by Rachel Dove
‘Maria, you doing okay?’
Maria looked across at her. ‘Cass, what the hell am I going to do?’
Cass gripped her hand in both of hers, squeezing it tight. ‘Mar, you are going to pick yourself up, get a new place, go back to work, and never speak to Arsy again.’
Maria smiled weakly at her, looking away quickly from the builder who was looking her up and down while devouring a family-sized box of chicken nuggets.
‘That easy, eh? Just like that?’
‘Yep.’ Cass’s eyes flashed with determination. ‘You can do it. And tonight,’ she continued, smiling devilishly, ‘we are going to get you very, very drunk.’
Maria rolled her eyes. ‘I can’t go out tonight. I don’t even have anything to wear.’ She looked down at her wedding dress, to point out the elephant in the room. Cassie smiled weakly.
‘No night out. PJs, boxset, and copious amounts of Chinese food and alcohol.’
Maria nodded. Not quite the night she had planned, but it sounded good right about now.
‘Deal,’ she said, slurping her vanilla shake. ‘But no Colin Firth.’
Chapter 2
One Week Later
‘What the hell! You have got to be kidding me!’ Maria slammed the local newspaper, the Westfield Times, onto her desk and stomped over to the kettle. She stabbed at the button, throwing ingredients into a mug. She reached into the biscuit barrel, shovelling a triple chocolate cookie into her mouth, mumbling as she chewed, before turning to the wall.
‘I mean, I am the ONLY wedding planner in Westfield! The only one! How could Agatha Mayweather go elsewhere, when all she does is prattle on about community, and giving back, and fighting big corporations!’ She thrust her arms out wildly as she spun around, cookie crumbs flying from her mouth. ‘I mean, seriously! I am going to ring that woman up and give her a piece of my mind!’
‘Who are you talking to, dear?’ a voice at the door asked. Maria whirled around, seeing her part-time assistant, Lynn, standing there, a large flask in hand. Maria flushed and pointed to the wall, where a picture of her mother was framed and hung up.
‘Sorry, Lynn, I was talking to Mum. The Baxters got married again, did you know that? From Love Blooms, the florist? They had a big event on Agatha’s estate, and I wasn’t even approached to help!’
Lynn smiled kindly, closing the door against the slight breeze of the weather. It was quite autumnal already. She put the flask down on her desk and strode over to the wooden coat rack, taking off her cream faux fur coat.
‘I know, dear, they seem so happy now, and about time too. I did worry about them, when they passed the shop to Lily. Idle thumbs and all that.’ She waggled her own very busy thumbs in the air.
Maria glared at her. ‘And!?’
Lynn sat at her desk, pouring a slurp of tea from the flask into one of the many bone china mugs she kept at work. She sighed and looked at Maria as she stirred, trying to find the words.
‘Darling, Agatha didn’t want to bother you about planning a wedding when your… er… when you were supposed to be on honeymoon. Your diary was full, so she didn’t ask.’
Maria’s shoulders slumped as realisation set in. ‘She didn’t want a wedding planner who got jilted at the altar, did she?’ It came out as more of a defeated statement than a question, and Lynn’s heart went out to her. She had watched Maria grow from a tiny baby to the beautiful woman standing before her, and whenever she thought of that wretched Darcy fellow, she found herself planning grisly things against his man parts with a crochet needle.
She waved her hand, cutting off Maria’s rant. ‘No love, not at all. No one thinks that.’
‘Oh no?’ Maria shouted, dashing over to the appointments diary. ‘So how come I have no bookings then, for the rest of the month? Eh?’
Lynn sighed slowly. ‘Maria, I know you’re upset, but think about it. The diary is empty because you were supposed to be on holiday, that’s all.’ She took a sip of tea and eyed her furtively, obviously expecting horns to sprout from her head at any moment. Maria sagged over the diary, deflated. ‘Oh,’ she said softly. ‘Of course, yes… sorry, Lynn.’
Lynn raised her hand to wave off her employer’s apology. ‘Don’t give it a thought. Why don’t you take the time off anyway – go away somewhere or something? Nice change of scene, eh?’
