If The Dress Fits: a delightfully uplifting romantic comedy!

Tears sprang into Callie’s eyes and trickled down her pale cheeks. Her shallow breathing induced a dizzy spell causing her to pause at the door to draw oxygen into her screaming lungs. An icy drench of panic rose up her arms, leaving goosebumps in its wake.

‘Look, Callie, you can’t drive all the way up to Yorkshire by yourself – you’re in no fit state. I’ll drive you.’

‘Scarlet…’

‘What use will you be to your aunt if you end up in the same hospital after an RTA? Give me your keys!’ Scarlet brandished her palm and the expression on her face brooked no further argument.

Callie realised that her objections were only serving to delay her journey. Any further refusals would only extend the time until she arrived at her aunt’s bedside.

‘Okay. Flora, if you can’t find Lizzie, will you stay until the courier arrives to collect the gown? All you have to do is fill out the documents and get a receipt.’

‘Sure, Callie. I hope your aunt’s going to be okay.’

Callie could not recall much of the journey up to Harrogate. Scarlet drove swiftly, the car’s headlights tunnelling two piercing beams through the London streets, strangely devoid of their daily bustle on that late March evening, the clientele of the busy bars ignorant of the curling veins of turmoil swirling around Callie’s ragged brain. Raindrops splattered sporadically on the windscreen, the blades flicking them away like irritating flies. The amber glow of the street lamps cast their mellow light into the inky black puddles gathered in the gutters and across the rooftops.

She couldn’t lose Aunt Hannah, she thought, panicking, especially as she’d already lost her parents. God couldn’t be that cruel, surely?

Silence pervaded the vehicle whilst Scarlet concentrated on handling the unfamiliar controls of the Mini Cooper and delivering Callie to the hospital as quickly as possible, her own features pinched and sombre in the half-light. Anyway, what words were there to ease the pain?

At last Scarlet pulled into the deserted hospital car park. Callie glimpsed the stout figure of Hannah’s best friend on the stone steps leading to the entrance hall, clearly keeping an anxious lookout for their arrival. Callie leapt from the car, grateful for Delia’s foresight – it meant she would not have to wander the neon-bleached corridors, going through the rigmarole of repeated questions to locate her aunt.

‘Delia? Where’s…’

‘Oh, Callie, I’m so, so sorry, my love. So very, very sorry.’ Tears streamed down Delia’s powdery, wrinkled face, her pale blue eyes gentle as she hooked her arm threw Callie’s elbow.

‘Delia?’ Callie’s voice trembled.

‘Come on. Seb and Dominic are just in here,’ and she steered Callie into a tiny, fluorescent-bright room just off the entrance-hall corridor.

As soon as the door swung back, Seb leapt out of the brown plastic chair and took Callie into his arms. Over his shoulder, Callie swung her horrified stare from Dominic to Delia as icy fingers of dread curled around her heart and squeezed.

‘No… no… no…’

‘I’m so sorry, Cal. Mum passed away twenty minutes ago during surgery. Heart attack. They did everything they could…’

‘No…’

Chapter Four (#ulink_e6899246-c3fd-5262-aa51-9c1418cd8e3c)

A soft breeze laced with the fragrance of spring wove its way through the village of Allthorpe. Shafts of early April sunshine spliced through the leaden clouds clothing the church with a mantle of golden light. It was a picturesque venue and it was no surprise that the parish church, complete with rose-entangled lynch gate, was regularly chosen as the venue for much happier occasions. But no ivory ribbons rippled on the gateposts that morning.

How could life dispense such cruelty? Callie wondered as she dabbed away the tears from her cheeks with the scrap of embroidered cotton Delia had given her that morning. First the Director of Fate had snatched her parents, leaving her an orphan, and now he had seen fit to take her beloved Aunt Hannah as well.

Seb and Dominic were her only real family now – her only remaining link to her life in Yorkshire. She laced her arms through theirs as they thanked the vicar for the very moving eulogy he had delivered to a packed congregation. Hannah had been a popular resident of the village of Allthorpe, a committee member of the WI as well as a regular church attendee, and the Reverend Coulson knew her well. There had been genuine sadness in his words of comfort.

The mourners spilled out of the church and meandered their way down the path towards the village green where a snake of black limousines waited. Those closest to Hannah had been invited to join the family in a toast to her life at her home in Harrogate ten miles away.

Callie had known Theo would be at the funeral to pay his respects to his best friend’s mother and the person who had taken his girlfriend under her loving wing when she was only ten years old. Her aunt had possessed an infinite capacity to love and had extended her affection to Theo, the boy who had loved her niece for as long as she could remember. But Callie hadn’t anticipated the depth of emotion she would experience when she set eyes on him for the first time in three years as he loitered on the worn-out steps of the church with his parents whilst they chatted to the vicar.

