His Miracle Bride

by Marion Lennox

  ‘I have plans to see them.’

  ‘You do?’ Was she imagining it or was there eagerness in his tone.

  ‘You know Ruby’s interviewing housekeepers?’

  ‘She told me. I knew she’d interfere.’

  ‘She’s loving it. Shut up and let her be. So, anyway, the day you come home from the farm…Saturday week?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Ruby’s never been to the farm, and she doesn’t drive long distances. I said I’d take her down to see it. If she finds someone suitable as housekeeper we thought we’d take her down and introduce you. See if you like her. Maybe we could light the stove before you get home-make it a bit welcoming.’

  ‘There’s no need.’

  ‘There is a need,’ she said. ‘Ruby wants to do it, and for me it’d be a better sort of goodbye.’

  ‘Are there variations of goodbye?’

  ‘Yes,’ she snapped, suddenly angry. ‘I don’t want the last time you see me to be when I’m wearing pig pyjamas and watching Dallas with chocolate on my nose. I have some pride.’

  ‘You look cute.’

  ‘I’m a businesswoman,’ she snapped. ‘A career woman. Not that you’ve noticed.’

  ‘I’ve noticed.’

  ‘Then we’ll be down there.’

  ‘Shanni…’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I wish-’

  ‘So do I,’ she snapped before he could say another word. ‘You have no idea how I wish. But it’s not going to happen. Now, if you don’t mind, I have things to do. I need to wash chocolate off my nose and see whether JR gets it.’

  ‘But…’

  ‘That’s all,’ she said with a lot more finality than she was feeling. ‘Unless you’re delivering roses, I’m closing the door.’

  And before he could respond she stepped back through the doorway. She looked up at him, half hoping he’d lunge forward and take her into his arms and kiss her senseless.

  Or at least say goodbye.

  Nothing. He looked blank.

  ‘Goodbye then,’ she said herself. She bit her lip. ‘I’ll see you briefly next week. For a couple of hours. And then that’s it.’

  It nearly killed him to drive away.

  She was so cute she damn near broke his heart. And when she’d hugged him…

  Don’t go there.

  Things were spiralling out of control.

  The kids.

  That was one area where he was out of control. He’d imagined that he’d take the kids to the castle, hand over their care to the professionals and get some real work done.

  He was getting work done, but in ways that surprised him. Sure, Susie and her army of helpers had taken over care of the kids and the kids were gloriously happy. But they’d whoop downstairs on their way to the beach and their cheerful whooping would reach something inside he was trying to block off.

  The blocking tactic didn’t work. What was happening was that he’d stare down at his plans, double or triple or quadruple his efforts, do what had to be done and then somehow find himself on the beach as well. Sitting in the shallows with Bess on his knee. Holding up small persons as they struggled with this new wonderful skill called swimming. Umpiring beach cricket, or even taking a turn at the bat himself.

  They’d come home from the beach tired and happy and sleep as they’d never slept before. He’d hit the plans at night, and his work was sailing.

  But all the time he was working…he was thinking about Shanni.

  Hell, he couldn’t ask her.

  Ask her what?

  He knew what he wanted to ask her. To be more involved than she already was. To be…

  No. Too soon. Far too soon.

  And she’d walked away.

  Of course she’d walked away, as he should have the minute Maureen had asked him for her help.

  And where would the kids have been then?

  He swore and concentrated on his driving for a bit. His mobile phone rang. He’d fitted it to the dash so he could take calls when driving. His work colleagues had his number and so did the staff at the castle.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Hello, dear.’

  ‘Ruby.’

  ‘I hope it’s not an inconvenient time to ring?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I just want to know the children’s sizes.’

  ‘Sizes?’

  ‘For my macramé club. We’re having a working bee.’

  Agh.

  He was being sucked into a black hole, he thought, and there was no control at all. He couldn’t even clutch the edges as he slid down.

  ‘Did you see Shanni?’ Ruby asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did you tell her the good news about her money?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And is she going back to London?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘That’s lovely,’ Ruby said, and he could hear her satisfaction down the phone.

  ‘Ruby?’

  ‘Yes, dear?’

  ‘Don’t.’

  ‘Don’t what?’