Maria shook her head. ‘I should be in St Lucia now. Somehow a week in some caravan in Skegness on my tod just doesn’t sound appealing.’ Lynn opened her mouth to speak again, but the phone on her desk started to ring. She smiled kindly at Maria and dealt with the customer. Maria went to the just-boiled kettle, pouring herself a huge mug of steaming hot coffee. As she added more sugar, she had to admit, if only in her own head, that she shouldn’t be at work. She felt like the angry wedding performer in that Adam Sandler movie. A movie she loved, and now couldn’t watch for fear of murdering someone, or herself, with a noose made from the finest lace she possessed. She should be glad she didn’t own a hardware store, the way she was feeling, but Lynn was right: work was going to be tricky, to say the least.
She listened to Lynn discussing venues and prices with the person on the phone as she took her coffee into the back, to her office. Once there, she closed the door and sagged to the floor behind it, the steaming beverage clutched in her fingers. She took a gulp and, setting it on the coffee table, crawled across the floor and curled up on the couch in the corner. She covered herself over with a blanket, and promptly fell asleep.
Lynn came in an hour later, tucked her in, and pulled the phone socket from the wall so she wouldn’t be disturbed. Maria looked exhausted, even in sleep, and Lynn frowned as she looked down at her. The poor girl, she thought as she brushed a strand of blonde hair away from her face. Closing the office door behind her, she went to the diary and looked over the next three months. Christmas was coming, and with it the party season, bringing a very welcome set of clients that had nothing to do with weddings. Lynn would book the diary up with these, and try to avoid doing any events. The business was doing well – if a little stalled since the wedding as regards the bigger, more lucrative jobs – so a couple of months off the wedding circuit wouldn’t do them any harm, and Lynn was determined to protect her employer as much as possible. She bit her lip as she fired up the computer, checking for any incoming enquiry emails that might derail her plan, but it appeared to be blissfully quiet on the nuptials front so far. It was a stroke of luck that Maria had put her own wedding at the end of the main season. Had this happened in spring, it would have been even worse. She just hoped Maria would be feeling better by the time the season was in full swing again. Being a jilted bride, wedding planner and owner of wedding boutique Happy Ever After wouldn’t bring Miss Mallory peace any time soon. Men, she thought to herself, seething at her feeling of helplessness. They really did have a lot to answer for sometimes.
Chapter 3
Maria put her key in the lock of Cassie’s cottage, sighing as the heavy, red-painted, wooden door only gave an inch. Pushing and tugging at it, she finally made headway and ended up flat on her face in the hallway, having landed on a pile of post. Tutting loudly, she picked up the huge array of magazines and letters, stacking them as best she could on the hall table. For an organised person like Maria, living with Cassie in her Westfield cottage was quite the change from Darcy’s large, sleek, minimalist Harrogate abode. Cassie had bought the place from her parents after university. They had a few rental cottages dotted around the area, and Sanctuary Cottage had always been a favourite of Cassie’s. She used to sneak in there with Maria after school to study, away from her bickering mother and father, and Maria loved to spend time with her friend there. Cassie was always so much happier within its walls, so much more relaxed, and Maria loved to see this side of her. After they graduated, Cassie had gone and landed a huge job in a swanky Harrogate firm, and had begged her parents to let her buy the place; they’d ended up giving in just to get some peace.
‘Cassie?’ she shouted, alread
y guessing her friend was still at work, given that her car wasn’t parked on the drive. Locking the front door, she headed for the shower, ignoring the blinking of the answer machine. No one would be ringing her anyway. Other than Cass and Lynn, the only other person in her life was… had been… Darcy. So now she was back to being alone, and it was worse, much worse, now. Because she was all too aware of how it had felt to be in a couple, and how close she had been to having that for ever. After her parents died, she’d got used to being alone – but being plonked back into the status wasn’t as easy. It felt like the January slump, dull and rather cruel. Just as you got used to the excitement, the build-up, the change in routine… suddenly, there you were – slap bang back in routine-ville, having to work again, the excitement over, leaving depressed, grey people contemplating major life changes and Googling holiday packages to use as escape pods. An escape pod sounded like a fantastic idea at the moment.
