The Little Shop of Hopes and Dreams (Mills & Boon M&B)

by Fiona Harper

  ‘An hour to an hour and a half, depending on the traffic.’

  She nodded and kept her focus straight ahead as they headed east, through the almost empty streets. She’d hoped it would be a local wedding, something at a nice hotel in London. Something she’d have been able to get the Tube to, then get away again as quickly as possible. But it had turned out they were heading across London and into deepest Kent, to a stately home called Elmhurst Hall. She’d heard of it, but had never been there before. All of a sudden, an hour and a half in a Jeep with him felt like an eternity.

  ‘Do you mind if I put some music on?’ he asked.

  Nicole shook her head, and Alex prodded a couple of buttons on the stereo. Pretty soon a rock station was blaring into the car. She welcomed the noise, hoping it would fill the space between them, hoping it would stop her noticing each tiny movement of his arm near hers as he moved the gear stick.

  It didn’t work.

  It also didn’t remove the subtle scent of his aftershave from the confined space or stop her listening to the thrum of his voice as he hummed along with a favourite song. She decided the only way she would keep her sanity was if she did talk.

  ‘Tell me about the location,’ she said. Maybe, if she could keep herself in ‘work’ mode—even if her work wasn’t just being photographer’s dogsbody—then she’d survive this monster of a day.

  ‘It’s the home of Lord and Lady Radcliffe, but they open the house and gardens to the public and do a great wedding package,’ he told her, only flicking a glance in her direction as he weaved through the London traffic. ‘I’ve done a couple of weddings there before, so I didn’t need to go down and scout out the place beforehand. The ceremony is going to be in the church at the edge of the grounds and the reception will be held in the grand hall. It’s medieval, complete with a raised dais at one end and shields and swords on the wall. Lighting will be a bit of a nightmare, by the way, because it’s a bit gloomy in there this time of year…One of the reasons I could do with an assistant today.’

  Nicole’s voice, when it came out, had a bit of a squeak to it. ‘You want…you want me to help with the lighting?’

  Alex laughed. ‘Don’t worry. I’m talking about a couple of slave flashes on tripods that’ll work wirelessly with the unit on my camera. I’ll just need you to set them up straight and keep an eye on them, make sure they don’t get knocked. You won’t have to do anything technical.’

  ‘Thank goodness for that,’ she muttered.

  ‘I thought you wanted to get the low-down on being a wedding photographer,’ he said, a hint of challenge in his voice. ‘You won’t manage that without getting your hands dirty.’

  Nicole stared at her hands in her lap as they waited for a red light to change. She’d been so busy thinking about Alex and how she was going to handle seeing him again, she’d forgotten she’d actually be doing things today. Things she knew nothing about. Things that could potentially mess up someone’s wedding. All of a sudden she felt a little queasy.

  If there was one place she disliked being, even more than crammed into this confined space with Alex Black, it was out of her comfort zone.

  ‘I think you’d better fill me in on exactly what we’re going to be doing when we get there,’ she said. The squeak in her voice was back. Higher. Tighter.

  As they headed out of London, Alex did exactly that, outlining all the different places and people they’d be shooting, from starting the day with the bride and groom getting ready to the reception. Her brain began to spin with all the facts and details. After ten minutes she held up a hand to stop him. ‘Do you have a list?’ she asked weakly. ‘If you want me to help you call all these people and get them in the right place, I think I should have a list.’

  He grinned as he kept his eyes on the road straight ahead. ‘Of course I have a list.’

  Nicole exhaled and relaxed into her seat a little more. ‘Where is it?’

  Alex lifted his left hand off the steering wheel and tapped his index finger to his temple. ‘In here.’

  All the warm and fuzzy feelings that had started to grow flushed themselves away, leaving only a pool of ice in the bottom of her stomach.

  However, by the time they drove through the vast stone gateposts to Elmhurst Hall, Nicole had scribbled for twenty pages in the little notebook she always kept in her handbag. At least the job of extracting Alex’s list from his head had kept them off personal things and firmly onto the business side of the day.

