His Miracle Bride

by Marion Lennox

  Yeah, and she’d thought Mike was nice, she told herself harshly as she realized where her thoughts were taking her. She needed to haul them right back under control. Her judgement in men was seriously flawed. She needed time out-at least a year or so before she’d even think about dipping a toe in the water again.

  And there’d be no dipping of toes with someone like Pierce. He had five kids. It’d be like jumping over Niagara Falls.

  Right. So stay sensible. She gave herself a mental shake and rolled onto her side, preliminary to getting out of bed.

  Mistake.

  Last night she’d had what she thought was a grazed shoulder. Now…Maybe it was a compound fracture. Plus gangrene. Or something worse.

  She whimpered and rolled onto her back.

  ‘Ouch!’ said a voice from the door. She looked over, and there was Pierce. He had a couple of kids behind him. He was smiling.

  He’d shaved, she thought inconsequentially. He was wearing linen pants and a green polo shirt with a little alligator icon on the chest. He looked like he’d stepped straight off the cover of Vogue.

  He made her feel…

  ‘It’s nine o’clock,’ Wendy said from behind him. ‘Pierce said it’s time to wake you.’

  ‘I’ve made a doctor’s appointment for you in half an hour,’ Pierce said apologetically. ‘Or we would have let you sleep longer.’

  ‘A doctor’s appointment?’

  ‘The man from the garage brought a new tyre for Mum’s wagon,’ Bryce said. ‘So we can come with you.’

  ‘There’s a little seat in the back,’ Wendy added. ‘So it’s a seven-seater. Isn’t that lucky?’

  ‘Cos there’s seven of us,’ Abby added importantly. ‘You want to hear me count?’

  ‘How’s the arm?’ Pierce asked.

  That was the only thing that she could make sense of. She lay back and looked at him, solidly looked at him, at his anxious face, at the amazing good looks of the man, at his worried frown and the way his brow just puckered at the edges.

  ‘I feel like I need painkillers,’ she confessed. ‘But then I already feel like I’ve taken them. Giddy.’

  ‘You do need to see a doctor.’

  ‘Maybe,’ she said cautiously.

  ‘Right, then. Will you stay in bed? I can carry you to the car.’

  ‘I’m getting up,’ she said indignantly.

  ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Do you need help to get dressed?’

  ‘No.’ In fact-and she wasn’t admitting this for quids-she’d gone to sleep in her bra and knickers. It had hurt too much to take her bra off.

  ‘Wendy, stay and help her,’ Pierce ordered. ‘The rest of you, breakfast. Bryce is on toast duty. There’ll be half a ton toasted by the time you get down.’ He smiled at her, that heart-stopping smile that made her heart, well, not stop, but it was a near-run thing. ‘Take care of her, Wendy.’

  ‘I…’

  ‘Oh, and we’ve organized the beach,’ he added as if it was an afterthought. ‘Your offer of internet hunting was noted with gratitude, but we’ve found our own place.’

  ‘We’re going to a castle,’ Bryce said, sounding awed. ‘A castle at the beach. The castle at Dolphin Bay. So we’re having hot dogs today and beach tomorrow as soon as Pierce has found someone to take care of the farm.’

  She felt like she was caught in a tidal wave, washing her along with a momentum that didn’t allow her time for breath. Not that she wanted to breathe. Her shoulder hurt. Boy, did it hurt. It hurt all the time she dressed and all the time she had breakfast, and it hurt as she walked out to the car.

  She was aware of Pierce’s eyes on her every step of the way, so she fought it. She grinned at the antics of the kids-she tried to keep up with the backchat-but in the car she subsided into blessed silence. She didn’t speak again until they pulled up outside the doctor’s surgery.

  Pierce was out of the car almost as soon as they stopped, hauling open the passenger door, helping her out, his expression grave.

  ‘Well done you,’ he said softly, and he put his finger under her chin in a gesture of reassurance. ‘We should have called the ambulance last night. What a hero.’

  ‘I’m not a hero,’ she managed, but she whished he wouldn’t do this. Look at her like this. Touch her…

  She’d thought he was fabulous when he was fifteen. He’d grown…fabulouser?

  ‘Did you get any sleep at all?’

  ‘I was jet lagged,’ she managed. ‘I would have slept if I’d been on the rack.’

