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Four Weddings And A White Christmas
Jenny Oliver
'You know you're in for a treat when you open a Jenny Oliver book' Debbie JohnsonFrom the top 10 best-selling author of The Summerhouse by the SeaHannah’s holidays are normally spent nibbling chocolate coins with her daughter and praying she’s not too old for a stocking on Christmas morning. But this year, she’s been offered the dressmaker’s job of a lifetime: creating a one-of-a-kind a gown for her friend Annie’s Christmas wedding on the picture-perfect Cherry Pie Island.Many mince pies and one hot-pink organza dress later, Hannah is set to snuggle back into her old routine…until she discovers that there are three more weddings to come – and not a dress in sight!Four themes, four brides and four parties spent avoiding chef Harry Fontaine, whose cynicism is as much a wedding day guarantee as confetti and cake. Hannah has her work cut out for her! Yet, with a sprinkling of snowflakes and Christmas magic, it could be that this is the year when miracles really do happen…if Hannah will let them.Praise for Jenny Oliver‘a very uplifting story full of happy endings and guaranteed to make you smile…absolutely perfect for Christmas.’ – Goodreads‘a fitting and fabulous finale to the series’ – Goodreads‘Best enjoyed with a mug of mulled wine whilst listening to Bing Crosby’ – Goodreads‘another slice of warm Cherry Pie Island charm’ – Goodreads‘The dresses, the food, the weddings, the travel, the winter walks in Manhattan… I loved it all! ‘ – Random Book MusesWelcome back to Cherry Pie Island…The most delicious place to spend Christmas!Perfect for fans of Holly Martin, Jenny Hale and Cathy Bramley.The Cherry Pie Island seriesThe Grand Reopening of Dandelion Café – Book 1The Vintage Ice Cream Van Road Trip – Book 2The Great Allotment Challenge – Book 3One Summer Night at the Ritz – Book 4Four Weddings and a White Christmas – Book 5Each part of Cherry Pie Island can be read and enjoyed as a standalone story – or as part of the utterly delightful series.
Welcome back to Cherry Pie Island…the most delicious place to spend Christmas!
Hannah’s holidays are normally spent nibbling chocolate coins with her daughter and arguing with her sister about whether they’re too old for stockings on Christmas morning. But this year, she’s been offered the dressmaker’s job of a lifetime: creating a one-of-a-kind a dress for her school friend Annie’s Christmas wedding on the picture-perfect Cherry Pie Island.
Many mince pies and one hot-pink organza dress later, Hannah is set to snuggle back into her old routine…until she discovers that there are three more weddings this winter – and not a dress in sight!
Four very different themes, four demanding brides and four parties spent avoiding chef Harry Fontaine, whose cynicism is as much a wedding day guarantee as confetti and cake. Hannah has her work cut out for her! Yet, with a sprinkling of snowflakes and Christmas magic, it could be that this is the year when miracles really do happen…if Hannah will let them.
Also by Jenny Oliver (#u5dd7d08f-9735-5ed0-ba25-57d9135f66f3)
The Parisian Christmas Bake Off
The Vintage Summer Wedding
The Little Christmas Kitchen
The Grand Reopening of Dandelion Café
The Vintage Ice Cream Van Road Trip
The Great Allotment Proposal
One Summer Night at the Ritz
Four Weddings and a White Christmas
Jenny Oliver
JENNY OLIVER
wrote her first book on holiday when she was ten years old. Illustrated with cut-out supermodels from her sister’s Vogue, it was an epic, sweeping love story not so loosely based on Dynasty.
Since then Jenny has gone on to get an English degree and a job in publishing that’s taught her what it takes to write a novel (without the help of the supermodels). Follow her on Twitter @JenOliverBooks (https://twitter.com/jenoliverbooks)
Contents
Cover (#u070b85d6-484e-5a83-8b62-5447c8f7c067)
Blurb (#uf70dfcf5-4fd0-5ddc-8e0c-aea52e3522e7)
Book List
Title Page (#u639de136-85b9-5674-820e-384027425b0e)
Author Bio (#u54454ab0-3222-55d7-9b83-5e12079e8f27)
Dedication (#u40237ebb-34ff-5ec1-b5dc-b6287fb67d48)
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Christmas
Endpages (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
Please join Annie & Matthew for a very kitsch-mas wedding
28th December, 3 p.m., at the Folly on Swan Island
followed by reception, afternoon tea and dancing at The Dandelion Café
Chapter One (#u5dd7d08f-9735-5ed0-ba25-57d9135f66f3)
Hannah walked into chaos.