  ‘Do what you’re doing.’

  ‘Oh, I’m not doing a thing, dear,’ she said, and he could hear her beaming. ‘You know me. I never interfere. Now just tell me…what are those sizes?’

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  THE morning they left the castle was heartbreaking. The kids were up at dawn for a last swim. Then they wandered the castle saying their private goodbyes to everything in the place. Pumpkins and suits of armour included.

  Pierce said his own goodbye to Queen Vic.

  ‘Okay, large families are fun,’ he admitted. ‘But they didn’t make you smile after you lost your Albert.’

  Was it his imagination, or had her expression changed? She looked…somehow more pitying than disapproving.

  Weird.

  ‘Look after the aspidistra,’ he told her, and made his way down to the breakfast room. Susie’s pancake making was well under way. They’d have to learn how to make their own pancakes back at the farm.

  Shanni would have made a mean pancake.

  Cut it out.

  He sat and ate, and the kids chattered, and Taffy begged a piece of pancake from everyone.

  ‘She’s going on a diet the minute you guys leave,’ Susie said sternly. ‘Just lucky she’s stretchy and there’s lots of her to fill.’

  He’d miss Taffy. She nuzzled his hand under the table.

  Maybe he could get the kids a dog.

  He met Susie’s eyes over the plate of pancakes, and she beamed.

  ‘That’s a wonderful idea.’

  ‘What’s a wonderful idea?’ asked Wendy.

  ‘What your father is thinking. Now, there’s one more treat…’

  ‘Treat?’ The kids’ eyes lit up. Every morning there’d been some little thing to look forward to. A sand-castle competition. A trip to the local aquarium. Kite flying. Two days ago they’d all trooped into Dolphin Bay cottage hospital to check out the new Angus. He was jaundiced, so was spending the first few days of his life under lamps. The kids had been enchanted. A new little life…

  Pierce had thought of the work Bessy had been, and cringed. But a puppy was a lot less work than a new baby. Maybe.

  ‘You’ll cope,’ Susie said with understanding, and he blinked. She read him like Shanni did. Dratted women.

  ‘Your today treat is dolphin watching,’ Susie said, and he stopped thinking about Shanni. For a moment.

  ‘We didn’t think we’d get a treat today,’ Donald said. He was the calculator of the family. The mind. ‘It took three hours to drive here. We have to be home by dark.’

  ‘And it’s nine o’clock now. You’re all packed. Mr Ross who runs Dolphin Bay Charters is picking you all up in half an hour, with your luggage. Mrs Ross will look after Bessy. You guys get to see the dolphins, then Mrs Ross will give you a picnic on the beach, and you get in the car by one. You’ll be home by four. All sorted.’

  ‘You won’t be coming?’ Wendy asked. The kids had l
earned to love bouncy Susie. They loved her smiley husband and her cute tot of a daughter. They’d miss everything about this place.

  ‘We have to get the place ready for a new lot of kids,’ Susie explained, and Wendy’s face fell.

  ‘Special kids?’

  ‘Not as special as you,’ Susie told her and smiled. ‘Kids come in and I look at them and they’re just kids. And by the time they go…’ Her eyes glimmered for a moment. ‘I’ll miss you all. You guys come back soon.’

  She turned to her pancake batter and stirred with sudden violence. She sniffed.

  Here was another one, Pierce thought. Tossing her heart at whoever needed it…

  Like Ruby.

  Like Shanni.

  Didn’t they know…?

  What?

  The thought was suddenly unclear. The argument as to why he couldn’t be like that, too.

  Bessy tossed a toast crust. It hit him right in the face, leaving a smear of jam over his left eyebrow.

  The kids looked shocked-and then they giggled. They wouldn’t have giggled two weeks ago. This place was a gift.

  Women like Ruby and Susie and…Shanni were a gift.

  Enough. He had to move on.

  ‘Okay. Dolphins and then home,’ he told the kids, mock-severe. ‘And there’ll be no more toast tossing.’

  Bessy chortled. Pleased with the reaction from the first piece, she tossed again.

  Bull’s eye!

  ‘Will the balloons stay up until they get here?’