  Fifteen of those pages were lists of different groups of people they’d need to shoot at different times and in different locations throughout the day. The other five were notes on which lens was which and how to organise the multiple memory cards Alex would be using in his camera. And she was going to have to carry kit around and keep charge of it. She couldn’t have been more nervous if she’d been guarding the Crown jewels. She’d been involved in planning numerous weddings while working at Elite Gatherings, and the last thing she wanted was to end up as some Bridezilla’s breakfast because she’d accidentally deleted all her wedding photos.

  How did Alex carry all of this around in his head and not go crazy? The thought of working off the top of her head, not relying on print-outs and lists synchronised to her phone, made her feel twitchy.

  Alex parked his Jeep and they unloaded the boot. She took a small lens bag and a lightweight tripod, but when she moved to sling a third bag over her shoulder, Alex waved her away from the back of the car.

  ‘I’ll get these.’ He threw her his keys. ‘You can shut the boot after me and lock the car.’

  Nicole looked at the remaining three bags. All were big. All were heavy. And there were two more tripods. ‘And you usually let your assistants off this lightly, do you?’

  Alex stopped and frowned. ‘Well, usually they’re photography students doing it for the experience. They expect to work hard.’

  She straightened her back. ‘And so do I. I want the whole experience. That’s what I’m here for, after all.’

  And it was true. It was just that it wasn’t the photography experience she was after. It was the full-on Alex Black experience. But only because her job required it, of course. Only because she’d promised Saffron she’d do a stupendous job planning her proposal.

  He studied her carefully, then shrugged one shoulder. ‘Have it your way.’ Then he handed her a bag so heavy to sling over her shoulder she thought she’d be walking like a lopsided orang-utan for weeks and piled another tripod on her waiting arms.

  ‘This way,’ he said, heading off round a wall at the corner of the car park. ‘Mustn’t keep the bride waiting.’

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Alex hoisted a tripod more comfortably over his shoulder and led the way past the front of Elmhurst Hall. It was pretty impressive, with its large central square tower and two wings spreading either direction. Smaller towers finished each wing like rather large sandstone bookends. There were battlements on the roof and tall, multi-paned windows breaking up the warm yellow facade.

  He turned round the side of the building, aware of Nicole trailing behind him, puffing slightly. He looked over his shoulder and opened his mouth to ask if she wanted a hand, but the look that she gave him told him he’d better not try it, so he closed it again and just kept going.

  The front of Elmhurst Hall might be showy and grand, but he liked it round the back better. Here it was much more obvious how successive owners had added to it over the centuries, creating a patchwork of different styles from medieval to Jacobean.

  Keeping the route as short as possible, he led Nicole through a small, studded wooden door and headed up a stone spiral staircase. By the time they reached the landing outside the room reserved for the bride’s dressing quarters, Nicole was panting behind him but trying desperately not to show it. He indicated she could put her load down. She grimaced and let it gently to the ground.

  She’d surprised him, refusing to let him do all the heavy lifting. Saffron would have taken him up on that of
fer like a shot. And she’d have engineered a way to offload the small amount she did have to carry too.

  But that was what today was all about, wasn’t it? Finding out who Nicole Harrison really was. He couldn’t think of a better way than this. After a back-breaking twelve-hour day where they’d have to deal with the expected and unexpected, he’d have her pegged. He’d know if the spark between them was real or if it was just like Tom had said, that she was nothing more than a knee-jerk reaction because his relationship with Saffron was going beyond ‘fun’ and teetering on the edge of something more serious.

  And he wasn’t going to flirt. No matter what else Tom had said.

  He was just going to be chatty and friendly, like he was with everyone else. That way maybe she’d lose the starchy librarian act she’d got going and loosen up a little.

  He rapped softly on the door with his knuckles, and a bridesmaid peered nervously round the door a few seconds later. ‘Alex!’ she said, her face lighting up, and almost dragged him inside. ‘Lynette!’ she called over her shoulder. ‘Alex is here!’

