A Bride For Christmas

CHAPTER TWO

THIS was no drama. Guy watched her go with mixed feelings. There was a part of him that felt a strange lurch that she should walk away, and it had nothing to do with the bombshell she’d thrown at him. As usual, though, he attempted to shove personal thoughts aside and slip back into business mode.

It was difficult to shove the vision of Jenny away. The way she’d carried her handbag…

Barret and Anna. He had to think.

Barret Travers and Anna Price had a hugely powerful media presence. With Barret in a movie, an immediate box office hit was assured, and Anna’s profile was almost the same. Their impending wedding would turn the eyes of the world right here.

To what? He couldn’t put on a huge, media-circus-type wedding with this much notice. The booking was only five minutes old. He had to cancel, and fast.

That shouldn’t be a problem. He’d phone Malcolm and get contact details straight away. But before he could lift his phone the fax machine on Jenny’s desk hummed into life. Bemused, he watched the feed-out, recognising it for what it was. A press release.

‘Barret and Anna to Wed!’ the caption blared. ‘Wedding to be in Sandpiper Bay, Australia. Guy Carver’s first Australian wedding.’

They’d had it planned before they’d contacted Jenny, he thought. They’d had this press release ready to go.

Why? What could possibly add more media hype to this pair?

Carver’s first Australian wedding. Guy thought about it, and his heart sank.

Anna had been pilloried in the press for her bad taste. Of course she’d want pink tulle, he thought. Pink tulle would be right in her league.

How to get pink tulle but still be thought cool by the cognoscenti?

Have a Carver wedding.

He had to cancel.

He stared down at the press release. Specifically at the tiny cc…

This was not a press release sent early just as confirmation to him. This was a press release which was simultaneously being read by every media outlet in the western world.

They’d been expecting his yes as perfunctory. Jenny had given them their yes, and they’d told the world.

If he pulled out now…

Carver Event Management pulling out would be news. People knew he was in Australia. Jenny had just confirmed it. So why couldn’t he organise the wedding? No matter how carefully he explained it, Anna would take his refusal as a personal slight, and the world’s press would agree.

Which meant problems for Anna.

The paparazzi spent their life reporting on Anna-and Barret. Barret was a loud-mouthed boor, but he was number one at the box office. In contrast, Anna was struggling a little. A few months ago she’d spent time in drug rehab. and the press had had a field-day. Her life seemed to be together now, but the media still wavered between idolatry and ridicule.

If they knew he’d knocked her back-International Events Organiser Guy Carver Refuses Anna/Barret Wedding-the world’s press would say it served her right. They’d say she’d got what she deserved and the balance might well tip on the side of ridicule.

Which she didn’t deserve.

Damn, he didn’t get emotionally involved. He didn’t.

He was. Right up to his neck.

He thumped the desk with his fist, and a fluffy stuffed dog, endowed for some reason with a disembodied head, started nodding in furious agreement. He stared down at the stupid creature and came close to throwing it through the pink-tinged windows.

Jenny was outside the window.

Over the road was the beach. A group of teenagers were clustered by the side of the road, leaning on their surfboards and chatting to Jenny. She was laughing at something one of them said.

She looked…free.

‘Of course she looks free. You’ve just sacked her.’

Except he hadn’t. She’d walked out on him. The thought was astonishing.

Focus on this wedding. How long did he have? Ten days?

The idea was ridiculous. He went through his top people in his head, trying to figure who could come.

No one could come. Everyone held parties at Christmas. And every event he had in his mental diary was major. There’d be repercussions if he pulled anyone out.

For a wedding like this, at this short notice, he needed local people. He needed…Jenny.

She was climbing into an ancient Ford, a wagon that looked more battered than the decrepit vehicles the surfers were using. While he watched, she backed out of the parking spot, then headed right. Her wagon passed the teenagers and did a backfire that made everyone jump.

‘She’d be hopeless,’ he told no one in particular, and no one in particular was interested.

