I did have her number. Gabrielle Hargreave would have to answer her own mobile phone sooner or later. And I would be on the other end of the line when she did.
SEVEN
London
15th August
“ARE you one hundred percent recovered, my lovely?”
“Getting there. You’ll be pleased to know I am not carrying any pathogens capable of sending you to bed for a week straight. I’m still on antibiotics for another ten days.”
“Depends on who’s in the bed with me, love.” Ben loved to tease with innuendo.
I laughed at him. “Well, trust me, you wouldn’t be thinking about sex for the next century if you felt like I did this past week. Strep throat is killer on the libido, Benny.”
“The main cause of strep throat is stress, you know. If you had more sex, you wouldn’t be so stressed.”
“Oh please. You are not feeding me that old line to go have random sex with some strange penis to avoid getting sick.”
He cocked a brow at me and smirked. “Do I ever seem stressed to you?”
I sighed and shook my head. “No. You never are.”
Ben bowed gallantly next to a rack of vintage gowns. “I rest my case, darling.”
“Easy for you to say,” I muttered as I flicked through some possibilities for a dress as maid-of-honor at Brynne and Ethan’s wedding. “You’re a guy and have no morals.”
He ignored my insult. Probably because he knew it was legitimate fact.
“What about the copper? Declan? He’d step up and help you work off some stress I’m sure.” Ben pulled out a strapless vintage Carolina Herrera in burgundy lace and set it aside for me to try on. “And he’s hot.”
“Desmond. I know he would, but it doesn’t feel right to me for some reason.” And it didn’t. Something was holding me back because if I’d ever been given signals from Des, they had come in the past week. I might have been out of it, but I wasn’t dead.
After I’d arisen from my initial coma, I’d found some soup in the fridge with instructions to heat it up and eat it. He also made sure my dad was filled in on my health status. I had ended up with strep throat and a visit to a walk-in urgent centre at Lord Guildford Hospital to get some serious drugs to kill the raging infection. The pain had been severe, and I’d done nothing but sleep and drink soothing broths and teas for days. Dad had insisted I stay at his house to recuperate because he didn’t want me all alone at my flat, now that Brynne had moved out. I seriously wondered what would have happened to me if Des hadn’t picked me up from the airport and clued in on how sick I really was. Nobody would have known.
“What doesn’t feel right about having some mutually agreed upon pleasure? Don’t overthink things with him. Just give it up and enjoy yourself. I swear you’ll feel better, and I can hear all the deets on how he does.” He held up a pink frothy mess trimmed in ostrich feathers and studied it.
“You’re horrible, and so is that feather dress.” I shook my head slowly at both of them. “No, I can’t do that to Desmond. I’d be using him and he deserves much better.” I plucked chiffon in pale lavender-grey off the rack that looked promising.
“What am I going to do with you, lady? You need a man to satisfy your needs.”
“No, I really don’t.”
“Yes, you very much do,” he said stubbornly, gathering up the gowns we’d chosen and gesturing toward the dressing room with a jerk of his head. “Now get in there and start trying frocks.”
I shut the door on him and shimmied out of my clothes. Time was running out to get the dress thing sorted out. My illness had put me way behind schedule. Brynne was so non-stress about it though. She’d given us free reign on the bridesmaid dresses and said she didn’t care if they were even remotely the same. I was trying to keep it in the purple/lavender realm and so were the others. Brynne asked me to be her maid-of-honor and Elaina and Hannah to be bridesmaids. Hannah was Ethan’s older sister, and it was at her country mansion where their wedding would take place. A garden wedding meant a more casual dress was okay, but at the same time, it was going to be a very posh event with lots of celebrities attending. I wanted my gown to be right.
“Maybe you’ll meet someone at the wedding who can take care of your little problem,” Ben chatted at me through the dressing room door.
“I doubt it, and I don’t have a problem, Benny.” I glared up at him from behind the dressing room door. “Humans can live productive lives without frequent sex, you know.”
