His Miracle Bride

by Marion Lennox

  ‘What if there are bulls?’ Abby demanded. ‘We need you to look after Donald.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Donald.

  ‘We certainly need you, and I’ve found a Clyde-sitter,’ Pierce said with a sidelong glance at his passenger. She was looking weary. It’d been a hell of a day yesterday. The bull’s attack must have taken its toll. Yet her behaviour in the supermarket…It had been amazing.

  Ruby would have fought like that, he thought, and he smiled.

  ‘You keep having private jokes,’ Shanni complained, and he tried to stop smiling. But she sounded so righteous that he wanted to smile all over again.

  ‘You remind me of Ruby.’

  ‘I love my Aunty Ruby,’ she said warmly. But then she frowned. ‘But I told you-stop saying that. She’s short and dumpy.’

  ‘And you’re short and cuddly.’ It was out before he realized what he’d intended to say. He hadn’t intended to say it. Had he?

  ‘I don’t do cuddles,’ she said.

  ‘No?’

  ‘Why not?’ asked Wendy.

  ‘Cos I had a boyfriend who was a rat, and I’ve promised I’ll never cuddle anyone again.’

  ‘Our Mum said Pierce didn’t do cuddles,’ Abby piped up. ‘We had to teach him.’

  ‘Kids’ cuddles are different to adult cuddles.’ Pierce knew he sounded desperate but that was how he was feeling.

  ‘Why didn’t you do cuddles?’ Shanni asked, interested. Then she remembered something. ‘Ruby says all her boys are emotionally crippled.’

  ‘Gee, thanks.’

  ‘There’s one thing I can’t understand.’

  ‘What’s that?’ He sounded cautious, but who could blame him?

  ‘Why did you buy your farm?’

  The question caught him unprepared. He had no answer.

  ‘You didn’t know about Maureen and the kids before you bought it, did you?’ she asked.

  ‘Um, no.’

  ‘You hadn’t heard and decided to be super-nice?’

  ‘I’m not super-nice.’

  ‘No?’ She screwed up her nose, deep in thought. ‘You were working in Sydney on your super architect projects that earn you megabucks. You decided you wanted a weekend getaway, so you looked around here. And lo-a five-bedroom farmhouse. Two living rooms. Three bathrooms. Three dog houses. Have you ever owned a dog?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘There you go, then. Do you have lots of friends and relations?’

  He hesitated. ‘Only Ruby.’

  ‘And the boys. Your foster brothers. Ruby’s boys.’ She smiled a little at that. ‘Ruby thinks the world of you guys. Though you’ve blotted your copybook with the apartment.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Buying her a fabulous apartment that she can’t share. Whose cork-brained idea was that?’

  ‘Not mine,’ he admitted.

  There was a lengthy silence. The kids didn’t understand where the conversation was going, but they were good kids. They were content to listen.

  ‘So,’ Shanni said at last. She sank back into her seat, and he had the feeling she would have crossed her arms if she didn’t have an arm in a sling. Judgement had been pronounced.

  ‘You sound like the secrets of the universe have been revealed.’

  ‘They have,’ she said in tones of satisfaction. ‘Aunty Ruby always said you were a nice boy.’

  ‘I bet she says that about us all.’

  ‘No. She had tags. I don’t know you all, but she has you categorized. The silent one. The dangerous one. The wild one. The deep one.’

  ‘And I’m just nice.’

  ‘She said it in the kindest way. She thinks the world of you.’ She hesitated. ‘Aunty Ruby says you see nothing of your own family.’

  ‘No.’ Short. Clipped. Brusque. Intended to give her a message which she clearly didn’t receive.

  ‘Okay.’ She looked sideways at him. ‘So, you bought your farm for Ruby?’

  ‘I didn’t.’

  ‘No, not specifically, cos she’d never have taken it. But if you had a great big farmhouse that was rattlingly empty, and Ruby knew it was there and some kid or other was in trouble, she’d have filled it up. I bet that’s what you were thinking. Only Maureen got in first and filled it before Ruby could.’

  ‘It wasn’t for Ruby.’ But he knew he didn’t sound convincing.

  ‘Maybe it was in your subconscious, but I bet it was there. But then the rest of the boys had their great idea about giving Ruby an apartment for herself. But you knew she’d hate it.’

