The Fairy Tale Bride

Chapter One

‡

Lisa Renee pushed the last dress into place. Her rails were definitely cramped – a result of her buying spree in Great Falls last week. The stockroom was also bursting at the seams. For a small-town bridal store she was doing well. It was strange, Marietta seemed to attract brides.

She gave a little smile. There must be something in the air around here and, as far as she was concerned, the more the merrier. This last year had seen her newly opened store flourish.

The row of glittering sequined dresses sparkled in the sun streaming through the store window. Satin, lace, tulle, duchesse silk – she had it all, along with bridesmaid dresses in every style and color of the rainbow.

She was renowned in town for her style and good customer service. She’d never recommend a style to a potential bride that didn’t flatter and suit her. Even if they had their heart set on something else. That was the thing about her bridal store. As soon as any woman walked in here she became Lisa’s project. All she wanted was to help fulfil their dreams.

As she turned around, a ripple of pink from the stock room caught her eye and made her shudder. Ugh. The nightmare dresses. The shade of pink was just wrong. Or was it really orange? It all depended on the light. Truth was, there wasn’t a single skin tone it actually suited and the style? She didn’t know what she’d been thinking. Then again, that had been the day she’d just heard her sister had married her runaway ex-fiancé –so maybe she did have an excuse for having a mini meltdown. Sometime soon she’d have to surreptitiously dispose of those dresses and deny they’d ever existed.

The shrill of the phone interrupted her thoughts. “Married in Marietta, can I help you?”

“Hi there, this is the PA for Nancy Parsons, I’d like to book some time in your salon.”

The caller had a strange twang to their voice and Lisa couldn’t quite place the accent. “Who?” It probably wasn’t the greatest reply, but she’d been stung by so many cold callers trying to sell her something that she liked to establish who she was talking to.

The caller didn’t hide their annoyance. “Nancy Parsons? The Hollywood superstar? You must have heard about her upcoming wedding to Jared Lovell in a few weeks?”

It took a few seconds for recognition to seep in. “Oh, Nancylynn Pruitt. Yes, I know her. What can I do for you?” It was automatic. Lisa Renee couldn’t think of Nancylynn as a Hollywood superstar – and she wasn’t quite sure it was an appropriate description. Nancy had been a few years younger than her at Marietta high school and used to live on one of the local ranches. Her parents now owned the ranch thanks to Nancylynn. To be fair to Nancylynn, she probably was the most famous person ever to have come from Marietta. She’d got her break as an actress as a good-girl high schooler in a teen drama, then gone onto a primetime drama called Sultry Suburbs where she’d met her husband-to-be, Jared Lovell. The son of Hollywood royalty, his father was a superstar. Nancy probably thought she’d hit the big time – but Lisa wasn’t so sure that Jared ‘Love ’em and love ’em again’ Lovell was really a husband to dream about.

Something in her stomach curled over. A wedding like this in Marietta would bring big business for the town. And who was she to judge a potential bridegroom? She hadn’t exactly picked well herself. At least Nancylynn’s husband-to-be hadn’t run off with someone else – not yet anyway.

She took a deep breath. “No problem. When’s the wedding?”

“June 20th. Jared and Nancy will be making the official announcement tomorrow.”

“June 20th?” Lisa couldn’t hide her surprise. “That’s just over three weeks away.” She glanced around her shop. She stocked gorgeous and exclusive designs – but surely a ‘Hollywood superstar’ would have a million dress designers wanting her to wear their wedding dresses?

She licked her dry lips. “Is Nancylynn looking for a wedding gown?”

The PA let out a peal of laughter. “What? Oh no. She’s got that all arranged. Her wedding dress is being made exclusively. It’s bridesmaid dresses we need.” There was a sound of rustling paper. “We need your shop for the final wedding dress fittings. That won’t be a problem, will it?”

Part of her was relieved. Part of her fleetingly annoyed by the laughter and instant dismissal. But she didn’t care. Bridesmaid dresses she could do. She had them in abundance.

A quick thought flashed through her mind. “Any particular issues I should know about the bridesmaids?” She was thinking purely professionally.

“What do you mean?” snapped the PA, automatically defensive. A whole pile of early warning lights started to go off in her brain. This wedding could easily turn into a PR nightmare.

Even though she couldn’t be seen, Lisa kept her professional face in place. “I just wondered why they haven’t found anything suitable yet? I want to make sure I’ll have something perfect for them. I’m afraid I don’t know any of the details of Nancylynn’s wedding. Can you tell me who the bridesmaids are? I want to make sure I have appropriate sizes and colors that will suit them.”