He vetoed the lilac crushed velvet with a sharp shake of his head as soon as I stepped out. “Maybe they can be productive, but not very happy. I want you to be happy,” he said seriously.
I mouthed “thank you” and an air kiss and went back into the dressing room. I tried the Carolina Herrera next. “This isn’t gonna work.” I stepped out to show him. “I’m not doing this weird lace. It looks like it’s been made from a chenille bedspread.”
“Agree,” Ben said. “Who will be your partner at the wedding?”
“Umm, I know Ethan asked his cousin to be best man. Brynne told me his name before but I don’t remember. He does some kind of sport. I think it might be fencing or lacrosse maybe? I know she said he was involved with announcing some of the events for the Olympics.” I smoothed the skirt of the lavender floaty chiffon, turning back and forth to make the skirt move. “It was right around the time her dad passed away, so…” I trailed off on that sobering thought. Ben and I had been with Brynne when the call came through that her father had drowned in his swimming pool. I don’t think I would ever forget the horribleness of that day. The poor girl had been through some dark and terrible times leading up to this wedding. She had tearfully asked Ben to give her away, which had touched him deeply. We all just wanted some peace and happiness for her and Ethan. They surely deserved some.
“I think we might have a winner,” I announced as I stepped out. “What is your opinion, Mr. Clarkson?”
He swept his eyes up and down me with a critical eye. He circled his finger for me to turn for him. Ben was all seriousness when it came to clothing. I knew he was evaluating how to accessorize me and fix my hair. He was brutally honest and would tell me if it was a good choice. Or not. Our relationship had always been an honest one, which was why he could talk to me about personal things off limits with most people.
“Do you feel pretty in that one then?”
“I do. Yes. Thank you for helping me.” I pushed up on my toes to kiss him on the cheek. “What would I do without you to choose my clothes?”
He snickered down at me with a smug look on his handsome face. “I have absolutely no idea, my darling.”
Somerset
22nd August
LAKE Leticia was just large enough for my Cessna T206. A floatplane required only two hundred metres to safely manoeuvre a landing, but five hundred were needed to take off again. The private lake on my cousin’s estate made my trip over from Donadea quick and painless. No driving at all, just a pleasant trip across the Irish Sea. Lake to lake it only took me an hour.
The biggest hassle was anchoring and tying her down so when I wanted to take off three days from now, she wasn’t drifting about in the middle of Lake Leticia. The tiny loading dock for rowboats served just fine for Nelly’s purposes. I pulled her up alongside, dropped anchor, and did up the ropes.
Colin and Jordan greeted me on the dock with typical boyish enthusiasm and insisted on carrying my bags. Hannah and Freddy were raising some wonderful kids and made it look so easy when it wasn’t. As I was well aware.
That’s because nothing good and worthwhile is ever easy.
I’d learned that lesson the hard way.
“Did you bring your bow, Ivan? The one you used in 2008 when you won the gold medal? Did you bring your medals with you? Will you let us shoot it again?” They pelted me with questions.
“Gentleman, what do you think are in those cases you’re carrying?” I held up my leather bag. “I’ve got you lads hauling the important
stuff. This is just my clothes.”
“You wouldn’t let us carry the cases if you didn’t trust us, right?” Jordan asked.
“That’s right.” I buzzed the top of his hair with my hand and let them lead me up to the house, their chatter dominating the conversation the entire way.
It felt really good to be with them again.
“I’M so glad you came up this afternoon before things really get nutter around here. We actually might be able to have a visit for once,” Hannah told me over the family table. “We don’t see you enough, Ivan.”
“Me too,” I answered quietly. “Where else can I get a gourmet meal and eat with a princess?” I winked at Zara, Hannah and Freddy’s youngest, who sat glued to my side enjoying her dish of strawberry ice cream.