‘I can’t ask her.’

No one was interested in that, either.

He stared at the fax again and swore. ‘Do I care if the wonderful Anna’s career goes down the toilet?’

He did, he thought. Damn, he did. Two months ago he’d catered for a sensational Hollywood ball. Anyone who was anyone had been present. He recalled a very drunken producer hitting on Anna. When she’d knocked him back he’d lifted her soda water, sniffed it, and thrown it away in disgust.

‘Once a tart, always a tart, love,’ he’d drawled at her. ‘You’re not such a good little actress that you can pretend to be something you’re not for ever.’

Guy had intervened then, handing Anna another soda water, giving her a slight push away and deflecting the creep who’d insulted her by showing signs of investing in his latest project. But he’d seen Anna’s white face, pretence stripped, and he’d also seen how she’d stared into the soda water, taken a deep breath, and then deliberately started to drink it. To change your life took guts-who should know that better than him?

If Anna wanted him to cater for her wedding then he would.

‘Even if it does mean I have to go on bended knee to the Widow Westmere.’

Jenny pulled into the front yard of her parents-in-laws’ farm, switched off the ignition, took a few deep breaths-how to explain all this to Lorna and Jack?-and a car pulled in behind her.

A Ferrari.

Ferrari engines were unmistakable. What are the chances of someone else with a Ferrari pulling into my yard? she thought, and decided she ought to head inside fast, close the door and not even look out to see whether Mr Guy Hotshot Carver was on her property.

‘Mrs Westmere,’ he called, and the moment was lost. She sighed, leant back on her battered wagon with careful insouciance-and folded her arms.

‘What?’

‘I’d like to talk to you about your contract.’

‘It’s clear,’ she said, trying to be brusque. ‘I have the right to work for you for a year, and I also have the right to walk away any time I like. Your business manager seemed to think I’d be jumping all over myself to stay, but the obligation is on your side; not mine.’

‘I’d like you to stay.’

‘Nah.’ She should be chewing gum, she decided. She didn’t have the insouciance quite right. ‘You’re pleased to be shot of me.’ Then she broke a bit-she couldn’t quite suppress the mischief. ‘Or you were until I landed you with the wedding of the century. You’re going to have to cancel on the biggest wedding we’ve seen in this place. What a shame.’

‘I can’t cancel.’

‘Come on. You can afford to lose one wedding. All that hurts is your pride. And pride doesn’t matter to you. Just look what you did to Kylie.’

‘I-’

‘Is that you, Jenny?’ Jack’s voice interrupted, and Jenny hauled herself away from the wagon and abandoned the insouciance. ‘I need to go inside. You need to go…wherever rich entrepreneurs go when they’re not messing with this town. See you later.’

‘Do you have someone out there?’ Jack called.

‘Jenny, I need to talk to you.’

‘Mrs Westmere,’ she flashed. ‘It’s Mrs Westmere, unless I can call you Guy.’

‘Of course you can call me Guy.’

‘Bring your visitor in, Jenny.’

‘Go away,’ she said.

‘I need you.’

‘You don’t need anyone. You come waltzing into town in your flash car…’

‘It’s borrowed from a friend.’

‘You borrowed a Ferrari?’ she demanded incredulously. ‘Someone just tossed you the keys of a Ferrari and said, “Have it for a few days.” Like he has one Ferrari for normal use and another to lend to friends.’

‘His other car’s an Aston Martin,’ he said apologetically. ‘And his wife drives a Jag.’

‘I so much don’t need this conversation.’ She made to turn into the house, but he stepped forward and caught her shoulders. The action should have made her angry-and at one level it did-but then there was this other part of her…

He really was a ludicrously attractive male, she thought. She wasn’t the least bit afraid of him. Well, why should she be when she had Lorna and Jack just through the screen door? But there was more than that. His grip felt somehow…okay.

It wasn’t the least bit okay. This was those damned hormones working again, she thought. She’d been a widow for too long.