  ‘The instructions say they’ll stay up for twenty-four hours.’ Ruby was fitting red and gold balloons over the helium cylinder while Shanni tied ribbons. ‘I’ll sue if they don’t last that long.’

  ‘That one’s going down already.’

  ‘That’s cos you didn’t tie it tightly enough. Do you think we have enough sausage rolls?’

  ‘Dwayne’s mother’s organizing the food.’

  ‘I’m not keen on Dwayne as a boy’s name. Do you like my boys’ names?’

  ‘I do.’ Shanni frowned. ‘Did you choose them for their names?’

  ‘Just luck for four of them,’ Ruby said. ‘But then it got to be sort of a joke. My manly little boys with heroic names. So when I got Connor, Darcy and Dominic as unnamed babies I went straight to my favourite romance novels and found their names there.’

  Shanni choked. ‘Your babies were named from romance novels?’

  ‘Can you think of a better way?’

  ‘Um…no.’

  ‘And at least they’re original. Not like two women fighting over one baby name. Eh, Susie? Eh, Kirsty?’

  ‘Don’t bring it up,’ Susie said darkly. ‘Kirsty, stop gooing over Angus and hand me those streamers.’

  There were balloons on the gate.

  ‘There are balloons on our front gate,’ Bryce said.

  ‘Look at the balloons,’ Abby said.

  ‘Do you think someone’s pleased we’re home?’ Wendy asked. She’d been quiet all the way home. Coming back to the farm wasn’t unalloyed pleasure. The kids would have to start school again, and Pierce was aware they’d been given a tough time by the local kids. But what could he do?

  ‘Maybe Ruby’s housekeeper is here,’ he said cautiously, driving in through a gate that was already open.

  ‘I miss Shanni,’ Abby said.

  ‘She was never a housekeeper.’

  ‘She was better than a housekeeper,’ Bryce said.

  Yeah. Pierce agreed with that.

  ‘There’s a car parked around the back of the shed,’ Donald piped up. ‘It’s not Shanni’s car,’ he added.

  It looked like…it was! A police car.

  What the…?

  If he was in for another inquisition…

  It didn’t fit with the balloons on the gate.

  He took a deep breath. ‘Okay,’ he said, suppressing the urge to turn the car round and head back to the castle. ‘We need to find out what’s going on.’

  ‘Do you think it might be scary?’ Abby asked.

  ‘Not scary,’ he said, though when he glanced across at Wendy’s set face he wasn’t so sure. ‘Balloons aren’t scary.’

  ‘Housekeepers might be,’ Wendy whispered.

  ‘There’s only one way to find out,’ Pierce said stoutly. ‘Let’s go and see.

  He parked the car. Silence. Not a sound.

  They walked forward to the back door. Maybe the balloons had been left as a message of sorts. Maybe.

  He went to unlock the back door but it swung open at his touch.

  People.

  If he’d have to describe that day later on in life, the only word he would find to fit was ‘chaos’.

  He swung open the door and the place erupted.

  There was a cacophony of noise. Bagpipes-someone was playing the bagpipes. Hooters. Whistles. Cheering. Someone was letting off streamer bombs. Someone? Lots of someones.

  He backed away but people were tugging him in.

  The kids were being picked up and carried into the room.

  Susie had Abby. Susie!

  Hamish had Donald.

  Ruby was surging forward to lift Bessy from his arms.

  Blake was there. His big brother! Blake was bending down, talking urgently to Bryce, then swinging him up on his shoulders.

  Nikolai. Wasn’t Nik supposed to be in Mexico?

  And Dwayne. The kid from the supermarket. And Dwayne’s mum. And the pharmacist. And the doctor. The cops as well. And numerous sun-worn couples he vaguely recognized as neighbours, and their kids, and…

  Jake, the Dolphin Bay doctor from the castle was there from the castle as well, with Kirsty and their twins. Kirsty was laughing and holding a blue swathed bundle with pride. And Jodie and Nick. The whole castle team.

  Shanni was elbowing her way through the mass, until she reached Wendy.

  ‘Wendy,’ she said in satisfaction. She hugged the little girl, who was clinging to Pierce. ‘You’re with me.’ Pierce felt her lifted away, but he felt like hanging on. Wendy might need him.

