His Miracle Bride

by Marion Lennox

  Only of course this wasn’t another time or another place. They were on the battlements of a children’s home. In the building behind them were five children in their charge.

  This craziness-this wonder-must be interrupted, and it was. A door opened somewhere beneath them and sensor lights flooded the battlements, like searchlights, blasting into their cocoon of privacy, leaving them exposed and confused. Leaving Shanni…bereft?

  ‘Hey!’ It was a woman’s voice, yelling from below.

  They pulled apart, like guilty teenagers. Shanni’s blanket was around her toes. Dazed and dishevelled, fighting to regain some semblance of reality, she bent to retrieve it, leaving Pierce to talk to whoever was calling up to them from below.

  ‘Is that you, Pierce?’ It was Susie, Lady of Loganaich.

  ‘Hi,’ Pierce called, and his voice sounded as shaken as Shanni was feeling. Maybe even more.

  ‘I should have told you. We’ve got an alarm wired to sound if people are up there,’ Susie said apologetically. ‘For the kids.’

  Oh heck, Shanni thought dumbly, and did a furtive search for security cameras.

  ‘We’re really sorry we woke you,’ Pierce called, and Shanni thought, thank God, he could talk, because she didn’t think she could.

  ‘You didn’t wake me,’ Susie called. ‘I was pacing the kitchen, thinking wishful thoughts about dill pickles.’

  Dill pickles. Okay. There was something really grounding in dill pickles. ‘You’re pregnant?’ Shanni said cautiously, peering over the edge.

  ‘Oh, it’s Shanni too,’ Susie called cheerfully. ‘Hi, Shanni. Yep, I’m just a little bit pregnant.’

  ‘Susie?’ A deep male voice called from inside the open castle doors. ‘Where the hell are you?’

  ‘I’m out here protecting the battlements,’ Susie called, and then as Hamish, Lord of Loganaich, emerged from the big front doors she walked forward and hugged her husband. She did it naturally and easily, as if it was her right. A woman with her man…

  Shanni swallowed. The sight was suddenly almost overwhelmingly enticing. This man and this woman loved each other.

  Pierce was so close…

  ‘Who’s on the battlements?’ Hamish growled, kissing his wife tenderly on the top of her head, and then turning to gaze upwards, shielding his eyes from the glare of the floodlights. Shanni and Pierce were lit like Christmas candles. Or like gargoyles decorating the turrets.

  Shanni stared at Pierce. He looked ruffled. He looked wonderful. Her Pierce. And suddenly she chuckled, surprising even herself.

  ‘What’s funny?’ Pierce demanded.

  ‘I was just thinking we made great gargoyles,’ Shanni said, loud enough for the couple below to hear. ‘Me and my blanket.’

  ‘Speak for yourself,’ Pierce growled.

  ‘Mrs and Mr Gargoyle,’ she said, deciding humour was the only way to go.

  ‘You didn’t look like you were carved in stone when I first saw you,’ Susie called up to them.

  ‘Shanni’s a bit cuddly for a gargoyle,’ Pierce retorted.

  The night was spinning out of control again. ‘Cuddly?’ Shanni demanded, still trying desperately to use humour to defuse the way she was feeling. ‘Cuddly?’ She’d meant to lose a few pounds…but cuddly?

  Pierce was grinning. ‘Definitely cuddly.’

  She glowered.

  ‘I guess gargoyles play at night,’ Susie called. ‘When everyone else is in bed.’

  ‘Which is where we should all be right now,’ Hamish interjected. He was wearing pyjama bottoms and nothing else. Pierce was the only one among them decorously dressed. ‘Are you guys all right?’

  ‘We’re fine,’ Pierce called back.

  ‘And the kids?’

  ‘Asleep. We were just…talking about the kids.’

  ‘That’s what it looked like,’ Susie said, and grinned.

  ‘So why are you up?’ Hamish demanded, turning on his wife again.

  ‘I was looking for a dill pickle.’

  ‘Dill pickle.’

  ‘Why don’t we have dill pickles in the larder? Or sardines. Sardines in a can. I can’t find them anywhere.’

  ‘This is going to be a very long pregnancy,’ Hamish said, sounding resigned. ‘You want me to wake up the Dolphin Bay grocer and get a priority delivery of pickles?’