But she had protection-against hormones as well as against marauding males. She hadn’t answered Jack, and Jack and Lorna had grown worried. Now the front screen slammed back and Jack was on the veranda. Jack was a wiry little man in his late seventies, tough as nails and belligerent to go with it. He was crippled with arthritis, but he didn’t let that stop him.

‘Who’s this?’ he growled, before Jenny could say a word. He stalked stiffly down the veranda, trying to disguise the limp from his gammy hip, trying to act as if he was going to lift over six feet of Guy Carver and hurl him off the property.

Guy dropped his hands from Jenny’s shoulders. He didn’t step away, though. He stood a foot away from her, his eyes filled with quizzical laughter.

‘You have a security system?’

‘I surely do,’ she answered, taking a grip of her wandering hormones and turning to face her in-laws. ‘Jack, Lorna-this is Guy Carver.’

Lorna was out on the veranda now. She’d pushed her wheelchair though the doorway, rolling to the edge of the ramp but no further. Lorna had once been a blousy, buxom blonde. Her hair was still determinedly blonde, and her eyes were still pretty and blue, but a stroke had withered one side of her body. One side of her face had very little movement and her speech was careful and stilted.

‘Mr Carver,’ she managed.

‘He says we can call him Guy.’

‘Why are you manhandling my daughter-in-law?’ Jack barked, and the lurking laughter behind Guy’s eyes was unmistakable.

‘I was just turning her in the right direction. Towards you.’

‘It’s okay, Jack,’ Jenny told him. ‘Mr…Guy’s just leaving.’

‘Look at the car,’ Lorna said, suddenly distracted. ‘What is that?’

‘A Ferrari,’ Guy said, bemused, and at that the screen door swung open again.

‘Don’t come out, Henry,’ Jenny said quickly, but it was too late. Henry was already on the veranda.

She winced. She badly didn’t want Guy to see Henry. He’d already shown himself to be insensitive. How much damage could he do now?

For the crash that had killed his father had left Henry so badly burned that for a while they’d thought he might not live. The six-year-old was slowly recovering, but the scars on the right side of his face were only a tiny indication of the scars elsewhere. His chest and his right leg bore a mass of scarring, and he was facing skin graft after skin graft as he grew.

Henry should be a freckle-faced kid facing life with mischief and optimism. There were signs now that he could be again, but the scars ran deep. His thatch of deep brown curls stopped cruelly where the scarring began, just above his right ear. His brown eyes were alive and interested-thank God his sight had been untouched-but he’d lost so much weight he looked almost anorexic compared to most six-year-olds. His right leg was still not bearing weight, and he used crutches. His freckles stood out starkly on his too pale skin. Standing on the veranda in his over-big pyjamas-Lorna was sure he’d have a growth spurt any minute, and she sewed accordingly-he looked a real waif. The surgeons said that in time they’d have his face so normal that, as he matured, people would think of him as manly and rugged, but that time was a long way off from now.

‘I want to see the car,’ Henry said.

She held her breath, waiting for Guy to respond. If she had her druthers Jenny would keep her private life absolutely to herself. A private person at the best of times, these last two years had been hell. She’d been forced to depend on so many people. The locals had been wonderful, but now she was finally starting to regain some control of her shattered life, and the look of immediate sympathy flashing into Guy Carver’s eyes made her want to hit him.

What’s wrong with your little boy…?

How many times had that been flung at her since Henry had recovered enough to be outside the house? It was never the locals-they all knew, and had more sense than to ask about his progress in front of him. But the squillionaires who arrived for a week or two were appalling, and she wanted to be shot of the lot of them.

Maybe now she’d sold the business she could move, she thought. She could get a great place if she was prepared to go inland a little. But Jack and Lorna had lived here all their lives. She and Henry were all they had.

She couldn’t leave.