  ‘Thank God!’ another female voice said from inside the room. ‘I’m having an earring crisis and I need someone with a good eye to help me out.’

  He entered the large, low-ceilinged circular room, part of the vast round tower that sat at one of the back corners of the Hall. The room was covered in rich, hardwood panelling, its patina darkened to almost black by the wear of a couple of hundred years. Where the light from the mullioned windows hit it, it glowed warm and rosy like a good red wine. The antique furniture was a similar colour but the gloom was lightened by a soft cream carpet and furniture. The bride stood by the window, being fussed around by the bridesmaid who’d answered the door and a few others of various shapes and sizes.

  Lynette turned from surveying her open jewellery box on a large dressing table, where a make-up artist and hairdresser were both patiently waiting for her to sit so they could make their finishing touches. ‘Alex, I can’t decide…’ She held up a single earring in each hand. ‘Mummy gave me Grannie’s pearl earrings this morning and I don’t know whether to go with those or stick with the ones I spent three months searching for.’

  He stepped forward. If he looked hard he could see a slight difference, but they were both pretty. However, he knew—after learning the hard way—that brides took details like this very seriously. ‘Why don’t we wait until you’re in your dress and everything’s finished,’ he suggested. ‘Then I’ll take a close-up of you wearing each pair with your necklace and you can choose between them.’ Problem solved. And he was off the hook if she later decided she’d made the wrong choice.

  ‘Genius!’ Lynette cried, clapping her hands. ‘I knew there was a good reason I hired you. And it wasn’t just because most of them—’ she threw a look at the gaggle of giggling bridesmaids over her shoulder ‘—begged me to.’

  She leaned forward, pulled him into a hug and kissed him on the cheek. He stepped back, smiling, then gestured towards Nicole. ‘I said I’d be bringing an extra pair of hands today. This is Nicole Harrison.’

  ‘Lovely to meet you,’ Lynette said to Nicole and shook her hand. ‘Any friend of Alex’s is a friend of ours. You’ll meet Charles shortly, I should think.’

  A tiny crack appeared in Nicole’s composure as she glanced warily in his direction, but then she produced a blinding smile, one that felt as if it had been rehearsed a thousand times. He realised he’d been on the receiving end of that smile more than once in their short acquaintance. He also realised he didn’t like it much.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘I’m looking forward to it.’

  That done, he clapped his hands softly and looked round the room. ‘Right. Time to get some of this clutter moved away so we have a clean background for the shots. Nicole?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, snapping to attention, any hint that she’d felt anything but totally in control completely erased.

  ‘Can you move the clothing rail over to the far side of the room, away from the windows?’

  ‘Done,’ she said, starting off in that direction.

  ‘And, girls…?’

  The bridesmaids erupted in a flurry of giggles and eyelash batting. They were all a bit hyped up, dressed to impress, and he was the first male specimen that had seen them in their glorified state, that was all. He was used to this kind of reaction from batches of girls in identically coloured dresses. He also wasn’t above using it to keep the group smiling and cooperative. Herding bridesmaids was about as easy as herding cats.

  He grinned back at them. ‘If you could sweep up any bits of your make-up and hair stuff and put them on that dresser over there…’

  Within five minutes he had the room how he wanted it. The make-up artist was putting the finishing touches to Lynette’s face. The soft winter light from the window was perfect, making her skin look like that of an old-fashioned movie goddess. He set to work instantly while the make-up artist swept yet more mascara on her lashes and applied her lipstick.

  A lot of photographers would have kept quiet at this point, but he liked to chat with the bride. Not only did it relax her, but he always got a few lovely shots of genuine amusement or wistfulness, not those kind of stilted posed pictures where she looked like a shop dummy in a wedding dress staring out of a window. He asked her about her family, how Charles had proposed, where they were going on honeymoon, and then, right at the end, he took the shots of the earrings he’d promised and Lynette was feeling so mellow she chose her grandmother’s without a second thought.

