A Bride for Christmas (14 page)

‘All my glory?’ Anna said, gulping and looking awed.

‘You’ll be floating on a sea of flowers. You’ll be wearing a tiny bikini and holding a fruit cocktail—something non-alcoholic, but no one need know—something that looks truly splendid. We’ll have your bridesmaids—minus one, who I trust will take herself the way of your bridegroom—floating round on air mattresses. We’ll use all the wedding flowers and make them look sumptuous. And you’ll be saying Welcome to the rest of my life. This is who I am. A woman who can put on the best party in the world. It’ll make Barret look stupid and you look magnificent.’

‘But…’ Anna whispered. ‘But…’

‘But what?’

‘There’s still the celebrant,’ she whispered. ‘There’s all the pink tulle. I have editors from the top celebrity magazines flying in especially to see a wedding.’

‘They will see a wedding,’ Guy said.

‘Whose?’

He took a deep breath.

‘Mine.’ And then he looked at Jenny. ‘Ours.’

For a moment there was nothing but silence. Jenny stared at Guy. Anna stared at Guy. And then Anna turned to Jenny.

‘You’d pretend to get married? But…’

‘There’d be no pretend about it,’ Guy said softly. ‘Anna, I love this woman.’

That’s me, Jenny thought dumbly. He’s talking about me.

‘I’ve already said I wouldn’t,’ she whispered, and Guy nodded and reached across Anna and took her hand.

‘I know. I was dumb.’

‘Excuse me, but you don’t want me sitting in the middle here,’ Anna said, sounding close to hysterics, and Guy grinned.

‘I’ve already proposed to the woman in moonlight. It didn’t work. I’m trying again. Stay where you are.’

‘Harumph,’ said Max from below, and Guy nodded.

‘You, too. I need witnesses.’

‘What…?’ said Jenny, and paused.

‘You mean what am I asking?’ Guy said. He hesitated, then ploughed on, a man making a confession before all. ‘This morning I opened my stocking and found a boat made with ice lolly sticks.’

‘So what?’ she whispered, and he smiled.

‘Let me finish,’ he said. ‘I need to. Jenny, fifteen years ago I turned my back on a career in law and used my savings to buy what must have been the most battered van our side of the Mississippi. I was so proud of that van. I used to walk round and pat it. But then…’

‘Then Christa was killed.’

‘She was,’ Guy said. ‘And the shock of her death made me think…well, that her values were true. I wanted to show myself that the sacrifice was worth it, and some warped, twisted part of my brain said the way to do that was make money.’

‘And you have,’ Anna said. ‘You’re such a success.’

‘Not a success if I can’t have my Jenny,’ he said, and his eyes were holding Jenny’s and they might as well be alone. ‘I met Jenny a little more than a week ago, and I love everything about her. I love her bravery and her honesty and her caring and her laughter. I love her son and her son’s puppy, and her mother-in-law and her father-in-law. I love the place where she lives. I was dumb enough to think maybe I could marry part of that and cart it back to New York, set it down as a possession. But it’s not like that, is it, Jenny? You refused me for all the right reasons.’

‘I…’

‘I’m not asking you that same question now,’ Guy said softly. ‘I’m asking if you’ll let me share your life. If you’ll let me take over where Ben left off—loving you, loving what you are and where you are, just…loving.’

‘Guy…’

‘I’ve been thinking,’ he went on, as if he was nervous that she’d say no before he’d fully explained. ‘After the Christmas stocking…all the way round Sandpiper Bay with Santa beside me…I thought.’

‘What did you think?’ Anna asked, awed, and Jenny thought she’d asked the right question. She should have asked it herself, but the words wouldn’t quite come out.

‘I thought I could move my base to here,’ he said. ‘I thought we could make Sandpiper Bay the wedding capital of the world.’ He grinned. ‘Though I think we’d need two sets of premises. We’ll take over the haberdashery and use part of it to incorporate Bridal Fluff. For any bride who wants fluff. And we’ll have a special rate for locals—kids who’ve lived in the district for years and can’t afford normal rates.’ He hesitated. ‘Maybe we could extend that idea to our other smaller premises, too,’ he said. ‘It takes thinking about, but then I’m not going to be working so hard in the future. I’m going to be doing a lot of lying on the beach, with our son and our puppy, and I can think things through then.’

‘Our son?’ Jenny said, astounded, and Guy’s smile became almost shamefaced.

‘It’s not my right to share Henry’s life,’ he told Jenny. ‘But if you’ll let me…I want to so much. You have no idea how much I want to share.’

‘You love Henry?’

‘Almost as much as you,’ he said, still gripping her hand, still holding her eyes, while Anna sat hornswoggled in between. ‘I thought I loved Christa, and my shock at her death left me thinking I didn’t know what love was. But I do know what it is. I know who it is. It’s you. My love. My Jenny.’

There was a moment’s stunned silence while everyone held their breath. Jenny didn’t move. It was left to Anna to respond.

‘Well,’ Anna said. ‘Well!’

‘Well,’ echoed Jenny. She shook her head, as if shaking off disbelief. ‘My thoughts exactly.’

‘Are you going to accept?’ Anna asked. ‘I only ask because…’

‘Time’s getting on,’ Max said from below, grinning broadly. ‘And I’ve thought of something. You can’t just swap from one wedding to another. There’s laws in this country. Four weeks’ notice before a wedding can take place.’

‘But we could make our promises today,’ Jenny whispered, and the whole world held its breath.

‘You mean it?’ Guy asked at last, and she smiled.

‘Of course I mean it. I shouldn’t. I loved Ben so much. But these last few days…I’ve been thinking and thinking, and the more I think the more I know Ben would say to grab life with both hands.’ She hesitated. ‘And I’ve been following your logic. Does this mean you want a shonky van again and not a Ferrari?’

