A Bride For Christmas Read online

  ‘Fine,’ she said and tilted her chin. ‘Go ahead.’

  He was taken aback. She should be apologising. He’d come all the way here to find the terms of the contract had been breached, and all she was saying was take it or leave it.

  He’d come a long way. Maybe it didn’t matter so much. If he worked hard to get the place sleek before anyone important saw it…

  That meant he also had to get rid of unsuitable clients. Fast. Clients like the Grubbs had no place in a salon such as this.

  ‘Why the hell did you take that pair on?’ he demanded of Jenny, watching through the pink-tinged window as Shirley tugged her daughter into the butcher shop next door.

  Jenny was still on the floor, gathering pins. When she answered, her voice was carefully dispassionate. ‘It’s obvious, isn’t it? They’re local, and I’m the local bridal salon.’

  ‘They’ll do your reputation no good at all. And as for you being the local bridal salon…We have a contract. Unless I walk away, you’re no longer in charge. And you won’t be doing weddings like this.’

  ‘Right.’ Jenny sat back on her heels and eyed him with disfavour. ‘So the Pregnant-with-Tulle-and-Cupids isn’t a Carver look?’

  He choked. She eyed him with suspicion, and then decided to smile. ‘Great,’ she said. ‘That’s the first positive I’ve seen. I hoped you’d have a sense of humour.’

  He collected himself. ‘I haven’t.’

  ‘Yes, you have. I can see it. It’s a pity it seems the only good thing I’ve seen.’ She went back to gathering pins.

  His jaw dropped. She was criticising him, he thought, astonished. She was on his staff. Criticism was unthinkable.

  He tried to remember when he’d last heard criticism from his staff-and couldn’t.

  ‘You realise things are going to have to change around here?’ he said cautiously. ‘There’ll be less fluff, for a start.’

  She thought about that as she kept sorting pins, and suddenly she smiled. Which threw him all over again. It was an amazing smile, he decided, feeling more than a little confounded. Somewhere his vision of the Widow Westmere was being supplanted by this girl called Jenny. This woman? Okay, a woman. Her body was slim and lithe. Her glossy brown curls were cut in a pert, elfin haircut, which, combined with her informal jeans, her T-shirt and the smattering of freckles on her nose, made her look about fourteen.

  But she wasn’t fourteen. There were lines around her eyes, soft lines of laughter-but more. There was that look at the back of her eyes that said she’d seen a lot. There was not a trace of fluff about her.

  This woman was a widow. There had to be some tragedy…

  He didn’t need to know, he told himself. She was here for twelve months to smooth the transition. Her leaving after that would be marked with a card of personal regret. When his secretary put those cards before him to sign he could hardly ever put a face to the name.

  He liked it like that. He’d gone to a lot of trouble so it was like that.

  He gazed around the shop, searching for something to distract him. Luckily there was plenty of distraction on offer.

  ‘Three Christmas trees?’ he said cautiously, and Jenny nodded, whatever had amused her obviously disappearing, the edge of anger creeping back.

  ‘Lorna put up the big one in the window. She organises it halfway through November and it drives me nuts. Pine needles everywhere. The one in the entrance is a gift from Kylie’s fiancé-he works in a timber yard and came in with it over his shoulder, looking really pleased with himself. Then the guys at Ben’s work brought me one. How could I refuse any of them?’

  ‘Ben?’

  ‘My husband,’ she said, and there was that in her voice that precluded questions.

  ‘So…’ he said, moving on, as she clearly intended him to do. ‘We have three fully decorated Christmas trees, two mannequins in full bridal regalia and one groom in what looks a pretty down-at-heel dinner suit. Plus Christmas decorations.’

  ‘They’re not Christmas decorations,’ she said tightly as he gestured with distaste to the harlequin light-ball hanging in the centre of the room and the silver and gold streamers running from the ball to the outer walls. ‘The ball and streamers are here all year round.’

  ‘You’re kidding?’

  ‘Nope,’ she said, with a hint of defiance. ‘We run the most garishly decorated bridal salon in the southern hemisphere. Our brides love it.’

  ‘Carver Brides won’t.’