  ‘And that’s how you feel this morning? Like you spent the night on the rack?’

  ‘A bit.’ He was helping the kids out of the car now. ‘Um, where are you guys going?’

  ‘We’re coming to the doctor’s with you,’ Bryce explained.

  ‘You have to be kidding.’ She stared at them like they were out of their collective minds.

  ‘If you get an injection you need someone to hold your hand,’ Abby said, and put out her hand in offering.

  ‘I’ll be fine,’ Shanni said, backing away. What was she getting into?

  ‘Okay. We’ll fetch our mended tyre and do the supermarket shopping while we wait,’ Pierce told her, grinning. ‘But I want the truth about what the doctor says.’

  There was no way Shanni was giving him the truth about what the doctor said. Because after a cursory glance at her arm-‘Badly bruised, lacerations, you’d expect it to be painful for a few days, I’ll prescribe painkillers.’-the doctor started in on a subject he cared about more than Shanni.

  ‘What the hell is that idiot about, letting cattle wander? The man’s a lunatic.’

  There was such dislike in the doctor’s voice that she flinched. ‘The bolt to the paddock was cut,’ she said, confused. ‘It’s criminal negligence, or worse, but it’s not Pierce’s fault. Pierce should be calling in the police.’

  ‘It’s criminal negligence,’ he agreed. ‘But it’s not Mr MacLachlan who should be calling the police. It’s you. If he let bulls graze without protective barriers…’ He grimaced. ‘It’s the last straw. There’s no way I’m letting those children stay at risk.’ He reached for the phone.

  Something was seriously screwy.

  She put her hand firmly on the telephone, forcing him to replace it.

  ‘Indulge me,’ she said slowly. ‘Charge me for a long consultation if you must. But I’ve been employed as a nanny for Pierce’s children. I need you to be honest. As one professional to another, tell me why you think Pierce MacLachlan is a bad parent.’

  Supermarket shopping was Pierce’s least favourite pastime. Not that these kids were ill behaved-on the contrary, they’d had such a hard time while their mother had been ill that every time he put anything but bread and pasta in the trolley it seemed an occasion for general rejoicing. But supermarkets in small country towns were full of small country people. That’s what they were, he thought, as he passed one matron after another with her nose raised in sniffy disapproval. Small minded and mean.

  Where was the legendary country hospitality? Nowhere. It was a great idea of Shanni’s to go to the beach. Maybe he should move the whole lot of them there permanently.

  Though wherever he went he’d probably get this level of disapproval, he thought. Single dad with a gaggle of disparate kids.

  ‘Can you tell me where the hot-dog rolls are?’ he asked a middle-aged woman stacking shelves, and she practically bristled.

  ‘Aisle ten,’ she snapped.

  ‘It’s aisle three.’ Shanni’s voice shocked them all. It was so loud it stopped everyone in their tracks.

  He swivelled to see where the voice was coming from.

  Shanni was at the end of their aisle, and she was holding a microphone. The mike was obviously the one used for messages such as, ‘Gimme a price on the broccoli.’

  Shanni seemed to have purloined it for her personal use.

  ‘I can see bread from here,’ she boomed. ‘Hot-dog rolls in aisle
three. The lady’s telling lies.’

  ‘I never-’ The shelf-stacking lady’s jaw dropped almost to her ankles.

  ‘There’s a lot of that happening,’ Shanni said conversationally, and then, as the girl at the checkout counter made a grab for her microphone, Shanni shook her head, smiled sweetly and stepped sideways.

  ‘I need it, there’s a pet,’ she said. ‘I have a very important announcement.’

  ‘What…?’ the girl demanded but she was too late. Shanni was in full flow. She was standing in front of the middle register, giving her a clear view of almost everyone in their various aisles. Which was a lot of people. This must be pay day or something, Pierce thought, bewildered. The supermarket was packed.

  ‘Many of you know Pierce MacLachlan,’ she said conversationally, and he had a frantic urge to surge forward and grab the microphone. But he couldn’t quite get his legs to work.