  ‘I can live without them,’ Susie said, and sighed. ‘If I must. If I can get them very early in the morning.’

  ‘I’d like to go into town tomorrow and get Wendy a haircut,’ Shanni called, trying valiantly to get a handle on a conversation that seemed to be getting away from all of them. Especially her. ‘I can get dill pickles then.’

  ‘I’ll come with you,’ Susie said.

  ‘Hey, I’m coming, too,’ Pierce said, and the conversation spiralled again.

  Why had he said it? Shanni looked at him and then looked away. He seemed more confused than she was.

  ‘We could all go,’ Hamish said.

  ‘No.’ At least the Lady of Loganaich sounded decisive. ‘You can’t. Actually, I can’t either, cos we promised the rest of the kids they could spend the whole day on the beach, and they don’t know how to swim. Imagine that! What a pleasure, to teach them how much fun the water is. And I’ve suddenly thought-there’s anchovy paste in the larder. I think that’ll do.’

  ‘God help us,’ said Hamish.

  ‘We’re wasting time,’ Susie retorted. ‘I could be spreading toast with anchovy paste this very minute. Goodnight, guys.’ And she towed her husband anchovy-wards without another word.

  Leaving Shanni with Pierce. Alone.

  Really alone.

  As soon as the pair below went inside the floodlights flicked off. Hamish and Susie had obviously decided the pair on the roof needed darkness as well as solitude.

  This wasn’t altogether wise. It wasn’t wise at all. Pierce was looking blank. Verging on appalled.

  Wrong look. Shanni took a couple of steps backwards.

  ‘There’s no need for you to come into town tomorrow,’ she managed. ‘Wendy and I will be fine.’

  ‘She flinches when I’m near.’

  ‘Only when she forgets…that you’re you.’

  ‘So maybe I should be working on that.’

  ‘It’s not so important if you’re going to step back,’ she said diffidently, trying hard not to think how close he was. How she wanted him so much to take her hands again. To…

  No. ‘If you’re really planning on finding a housekeeper and seeing them only on weekends…’ she managed.

  ‘It’s the sensible thing to do.’

  ‘Is it?’

  ‘I don’t commit,’ he said, sounding confounded, and she nodded. Okay. A girl had some pride.

  ‘Me either. Not after Mike.’

  It was just as well to get that out in the open. It was a declaration that what had just passed between them was an aberration, nothing more.

  ‘I’m sorry I kissed you,’ Pierce said, which proved he was following her train of thought and agreeing.

  ‘It was a very nice kiss,’ she said cautiously, trying really hard to keep her voice neutral. ‘I’ve never been kissed on battlements before. Though, I thought it was me kissing you.’

  ‘You want to do it again?’

  Whoa. He was asking? What was he thinking, when his face still had that appalled look? ‘N…no.’

  ‘Best not,’ he said gravely. ‘We wouldn’t want to give the gargoyles the wrong impression.’

  ‘Right.’ She ought to turn round and head inside, she thought, but she couldn’t quite get her feet to do the turning. ‘So you’re never intending to get married? To have kids of your own?’ Was she out of her mind, asking questions like this? But they sort of begged to be asked.

  ‘That’s why I agreed to marry Maureen.’

  ‘You don’t think that maybe one kid might be fun?’ Her mouth seemed to be working independently of her head.

  ‘I have five.’

  ‘You made that de
cision before being landed with five kids,’ she said, sticking to her guns. ‘No babies.’ She hesitated. ‘Why do you hardly ever see Ruby?’

  ‘I see Ruby. Once a month I drop in and say hello, or at least I did until I had the kids to look after on my own.’

  ‘A nice formal visit, whether she wanted it or not.’

  ‘Yes. But she does want…’

  ‘Oh, I bet she wants. But do you?’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘Do you love Ruby?’

  ‘I owe Ruby everything.’

  ‘Yet you married and adopted five kids, and you didn’t tell her.’

  ‘She’d get involved.’

  ‘So you’re saving Ruby from herself as well as saving you?’

  ‘You don’t have a clue.’

