She had. She’d barely had time to take it in yet, but it was something she’d have to face. Most of her belongings were back in the blackened, smouldering ruin. However…
‘They were just things,’ she said resolutely, trying not to think of her mother’s seed pearl necklace that she’d loved so much. ‘Things can be replaced.’
‘You’re one brave lady.’
‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘I’ve never been so frightened in my life as I was this evening. I thought I’d lost them.’
‘The boys.’
‘Yes.’ He was leading her into the kitchen as they spoke, and at last she relaxed. Unlike the rest of the house, this felt like a proper home. The kitchen had ancient polished floorboards, big comfy furniture, a huge wooden table and cushioned chairs, and a settee than made you want to bounce and sink out of sight.
A gleaming Aga was sending out its gentle warmth across the kitchen, and an ancient collie dog looked quizzically up at her as she entered. He thumped his tail gently against the floor and then went straight back to sleep.
This was home, she thought. This was a real home.
Damn, she had to blink back tears again. The waterworks were surely ready to pounce tonight. The fear had driven every ounce of strength from her.
Bed.
She should go to bed, but…
‘Hot chocolate and a brandy,’ Matt was saying. ‘I know I told the kids warm milk, but you and I need something stronger. I’ve eaten toast. Do you want something to eat? No? Then just a drink and then bed.’ He turned away to fetch mugs and glasses, and while he was faced away his voice changed. ‘You love them, don’t you?’
‘Who?’ She leaned against a chair to steady herself-her legs seemed to have lost all their strength-but she knew instinctively who he was talking about. His next words confirmed it.
‘The twins.’
The hot chocolate made, he turned back to her and gestured for her to sit. There was nothing for it. In her ridiculous night wear she sat, sinking into his squishy chair like she was drowning. She took the chocolate and cradled it, drawing strength from the warmth of the mug.
She thought of the twins and her mouth twisted. ‘I’m pretty fond of them.’
‘You’re a House Mother,’ he said, thinking it through. ‘I thought you’re not supposed to get attached to your charges.’
‘You mean I’m not supposed to care if they go up in flames?’
‘I didn’t mean that.’ He was watching her face. ‘The boys are different, though, aren’t they? To you.’
She shrugged. ‘I guess.’
‘Why?’
That was harder to answer. She thought about it and gave him the easy answer. ‘It’s probably because they’ve been with me more than most. Kids don’t tend to stay in orphanages any more. They get adopted or fostered out as soon as we can find someone who’ll take them. Fifty years ago we used to have scores of orphans. Now we have kids like Tess and Michael who are in for short-term crisis care, or the baby Lori’s taken for me. She’s been with us while her mother made the decision to allow her to be adopted.’
‘And the twins?’
‘That’s the problem. We can’t find anyone for the twins.’
There. It was said-the stark reality that hurt just to think of it.
‘Why not?’ Matt said, watching her face.
‘I don’t know.’
‘Liar.’
She shrugged, and then gave him a weary smile. ‘No. I’m not a liar and I do find it hard to understand. They’re adorable. But the twins push people away, you see.’
‘I don’t see.’
‘You may well see it soon.’ She sighed. ‘Look, they were the product of a one-night stand. Their mother doesn’t remember who their father is, and she has seven other kids to look after. To be honest, the twins reached their mother’s IQ level when they were about three. I’d reckon whoever fathered them wasn’t lacking in the intelligence quotient and they’re smart as paint. Anyway, she can’t cope with them, she rejected them absolutely and she threw them at us for adoption. Unfortunately they were old enough to understand what was happening.’
‘And they’re taking it out on the world?’
‘Only on whoever is deemed to threaten them. And now they expect to be rejected. They won’t let anyone close because they know it’ll end.’ Erin sighed. She was bone-weary and the comfort of the hot chocolate and the sympathy in this man’s eyes was more than enough to push her over the edge. He’d poured her a brandy but she wasn’t game enough to drink it. Her eyes wanted to close so badly…
‘Sleep,’ he said, and leaned over and took the mug from her hands before she dropped it. ‘You’ll find toothbrushes and everything you need in the bathroom.’
