A Bride For Christmas

CHAPTER FIVE

THEY worked brilliantly as a team-apart.

For the next few days plans for the two weddings proceeded as swiftly as for any function Guy had organised in Manhattan. Most of it was down to Jenny. Guy just had to hint at a suggestion and she had it organised. She seemed to know every last person in a twenty-mile radius of Sandpiper Bay. He needed oysters? She knew the couple who leased the best oyster beds. He wanted lobsters? She knew the fisherman. Fantastic greens? Her husband’s best friend had a hydroponic set-up where they could get wonderful produce straight from the grower.

Jenny wrote out a menu for Anna’s wedding, and when Guy read it he grinned. It was inspired. Yabbies, prawns, oysters, lobsters, scallops-seafood to die for, and all in enough quantities to make their overseas guests drool. After the main courses the menu became even more Australian-pavlovas with strawberries and cream, lamingtons, ginger fluff sponges, chocolate éclairs, vanilla slices, lashings of home-made berry ice-cream, bowls and bowls of fresh berries…

Guy thought of how much this would cost in New York, and then he looked at the figures Jenny had prepared and blinked-and then he thought he’d charge New York prices anyway. It would mean he could put more into Kylie’s wedding. He could employ a really excellent band…

But this was all discussed by phone. Guy had left Sandpiper Bay to make a sweep of Sydney suppliers. The time away let him clear his head. In truth, the day he’d tried to find Anna’s property he’d become thoroughly lost. He’d got back to the salon flustered and late, and Jenny had merely raised her brows in gentle mockery and not said a word. She’d known very well what had happened, he thought, and he didn’t like it. He didn’t like it that she could read him.

So he’d gone to Sydney. He wasn’t escaping, he thought. It was merely that things needed to be organised in Sydney.

On Monday, three days before Kylie’s wedding, five days before Christmas, he returned.

The beach was crowded-summer was at its peak and there were surfing-types everywhere.

Bridal Fluff was closed.

What had he expected? he asked himself. Jenny had told him things were going well. And besides, he didn’t want to see her.

Did he?

He let himself into Bridal Fluff. There was a typed list on the desk, of everything that had to be done for the two weddings, with a neat tick beside everything that had been done.

She was good.

He didn’t want to think about how good she was.

He drove back to his guesthouse, dumped his gear and made his way disconsolately down to the lobby. He needed something to do. Anything. Even if it was just to stop him thinking about Jenny.

Especially if it was to make him stop thinking about Jenny.

‘You should go to the beach,’ the guesthouse proprietor told him. ‘It’s a wonderful day for a swim.’

‘I need to-’ he started, and then thought, No, he didn’t need to do anything. ‘The beach looks crowded.’

‘That’s just the front beach,’ his host told him. ‘There’s no need to be crowded at Sandpiper Bay. All the kids go to the front beach. They say the surfing’s better there, but in truth it’s just become the place to be seen. And being so near Christmas there’ll be lots of out-of-towners coming for picnics. Family parties and such. If you want a quiet beach, I can draw you a map showing you Nautilus Cove, which has to be one of the most perfect swimming places in Australia.’

So ten minutes later he was in the car, heading south for a swim.

There were two cars at the side of the road when he pulled up-expensive off-roaders-and he was paranoid enough to be thankful they weren’t Jenny’s. ‘There might be a couple of locals there,’ he’d been told. ‘But they won’t mind sharing.’

Actually, he did mind sharing, but it was a bit much to expect to have the beach to himself. And two cars hardly made a crowd.

There were a few empty beer cans by the side of the road. That gave him pause for a moment. In this environmentally friendly shire, roadside litter was cleared almost as soon as it happened. Were the owners of the off-roaders drinking?

No matter. He could handle himself. He just wanted a quick swim. He tossed his towel over his shoulders and strode beachwards. As he topped the sand hill, the cove stretched out before him, breathtakingly beautiful. Golden sand, gentle surf, sapphire sea. There was a group of youths at the far end of the beach-the off-roaders’ occupants? Surely not, he thought, frowning. They looked too young to be driving such expensive cars. Someone was yelling. It looked a small but intimidating group of youths. Drunken teenagers showing off to each other?