When Annie White had said to meet her at The Dandelion Café on Christmas Eve, she had been expecting something more sedate. Perhaps involving a quick coffee and a slice of cherry pie as it snowed outside. Instead it was bucketing it down with rain, water dripping down the collar of Hannah’s duffle coat as she’d run to shelter under the café awning. And it certainly didn’t look like anyone was relaxing with coffees. Everywhere she looked there was someone doing something. Annie was up a ladder fixing garlands of miniature baubles to the ceiling in artful loops while calling orders to a sullen-looking teenager with red headphones on who was lining hot-pink fake Christmas trees up along the windowsill. A man who she recognised as the husband-to-be, Matt, from a photograph she’d seen, was trying to fix a light-up reindeer to the wall, swearing loudly when it wouldn’t do what he wanted, while a black-haired guy sat in a booth seat holding a tiny baby and, opposite, someone else had their head on the table fast asleep. There were boxes piled high on chairs and some that had toppled over scattering ornaments and tinsel to the floor. Pictures were leaning precariously against walls waiting to be hung while, at the back of the café, a stack of real Christmas trees lay in their white netting alongside tangled mounds of fairy lights.
It all looked momentarily too hectic. And instead of pushing the door open, Hannah took a step back into the shadow of one of the surrounding cherry trees, still under the shelter of the awning, and took a moment to collect her thoughts. To give herself a little pep talk.
Two months ago her life had been exactly as it had always been.
Two months ago her main memories of Cherry Pie Island were school games afternoons, when they’d all traipsed over for rowing, canoeing and summer swimming in the outdoor pool, usually shivering on the sidelines as the clouds closed overhead.
Two months ago she’d just completed her degree and was celebrating the fact she would no longer be referred to as a mature student.
Two months ago Annie White had bumped into her mum in the vegetable section of Sainsbury’s and when she’d asked how Hannah was, her mum had proudly produced the newspaper clipping that featured Hannah’s degree show dress.
And suddenly Hannah was sitting in Annie’s living room, sipping on Earl Grey tea, nodding as calmly as she could as Annie pointed to a huge frothy white wedding dress and said things like, ‘Just go for it, Hannah’ and ‘I want it exactly like however you want to do it. Cut it up, chop it in half, whatever. I’m handing all design detail over to you, which for me is a huge thing. But I’ve got this dress here, and it was my mum’s and I’ve wanted to use it but I’ve basically been procrastinating for months about what to do. And then your mum showed me the picture, of the dress you made, and I swear to god, Hannah, I have never seen a dress as amazing as that. It literally popped out at me. Pop. Out from the page. The real question is, I suppose, whether you can do something with this one in only two months.’
Could she do it? Hannah had wondered as she’d reached for a chocolate digestive, trying to hide the nervous shaking of her hand.
She’d thought about what she had coming up. Her work got manic this time of year with orders needing fulfilling before Christmas, but then hadn’t she worked practically every night to get this degree in order not to have to do that job any more? And then there was Christmas. Presents. Trees. Decorations. Nativities. Last Christmas when she’d been frantically putting her degree collection together she had been sure that this Christmas would be different. Would be like the Christmases she grew up with. That she would be all serene and calm, icing a chocolate cake while sipping eggnog.
‘The theme is Christmas kitsch, by the way,’ Annie had added, pulling a box of glitter-strewn, sparkling, gaudy Christmas decorations from behind the sofa for Hannah to look at. ‘And I don’t want it to be white. Other than that, it would be up to you, I promise.’
Hannah had peered into the box and seen the hot-pink fronds of fake Christmas trees lying like umbrellas waiting to be opened. The cherry-red cheeks of skating Santa Claus models. There were plastic peacocks with giant tail feathers, stacks of concertinaed Santa Clauses and tiny plastic nativities covered in glitter.
She had looked from the tacky box of decorations across to Annie’s pleading face and then back to the hideous white puffy dress.
Could she do it?
Her brain had already started to chop away the layers of netting underneath the dress’s silk skirt to take out the weight. To cut off the sleeves and construct a hot-pink overlay embroidered with peacock feathers that cinched in tight at the waist and fanned out over the chest. To maybe add some detailing to the skirt, something to make it more couture, more grand. The idea of it made her stomach fizz. Made her want to screw her face up and punch the air. Made her see possibilities – a little shop, maybe, with her name above the window and a display that made people stop and stare.
She had bitten her lip.
Annie had been poised, waiting for her answer.
Two months. It would be a lot of work. A lot of late nights. There would probably be tears. There would be no serene icing of Christmas cake, that was for sure.
And now here she was, Christmas Eve, standing on the threshold of Annie’s Dandelion Café, the dress bag clutched to her chest, her heart fluttering with nerves, feeling like she was teetering on the cusp of a whole new chapter.
