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

by Fiona Harper

  When she’d started talking there’d been the slightest tremor in her voice, but as she ended her speech her tone was calm and even. She stared back at him coolly and innocently, then flashed him another one of those smiles.

  He mentally kicked himself. He’d told himself not to flirt, hadn’t he? And yet somehow he’d not only done it, but talked himself into thinking it was a good idea.

  There was a call from inside the door. Lynette was ready. He reached over and opened it, allowed Nicole to go first. She slipped through the doorway without looking at him.

  Great. Now she’d clamped down even harder than ever, and he was the one feeling all hot and bothered. All he’d succeeded in doing was reminding himself how much he was attracted to her, of how good that kiss had been. Tom had been right: the good girls really were fun when they were being just a little bit bad.

  He sighed as he followed Nicole back into the room. It was going to be a very long day.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  A flurry of confetti met a gust of wind above the bride’s and groom’s heads and exploded like a pastel firework. All around people cheered. Lynette looked lovingly into her new husband’s eyes and he bent in to kiss her tenderly, and Alex caught it all. Nicole could hear the shutter whirring on his camera as the bride laughed, pulled away from the groom and fished a handful of coloured paper from down the front of her dress. Alex captured that too.

  It was amazing to watch him. Not only did he set to work ticking every item on the list they’d created together, but he managed to catch all the unplanned moments of magic as well.

  It had been a lovely service in the tiny church that sat on the edge of the Elmhurst estate. Soon the cars would arrive and ferry the wedding party and guests back the short distance to the hall, where the reception would begin.

  The happy couple had elected to have a good portion of the formal group photos done outside the picturesque church, even though it was late November and frost still tinged the grass that sat in the shadow of the spire. Nicole hadn’t had time to get cold, though. She was also minding Alex’s coat. He’d shrugged it off when he’d really got going, darting this way and that, snapping everyone emerging from the arched doorway, getting candid shots of genuine joy and pleasure as family and friends looked on at the new Mr and Mrs Hunt.

  They were getting to the end of the shot list now. Bridesmaids were shivering, pageboys misbehaving, elderly aunts needing to be escorted into the warm. Nicole was frazzled. There’d been no let-up, not since they’d climbed that staircase and knocked on the bride’s dressing-room door. Her feet were sore, her eyes gritty, her shoulder muscles screaming from carrying bags and tripods. And if she had to go and find one more cousin of some sort who’d just wandered off…

  But Alex…Alex was taking it all in his stride, as if he was running on the energy created by all the happiness around him. She was desperately trying to keep cool, calm and professional. On the surface she was managing it, but underneath?

  Well, underneath it was all a hot mess.

  Did he have to keep doing that? That thing where he smiled at her when he got a particularly good shot? It made her feel part of a team of two. A couple. She really didn’t need to be thinking that way about him, not even in a professional sense. And did he have to keep needing more lenses from his bag so she had to keep getting close to him, trying desperately not to let their fingers touch? She was having to concentrate hard just to do the fake job properly. Any thoughts of doing what she’d really come here to do had flown out the window.

  At that moment Alex bounded up to her again. The more photos he took, the more enthusiastic he got. And the more unbridled energy that emanated from him, the more she couldn’t stop looking at him. ‘Next group?’ he asked.

  She quelled a shiver and checked her list. ‘Lynette’s university friends—they’re all rounded up and waiting—and then it’s Charles’s rugby pals. I’ll make a start finding them while you’re doing the next lot.’

  He nodded. ‘But keep close by. I might need that fisheye lens again soon.’

  ‘Will do,’ she said in the most efficient voice she could manage, then turned to the group of eight women she’d managed to herd together only a few moments ago. The only problem was there were now only five left.

  She resisted the urge to tear her list into extra confetti while screaming at the top of her lungs. What was it about large groups of people? Even well-educated, sensible people like this lot seemed to be? Get more than a handful of them together and they couldn’t do what they were told for more than two minutes. If only she’d thought about bringing a sheepdog or two along with her…

  Or a cattle prod.