He didn’t want trouble, and they looked like trouble. He’d find another beach.

But then he hesitated. A figure broke from the group. Someone shoved and the figure stumbled. There was raucous laughter, cruel and jeering.

Someone was in trouble. They were a few hundred yards from him, and it was hard to see. But then…He focussed. It was a woman, he thought, and the woman seemed to be carrying a child. She took a few more steps towards him.

Jenny.

She was trudging through the soft sand, carrying Henry. Henry was clinging to her, his face buried in her shoulder, as the taunts followed them.

‘Get the hell off our beach!’ they yelled. ‘Take your deformed kid with you.’ A beer can hurtled through the air. It didn’t hit Jenny, but it hadn’t landed before Guy was hurtling down the slope as if the hounds of hell were after him.

Jenny.

She was carrying a bag which looked a load in itself. She was concentrating on putting one foot in front of another, making sure she kept her balance in the soft sand. She didn’t see him approach, every fibre of her being concentrating on getting off the beach-fast.

He reached her and put out his hands and stopped her. She flinched backwards.

‘Jenny.’

She looked up at him, her face pale and gaunt, but as she saw who it was relief washed over her. She almost sagged. ‘G…Guy. Get us out of here,’ she stammered.

Another beer can headed in their direction. ‘You’re not moving fast enough,’ someone yelled from the group. ‘Hey, mister, keep away from them. The kid’s a mutant.’

‘Go,’ Guy said urgently, and put his body between her and the barrage of cans and foul language. If he could have picked her up and carried her he would have, but picking up Jenny and Henry and their gear was a bit much even for someone with superhero aspirations. ‘Go on up to the road,’ he told her. ‘Get to my car and wait for me.’ ‘But-’

‘Go.’ He tugged his cellphone from his belt. ‘It’s 000 for emergency here, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, but-’

‘Go.’

She went. She didn’t have a choice.

He stood his ground and dialled, and two seconds later he had a response. He stood facing the teenagers and spoke into the phone, loudly and firmly. Loud enough for them to hear.

‘There’s a group of what looks like under-aged drinkers on Nautilus Cove,’ he told the officer who’d answered his call. ‘I’m guessing they’ve been driving drunk, and none of them look old enough to hold a driving licence. Their cars look expensive. The kids’ average age is about sixteen, so I’m guessing the cars are stolen. They’re throwing beer cans at a woman and child on the beach. It’s ugly.’

‘We’ll have someone there in minutes, sir,’ the operator said. ‘Can you stay on the line?’

‘Sure. You’ll hear everything that goes on.’ Ten or eleven youths were staring at him now, with the uncertainty that stemmed from being drunk and out of control and seeing someone acting in control. They could turn on him, he thought, but he had a window of opportunity to stop that happening. They didn’t know who he was, he sounded authoritative, and they were too drunk to act fast.

‘If those cars are stolen,’ he said, loudly but calmly, ‘then you all have a major problem. The police are on their way. You can stay and get arrested, or you can go now.’

They stared at him in silence, drunk and still aggressive, but obviously trying to think. One took a menacing step forward.

Guy didn’t budge. His face stayed impassive. ‘The road into this beach is a one-lane track,’ he said, conversationally, as though informing them of something important they should have remembered. ‘If you try and drive out, you’ll meet the police coming in. They’ll block your way.’

There was a further uneasy silence. Then, ‘Hey, Jake, I’m off.’ One of the kids at the back of the group sounded suddenly scared. ‘It’s my old man’s car. If I’m found in it I’ll be grounded for years. As far as I’m concerned you pinched it. Not me.’ He turned and stumbled away, half-running, half-walking, heading northwards along the beach. Around the headland were more beaches and bushland, where maybe he could hide himself and then head home to be innocent when his father found the car missing.

