Jessica Steele - Married In A Moment

Letter to Reader Dear Reader, Weddings are wonderful; private and yet, at the same time, shared by and with family and friends. My wedding to Peter passed in a haze of warmth and happiness. It was a blissfully sunny September day, with photographs taken afterward in a delightful flower-filled garden. This year we celebrate our Pearl anniversary, enjoying thirty years together—enhanced to begin with by our first new arrival: a heart-stealing puppy by the name of Tess. Wishing you as much happiness. Yours sincerely, Title Page Married In A Moment Jessica Steele www.millsandboon.co.uk CHAPTER ONE CHAPTER TWO CHAPTER THREE CHAPTER FOUR CHAPTER FIVE CHAPTER SIX CHAPTER SEVEN CHAPTER EIGHT Copyright

Dear Reader,

Weddings are wonderful; private and yet, at the same time, shared by and with family and friends.

My wedding to Peter passed in a haze of warmth and happiness. It was a blissfully sunny September day, with photographs taken afterward in a delightful flower-filled garden.

This year we celebrate our Pearl anniversary, enjoying thirty years together—enhanced to begin with by our first new arrival: a heart-stealing puppy by the name of Tess.

Wishing you as much happiness.

Yours sincerely,

Welcome to Whirlwind Weddings!

Whirlwind Weddings is a heart-stirring miniseries about

matrimony, featuring strong, irresistible heroes, feisty

heroines and four marriages, made not so much in heaven

as in a hurry!

This series was the idea of three very special authors who

are close friends: Heather Allison, Ruth Jean Dale and

Day Leclaire. They’re joined by ever-popular British author

Jessica Steele. When the authors came up with the idea for

Whirlwind Weddings, we gave them just one stipulation:

their heroes and heroines had to meet and

marry within a week! Mission impossible?

Well, a lot can happen in seven days....

If you enjoyed Whirlwind Weddings,

do write and let us know!

The Editors, Harlequin Romance

Harlequin Enterprises Ltd.

225 Duncan Mill Road

Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9

Who says you can’t hurry love?

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CHAPTER ONE

ELLENA stared at the television screen in stunned horror, her brain numbed by what the newscaster had just announced—an avalanche in the Austrian Alps. An avalanche in the very area where Justine was spending a ski-ing holiday with her boyfriend Kit!

Ellena didn’t seem able to think as the newscaster carried on solemnly about tons of snow, rocks and boulders, and no chance of anyone surviving such circumstance! Having done with that piece of news, he went on to the next item.

Though still disbelieving, she was starting to recover sufficiently from her initial shock to tell herself that she was panicking unnecessarily. Only that morning she had received an ‘our hotel’-type of picture postcard from her sister... But—that must have been posted days ago!

Hurriedly Ellena found the card, feverishly scanning it and looking to see if by any chance there was a printed hotel telephone number. There was! In next to no time she was busy dialling. If she could just speak to Justine...

The line was engaged. For a half-hour the line was engaged. Ellena accepted that she was not the only anxious relative wanting to get through, though the waiting was unsustainable.

Perhaps Justine was trying to get through to her. She would know that Ellena would be anxious. She put her phone down. It did not ring.

All lines were probably swamped anyway. Perhaps Kit had managed to get through to his family. He had two brothers; the middle one, Russell, and his wife, Pamela, were looking after their baby while Justine and Kit were away.

Ellena was enormously thankful that she’d insisted on having Russell’s address in Hertfordshire and phone number before Justine left. Ellena had never met any of Kit’s family, but—interfering though it might be, or perhaps because she was so used to looking out for Justine—she had already phoned once to see if baby Violette was settled without her mother. Pamela, Russell’s wife, had been more than a shade frosty, she recalled. But Ellena cared not for Pamela Langford’s frostiness just now and, finding the number, she dialled.

‘Hello. Russell. Ellena Spencer—J-Justine’s sister.’ Striving to keep calm, she announced herself—and hesitated, suddenly realising that if he had not had a telephone call from Kit, nor had he been watching the news, she was going to have to break the news to him herself.

But, ‘Bad do,’ he replied, and she knew that he was aware of the avalanche.

‘You haven’t heard anything from Kit? He hasn’t phoned or anything?’ she questioned urgently.

‘We had a card from him this morning, but that’s all.’

‘Oh,’ Ellena cried faintly, starting to feel a shade frantic. ‘I’ve tried to phone the hotel, but I can’t get through.’

‘Try not to worry. Pamela says you’ll hear soon enough if Kit and your sister are involved.’ Russell attempted to soothe her, and she wondered how they could be so passive. Not worry...! ‘According to the news report we were watching, that area was out of bounds—there shouldn’t have been anyone in that area.’

Oh, heavens! Ellena was two years older than Justine and had done her best to take care of her when their parents had been killed in a mountaineering accident five years ago. Ellena knew from experience that anything labelled ‘out of bounds’ was a magnet for Justine. There shouldn’t have been anyone in the avalanche area! When had that ever stopped Justine?

‘I think I’ll keep trying to get through to the hotel,’ she stated, starting to feel torn. If she went to her office and sent a fax there’d be no one at her flat to take any incoming call. ‘If Kit rings you, would you...?’

‘Look, if you’re seriously worried, why not ring Gideon? He’ll know how to get through.’

Gideon Langford was the eldest of the three brothers. By all accounts he was successful in everything he did, a high-flyer making the engineering firm started by his father into the vast empire it was today. Popular with the opposite sex—but light on his toes, apparently, when it came to marriage talk.

All the same, it defeated her to know how he could get through to the hotel if she couldn’t. But she was beginning to feel quite desperate. Desperate enough to try anything. ‘Have you got his number?’ she asked.

Ellena tried the hotel again first, but when she again couldn’t get through she dialled the number Russell had given her. It was engaged, as it was on her second and third attempt. On her fourth attempt, however, it rang out, and was answered.

‘Langford!’ an all-male voice answered abruptly. So abruptly, Ellena just knew that her call was most unwelcome.

‘I’m sorry to bother you—’ then no more formality; she was almost past caring whom she bothered ‘—my name’s Ellena Spencer—I’m Justine’s sister.’

‘Justine?’ he demanded clarification.

‘Justine and Kit, your brother,’ she inserted, too het up to feel foolish, because he’d know Kit was his brother, for goodness’ sake! ‘They’re on a ski-ing holiday together and—’

‘You’ve heard the news?’ Gideon cut in tersely, clearly a man who had little time to waste.

‘About the avalanche. Yes,’ she said. ‘I’ve been trying to get through to the hotel, but—’

‘They’re missing!’ he stated shortly.