  ‘I didn’t know.’

  ‘Of course you did, because you’re the nice one. But you were stuck then, cos of course you couldn’t be the only one who wouldn’t give Ruby the apartment. And you’ve got five kids who you know Ruby would adore to have as pseudo-grandkids, but of course the rest of Ruby’s boys would think you were lower than the low if you foisted them on her.’

  ‘What’s “foist”?’ Bryce asked.

  ‘Let Ruby near you,’ Pierce said desperately. ‘I can’t.’

  ‘Which is why you told her you had one baby and only one. You knew she’d never be able to resist more.’

  ‘She couldn’t resist one. I had to practically straitjacket her to stop her coming. I didn’t want to tell her that much, but I needed my foster brother Blake to help with the legal stuff. We were staying with Ruby at the time and she overheard. She knew I was hiding something. So I told Ruby one baby.’

  ‘And you told Ruby you didn’t want her?’

  ‘This is too damned convoluted,’ he growled. ‘Plus it’s not your business.’

  ‘I don’t want to meet any more bulls,’ she explained. ‘No more unpleasant surprises. But, meanwhile, you don’t need me at Dolphin Bay.’

  ‘I do,’ he insisted.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because you need a damned good rest. Any fool can see that.’

  ‘I’m your employee,’ she said gently. ‘Not someone you have to fuss over.’

  ‘No, but you don’t have any place else to go.’

  ‘You could sign one of Ruby’s dumb visitor agreements and I could stay there. I could put up with the macramé.’

  ‘You’d tell her all about me.’

  ‘I might,’ she admitted. ‘Not that I’d want to, but no one can tell lies to Ruby. She sees right through you.’

  ‘So come to the castle. Maybe you can paint.’

  ‘Maybe I can,’ she said, cheering up. ‘I need to conquer cows’ legs.’

  ‘You studied art at university?’

  ‘I did and all,’ she said mournfully. ‘But it hasn’t fitted me very well for an alternative career. I can discuss with gravitas the powerful influences affecting post-modern gothic pastoralism on twentieth-century neoconservatist abstracts-but I can’t paint a cows’ leg. Wendy does a neater one. Maybe I should become the world’s best housekeeper and be done with it.’ She swivelled round and grinned at Wendy. ‘But I’m trying painting first. So it’s a contest. If I get to go to the beach, we’ll see who paints legs best at the end.’

  ‘We’ll paint fish at the beach,’ Abby said.

  ‘Fish legs, then.’

  ‘Mermaids,’ Wendy said, and giggled.

  Wendy giggling?

  It was such an astonishing sound that it almost had Pierce driving off the road. He hadn’t heard Wendy giggle since her mother had died.

  This woman was…

  A godsend. Nothing more, he told himself, suddenly finding he needed to give himself a stern reminder of barriers. She was great for the kids.

  She was cuddly.

  He didn’t do cuddly. He didn’t do relationships.

  Except, maybe, with Ruby.

  Ruby’s husband had been a foster kid himself, physically scarred from years of childhood neglect. When he’d died young Ruby had declared her life mission was to rescue boys. There were too many children in the world to take them all, she declared, so she restricted herself to gawky adolescent males, and she
loved them to bits.

  He’d spent three years of his life with Ruby. His mother never abandoned him completely, so his childhood was made up of intermittent placements. After he met Ruby she took him every time.

  Shanni had Ruby’s grin. She had Ruby’s way of greeting life head on. That was the only reason he was reacting to her like he was, he told himself. Because she was like Ruby.

  Yeah, right. She wasn’t the least bit like Ruby. She was Shanni.

  They lapsed into silence. Pierce turned onto the gravel track leading to the farm, and realized that he didn’t want this journey to end. Which was weird. He who held his independence as his most important asset had found a short journey with five kids, a pile of supplies and a woman with a wounded wing great.

  ‘So we’re setting out tomorrow,’ Shanni said, and he thought, okay, they could keep this businesslike.

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘We didn’t go today because-’

  ‘Because you need time to recover.’

  ‘I’m supposed to help you, not the other way round.’

  ‘You saved Donald.’

  She thought about that. ‘So I did,’ she said at last. ‘There’s a silver lining to every cloud. I might be stuck here…’

  ‘You think you’re stuck?’

