‘Me?’ he said, stunned. ‘Cook...?’
‘Under direction,’ she said severely. ‘You needn’t think I’m leaving something so vital to a novice.’
‘But...’
‘But what?’
He looked at the way her arms cradled the baby. He looked at her stained clothes. He looked at the shadows under her eyes, at the straggles of curls wisping across her forehead and he knew the weariness he’d heard in her voice was bone-deep. How much did this woman have to cope with, and how much more had he added to it by agreeing to come here?
For the first time he thought of this Christmas from her perspective, not his. The young adults around her were in the oblivious land of adolescence. Her Gran, cheerful but frail herself, seemed fully occupied in caring for her John. He’d seen Sunny helping there too, her assistance almost inconspicuous, but obviously needed.
This ancient tumbledown house...this tangled garden... It felt good, it felt a home, but how much of that was due to one slip of a girl? A woman, he reminded himself, because Sunny was every inch a woman. A woman who was asking him to make brandy sauce, under her direction, while she cared for his child.
His child.
It...she...wasn’t his, he told himself but the thought slammed back in response. If she wasn’t his then whose was she? Would she be put up for adoption? For some reason every instinct rebelled.
His father’s estate would surely provide for her—legally, it must. As his father’s executor he’d need to set up a base, employ a nanny, make sure she was provided with all material necessities until she came of age.
He looked again at Sunny. She was smiling down into Phoebe’s little face, tender, caring.
Where would he find a nanny like this? His experience with nannies had been bleak, moved from parent to parent, from place to place. Time after time he remembered... ‘Get over it, Max, she’s only a nanny. We’ll find someone else at the next place. Oh, for heaven’s sake, boy, stop snivelling. You don’t cry over a hired hand.’
To be raised by...hired hands?
Phoebe was facing the same path.
‘So will you be making the brandy sauce or not?’ Sunny asked mildly and he forced his mind away from a future that suddenly seemed inordinately bleak and focused on the here and now. He needed to help this woman who’d pulled him out of short-term trouble, at some cost to herself.
‘I can try,’ he said bravely and she grinned.
‘What a hero. You know how to separate eggs?’
‘I...no.’
‘Then you’re about to learn. We keep chooks so we have plenty. What a good thing! Okay, Mr Grayland, pinny on.’
‘Pinny?’
‘That’s a very nice shirt,’ she told him. ‘To say nothing of the fact that you’re still wearing your suit pants. They wouldn’t go well with brandy sauce. Pinnies are behind the pantry door. The pink one’s mine but there’s one behind it the boys use for barbecuing. It says “The Man, The Myth, The Legend”. See if you can prove it right.’
* * *
It took him five shots before he got an egg separated without contaminating the white with broken yolk.
‘That’s okay. I’ll sieve the shell out and use them to make quiche on Boxing Day,’ Sunny said serenely.
‘So what happens if yolk gets into the white?’
‘The white doesn’t fluff. How can you make brandy sauce without fluff?’
For heaven’s sake... He thought briefly of the massive financial decisions waiting for him in his briefcase, and here he was, worrying about fluff.
But it seemed important, mostly because Sunny was waiting for him to succeed. He was being measured by fluff.
He cracked the next egg and managed to get the yolk in one container and the white in the bowl.
Yay for him.
‘Don’t crack the next egg over the same bowl,’ Sunny told him. ‘Use a mug and tip the white in the bowl when you succeed. You don’t want to contaminate what you’ve done.’
There was a comparison he could make—isolating financial deals so success or failure didn’t drag others down.
Not so different really. Their worlds.
He glanced at the flour-smudged Sunny, holding the now sleeping baby, and he thought, Who am I kidding?
He messed another egg. Badly.
‘Concentrate,’ Sunny said severely. ‘Brandy sauce is important.’
It was. Mostly because he could block out tomorrow and the day after that and all the days following while he focused on whipping egg white and creaming yolks and sugar and whipping cream and then adding brandy bit by bit. ‘We wouldn’t want to overdo it and make it curdle, but there’s nothing worse than a not-very-brandyish brandy sauce.’
He finished. Sunny ordered that he pour two small glasses—just to test. He tested and it was magnificent.
Phoebe slept. Outside the wind was stirring the massive eucalypts around the house, and a kookaburra was making a late-night complaint.
How far was he from New York? This was another universe.
Sunny was smiling into the sleeping face of baby Phoebe, her face gentler, younger, almost free.
Two different universes... They’d collided and what on earth was he going to do about it?
* * *
Sunny’s room was just down the hall from the room Max and Phoebe were sharing. She heard Phoebe wake at two and was out in the kitchen preparing the bottle before Max emerged.
He had no hotel dressing gown here. He was wearing boxers and nothing else. The sight took her aback. He stood, looking half asleep, in the doorway, blinking in the harsh kitchen light.
He was carrying Phoebe.
Almost naked man, holding baby. It’s a cliché, Sunny told herself. It’s a set-up designed to slam under every female’s defences and I’m no exception.