‘I already have.’ Her tired eyes smiled. ‘Your mother must have been the best hostess in the district-and you haven’t let her standards slip one bit.’
‘I’m not allowed to.’ He smiled back at her and his weary smile touched something in her insides which hadn’t been touched in a very long time. If ever. ‘Charlotte’s trained the redoubtable Mrs Gregory for me, and she sees to it that everything’s pristine.’
‘Uh, oh.’
‘Don’t worry.’ Before she knew what he intended, he reached forward and took both her hands in his. He pulled her to her feet and then stood for a moment, looking down into her troubled eyes. ‘I’m sure you and me and the twins and Mrs Gregory will get along just famously.’
And Charlotte? Erin added under her breath but she didn’t say it. Instead she looked up at Matt, a crease of worry still behind her eyes.
‘Doc Emily said I should keep an eye on you tonight. You did lose consciousness.’
‘I did,’ he agreed gravely. ‘But I don’t want checking every hour, thank you very much. If I promise not to die in the night, will you promise to go and put your head down on the pillow and let tomorrow’s worries wait until tomorrow?’
Those dratted tears… Damn, they threatened to be her undoing.
She blinked and sniffed and then blinked again.
‘Fine then. Um…you have put something on that burn?’ She was under no illusions that Charlotte would kill her if it got infected.
‘I have at that,’ he told her. ‘It’s cleaned and it’s nicely antiseptic. So we can both go to bed with a clear conscience. Goodnight, Erin.’
‘Goodnight, Matt. And…thank you.’
And then, because she looked so rumpled and lost and forlorn he couldn’t help himself. He leaned forward and let his lips brush her forehead.
‘It was all my pleasure,’ he said softly. ‘Now stop thinking about twins and burns and belongings and worries. Think only about yourself for a change. Sleep!’
And she did.
There was simply no choice.
CHAPTER THREE
‘WHERE are we?’
Erin planned to wake the minute they woke, but she must have been too exhausted for her normal House Mother instincts to work. She’d propped open both bathroom doors so the twins could see her as soon as they opened their eyes, and now they landed on her bed in a tangle of legs and arms and astonishment.
‘Did the house really burn down? Did we really ride in a police car?’
That was easy.
‘It did and you did and you’re now at Mr McKay’s farm,’ she said, hugging them to her and hauling them in to lie under the covers. She was wearing an oversized T-shirt, and in their oddly assorted pyjamas they looked just as disreputable as she did. They were like something out of a charity bazaar, she thought and grinned to herself and hugged harder. She didn’t mind. They were safe.
‘The policeman won’t arrest us?’ It was Henry, ever the anxious one.
‘Now why would he arrest you?’
‘Because we made a bomb.’
‘But you’ve promised faithfully never to make another one,’ she said.
‘Mmm.’
She fixed Henry with a look. ‘You did promise.’
�
�Yeah.’ He gave her a feeble smile. ‘Okay. We did.’
‘Then I think we might persuade him not to arrest you-this time.’
Apparently this was satisfactory. They snuggled down beside her and then snuggled some more.
But then William asked what was apparently super important in both their minds.
‘Erin, where’s Tigger?’
Oh dear. Erin thought back to the last she’d seen of the house. There seemed not one snowball’s chance in a bushfire that anything could have been saved. There was nothing to do but tell them the truth.
‘Guys, I’m afraid Tigger was burned.’
That silenced them completely. They lay, taking in the enormity of it, and then Henry sniffed.
One sniff was all he allowed himself, but Erin’s heart wrenched. Tigger had been given to the boys by one of their first foster families-a sort of sop-to-conscience-at-taking-them-back-to-the-orphanage gift-and they’d been so young they’d mixed him up with leaving their mother and their bothers and sisters. Tigger had become their only constant, a toy never fought over, never discussed, but simply there.
Apart from each other he was all they had-and now they’d lost him.