So now she flinched, waiting for Guy to say something like they all did. What’s wrong? or, Gee, what happened to your kid? Why is he so scarred? Or worse, Oh, you poor little boy…

But Guy said nothing. He had his face under control again, and the shock and sympathy were gone. Instead he glanced at the Ferrari with affection. ‘It’s a 2002 Modena 360 F1,’ he told Henry, man to man.

‘It’s ace,’ Henry whispered, and something in Guy’s face moved. Something…changed.

‘If it’s okay with your mother, would you like a ride?’

Henry’s small body became perfectly still. Rigid. As if steeling himself for a blow.

‘I…Mum…?’

‘You’re kidding,’ she said to Guy.

‘I don’t kid,’ he said, and his voice had changed, too. It had softened. ‘I mean it. I’m assuming this is your son?’

‘Yes, but…’

‘I’m Guy,’ he told Henry. ‘And you are…?’

‘Henry,’ said Henry. ‘Is this your car?’

‘It’s borrowed.’

‘Do you have a car like this?’

‘I have a Lamborghini back in New York.’

‘Wow,’ Henry breathed, and looked desperately at his mother. ‘Is it okay if I take a ride with him?’

‘It’s dinnertime.’

‘Dinner can wait,’ Jack growled. Jenny’s father-in-law was looking at the car with an awe that matched his grandson’s. ‘If anyone offered me a ride in such a car I’d wait for dinner ’til breakfast.’

‘You’re next in the queue,’ Guy said, and grinned. ‘I’d take you all at once,’ he added apologetically, ‘but it’s hard to squeeze three people in these babies. Jenny, you can go third.’

‘I don’t want to go.’

‘Is it okay if I take Henry?’

‘Of course it’s okay,’ Jack snapped, as if astounded that anyone could ask that question. ‘Isn’t it, girl?’

‘Fine,’ she said, defeated, and Henry let out a war-whoop that could be heard back in Main Street. Then he paused.

‘You don’t mean just sit in it?’

‘Of course not.’

‘Can we go out on the coast road?’ Henry asked, eyeing his mother as if she’d grown two heads. Never go with strangers… Her consent meant she knew this guy and trusted him. His mother had a friend with a Ferrari. She could see she’d just raised herself in his estimation by about a mile. ‘The coast road winds round cliffs. With this car…it’ll go like it’s on rails.’

‘You won’t go fast?’ She knew her voice was suddenly tight, but she couldn’t help it.

‘We won’t go fast,’ Guy told her, and there was that tone in his voice that said he understood.

How could he understand?

The remembrance of his hands on her shoulders slipped back into her mind. Which was dumb.

‘Henry’s in his pyjamas,’ she said, too quickly, but suddenly that was how she felt. As if everything was too quick. ‘Does he need to change?’

‘No one notices who’s in a Ferrari,’ Guy told her. ‘They only notice the Ferrari. If you’re in a Ferrari you can wear what you d-whatever you like. You’re cool by association. Are you ready, Henry?’

‘Yeah,’ Henry breathed, and tossed aside his crutches and looked to his mother for help to go down the ramp. ‘Yeah, I am.’

‘He seems lovely.’

‘He’s not.’ Back inside, Jenny was trying to explain the extraordinary turn of events to her in-laws. ‘He won’t do Kylie’s wedding. She’s not good enough to be a Carver Bride.’

‘Kylie is a bit…’ Lorna said, and Jenny glowered and tossed tea into the pot with unnecessary force.

‘Don’t you come down on his side. Kylie and Shirley were great to us.’

They had been. All of those dreary months when Jenny had needed to be in the hospital-for three awful weeks Henry had not been expected to live-Kylie and Shirley and a host of other locals had run this little farm, had ferried Lorna and Jack wherever they’d wanted to go, had filled the freezer with enough casseroles to feed an army for years, had even taken over the organisation of local weddings. The town had been wonderful, and Jenny wasn’t about to turn her back on them now.

