Blind Dates and Other Disasters: The Wedding Wish

She deliberately turned away from Jacob and assumed her most brilliant smile.

‘I heard you gentlemen had waylaid a friend of mine.’

The men stopped talking as one.

‘Sorry, Holly,’ Ben said, ‘it slipped my mind. Holly is in charge of the fundraiser under the big marquee and it seems we have stolen away her guest of honour.’ He looked around, his hand never leaving Holly’s back. ‘Where has the young colonel gone?’

‘It’s his round, I’m afraid,’ one young, good-looking member of the group said, his eyes on Holly, full of invitation. ‘No way we could let him go until he’d paid his debt. So, you’ll just have to wait with us until he gets back. And since this great lug won’t introduce us, I’m Matt Riley. The new Accounts guy.’

‘Nice to meet you Matt. I’m Holly Denison.’ She shook his hand. It held hers for a fraction longer than necessary.

‘I know,’ he said.

Ben’s joke came swimming back to her and Holly had visions of her photograph and phone number in the men’s room at his work—

‘I saw you at the fight.’

This guy was at the fight? He was one of the men she’d had the possibility of meeting that night? She took a closer look at the very real option before her. Tall, athletic, nice smile. Very cute.

Then from behind her Jacob openly scoffed. Holly spun on her heel and turned narrowed eyes his way, but to little avail. His distant expression was unaltered.

‘You must have good eyesight, Riley. She was there for all of ten seconds.’

His gaze held hers without a hint of remorse. She glared back, her infuriated eyes daring him to go on and at the same time demanding he say not another word.

He turned to face Matt and shrugged. ‘From what Benny boy told me, anyway.’

‘Well, obviously ten seconds was enough to make an impression on me. But you did your runner before I had the chance to say hi.’

Holly spun back to face her new suitor and beamed, before flicking a smug grin over her shoulder at Jacob.

‘You don’t say.’

Go, Matt, she thought, you’re definitely younger, possibly cuter, and certainly more of a gentleman than the loud mouth behind me. Fair where Jacob is dark. Candid where Jacob is confusing. Yes, very cute indeed. But I think you know it too. Highly likely another party personality at work.

Suddenly disinclined to play favourites, she broke away from Matt’s concentrated attention and introduced herself to several other young men, most of them her age, a couple of them uncommonly good-looking. These guys were in the inner sanctum so they were obviously smart, successful and hand picked by Ben to work at Lincoln Holdings. This was exactly who Ben should have been setting her up with.

She was able to enjoy the possibilities for several moments until she once more locked eyes with Jacob. He wasn’t smiling at her as the other men were; he was practically smirking. Sitting back, arms crossed, like an omniscient little devil watching over her. Evidently, he knew exactly what was going on in her mind.

Holly plastered the smile to her face and shrugged. Why deny it? What was it to him anyway?

‘Holly, my sweet. How good of you to join us.’ It was the colonel, back with a round of drinks. ‘I would have invited you to come up here with me but it’s been years since I have seen you step foot in this ancient inn.’

‘Charlie,’ Holly said, her antagonism subsiding in the company of the darling old man, ‘you know I would go anywhere you asked me to. But we do have another arrangement today. Remember the fundraiser?’

Charlie nodded.

‘The big marquee? Your thank-you speech?’

He stopped nodding. ‘Oh.’

She studied him carefully for signs he had been drinking. He was sweating a little, but so was she in the hot, confined space. He was upright and his speech was not slurred. Shy of sniffing the drink in his hand she had no idea if he had been ‘tippling’ as Ben had suggested.

‘I suggest we let Charlie finish his lemonade,’ Jacob said, ‘then we can all head down and listen to this great speech of his. What do you say, Ms Denison?’

Lemonade? Holly looked up into Jacob’s face in amazement. Gone was the smirk. In its stead was a raised eyebrow, an easy smile. How had he known?

‘Sounds fair to me,’ Holly said, sending Jacob a terse nod of thanks.

The colonel downed the remainder of his lemonade with one swift, practised flick of his wrist. ‘Off we go then.’

Holly turned towards the front of the bar and found she was confronted once more by a seething mass of white shirts and ties. She physically dreaded forcing her way through the hot, sweaty throng. But then Jacob’s voice bellowed from just behind her.

‘Clear the way, gentlemen! The colonel is coming through.’

All of the men nearby acquiesced, and once the Chinese whispers spread through the place a clear, snaking path, an amazing sort of honour guard, formed from their table to the door. The colonel smoothed down his suit and with head held high traversed the way.

Holly felt a warm hand land softly in the small of her back. She turned to find Jacob bowing gallantly towards her, his face mere inches from her own.

‘Shall we, Ms Denison?’ He removed his warm hand and offered his elbow. She looked into his quixotic hazel eyes searching for a trap. Unfortunately they were as inscrutable as he chose them to be.

Ahead of her the extraordinary meandering path was threatening to collapse back in on itself. For once Jacob’s company seemed the lesser of two evils, so she took his arm and walked at his side.

The back of Holly’s hand rubbed against Jacob’s shirt-covered bicep, the sensation heated, intoxicating, reprehensible. Thankfully the awareness of that tantalising touch was shortlived, as soon the peripheral heat was all that registered.

The room was stifling, her view filled with sweaty, leering faces. Somebody trod on her foot and spinning around to apologise, they spilt drink down her side. She leapt back, clutching onto Jacob’s arm with both hands. He immediately wrapped a protective hand over the top of hers, its warmth and tenderness calming her a little.

Feeling claustrophobic, she closed her eyes, and allowed herself to be led the rest of the way blind. Only once bright sunlight lit the inside of her eyelids blood red did she open them.

Finding they were now in the big open space at the top of the grandstand, she hungrily inhaled the fresh, cool winter air, her breath releasing on a shudder.

She turned to thank Jacob but he was in conversation with two of his men, pointing towards the track where Race Three had just begun. And Holly knew she would not get any sense from any of them until the event was over.

The first two races had been won by the favourites and Holly expected no different ending to this one. She remained silent, unmoved as the dogs rounded the final bend.

The sparse crowd in the grandstand rose to its collective feet and the men in her own party jumped up and down, yelling and screaming, and clutching their betting slips in tight, agitated fists. The favourite, Sir Pete, was a nose behind, and the possibility of an upset electrified the air.

‘I don’t know why they get so excited,’ Holly muttered under her breath, ‘Sir Pete will win.’

‘Don’t bet on it,’ Jacob said equally quietly, his eyes bright.

‘I never would.’

Then, in the last twenty metres, Sir Pete put on a phenomenal burst of speed and finished two body lengths ahead of his nearest competitor.

‘I hate to lose,’ Jacob said through comically clenched teeth as he ceremoniously tore up his losing bet. ‘So pick the favourite.’

A huge grin broke out over his face, its effortless brilliance surprising her, catching her unawares and sending a blissful rush from her neck to her toes.