‘Geez, Jake, my old man’ll do the same,’ another said, already backing and starting to run. ‘Mac-wait up.’

‘But you guys’ve got the keys,’ Jake yelled, and hurled another can after his retreating mates.

Some of the other kids were backing away now. Half seemed inclined to stay with Jake. The others seemed inclined to run.

‘We’re on our way,’ the policeman said on the other end of the phone line, and Guy nodded and held the phone helpfully out towards the kids.

‘The police are on their way. This officer says so. He’d like to talk to you. Jake?’

‘Go to hell,’ Jake yelled.

‘Is that Jake Marny?’ the officer asked.

‘I’ll ask him,’ Guy said, and held out the phone again. ‘He says are you Jake Marny?’

‘Geez-he knows us. The cops know us,’ one of the kids yelled, panic supplanting aggression in an instant. And that was enough for them all. They were stumbling away, heading after the first two boys. For a long moment Jake stared at Guy, murder in his eyes, but it was the drink, Guy thought. Underneath, Jake was nothing but a belligerent kid-and a kid alone now, as his friends deserted him. He picked up another can and hurled it, but he didn’t have his heart in it.

‘What will you do, Jake?’ Guy said, and Jake turned and found all his mates had gone without him.

He turned and ran.

The police arrived before Guy had made it up to where he’d parked his car. He told them what had happened, briefly and succinctly, and left them to it. They’d radioed in the registrations of the cars as soon as they saw them. They knew the kids.

‘You’ll take care of Mrs Westmere and Henry?’ they asked.

‘Sure,’ he told them, and headed up the track to find them.

They’d reached his car. Jenny was leaning back on the bonnet, still hugging Henry, her face buried in his hair

‘Jenny?’

She looked up, and he saw that her face was rigid with tension and with anger. She was fighting back tears.

The little boy was huddled against her, and clinging. His body language was despairing.

Guy had never had anything much to do with children. He’d met Malcolm’s kids, beautifully dressed and with precocious social manners. He was godparent to their youngest, and sometimes he even took them gifts.

‘Thank Mr Carver,’ their father would say, and the appropriate child would smile.

‘Thank you, Mr Carver. This is a cool present.’

They were well-trained, well-adjusted kids, with two solid parents and all the advantages in the world.

But this mite…He was too thin. He was wearing some sort of elastic wrap on one of his legs and around his chest. His face was scarred and it was creased with crying. But now he faced Guy with the same sort of determination Guy saw in his mother. He wouldn’t show the world he was upset. He blinked back tears and gulped.

Guy’s heart twisted. This had nothing to do with how he felt about Jenny. Here was a whole host of other emotions.

He didn’t get involved.

Too late. He looked from Jenny’s face to Henry’s and back again, and he was so involved he knew that from this minute on nothing would be the same again.

‘Tell me what happened,’ he said, and something about his voice made Jenny’s face change. Her defences slipped a little.

‘We were going to have a picnic,’ she whispered, and he reached forward and took the basket from her grasp. It suddenly seemed to be unbearably heavy. He would have liked to take Henry, too, but Henry was clinging to his mother as if he’d never let go. ‘Jack’s been delivering Christmas presents. He dropped us off at one, and was going to pick us up at three. But…’

‘But?’

‘But I reckoned without Henry’s scarring,’ she whispered. ‘Those kids…They arrived about fifteen minutes after we did. They were dreadful-weren’t they, Henry?’

‘What happened?’

Jenny shook her head, but Henry, surprisingly, took over. ‘We had a ball,’ he said. ‘Mummy threw it to me and I missed it, and it rolled along the beach and ended up near one of the men’s beer cans. When I went to get it he said I was deformed. He said, “Get lost, you ugly, deformed little s…”’

Henry’s words were spoken almost exactly as he’d heard them. Guy heard the vindictiveness in the child’s bleak recital, and he flinched. He tried to find his voice but it wasn’t there. There weren’t words.

