A Bride for Christmas (2 page)

It was time to enter this conversation. Jenny carefully removed the remaining pins and set them into her pin box.

‘Any arrangements I made before Mr Carver purchased the business will be honoured,’ she said. ‘I’ll take care of Kylie’s wedding.’

‘And the rest of them?’ Shirley looked affronted.

‘Maybe in my own time,’ Jenny said. ‘Not from this salon.’

‘Well…’ Shirley was about to start a war, Jenny thought, and Shirley’s wars were legion.

‘Leave it, Ma.’ For the first time Kylie spoke up. She was a pale, timid young bride, and only the fact that her prospective husband was even more timid than his fiancée—and totally besotted—made Jenny feel okay about the wedding. But now Kylie had a flush to her cheeks, and she turned to Guy as if she was trying to dredge up the courage to ask him something important. ‘Mr Carver…?’

‘Yes?’ Guy was staring down at Jenny—who was meeting his look and holding it with a hint of defiance. Things were about to change in her life because of this man, and she wasn’t sure that she liked it.

‘When did you buy Bridal Fluff?’ Kylie asked, and Guy turned and gazed at the bride.

It wasn’t a great look, Jenny thought ruefully. The first of her brides that Guy was seeing was a waif of a bride in a vast sea of tulle. Her dress had been made when she’d had a size eight waist. It had been close fitting then. Now two strips of satin had been sewn into the waist to accommodate her advanced pregnancy. Jenny had attached a loose-fitting lace camisole to disguise the bulge a little, but it was no small bulge. The fact that the bulge kept changing meant that the hemline kept changing as well.

As well as that, Kylie’s mother had definite ideas on what a bride should look like—which was a vision in every decorative piece of lacework she could think of. The veil even had tiny cupid motifs hand-sewn onto the netting. Seeing the veil turned into a train, Jenny estimated Guy was looking at approximately eight hundred cupids.

This was not one of her most elegant brides.

‘Do you officially own this place yet?’ Kylie asked, and Guy nodded, with what appeared to be reluctance.

‘Yes.’

‘Then I’m a Carver Bride,’ Kylie said, suddenly ecstatic. She held her hands together in reverence. ‘Like in those glossy magazines we buy, Ma. I’m the first Australian Carver bride. I reckon we ought to phone some reporters.’

‘No,’ Guy snapped, rising and looking at Kylie in distaste. ‘You’re not a Carver Bride. You are Mrs Westmere’s responsibility. My takeover was supposed to be confidential, and the name-change won’t happen yet. There’ll be no Carver Brides until my people are here and we can get rid of this…’ he gazed around the salon with distaste ‘…this fluff.’

Had he made a mistake? Guy watched as the hem-marking continued. ‘It’s a small place,’ Malcolm had told him. ‘The council has the power to make all sorts of complications, like refusing our requests to expand the building. We need to keep the locals on our side. Make an effort, Guy.’

Maybe he hadn’t made an effort. But really…Kylie, a Carver Bride? Some things were unthinkable. And what had happened to the confidentiality clause? It could be a disaster.

He waited on, ignored by the Grubbs, which suited him. Finally the hem was finished, and Kylie and her mother sailed off down the street to spread the news. Indignation was oozing from every pore.

They might be indignant, but so was he.

‘I understood this takeover was to be kept quiet,’ he said, in a voice that would have had his secretary shaking. Cool, low and carefully neutral.

It didn’t have Jenny quaking. ‘Your accountant, or whoever he is, should have said that earlier. My mother-in-law had ten minutes between offer and acceptance where that stipulation wasn’t known. Ten minutes can mean a lot of gossip in Sandpiper Bay.’

‘It means I can call the contract off.’

‘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.