Page 50 of Wrapped Up at the Vintage Dress Shop (Vintage Dress Shop Romance #3)

T here was one awful moment that lasted several lifetimes.

Then Freddy suddenly rolled over, one arm around Coco, and coughed as the little dog licked his face.

He glanced over to where Phoebe was still sandwiched between Cress and Sophy and managed to stagger to his feet as Phoebe wriggled free so she could limp towards Freddy and Coco.

She started crying before she even reached him. ‘I couldn’t bear it if anything happened to you,’ she sobbed. ‘To either of you.’

‘Right back at you,’ Freddy said, then screwed up his face in disgust. Water was dripping off him and his face was ashen in the light of the fire, which was still raging. ‘Christ, I must have swallowed half of the canal.’

‘I don’t care,’ Phoebe said, scooping Coco up in her arms, then launching herself at Freddy so hard that he staggered with the force of her embrace. Phoebe grabbed hold of the sodden lapels of his jacket with one hand so she could pull him to safety then pepper his face with kisses.

She didn’t even care that he probably had swallowed a good litre of canal water, which even on its best day still looked dank and green and had an oily slick floating on top of it, she kissed his mouth, tangling one hand in his wet hair.

Freddy kissed her back. Then they just held each other, delayed shock and the biting chill of the cold December night making both of them shake.

Between them, Coco was a damp, wiggly weight, licking whichever one of their faces she could reach.

Phoebe didn’t think she’d ever let either of them go until she could no longer ignore the insistent tapping on her shoulder.

She reluctantly turned around to be confronted by a very angry firewoman who proceeded to read Phoebe the riot act for her rescue mission.

‘You need to leave it to the professionals,’ she finished very sternly as Phoebe looked beyond her to where the woman’s crew were rolling up their hose and The Sheila was no longer on fire but literally a husk of what she used to be.

‘Look, I get it, I have a cat that I’d run into a burning building for, but you’re bloody lucky to be alive.

Now, needless to say but I think you’re the sort of person who needs me to say it, you are not to get back on that boat.

It’s unsafe and we need to establish the cause of the fire. ’

Behind Phoebe, she felt Freddy stiffen. ‘I was meaning to get the wood burner serviced,’ she said weakly, as the fierce firewoman looked very unimpressed.

‘Well, meaning isn’t the same as doing,’ she said and even on her most impossible day, Phoebe didn’t think she’d ever made any customer feel as small as she felt right then.

‘Lecture over. The paramedics have just arrived to check the two of you over. They’re parked on the street.

Can you walk or do you need a stretcher? ’

Phoebe was about to say, quite indignantly, that she could walk but as soon as she thought it, her legs started wobbling and Cress and Sophy were there again to hold her up.

The adrenalin that had given Phoebe huge amounts of bravery and a superhuman strength so she could tear heavy silk and smash windows was suddenly gone.

Now, she was a shuddering, trembling woman whose feet felt as if they’d been walking on razor blades and her right hand was stinging and throbbing.

She looked down to see that she was bleeding in several places.

‘This is the most beautiful, expensive dress I’ve ever owned,’ she rasped, as Freddy, still dripping fetid canal water and shaking himself, took her hand, his other arm clutching Coco to his chest, and Sophy pulled her and Cress pushed her very gently along the path.

‘It’s worth over two thousand pounds and it was once owned by a debutante who was photographed in it for Harper’s Bazaar. ’

‘Oh, Pheebs, I’m so sorry,’ Cress said because even she couldn’t work her magic on a dress that had had half the skirt ripped clean off it, huge tears in the bodice and sleeves and covered in rusty red streaks of blood, not to mention greasy, green waterlogged stains from where Phoebe had been pressed against Freddy.

‘Maybe I could make a replica of it for you.’

Freddy squeezed Phoebe’s fingers and she waited to feel inconsolable about the loss of the most beautiful dress that she’d ever owned.

‘I think I will be very sad about the dress. All my dresses. And my capes. You know I’ve been deep into my cape era.

I can’t imagine many of them have survived . . .’

‘Anita and Bea did talk about us forming a human chain to rescue your dresses but then we got shouted at by the fire lady,’ Sophy said, as they carefully manoeuvred Phoebe up the narrow path that led to the street.

Anita and Bea, Bea convulsed with sobs, were waiting for them. ‘I’m so sorry about your dresses,’ Bea hiccupped.

‘They are just dresses,’ Phoebe said slowly.

She was still waiting to feel grief-stricken about her dresses but mostly she was concerned about Freddy – he could have E.coli from the canal water – and Coco.