He wanted to-

‘Don’t,’ Jenny whispered, and he knew she was reading the primitive desire that was starting to build-to launch himself back down the beach and punch Jake and his mates until they bled.

It would achieve…nothing. And the police were there. They’d be taken care of.

‘Why do you think they said that?’ he said at last. He didn’t recognise his voice. He didn’t recognise his feelings. Dumb fury and more…

‘I don’t know,’ Henry whispered.

‘I don’t know, either.’ He was fighting desperately for the right words here. For any words at all. ‘It surely isn’t because you’re deformed, Henry. You’re wearing an elastic bandage and you have a couple of manly scars. That doesn’t make you deformed.’

‘The boy kicked me.’

‘He was probably jealous,’ Guy said, swallowing his anger with a huge effort.

He set Jenny’s picnic basket on the ground and hauled it open, inspecting its contents with a critical eye. It gave him something to do. Independent or not, afraid of relationships or not, he wanted to hug them and hold them close, but he knew they’d accept no such gesture. And such a gesture wouldn’t help. Nor would violence. He had to come up with something better.

‘I thought so,’ he said, feeling his way. ‘There’s pink lemonade in here. And great food. They only had beer. Jealousy makes people say funny things. Do you think that’s it?’

‘I don’t know,’ Henry said, staring down at the pink lemonade. ‘That’s silly.’

‘Not as silly as calling you names.’ Guy took a deep breath and turned his back to them both. ‘When people have been angry about things they’ve called me names, too. A lady burst into tears at a swimming pool once. She called me a poor thing. She was stupid. I’m not a poor thing at all. Take a look at this.’

He tugged his shirt over his head, baring his back. They’d be seeing the myriad of scars running down the left side of his body. He heard Jenny’s intake of breath and he winced. The last thing he wanted was sympathy, but this was the only thing he could think of to do.

His scars were a bleak reminder of the night Christa had been killed. She’d been speeding in her father’s Maserati and she had been furious. ‘Why can’t you be a lawyer?’ she’d screamed. ‘I refuse to be married to some dope who organises tinpot weddings and doesn’t have any money to even pay for a decent car. You drive a van with a wedding logo on it. I’ll be damned if I’m ever seen in it.’

She’d slammed her foot on the accelerator, making the point that the van he drove could never be as fast as this. Guy could still see the truck in front of them, the driver’s face frozen in horror as their car slid on black ice, over to the wrong side of the road, straight into him. They’d hit almost broadside, killing Christa instantly and throwing shards of splintering metal into his side.

He’d learned not to hate his scars, but until now he’d never been grateful.

‘Would you call me deformed?’ he asked Henry, his tone carefully neutral.

‘You’ve been cut,’ Henry whispered.

‘And you’ve been burned. Most people start out as babies with no marks on them, but as interesting things happen they get marked. We all get marked from life. Somewhere I read that the native people in Australia deliberately make scars on their chests to show they’re grown up. I think the more marks you have on you, the more interesting you become.’ He smiled at the little boy, searching for a response. ‘So you and me, Henry…we’re really interesting. And drunk people, stupid people, get jealous. Or sad that they’re not mature. Those guys on the beach were stupid kids who’d drunk too much. They’ll be sick soon, and they’ll go to sleep and wake up with a headache, and then they’ll know they’ve been dumb and they’ve been wrong. But meanwhile we should enjoy our day.’

Enough. He’d made his point. Now he needed to lighten up. ‘Hey, there’s more here than pink lemonade,’ he said, turning back to the basket. ‘Do you have enough picnic for me, too?’

‘Yes,’ said Henry.

Jenny was doing a lot of silent blinking.

He glanced back to the beach, where a couple of the youths had been caught before they’d disappeared round the headland. He could see glimpses of them though the trees-police and kids. The kids were gesticulating wildly after their mates.

They needed to leave here, he thought. He didn’t want any more invective as the police brought the kids up to the cars. ‘Are there any more beaches around here, Jenny?’ he asked.

