Holiday with the Best Man (2 page)

CHAPTER ONE

Two days later

Y
ET
AGAIN
G
RACE
missed Bella. Her little sister was the person she most wanted to call and talk to about her job interview today. But Bella was in San Francisco right now with Hugh and, even without having to take into account the eight-hour time difference, Grace had no intention of interrupting her baby sister's honeymoon. She'd wait for Bella's daily ‘postcard' text, and casually mention in her reply that she thought the interview had gone OK. And hopefully later in the week she'd be able to report good news.

Please let her have got the job.

Temping was fine, but Grace knew that she functioned at her best with a solid structure in her life, and when she was able to plan more than just a couple of days ahead. The last couple of months, since she'd called off her own wedding, had changed her entire life. Not only had her relationship ended, she'd lost her job and her home because of it, too.

Bella was the bubbly one who coped just fine with change and seizing the day, always living life to the full; whereas Grace was more cautious, weighing things up and doing the sensible thing every single time. Even though calling off the wedding had been the right thing to do, it had caused her a huge amount of heartache and guilt. Bella had stood by her, as had their parents. But Grace hated the ensuing chaos.

At least she had a flat of her own again now. She'd been let down at the last minute with the flat she'd managed to find, but Bella as usual had been a bit scatty and forgotten to give her landlord her notice on time. And it had all worked out perfectly for both of them, because the landlord had agreed to let Grace take over the lease; she was just awaiting the paperwork. So that was another little bit of her life rebuilt.

Trying to push away the thought that she wasn't adjusting terribly well to her new life so far, Grace opened the front door of the house that had been converted into three flats—and saw with horror that the hallway was an inch deep in water.
Water that was coming from underneath her front door.

OK. Forget the panic and work with your common sense, the way you always do, she told herself. Turn off the water supply at the mains to stop any more water gushing out from wherever the leak is, turn off the electricity to avoid any problems there, run the taps to make sure the system drains fully, and
then
find out where the leak is coming from and call the landlord to organise a plumber.

Fortified now she had a plan to work to, Grace opened the flat's front door to find water everywhere. The carpet was soaked through and she could see from the change in the colour of the material that the water was soaking its way up into the sofa, too. What a
mess
. She took a deep breath, took off her shoes, and put them on the kitchen table along with her handbag and briefcase so they'd be out of the way of the water.

Stopcock. Where would the stopcock be? The house had been converted into flats, so there was only a fifty-fifty chance that the stopcock would be inside her flat. But, to her relief, when she opened the cupboard under the sink in the hope that it was the most likely place to find the stopcock, the little wheel on the water pipe was clearly visible. She turned it off. Another switch dealt with the electricity supply, and when she went into the bathroom to turn on the taps to drain the system she could see the problem immediately: water was gushing through a burst pipe underneath the sink.

She grabbed the washing up bowl from the kitchen sink and put it there to catch the water that was still gushing from the burst pipe, then turned on the taps in the bath so the system would start to drain.

Those were the most important things. Now to call the landlord—and she really hoped that he'd be able to send an emergency plumber out to fix the pipe tonight. Though, even when the pipe was fixed and the water supply was back on, Grace knew that she was still going to have to find somewhere else to sleep tonight, because the flat was too badly flooded to be habitable. She'd also have to find somewhere to store all her stuff.

Although part of her wanted to burst into tears of sheer frustration and anger and misery, she knew that crying wasn't going to solve anything. She needed to stick with the practical stuff. Once she'd sorted that out, she could start weeping. But absolutely not until then.

There was a note in Bella's handwriting underneath a magnet on the door of the fridge, with a telephone number and the words,
Call if any problems.
Obviously this was the landlord's number; Grace was truly grateful that for once her little sister had been organised, despite spending the last three weeks knee-deep in plans for her whirlwind wedding to Hugh. Grace grabbed her mobile phone from her bag and called the number on the note.

