Last-Minute Bridesmaid

Closing his eyes, he could almost see his mother playing the piano in the drawing room below while he played with his grandparents in the patio garden outside the open French windows. The smell of lavender and beeswax. Old books and linseed oil. Because, above everything else, this house had always been filled with artists, the dinner table chatter was about art, the library full of books and exhibition catalogues about art and, of course, every available wall had been a living, constantly changing art gallery.

The thought of Alice walking these corridors where his mother had been so very happy was something that he was slowly coming to terms with. But he wasn’t there yet. And he wasn’t entirely sure that he ever would be.

That was something else he was going to have to work on.

In the meantime? He had a wedding to survive. A wedding where it was going to be crucial to pretend that all was rosy in the Sheridan family, and father and son were working together like the dream team they were pretending to be.

Heath strolled over to the lovely polished marquetry desk and sat down heavily on an antique chair, which creaked alarmingly at the weight.

His father and his new fiancée had ordered a relaxed country house wedding—and that was precisely what they were going to get—with his help.

Heath opened up his laptop and was just about to dive into the checklist for the wedding arrangements when his cellphone rang and he flipped it open and answered without even checking to see who was calling him.

‘Sheridan,’ he said, and jammed the phone between his solid wide jaw and his shoulder blade so that he could scroll down the project plan and highlight the key activities while taking the call at the same time.

‘Heath? Heath, is that you?’ a female voice called down the worst phone line that he had ever heard. Loud crackling noises and what sounded like thunder screamed out at him.

Heath instantly focused on the call. ‘Olivia, I was starting to get worried. Did you make your flight to London on time? Sorry about the British weather but the forecast is looking good for the next few days.’

The response was a loud clattering sound as though heavy objects were being dropped onto a metal floor, and Heath held the phone a few inches away from his ear until he heard his girlfriend’s voice, which gradually became clearer. ‘That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you, but all the lines are down. I’m still in China. Heath?’

He closed his eyes and counted to ten before blinking. ‘Olivia, tell me that you’re joking.’

‘The tropical storm that hit three days ago has just been declared a typhoon,’ her echoing voice replied. ‘A typhoon! Would you believe it? Even the helicopters have been grounded.’

Heath pinched the top of his nose, and then quickly typed in search details for the weather in Southern China. Whirls of thick white cloud and misty shapes of land masses covered with warning symbols reflected back at him from the screen as he replied. ‘This looks serious. Are you okay? I mean, do you have somewhere safe to go until the weather clears?’

‘The valley has already flooded,’ she yelled, ‘so the whole team is being evacuated further up the mountain into the cave system.’ Then she paused for a second. ‘I have to be honest with you, Heath. Even if the weather had been good, I had already decided not to fly to London for your father’s wedding.’

Tension creased his brow as Heath tabbed though the images and he slumped back in the hard chair. ‘What do you mean? We talked about this a few weeks ago,’ he replied and clasped the fingers of one hand around the back of his neck and rubbed it back and forth as a cold hollow feeling pooled in the pit of his stomach.

‘No. You talked. And I tried to explain that I needed time away on my own to think about where our relationship was heading. It’s been almost a year now, Heath, and you are just as cold and guarded as you were the day I first met you. Your work is more important than me. Than us. I’m sorry, Heath, but I can’t keep this relationship alive on my own. I think it is better if we go our separate ways. I want something more. We both deserve a chance for happiness. And mine is not with you.’

She seemed about to say something when muffled voices and engine noise echoed down the phone. ‘I have to go. Please send Charles and Alice my apologies and tell them I’ll catch up the minute I get back. I’ll be thinking of you this weekend and we’ll talk more when I get back. And I am sorry, Heath, but this is goodbye. Have a great time at the wedding. Bye.’

And then the phone went dead.

Heath Sheridan stared at the completely innocent telephone for several seconds while he suppressed the urge to throw it out of the stained-glass window.

This is goodbye? Have a great time at the wedding?

What had just happened? Because, unless he had completely got it wrong...his girlfriend had just broken up with him. On the telephone. From China.

Okay. It was July and this would have been the first time that they had spent more than a couple of days together since New Year. He had frantically completed a major promotional tour for his bestselling thriller author before moving to Boston to work for Sheridan Press. There never seemed to be enough hours in the day, especially over the past few months.

And what about her work?

Olivia’s anthropology project with Beijing University had turned into a major excavation into cave art which would take years to complete. She had even had to send the dressmaker her dimensions for her bridesmaid’s dress by email. He knew this because he was the one who had taken the barrage of complaints from Kate Lovat about making a bridesmaid’s dress for a slim five-foot-three girl who would have to wear the dress without a single fitting.

Heath’s fingers froze on the keyboard.

Oh, no.

He was going to have to tell the bride that she was going to have to walk down the aisle of the village church on her family estate with three bridesmaids instead of four.

He dropped his head into his hands and groaned.

He was toast.

TWO

Kate stood in the doorway to the library room and took a breath.

The last time that she had seen Heath Sheridan was at a high school dance and it had certainly been a memorable occasion. Just thinking about that moment when she had jumped on him to say goodnight made her feel so embarrassed and intimidated. And that was without the height difference, which meant that he towered over her without even trying.

Kate shrugged off her nerves. That was years ago. This time they were equal. Two professionals with their own businesses.

Unfortunately for her poor heart, Heath Sheridan had the nerve to have actually become even more handsome than the man she remembered and Amber talked about constantly.

The star student who had made his name turning around the popular fiction division of the family publishing company should be round-shouldered and wear cardigans with leather patches at the elbow.

He had no right to be so tall and clear-skinned. And that hair! Lush dark brown hair which curled into the base of his neck and seemed to have a mind of its own. He had never been vain—she knew that from talking to Amber—but style and vanity were two very different matters and Heath Sheridan had style to spare.

Why shouldn’t he?

Amber wore gowns by top fashion houses and his family were on the top level of Boston society. It made perfect sense for him to be wearing a tailored black suit and shirt which fitted him so perfectly she knew instinctively that they had been made to measure.

Those strong shoulders, slim waist and hips would be a gift to any tailor.

Oh, my. And how she would like to dress him.

Suddenly the room become stiflingly hot and it had nothing to do with the weather!

‘Ah! There you are,’ Kate called out through a tight throat. ‘Special delivery for the man of the house, courtesy of Lovat courier services. Great to see you again, Heath.’

She waited for him to turn around and give her one of those fabulous grins that used to make her teenage knees wobble.

And she waited. And then she waited a little longer. But his gaze stayed totally locked onto whatever he was finding so fascinating on his computer screen. She could see that he was reading and typing so he was not asleep.

So she tried again.

‘Hi, Heath. Your one-woman dressmaker and delivery service is here.’

Kate looked at Heath and then looked at the pretty dress box that she had slaved for hours to create and then carted across London in a downpour.

She might forgive him for not turning around to greet her but there was no way that he was going to ignore the fabulous work that she had done.

‘Thank you, Kate. You were such a star to drop everything else that you were working on to create four amazing outfits at the very last minute as a personal favour,’ she murmured under her breath as she slung her shoulder bag higher over her shoulder.