  She scanned the crowd, looking for the friends who’d gone AWOL. Ah, yes. There was the one in the red coat…She marched up to her and tapped her on the shoulder. ‘Hi,’ she said with a tight smile.

  The woman looked blankly at her, as if she hadn’t just had a conversation with Nicole five minutes ago.

  ‘Photographer’s assistant,’ she reminded her. ‘Would you like to come this way so we can take a picture of all of Lynette’s university friends?’

  Without saying anything to Nicole, the woman excused herself from the group she was chatting to and headed back over to the waiting group. But when Nicole caught up with her she realised yet another one had gone walkabout.

  ‘Right! St Andrew’s ladies,’ Alex yelled out. ‘Can I have you gathering round the bride? And I promise the resulting photo will have everyone declaring that you haven’t aged a bit since the day you graduated.’

  As one, the six women—plus the two strays, who appeared out of nowhere—formed themselves into an orderly group around their friend. Nicole almost sobbed. She’d been trying to get them to do that for ages, and all it took was one word from Alex and they obediently followed his every command.

  As she rounded up Charles’s rugby friends, who were all huddled together, thankfully, listening to a match on somebody’s phone, she glanced over her shoulder at Alex, watching him work. She’d heard whispers as she’d followed him around for the last couple of hours that he was one of the most sought-after wedding photographers for couples who wanted something a little bit different, and now she understood why.

  He threw the rule book out the window, but it worked for him. The bridal couple looked happy and relaxed as they posed for him. There wasn’t a coat-hanger smile or twitchy cheek in sight. He had a gift for putting people at ease. Probably because they just liked him. Naturally. Without him having to work at it or change himself. To be honest, she felt a little jealous.

  Alex finished snapping the last few shots of different groups, but decided to save the large group shot for the Great Hall in Elmhurst, assuring the bride and groom he knew just the spot to take it from so he could fit everyone in.

  Once they’d captured Lynette and Charles’s Rolls-Royce leaving the front of the church, Nicole picked up as much gear as she could and loaded it into the back of Alex’s car. Rather than taking the longer route round the village and then up the sweeping drive that allowed visitors to see Elmhurst Hall at its finest, they drove along a service road that ran round the edge of the gardens and managed to leap out of the Jeep and run round to the front of the building to catch the bride and groom’s arrival.

  ‘Holding up okay?’ Alex asked, as they hefted the bags and tripods inside, ready to set up for the reception. ‘I’ve built up a lot of wedding stamina over the years, but for a first-timer it’s a bit of a marathon.’

  The way he smiled at her made her insides go all gooey. It was pathetic. Especially as she was now starting to question if Alex had actually flirted with her today. Yes, he’d been friendly and warm—and on occasion cheeky—with her, but he’d been exactly the same way with every other woman they’d encountered that day. He teased; he joked. It was part of his charm.

  Had he even flirted with her that evening at the gallery? At the time she’d thought he had, but now she wasn’t so sure. Everything he’d s
aid and done had been filtered through her reaction to him. If her heart hadn’t been thudding, her skin warming, her lungs lazily forgetting to exchange oxygen for carbon dioxide, would she have come to the same conclusion? Maybe not.

  Which meant whatever crazy static energy was bouncing around between them might well be all on her part and none on his. She was such a sad, sad case.

  ‘Nicole?’

  She turned to him and tried not to notice how the cold air had given his skin a healthy glow, how the little dimple in his cheek appeared and disappeared as his lips twitched in amusement.

  ‘You kind of spaced out there for a moment.’

  She shook herself. ‘You’re right. It has been tiring…and maybe I did zone out for a second, but I’m back now and ready to face the next challenge.’ She had to be. She couldn’t quit now—they’d hardly had more than a few seconds of downtime for her to quiz him, the job she was really here to do.

  ‘Great. Then let’s go and get these lighting tripods set up in the Great Hall.’