‘There’s another cove about a mile south,’ she managed, in a voice that was none too steady. ‘But…we haven’t got a car.’

‘So it’s the Ferrari,’ Guy said, and grinned. ‘Three people and a picnic basket in a Ferrari? We need to squash. And we need to leave now, before we have police watching. I think what I intend to do might be just a little illegal. But desperate times call for desperate measures.’

‘Everyone in your car?’ Henry said, brightening immediately. ‘Now?’

‘Absolutely now,’ Guy said, with a lot more certainty than he was feeling. ‘Let’s go.’

So independent, aloof Guy Carver had a family picnic. Jenny couldn’t believe it. She’d seen this man in celebrity magazines. She’d never dreamed he could be…human.

But human he was. From squashing them all into his Ferrari, from helping her to put on suncream, from making sand bombs…

He was more than human. She thought of the gift he’d given Henry by showing him his scarred back and the tears kept welling. Such a gift was beyond value. Henry had been given back his pride.

But she couldn’t say anything. Guy was acting as if the whole ugly incident hadn’t happened, and so must she.

They ate lunch, and Henry chattered about anything and everything, a contented six-year-old having a blissful day out with a man who drove a Ferrari and had life scars. What a hero. She watched as Guy spoke to him man to man, and her son’s dreadful day disappeared to nothing and hero-worship took its place.

She didn’t blame Henry. She was getting pretty close to hero-worship herself.

Guy lent her his cellphone. She contacted Jack to tell him Guy would be bringing them home, so not to worry about collecting them. Then they spent a couple of hours in the shallows, teaching Henry to float. The little boy hadn’t spent much time in the water since his accident and he was nervous. Up until now Jenny hadn’t persuaded him to put his face under water, but he’d do anything Guy asked. By mid-afternoon he was floating, kicking his scarred little legs, taking a brief gasp of air and floating again.

‘I’m swimming,’ he gasped, exultant, lit with happiness, and Jenny had to do a whole heap of blinking all over again.

Finally he was exhausted. Guy carried him up the beach and towelled him dry while Jenny packed the picnic gear. They loaded everything once more into the Ferrari, and Guy drove home with Henry’s legs on his knee, picnic gear covering Jenny and a liberal supply of sand coating everything.

‘Every Ferrari should look like this,’ Jenny said, squashed and happy. ‘It’s perfect.’

‘It is,’ Guy said, and smiled at her, and Jenny felt her heart flip and flip again.

She was so close…

Don’t, she told herself fiercely. This man is not of your world. He is nothing to do with you. He just happens to be wonderful right now.

But not tomorrow?

Then they were pulling into the farm and Jack was limping down the steps to greet them, looking worried.

‘There’s been news about trouble with some kids on the beach,’ Jack growled. ‘Jenny, the police rang and say they want a statement from you. What happened? What’s wrong?’

‘Nothing’s wrong,’ Jenny said quickly. ‘Something’s right. Mr Carver taught Henry to swim.’

‘I can swim, Grandpa,’ Henry said sleepily. ‘I can really, really swim, and Mr Carver says one day I’ll be a champion.’

‘You’re a champion already,’ Jack said gruffly, and lifted his grandson out of the car. He looked from Jenny to Guy, and then looked at his little grandson. His mouth twisted. Maybe the police had told him what had happened, Jenny thought, but he had the sense to let it go.

‘Mother, Mr Carver’s taught our Henry to swim,’ Jack boomed, and Lorna waved her delight from the veranda.

‘How wonderful. Mr Carver, what are you doing for Christmas?’

‘It’s Guy,’ Guy said. ‘And we’re putting on a wedding on Christmas Day.’

‘But not until late,’ Lorna called. ‘Christmas dinner’s always at midday. You’re to come to us. Now, no argument. A place will be laid.’

‘You’re coming for Christmas?’ Henry said sleepily, and Jenny watched Guy’s face as he stared at Henry.

He was fighting something, Jenny thought. And he was…losing?

‘I’ll come,’ he said. ‘If I can get all the arrangements in place…I’ll be here.’