Erin knew enough to acknowledge he was irreplaceable. She thought of the impossibility of saying they’d find another Tigger, and she simply didn’t know what else to say.
She was saved by a knock. There was a light rap on the door and it opened to reveal Matt. Unlike Erin and the boys, Matt was fully dressed in his farmer’s moleskins and khaki shirt. A sticking plaster lay across the burn on his forehead, but otherwise he looked completely unscathed. He was bronzed, strong, capable and ready for the day’s work.
‘Good morning,’ he said gravely enough, but his deep brown eyes twinkled at the sight of the three in the bed. ‘That’s a single bed and you guys look squashed. Didn’t you find the other two? Is something the matter?’
‘We just came into Erin’s bed now-to keep her company,’ William said with dignity, casting a doubtful look at his twin. Henry was looking dangerously close to tears, and the twins’ code of conduct decreed it didn’t do to show emotion in front of strange adults.
They’d learned early to keep themselves to themselves.
But after one knowing look at Henry, Matt mercifully changed the subject, seeming not to notice the one errant tear sliding down Henry’s cheek. He chose the one subject that might make them think of something other than loss.
‘I’ve made pancakes and I thought you might like them in bed. How about it?’
‘Pancakes?’ William said, resolutely putting aside the vision of a burning Tigger. ‘I…I guess…’
They were very upset about something, Matt realised, but he could only go on from here.
‘I’ll bring in a tray, shall I?’
‘Yes, please.’ Erin was so grateful she could have hugged him. How had he guessed that the last thing they needed was a formal breakfast? ‘That’d be lovely.’
‘Coming right up.’ He left them to it, and Erin never knew what an effort it had been for him not to sit down and hug the lot of them.
It had cost to get them breakfast.
Matt had come in from the paddocks to find his weekly housekeeper, Mrs Gregory, hard at work. He had a cow in calf in the home paddock and, after a sleepless night, he’d decided he’d be happier checking on her than staring at the ceiling. His cow now safely delivered, he’d come in to find Mrs Gregory already sniffing lugubriously over the marks on the carpet.
‘Charlotte rang me,’ she said before he could say a word. ‘I knew how it’d be, so I decided it was my Christian duty to get here early. Those dratted children. You saved them, didn’t you? Why you had to offer to take them in…’
‘I guess it was my Christian duty,’ he told her and she didn’t even smile.
‘Hmmph. Those twins. And that mother of theirs. Oh, you don’t need to tell me a thing about that woman. The whole of Bay Beach knew her before she disappeared with the last of her string of men. If ever there was a no-good, two-timing-’
‘Hey, you can’t place the sins of the mother onto the children,’ Matt interceded. ‘She threw the twins out.’
‘Which is saying a lot about the children,’ Mrs Gregory said soundly. ‘That woman’s a slut, and if even she couldn’t put up with them…’
Hmm. ‘Mrs Gregory, how would you like a holiday,’ he said thoughtfully. This wasn’t boding well for the future at all. ‘Erin’s here and, with two adults, she and I can surely do the housework.’
‘She won’t. She won’t even notice if the house is a mess. I know her kind.’
‘She will.’ His lips tightened. Heck, his mother and Charlotte and their set had truly branded Erin. Just because of her father…
He finally wrung pancakes out of Mrs Gregory-by throwing in a few more Christian duties and an agreement to take an extended break for as long as they could manage without her-and now he carried the tray toward the bedroom with the air of one who’d achieved a major triumph. When he saw the grateful smile in Erin’s eyes the feeling grew, so his chest felt a whole six inches broader.
There was still something wrong, though. Something majorly wrong. The twins were polite-sort of-about the pancakes but they sat up in bed with the pancake tray on the table between them and they poked at Matt’s offering as if the end of the world was nigh.
‘You didn’t yell at them because of the fire?’ he asked Erin, frowning as she crossed to the window with her pancake plate. She’d done it as a deliberate ruse to talk to him without the twins hearing and it worked. He’d figured it out and followed her. Now they stood with their backs to the twins, as if the cattle grazing in the paddocks was taking all their attention.