‘Hello?’ Hannah said, pushing open the turquoise front door, the little bell ringing to announce her entrance as crooning Christmas music escaped out into the rain. ‘Annie?’
‘Oh my goodness.’ Annie nearly slipped from her ladder in her hurry to get down. The guy holding the baby glanced up with vague interest. The teenager lounged back against a booth with his hands in his pockets. ‘Everyone leave!’ Annie shouted. ‘Leave. Matt, go!’ she said, shooing Matt and then the sullen teenager in the direction of the back door. ‘The dress is here.’
Chapter Two (#u5dd7d08f-9735-5ed0-ba25-57d9135f66f3)
Half an hour earlier…
‘Why would anyone get married?’ Harry stirred his macchiato as he sat slumped in a booth in The Dandelion Café and watched as everyone around him worked like little ants hanging decorations for the impending nuptials of Annie and Matt. He’d just got off the red-eye and felt like shit. His eyes were slits like an angry cat; the light was painful. Next to him Wilf Hunter-Brown was ramming an egg and bacon sandwich into his mouth, ketchup, yolk and brown sauce dripping onto the plate.
‘Mate. Tell me about it,’ Wilf said, mouth full. ‘Also, add to that list, why would anyone have a kid. I slept. Wanna know? I slept two hours and fifteen minutes last night. That’s it. You think you’re bad. You have a baby. A really small one that yells really bloody loudly. Then…’ Wilf paused, chewed, swallowed. ‘Then try and get excited about planning a wedding that’s not till next summer. Did you hear I’d proposed to Holly?’
Harry nodded.
‘Yeah I thought I’d told you. Anyway, at least this lot are getting theirs out the way.’ Wilf nodded towards Annie and Matt. ‘It’s a nightmare.’
Harry snorted a laugh. ‘Where is your kid?’
‘She’s snoozing in the pram in the kitchen. She, it seems, needs more than two hours and fifteen minutes sleep. Why the hell didn’t she realise that last night? Hmm? I ask you that.’
Harry shook his head. ‘Why don’t you go and lie down somewhere?’
‘Because, Harry my good fellow, I’m up. I am programmed to be up in the day and sleep at night. I can not sleep in the day.’
‘Can’t be that tired then.’
Wilf shot him a look. ‘I’m so tired I have forgotten what tired is actually like. I’m in a haze of stupefied nothingness. I’m jelly. That’s what I am, a great big wobbling jelly.’ He took another bite of the sandwich. ‘Jesus I’m tired,’ he said, then pushing his plate away put his head down on the table. ‘We will have to postpone our meeting.’
Harry nodded, as if he knew that was coming, and took another sip of his coffee.
The meeting with Wilf had been the whole purpose of Harry’s trip. He was here to discuss expansion plans of the restaurant, The Bonfire, that Harry ran and Wilf’s company owned. Currently fully booked every night for the foreseeable future and with an equally full waiting list, the feeling was that they were onto something special and should capitalise on it ASAP.
Wilf, who currently resided in the South of France, was back in the UK for Annie and Matt’s wedding and had suggested that perhaps, if Harry was coming home for Christmas, this was the perfect time to meet.
Harry wasn’t coming home for Christmas, but he was eager to pin down Wilf – not an easy task – and so had flown over anyway.
Christmas, to Harry, was a yearly irritant in his calendar. But he was actually quite looking forward to this one for the first time in his life. He’d told Wilf he was spending it with his family, but actually he hadn’t told any of his family that he was back, and planned to spend the day on his own, mooching around London, taking advantage of the empty streets to see the sights and whatever bars and restaurants might be open. Maybe even try and find a cinema. He’d been getting increasingly excited about it from the moment he’d decided on the subterfuge. The plan was hampered only by his guilt over not seeing his mum and dad, but as long as he kept shoving that to the corner of his brain he was fine.
Harry’s thoughts were interrupted by Annie’s soon-to-be step-son pointing towards the stereo that was crooning out Christmas music and saying, ‘Can we turn it off now, it’s shit.’
‘I think it’s lovely. Leave it alone,’ Annie said, just as Matt walked in, looking a bit sheepish. He was soaking from the rain, his blond hair plastered to his head. ‘Where have you been?’ Annie asked, the music forgotten, the teenager putting on his headphones in protest.
‘At the pub,’ Matt said, cringing with guilt. ‘We won the regatta, everyone wanted a drink to celebrate. I’m really sorry. And I’m a bit pissed.’
Annie, who was wobbling precariously on a ladder, trying to get drawing pins to stick in the ceiling so they would hold up some strings of tiny coloured baubles, looked on the verge of a nervous breakdown.