Her first reaction was to turn and run, but how could she?

Seb must have felt her arm tense. He glanced over her shoulder, a smile cracking his face for the first time that day.

‘Theo!’

Callie had no choice but to accompany Seb and Dominic to receive the heartfelt condolences of Theo’s parents, Geoff and Julie Drake. They shook hands with Seb and Dominic and then turned to hug her to their chests with such compassion that she had to swallow down hard not to open the firmly sealed flood gates. She knew the last thing her aunt would have wanted was for her to be a tear-strewn wreck. She managed a weak smile of appreciation, muttered how grateful she was for their words of genuine comfort, and was keen to move away before Theo took his father’s place and enveloped her in his embrace.

‘Geoff, Julie, I think Theo and Callie could do with a little space,’ announced Seb, his eyes lingering on Theo’s as he guided his best friend’s parents out of the churchyard.

‘Oh, no, Seb, I…’

Callie hadn’t intended to meet Theo’s gentle, silver-grey eyes. When she did, her heart dropped like a stone down a well before bouncing straight back up again, lodging somewhere between her chest and her throat. Her knees weakened under the strain of her swirling emotions as she drank in his familiar features.

Nothing about him had changed. He was still the teenage boy she had given her heart to. He still spoke with his broad Yorkshire accent, unlike her, who’d worked hard at eradicating it. He still wore his sandy-blond hair on the long side and favoured the designer-stubble look. The smattering of freckles across the bridge of his nose remained, reminding Callie of the time they had spent one summer lying amongst the wheat in a farmer’s field when she had counted every single one and had declared there to be one hundred and thirty-two. He’d asked for a recount before grabbing her by the wrists and smiling into her eyes to tell her he was joking. It was the first time he’d told her he loved her.

‘Cal, I’m so sorry about your Aunt Hannah. I know how much she meant to you. She was a wonderful lady. When Seb called to tell me about the funeral I grabbed the first flight back to the UK.’ His smile was a peace offering.

‘Thanks, Theo.’

He reached out his fingers and gently touched the back of her hand. ‘If there is anything I can do to help ease your pain, I want you to know that I’m here for you. I will always be your friend.’

Tears amassed on her lower lashes, but she could think of nothing to say. They weren’t the same people they had been three years ago. They led totally different lives. Yet, after all this time she was still unable to view Theo as just a friend. He had ensnared her heart and refused to return it. Now she realised that it would hurt too much to maintain the civility required to sustain even friendly relations.

A lone tear trickled down her cheek and Theo reached over to brush it away with his thumb. His lips parted as he cupped her chin and lifted her face to his.

‘Cal, I want you to know…’

‘Don’t, Theo. I can’t do this. Not today.’

A cloud of regret passed across his handsome features but he respected her request. ‘Okay, but we do need to talk. I’ve got a break in my commitments and I’m home for a few weeks. How long are you home for? That’s if you still call Allthorpe home.’

They had reached the village green opposite Gingerberry Yarns, the haberdashery shop on Allthorpe High Street her aunt had owned and run with the help of Delia. ‘It’s the cosiest little wool shop in Yorkshire,’ Delia was forever quoting as her catchphrase. It had certainly been the place Callie had spent her happiest times and its contents had nurtured her passion for all things woolly and had inspired her to follow her dream of a career in fashion.

‘The will is being read tomorrow. I’ve promised Seb and Dominic to go to the solicitors with them, although I don’t know why they need me there. Then I’m going back to London. The announcement is being made on Monday.’

‘What announcement?’

Callie cursed her lapse in concentration. The last thing she wanted was for Theo to know about her submission to Lilac Verbois’s wedding gown competition. She knew he’d tell her that his band had been booked to perform at the evening reception and she didn’t think she could take any more trauma that day. The Razorclaws and their music would be for ever linked with Theo’s betrayal. She needed to get through tomorrow, then she could leave Allthorpe and eradicate the risk of bumping into Theo again.

‘Oh, just something to do with the boutique. Bye, Theo.’

Before Theo could say anything else, she turned her back on him and strode away, jumping into the back seat of one of the limousines waiting to take the mourners to the wake at her aunt’s house in Harrogate.

Theo was a spectre from her past and she had to make sure he stayed there.

Chapter Five (#ulink_2613f668-a6c5-5c94-8b82-adc50588668c)

‘May I start by expressing my sincere condolences and thanking you all for coming today. I’m Gordon Braithwaite, senior partner here at Braithwaite, Cobbs and Fisher. We’re proud to have handled all of John and Hannah Garside’s legal affairs over the years.’