SOS: Convenient Husband Required

by Liz Fielding

  ‘All of it, Suzanne. Shoes, bag, underwear, everything.’

  ‘He’s a lucky man.’

  ‘I’m the lucky one,’ she said, but more to herself than Suzanne and when, half an hour later, professionally made-up, dressed and ready to go, May regarded her reflection she couldn’t stop smiling.

  The skirt was a little shorter than she’d normally choose and straight, a style she usually avoided like the plague but it was so beautifully cut that it skimmed her thighs in a way that made them look sexy rather than a pair of hams. But it was the jacket that had sold her.

  The heavy silk had been woven into wide strips to create a fabric that reflected the light to add depth to the colour. It had exquisite stand-away revers that crossed low over her breast. And, aided and abetted by the underwear that Suzanne had chosen, the shape emphasized rather than disguised her figure.

  The final touch, the shoes, dark brown suede with cutaway sides, peep toes, a saucy bow and stratospherically high heels, would have made Cinderella weep.

  ‘You look gorgeous, May. Go break his heart.’

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  ADAM caught sight of himself in one of the mirrored columns and straightened the new silk tie he’d spotted in one of the boutiques.

  Right now he knew exactly how a groom must feel as the minutes ticked by while he waited at the altar for a bride who wanted to give him a moment of doubt. A moment to face the possibility of life without her.

  Doing his best to ignore the indulgent smiles of passing matrons who saw the spray of tiny orchids he was holding, the single matching orchid in his buttonhole and drew their own conclusions, he checked his new wristwatch.

  And then, as he looked up, she was there.

  Hair messed up in a band incapable of holding it, wearing baggy sweats, spectacles propped on the end of her nose, May had managed to steal his heart.

  Now, as their eyes met across the vast distance of the lobby, she stole his ability to breathe, to move, his heart to beat.

  May was the first to move, lifting her feet with care in her high heels, moving like a catwalk model in the unfamiliar clothes. Displaying her show-stopping ankles.

  Heads turned. Men and women stopped to watch her. And then he was walking towards her, flying towards her, standing in front of her and, another first for him, he felt like a tongue-tied teenager.

  ‘Nice flowers,’ she said, looking at the spray of bronze-splashed cream orchids he was clutching. ‘They really go with your tie.’

  About to tell her that he’d chosen the tie, the flowers because they matched her eyes, he got a grip. ‘Fortunately, they also match your suit,’ he said, offering them to her.

  ‘They’re beautiful. Thank you,’ she said, brushing a finger lightly over a petal, then lifting her fingers to the one in his buttonhole. ‘You thought of everything.’

  Nearly everything.

  When he’d been clutching at straws, the last thought in his head was that he would fall in love with May Coleridge. He couldn’t even say when it had happened. He’d spent the last hour wandering along the hotel’s shopping mall, buying the tie, choosing flowers, looking at the yellow diamonds in Tiffany’s window, trying to decide which shade would match her grandmother’s engagement ring.

  He took her hand, looked at it. ‘I was going to buy you a ring.’

  ‘I didn’t mean…’ She looked up. ‘I was wearing it when Jake came for me.’

  He shook his head. ‘I don’t think there’s another ring in the world that would suit you more, so I bought this instead.’ He took a small turquoise pouch from his pocket, tipped out a yellow diamond pendant. ‘I think it matches.’

  ‘Adam…’ She put her hands to her cheeks as she blushed. ‘I don’t know what to say.’

  ‘You don’t say anything. You just turn around and let me fasten it for you.’

  She might blush like a girl, he thought, as she did as she was told and he fastened the clasp at the nape of her lovely neck. But she lived her life as a mature, thoughtful, real woman.

  One who’d worked at making a life, a future for herself, who might need a hand down once in a while when she’d climbed above her comfort level, but never looked to anyone else to prop her up.

  He felt as if he’d been sleepwalking through his life. Putting all his energy, all his heart into building up his business empire, ignoring what was real, what was important.