‘Take her back to the bedroom,’ she managed. ‘I’ll bring the bottle.’
‘I’ll feed her here...’
‘Feed her in the half dark. She needs to start delineating night and day as soon as possible. Go on, get her out of the light.’
‘Yes, ma’am,’ he said in a strange voice but he left. Two minutes later she knocked and entered his bedroom. He was perched on the windowsill. The window was open and the room was moonlit. The silhouette of man and baby framed by the window took her breath away all over again.
‘I could have made it myself,’ Max told her as she struggled with composure and managed to hand over the bottle.
‘You’d have coped in the hotel.’
‘I’d have been terrified. Thank you, Sunny. I will make this up to you.’
‘It’s okay,’ she told him in a voice that was none too steady. She needed to back out fast. What was it with this guy? He was so far out of her league he might as well exist on another planet. What was it about the gentleness in his voice that made something inside her twist? Something that had never twisted before...
It’s because it’s never had time to twist, she told herself, struggling to think practically. Here she was, almost thirty, and she’d never had a proper boyfriend. She’d never had time. Shift work, massive pressures at home, the fact that she’d had practically no schooling and what man would be interested in a woman who hadn’t even passed Year Eight...?
‘Are you okay?’ Max asked, still gentle, and she backed off with a start.
‘I...yes. Thank you.’
‘It’s I who need to thank you.’
‘Then you’re welcome. Don’t forget to burp her. And if she doesn’t finish the bottle don’t reheat it next time she’s hungry. She needs sterilised bottles and newly made formula.’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
‘And you’re right with the nappy?’
‘Nappy?’
‘Diaper.’
‘I am.’ He sounded smug. ‘I changed her before I came out to the kitchen. Nothing to it.’
‘By which you mean it was only wet.’
And he chuckled. He’d popped the teat into his little sister’s mouth. Phoebe accepted the teat with eagerness, and started suckling.
This man...this baby...this chuckle...
‘I guess I did mean that,’ he told her. ‘But I’m sure I’ll cope when the time comes.’ And then he gazed down at the baby in his arms and seemed to change his mind. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I’m not sure I’ll cope. I hope I don’t need to.’
‘You mean you don’t want her?’ It was none of her business. She should retreat but there was something about this man... Something about this night that made her probe.
‘I hope Isabelle will change her mind.’
‘I do too,’ Sunny admitted. ‘But I doubt she will.’
‘Why?’
‘Because she insisted a porter push the pram. Because she didn’t once falter. Because she didn’t even look into the pram as she left.’
And Max looked at her for a long, long moment.
She should have dressed, she decided, feeling totally discomfited. She was wearing a shabby nightgown and an even shabbier cardigan. She felt like someone’s poor relation.
She needed to back away, but...
‘Is that how your mother treated you?’ he asked gently. ‘Did your mother not look at you, or at your brothers and sisters? Was it you who did all the looking, Sunny Raye?’
She couldn’t answer. What sort of question was that, to be asked by a stranger?
‘I don’t... I have to go now,’ she managed at last, suddenly feeling close to tears. Why? What earthly reason did she have to cry? It was just...this man got to her.
No. It was the situation. One more baby left to fend for herself.
‘Don’t get up the next time she wakes,’ Max told her, even more gently, obviously deciding she wouldn’t or couldn’t answer. ‘I’ll call you if I need you but I’m sure I can manage. You need sleep.’
‘I...yes.’ There seemed nothing else to say. ‘You could have managed at the hotel.’
‘But I didn’t have to and I’ll be grateful for ever. And Sunny... I pay my debts.’
‘There’s no debt to pay,’ she whispered and her emotions were suddenly too much.
She wasn’t emotional—she wasn’t. She was pragmatic. Dependable. Unflappable. That was how she’d survived this long and that was how she needed to survive now.
‘Indeed there is.’ And Max was smiling at her in such a way she didn’t feel the least bit pragmatic, dependable or unflappable. ‘Oh, and Sunny...’
‘Yes?’ She was almost out of the door.
‘Merry Christmas,’ he told her softly and she stood for a long moment and looked back at him.
‘I... Merry Christmas,’ she said at last, and bolted.
* * *
Phoebe was fast asleep before her bottle was finished but Max had learned his lesson. He set her on his shoulder as he’d seen Sunny do. He walked her back and forth across the room, rubbing her little back with care, and was rewarded by a satisfactory belch. It wasn’t nearly as impressive as the one he’d heard back at the hotel but then, Phoebe hadn’t begun to be upset yet.
He set her back into her borrowed cot and stood watching her sleep.
He knew nothing about babies. He’d never thought of having a child of his own.
Or maybe he had, but the idea was vague. Some time in the future he might be a parent but the concept was nebulous because the practicalities seemed overwhelming.
He’d need to find a woman he wanted to spend the rest of his life with, which seemed pretty much impossible. He liked his life as a loner. He could do as he pleased, answer to no one, care for no one. And no one would care for him. The thought of someone caring was a bridge too far. He’d let her down or she’d let him down.