  She nodded. ‘You’ve made that plain. It wasn’t kind-to swat Kylie and Shirley like that.’

  ‘If anyone publishes pictures of Kylie as a Carver Bride…’

  ‘They won’t. They might be provincial, but they’re not stupid.’

  ‘They sound stupid. What the hell was Malcolm about, buying this place?’ Guy demanded, and Jenny’s face stilled.

  ‘You don’t like it?’

  ‘It’s a backwater. Sure, it’s scenic…’

  ‘Do you know the average income of our locals?’

  ‘What has that to do with it?’

  ‘A lot, I imagine,’ she said. ‘There’s two types of business in this town. First there are the businesses that provide for the original inhabitants. The likes of Shirley and Kylie. Those who you consider stupid. Then there are those that cater for the elite. We have no less than twenty helicopter pads in the shire. Millionaires, billionaires-we have them all. In your terms, not a stupid person in sight. The town has a historic overlay and a twenty-acre subdivision limit, so development is just about non-existent. In the last ten years every place coming onto the market has been snapped up by squillionaires. You know that, or you wouldn’t have bought here.’ She hesitated. ‘You really want to get rid of the likes of Kylie?’

  ‘I didn’t want to imply all the locals are stupid. But if Kylie can’t afford me…’

  ‘She won’t be able to afford you. None of the real locals will. Why do you want me to stay on?’

  ‘To ease the transition.’

  ‘There won’t be a transition. You’ve just told Kylie there won’t be Carver Brides until your people are here. I thought…according to the contract…I’d be one of your people.’

  He might as well say it like it was. ‘You won’t have any authority.’

  Any last hint of a smile completely disappeared at that. ‘So the offer to employ me for a year was window dressing to make me feel good about you guys taking over?’

  ‘I can’t employ you if you seriously like…’he stared around him in distaste ‘…fluff.’

  ‘The fluff’s Lorna’s’

  ‘Lorna?’

  ‘Lorna’s my mother-in-law,’ she said. She was speaking calmly, but he could see she was holding herself tightly on rein. ‘Lorna set this salon up forty years ago. She had a stroke eight years ago, and advertised for an assistant. I got the job and met Ben. Now it’s my business, but Lorna still puts in her oar. Lorna’s been incredibly good to me. If she wants pink, and the locals like pink, I don’t see why she can’t have it.’

  ‘Carver Salons are sleek and minimalist.’

  ‘Of course they are. So you’re here to toss the fluff?’

  ‘I’ll do the preliminaries,’ he told her. ‘That’s why I’ve come-to decide what needs to be done. By the look of it, we’ll start from scratch. We’ll gut the place. My staff will take over the rebuilding, and everything that comes after.’

  ‘But you’ll still employee me?’

  ‘We envisage a smooth transition.’

  ‘You’re employing me for local colour?’

  ‘I didn’t say that.’

  ‘You didn’t have to. I can’t see me fitting the image of a Carver Salon consultant.’

  ‘Have you ever met a Carver Salon consultant?’

  ‘As it happens, I have,’ she said, almost defiantly. ‘A year ago I had a…well, I needed a holiday, and my parents-in-law sent me to Paris. I wandered through your salon, just to see how the other half live. Only of course I wasn’t up to standard. I
hadn’t been in the salon for two minutes before I was asked to leave.’

  ‘If my staff thought you were possible opposition, then…’

  ‘Now, that’s the funny thing,’ she said. She’d risen and moved over to one of the Christmas trees. The angel on top was askew and she started carefully to adjust it. Then she began to check the lights, twisting each bulb in turn, taking her attention from him. ‘They didn’t even ask why I was there,’ she said over her shoulder. ‘I could have been there to talk about my wedding. I could have been there to make enquiries about anything at all. But I was wearing jeans and a T-shirt, and carrying a small backpack Lorna had given me.’ She gave a rueful smile. ‘The backpack was pink. Anyway, they obviously sorted me as a type they didn’t want. They asked me to leave, and suddenly there was a security guard propelling me onto the pavement.’ She shrugged. ‘Given my opinion of Carver Salons, I should have told you to take your very kind offer to buy this salon and stick it. But of course it’s a very generous offer, and I need the money and the thought of me being in opposition to you is ridiculous.’