She took umbrage at his suggestion. Yell at the twins? ‘Of course I didn’t,’ she told him. ‘They feel dreadful enough without me yelling at them. What do you think I am?’
‘Far too kind,’ he told her promptly, and she smiled but in an absent sort of way as she munched her pancake-which told him her thoughts were still on the twins.
‘I’m not.’ She glanced back at the twins. ‘Sometimes I feel I’m not kind enough. They need so much…’
‘Why the sad faces? Are they still scared?’
‘No.’ She shrugged, After all this man had done for them it seemed stupid to let him see how upset they were about one small Tigger, but there was something in his eyes that said he really wanted to know. He cared. ‘It’s just that they had a stuffed toy that they loved. They’ve now realised it’s been burned.’
He stared.
Then…
‘Wait right here,’ he told them soundly, and without another word he strode from the room and left them gaping after him.
And then he was back, and in his hands-at arm’s length because it was so disgusting-he carried the blackest, filthiest soggiest Tigger they’d ever seen. But it was…
‘Tigger!’
Erin barely got the word out before the boys were out of their beds, upending milk as they went and heading straight for Matt. They clung to what he held out to them-one to Tigger’s snout, one to Tigger’s tail, and all the grime in the world wouldn’t have made one ounce of difference to the love that shone from their eyes.
Their Tigger…
Erin was looking at him as if he’d produced a miracle, and the feeling was just great. His expanding chest almost popped the buttons on his shirt. ‘How on earth did you rescue Tigger?’
‘I never meant to,’ he told her and managed a shamefaced grin. ‘They thrust it at me in the fire and, to be honest, I thought it was a dead cat. I just shoved it down my shirt and kept going.’
‘A dead cat!’ Her lips twitched. ‘And do you always go around shoving dead cats down your shirt during house fires?’
‘Before anything else. They’re excellent for curing warts,’ he told her. ‘All you need is a graveyard and a full moon. Everyone tries to find them, but this time I got there first.’
He was ridiculous. She
chuckled and suddenly things were just fine. The twins were inspecting their disgusting toy with relish. It appeared that the grime and general dishevelment made not the least difference to their affection.
How could it?
Matt grinned, trying to ignore the warm feeling Erin’s pleasure was giving him. ‘Doc Emily deserves some credit, too,’ he admitted. ‘She saw it when she was listening to my breathing and told me to hang on to it. Then I forgot it-until I took a shower, opened my shirt and it fell out. The damned thing nearly gave me a heart attack.’
‘I imagine it might.’ Erin’s smile was a mile wide. ‘We’re so lucky you didn’t toss it away.’
‘I could have.’ Matt’s eyes were resting on the twins. They’d sat on their shared bed again, one end of Tigger on each of their knees. ‘But by last night both Doc Emily and I had an inkling that whatever could be saved might be important.’
‘You have no idea how important,’ she said warmly. ‘Oh, Matt…’ Her eyes were glowing.
Whew! Her eyes were doing something to his insides which was truly spectacular. He needed to be grounded here.
He was.
The admiration session was interrupted before his chest buttons could finally pop from the strain. Just as Matt was starting to feel very peculiar indeed, another knock sounded through the room.
Visitors were coming thick and fast this morning, Erin thought, but what the heck. They had Tigger. With Tigger, they could save the world! They could cope with anything.
But it was Charlotte, and suddenly Erin wasn’t so sure if anything included Charlotte.
She was amazingly early, Erin thought, and then she glanced down at her wrist-watch and stared in disbelief. It was after nine o’clock. Help!
And she looked like this!
‘Charlotte,’ Matt said warily, and the tone of his voice summed up all of their feelings.
Charlotte gave him her most sympathetic smile-heroine racing to save hero!-and then she moved straight to practicalities.
‘Mrs Gregory told me you were feeding the children their breakfast in the bedroom,’ she said briskly. ‘Why on earth don’t you do it in the kitchen? At least you can wash the floor there.’
Adopted: Twins! Page 4