‘I know they’re fabulous,’ Lorna told her. ‘And of course I promised we’d do Kylie’s wedding. But they won’t hold us to more than that. I was just so upset. With Ben dead, and we thought we’d lose Henry…’

‘You would have promised the world,’ Jenny said. ‘Shirley knows that. She tried it on with Guy this afternoon-and why wouldn’t you? But I will do Kylie’s wedding for cost, and Guy can’t stop me. I’ll just organise it from here.’

‘And the rest?’

‘He can have the society weddings. I don’t want them.’

‘They’re the only ones that make us money.’

‘We’ll survive. He paid heaps for the business-more than its worth. But I don’t want Guy Carver as my boss.’

‘There’d be worse bosses,’ Jack said, and Jenny sighed.

‘Just because the man has a Ferrari…’

‘What’s he driving Henry for?’

‘To wheedle his way into getting me to work for him,’ she snapped. ‘The man’s a born wheedler. I can see it.’

‘He doesn’t look like a wheedler to me,’ Lorna said. She’d been laying plates on the table, but now she stilled her wheelchair and turned to face her daughter-in-law. ‘Jenny, it’s been two years. We know you loved Ben, but maybe it’s time you moved on?’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘He looks quite a catch,’ Jack said, crossing to the door to look-hopefully-out. With a bit of luck there’d be time for a ride for him before dinner was on the table. ‘A Lamborghini at home, eh?’

‘You think I should jump him because he owns a Lamborghini?’ Jenny asked incredulously, and Jack had the grace to look a bit shamefaced.

‘I just meant…’

‘He just meant don’t look a gift horse in the mouth,’ Lorna said decisively. ‘I’m asking the man to tea.’

‘You can’t.’

‘Watch me,’ Lorna said, plonking a fifth plate on the table. ‘I just know the nice man will stay.’

The night was interminable. Jenny couldn’t believe he’d accepted Lorna’s invitation. She couldn’t believe he was sitting at her dining table with every appearance of complacency.

This was a man international jet-setters regarded as ultra-cool-the epitome of good taste. If they saw him now…

For a start he’d walked in the front door without even appearing to notice Lorna and Jack’s decorations. The Christmas after Ben had been killed, when Henry’s life had hung by a precarious thread, Lorna had decreed Christmas was off. ‘It doesn’t mean anything,’ she’d declared. ‘I’m tossing all my decorations.’

Twelve months later she’d rather shamefacedly hauled out her non-tossed decorations. Jack and Jenny had been desultorily watching television, with Henry on the sofa nearby. They’d been miserable, but they’d fallen on the decorations like long-lost friends. That night had been the first night when ghosts and fear and sadness hadn’t hung over the house, and this year Henry had demanded his grandparents start sorting the decorations on the first day of November.

So there was a reason why the decorations were just ever so slightly over the top, Jenny conceded. She’d hauled Henry’s chair close beside her. He was leaning on her, still lit up after his ride in Guy’s wonderful car. He was tired now, but Jenny thought there’d be trouble if she tried to send him to bed. Lorna and Jack were chatting to Guy as if they were entertaining an old friend, and Henry was soaking in every word.

He had a new superhero.

As for Jenny…Jenny was trying to block out the flashing lights from the real-sized sled in the front yard. The house and the yard were chock-full of Christmas kitsch. She loved every last fluffy pink angel, she decided defensively, trying not to wonder what he was thinking of her. If Guy didn’t like them, then he could leave.

Guy Carver would be a minimalist, Jenny thought, watching Lorna ladle gravy over his roast beef and Jack handing him the vast casserole of cauliflower cheese. He’d like one svelte silhouette of a nativity scene in a cool grey window.

Jenny could count five nativity scenes from where she was sitting.

‘The decorations are wonderful, Mrs Westmere,’ Guy told Lorna, and Jenny cast him a look of deep suspicion as Lorna practically purred.

‘Jenny thinks maybe the front yard is a bit over the top.’

‘How could you, Jenny?’ Guy said, and cast reproachful eyes at her.

She choked.