  There was a moment’s silence then. Guy thought about his Paris staff. They were the best. They ran weddings that were the talk of the world.

  They’d kicked this woman out. She must have been humiliated.

  Maybe he needed to be a bit more hands-on.

  He didn’t like to be hands-on.

  He thought suddenly of the first wedding he’d planned. He’d been home from college, where he’d been studying law-a career his parents had thought eminently suitable but which bored him stupid. Christa-the girl he’d been dating since both their mothers had organised them to their first prom-had been managing his social life, and that had bored him, too. Then Christa’s sister had announced her engagement to someone both families thought entirely unsuitable.

  Louise had wept on Guy’s shoulder. Without parental support, and with no money of her own, she’d been doomed to have a civil ceremony and go without the party she’d longed for.

  Intrigued, Guy had set to work. He’d painted cardboard until his hands were sore, transforming a small local hall into a venue that looked like a SoHo streetscape. He’d organised the local hotdog vendor to set up in a corner. The pretzel seller had come as well-and why wouldn’t he have? An inside venue in the middle of a hot August had been a welcome change. Guy had built and painted a bar, made of plywood, but it had looked fantastic. Guests had had to pay normal price for hot dogs and pretzels and beer, but the wealthy guests had been intrigued rather than offended. He’d persuaded buskers to come, including a rap dancer with a hat out for offerings. He’d been hands-on every step of the way, and he’d loved it.

  The bride had been ecstatic. Christa and Guy’s mother had been less so. But when Guy had been approached the following week to do another wedding, and another, they’d been forced to stand by as Guy’s career took off in another direction.

  He remembered the family horror-his fledgling company had had to fly by the seat of its pants, and to risk money was unthinkable. Christa had been beside herself with rage. But he’d kept on. It had been fun, and he’d never known what fun was until he’d thrown aside the mantle of family responsibility.

  When had he stopped having fun?

  He could hardly remember. All he knew was that after Christa had been killed it had become his refuge-organising vast numbers of people in glittering social events that held no personal attachment at all.

  His firm had grown, so he was now no longer hands-on. He employed hundreds-staff handpicked for their artistic and business acumen.

  Would they have kicked this woman out on the street? He didn’t know, and maybe he shouldn’t care as long as they did their job well. But now he thought back to that first wedding, and remembered Louise’s joy. He looked at Jenny, her face a trifle flushed and more than a trifle defiant, and he thought, Hell, she must have been demoralised.

  What had she said?

  A year ago I had a…well, I needed a holiday, and my parents-in-law sent me to Paris.

  She’d had a what? A breakdown? What had happened to the husband?

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

  ‘It wasn’t your fault.’

  It was, though, he thought grimly. He took the credit for Carver weddings. He took responsibility for his staff.

  ‘You don’t really want to employ me,’ she said. ‘Do you?’

  ‘I’d rather this place was kept open for business during transition. I had hoped to keep the acquisition quiet until I got my staff in place, but now it’s got out…It’s unfortunate, but nothing we can’t handle. I want the place open for queries and future bookings. You need to be the front person. I’ll give you a pricing structure so you can give brides an idea of what we offer. Run the weddings you have now under…’He hesitated, then said, without bothering to hide his disdain, ‘Under Bridal Fluff. New bookings will be under Carver Salon.’

  ‘New bookings will be expensive?’

  ‘We’re exclusive.’

  ‘You don’t need to tell me that.’ She grimaced, and he was aware of a stab of…regret?

  Once upon a time he’d tried to make his functions wonderful because they created joy. He hadn’t heard of the concept of exclusive. He’d lived on a shoestring.

  He’d learned the hard way that was nonsense. That last day with Christa…‘If you loved me you’d keep doing law. Your father’s expecting you to take over the family firm. Your mother’s scared you’re gay. Guy, you play with paints. Paints! And me…How do you think I feel being engaged to a wedding planner?’

  She’d said the words with such scorn. Then, two hours later, she was dead. If she’d lived he was under no illusion that their relationship would have been over, but he knew that his life decision had killed her. And his father…His father had heard of Christa’s death and it had been as if he’d said goodbye to the son he’d now never have. A wedding planner…Two days later he’d had a stroke, and he’d never recovered.