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Elmhurst’s great hall was the perfect venue for a wedding. The stone walls were adorned with stags’ antlers and armour. Flagstones were underfoot and high above was a vaulted wooden ceiling, six centuries old. It would have been impressive bare of any furniture or flowers, but set up for a wedding it was a fairy tale come true.

  Large circular tables filled most of the space below a raised dais, where the top table was laid out, hung with garlands of evergreen and roses. Thick linen cloths covered the tables and the low afternoon light coming through the long, arched windows bounced off the crystal glasses and silver cutlery. Tall arrangements of white roses with trailing ivy sat in the middle of every table. They’d been cleverly constructed to hold half a dozen thin white candles and the glow of the flames brought warmth and light into the formal and impressive space.

  There were a couple of spaces at a table tucked into the far corner with ‘photographer’ written on the place holders. ‘Finally!’ Nicole said as she slumped into a banqueting chair covered in white linen and tied up with a gold sash. Her feet were killing her.

  Alex sank into a chair beside her. For the first time that day, a hint of the tiredness he must be feeling showed on his face. ‘I don’t always get to eat like this at these things,’ he said. ‘Sometimes it’s a packed lunch in a corridor or in the Jeep.’

  ‘This is very nice of Lynette and Charles,’ Nicole replied, helping herself to a glass of water.

  He nodded. ‘They’re a great couple. Very generous. They said the least they could do if I was going to be available to capture every moment of the reception was feed me so I didn’t keel over before the cake was cut.’

  Nicole relaxed a little. Then she realised what he’d just said. ‘The whole reception?’

  ‘Don’t worry…I reckon we’ve got about an hour of downtime. Nobody wants to have their picture taken with their mouth full of food.’

  As Alex finished talking, a waiter came and placed a delicious-looking plate of chicken in some kind of sauce in front of both of them.

  This was it, then. Downtime from the fake job, but now she had to gear up for the real job. She took a breath to steady herself. Every instinct she had was telling her to move away, find something to do so she didn’t have to be near him, but she couldn’t give in to that—at least not yet.

  Probably better just to get him chatting to start off with, rather than launch into an inquisition on love and romance. Then when she did ask the questions she needed to ask, he’d be relaxed, ready to share.

  ‘So…’ she began, looking round the grand old hall, ‘can I see some of the shots you’ve taken?’ That was always a good ‘in’—to get someone talking about their work or something they were passionate about.

  He placed his camera lens down on the tablecloth and began pressing buttons. A second or so later an image of the hall, aglow with candlelight, filled the digital display on the back of the camera, obviously the last one Alex had taken. It was different, though. Not just a boring shot of a room full of people. She’d wondered why he’d tucked himself in beside a suit of armour and now she saw why. The edge of the figure just showed on the edge of the screen, making it seem as if someone from the past was not only looking on, but keeping guard, as the bride and groom sat at the top table.

  ‘Press this button and you’ll be able to go back through everything I’ve got on this card,’ he told her, pointing to the back of the camera.

  It was then she realised they’d both leaned in to look at the shot. The gloom in this corner of the room had made the screen bright and easy to see, but it also made this spot feel set apart from the rest of the hall, more intimate. She could feel the heat of him close. Neither of them said anything for a few long seconds.

  Slowly, deliberately, she lifted her thumb and pressed the button where Alex’s had just been, scooting back through the photographs they’d taken since coming back from the church. If she wanted to see more they’d have to swap memory cards, as he had got her to change them numerous times throughout the day.

  Alex didn’t move. He didn’t sit back and relax in his chair as she’d hoped he would. He kept leaning forward, watching her reaction to the shots she’d helped set up. The images began to blur past Nicole’s eyes and eventually she pushed the camera back in his direction, even though she hadn’t finished going through them all.

  ‘I think the shots are amazing,’ she told him, making eye contact for as long as she dared, which wasn’t much, ‘but they’re very different from your landscapes.’ She picked up her knife and fork and began cutting her vegetables.

