His Miracle Bride

by Marion Lennox

  ‘Because she’d say yes.’

  Hmm.

  Blake concentrated on his beer for a moment. Pierce stared out into the darkness, listening to his words echo in his head. He’d said it. The unthinkable.

  ‘You think she might love you back?’ Blake asked, and Pierce thought, he’s not asking if I love Shanni. He’s assuming it. Was it that obvious?

  ‘She might,’ Pierce said at last. ‘She’s a soft touch.’

  ‘She’s a nice kid.’

  ‘She feels sorry for me.’

  ‘Hey, I saw her watching you when you carried the kids up to bed,’ Blake said. ‘I’m pretty impervious to sentiment, but what I saw on her face wasn’t pity.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘Pure unadulterated lust, mate,’ Blake said with satisfaction. ‘Should be more of it. You think she’s hot? She’s besotted. So…You’re stuck here with five kids. One wife’s not going to make much difference, and it might make both of you happier. Come on, bro. It’s happy families. You’ve got the babies. Now you need the bride.’

  ‘You think I’d lay that on her?’ he snapped, revolted.

  ‘Why the hell not?’

  ‘Because she’s generous to a fault. She feels desperately sorry for the kids. She knows just how they feel-she has Ruby’s sixth sense. She’s just like Ruby. She tosses her heart into the ring without thinking of the consequences. She’s a brilliant art curator. To ask her to marry me and be saddled with five kids and their associated baggage…’

  ‘She can always refuse.’

  ‘She wouldn’t. She couldn’t. She’s too dammed soft-hearted.’

  ‘So you’re going to protect her like we tried to protect Ruby,’ Blake said. ‘Yeah, like that worked. We made Ruby miserable. It was Shanni who made us see. Surely you could give her the benefit of the doubt-that she’s an intelligent woman who knows you’re set up with a housekeeper and that you’re not asking her to scrub and bake?’

  ‘But she would scrub and bake. I know Shanni.’

  ‘Then surely she should be allowed to?’

  ‘Hell, Blake, if you were me would you ask her to marry you? I’m under a huge debt to her as it is. I won’t be obligated to her any more.’

  ‘You think she’d be doing you a favour, marrying you?’

  ‘Of course she would.’

  ‘Ask her and see what her reaction is.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You want me to ask her?’

  ‘Don’t be daft.’

  ‘No, I mean it. I could just have dinner with her and run the idea past her…As sort of a hypothetical…“Would you ever consider marrying a man with five kids and a chip on his shoulder the size of Ayer’s Rock?”’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Or Nik could ask.’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Then ask her yourself.’

  ‘No to that, too,’ Pierce said bleakly. ‘What sort of life would I be asking her to share?’

  ‘A chaotic one, I’d agree,’ Blake said, finishing his beer and standing up. ‘But surely she has the right of refusal?’

  ‘I’m not asking.’

  ‘Have it your own way,’ Blake said, holding out a hand and hauling him to his feet. ‘Ruby asked me to say all this, so my job here is done. But the way I see it you’re in love with her. And if you don’t ask her to marry you, someone else will.’

  ‘Someone else is welcome to.’

  ‘Nik?’

  ‘I’d kill him.’

  ‘Yeah, well, she’ll marry someone,’ Blake said. ‘If you won’t let me intervene, talk to Ruby.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You don’t want to marry her?’

  ‘Of course I do. But I’m not asking. She has a life.’

  Silence. The old house seemed to slumber.

  But upstairs on the box seat, under the girls’ bedroom window, Wendy sat in her nightdress hugging her knees. Her bedroom window was wide open. Right over the place where Blake and Pierce had shared their beer.

  ‘If you don’t ask her to marry you, someone else will…’

  ‘I’m not asking.’

  She hugged her knees some more. Then she climbed back into bed and tried to close her eyes.

  ‘If you don’t ask her to marry you, someone else will…’

  ‘I’m not asking.’

  The night stretched out before her.

  ‘If you don’t ask her to marry you, someone else will…’

  Who?

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  HE WOKE and there was a deputation standing around his bed.

  Abby. Donald. Bryce.

  He winced. He glanced at the bedside clock and winced again. It was just after six. It was two when he’d finally got to bed, and he’d been up once with Bessy, who’d wanted to be entertained.