  ‘He bought a local farm,’ Shanni went on. ‘For those who don’t know, it’s a neat little farm with a fabulous farmhouse. Pierce is a city architect. I’m assuming he saw the farm advertised in a city paper. He made an appointment with the agent. He liked what he saw and he bought it. No problem. Except there was a corporation negotiating to buy it so they could set up a factory here. The factory then had to be built on a site near the next town, which means many of you now have to pay an additional cartage to get your milk there. Pierce is sorry about that, but it’s not his fault. He didn’t know. If you’re blaming him, then it’s totally unfair. Unchristian, really.’

  There was absolute silence. Customers in Pierce’s aisle turned and stared at Pierce and his brood of kids. Everyone else stared at Shanni.

  ‘So Pierce moved in,’ she said. ‘And, while everyone was tuttutting in disapproval, he invited Maureen to stay. Maureen was Pierce’s foster sister. She had four kids and was pregnant with the fifth. She was also dying.’

  There was a general intake of breath. An assistant manager-a guy of about nineteen wearing more grease than a fish shop-was striding towards Shanni looking as if he knew what to do with anyone who was interfering with his microphone. But an older woman grabbed him by the arm and held him back.

  ‘Leave her be, Dwayne.’

  ‘Mum, she can’t-’

  ‘Shush. I want to hear.’

  ‘Anyway,’ Shanni said, ignoring Dwayne as insignificant to her story, ‘Here was Maureen with her kids. In desperate trouble. Her background is irrelevant. I’m not asking you to judge Maureen. We can’t. For Maureen died eight months ago.’

  ‘We know this,’ someone called out.

  ‘Then if you do you should be ashamed of yourselves,’ Shanni snapped. ‘I gave you the benefit of the doubt, that you didn’t know the facts. So I’m repeating them. These kids…They’re fantastic kids. You can’t imagine. Wendy’s eleven. She’s held her brothers and sisters together like the little mother hen she is. All the kids-Wendy and Bryce and Donald and Abby and Bessy-every single one of them deserves a medal for the care they took of their mother and the care they’ve taken of each other. But of course, there are five of them. When Maureen was ill there was no one to look after them. Social Welfare knew Maureen was dying. They were rightly concerned. Maureen was terrified they’d be separated. She begged Pierce to help. Not being the children’s father, Pierce could do little. But Pierce has a big farm and a bigger heart. He thought if he was the kids’ stepdad then he might just be able to keep them together. So he and Maureen married.’

  There was silence. The locals hadn’t figured this part of the story. They’d preferred juicier versions, Pierce thought. Various kids with various parents, kept for whatever nefarious purpose they might like to imagine.

  ‘Do you really think Social Welfare would let Pierce keep the children if they don’t think he has the best interests of the kids at heart?’ Shanni demanded, and there was even more silence.

  ‘You know, I was brought up in the city,’ Shanni said. ‘My mum got glandular fever when I was seven, and she was ill for months. I remember that time as scary, but you know what? My dad and I never had to cook. Our local community-city folk-used to turn up at our place with food. My school organized a roster. It makes me cry now, more than twenty years on, to think of all those big-hearted people.

  ‘But you,’ she said, lowering her voice. She didn’t have to worry about it so much now. She had the absolute attention of every single person in the supermarket. ‘These kids go to your kids’ school. You’ve known Pierce was in trouble. But all he gets from you, his community, is more and more reports forcing Social Welfare to keep on checking.’

  She took a deep breath. ‘All these kids have had chicken pox. Now Bessy has it. I know, she’s in the supermarket when she shouldn’t be, but there’s no choice. Even with me helping. Yesterday Pierce stayed up all night with an ill child, but he had to take Bessy to the doctor. He was so tired, he went to sleep in his car while waiting for a prescription. The kids were safe at home with me, but he got reported. He got home to face yet another check. Then last night someone decided Welfare weren’t doing their job, the job someone here seems to want, which is running Pierce and the kids out of town. So they decided to help things along.’

  ‘Shanni,’ Pierce said and started forward, but Wendy grabbed his shirt and clung.

  ‘Let her say it, Dad,’ she said. ‘These people don’t like it.’

  ‘So someone let our bull into the garden,’ Shanni said. Her voice was strained now, like she was having trouble going on. ‘Not only that, but whoever it was stirred Clyde up, wounding him with a peashooter over and over again until he was vicious and uncontrolled. I guess whoever it was imagined that it’d be Pierce who went outside when he heard a bull in the garden, but we still have a sick baby. Pierce was upstairs with a howling Bessy. So Donald…’ she motioned to Donald ‘…our seven-year-old, who like every one of his siblings is brave and resolute and desperate to do the right thing, went out to tackle the bull on his own.’