  ‘No,’ she said cautiously. This feeling deep within was growing stronger by the minute. This feeling that somehow she’d fallen for this man twenty years ago and had been waiting ever since. It was dumb, but it was there, and it was making her throw caution to the wind. ‘But I’m starting to wonder…do you? Ruby lives for involvement. You know she lost her husband when they’d only been married for three years?’

  ‘I know that.’

  ‘And it nearly killed her. But instead of closing herself off she opened herself to every needy kid.’

  ‘As I’ve done.’

  ‘You haven’t opened yourself to anyone. You’re still talking about a housekeeper.’

  ‘I can’t cope with the kids alone.’

  ‘You want your housekeeper to cope with them alone.’

  ‘No, I don’t.’

  ‘But you’re still thinking it’d be nice just to see them on weekends. Yet when Wendy doesn’t want you it breaks your heart.’

  ‘Hell, Shanni…’

  ‘You don’t know what you want,’ she said sagely. ‘You bought a great big farmhouse cos you thought Ruby might be able to use it to save a few more kids. And then your foster brothers thought Ruby needed to retire, so you went along with that. But it’s against your instincts. You know, your instincts were right in the first place.’

  ‘Hell, I was thinking of temporary fostering. Not the full-time care of five-’

  ‘Grandkids. Ruby would treat these kids as grandkids and, Pierce, these kids so need a grandmother.’

  ‘I won’t do that to her.’

  ‘It’s what she wants.’

  ‘Then the rest of my foster brothers are right. She has to be protected from herself.’

  ‘Oh, Pierce.’

  ‘Your feet will be getting cold.’

  She looked down at her feet. ‘So they will.’

  ‘If you don’t want to be kissed, then you’d better go back to bed.’

  That took her aback. ‘If I stay here will you kiss me?’ She sounded almost forlorn, she thought. She sounded as if she wanted to be kissed-which she did, with every fibre of her being-but she knew it wasn’t going to happen.

  For the feeling was gone. What she’d said had been some sort of challenge, and it had made him draw back.

  ‘I need to work,’ he said, not answering her question, and she thought it had been dumb to ask. Or maybe it hadn’t. Maybe it had forced the end to intimacy.

  ‘Right,’ she said.

  ‘Do you still wish to stay here for the two weeks?’ he asked, suddenly unsure.

  ‘It’s a free holiday.’

  ‘You know we’d be okay if you really wanted to stay with Ruby.’

  ‘Thanks, but I’m staying.’ Maybe it wasn’t wise, but she was involved, she thought, whether she liked it or not. If she went to Ruby’s, she’d spend her time wondering what the kids were doing. What Pierce was doing.

  Three days ago she’d been up to her ears in financial and emotional disaster, and now here she was distracted by five needy kids and one needy male.

  He wasn’t needy. He was a gorgeous hunk, in charge of his world.

  He was…Pierce. The Pierce of her childhood. The Pierce of now.

  He didn’t want to kiss her again.

  ‘I can lend you money,’ Pierce said.

  There was a moment’s stillness.

  ‘You want me to go?’

  ‘I never said…’

  ‘No, but do you want me to go?’

  ‘Hell, Shanni, I just don’t want you to get the wrong idea.’

  ‘Because you kissed me, you mean?’ Anger came to her aid then, pure, unadulterated fury. ‘I’m not a baby. If you think that kiss was something special…’

  They both knew it was. But she wasn’t admitting it; she’d rather die. ‘You’re not talking even a one-night stand,’ she said, forcing her voice to sound scornful. ‘One kiss.’

  ‘That’s right.’ He still sounded uncertain. ‘It was just the one kiss.’

  ‘Actually two,’ she reminded him. ‘But it’s the same thing. One swallow does not a summer make.’

  ‘How the hell do swallows come into this?’

  ‘Beats me.’ She backed towards the casement door, clutching her blanket. ‘But it seemed appropriate. I’m going to bed.’

  He didn’t move. ‘Goodnight.’

  ‘Goodnight,’ she said. She stared at his shadowy figure for a long last moment, but he didn’t move.

  ‘Goodnight,’ she said again, and turned and fled to her turret bedroom.

  One swallow does not a summer make? Not even any swallows, she thought-plural.

  Kisses-plural.

