A Wedding at Leopard Tree Lodge

by Liz Fielding

  ‘Good plan. And tell Gideon that if he needs help with the barbecue, the lads will pitch in.’

  ‘Thanks. I’ll do that.’

  Josie commandeered a corner of the kitchen and set up a cupcake production line. The bridesmaids all pitched in but none of them appeared to have ever made a cake before and the minute the photographer had got pictures of them, giggling and splattered with batter, she shooed them away as more trouble than they were worth.

  Gideon scrubbed up and came to help the minute he’d got the barbecue pit set up. At least he only needed to be told once, although he wasn’t above wiping a finger round the bowl like a kid. She caught him red-handed, slapped him with a spoon and, instead of licking it himself, he offered it to her.

  ‘Come on,’ he said, tempting her. ‘Tell me you can resist.’

  She looked up into hot liquid silver eyes and for a moment completely lost her head. She could not resist him. Not for a moment and, closing her lips around his finger, she surrendered to the dizzying tug of desire and, as the sweetness melted on her tongue, she thought she’d pass out.

  ‘Good?’ he asked. And when she struggled to speak, ‘Maybe I should try.’ He didn’t wipe his finger around the bowl, but lowered his head, touched his tongue to her lips.

  ‘Josie Fowler?’

  She jumped, spun around. There was a man standing in the doorway.

  ‘I’ve got two leopard cubs. Where do you want them?’

  The wedding was perfect. The florists had done their thing again, this time surrounding the open air boma and poolside with huge swathes of bird of paradise flowers. Twining the posts of the thatched open-sided rondavel that had been constructed for the ceremony with roses and tiny fairy lights.

  Josie was waiting at the steps to put the last stitch in the hem, then slipped into her seat beside Gideon at the back.

  The bridesmaids came first, show-stopping in clinging dresses made from animal print silk with tiny ostrich feather fascinators. The lion, the zebra, the giraffe, and finally the leopard leading two tiny cubs on orange and blue ribbons.

  Then it was Cryssie’s turn. She was breathtaking in a strapless white gown cinched in with a basque that had been embroidered and beaded with the team’s colours and, as she was led by the team’s manager through the guests to take her place beneath the thatched canopy beside her groom, there was only a sigh.

  This was always the moment that caught her out. The look of pure love on a groom’s face as he saw his bride coming towards him.

  Usually, she’d be sitting alone at this moment but today Gideon had been at her side from first light and, as the tears welled up, he reached for her hand. Startled, she turned to him and saw in his eyes that same look for her.

  Afterwards, Cryssie hugged her. ‘You are the best, Josie. And the cakes…’ The tiny sparkly sprinkles that Pete had found had perfectly matched the beading on her dress. ‘If they’d been designed for the wedding, they couldn’t have been more perfect. You have been a star and I’ll make sure everyone knows. Thank you both so much,’ she said, looking past her to Gideon. ‘And you two. Will you get married here?’ she asked.

  ‘No!’

  ‘No,’ Gideon said, beating her to it by a fraction of a second. ‘We’ll find a place of our own, Cryssie, and when we do, you’ll be at the top of the guest list.’

  She spun around to stare at him.

  ‘Gideon, I…’ She didn’t say any more because he was kissing her.

  It was the kind of kiss that Prince Charming would have given Cinderella. A sweet, true, for ever-and-ever kind of kiss.

  And afterwards she couldn’t think of a thing to say because whatever it was wouldn’t be adequate. Would shatter the moment.

  ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘You’ve been on your feet since dawn. Let’s leave these people to enjoy themselves.’

  ‘Gideon…’

  ‘Three days.’ He looked down at her. ‘That’s what you were going to say, isn’t it? That we’ve only known one another for three days.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That’s a good sign, you know. Being able to read one another’s minds. Do you want to have a guess at what I’m thinking?’

  ‘I haven’t a clue.’

  He looked at her, grinned. ‘That’s not strictly true, is it?’

  ‘No.’

  He kissed her again. ‘We’re adults, not kids. I’ve wanted you from the moment I first saw you, fell in love with you, somewhere between the coffee and the chilli.’

  ‘No… It’s not possible.’

  ‘That’s the nature of love. I wasn’t supposed to be here. Neither were you. “There is a destiny that shapes our ends…”, Josie. Trust me; I recognise the real thing when I feel it.’

  She wanted to believe it so much…

  ‘But when I told you about what I’d done, I saw the look on your face. You couldn’t wait to get away from me.’