  He might need Wendy.

  Dwayne was holding a cake on a tray before him.

  Dwayne?

  The cake was massive. Vast and chocolate-coated, surrounded by strawberries, it had great red lettering on the top.

  Welcome Home from All of Us.

  From all of them.

  Pierce stared round the crowded room. There were so many people that they didn’t fit. They were squeezing themselves in from out in the corridor. There were people on the back veranda with their heads in the window.

  It sounded like there were people on the roof.

  Dwayne’s mother gave Dwayne a poke in the small of the back. He gulped.

  ‘We wanted to welcome your family home,’ the boy managed, talking like he was strangled. ‘Um…Mum said…’

  ‘His mum said we’ve treated you like the pits,’ his mother said stoutly from behind him. ‘All of us have. We had five orphans in our midst and…Well, we were cruel, and it won’t happen again. The freezer’s got so many casseroles in it now that we’ve had to borrow Enid Murrihy’s second freezer and put it in the back shed. She says you can keep it,’ she added. ‘As long as she can put things in when her second daughter’s due home. Her daughter’s allergic, you understand, so she brings new-fangled food from the city. Enid freezes it and then buries it when Brenda goes home. She’s buried tons and tons of wheat-free bread-you wouldn’t believe.’

  ‘Mum…’

  ‘Anyway, we just wanted to say welcome,’ Dwayne’s mother said, getting back on track. ‘We’ve met your Olga and we think she’s lovely. Not that Shanni wasn’t lovely, but Olga’s much more suitable as a housekeeper. She’ll always get a discount at our supermarket, and you can’t say fairer than that.’

  Olga.

  To say he was hornswoggled was an understatement. He gazed across the crowd to Shanni. She was dressed as he’d never seen her dressed before-in a gorgeous soft pastel dress with scooped neckline and flowing skirt
that reached mid-calf. She looked happy, he thought.

  Well, why wouldn’t she be happy? She had her money back. She had her life back. She’d go back to London…

  Shanni was motioning to a middle-aged lady standing beside Ruby. Olga?

  If it was indeed their housekeeper then Olga was different. She was stout and rosy-cheeked. She was dressed in jeans that were a wee bit too tight for her. She was wearing an oversized gingham shirt and boots that came straight out of the Wild West.

  ‘Hi,’ she said.

  ‘You’re Olga? You’re our new housekeeper?’

  ‘I might not be your housekeeper,’ she said, smiling nervously as everyone else in the room grinned at Pierce’s confusion. ‘It’s up to you. Ruby knows I’ve been at a loose end. I used to foster, but then I got done for shoplifting-chocolate, you know?-it was one of the kids’ birthdays and my ex-husband had just broken in and taken all the housekeeping money-and I got a conviction and now I’m not allowed to foster, but I’ll never shoplift again. I swear.’

  There was a moment’s stunned silence from the assemblage. Dwayne’s mother drew in her breath on an audible gasp.

  ‘I know you won’t,’ Ruby said clearly into the silence. ‘That’s why I said you might be suitable for Pierce.’

  ‘Ruby’s the best judge of character I know,’ Shanni added.

  For some reason all eyes turned back to Dwayne’s mother. She took a deep breath. Recovered.

  ‘That’s fine, then,’ she said gamely. ‘If Shanni vouches for you, then it’s fine by me. It’s still ten-percent discount, and if ever there’s a birthday and you’re broke then you come to me before you return to a life of crime.’

  General laughter. General cheering.

  Hey, he hadn’t even interviewed the lady yet, Pierce thought, yet the whole community had seemingly accepted her as a done deal.

  ‘Give it up, mate,’ Dwayne said softly, still holding the cake. ‘It’s the women that rule.’

  They certainly did. His eyes went again to Shanni. She was watching him. She was laughing, but even so…Her eyes said that she knew what he was feeling.

  She’d given him a replacement for her.

  ‘Cut the cake, cut the cake,’ people were saying.

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Speech,’ someone else said.

  ‘In your dreams.’

  More laughter. The cake was set on the table. They cut it as a family, Pierce’s broad hand holding the knife, and Bryce, Donald, Wendy and Abby’s hands on top.