* * *

Roland didn't recognise
the number on his phone's screen, so he let the call go through to voicemail. A cold caller would give up as soon as Roland's recorded message started playing, and anyone who really wanted to talk to him could leave a message and he'd return the call when he had time.

There was an audible sigh on the answering machine. ‘Hello. This is Grace Faraday.'

Bella's sister? Roland frowned. Why on earth would she be calling him?

‘Please call me back urgently.' She said her telephone number slowly and clearly. ‘If I haven't heard from you within thirty minutes, I'll call an emergency plumber and assume that you'll pick up the bill.'

Why did she need an emergency plumber? And why on earth did she think that
he'd
pay for the cost?

Intending to suggest that she called her landlord or her insurance company instead, he picked up the phone. ‘Roland Devereux speaking.'

There was a stunned silence for a moment. ‘Roland? As in Hugh's other best man Roland?' she asked.

‘Yes.'

‘Um, right—if you didn't catch the message I was in the middle of leaving, it's Bella's sister Grace. There's a flood at the flat and I need an emergency plumber.' Her voice took on a slightly haughty tone. ‘I assume that you, as the landlord, have a list of tradesmen you use.'

So
that
was why she thought he'd pay the bill for an emergency plumber. ‘I'm not the landlord.'

‘Ah. Sorry.' The haughtiness disappeared, and there was the slightest wobble in her voice. ‘I don't suppose you know the landlord's contact details?'

Why on earth would he know something like that? ‘No.'

‘OK. Never mind.'

And there it was.

The tiniest sob. Muffled quickly, but he heard it.

It brought back all the memories of Lynette. Her heart-wrenching sobs every single month they'd failed to make a baby. The guilt about how badly he'd let her down and how he'd failed her at the last.

Plus Grace was his best friend's sister-in-law. If Roland's sister had called Hugh for help, Hugh would've come straight to Philly's rescue. So Roland knew he had to do the right thing.

‘I'm sorry to have bother—' she began.

‘Grace. How bad is the flood?' he cut in.

‘You've just told me you're not the landlord, so don't worry about it.'

He winced, but he knew that he deserved the slightly acidic tone in her voice. But there was one thing that was bothering him. ‘Where did you get my number?'

‘Bella left me a note on the fridge—a phone number for emergencies.' She sighed. ‘Again, I apologise. I assumed it was the landlord's number. Obviously I was wrong.'

That didn't matter right now. He was focused on the flood. ‘Have you turned off the water?'

‘Yes. I'm not an airhead,' she said drily. ‘I also turned off the electricity supply to prevent any problems there, and I'm currently draining the system to try and stop any more water coming through. I need a plumber to fix the burst pipe, and I also need to tell the people in the flats upstairs, in case the problem in my flat has affected their water supply, too.'

He was surprised that Grace sounded so capable and so organised. It didn't fit with what he'd been told about her. But she'd said there was a burst pipe, and clearly she didn't have a number to call for help—apart from his, which Bella had left her in case of emergencies. He could hardly just hang up and leave her to it. ‘What's the address?' he asked abruptly.

‘Why?'

‘Because you just called me for help,' he said.

‘Mistakenly,' she said crisply. ‘For which I apologise. Yet again.'

‘Bella obviously left you my number in case of emergencies—and a burst pipe counts as an emergency.' Although Bella had forgotten to tell him she'd given Grace his number, that wasn't Grace's fault. ‘Where are you?'

‘Bella's flat.'

‘I don't actually know the address,' Roland explained.

‘Oh. Right.' Sounding slightly reluctant, she told him the address.

‘OK. I'm on my way.'

‘Are you a plumber or something?'

‘No, but I know a good one. I'll call him on the way and have him on standby in case you can't get hold of the landlord.'

‘Thank you,' Grace said. ‘I appreciate this.'