  ‘Of course I do.’ She seemed astonished. ‘I mean-’ She caught herself. ‘I mean, you all seem very nice, but I’m an art curator. This is a career blip. I’m here to regroup and then I’m out of here. So if you find someone else, feel free to employ them.’

  ‘Thank you,’ he said gravely.

  ‘Only not tomorrow, cos even though I shouldn’t come it was my idea to go to the beach and I really, really want to stay in a castle.’

  ‘So do I,’ said Donald.

  ‘Me, too,’ said Wendy.

  And, to a chorus of ‘me, toos’, he turned into the farm. With his temporary housekeeper. Temporary childminder. Temporary…relationship?

  He didn’t do relationships. Even temporary ones.

  CHAPTER SIX

  SHANNI woke at three in the morning. Her shoulder hurt.

  Actually, it throbbed.

  ‘Wuss,’ she told herself, but her shoulder wasn’t in the mood to be told it was making too much fuss.

  She needed painkillers. The doctor had given her lethal-looking night-time pills with instructions that she’d need them to go to sleep. But he’d said they’d make her dozy, and she was a bit wary of being dozy in this house. What if there was another bull? She’d taken a couple of milder analgesics and had managed to go to sleep, but now those bright blue suckers she’d put in the kitchen medicine cabinet looked pretty inviting.

  The house was in darkness. She was still in the girls’ bedroom. Wendy and Abby were fast asleep. Carefully she threw back the covers, winced as the movement hurt her arm, then padded her way downstairs to the kitchen.

  Pierce was sitting at the table, a sheath of plans spread out before him. He looked like a man who’d been working for hours.

  He was wearing bright blue pyjamas. He had serious-looking glasses perched low on his nose. He’d been raking his hair with his fingers. His curls had separated into rake marks. He needed a shave again.

  He was seriously cute.

  He looked up, and she jumped.

  ‘Hey,’ he said, sounding as startled as she was. ‘It’s me who’s supposed to jump.’

  ‘Did I scare you?’

  ‘If you’re asking whether the sight of five feet three inches of woman with pyjamas covered in pink pigs and with one arm in a sling is enough to terrify me-you could be right.’ He stretched, like a big cat, and rose lazily to his feet. ‘Your arm’s hurting?’

  ‘I…Yes.’ Maybe the pink pigs weren’t such a good idea, she thought. They’d been a Kris Kringle Christmas gift from the gallery staff. She’d shoved them right to the back of her bureau, but when she’d been packing to come home she’d thought, why not, no one’s going to see me in bed ever again.

  But she wouldn’t have minded a bit of feminine lace right now. Or even plain flannelette. Just not pigs.

  ‘They’re great,’ Pierce said, and grinned. There it was again-that grin. He could make her heart do somersaults.

  She was his temporary housekeeper. And, after Mike, your selection criteria is seriously flawed, she told herself. Do not think cute.

  ‘They’re all the fashion in London,’ she said defensively.

  ‘I believe you.’ His smile widened.

  Whoa. Stop it, stop it, stop it.

  ‘Sit by the fire,’ he told her. He walked round and pulled the fireside rocker forward.

  ‘I’m all right.’

  ‘Sit.’ Before she knew what he intended, he caught her round the waist, picked her up and deposited her in the chair. Just as if she was one of his kids.

  She didn’t feel like one of his kids. She felt imperiled.

  There’s a dumb thing to think, she told herself crossly. Just because he’s so…male.

  ‘I’ll make you some cocoa,’ he said, turning his back to her, which was a relief. When he wasn’t smiling the pressure dropped. Just a bit. ‘You shouldn’t take those pills on an empty stomach. Cocoa and chocolate cookies coming up. I can strongly recommend the cookies, and there’s nothing like a nice hot cup of cocoa to make you sleep.’

  ‘Thank you, grandpa.’

  ‘Hey, we both have pyjamas on,’ he retorted. ‘If I’m grandpa, you’re grandma.’

  She should make some smart retort. She should. But the first six retorts she made in her head were all classified dangerous after the very barest of examination. She subsided into what she hoped was dignified silence while he filled the kettle.

