LITMIR.BIZ

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herself she wouldn’t think about that nightmare, or the Tom McFarlane effect, more than three times a day and she was already over budget—’the first casualty of battle is always “the plan”.’

      She laid her hand over the child growing beneath her heart—living proof of that little homily.

      ‘That would be your Colonel-in-Chief of the regiment grandfather, right?’

      ‘It certainly wasn’t my party-throwing playboy grandfather. His idea of “a plan” was to order enough champagne to float a battleship and leave everything else for someone else to worry about.’ Including the final bill. And the sweetest man on earth. ‘As you’ll learn, when emotions are involved anything can happen,’ she continued as, letter in hand, she carefully placed a tick on one of the plans that decorated every available inch of wall space.

      This one was for a silver wedding celebration. She felt safe with a silver wedding. Then, hand on her back, she straightened carefully.

      ‘Are you okay?’ Josie asked. Then, ‘Sit down, I can do that.’

      ‘It’s done,’ she said, waving away her concern. ‘Don’t fuss.’ Then, ‘Tell me about the wedding.’

      ‘I have told you. It was fabulous.’ Then, ‘You’re not still smarting over the bride who got away, are you?’

      ‘No!’ Her legendary calm slipped a notch and not just because of the wedding that never was. ‘No,’ she repeated, getting a grip. ‘The one thing I can’t be held responsible for is the bride getting cold feet. Even if she chose to warm them on one of my staff.’

      ‘You are not responsible! For heaven’s sake, it was more than six months ago. Even the groom will have got over it by now.’

      ‘I couldn’t say.’ All she knew was that he hadn’t responded to her letter. ‘Can we please just concentrate on yesterday’s wedding?’ she said, jerking her mind away from that long afternoon she’d spent with Tom McFarlane. The solidity of his shoulders beneath her hands. The way his hands had felt against her skin. That raw, overwhelming need as he’d looked down at her, touched her …

      The only thing on his mind had been instant gratification with the first woman to cross his path. It had been nothing more than a reaction to being dumped, she knew. A wholly masculine need to have his ego restored. With maybe a little tit-for-tat payback thrown in for good measure. Just in case she needed to feel any worse about herself.

      ‘Look, if you don’t trust me, Sylvie, maybe you should find someone—’

      Jerked back from the danger of slipping into self-pity, she said, ‘Oh, Josie … Of course I trust you! I wouldn’t leave such a major event to anyone in whom I didn’t have the utmost faith. Besides, I knew you’d rather be coordinating a wedding in the Cotswolds than babysitting a women’s rights conference in London. Sensible woman that you are.’ Then, with determined brightness, ‘So, not a single hiccup, then? There’ll be no comebacks when I send the bride’s papa the final account?’

      ‘Anyone who didn’t know you better, Sylvie, would think you only cared about the money.’

      ‘I promise you, I don’t do this for fun,’ she replied.

      ‘Oh, right. As if you didn’t work yourself to a standstill to ensure that every little detail was perfect so that the bride has a day she’ll never forget.’

      ‘That’s just good business, Jo. I apply exactly the same standards to every event.’

      ‘You’re a perfectionist, no doubt about it. But you do always seem to go the extra mile for weddings.’

      ‘I just worry more. It’s not quite like a conference or some company event, is it? For the two people involved it’s a once in a lifetime occasion. If it goes wrong they aren’t going to say, “Oh, well, never mind. We’ll have the fireworks next time.” At least I hope not!’

      ‘I knew it! You’re just like the rest of us. Beneath that ice-cool exterior beats a heart of pure mush.’

      ‘Rubbish. Mush, let me tell you, doesn’t pay the bills,’ she said crisply. It certainly hadn’t been ‘mush’ she’d felt …

      No. She was overdrawn on thinking about Tom McFarlane. Overdrawn and heading for bankruptcy.

      ‘So?’ she continued a touch desperately. ‘Did we do good?’

      ‘We did great,’ Josie said, lowering her feet to the floor and joining her at the wall plan. ‘It was perfection from the moment the bride arrived in her fairy tale coach until the last firework faded in the midnight sky.’ She sighed. ‘You were absolutely right, by the way, to resist the bride’s plea for bows on the tails of the horses.’

      ‘You didn’t say that when she had hysterics in the office,’ Sylvie reminded her. ‘As I recall, your exact words were, “Give the silly cow what she wants …”‘

      ‘I just don’t have your class, Sylvie.’

      ‘It’s easy to get carried away.’ To lose sight of what a wedding actually meant in the pressure to indulge in every over-the-top frill. ‘When in doubt just think of it as a feathers-and-curls situation. If you have feathers in your hat, who’s going to notice the curls?’

      ‘You see? I would go for both every time. I guess that’s the difference between Benenden and a sink estate comprehensive school …’

      ‘Not necessarily.’

      It certainly hadn’t stopped Candy Harcourt from going for the feathers, the curls and every other frippery known to womankind. But then she’d had a big empty gap to fill, one that had taken all the frippery she could get her hands on, and it still hadn’t been enough.

      When it had been the real thing, Candy had only needed the man she loved and a couple of witnesses. Of course that might have been because his family would have done everything they could to stop it if they’d had advance warning.

      They’d sent her a photograph that someone had taken of them after the ceremony, along with a note from Candy apologising for leaving her to deal with the fallout and one from Quentin tendering his resignation.

      It had been plain that he was hoping that she’d beg him to come back but she’d managed to resist the temptation and, to her relief, he’d already been snapped up by one of her competitors.

      ‘Besides,’ she said, doing her utmost to banish Candy and Quentin and their somewhat unexpected happy ever after from her memory, ‘you have the street smarts, Jo. One look from you and everyone thinks twice about giving us the run-around.’

      Tom McFarlane wouldn’t have given Josie a moment’s trouble, she thought.

      ‘And no one is better at keeping everything running behind the scenes on the big day,’ she continued. ‘Taking you on was the best day’s work I ever did.’

      Which was, despite the many warnings she’d received to the contrary, absolutely true.

      Josie looked at her, swallowed and muttered, ‘Thanks.’ And, in an attempt to cover her confusion, bent to see what she’d been doing. ‘Hey, you’ve found another piper!’

      ‘Let’s hope this one doesn’t take a notion to do a spot of mountaineering and break something vital before the big day.’ She stood back. ‘Now all I need is for the happy couple to finalise the menu and, since the Rolling Stones are a little out of the budget for this affair, an RS tribute band so that the guests can revisit their ill-spent youth in a night of rock and roll.’ Then, ‘Did those new caterers do the business?’

      ‘For goodness’ sake, Sylvie! I told you it was perfect!’

      ‘There’s no such thing as perfect,’ she said, but with a smile. ‘Just find me some little thing and I’ll stop worrying.’

      ‘Idiot.’ Then, ‘Okay, the horses pooped in front of the

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