  ‘That’s what you thought?’ He pulled her to him, holding her. ‘Angel, when you asked me to kiss you, I knew it was going to be bad. I wanted to wrap you up in my arms, hold you, make it go away in the only way a dumb man knows how. But you needed me to hear it and I had to listen. If I looked horrified it was not because of what you’d done, but because so many people had let you down. Hurt you. I was so angry that I made a complete mess of it.’

  ‘You could make all the hurt go away,’ she said, leaning into him, feeling the steady, powerful beat of his heart against her cheek. ‘Right now.’

  ‘Maybe, but that’s not you.’ He pulled back to look at her. ‘We’re not a couple of kids, Josie. We’re adults. I love you. I’m here for you and I always will be. Everything else can wait until we’re married.’

  The thought that such a man loved her enough to wait until she trusted him enough to marry him overwhelmed her.

  ‘I don’t know what to say.’

  ‘We’ll have a very short engagement?’ he offered.

  ‘The quickest in history,’ she said. Then, ‘So what do we do until then?’

  ‘We’ll date. I’ll take you to the cinema, to dinner, for walks in the park, to meet my parents. You’ll cook me supper. We’ll have a really nice time and, when you are really, really sure, we’ll set a date and get married.’

  I’m sure, she thought. Never more sure of anything in my life…

  ‘And tonight?’ she whispered.

  ‘Tonight…’ He looked up to a velvet African sky. ‘Tonight we’ll count the stars.’

  The marriage of Josie Fowler and Gideon McGrath took place three months later on a tropical island that the tourist world had not yet discovered. It was a simple affair. No bridesmaids, just Sylvie at her side. No hothouse flowers, only the orchids growing wild and, the only creatures, the birds, crickets, tree frogs. The guest list didn’t trouble Celebrity. This was not a public occasion, but something precious for the two of them and those who were closest to them. Gideon’s family, close colleagues. Sylvie, her husband and her baby girl. And friends, including Cryssie and Tal. And Josie’s staff, who were, for once, simply there to enjoy the day.

  Josie’s dress was a simple white column of silk, over which she wore a little bolero, scattered with tiny amethyst beads.

  Her hair had been restrained into a short bob with only one vivid splash of purple that echoed the colour of her eyes. As they stood beneath the trees, the air scented with vanilla orchids, hand in hand as they said the vows that made them one, Gideon felt such an overwhelming sense of peace, love, joy.

  They ate simple food served in the open and then, as the sun set, they left the party to walk along the beach to the cottage that Gideon had found for their honeymoon.

  They started sedately enough, but the minute they were out of sight they began to run, arriving laughing and breathless at the open French windows where Gideon picked her up and carried her inside, not stopping until they reached the bedroom.

  Sitting in the centre of a bed scattered with flower petals, there was a large white beribboned box. />
  ‘More presents?’

  ‘This one is special.’

  ‘Gideon, I don’t need presents, I’ve got you…’

  ‘For ever,’ he said, ‘but I think you’ll want this.’

  ‘It’s heavy. Not diamonds, then…’ she said, pulling on the ribbons.

  ‘More precious than that.’

  ‘Really?’ She looked up at him but there were no clues to be found in his beloved face. ‘What?’ she asked, laughing.

  Then, as if she could see into his mind, she knew.

  ‘Gideon?’

  He said nothing and she turned back to it. She hadn’t thought her heart could beat any faster than it had today, but this was different and she could hardly breathe as she lifted off the lid.

  The first thing she saw was the box containing her father’s medals. She picked it up, opened it, touched them. Laid them aside. Opened an album of photographs.

  Her mother as a girl.

  ‘Oh,’ she said as she saw her father, unbelievably young, in his uniform. Their wedding. She sat down, turning the pages. Groaning over school photographs. Remembering trips. ‘That’s me on my first bike.’

  ‘And guess what,’ he said. ‘You’re wearing a purple jumper.’

  ‘My mother knitted it for me…’

  She leaned against him and gasped, exclaimed, laughed, cried as she turned each page. ‘It’s my life. My history.’ Then, turning to him, ‘Did I ever tell you how much I love you?’

  ‘Not more than twenty times a day.’

  ‘It’s not enough. I don’t know how you got this…’ She put her hand over his mouth before he could tell her. ‘I don’t want to know. I only know that you could not have given me anything more precious, more perfect. But this is my past,’ she said. ‘You are my future.’ And she cradled his face in her hands, kissed him. ‘From this day forward, Gideon…’

  ISBN: 978-1-4268-5523-8

  A WEDDING AT LEOPARD TREE LODGE

  First North American Publication 2010.

  Copyright © 2010 by Liz Fielding.

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  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

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