  He thought about that for a moment, then nodded. ‘This is all noise and colour and people. It’s fun. But when I go out there…’ he glanced over his shoulder towards the window and the darkening fields beyond ‘…it’s just me and my camera and whatever the light and weather bring to the party. It’s not just fun—it’s exhilarating.’

  Nicole felt a small smile curve her lips. ‘You really love it, don’t you?’

  He nodded again, eyes serious.

  ‘And what about it makes you love it so much? What keeps you going back to some of the same places again and again?’

  He looked at the ceiling, studied the rough beams of the centuries-old banqueting hall, then back at her. ‘I don’t know how to explain it…Take Sharp Tor on Dartmoor. It’s one of my favourite spots, but every time I take pictures there it’s different. The seasons change. The sun is at a different place in the sky. It’s cloudy or clear. Sometimes everything looks the same but it just feels different. You know what I mean?’

  She shook her head, but she wished she did know. Alex, without the swagger, without the laid-back charm that made him seem a little superficial, was captivating.

  He thought for a moment. ‘It’s like every time I go I get a different piece of the puzzle, that I’m unlocking the mystery of the place.’

  She let her gaze wander over some of the stuffed animal heads hanging from the stone wall behind him, coming to rest on the antlers of a noble stag. ‘Is that what makes it so exhilarating—the mystery of the place?’

  He shook his head. ‘It’s about seeing something—a place or an object—in all its moods. Until you’ve done that you can’t know if you’ve really captured its…essence, I suppose. Whether you’ve seen its truth.’

  She was supposed to be asking another question, but she found she couldn’t. Alex was looking at her, his usually light eyes dark, and the air in their little corner of the room grew dense. Nicole looked down and began cutting her chicken at double speed.

  Time to get off this subject. Quick. It felt as if he was telling her secrets. And she didn’t want to know his secrets. Didn’t need to. All she needed to do was find out how Saffron could best propose to him. They’d done enough chit-chat.

  She glanced up from her meal to see if he was still listening, then indicated the grand hall with a nod of her head. ‘So…would this be the sort of th
ing you’d do when it comes time to tie the knot, or would you go for something less traditional?’

  A harmless enough subject change, given their current location, and Nicole had discovered that weddings and proposals went hand in hand. Those who liked a big, flashy wedding tended to like a big, flashy proposal and those who wanted something small and intimate to celebrate their nuptials usually went for something quieter when popping the question.

  Nicole waited for him to say something but he just kept slicing and chewing for the moment. For a rather long moment, actually. Strange. For a man who seemed like an open book on most things, he was oddly quiet on this subject.

  She had a feeling she’d stepped over an invisible line and she didn’t know why. The air grew so thick around them, and the atmosphere so awkward, that she decided to make light of it. She smiled and looked his way while she cut her food. ‘I suppose you’d be happier tying the knot while abseiling down the outside of a Scottish castle or bungee jumping off a skyscraper?’

  He took the lifeline she offered. Gratefully, if his eyes were anything to go by. ‘That sounds more like it.’

  They ate in silence for a few moments as the previous tension leached away.

  ‘Actually,’ he said, looking over at her, ‘if I had to do it again, I’d go for something small. Something intimate.’

  Nicole dropped her fork and it made a horrible clattering noise. ‘Again?’ she echoed, her voice coming out high and not very cool and professional at all. ‘You’re married?’

  She knew that was a stupid question the moment she heard it in her own ears, but she was so shocked she hadn’t been able to stop her thoughts instantly exiting her mouth. She really hadn’t pegged him for the marrying kind—at least not as young as he must have been.

  ‘Was,’ he said, looking grim. ‘Divorced now.’ He surveyed the romantic scene around them. ‘My first one was like this—but on steroids. My ex went a little OTT.’

  Nicole nodded. She knew that sort of bride. Unfortunately, having discussed basic proposal ideas with Saffron, she didn’t think his current squeeze was any less inclined to shy away from extravagance and glitter.