‘Are you staying until Christmas?’ Jack asked, and Guy said he wasn’t sure.

‘Why I’m asking,’ said Jack, obviously searching for courage, ‘is that every year Santa comes to Sandpiper Bay.’

‘If you’re asking me to wear a Santa suit…’ Guy said, suddenly sounding fearful, and Jenny looked at Guy’s Mediterranean good looks and thought, Yeah, right. Santa-I don’t think so. ‘Then, no.’

‘No, no,’ Jack assured him. ‘We have a very fine Santa. Bill went to a training course in Sydney and everything. But the thing is that every Christmas morning Santa drives through the town tossing lollies-’

‘From the fire truck,’ Henry interrupted, which just about astounded Jenny all by itself. Normally when visitors came Henry was seen but not heard. Henry had been a happy, cheerful four-year-old when his father’s car had collided head-on with a kid spaced out of his brain on cocaine. Now Henry’s world was limited to hospital visits, physiotherapy clinics and his grandparents’ farm. For Henry to go with Guy tonight had been astonishing, and the fact that he was chirping away like a butcher’s magpie now was even more so.

‘See, there’s the problem,’ Jack explained, growing earnest. ‘The problem with Christmas in Australia is that it’s at the height of summer. In summer there’s fires. Last year the fire truck got called away. One minute Santa was up top, handing out lollies, the next he was standing in the middle of Main Street with a half-empty Santa sack while the fire truck screamed off into the distance to someone’s burning haystack.’

‘Goodness,’ Guy said faintly; Goodness, Jenny thought, suddenly realising where this was going.

‘Now, if you were here, young man, in your Ferrari…’

‘Santa could use your Ferrari,’ Henry said, suddenly wide-eyed. ‘Cool. Course it’s not the real Santa,’ he explained, while Guy looked as if he was trying to figure how he could escape. ‘He’s a Santa’s helper. Mum told me that last year. I sat in the back of our car and the fire engine came right up and Santa gave me three lollies.’

‘That was before it was called away,’ Jenny said, trying not to get teary. Too late-she was teary. Dratted tears. She blinked them away, but not before Guy had seen. She knew he’d seen. He had hawk-like eyes that could see everything.

‘Mr Carver’s going home before Christmas,’ she told Henry, feeling desperate. ‘Aren’t you, Mr Carver?’

‘I’m not sure,’ Guy told her. ‘And the name is Guy.’

‘You’re not seriously thinking of doing the Anna/Barret party?’

‘I’d need help.’

‘A party?’ Lorna intercepted, bright-eyed. ‘What sort of party?’

‘Anna and Barret’s wedding.’

‘Anna and Barret…’ Lorna paused, confused, and then confusion gave way to awe. ‘You don’t mean Anna and Barret?’

‘I mean Anna and Barret.’

‘They’re getting married? Here?’

‘If we can cater. If your daughter-in-law will come back as a member of my staff.’

‘Jenny,’ Lorna said, eyes shining. ‘How wonderful.’

‘It’s not,’ Jenny said. ‘He won’t do Kylie’s wedding.’

‘We can do Kylie’s wedding,’ Guy said.

She eyed him with disbelief. ‘As a Carver Wedding?’

‘I don’t think-’

‘Ha!’

‘She wouldn’t like my style of wedding.’

‘Anna wants pink tulle. Surely you give the clients what they want?’

‘If it fits into my-’

‘That is such an arrogant-’

‘Will you two stop it?’ Lorna said, stuttering in an attempt to get this sorted. ‘Jenny, you need to help him.’

‘I don’t.’

‘As a matter of interest,’ Guy said calmly, ‘could you help me if you wanted to?’

‘Do what?’ she said, trying to disguise a child-like glower. But he saw it and his lips twitched. No wonder the glossies described him in glowing terms, Jenny thought. Until now she’d wondered how the head of what was essentially a catering company had become someone that the gossip columnists described as hot property. Now she knew. Guy would just have to look at you with those eyes, that held laughter…

The man was seriously sexy.