“Mummy said Prince Harry is coming to Uncle Ethan’s wedding. He’s a real prince,” she informed me with a grin and big blue eyes that would charm the ever living hell out of many a bloke, princes included, in another decade or so. Probably less time than that. She was only five and already breaking hearts everywhere. I was still amused by Ethan’s telling of how Zara had been the one to spill the beans that “Auntie Brynne was preggers whether she likes it or not.”
Out of the mouths of babes.
The surprise pregnancy turned out to have been the best thing for them, though. I’d never seen Ethan so grounded as he’d become since finding Brynne and discovering they were going to have a child. Brynne had utterly transformed him. Despite their troubles, and there had been some nasty ones, they were making a go of things together, and I had no doubts they’d do splendidly. After all, when you love a person, and they love you back, just about any storm can be weathered.
But they have to love you back or it doesn’t work…
“Prince Harry is far too old for you, young lady.” I stuck my spoon into Zara’s bowl and stole a bit of her ice cream while making a show of it with some sneaky sound effects.
She giggled at me again and held her bowl up closer so I could have some more if I liked, the generous offer to share with me so sweetly and freely given. Children had this quality when they were young, but it went away as the years passed, and the learning of the harsh lessons of life. It happened to all of us, and it would happen to Zara someday. We learned to protect our hearts a little more with each time something came along to hurt it.
Sad, but true.
Growing up an only child, I’d depended on my Blackstone cousins a great deal more than they did me, because they’d had each other after our mothers died together in the same car crash.
They’d also had a father that paid attention to them.
Hannah, being older, had pretty much slipped into the big-sister role with me along with Ethan. I loved her for it, and there wasn’t anything I wouldn’t do for her, or her family. Her husband Fred, or Dr. Greymont as he was known amongst the locals, was a country doctor along with helping her to run Hallborough House as an upscale bed and breakfast hotel. I admired them so much. Their family, the life they had created, the people they were. They had everything I didn’t have, and yet they loved me in spite of my sordid cock-up of an existence. There was never any judgment or censure with Hannah and Freddy. I was in tight with them. Damn, if that didn’t feel fucking wonderful I couldn’t say what did.
Ethan and Brynne were going to have what Hannah and Freddy had together.
The purpose for my visit here was to get my cousin ball-n-chained, after all. The rehearsal was tomorrow and the wedding the following day, so this weekend was all about my family and supporting something good and blessed for once.
Being asked by Ethan to stand up for him as his best man was an honour and a privilege for me. It created feelings I rarely felt, and had trouble processing whenever I did. I’d have to give it my best shot, of course. This was the universal understanding amongst Hannah, Ethan, and me that went back as far as we did together. If any of us ever needed the other, or help of any kind, we would be there. No questions asked and no problem.
The sound of a car horn blasted obnoxiously from out the front, interrupting my thoughts, and announcing the beginnings of an invasion that would only grow to epic proportions in the next days as the hoards made their way to the celebrity wedding of the summer.
“Now that sounds to me as if the bride and groom have finally arrived,” Fred announced his prediction.
The three kids jumped up from the table eager and bouncing to get outside to greet Ethan and Brynne.
“Yep, I’d say that was the starting buzzer, all right. Game on now,” I told them, “the die is cast, my dears, and you don’t have a choice about hosting this do anymore.”
Hannah laughed at my comment and snuck her arm around my waist as we followed the kids outside.
It was really happening.
Ethan Blackstone was gettin’ shackled.
EVENT planners deserved the Nobel Prize. My cousin surely did, anyway.
Good, fucking lord I don’t know how Hannah managed to pull this shit together and not saw anyone’s head off. The furor going on around me made me consider just getting the hell out of the way. Would anyone notice if I snuck off in Nelly and flew her back to Donadea?
Come tomorrow afternoon somebody might notice. I’d better just suck it up and try to make myself useful.
