And then she looked again-and saw Tigger. She physically flinched.
‘What…what on earth is that?’
‘It’s Tigger,’ Erin said, and beamed her joy with the world. Even Charlotte couldn’t burst her bubble this morning. ‘He’s a bit fire-stained. As we all are. Hi, Charlotte. Isn’t it the most wonderful morning?’
Erin’s greeting startled Charlotte out of her composure. ‘I suppose it is.’ She looked Erin up and down-aristocrat to a low life form somewhere under the level of porriwiggle. ‘What on earth are you wearing?’
‘At a guess, I’m modelling old Mr Harbiset’s hand-me-down dressing gown,’ Erin told her, refusing absolutely to be ruffled. ‘He’s the only local I can think of who’s fat enough to own a dressing gown this size, and Mrs Harbiset’s always giving things to charity.’ She gave a fast twirl, ballerina-like, and the flannelette dressing gown swung out almost full circle around her bare legs. ‘Isn’t it great? You think the style will take off?’
Charlotte somehow managed a smile. Then she turned to face Matt, excluding Erin and the twins nicely from her ordered world.
‘Matt, darling, I’ve talked to my parents,’ she told him sweetly, in a tone that said she’d solved all his troubles. ‘And they’ve been terrific. They say the orphanage can have the use of the stables until the Home is rebuilt.’
‘The stables?’ Matt blinked and Erin raised her eyebrows politely. Stables?
‘I don’t mean the stables proper, silly,’ Charlotte said, giving him the benefit of her delicious, tinkling laugh. She threw the twins a look that said she wasn’t so sure that stables wouldn’t be the best place for them, but then went bravely on. ‘No. There’s living quarters directly above the horse boxes. We used them for the men when I housed all my horses there, but now I’ve moved out they’re empty. They’re still quite liveable.’
‘That’s very generous of your parents,’ Matt said, thinking it through. ‘But the living quarters were built for use by the stable lads, weren’t they?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then they’re pretty basic.’
‘Yes, but it’s almost summer.’ Charlotte beamed. ‘There’s a little kitchenette and a dormitory and a bathroom. Everything they need.’
‘One dormitory?’
‘Yes.’
‘So Erin would be sharing the dormitory with the children?’
‘That’s what she does, sweetheart.’ Charlotte gave Erin her very nicest smile. Her beam widened, all her problems solved and she reached out to take Matt’s hand. ‘She won’t mind, darling. Caring for children is her job. Isn’t it, Erin?’
Hmm. Erin might have continued to twirl but she had also been listening. And thinking-fast.
‘It is,’ Erin said thankfully. ‘And I’m very grateful. But I’m afraid I can’t accept any offers before our director comes down here and sorts things out. Meanwhile, if Matt’s offer still stands…’
‘When’s your director coming?’
‘This morning, I imagine,’ Erin said dryly. She glanced at her watch. Tom Burrows had been in Sydney this week, but she’d imagine news of the fire would have him down here by lunch time. ‘I’ll pass on your offer to him and he’ll come out and see your parents-and the stables.’
‘Hey, hang on a minute!’ Matt wasn’t having a bar of this. ‘The kids are staying here.’
‘You must see that’s impossible.’ Charlotte was still at her sweetest.
‘Why?’
She lowered her voice, just enough to make the twins aware that they were being discussed without them hearing.
‘Because they’re juvenile delinquents, that’s why. They burned down the last place they stayed in. Heaven knows what they’d do here.’
But that was enough for Erin. Her hackles had well and truly risen. Juvenile delinquents? At seven years old?
If she didn’t get rid of this woman soon she’d lose her temper-which maybe wasn’t such a good idea, she thought, as she’d really, really like to stay here for a while. This set-up was perfect for the twins. They had a farm where they could be relatively isolated from the rest of the community.
If Tom agreed-and he surely would-then she could stay here, too. The farm was beautiful, nestled right on the river mouth and overlooking the sea. It’d be like a beach holiday. There’d be no other children for her to look after-the Homes couldn’t ask Matt to look after any more-and they’d have her sole attention.
Which was just fine by her. These were badly traumatised children, and most of the trauma had been inflicted well before last night.
‘Matt, would you mind if you continued this conversation with Charlotte outside?’ she managed. Juvenile delinquents indeed! ‘I…I need to get dressed.’
‘I noticed your donated clothes pile is still out in the hall,’ Charlotte said pointedly. ‘You’ll have to go and forage. Unless you’re planning on wearing what you had on last night.’ She smiled.
‘Charlotte!’
Whoops! She’d gone too far. Charlotte’s self-preservation instincts surfaced then, as a look on Matt’s face told her that he wasn’t seeing things as she was. And this crazy woman wasn’t any real competition. Matt was only being charitable, after all, and it behoved Charlotte to appear the same.
‘I’ll fetch you something, shall I?’ she asked. She looked at Erin, assessing. ‘You’re a couple of sizes larger than me or I’d lend you something of mine.’
‘I’m quite happy with our charity pile,’ Erin said through gritted teeth. Anonymous charity, that was. Not Charlotte charity. ‘I’ll fetch something myself.’ She pulled open the door and stopped short.
