DAWN PAIGE GREY Young Adult Romance

Chapter 1 - Puzzle Pieces

“AAAAAGGGGGG!!! NO! NO! NO!” Dawn screamed at her image in the dressing room mirror.

The assistant came rushing in, “Miss Grey are you alright?” She asked anxiously.

“NO! God dammit I am not alright! This dress sucks!!”

“Miss Grey that was the dress you chose just 4 weeks ago and we altered it to your requirements.”

“I don’t like it anymore ….. What AM I doing?” Dawn pulled the dress off tearing the sleeve.

The assistant stared at the torn sleeve that was hanging by a thread, and went a whiter shade of pale, but never said a word. There was no dealing with an angry disgruntled bride to be.

Dawn stared at the torn sleeve and to the assistant’s utter disbelief she ripped it clean off the dress and then proceeded to rip the other sleeve off too, after which she laughed hysterically toppling over onto the floor and scrunching up the dress underneath her.

The assistant backed out of the dressing room quietly leaving the hysterical unhappy bride alone.  She immediately ran to fetch the manageress and told her what had happened. Without a moment’s hesitation the manageress stormed into the dressing room and witnessed the hysterical young woman rolling around on the floor scrunching up the dress under her as she rolled.

“Dawn Paige Grey, what on earth do you think you are doing?”

Dawn stopped laughing for a moment and looked up at her aunt. Then the worst possible thing happened. Dawn burst into floods of tears. Sobbing uncontrollably she proceeded to wipe her tears and her snotty nose on the wedding dress.

“Dawn!” her aunt screeched at the top of her squeaky voice, “What has gotten into you? You look like the devil’s daughter right now!”

Dawn’s jaw dropped open. Her aunt had never referred to her as a devil before. Spoilt, maybe. But never a devil.

“If my mother were here now …. She would understand.” Dawn muttered between sobs.

“Child, if your mother ….. God rest her soul, were here now she would be mortified. Your behaviour is totally degrading to your family.”

Dawn tossed the dress aside and still sitting on the floor she hugged her knees to her chest. Looking up at her angry aunt she said, “Aunty Eve, if God is so good, why did he let Mom die the minute I was born?”

Eve stared at her niece, her brother’s daughter. How on earth was she supposed to answer that? She’d never married, never wanted to, or for that matter wanted children either. She was a career woman, a seamstress and her wedding dresses were in demand all over Australia. Eve never had time for love or the frivolities of romance.

When her brother had married Ann Paige Austin she felt it was a mistake. Ann was a dainty, soft spoken woman. Eve considered her to be too gentle and feminine, to live on a cattle ranch in the outback.  He’d met her while on business in London and for some unknown reason he’d proposed and the silly woman had accepted and followed him back to Australia. They were engaged and married in the same month.

But Eve had to admit the woman had adapted very quickly and given her brother five sons. Sadly Ann had died giving birth to their only daughter, Dawn Paige Grey. Being the only girl, Dawn was terribly spoilt not only by her father but by her older brothers. She was six years younger than her youngest brother Christopher.

Eve had spent Dawn’s first six months living with her brother and helping him adjust to being a single parent to a new baby. Another boy would probably have been easier, but a girl, well that was a whole different ball game.  Even though Eve had played surrogate mother to Dawn, she never really had a maternal bond with her and did what was required to help her brother get over his tragic loss and provide the much needed support for Dawn.