands. “I’d like to grow fruit trees,” he said, “but I’m not sure which fruit makes the best jam. I could really do with some advice.”

  He could almost see her coming back, her face breaking into a smile of relief as she recognized him. “Well,” she said happily, “you’ve come to the right person. You can make good jam out of any fruit if you know the secret.”

  “Secret?” Picking up the bucket, Dan led her toward the house. His heart ached for Georgie, for Steve and Lee, for all the men who died in foreign lands.

  “Methylated spirit…” Her eyes sparkled. “You use it to test for pectin. Take one spoon of boiling juice from the pan, then add three spoonfuls of meths when it’s cool. If a large clot forms, then your jam will set well.” They entered the kitchen. “You can put the mandarins in the pantry.”

  He hadn’t been in the pantry since he was a kid. Dan found himself looking on the second shelf for the biscuit tin, caught himself and smiled.

  “Is that Polly you’re talking to?” he heard Jo say. “Pol, don’t laugh but I tried Nan’s wedding dress on last night and wouldn’t you k
now it, the zip got stuck.”

  Intrigued, Dan walked out of the pantry. His bride stood facing the sink, getting a glass of water, her short curls a riotous tumble and wearing a beautiful, if crumpled, gown.

  “Isn’t this bad luck before the wedding?”

  Jo gasped and spun around. “You’re early.”

  “You know what they say about the early bird.” His appreciative gaze traveled down the dress and up again to Jo’s blushing face. “Wow.”

  “Don’t read anything into this,” she warned.

  “Actions speak louder than words.” He remembered this feeling—optimism.

  “Nan asked me to try it on and—”

  “I did no such thing, young lady.” Tutting, Rosemary started smoothing out the wrinkles. “Good heavens, it looks like you slept in it.”

  Jo’s blush deepened. “And then I couldn’t get it off.”

  Dan smiled. “I’ll help you take it off.”

  She frowned at him as Rosemary tugged at the zip.

  “What on earth have you done here?” she scolded. “The chiffon’s caught.”

  Or maybe he’d leave it on, slide his hands down the silky fabric covering her delightful butt, then lift that pretty skirt…. “Would you like me to try?” Dan suggested meekly.

  “No!”

  “Good idea.” Rosemary propelled her reluctant granddaughter closer.

  Jo turned her back on him. “I mean it,” she muttered. “This has absolutely no connection with us.” The blush even tinted her neck. He wanted to bite it.

  “Uh-huh.”

  The dress smelled of lavender, the silk felt blood-warm. The back cut away to a modest V but he still had to fight the impulse to lean forward and lick the smooth skin it exposed. Dan took his time freeing her. This was the longest he’d been this close to her since his return and he made the most of it. Jo squirmed under his caressing fingers.

  “Don’t fidget,” said Rosemary, hovering anxiously. “You’ll tear it.”

  “Listen to your grandmother,” said Dan, enjoying himself immensely. Rosemary nodded her approval.