  When he was ready to move on to the next set of shots, he looked over his shoulder. ‘Nicole?’

  She was standing silently, stiffly, not engaging at all in the fun going on around her. ‘Yes?’ she replied, standing straighter.

  ‘I need the seventy-to-two-hundred-millimetre lens from inside that bag.’

  She opened the bag and stared at the assorted lenses in there, all protected from rolling around with padded partitions, and then she looked back at him a little helplessly.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said, smiling. ‘Forgot you’re not my usual kind of helper. The one in the far right corner.’

  He then turned his attention to the bridesmaids, getting them to help each other check their hair and arrange the wrap things they were wearing round their shoulders, all the while snapping away. It wasn’t a very traditional way to do wedding photography, but this was how he liked to work. He liked action, catching a moment as if he were a news photographer, listening to his gut so he could press the shutter at just the right moment to catch a smile or a look.

  The hairdresser had finished tonging or curling or whatever they called it and now she was fixing a small pearl-covered tiara onto Lynette’s head. When it was done, and she stood up, the bridesmaids sighed all at once.

  ‘Don’t you start!’ Lynette warned, waving a finger at her maid of honour, who was desperately flapping her hands in front of her eyes with splayed fingers. ‘I want some photos of us while the make-up’s still good and before I turn panda!’

  Uh-oh. He knew where this was heading if he didn’t do something quick—Niagara Falls. And no one needed a delay in schedule while make-up had to be hastily redone. He had to run down to the church in half an hour and start to work on the groom and his attendants before the service.

  ‘So…’ he said, stepping into the group and starting to shoo them into a loose group around the bride, who sat back down in her chair. ‘Who was the worst behaved on the hen weekend?’ That instantly produced a few hoots of laughter and accusations began to flow, mainly from the direction of the bride.

  He took a few last shots of them all together as they ribbed one girl about an unfortunate incident with a feather boa, and then he glanced over at Nicole. She was ticking away in that little notebook of hers. He didn’t need to check with her, but he did anyway, guessing it might help her relax a little. ‘All done?’

  She nodded.

  ‘Then that’s our cue.’ He headed for the door.
‘Let us know when you’re ready for us again,’ he said to the head bridesmaid as Nicole dashed after him. She gave him a questioning look when they were alone on the landing together, the solid oak door closed behind them.

  ‘Obviously, I don’t stay inside while the bride gets dressed,’ he said. She raised her eyebrows, looking unconvinced, so he added, ‘I might be a little bit bad on occasion, but I’m not that bad.’

  There was something about the hint of holier-than-thou in her expression that got under his skin and niggled him. He looked back at her, tempted to shake his head.

  This woman looked like and sounded like the one he’d met on New Year’s Eve, but there the similarities ended. And, yes, he knew she’d been a little drunk, but in his experience alcohol tended to loosen the inhibitions, magnify what was already there, not turn a person into a different being entirely.

  While on one hand it irritated him, another side of him was curious. Where had she gone, his Midnight-Kiss Girl? He was no closer to finding out than he had been when he’d picked her up that morning. Friendly and chatty was just not doing it. At least not with her, even though it seemed to be working fine on everyone else. He gave in to the temptation to push just a little bit harder, to see if he at least could get that iron mask of hers to wobble a little. And he knew exactly how to do it, never mind what Tom would accuse him of later.

  He leaned in, invading her space just enough to see her pause breathing. ‘But you know all about being a little bit bad on occasion, don’t you? I swear, if I hadn’t experienced it for myself while Big Ben was chiming, I’d have bought the “butter wouldn’t melt” thing you’ve got going on.’

  ‘I’m here to work,’ she croaked. ‘Not…not…’

  He raised his eyebrows. ‘Not…?’

  She swallowed. ‘I know we have…history. Sort of. But I’m not here because of that. Really I’m not. I’m here on a purely professional footing today, and I’d prefer it if our relationship stayed that way. If you’re not comfortable with that, then I’ll leave.’