He remembered time after time with the nannies. Always leaving.
And then there was the pup given to him when he was eight years old, the dog which for some reason even now seemed the biggest grief of all. But he wasn’t going there. All he knew was that attachment hurt. He didn’t need it and he didn’t want it.
So...marriage without attachment? As if that would happen.
This nebulous partner would no doubt want to share his bed and he’d had enough affairs to realise women didn’t like men who worked late, slept briefly and then listened to the world’s financial affairs instead of sleeping. He’d head to his desk to check something and they’d wake and want bed talk. But his head would be doing business deals in Switzerland and something would go wrong and he’d need to be on the next plane. He’d leave with apologies but usually all he’d feel was relief.
Which brought him back to one sleeping baby.
If Sunny was right and Isabelle really didn’t care, then he was her only family.
The thought was terrifying.
Could he turn his back?
Adoption? There were surely plenty of good, kind people who were desperate to give a baby a home.
But how could he know who to choose? How could he be sure he was doing the right thing?
And...she was his sister.
Half-sister, he told himself fiercely. He could walk away.
As someone had walked away from Sunny Raye.
Why could he not stop thinking of her? She was a hotel cleaner who’d helped him out. Nothing more.
She was a woman who took on the world. He didn’t need to be told how much caring for this extended family cost her. He’d watched as her grandparents and her siblings deferred to her, depended on her, loved her.
Where was the room for Sunny Raye in all this? He’d heard the family chatter over the dinner table, of outside lives, of jobs, of studies, of interests. Even John and Ruby had been talking of the cricket, looking forward to the Boxing Day test, remembering past matches and knowing they could settle in front of the telly while Sunny... Sunny went back to scrubbing floors at the hotel.
It wasn’t any of his business, he told himself. He’d pay her well for helping out this Christmas and that would help her financial situation. He needed to focus on Phoebe.
Phoebe.
It might be ridiculous to care about such a scrap of a thing after one day but he did and he wasn’t about to let her go for adoption. Which meant he had to get the paperwork in order. He needed to find Isabelle and get her permission to take Phoebe from the country. He needed to...adopt her himself?
There was a bag of worms. What would he do with her?
He’d do what his parents had done. He’d find a nanny. He wouldn’t move as his parents had moved. He could find a nanny who was likely to stay.
But that’d take time. Even finding Isabelle would take time. The hotel childminder came to mind. He hadn’t warmed to the woman. She’d done her job punctiliously but she hadn’t cared.
Not like Sunny cared.
And then his mind stopped.
Sunny.
He was seeing her now as he’d first seen her, a cleaning woman on her knees, her uniform stained, her hands worn by years of hard work, scrubbing a stain from the bathroom floor. How many bathroom floors had she scrubbed? And was she due to return to her scrubbing the day after Christmas? He’d seen how she’d responded to the offer of double pay and now he’d seen her home he knew why. Of course she’d be back at work.
But she was good with Phoebe. Awesome.
Did she have a passport?
No matter. Technicalities were what he was good at.
But he’d seen how much the old couple depended on her. Her whole family...
So put your ducks in a row first, he told himself and then he decided he’d tell Phoebe his idea.
&nb
sp; ‘I’ll try,’ he told his little sister. ‘I suspect it can’t be permanent but if Sunny will help... Do you agree? Yes? Then let’s go for it.’
CHAPTER SIX
CHRISTMAS MORNING. Sunny woke at six and allowed herself a couple of moments of doing nothing at all.
She couldn’t hear Phoebe. Max had coped by himself, then. Good.
Except she wouldn’t think of him. She had these few precious minutes before the demands of Christmas took over. Tomorrow she’d be heading back to work. Life would start again.
Life. She put her hands behind her head and let herself drift to where she went so often. She tried not to, but as she saw each of her siblings follow their dreams it was hard to avoid.
What if...?
What if she’d had a decent education? What if she didn’t have family obligations that took every cent and every moment? What if she wasn’t almost thirty and her hands looked like she was seventy and her hair didn’t need a cut and she could afford...?
A spa. There was a spectacular spa in the hotel. She saw patrons coming and going, pink and scrubbed, eyes glazed from pampering, from soothing music, from gentle hands...
She knew some of the masseurs. They looked a little like she did. They were the pamperers, not the pamperees. Just like she was.
But, just for this moment, she let herself lie under the covers and dream that her life could include a spa or two. Or that she could have the life she’d managed to give her siblings. Education. Boyfriends and girlfriends. Fun.
Um, not. Get over it, Sunny, she told herself. You’ve done great. You never thought you’d get this far and it’s Christmas morning, so get out of bed and do the vegetables before you need to help shower Pa. Before Max needs you to help with Phoebe.
Max... Phoebe... Okay, she had to think of him a little and why did that worry her? What was it about the man and his baby that had her so unsettled? He was simply a hotel guest she was being kind to.
Except he was gorgeous.
He represented everything she didn’t have, she thought, but then she thought it was more than that. His smile... His chuckle... The way he looked at Phoebe.
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