‘A smoke machine…’
‘It creates the haze without the health risk. I should have everyone smoking either cigars or Gauloise, but I’ll bet you have laws preventing it.’
‘We do.’
‘There you go, then. A smoke machine it is. Now, let’s look at these dresses and see if any of them might fit without alterations.’
‘You’re good,’ she said, on a note of discovery, and Guy stopped making lists and glanced up at her.
‘You’re surprised?’
‘You said you could even cut hair?’
‘There’s nothing I haven’t been landed with in the years I’ve been building this business. I know my stuff, Jenny. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t.’ He smiled at her look of scepticism. ‘You don’t need to worry,’ he said softly. ‘We’ll look after Kylie. The first Australian Carver Wedding will go off with a bang.’
‘It surely will,’ she said, awed, and then suddenly, as if she couldn’t help herself, she slipped out from behind the counter, took two steps forward and kissed him.
It was nothing like the kiss they’d shared last night. It was a kiss of gratitude, nothing more, and why it had the capacity to make him feel as if his feet weren’t quite on the ground he couldn’t say.
‘You’re making Kylie happy,’ she said softly. ‘Thank you.’
‘Think nothing of it,’ he said, or he tried to say it, but the words weren’t quite there. He was staring at Jenny as if…
He didn’t know what.
This wasn’t the type of woman that attracted him.
He hadn’t exactly been celibate since Christa had died. What had Jenny said? It was crazy, wearing the willow for someone for fifteen years. He hadn’t. Or maybe he had, but only in the sense that he never got emotionally involved. Where relationships went he used his head and not his heart. It did his firm’s reputation good if he was seen with A-listers on his arm. He chose glamorous women who could make him laugh, but who knew commitment was neither wanted nor expected.
But Jenny…
She was dressed like a prim secretary. Like a repressed old maid. Like something she wasn’t. He knew she wasn’t. Because otherwise why would his body be screaming that it wanted this woman-he wanted this woman?
She was a complication, he told himself desperately, and he’d spent his entire adult life making sure that he had as few complications in his life as possible.
‘I need to go check the facilities at Anna’s property,’ he said, and if he sounded brusque he couldn’t help it.
She grabbed her bag. ‘It’s in the hills, north of town.’
‘I’ll find it,’ he said, and she hesitated and then put her bag down again.
‘You want me to stay here?’
‘Yes.’
‘Fine.’ Back to being subservient. ‘I’ll make lists of what’s needed.’ She hesitated. ‘That is, if you want me to?’
‘I want you to.’
‘Fine.’
What was it between them? What was this…thing? It felt like some sort of magnetic charge, with both of them hauling away from it.
‘Fine,’ he repeated, and he left-but some important part of him stayed behind. And he couldn’t for the life of him think what it was.
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?