Rinsing off the suds from her hair, she heard a door bang downstairs.
‘Cass?’ she shouted, squinting at a stray sud that had dripped down into her eye. ‘That you?’
She listened but heard nothing. Cass was never home early; the woman was a machine. She listened again, but the shower was all she could hear.
The bathroom door burst open and Maria screamed. The other person screamed back just as loudly, and Maria grappled for purchase on the shower curtain while swinging one arm behind her for something to use as a weapon. Her fingers found a shampoo bottle, and she was just about to douse the intruder with Pantene when she heard her name being called. Wiping at her eye frantically, she looked again at the door and saw Cassie standing there, face still frozen mid scream. She put the shampoo bottle down on the side of the bath, willing her frantically beating heart to slow down.
‘Cassie! You frightened me to death! Where’s the fire?’ she laughed, embarrassed at her reaction. Cassie didn’t answer at first, looking panicked. Maria turned off the water and grabbed a fluffy bath towel, wrapping herself up. Getting out of the shower, she shivered as her feet hit the cold tiled floor. Cassie was still looking at her funny, and hadn’t moved an inch.
‘Cass,’ Maria said, concerned now. ‘What’s the matter? Bad day at work?’
Cassie grabbed her arm, pulling her slowly into the guest room. Maria followed, wondering what had happened to make her friend so uncharacteristically anxious. She sat down at the foot of the bed, her pal sitting next to her, putting an arm around her, oblivious to the wet hair that trailed down it.
‘I take it you didn’t listen to the answerphone message then,’ she said softly. Maria shook her head, concern now clouding her own features.
‘No, why? Cass, you’re seriously worrying me now. Please – just tell me what’s wrong!’
Cassie took a breath. ‘My secretary was reading one of those celeb mags at work this afternoon, and she came across a piece on Darcy.’
Maria felt suddenly woozy, her breath taken in a sharp gasp. ‘Okay,’ she said, her voice barely audible. ‘Go on.’
Cassie reached into her pocket and pulled out a ripped piece of paper on which Darcy’s face could be seen smiling out from above the crease. Maria grabbed it from her, unfolding it. The headline read HARROGATE BACHELOR LICKS HIS WOUNDS IN THE SUN. Underneath were three pictures: one of Darcy in a pair of shorts, looking out to the horizon from a tropical beach, tanned and pensive. Another was of him driving down a beach road in a flash open-top car. His hair was being blown by the wind, making him look sultry, and his lips were contorted in a sad pout. I mean, the man looked depressed, albeit in sunny weather and behind the wheel of a posh car.
The third picture was of him lying on a sunlounger, caught in mid laugh, cocktail in hand. Scanning the pictures, she stopped dead. It wasn’t the hand holding the cocktail she was focused on, but the other one. The one held by a slender set of fingers, a woman’s, her thumb bearing a fleur-de-lys ring. The person was obscured by a wall of loungers, so only the hand showed, but it was unmistakable. Darcy had gone on honeymoon, their honeymoon, and was holding hands with another woman. The article was brief, just a few lines about how Darcy Burgess, heir to the Harrogate tea empire, was ‘consoling’ himself with an ‘unknown female companion’ after his aborted wedding to Westfield girl Maria Mallory.
Cassie took the piece of paper back from her. Maria allowed it to slip through her fingers. It felt like it was on fire anyway, her fingertips tingling from the contact.
‘How can it say that? It makes it sound as though I left him at the altar. He broke my heart, and he went on holiday! We were supposed to be married now!’
Cassie said nothing, thrusting the article back into her pocket. She strode over to the wardrobe, throwing the doors open, and started thumbing through the hangers. Maria looked across at her.
‘What are you doing?’
Cassie grabbed a red dress and thrust it at Maria. ‘Put this on.’