  There was a general gasp. Horror. But the lady who’d been stocking the shelves was looking at them differently. Appalled.

  ‘I’m an old friend of Pierce, and I’ve come to help. I heard Donald in the garden,’ Shanni said into the silence. ‘I got there just before the bull charged him.’ She motioned to the sling the doctor had put her arm in. ‘I ended up with a wounded shoulder. But if I hadn’t been there…’ She broke off.

  ‘But I was,’ she said softly.

  ‘Shanni, leave this,’ Pierce said. He put Wendy aside and started walking up the aisle towards her.

  ‘Oh, I’m leaving it,’ she said, and she managed to smile at him. ‘We’re all leaving. We’re going to the beach for a holiday. Pierce has had this place up to his ears, and I don’t blame him. But in a couple of weeks we’ll be back. To put the place on the market…’

  ‘Shanni?’

  ‘You can’t keep the farm if these people keep demonizing you,’ she said softly. ‘So all I’m doing is laying the facts before everyone.’ She took a deep breath and then beamed, switching channels. ‘Okay, everyone. Enough from me. You were in the middle of a riveting announcement of a red-hot special in laundry detergents. Dwayne, over to you.’ And she handed over the mike, just as Pierce reached her.

  He stopped just before her. She was smiling, but her eyes were wary. Worried.

  ‘I had to do it, Pierce,’ she whispered. ‘When the doctor told me what scum you were, what everyone here thought, I damn near slapped him.’ Her smile firmed a little. ‘But then I would have had to slap everyone here, too, and I’d probably end up in jail, and I want to go to the beach. Can we still go to the beach, Pierce, or are you mad at me?’

  ‘I’m mad at you.’

  ‘How badly is your shoulder hurt, miss?’ It was Dwayne’s mother. She looked white-faced and frightened. There were a few white faces around, Pierce thought. How many people had been in on the Clyde plan?

  ‘It’s mostly just bruised,’ Shanni assured her.

  ‘When are you g
oing to the beach?’

  ‘Tomorrow.’

  ‘Then you’re not to cook tonight,’ the lady said, and suddenly she’d turned and grabbed the microphone from her son. ‘I’m on casserole tonight,’ she boomed into the microphone. ‘Dora, can you make one of your apple strudels?’

  ‘And I’ll make a hamper they can take with them,’ someone called.

  ‘We don’t need-’

  ‘I think we need,’ Dwayne’s mother told the supermarket grimly. ‘I think a whole lot of us need a lot more than you do.’

  They drove home in silence, Shanni in the front passenger seat and the kids packed into the back. For the life of him Pierce couldn’t think of what to say. She’d blown him away. She’d been a virago, protecting her young with every ounce of her being.

  She was a failed owner of an art gallery.

  How could this woman fail at anything? For a moment he almost felt sorry for the stupid ex-boyfriend who’d betrayed her. Mike was lucky he’d only got a bucket of iced water.

  He grinned.

  ‘What’s so funny?’

  ‘I was thinking of Mike.’

  ‘Of Mike?’

  ‘And iced water. And microphones. I’m thinking maybe we need to get you boxing lessons. Slugging might be easier.’

  ‘Not half as satisfying,’ she said, and she smiled back.

  ‘There is that.’ He hesitated. ‘Shanni, I’m really grateful.’

  ‘I know you are,’ she said smugly. ‘That’s why I did it.’ Her smile faded. ‘You know, it’s occurred to me that if you’re taking the kids to the beach then you don’t actually need me.’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘This castle. I asked the doctor about it. After I yelled at him he started being a sweetie. We looked Dolphin Bay castle up on the internet. It’s a refuge where disadvantaged kids get a holiday, and their carers do, too. There’s more than enough staff to take the kids off your hands while you get your work done. I could…’ She took a deep breath. ‘I could go find somewhere else to stay.’ But then she brightened. ‘Or I could stay at the farm by myself. I could paint. Someone has to babysit Clyde.’

  ‘But you have to come,’ said Donald from the back seat.