  He was awake now, he thought as he looked at May. Wide awake and tingling with the same anticipation, excitement as any of the other men who’d been queuing up for their wedding licences this morning.

  ‘You look amazing.’ Then, because he was in danger of making a fool of himself, ‘I didn’t mean for you to pay for it. The suit.’

  ‘I know, Adam. But my grandmother once told me that when a man buys a woman clothes he expects to be able to take them off her.’

  That had come out so pat that he knew she must have been rehearsing it for just this moment. A reminder…

  ‘Your grandma was a very smart woman,’ he said. ‘I wish she was here to see what a lovely granddaughter she has.’

  ‘Me too.’ Then, with a sudden brightening of her eyes, ‘Shall we go?’

  He offered her his arm and, as they walked towards the door, there was a smattering of applause. The doorman whisked the car door open for them, raised his hat and then they drove out into the soft afternoon sunshine.

  On the surface, May was calm, collected, knees braced, breath under control. It was the shoes that did it. Wearing heels that high required total concentration and while she was walking in them she didn’t have a brain cell to spare for anything else.

  The minute she slipped her hand under Adam’s arm and she knew that if she tripped he’d catch her, everything just went to pot. He’d been in danger, hurt, tired, but he’d done this for her and, while the legs kept moving, everything else was just jelly.

  ‘Are you okay?’ he asked.

  She nodded, not trusting herself to speak and then, just when she was absolutely sure she was going to hyperventilate, the car slowed and she saw the big sign and let out a little gasp.

  ‘A Drive-thru Wedding?’

  ‘You did say to let Jake surprise us,’ Adam reminded her. Then he groaned. ‘You hate it. I’m so sorry, May. This is all wrong. You look so elegant, so beautiful. Maybe it’s not too late—’

  ‘You deserve something more than this, May. Something special. The hotel have a wedding chapel. Maybe they can fit us in—’

  ‘No!’ He looked so desolate that she took his hand in hers, all the shakes forgotten in her determination to convince him. ‘This is absolutely perfect,’ she assured him. ‘I love it.’

  And it was true; she did. It was sweet. It was also as far from anything she could ever have imagined as possible. A wedding to make her laugh rather than cry. Nothing solemn about it. Nothing to break her heart.

  ‘I love it,’ she repeated.

  I love you…

  The minister, dressed in a white suit, was waiting at the window. ‘Miss Coleridge? Mr Wavell?’

  ‘Er, yes…’

  ‘Welcome to the Drive Thru Wedding Chapel. Do you have your licence?’ he asked.

  Adam took it from his jacket pocket, handed it over for him to check it.

  ‘Are you both ready to take the solemn vows of matrimony?’

  He looked at her.

  ‘Absolutely,’ she said quickly.

  He turned to Adam, who said, ‘Positively.’

  They said their vows without a hitch. Adam slipped her grandmother’s ring onto her finger. Opened his palm for her to take the second plain gold band, exactly like hers, only much larger.

  It was as if the whole world was holding its breath as she reached for it, picked it up, slipped it onto his finger.

  ‘I now pronounce you man and wife. You may kiss the bride.’

  ‘May I kiss the bride, Mrs Wavell?’ he asked.

  She managed to make some kind of sound that he took for yes and, t
aking her in his arms, he touched his lips to hers in what began as a barely-there kiss but deepened into something that melted her insides and might have lasted for ever but for the command from the photographer to hold that for one more.’

  They collected the pictures, along with the souvenir certificate of their wedding vows at the next window.

  ‘Photographic evidence,’ he said, glancing through them, offering her a picture of them kissing with the Drive Thru Wedding sign behind them. ‘Maybe we should send it to Celebrity?’

  ‘Set a new trend in must-have weddings, you think?’

  ‘Maybe not. But it should keep Freddie happy until Jake has organised all the legal registrations.’

  She nodded, then said, ‘There’s just one more thing.’ He waited. ‘Where are the burger and fries?’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘A drive thru wedding should have a drive thru wedding breakfast.’

  ‘You’re hungry?’ he asked.

  ‘Hollow.’