Maria looked at the dress, which had been a daring purchase, never worn. The tag scraped at her arm as she laid it on the bed. ‘I can’t wear that, I should never have bought it!’ Trust Cassie to have rescued that from her old place, Darcy’s home. She should have left it there. She pushed the thought from her head. She shouldn’t be ungrateful; after all, she had got all her belongings back without even having to put a toe near Darcy. Which was good, since the toe was attached to her foot, and if she had seen him, she would have used that foot to give him a good kicking. If Cassie hadn’t got there first and ripped him limb from limb like she’d threatened to, that was.
Cassie glared at her, oblivious to the violent thoughts swirling round in her friend’s head. ‘Why buy it then? Come on, get your hair dried. We are going out… NO ARGUMENTS,’ she boomed as Maria opened her mouth to protest. Maria felt her foot itch but ignored it. Not tonight, angry toe.
Two hours later, Maria found herself in Harrogate, squeezed into the red dress, shoes pinching her feet, wondering why the hell she wasn’t sitting on Cassie’s couch eating ice cream, sloshing wine down and crying. She said the same to Cassie as they walked on tottering heels to the nearest trendy bar, Ice, in the wine-bar-and-posh-eatery part of Harrogate’s city centre, which, coincidentally, butted up against the legal quarter of Harrogate, and no doubt the two sides kept each other in business quite well too. Walking into Ice with Cassie, it was hard to ignore the stares her friend attracted. Cassie Welburn was, she had to face it, sex on a twenty-nine-year-old stick. She was always tanned thanks to her meticulous salon treatments, plucked and shaped to perfection, and tonight, as usual, she was dressed to kill. Even Maria’s daring red slinky number looked tame in light of Cassie’s black and silver dress, slashed to the thigh, combined with sparkly silver heels that made her even taller than her just-under-six-foot frame. Maria blushed and nudged Cassie’s elbow with her own.
‘People are staring, Cass.’ Cassie shrugged, propelling them both forward into the bar with a determined swagger.
‘Let them stare, girl. Don’t worry, I’ve got your back.’ Maria belatedly realised that tonight, thanks to that ridiculous article, the stares might indeed be for her and not her glamorous friend. She cringed inwardly and planted a smile on her face. She took her friend by the arm and, pushing her boobs out and her chin up, headed to the bar. ‘Let’s get smashed,’ she declared.
Four bars later, the two friends were knocking out shapes on a dancefloor. They were now in a place called Fresh! which had a large dancefloor in the back, complete with strobe lighting and a large DJ booth that overlooked the whole area. It was all neon lights, tacky road signs, and club kitsch, but it went well with the Eighties pop they were currently playing. Maria was laughing at Cassie, who was singing her head off to a Wham! hit while several suitors flanked her, unseen, ready to make their move, like big cats on a gazelle. If only they’d known Cass was the biggest cat of them all. No man could take her down; just ask her clients. Cassie illustrated the point by wiggling gracefully away from a man who dared to wrap his arms around her
, shooting him a look that could curdle milk. As the song merged into another, Maria licked at her lips. The remnants of the last shot were sticky on her mouth and she needed something to rehydrate. Motioning to Cass over the loud music that she was heading to get something to drink, Maria took a rare empty stool at the surprisingly quiet bar. It seemed everyone was writhing and thrashing on the dancefloor, all the stools occupied but hers and another next to it. The bartender, a bored-looking youth in a uniform consisting of a black T-shirt and the tightest jeans known to mankind, gave her an enquiring nod as she sat.
‘Bottle of water, please, thanks,’ she said, getting only an eye roll in return. ‘Jesus, who died?’ she said under her breath.
‘No one yet,’ came the answer from her left. She looked across, surprised anyone had heard over the music, and met the brown eyes of a man who made the barman look positively cheerful. He looked wretched; bloodshot eyes under hooded lids, a near-vacant expression, all topped by a head of very unruly brown hair. He had a look of Droopy the cartoon dog. Cute, though – what Maria would call a fixer-upper. Good bones, just needed a bit of renovation. The cut of his rather creased but obviously expensive clothes did him no favours either. He looked like he needed to be steam-cleaned from head to foot.