‘Do you have the resources to run a wedding for three hundred on Christmas Day?’ he asked, and she had to make a sharp attempt to haul her hormones into line. ‘Are we arguing about something that’s an impossibility?’

‘It’s not impossible,’ she said, and then thought maybe she shouldn’t have admitted it.

‘Why is it not impossible?’

‘Anna says she wants pink tulle?’

‘So?’ The laughter was gone now, and she could see why he was also described as one of the world’s best businessmen. She could see the intelligence…the focus.

‘So we could give her a country wedding. Kylie-style. It would be so unexpected that she’d love it.’

‘We could put on a country dance,’ Jack contributed. ‘It’s great weather this time of year. Haul some hay bales out into the paddock for seats, some more for a bar, and shove a keg on the back of the truck.’

‘Keg?’ Guy asked faintly.

‘Fosters,’ Jack told him. ‘Gotta be Fosters.’

‘He means beer,’ Jenny told him, putting him out of his misery. ‘I don’t think this crowd would be happy with only beer.’

‘Drink’s the least of my problems.’

‘So what’s your problem?’

‘Finding clothes for the wedding party in ten days. Sourcing food. Finding staff to wait on tables and clear up afterwards.’

‘Piece of cake,’ Jenny said, and then thought that was stupid. What was she letting herself in for?

‘How is it a piece of cake?’

‘Make Kylie’s wedding the first Australian Carver Wedding and I’ll tell you.’

‘Kylie doesn’t want a Carver Wedding.’

‘You’re making huge assumptions here,’ she flashed, and Henry stirred and looked up at his mother in surprise. Lorna shifted her wheelchair sideways so she could take his weight, and he moved his allegiance to his grandmother. As if he wasn’t quite sure who his mother was any more. ‘What’s the difference between Anna and Kylie?’ she demanded. ‘Career choice and money. Nothing more. Kylie’s got herself pregnant, but Anna ended up in drug rehab. Two kids getting married. Kylie does want a Carver Wedding, and she asked first.’

‘You’d seriously make me-’

‘No one’s making you do anything,’ she told him. ‘Including staying at our dinner table.’

‘You’re telling me to leave?’

‘I don’t like what money does to people.’

‘The man hasn’t finished his dinner yet,’ Jack protested. ‘Have a heart.’

‘It’s a bit rude to invite him to eat and put him out,’ Lorna added, looking curiously at Jenny.

‘Jenny’s just itching for a fight,’ Jack told Lorna, speaking across the table as if no one else was there. ‘Dunno what’s got into her, really.’

‘It’s hormones,’ Lorna decided. ‘You have a nice cup of tea, Jen.’

‘Lorna…’

‘She could do the wedding if she wanted to,’ Lorna said, turning to Guy. ‘She’s the cleverest lass. I used to run the salon, making dresses for locals and organising caterers for out-of-towners. Only then the out-of-towners grew to so many that I had to employ Jenny. It was the best thing I ever did. Her mum didn’t have any money, and her dad lit out early, so there wasn’t enough to send Jenny to anywhere like university. She took on an apprenticeship with me. She’s transformed the business. She’s just…’

‘Lorna!’ Jenny said, almost yelling. ‘Will you cut it out? Mr Carver doesn’t want to know about me.’

‘Yes, I do,’ he said mildly. ‘I need to persuade you to use some of your skills on my behalf. Where could you get caterers on Christmas Day?’

‘I don’t-’

‘You tell him, lass,’ Jack said. ‘Don’t hide your light under a bushel.’

She stared wildly round, but they were all watching her expectantly. Even Henry.

‘This town is full of retirees,’ she said at last, trying desperately to get her voice under control. ‘Most of them have a very quiet Christmas. If we had all the food planned the day before-if we settled on country fare that all the women round here can cook-if Anna settled for a late wedding and if we told the locals that they could come to the dance afterwards-there’d be queues to work for us.’