‘It might,’ Guy said, cautious, and Jenny beamed.

‘Hooray,’ she said. ‘Then let’s do it. We’ll write it into the wedding vows. You get my wagon and I get the Ferrari.’

He lunged at her across Anna’s knees—and Anna, movie idol of millions, a woman who’d just been betrayed and whose wedding plans were in the dust, dissolved into helpless laughter while Guy Carver of the Carver corporation reached across her and kissed his intended bride as if there was no tomorrow.

CHAPTER NINE

GUY CARVER was a wedding planner extraordinaire. His own wedding was no exception. He would have liked to have had more than a few hours’ notice but, given the circumstances, what was achieved was little short of miraculous.

Firstly he barked orders at everyone, while Jenny and Anna looked on in admiration—and with just a touch of the giggles. Then he swept Jenny into her wagon and carried her back to the farm.

‘For I’m not doing this without consent,’ he said. Ignoring Jenny’s protest that Jack was her father-in-law, and no consent was needed, he carried her into the farmhouse as a groom carried his bride. He woke the startled Lorna and Jack and Henry and Patsy from their afternoon nap and asked with all the deference in the world whether there were any objections to his taking Jenny for his bride.

They were delighted.

‘It’s so lovely,’ Lorna sniffed. ‘We’ll miss you, sweetheart, but we always knew you’d move on.’

‘Then you’ll be disappointed,’ Guy said roundly. ‘You’re stuck with the lot of us for ever. Me and Jenny and Henry and Patsy and whoever else comes along. Mind, I’ll have to make the odd trip overseas—but maybe we can all go. Maybe you’ll even like New York.’

They were speechless—for a whole two minutes—and then Lorna started to plan.

‘So you’re getting married this afternoon?’

‘We’re having a ceremony this afternoon, to get Anna out of a hole,’ Jenny told her. ‘The press will indeed see a Carver Wedding. We’ll repeat our vows in a month for the legalities.’

‘We’ll repeat our vows night and morning for the rest of our lives,’ Guy said exultantly, but Lorna was concentrating on more important issues.

‘You need a dress, Jenny. Not the one you wore for Ben.’

‘No,’ Jenny said. She grinned, delirious with happiness and ready to be silly. ‘Maybe I can wear togs and thongs?’

‘Togs and thongs?’ Guy queried.

‘Bikini and flip-flops,’ Jack translated, and Guy’s face brightened.

‘I can cope with that.’

‘You can. She can’t,’ Lorna said roundly. ‘Jenny, dear…’

‘Mmm?’ Jenny was hugging Henry, who was carefully thinking about all the rides he was now going to get in a Ferrari. ‘Yes?’

‘I never suggested it when you married Ben—to be honest I loved it that we made your wedding dress together. But now…I don’t suppose you’d consider wearing mine?’

‘Yours?’ Jenny said, awed. ‘Oh…’

‘You’re practically the same size as I was forty years ago, and the fashions have come back…’ So they all trooped into the bedroom to Lorna’s camphor chest, and then Lorna realised that this was serious and turned and shooed out the menfolk.

‘You get back to Anna’s,’ she told Guy. ‘You’ll see Jenny at the ceremony and not before.’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

But as Guy made his way out through the front door Lorna wheeled herself out of the bedroom in a hurry.

‘I know it’s a minor detail,’ she called, ‘but we need to know when and we need to know where.’

The when was eight p.m. The where was on the beach. The very loveliest time of day.

The beach was crowded with celebrities from all over the world, and almost every inhabitant of Sandpiper Bay. In their midst was Anna, bouncing around as if she had the world at her feet. Whatever mortification she was feeling, she was hiding it with brilliance.

It would be Barret who was mortified now, Guy thought, watching as Anna attracted everyone’s admiration. He could even feel sorry for Barret. Anna was lovely.

She wasn’t as lovely as Jenny.

Guy was standing on the shoreline, where sun-warmed sand gave way to sand made damp by the receding tide. There was a temporary altar behind him, and the celebrant was beaming before it. In truth, the celebrant was a little put out—she’d expected to marry superstars—but the fact that she was marrying Guy Carver and the wonderful Jenny, who everyone knew, almost made up for it.

There was only one attendant. Guy’s best man was Henry, who held the ring—the Sandpiper Bay jeweller had been delighted to open for such a need—with the reverence it deserved. Henry had his own attendant—Patsy was right by his side—but she wasn’t diverting Henry from ring-minding. His hero was at stake—a stepfather who had the marks of life upon him. He kept glancing up to Guy as if he might evaporate, and every time he did Guy looked down at him and winked.

Henry was practising winking back.

‘They look like two cats with one canary,’ one of the reporters said to her photographer, and the photographer sniffed her agreement.

‘It’s beautiful.’

‘If you get that lens wet you’re dead meat,’ the reporter said, but she sniffed, too.

And then the bride arrived. By tractor. You couldn’t get over these sand hills except by foot or all-terrain vehicle, so Lorna, dressed in her wedding best, drove a trifle erratically but with aplomb, while Jenny stood on the side and held on for dear life. The crowd—wisely—parted before them. Lorna reached her destination, flushed with success. Jack helped his daughter-in-law down and Jenny was deposited by Guy’s side. To be married.

‘With this ring I thee wed…’

Maybe the photographer’s camera did get wet then, for there was hardly a dry eye on the beach as Jenny and Guy stood together against a backdrop of setting sun and sea and mountains and were made one.

‘It’s a perfect Carver Wedding,’ Jenny whispered as their wedding kiss finally ended, and Guy smiled at her with a smile that said life for both of them was just beginning.

‘I brought you lousy Christmas presents,’ he told her. ‘I had to make up somehow. Merry Christmas, Mrs Carver. With all my love.’