Ethan and Brynne were busy with settling in her mum and step-dad, Hannah was directing at least three different crews working on separate things: organizing the new house for the wedding night, the erection of a tent city in the garden, and other crap that overwhelmed me. Fred had been called to the hospital, and I’d kept the kids busy all morning with target practice. Uncle Jonathan had taken them to the cinema about an hour ago, and I was now with nothing to do but arse about.
I texted Hannah. Put me to work, lady.
She hit me right back. God I luv u. I need u to p/u Brynne’s people @ Taunton Sta. and bring here. Take my car. Keys on pantry hook. 3 guests - Ben, Gaby & Mum. Ben will stand in 4 her dad and Gaby is MoH. Thank u!!!
Now this was a job I could manage without a cock-up. Collect wedding party guests from the train station and bring them here. I can do that. xo
I was guessing that MoH meant maid-of-honour. So this would be my partner I was meeting. And I remembered E telling me about Brynne’s photographer friend she’d asked to give her away at the ceremony. Sweet girl had recently lost her father in an accident Ethan wasn’t convinced had been an accident. Heinously tragic situation with no good outcome.
Yeah, the world was full of crazy fucks for sure. I certainly had no trouble attracting them either.
EIGHT
BEN read the message from Ethan’s sister to us out loud from his phone, “My cousin is on his way to you now and will bring you up to Hallborough. Look for the tall deadly handsome one. You can’t miss him. LOL. See you soon. Hannah.”
One look at his wide, suggestive eyes paired with the leering grin and I knew exactly what Benny was thinking.
I shook my head at him and rolled my eyes right back. “Filan, your son thinks his mission in life is to find me a man. Can you make him stop?” I pleaded to Ben’s mom.
“Oh, my darling, Gabriellen, I think not. You are too beautiful to be without a man holding you happy in his arms at night.”
I threw up my hands in frustration and raised my eyes heavenward. “I see where he gets it now.”
Filan Clarkson loved her son so very much, but she also loved to mother his friends. She always called me Gabriellen no matter how many times I told her there was no “n” on the end of my name. I’d given up correcting her a long time ago, and I didn’t really even care at this point. She was a stunning woman, a former fashion model who’d made a life for herself in London after fleeing her native Somalia. It was easy to see where Ben got his drive to succeed, as well as his looks. She loved to cook big Sunday meals and invite everyone over to eat. And having someone mother you when your own was gone wasn’t a terribly bad thing after all. I turned away and left them there
snickering behind my back while I went to find the loo.
I checked myself in the station bathroom and saw how pale I looked. The strep throat had definitely taken a toll on my body. I’d lost weight and didn’t at all look my best, but there was nothing I could do about it. I pinched my cheeks and shook a hand through my hair to fluff it out before I stopped myself and asked why in the hell it even mattered. I wasn’t the bride. Nobody would be looking at me.
It was time for me to take a pill anyway. My antibiotics still had two days to go before I finished. The doctor had been strict about taking the pills on time, and until the last one was gone, or I could have a reoccurrence. Nope. Not happening. One bout of strep was more than enough and I never wanted to experience that kind of pain or sickness again.
I headed to the concession area inside the station and bought a bottle of Vitamin Water Orange-Orange. My favorite. I swallowed my horse pill and went back outside to where I’d left Ben and Filan.
I could see that our “ride” had found them while I was off. I guessed he must be the cousin, because he shook Ben’s hand before politely greeting Filan. He was tall like Hannah had mentioned, but I couldn’t tell about the “deadly handsome” part because his back was facing me as I walked toward them. His ass looked good in the jeans he was wearing. Um, yeah.
Ben saw me coming and held out his hand, urging me over. “Gaby, this is Ivan, Ethan’s cousin and best man for the wedding.”
I put a smile on my face in preparation of meeting my partner for the weekend. No need to be unfriendly. Hopefully he was as nice as he looked…
He started to turn toward me.
“Ivan, meet Gaby. Brynne’s maid-of-honour to your best man.”
I noticed the hair first. He had the kind of hair you remembered.
Then the shape of his chiseled jaw as he turned his head.