  Bessy was now sleeping. With luck she’d sleep for a couple more hours.

  ‘It’s really early, guys,’ he muttered, but without conviction, already knowing his night was over.

  ‘We can’t find Wendy,’ Abby said.

  ‘And she’s made her bed and left a note,’ Donald added.

  He sat up. Wide awake.

  ‘Here’s the note,’ Donald said and handed it over. His small face looked terrified. ‘It’s three hundred and twenty nine kilometres to Sydney.’

  What the hell…?

  He stared at Donald. And then he stared at the note.

  I’ve gone to see Shanni. I have something really important to ask her-stuff I can’t tell Pierce. She gave me her address so I know where I’m going. I’ll ask Shanni to phone you when I get there.

  ‘When did she go?’ he whispered.

  ‘We don’t know,’ Abby whispered back. ‘I woke up and her bed was made so I went to see the boys.’

  ‘I felt her sheets,’ Donald said. ‘They’re cold.’

  Dear God. The bottom seemed to sink out of his stomach. He stared at the surrounding children and saw his reaction mirrored in their eyes.

  Wendy. The reliable one.

  Walking to Sydney?

  He dropped the note and reached for his jeans. ‘Blake! Nik!’ He erupted from the bedroom, bellowing for his brothers. Behind him, Bessy stirred into instant wakefulness and started to roar.

  He couldn’t pay her heed. What were brothers for?

  ‘Get the hell up. Blake. Nik. Olga!’ By the time he reached the foot of the stairs, he’d hauled his windcheater over his head. He was groping in the pile of shoes habitually left in the porch as his brothers stuck sleepy heads out of the rooms where they’d been sleeping. Olga appeared from down the hall, wreathed in curlers.

  ‘Is it a fire?’ Nik demanded. Then a worse thought struck. ‘You’re not heading out to milk cows, are you? Cos if you are, there’s limits to brotherly love.’

  ‘I’m going to find Wendy,’ Pierce said, and he was already heading for the door. ‘She’s trying to get to Sydney. Hell, it’s impossible. Look after the kids. Kids, I’ll be back the minute I find her. I promise.’

  ‘Do you have your phone with you?’ Blake was awake enough now to lurch forward and grab his brother by the windcheater. ‘Where’s your mobile phone?’

  ‘He doesn’t carry it cos work rings up when Bessy’s crying,’ Donald said from the top of the stairs. ‘It’s in the charger. I’ll get it.’

  ‘She’s out there…’

  ‘Yeah, and if someone finds her and brings her home we need to be able to tell you,’ Blake said. ‘Nik, go with him.’

  Nik was wearing boxer shorts, a stunned expression and nothing else. ‘I’m not waiting,’ Pierce snapped.

  ‘Okay, tell Nik where to look. Do we know where she was heading?’

  ‘Shanni’s.’

  ‘Does Shanni have a phone?’

  Did Shanni carry a phone? Hell, how would he know? She’d still be with…Jules. Or Ruby? ‘Maybe…’

  ‘I’ll ring Ruby and find out,’ Blake snapped. Donald hurtled down the stairs and handed him the phone. He tossed it to Pierce, who took off towa
rds the car as if he’d just been handed the Olympic baton.

  ‘Where will you look?’ Blake yelled.

  ‘She’ll be out on the highway. This is a dead-end lane. If she’s out there…’

  ‘Okay, bro, go. Head for the highway towards town. Nik will double check the lane and we’ll search here. And answer your phone when it rings.’

  ‘Will do,’ Pierce yelled. ‘Bessy needs changing.’

  He was gone.

  The drive from the farm into town was one of the longest journeys of Pierce’s life. There was no other way to get to Sydney-Wendy would know that. She’d have to walk into town to reach the highway. It would take her hours to get there.

  Had she had hours?

  And then what? There were buses, but she didn’t know the timetable. She didn’t have any money. Or did she? Surely she wouldn’t have taken…? He pulled over and rang home.

  ‘Check my wallet,’ he demanded.

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Bedside table.’

  ‘It’s full,’ Blake reported seconds later. ‘A hundred and fifty bucks in notes.’