  She’d been so wrapped up in taking care of her grandfather, the house, keeping her mind occupied with the workshops. Never giving herself a moment to think. She was, she’d discovered, starving, but not for food.

  The emptiness went far deeper than that.

  She was hungry for Adam to look at her as he had in their suite. To touch her. To touch him. To kiss him, be his lover as well as his friend. Yearned for his child to hold. To be, if only for a magic afternoon, his wife in every sense of the word.

  ‘I don’t know whether it’s lunch time, dinner time or breakfast time,’ she said a touch light-headedly, but I haven’t eaten since I left the plane and you should know that I’m not a woman who’s accustomed to subsisting on a lettuce leaf.’ She turned as they passed a familiar logo. ‘There! We could drive in there and pick up a cheeseburger and some fries.’

  He grinned. ‘You are such a cheap date, May.’

  ‘Hardly. You’ve already paid for a first class air fare, a hotel suite fit for a prince and a diamond pendant.’ She touched the diamond where it lay in the hollow of her throat. ‘It’s clear that you need a wife to curb your extravagance. But I will want a strawberry milkshake.’

  They were laughing over their impromptu picnic as they arrived back in their suite.

  Julia, undoubtedly warned of their return by the front desk, was waiting for them with champagne on ice, a tray of exotic canapés, chocolates, a cake. And a basket of red roses so large that it seemed to dominate the huge room.

  May went white when she saw them.

  ‘Could you take those away, Julia?’ she managed. ‘I’m allergic to roses.’

  ‘Of course, Mrs Wavell. Congratulations to you both.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  That was Adam. She couldn’t speak. Couldn’t look at him. Didn’t move until she felt his hand on her shoulder.

  ‘It’s okay, May. I know.’

  ‘Know?’ She looked up at him. ‘What do you know?’

  ‘About the rose petals.’

  She stared at him, scarcely daring to breathe.

  ‘What do you know?’ she whispered.

  ‘I know that you gathered them up and pressed them between the pages of a poetry book.’

  Gathered them up. That made it sound like something pretty. But it hadn’t been pretty, any of it. She’d crawled around on her hands and knees in the dark, slipping where the water had frozen, refusing to give up until she had them all. She couldn’t pick them up in gloves and her hands had been so cold that she hadn’t felt the scrapes, the knocks.

  ‘How? No one knew…’

  ‘I picked it up when I was waiting for you in your sitting room. A petal fell out. I didn’t realise the significance until later, when I understood what you’d done for Saffy. That was why I called you the second time. You saved my life. If I’d been in bed instead of sitting on the floor talking to you…’

  ‘He gave me a choice,’ May said quickly, not wanting to hear how close she’d come to losing him. Not when he was here, safe. ‘Swear that I would never speak to you, contact you, ever again. Or Saffy would go to jail.’

  ‘But once she’d been cautioned…’

  ‘I gave my word. He kept his.’ She lifted her hands to his face, cupping it gently. Kissed the bruise that darkened his cheekbone. ‘Forget it, Adam. It’s over.’

  ‘How can it ever be over?’ he said. ‘It was your face that kept me going when I was crawling through that hotel. The thought of you…’

  She stopped his words with a kiss, then slowly began to unfasten her jacket.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Making up for lost time,’ she said, letting it drop. ‘Taking back what was stolen from us.’ She unhooked her skirt, hesitated, looked up and her eyes, liquid bronze beneath long dark lashes, sent a charge of heat through him that wiped everything from his brain. ‘Any chance of some help with the zip?’

  Never taking his eyes from her face, he lowered the zip and then, as the skirt slithered to the floor, he left his hand on the warm curve of her hip as he lowered his lips to hers.

  It was as if they were eighteen again. Teenagers, touching each other, awed by the importance of it, realising that this was a once and forever moment that would change them both.