  Guy hadn’t gone back to law. He’d known he’d be good at this, but right there and then he’d vowed that he’d be a corporate success. Their deaths had been crazy and unnecessary. No one was going to throw wedding planner at him as a term of derision.

  He worked hard. He kept to himself. He made money and he carefully didn’t know people. His life decisions would never hurt anyone again.

  He had become exclusive.

  The telephone cut the stillness, and he welcomed it. He motioned Jenny to answer, then picked up a catalogue to flick through while she spoke.

  Here were Bridal Fluff weddings over the past few years, catalogued down to the last ghastly feather.

  He flicked through. And paused.

  One bridal couple smiled out from the pages, dressed like a pair from the set of Cabaret. He looked more closely, taking in details of the setting.

  The whole theme was Cabaret.

  It was actually rather good. It’d be good even as a Carver Wedding.

  He flicked through a bit more. Fluff, fluff…But every now and then something different.

  There were just a few weddings in here that showed talent. He glanced up at Jenny, and she was smiling and making hand signals. A second phone lay on the reception desk. She was motioning to him to lift it.

  He lifted it and listened.

  ‘…be there for Christmas. About three hundred people. Barret’s pulled strings and found someone who’ll marry them, so you don’t need to worry about the licence. All we need you to do is to turn a Christmas feast into a wedding feast. I’ll outline details in my fax. The most important thing is that Anna needs a wedding gown, and she’s caught up on location until she gets on the plane. But she trusts Carver implicitly. If he approves it, it’ll be fine. There’ll be six bridesmaids and six groomsmen. I’ll fax through sizes. Anna’s only stipulation is that she’d like a traditional wedding-the same as she saw at home when she was a little girl.’ The woman hesitated. ‘She said something about pink tulle.’

  ‘
Oh, we can do pink tulle,’ Jenny told her, sounding chirpy and still smiling. ‘Mr Carver’s good at pink tulle.’

  Guy stared at Jenny, astounded.

  ‘You’ve been really lucky,’ Jenny continued, ignoring Guy’s astonishment. ‘Mr Carver had stipulated there’d be no weddings from this salon until his people were in place. But as luck would have it Mr Carver himself arrived here this afternoon. I regret I personally won’t be involved, but I know I’m leaving you in good hands. Sure, it’s fine that you put out a press release. If you could fax us a copy it’ll let us see exactly what tone we need to set. The figure per head is perfectly acceptable. Goodbye.’

  And she replaced the receiver with a definite click.

  Guy stared at her. Jenny stared straight back, still smiling. Her chin jutted out just a little, and she held his gaze and didn’t break.

  ‘What the hell have you done?’ he demanded, and she smiled some more, a tight, strained smile that didn’t reach her eyes.

  ‘I just quit.’

  ‘You quit?’

  ‘The contract says my continued employment is optional. If I wish to leave at any time then I can. I know it was put there as a sop, so I’m letting you off the hook. I’m walking out now. Any remaining Bridal Fluff brides will be looked after by me from home. The salon’s yours.’

  ‘But you’ve just booked a wedding.’

  ‘I have. It sounds just your style.’

  ‘What wedding?’

  ‘You were on the phone. Didn’t you hear?’

  ‘I heard nothing. Only Barret and Anna…’ He paused as an appalling thought hit. ‘Barret and Anna? You don’t mean…’

  ‘Barret and Anna,’ she agreed, smiling benignly. ‘Surely you of all people know Barret and Anna? Barret’s just won…is it his second Oscar or his third? And Anna’s on the front cover of this month’s Glamour.’

  ‘They’re getting married?’ he said stupidly, and she nodded. She walked over to the desk and picked up her handbag. It was of ancient leather, he noticed, his mind settling on details as if they were important. It looked as if it was falling apart.

  ‘On Christmas Day,’ she said, following his gaze to her handbag, flushing, and putting it behind her. ‘That gives you ten days to organise it. I’ll send my father-in-law to clear the store of my gear. We’ll have it out of here by tomorrow night, so you’ll have a clear run. You’ll need it,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘Three hundred people in ten days…’