  It hadn’t been touched. So she was broke. Pierce drove on, feeling desperate. The closer to town he got, the sicker he felt. She couldn’t have walked this far. She couldn’t have called a cab-there were no cabs out here anyway.

  Maybe she was hiding, but this was open country. Huge red gums in undulating paddocks. Clear verges. Nowhere a child could duck to hide from a passing car.

  By the town boundary he was feeling just about as bad as it was possible to feel. And then some.

  His phone rang.

  He stared at it. Almost afraid to answer.

  He pulled over and picked it up like it was poisonous.

  ‘She’s safe,’ Blake said, and the air in Pierce’s chest whooshed out like he’d been hit in the small of the back.

  ‘Safe.’

  ‘She’s at the police station, boyo,’ Blake said. ‘A milk tanker driver saw her with her thumb in the air. Hitch-hiking. He’s a family man, and he had enough sense to take her straight to the cops. She’s waiting for you there. She’s safe.’

  ‘Shanni?’

  Shanni was sound asleep in Ruby’s spare room. She was asleep because she’d paced until five a.m. It took more than half a dozen rings before she realized her mobile phone was ringing.

  ‘Hi,’ she said, still half asleep.

  ‘Shanni?’ A deep male voice she didn’t recognise.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘It’s Constable Bob Lester here, from the Craggyburn Police. You remember you gave me your number a few weeks ago?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, trying to focus. Oh, great. A policeman waking her at dawn to ask her for a date. ‘Um…what can I do for you?’

  ‘I have someone here who’d like to talk to you,’ the policeman said gently. ‘Here you go, Wendy. She’s all yours.’

  Wendy was sitting in the back of the police station, in a lounge the officers used during breaks. She was drinking hot chocolate, her eyes enormous over her mug.

  The constable opened the door and she cringed.

  Pierce thought his heart would break, right then and there.

  ‘Wendy,’ he whispered, and she put her mug very carefully on the table and lifted her chin. Defiant. Only it didn’t quite work. Her chin wobbled and sank again. She was still a very little girl.

  ‘Are you mad at me?’ she whispered, and it was enough.

  He was over at the table, kicking a chair aside as if it was presumptuous enough to get in his way. He was hugging her, holding her tight against him, burying his face in her lovely short curls. Damn it he was weeping.

  ‘She’s okay,’ the police constable said from behind him, and he fought a bit for composure, hugged Wendy a bit more and then managed to put Wendy far enough away from him so he could see her face.

  It was as tear stained as…well, as his must be.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered.

  ‘There’s no need to be sorry. We have you safe.’

  ‘She’d been walking for hours,’ the constable said with a hint of reproof. ‘No one uses that road at that hour of night. The milk tanker starts at six and he found her on the first run. She had her thumb up like a real hitch-hiker. Then, when he stopped, she ran away.’

  ‘He…I was…’ Wendy tried to make her voice work, but failed. She was terrified. Her whole body was shaking. This child had learned the hard way that men weren’t to be trusted.

  ‘He didn’t know what to do,’ the policeman said. ‘But he thought, well, he chased her and caught her and brought her here. By the time he brought her in he had her calmed down a little-apparently he has a kid in her class at school-but she was scared witless.’

  ‘Hell, Wendy…’

  ‘I wanted to go to Shanni.’

  ‘I organized that at least,’ the cop said. ‘Before I rang your place I let her ring Shanni.’

  Pierce was having trouble taking it all in. ‘You rang Shanni?’

  ‘If she’d gone to all that trouble, and we’d stopped her running away, the least I could do was let her phone.’

  ‘Did Shanni give you her number?’ Pierce asked Wendy, and Wendy shook her head and buried her face in Pierce’s shoulder again.

  ‘It was me,’ the cop said, a bit shamefaced. He motioned to a bit of art paper lying on the desk. ‘Shanni gave me her number a couple of weeks back. I was going to use it, too,’ he muttered. ‘But she was so caught up with all those kids. I’m not a family man.’

  Pierce took Wendy home. She said little, huddled into the passenger seat as if still frightened, looking far younger than her years.

  He couldn’t figure out the why, and she wouldn’t say.

  ‘I just had to ask her something,’ she whispered and that was all she’d say. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Wendy, if you ever want to ask anyone anything-if you ever want to visit anyone-just ask me. I swear I’ll take you.’