  But he didn’t have to kiss her. He didn’t have to do anything. For, like it or not, stupid or not, she was head over heels in love with Pierce MacLachlan.

  CHAPTER NINE

  IT WAS a long time before Pierce sought the sanctuary of his bedroom. He’d given up on sleep a long time ago, practically at the time Maureen had arrived needing his help. He’d learned to survive on snatches gleaned where he could. Now he stood motionless, staring out over the sea. Trying to find answers.

  Shanni was stirring something inside him that he’d vowed would never be stirred.

  Happy families…

  His childhood had been one long attempt at happy families. It had been his mother’s dream. He’d settle in a foster home, she’d find a new lover, she’d drag him out of his foster placement, and she’d start the happy family routine.

  Only of course it was always a disaster. It would fall apart, in weeks or months, but never longer. Then he’d be abandoned again. The foster placement he’d previously been in would almost certainly not still be available, so he’d start all over again. Living with strangers. Trying to make a life.

  Once he’d gone to Ruby she’d moved heaven and earth to get him back every time his mother had discarded him, but sometimes even Ruby couldn’t help.

  Happy families didn’t happen.

  But now…

  He had five children. He’d adopted them. Five children…

  And now there was Shanni. A chameleon of a failed art curator, who couldn’t paint cows’ legs, who made his kids smile, who was orphaned herself…

  Let’s not get carried away here, he told himself hastily. Her parents were still alive. They’d just sublet their house.

  Yet when Shanni had referred to herself as an orphan…It had made him smile, but at the same time it had touched something deep inside that had never been touched. Until now.

  He wasn’t interested.

  She’s on the rebound from weirdo Mike, he told himself. That’s why she kissed you.

  So, why did you kiss her?

  There were no answers.

  And Wendy had talked to her. For some reason, that hurt. He’d done his best to get close to these kids-well, to get as close as he’d ever want to be-but here was Shanni, diving in as she’d done when she was ten years old, boots and all, tossing her heart into the ring before her…

  It scared him to death.

  That kiss…

  He shouldn’t have kissed her. It had changed something inside him, something so fundamental he’d thought it was part of him. To let himse
lf go…

  To lose control…

  No. Happy families were for others. Not for him. Maureen’s plight had wrenched him out of his isolation, but to let him be drawn further…

  There was a part of him that was clenched tight with fear. He was falling in love with five kids, and that terrified him. To extend it still further…Hell, he couldn’t take that step.

  But Shanni…

  Shanni. He wanted her so much it was like a physical pain. But to take that step and then lose it…

  Maybe he wouldn’t lose it. Maybe he could take the chance?

  But he didn’t trust it. This feeling. He didn’t trust himself. Over thirty years of drilled-in knowledge couldn’t be overcome by one kiss.

  By one slip of a girl.

  He shook his head, doubts crowding in from all directions. She was on the rebound. Maybe she always kissed like that. She’d felt sorry for him twenty years ago. Hell, he didn’t want pity now.

  The doubts were screaming at him. It was like he had six faces before him, the kids and Shanni, all crowding into a heart that had learned early to shrivel in self-defence.

  He couldn’t. To take that last step…to admit them in and need them…

  He’d hurt them. He couldn’t give them what they needed. He’d try the best he could with the kids, for he had no choice and neither did they, but to take it further was just plain dumb. Criminally cruel. For he knew Shanni. Twenty years ago she’d been just as she was today-loving, bolshy, demanding. If he let her in, she’d demand more than he could ever be prepared to give.

  His love.

  He paced the battlements a bit longer, telling himself to move on, but the battlements only went so far. Finally, defeated, he retreated to his vast bedchamber.

  Bessy was still asleep. Maybe it was the sea air, or maybe her tiny body had shaken off the worst of the infection and she was sleeping to heal.

  He ought to sleep to heal himself.

  There’s nothing wrong with me, he told the sleeping Bessy, but she wasn’t interested.

  He was going nuts.

  Two weeks…

  He had to get rid of Shanni, he decided. She was messing with his equilibrium, and if there was one thing he valued above all else it was his equilibrium. He’d taken on five kids and he’d been crazy to do that. It was done, it couldn’t be undone, and he’d do his best for them, but this commitment business went no further. It terrified him.