  ‘We can go to the beach tomorrow,’ he told her. ‘I’ve had no less than five phone calls offering to take care of the cattle any time I need a break. Thanks to you.’

  He was smiling at her too warmly. Much too warmly. She was starting to colour.

  ‘What are you working on?’ she asked, as much for something to fill the silence as for interest. In truth her shoulder was hurting so much she shouldn’t be interested in anything but pain relief. The fact that, despite the pain, she was very interested indeed in a man in blue pyjamas was a bit of a worry.

  Actually, it was a very definite worry, and it was growing more definite every second.

  ‘A railway station,’ he said. ‘Want to see?’

  ‘I…Yes.’ She went to rise, but he was before her, hauling the table sideways so it was in reach. He lifted the first set of plans and laid it on her knee. ‘This is the overall concept. The rest is detailed working plans.’

  He went back to his cocoa making. She tried to turn her attention to the plans.

  Which suddenly wasn’t difficult. These were…

  Amazing.

  ‘This is huge,’ she whispered. ‘A major metropolitan hub. A whole new network. I think I saw this advertised in London. Didn’t they run a competition for ideas?’

  ‘They did. We won.’

  ‘We?’

  ‘My company.’

  She whistled. This was almost enough to make her forget her shoulder. She lifted plan after plan, looking at the meticulous detail as well as the truly astounding master plan.

  ‘But you’re brilliant,’ she whispered at last.

  ‘I know,’ he said laying cocoa, chocolate cookies and two blue pills before her. ‘And handsome and rugged and strong and heroic, and so humble you wouldn’t believe.’

  She choked.

  ‘Take your pills,’ he ordered.

  ‘Yes, sir.’ She did.

  ‘Ruby says you’re no halfwit yourself,’ he said.

  ‘Ruby says the nicest things.’

  ‘She does, doesn’t she? Oh, and speaking of Ruby and her boys…’ He turned and rustled under the pile of papers on the table. ‘I rang Blake tonight-Blake’s another of Ruby’s boys-about the dreaded Mike and his use of your shared credit card.’

  ‘Hey.’ What was he doing interferin
g in her life? ‘You have no right…’

  ‘I don’t,’ he said regretfully. ‘That’s what Blake said. He says maybe Mike acted unlawfully, but he wouldn’t know unless you let him have access to your details. He faxed me a permission form for you to fill in. If you want to sign it he’ll look into it.’

  ‘There’s nothing Blake can do.’

  ‘He’s a Ruby’s boy,’ Pierce said modestly. ‘Between us, Ruby says we’re going to rule the world. A Ruby dynasty.’

  ‘It’s no good establishing dynasties if none of you intend to have families,’ she said absently. She ate a chocolate cookie, absently read Blake’s form, thought what the heck, filled it in, signed it and went back to considering Pierce. She shouldn’t. But he really was well worth considering. ‘But maybe you could form a foster dynasty,’ she suggested. ‘A world run by people without mothers.’ She thought about her own and glowered. ‘It might just work.’

  ‘Hey,’ he said, guessing where her thoughts had gone. ‘They only sublet their house.’

  ‘Only,’ she said darkly. ‘I have a doll called Susie Belle I keep in my bedroom. If any kid’s messing with Susie Belle…’

  ‘You want us to organise a Susie Belle hit? Armed men, at dead of night, sweeping in, “Nobody move, the doll’s ours.”’

  She grinned. ‘You want to try?’

  ‘Sam works for the SAS. We’d put him in charge.’

  ‘Sam, as in Ruby’s Sam?’

  ‘I told you-we’re a dynasty.’

  ‘So you are.’

  She gazed at him, for just a moment too long. Suddenly flustered, she turned away, gazing into the flames through the open fire-door.

  Much safer.

  She was aware-or she thought she was aware, but there was no way she was checking-that Pierce was looking at her, but she didn’t look back. Flames. Right. Concentrate.

  ‘You should go back to bed,’ he said, and his voice sounded a bit strained.

  She should. But this was great. The room still smelled faintly of the wonderful beef curry Dwayne’s mother had appeared with at dinner. Two cakes and the remains of an apple strudel sat on the bench waiting for tomorrow. This was a lovely, warm, food-laden kitchen, with a fantastic fire-stove, and a man working at the kitchen table on plans that were amazing. A really nice man…