She could hear the PA sucking in a breath of frustration. She was obviously used to snapping her fingers and everyone falling into line. Lisa gave a little smile. Good luck in Marietta. “It’s Nancy. She doesn’t like to be known by her former name. The bridesmaids are Polly Parker and Ruby Cole

.”

“Oh, I see,” said Lisa politely. Great. Two notorious bitchy actresses. Both blonde, both with big boobs, who would probably look better wearing red swimsuits than bridesmaid dresses. She made a few scribbles on her notebook. They probably lied about their dress sizes too; she’d need to cut the labels from all her dresses.

“Eh…they haven’t exactly been able to agree on the style or color of bridesmaid dresses yet.” There was a little sigh at the end of the phone. “We’ve had seventeen appointments so far.”

Lisa got the unspoken message. Married in Marietta was last chance saloon. She didn’t know whether to be mortally offended or secretly delighted. “I’ll do my absolute best to try and keep both Polly and Ruby happy.”

There was a sigh of relief. “Thank you. Nancy needs things to be settled. We’re trying to do so much in a short space of time. If you could deal with Polly and Ruby that would be great.”

Lisa scribbled some notes. “When are they arriving?”

“Tomorrow. Can you see them then?”

Lisa blinked. Tomorrow. She’d have to shuffle a few things around. “No problem. Tell them I’ll see them at 10:00 am.”

She glanced at her watch and grabbed her coat, bag and change of clothes. She was almost late for her volunteering shift at the hospital. She pulled the shutter down in the main window and locked the door behind her before hurrying along the street.

The one thing Lisa Renee hated above all else was lateness.

*

Adam Brady’s pager sounded as he walked along the darkened corridors and he steered off towards the nearest phone. “Adam Brady.”

“Hi Adam, sorry, it’s Dan King. I hate to tell you this but–”

“Don’t,” cut in Adam, “You’ve got the bug too and want me to take over your on-call.” He stifled a sigh. It was his second call like this in the last hour.

Dan gave a grateful moan. “Thanks, Adam. I owe you.” The phone clicked quickly.

“You sure do.” Adam looked at the telephone receiver with another sigh.

The nurse at the station looked up and smiled. “Another one? We’ve had three nurses phone in with the bug for night shift tonight.”

He nodded. “It’s going to be a long night. Looks like I’m covering medical, surgical and peds.”

She groaned for him. “Oh well. At least you’ve finished here. I’ll let you know if there are any problems. Thanks, Adam.”

He nodded and walked along the corridor, heading for the stairs. He actually quite liked moving between specialties and didn’t mind covering at all. It was one of the reasons he’d come to Marietta. Working in the city was different. You were confined to one specialty with everyone on a high-powered career path. But Adam wasn’t a traditional doctor – he liked doing a bit of everything, and that’s where it got complicated.

He didn’t want to work in the ER. There was no follow up – no after care. And although he’d considered general practice for a while he preferred the pace in the hospital. That’s why he was here, in Marietta. Working in Marietta General was the perfect job. A huge variety of hospital work with no pressure to specialize in only one area.

He slowed his steps as he entered the ped ward and held out his hand to stop the swing of the doors. Most of the patients would already be sleeping. He just needed to check with the nurse in charge if anyone needed reviewed.

Mary walked out of one of the treatment rooms as he approached. “Hi Adam. Didn’t expect to see you here.”

He smiled. “Dan King just phoned in sick.”

Mary raised her eyebrows. “The dreaded bug?”

He nodded. “I’m just here to see if you want me to check on any patients.”

Mary walked over to the desk and handed him some charts. “I need a prescription for pain relief for Jonah, antibiotics for an infected pin site for Jodie and,” she sighed, “a whole new attitude for Kayla, our teenage diabetic.”

“Anything I can help with?”

She shook her head as she handed over the medical notes for each kid. “I don’t think so. I’m thinking of sending our guardian angel in to speak to her – to see if that can make a difference.”

He frowned. “Guardian angel? Who is that?”

Mary looked up at him and pointed to the room across the hall. “You haven’t met Lisa, our volunteer?”

He looked over into the room. There was a spotlight above the bed beaming down onto a book in the volunteer’s hand. She was perched on the bed with her arm around the little girl she was reading to. It was obvious the little girl was comfortable around her. She had her head resting on her shoulder and was murmuring along with the story.

He’d never seen Lisa before. She was dressed entirely in black – black yoga pants and a black t-shirt, her dark hair twisted on top of her head in some kind of knot. Pretty, in an understated kind of way. The only bit of color around her was her red-tinged lips.