  This was how she’d been then. Lit up. Telegraphing what she wanted with eyes like lamps. She’d been both shy and eager. Naïve and bold. Innocent as a baby and yet knowing more than he did. Knowing what she wanted. What he wanted. Slowing everything down, making him wait, making him feel like a god…

  She was doing it now. Unfastening the buttons of his shirt as she backed him towards the bedroom, pushing it off his shoulders. Kissing each bruise she uncovered with a little groan until he bent and caught her behind the knees.

  Lost in the heat of her kisses, the pleasure of her touch he felt reborn, made over until, her tiny cries obliterating everything but one final need, he was poised above her to make her, finally, his.

  ‘Please, Adam,’ she begged as he made her wait. ‘Please…’

  And in those three words his world shattered.

  He rolled away from her, practically throwing him from the bed in his shame, his desperation to escape what he’d so nearly done.

  It took May a moment to gather herself, but then, concerned that after his ordeal he was sick, hurt, she grabbed a robe, found him slumped in a chair, his head in his hands.

  ‘What is it? Darling, please.’ She knelt at his feet. ‘Are you hurt? Sick?’

  ‘No.’

  She sat back on her heels. ‘Tell me.’

  ‘I was going to make you beg.’

  She frowned, took his hand, but he pulled it away.

  ‘I was going to make you beg. Take you in your grandfather’s bed.’ He looked up. ‘When you told me you were going to lose your house, do you think I was touched with concern? I was cheering. I had you. I was going to wipe out the Coleridge name with my own. Parade you as Mrs Adam Wavell, the wife of the kid from the sink estate. Take you in your grandfather’s bed and make you beg.’

  ‘So, what are you saying? That I didn’t beg hard enough?’ she asked. ‘Or do you want to wait until we get home? Do it there?’

  His head came up.

  ‘No! No…’He shook his head. ‘I was wrong. I don’t deserve you, but I thought if I waited, wooed you, showed you that I was worthy of you, maybe, at the end of the year, when you could be free if you wanted to be, I could ask you then to marry me properly.’

  ‘A year?’

  ‘As long as it takes. I love you, May. I’ve never wanted another woman the way I wanted you. Want you.’

  ‘No.’ She shook her head. Stood up. Took a step back.

  ‘I spent a week of agony thinking you were dead. Regretting that I hadn’t told you how much I love you when I had the chance. And then, idiot that I was, I decided not to burden you with my emotional needs. Well, here it is. I understand why you felt the way you did, but I’ve waited more than ten years for you to finish
what you started, Adam Wavell.’ She untied the belt of the robe she’d thrown about her. Let it drop to the ground. ‘I’m not prepared to waste another year. How about you?’

  She held out her hand, held her breath for what seemed like forever before he reached out, took it, then pulled her to him.

  The bell-ringers were waiting to give it everything they had. The choir was packed with angel-voiced trebles and, behind May, the church was crowded with everyone she knew. And lots of people she didn’t but planned to in the future. Freddie was there. Adam’s mother. Saffy with Michel and his parents, Nancie decked out in pink frills as an honorary bridesmaid. Robbie, standing as her matron of honour.

  It was exactly as she’d imagined it all those years ago. Every pew end decorated with a knot of roses, myrtle and ivy. The bouquet of bronze David Austin roses she was carrying, one taken for Adam’s buttonhole.

  Nearly as she’d imagined. Not even the celebrated local designer, Geena Wagner, could squeeze her into a dress her usual size. The truth was that one of her seamstresses had been working on her gown as late as last night—letting it out half an inch around the waist to accommodate the new life she and Adam had created on their impromptu honeymoon.

  Exactly as she’d imagined and totally different. What she hadn’t known as a teenager was how she would feel.

  That dream had been the yearning for triumph of an unhappy girl. Make-believe. Window-dressing.

  Today it was real and as she and Adam stood before the altar and the vicar began to speak… ‘Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to bless the marriage of May and Adam Wavell…’ the overwhelming emotion was that of joy, celebration of a blessed union, of love given and received.

  ISBN: 978-1-4268-6030-0

  SOS: CONVENIENT HUSBAND REQUIRED

  First North American Publication 2010.

  Copyright © 2010 by Liz Fielding.

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.