In fact, as soon as Phoebe was helped into the back of the ambulance she insisted Coco was checked over first. ‘She must have inhaled a lot of smoke, not to mention swallowing that rank canal water, and she’s a brachycephalic breed.

Have you got a little oxygen mask you could put on her? ’

Bea and Anita handed over all the items that Phoebe had dropped during her panicked run.

Her phone. Her clutch bag. Even her shoes that had been abandoned in the middle of the street, like a true Cinderella.

And they’d also brought the little box containing her corsage: a red rose the exact same shade of Phoebe’s favourite lipstick, which Freddy had planned to give her in person.

Then they gathered around the open back doors of the ambulance, even though one of the paramedics said that they didn’t need an audience, and Phoebe asked in a croaking voice, which hurt her throat, ‘But aren’t you going to the ball? There’s still time.’

‘Not really feeling the vibes for a ball now,’ Anita said. She shrugged. ‘Seeing your friend’s home go up in smoke is a bit of a mood killer, you know. Even I’m sad about all your dresses.’

Phoebe was still more worried about Freddy who was sitting next to her on the gurney and looked an awful grey colour. ‘Are you all right? You look terrible.’

Freddy’s grin was a shadow of its former self.

‘I would say that you don’t look that good yourself but to me, you always look beautiful.

’ His eyes were fixed on Phoebe like he wanted to memorise every last millimetre of her face.

‘Especially when you were standing on the roof of The Sheila , like some kind of warrior queen. But I’ve never been so terrified, Pheebs.

It could have all ended so differently, so badly. ’

He shuddered at the prospect but it had ended the way that it had. The Sheila was a write-off. Her dresses were probably just ash by now. But the three of them were still here. Bloody, bruised, maybe a little broken but gloriously and happily alive.

Even though it hurt when she leaned towards Freddy – it was very possible that she’d cracked a couple of ribs – Phoebe had to kiss him again.

Just to make sure that this wasn’t a dream.

It was real. He was real. ‘I meant what I said before,’ she told him gently.

‘I couldn’t bear it if anything happened to you.

I know that I don’t show it and I never ever say it, but honestly, Freddy, you mean the world to me. ’

There was a shocked gasp from the peanut gallery. ‘I’m having trouble taking this all in,’ Sophy said in a shocked whisper. ‘Not just that Phoebe lives on a boat but Phoebe and Freddy? Since when?’

‘I couldn’t tell you – it was a secret,’ Cress said at the exact same time as Anita and Bea chorused, ‘Since forever.’

So much for keeping things on the down-low so Phoebe’s authority wouldn’t be undermined.

‘My personal life is nothing to do with you,’ Phoebe said grandly, which was ruined when she started coughing hard enough to hack up a lung.

‘Right, your little dog is OK. Best to get her checked over by a vet tomorrow, but really if anyone needs checking over, it’s you,’ the paramedic said, lunging at Phoebe with a blood pressure cuff.

‘You know what?’ Anita suddenly grinned. ‘This does answer the question once and for all, that if Phoebe’s house was on fire, what would she save?’

In the end, Phoebe hadn’t even had to think about it. It turned out that she could love after all. She gently scooped up Coco, who was huddled next to her on the stretcher, and pressed a kiss to the top of her head, though Coco really didn’t smell that good.

On the other side of her, Freddy was being hooked up to an EKG machine, his face still grey, his hands trembling.

‘You’re going to have to say goodbye to the dog now,’ said the paramedic who had tightened the blood pressure cuff to the point of maximum pain, although compared to all her other aches, cuts and bruises, it hardly registered.

‘Coco isn’t going anywhere,’ Phoebe spluttered, hugging her even tighter. Coco was limp in her embrace, completely devoid of her usual sass.

‘Your blood pressure is very high.’ Which really wasn’t any wonder given the circumstances. ‘And even if it wasn’t, you both need to go to hospital. No dogs allowed.’

Coco whimpered faintly and Phoebe would have whimpered too except it felt as if someone had taken sandpaper to her throat. ‘I promise I’ll go to hospital tomorrow,’ she managed to say though talking really hurt.

‘No, Pheebs, you go to hospital and I’ll stay with Coco,’ Freddy insisted, but then he went even greyer and lurched forward as his paramedic shoved a kidney bowl at him just in time.

‘Oh Freddy, your poor thing, you’re not going anywhere,’ Phoebe croaked. ‘You’re the one who should go to hospital.’

‘Both of you are going to hospital,’ Cress said very sternly. ‘I’ll take Coco.’

‘But . . .’