  ‘I know. But I needed to talk to her by myself.’

  Even at home she wouldn’t talk. Olga took one look and showed her true colours-born mum.

  ‘The rest of you leave her alone. She’s had a nasty shock-anyone can see that. And look at those feet…walking all that way in sandals. Even though they are pretty. Into the bath with you, sweetheart, and Abby you come and sit beside her while I wash her. You.’ She turned on Pierce. ‘You make her a lovely soft egg with toast soldiers. We’ll feed it to her in the bath.’

  ‘Toast soldiers,’ Pierce said blankly.

  ‘Hey, even I know that one,’ Nik said, grinning. They were all grinning. ‘Hell, bro, you have a way to go in the parenting stakes.’

  Wendy soaked in her bath. She ate her toast fingers and then Olga popped her to sleep on the ancient divan in the corner of the kitchen.

  ‘For you don’t want to be alone upstairs,’ she said. ‘The rest of you, shoo outside while I do some baking.’

  ‘Abby,’ Wendy whispered.

  ‘I’ll lie down with her,’ Abby volunteered, and Pierce thought his heart would break all over again.

  ‘There’s naught for you to do here,’ Olga told him, the way her words softened on the order telling him she understood a little of what he must be going through. ‘Go round up some cows, or whatever you do with cows.’

  ‘Hey, teach us,’ Nik said.

  ‘Aren’t you two going back to wherever you come from?’ Pierce demanded.

  ‘Hell, no,’ Blake said. ‘We’re waiting for the next instalment.’

  Which happened approximately two minutes after they’d cleared the main course of Olga’s delicious roast lunch, and just as she was cutting and serving the apple pie.

  Wendy was deeply asleep in the corner. Bessy was tossing food indiscriminately round her high chair. Everyone else was at the table

  Shanni walked in. She looked like Pierce had that morning-jeans and windcheater-and she hadn’t taken time to brush her hair.

  Dazed.

  ‘Hi,’ she sai
d.

  There was an awed silence.

  ‘Shanni,’ Pierce said stupidly.

  ‘Shanni,’ Abby yelled, as if she hadn’t seen her for a year. ‘Shanni’s here. Wendy, wake up, Shanni’s here.’

  ‘Why are you here?’ Pierce asked, trying to get his voice to work.

  ‘I’m here to ask if you’ll marry me.’

  Pierce had been spooning creamed apple into Bessy’s mouth. His hand had locked, spoon halfway to Bessy’s mouth.

  Around the table everyone else stayed frozen. But they all recovered before Pierce did.

  ‘Goody, I want to be flower girl,’ Abby said in a voice of profound satisfaction. ‘Donald, you’re not allowed to take all the cream.’

  ‘Cool,’ said Nik, shifting along the bench seat to make room. ‘You want some lunch?’

  ‘I bet you haven’t eaten.’ Olga rose and moved ponderously to the stove. She was still in her curlers and an amazing oriental housecoat, purple and black shimmering silk with deep pink tassles. ‘There’s still some roast. Or do you want to move straight to apple pie?’

  ‘Let the boy answer first,’ Blake said, and they fell silent again.

  ‘I don’t…’ He stared at Shanni. ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Wendy said you want to marry me,’ Shanni said. She hadn’t moved into the room. She was standing in the doorway, looking only at Pierce.

  In the corner Wendy was waking. She didn’t move, curled into a warm little ball under the feather eiderdown Olga had spread over her. But her eyes were suddenly wary.

  ‘Wendy says the only reason you won’t ask me to marry you is that you don’t think I want the children,’ Shanni said. ‘But Wendy says she’d look after the kids. She’s offered for them all to go into a care home-but please will we visit.’

  There was an almost audible gasp. All eyes moved to Wendy.

  ‘It’s…it’s true,’ Wendy whispered from the sidelines. ‘The child welfare officers say there’s houses for families as big as ours. We get care workers. And I thought…maybe we could come here at weekends. Sometimes.’

  ‘How about you stay here?’ Shanni said, suddenly sounding fierce, and blinking a bit. ‘How about if I just move in and we keep on like it is now? Me and Pierce and Olga and Wendy and Donald and Bryce and Abby and Bessy. And anyone else we can think of.’