Last night, when they’d come here their toes had sunk into the lush white carpet. It had still been here and squish-able when she’d come to bed.
It still was now-but there was plastic over the top.
Lines of plastic. Erin recognised it. She’d seen it last at the home of a super-fussy aunt. Purchased by the yard, the stuff was transparent and it had tiny pointy teeth on the back to hold it to the carpet. People used it to keep homes immaculate against any who might sully their precious flooring, and it felt just horrid.
Urk! What was the point of having carpet if one had to look at it under plastic and walk on the coldness of the stuff?
She took a deep breath and counted to ten under her breath. She had to take this in her stride. Okay, it was insulting, but if Matt wanted to protect his home, then who could blame him?
But it wasn’t Matt who’d laid the plastic. ‘Where the hell did that come from?’ he demanded, staring. He stalked out into the passage and stared some more. The plastic tracked off in both directions, a path for anything unclean.
‘I had heaps stored at home,’ Charlotte said, not hearing the low growl of displeasure in his voice. ‘I bought it when I went overseas last year and my grandparents borrowed my house. Grandpa is such a grub-he just refuses to take his boots off and Grandma doesn’t insist. It was just the thing, I thought, and it worked beautifully but now Grandpa’s gone and I don’t need it. So I brought it over.’
She sounded immensely pleased with herself-but Matt had had enough.
‘Well, you can just roll it all up and take it back where it came from,’ he managed, embarrassed to his back teeth. Hell, of all the insensitive, unwelcoming acts. What would Erin think of this? Charlotte might be gorgeous and a great hostess and cook, but sometimes she was impossible. She really was just like his mother!
But…
‘Um…no.’ It was Erin.
‘No?’ They both turned to stare at her.
‘Leave it. The kids and I will hardly notice.’ The kids certainly wouldn’t. A floor was a floor as far as the twins were concerned and Charlotte was right. This way Erin wouldn’t sully Matt’s precious carpet, and she wouldn’t have to worry about the twins doing it either. Which was one less worry-and she had enough worries as it was.
But Matt was implacable. ‘The plastic goes,’ Matt told her. ‘Now.’
‘
Matt, it’s fine.’
‘Erin, it’s not!’ His temper was rising now, and there were memories flooding back that were making everything worse. His mother standing at the kitchen door yelling at his father in the voice of a fishwife. ‘Get those boots off right now or I’ll walk out and never come back.’
It was her ultimate threat made over and over again, it had scared the young version of Matt stupid, and only later had he wondered whether maybe he and his father would have been a whole lot happier without her.
Which might be why he was still a bachelor.
So no, the plastic went. And the image of marriage that he’d had last night faded a little as well. Maybe he was meant to be a bachelor. He’d bought the ring, but he hadn’t done the asking.
But this was hardly the time for dredging up old memories and future plans. Now was the time to take the well-meaning but misguided Charlotte by the shoulders and steer her out of the room.
‘We’ll leave you in peace,’ he told Erin. ‘Charlotte, Erin’s right. We need to continue this discussion outside.’ He gave Erin and her crazy, wonderful dressing gown one last glance and then he propelled Charlotte outside.
‘I’m going into town,’ he told Erin over his shoulder as he left. Then he turned back to the lady he was propelling. ‘Charlotte, I could use some help. Do you have time to come with me?’
Charlotte was surprised but instantly gratified. ‘Of course I do, sweetheart. When do you want to go?’
‘Now,’ he told her. ‘Erin, just make yourself and the twins at home. Mrs Gregory will be here until lunch time, so anything you need, just ask. Charlotte and I will probably eat in town so I’ll see you mid-afternoon.’
Charlotte visibly sighed with relief. This was much better. A lunch date with Matt, with Erin nicely excluded. She turned and gave Erin her sweetest smile, because she could afford to be charitable to one who was so clearly a charity case-and then she allowed herself to be propelled from the room by the man she intended to marry.
There was no threat here, she decided.
There was no threat at all.
CHAPTER FOUR
MATT arrived home at about three and he couldn’t find them. There were no kids in sight, and there was no Erin.
He walked from living rooms to bedrooms. No one. He went outside and checked the out-buildings. He checked that Erin’s car was where it had been parked the night before and still he couldn’t find them.
Finally he checked the house once more, and this time his old collie, Sadie, decided to join him. As they passed the laundry, Sadie whined and put up a paw. He pushed the door open-and there were the three of them, sitting on the floor with three noses pressed hard against the glass of the tumble dryer.
They were watching the tumble dryer?
‘Isn’t the television working?’ he asked dryly, and they swivelled to face him.
They really were the most ill-assorted trio! The charity bin hadn’t been good to them, he thought. Nothing fitted anywhere.
Yet Erin looked amazing!
He hauled his eyes from her with an almost Herculean effort. Concentrate on the twins! he told himself.
The twins were wearing jogging suit pants that were way too big, and T-shirts that were far too small. Their sea-green eyes were over big and over bright in their anxious faces and, as they looked up at him, he felt his heart give a thump of sympathy. They looked such waifs!