She seemed completely and utterly at ease. And her melodic voice floated out into the hall towards him. “Cinderella couldn’t believe her eyes. Her rags were gone and in their place was a dress of blue satin with jewels that glistened in the lamplight.”

“Is that like the dresses in your shop, Lisa?” the little girl asked.

Lisa nodded and smiled. “Oh, I have lots of dresses like that, Faye. Once you feel a bit better we’ll get your mom to bring you to my shop and you can see them all.”

Adam turned to Mary. “Seems odd that your guardian angel is all dressed in black. What does she do?”

Mary laughed as she picked up the charts he’d signed. “Actually her nickname around here is the Fairy Tale Bride – not that she’s married. Lisa owns the bridal shop in Marietta and she always comes in here and reads the kids fairy tales. They love her. And so do we. Faye’s mother has two other kids at home and can’t stay overnight with her daughter. Lisa comes in every night and reads her fairy tales until she falls asleep.”

A buzzer sounded further down the corridor. “Give me a minute.” Mary said, waving her hand as she started walking towards the blinking red light. “I’ve got one more thing I need you to do.”

It was fine. It wasn’t as if he was in a hurry and to be honest, he hadn’t managed to pull his eyes away from Lisa. It was odd, he’d been in here nearly two months and thought he’d met most of the town’s residents, but he hadn’t seen Lisa at all. He was sure he would have remembered her.

The bridal store? He frowned as he tried to remember it. It wasn’t exactly somewhere he would visit. Ah…yes, he remembered it now. If he were on the right side of the hospital he would be able to see the store from the hospital windows. The bridal store was on Front Avenue, next to the Pizza Parlor. He gave a little smile. He wondered what the dresses would smell like in there.

He listened as she continued with the story, lowering her voice and gently stroking Faye’s hair as her eyelids drooped.

He’d always liked peds – even though he didn’t usually cover here – but most of the staff were in their fifties and sixties. Lisa was the first person he’d seen here who didn’t have grey hair.

Her voice was melodic and Faye’s eyelids started to gradually droop as the tale of Cinderella moved onto Sleeping Beauty and then Rapunzel.

Mary came bustling back along the corridor. “Sorry about that. I got waylaid.” Her eyes followed his gaze. “I can see you found something to pass the time.” Her smile reached from ear to ear.

Adam started. “What was it you wanted me to do?” He wasn’t exactly sure he liked being caught ogling one of the volunteers. In a place as small as Marietta they’d probably have him engaged and married before he even left the hospital tomorrow morning.

His last two fleeting dates had been met with a score of nosey questions by his colleagues. It seemed if you sneezed in this place someone knew about it.

Mary walked over to the trolley and pulled a film from its envelope pushing it up on the light box. “Can you check this x-ray? It came up just over an hour ago. Ry

an Connor is still wheezing even though he’s on his nebulizers.”

Adam flicked the light on behind the x-ray and stepped forward. “There,” he said pointing to a little blur on the x-ray. “What was Ryan doing? It looks like he’s inhaled something.” He squinted a little more at the x-ray. “Is that a coin?”

Mary’s eyes widened. “It certainly looks like it. What do you want to do?”

“It needs to come out. If we take him down to endoscopy I should be able to get it out in a few minutes. Are his parents still here?”

Mary nodded. “Give me a few minutes to speak to them.”

Adam started writing some notes and phoned down to prepare the endoscopy suite. Lisa had just finished reading her final story and carefully eased her arm out, settling Faye on the pillows and pulling up her sheets. She tiptoed out of the room.

“Hey.” She smiled. “I don’t think we’ve met.” She held out her hand. “I’m Lisa Renee, one of the volunteers.”

He reached out to take her hand and was surprised by the firmness of her handshake. “Adam Brady.”

She tilted her head. “How come I haven’t met you before, Adam Brady? Are you new in town?”

There was a little sparkle in her pale blue eyes. In the dimmed hospital lights the black clothes didn’t seem quite so harsh. Her skin was slightly tanned and her dark brown hair had definite hints of red.

He nodded. “I’ve been here a few months, but I’ve learned in Marietta you’re considered a newcomer for about fifty years. I guess I’ve got a long way to go.”

She smiled. Nice, white straight teeth. Peds was becoming more interesting every second. “You can bet it on. You need at least three generations before you’re considered anything other than a newcomer. Have you found a place to stay or are you in the hospital residences?”

He shook his head. “I found somewhere really quickly thanks to Mary, the nurse here. She had a friend who was selling a house on Bramble Lane just ten minutes from the hospital. I closed on it and moved in last week.”