‘Locals come to the ceremony?’ he said, incredulous.

‘Not the ceremony. The idea would be that there’d be a huge party afterwards, with workers welcome. Think of the publicity for Anna and Barret. If you got onto that nice PR person I talked to this afternoon…’

Guy stared at her, poleaxed. ‘It might…’

‘It might well work,’ she said. ‘She’s not squeaky clean, our Anna, and this would be great publicity.’

‘You know about Anna’s past?’

‘The world knows about Anna’s past. This wedding will be great for her.’

‘It would,’ he agreed, and suddenly Jenny’s eyes narrowed.

‘That’s why you’re thinking of doing it,’ she said softly, on a note of discovery, thinking it through as she spoke. ‘I couldn’t understand…’ But suddenly she did, seeing clearly where her impetuous nature had landed Guy. ‘The Carver empire doesn’t need this wedding, but Anna needs the Carver emporium.’ She bit her lip. ‘I should have thought about that when I was contacted. Oh, heck. I was angry with you, and I didn’t think.’

To say Guy was bewildered was an understatement. That Jenny was sensitive enough to see connotations that he’d only figured because he moved in those circles…

His estimation of the woman in front of him was changing by the minute. Gorgeous, smart, funny…

He didn’t do gorgeous, smart and funny. He didn’t do complications.

He rose, so sharply that he had to make a grab to catch his chair before it toppled. ‘I need to go.’

‘You haven’t had coffee,’ Lorna said mildly, but he didn’t hear. He was watching Jenny.

‘You agree to staying on my payroll until Christmas?’

‘Can Kylie have a Carver Wedding?’

‘Yes,’ he said, against the ropes and knowing it.

She hesitated, but then gave a rueful smile. ‘Okay, then. I’ve never worked for a boss before.’

‘What about me?’ Lorna said, indignant, and Jenny grinned.

‘That’s different. I walked into your shop for the interview and Ben was there. I was family from that minute on.’

‘You were, too,’ Lorna said, and reached over and squeezed her hand.

Family.

Something knotted in Guy’s gut that he didn’t want to know about. He backed to the door.

‘Where are you staying, young man?’ Jack asked.

‘My secretary booked a place for me. Braeside?’

‘You been there yet?’

‘No. I-’

‘You’ll never find it,’ Jack said with grim satisfaction. ‘It’s up back of town, by the river. Tourists get lost there all the time.’ It seemed a source of satisfaction. Jack was looking at him with what seemed to be enjoyment.

‘I have directions.’

‘I’ve seen the directions they use. You’ll be driving through the mountains ’til dawn. Jenny’ll have to take you.’

Jenny stilled. Then she nodded, as if she agreed. ‘You will get lost. I’ll drive there, and you can follow me.’

‘What fun is that?’ Jack demanded. ‘You haven’t had a drive in his Ferrari. I’ve got a better idea. You drive him home in his Ferrari and then bring it back here. Then pick him up on the way to work tomorrow morning.’

‘I can’t drive a Ferrari,’ Jenny said, astonished.

‘Course you can,’ Jack said roundly. ‘If you can make your ancient bucket of bolts work, you can make anything work. Her wagon’s held together with string,’ he told Guy. ‘She ought to buy another, but she’s putting every cent she owns into a fund for Henry’s schooling.’ His face clouded a little. ‘There’s been a few costs over the last couple of years we hadn’t counted on.’

Of course, Guy thought, his eyes moving to Henry’s face. The little boy’s face was perfect on one side, but on the other were scars-lots of scars.

‘I can’t drive a Ferrari,’ Jenny said again, and he forced himself to think logically. Which was hard when his emotions were stirring in all sorts of directions.

‘Yes, you can,’ he said, and managed a smile that he hoped was casual.

‘There you go, then,’ Lorna said, triumphant. ‘Jack and me will put Henry to bed. Henry, your mother is going to have a drive in the lovely car. Isn’t that great?’

‘Ace,’ said Henry.