Marion Lennox - A Bride For Christmas

© 2006

‘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 longer 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.

‘Does he have any idea what he’s letting himself in for?’ Lorna had demanded. ‘A country wedding salon…’