‘He’s lovely.’ Late that night Jenny was sitting on the veranda with her mother-in-law, watching the stars over the distant ocean and listening to the soft clicking of Lorna’s knitting needles.

‘Guy?’

‘Of course Guy,’ Lorna said, and smiled. ‘Jenny, he’s just what you need.’

‘I don’t need anyone.’

‘Of course you do,’ Lorna said equitably. ‘You’re a lovely, healthy young woman. You’ve lost Ben, and that’s dreadful, but Ben would be the first one to say you shouldn’t spend the rest of your life grieving.’

‘I could never leave you,’ Jenny said, and Lorna looked at her face and saw the emotions working there.

‘So you are feeling…?’

‘Of course I’m feeling,’ Jenny burst out. ‘He’s gorgeous, and I’d have to be non-human not to feel that. But he can have any woman he wants. He’s a squillionaire. As soon as this wedding’s over he’ll go back to his life in New York.’

‘And if he asked you to go with him?’

‘He won’t.’

‘Jenny…’

‘He won’t,’ she said definitely. ‘And even if the impossible happened and he did, do you think I could take Henry away from all this? There’s no way, and you know it.’ She gave herself a mental shake and managed a grin. ‘Okay, he’s gorgeous, and if he happened to kiss me again…’

‘He kissed you?’ Lorna squeaked, and Jenny’s grin firmed.

‘There’s things that even you don’t know, Lorna Westmere. It’s true I find him enormously attractive, and the memory of Ben won’t hold me back. But it’s only for a few days and then it’ll be over.’

Guy spent much of that night awake. Thinking of Christa.

Thinking of Jenny.

He’d loved Christa, he thought. He remembered the bleakness, the guilt, the horror of those weeks after she’d been killed, but in contrast…He remembered the joy of Christa’s life, how she’d made him laugh, how when she’d agreed to marry him he’d felt like the luckiest man in the world.

But then things had changed. She’d hated his new career. There’d been fight after fight. The relationship had soured to the point where if she hadn’t been killed it would have been over.

He’d thought he’d been in love and he’d been wrong, and such a fundamental mistake had stayed with him ever since. Hell, if he could be so wrong about someone he’d believed he loved so much, how could he ever commit again?

He couldn’t.

‘So what the hell are you thinking of now?’ he demanded of himself aloud, and there was only one answer.

‘You’re thinking she’s gorgeous. You’re thinking that she’s been through hell and her little boy needs someone and…

‘You’re thinking of marrying?’ It was an incredulous demand into the darkness. ‘You’re thinking of taking them home?’

Why not?

The idea was so far out of left field that he almost laughed.

But…

But.

It wouldn’t mess with my life, he told himself. She’d come back to New York. We’d get the best medical attention for those scars. Henry could go to school. Jenny could work in the company.

And live with you?

Of course live with me, he told his alter ego, letting the picture of domestic bliss build. I have a huge apartment. There’s room to spare. Henry could have his own wing, and Jenny and I…

There was the nub of the matter. Jenny and I.

Jenny. Jenny as she’d been today, dressed only in a bikini, all womanly curves, defending her son, defiant, taking on all comers. Jenny squashed into his Ferrari, giggling with her son, meeting his eyes over Henry’s head and sharing his laughter.

Jenny.

You haven’t even slept with the woman, he told himself, and he sounded desperate, even to himself. How do you know you want her every night for the rest of your life?

Because I do, he thought, suddenly sure.

It was crazy. It was way too fast. But the thought of Jenny in his bed was suddenly immeasurably enticing.

It’s too soon, he told himself, his heart for once agreeing with his head. The way you’re feeling…It might just be sympathy.

It’s not sympathy and you know it.

It might be. You thought you loved Christa.

You wouldn’t be committing in the same way, he told himself. You can stay independent. What’s the harm? If it doesn’t work, what do you have to lose?

Nothing if you stay independent.

Can you stay independent?

Maybe. I can try.