Roland called his plumber from the car, warning him that it was possibly a storm in a teacup but asking him to stay on standby. But, when he turned up at the flat, he discovered that Grace had been underplaying the situation, if anything. The water had clearly been gushing for a while and the carpets were soaked through; they'd need to be taken up and probably replaced. The sofa also needed to be moved, because water was seeping into it. And he felt another twinge of guilt as he noticed that Grace looked as if she'd been crying. Although she was clearly trying to be brave, this had obviously upset her.

‘Did you manage to get in touch with the landlord?' he asked.

She shook her head. ‘His details are probably somewhere in Bella's shoebox—but I'm not blaming her, because I should've checked everything properly myself before she and Hugh left. I live here now, so it's my responsibility.'

‘Shoebox?' he asked, mystified.

‘Bella's not really one for filing,' Grace explained. ‘She has a shoebox system. Business receipts go in one shoebox, household stuff in another, and you just rummage through the shoeboxes when you want something.'

‘That sounds a bit chaotic.' And it was definitely not the way Roland would do things. It wasted way too much time.

Grace shrugged. ‘At least she has the shoeboxes now. It took a bit of nagging to get her that far.'

What? This didn't fit, at all. Wasn't Grace the drunken, princessy one? And yet right now she was wearing a sober grey suit and white shirt; plus that looked like a proper briefcase on the kitchen table, along with a pair of sensible black shoes and an equally sensible-looking handbag. Her nails weren't professionally manicured, her dark hair was cut simply in a long bob rather than being in a fussy high-maintenance style like the one she'd had at the wedding, and her make-up was minimal.

Maybe he'd got her totally wrong. More guilt flooded through him.

‘The neighbours aren't home yet, so I've left a note on their doors to tell them what's happened,' she said. ‘And I really need to find the landlord's details and check the insurance.'

Again, there was that tiny wobble in her voice.

‘Are you OK?' he asked, hoping that she wasn't going to start crying.

‘I've had better days.' She lifted her chin. ‘And worse, for that matter. I'll live. Sorry. I would offer you a cup of tea but, as I don't have water or electricity right now...' She shrugged. ‘I'm afraid I can't.'

‘It's not a problem,' Roland said. ‘My plumber's on standby, so I'll call him again to get him up to speed with the situation—and we need to shift that sofa in a minute before it soaks up any more water, to try and minimise the damage.'

‘And the bookcase. And the bed. And...' She blew out a breath. ‘It's just as well my car's a hatchback. I'm going to have to move everything I can out of here until this place dries out. And find somewhere for storage—though, as all my friends have flats just as tiny as this and none of them have a garage I can borrow, even temporarily. It's probably going to have to be one of those lock-up storage places.'

‘Give me a moment.' Roland went outside and made a swift call to his plumber and then to one of the restoration specialist firms he'd used in the past. He also remembered seeing a café on the corner as he'd driven here; he made an executive decision to grab two takeaway black coffees, packets of sugar and two chocolate brownies. It would give them both enough energy to get through to the next stage. And if she didn't drink coffee—well, now would be a good time to start.

Grace had talked about finding a lock-up place to store the stuff from the flat. At this time of the evening, she'd be lucky to find somewhere to sort it out. And he had more than enough space to store her stuff. Even though part of him didn't really want to get involved, part of him knew that if something like this had happened to his sister, he'd want someone looking out for her. Grace was his best friend's sister-in-law. So that kind of made him responsible, didn't it?

On the way back to her flat, he called one of his team and asked him to bring a van.

She was already loading things into the back of her car when he got there.

‘Coffee,' he said, and handed her one of the paper cups. ‘I didn't know if you took milk or sugar, so I got it black and there are packets of sugar.'

‘Thank you. How much do I owe you?' she asked.

He shook his head. ‘It's fine. And I have a van on the way. Do you have some bags, boxes or suitcases I can start filling?'

‘A van?' she asked, looking puzzled.

‘The flat's small, but we're not going to be able to fit its entire contents into your car and mine,' he pointed out.