But Erin…
He failed. Try as he might, he couldn’t turn his eyes from her. She didn’t look much less waif-like herself.
She was wearing someone’s cast-off crimplene dress-pale blue with pink spots, buttoned to the waist and belted with a cheap and nasty plastic belt. The dress looked as if it was meant for a woman of sixty. The bust size was about five sizes too big for her and it looked ridiculous. How she managed to still look beautiful was beyond him.
‘If you so much as smile, you’re dead meat,’ she said, reading at least some of his thoughts, and he wiped the tentative smile from his face, hoped she hadn’t read the rest and tried for a look of innocence.
‘Now why would I smile?’
‘Because this is-or was-Beverly Borridge’s second-best Country Women’s Association dress, and it’s the only thing I can fit into. Her breasts must be…’
She faltered as his eyes fell immediately to the points in question. She blushed bright pink, she folded her arms defiantly across her chest and she turned back to the dryer.
‘Huge,’ she finished, but she was no longer looking at him.
He couldn’t help it. He grinned-which was exactly the wrong thing to do, because she sensed it. She turned back and caught the grin full on and retaliated just like Erin had retaliated as a kid at school. No one teased Erin Douglas without copping it right back.
A sodden towel was lying by her side. How convenient. Her lips twitched into a smile, she lifted it and she threw with deadly accuracy. It whacked him with a soggy thwump; slap across his face.
She was some shot.
She was some lady!
But, soggy or not, he still didn’t know what they were doing. Matt removed the towel from around his shoulders, laid it aside, wiped the grin from his face and crossed to the dryer. Once more, they all had their backs to him and they were staring at the dryer.
There was nothing for it but to see for himself. He crouched down beside them and stared at the glass.
‘What’s the program here?’ he asked. ‘Something good? Days Of Our Lives-or General Hospital?’
The twins simply ignored him. After that one brief glance they’d gone straight back to watching the glass window. Their anxiety was palpable and they were watching the glass as if their lives depended on it.
So Matt watched, too, and he saw a pair of eyes flash past the glass. And also a tail.
All was suddenly clear. ‘That’s Tigger,’ he said in amazement.
‘Of course it’s Tigger.’ Erin nodded and went right back to Tigger-watching. ‘I rang the manufacturer. I hope you don’t mind me using your phone but it was important to get his washing instructions right. They said he’d never dry naturally, even if we hung him out in the sun-he’d go mouldy inside. Their advice was to wash him in soap and water-and you can’t imagine how much soap and water we had to use to get him clean, then squeeze him dry in a towel. We hung him outside in the sun long enough so the fur fabric was dry enough not to shrink, and then we put him in the dryer. But…’
‘But?’
‘But the boys are still a bit anxious,’ she told him. ‘We sat outside with him while he hung on the clothes line and now we thought we’d just stay here and watch.’
‘I see.’ The whole process was crazy. He repressed the grin, though. One look at the little boys’ faces was enough to make that easy. Then he looked at the dial. It had twenty minutes to go. ‘How long have you been here?’ he asked. Sitting watching tumble dryers going around ad infinitum was hardly his idea of a great afternoon’s entertainment.
‘An hour and a half. He should be almost done.’ Erin had a twin on either side of her and she hugged them hard. She was acting like she had all the time in the world and this was the world’s most pressing problem. ‘And he’s doing just fine.’
It might just as well be television’s General Hospital they were watching, Matt thought. Drama had nothing on this. Here we have the patient on the operating table and anxious relatives fearful of the worst…
‘He doesn’t like it in there,’ Henry whispered, and Tigger’s eyes flashed past the glass again. Matt almost had to pinch himself back to reality. Good grief! This was a stuffed animal, yet the tremor in Henry’s voice had him imagining agony within.
Twenty minutes to go…
‘I brought back ice-creams,’ Matt said helpfully, but no one moved.
‘I’ll fetch them, shall I?’
‘That’d be great,’ Erin told him, but all eyes were on the glass. They had no time for him at all.
If anyone told Matt he’d spend twenty
minutes watching a stuffed animal go round and round in a tumble dryer-and almost enjoy it-he would have said they were crazy, but that was just what happened next.
He placed a chocolate ice-cream in the twins’ hands, gave one to Erin and settled back with his. He should have brought popcorn, he thought. He hadn’t realised they were into movie-watching.
They certainly were. There was hardly a word spoken. Every ounce of the boys’ concentration was directed at Tigger-as though by watching him they could get him through this ordeal.
They were amazing kids, Matt thought, and began to see what Erin was fighting for. Once you had the loyalty of these two, you’d have it for life. They licked their ice-creams, but they licked them absently and one flicker of doubt that things weren’t well in the Tigger department and the ice-creams would have been abandoned. There was no doubt of that at all.
The ice-creams demolished, Tigger spun on and on, and then the timer clicked off. Tigger thumped three more times around the drum and Erin opened the door.
‘He might be hot,’ Erin warned but, hot or not, they’d waited long enough. The twins had him out of there and were checking him from snout to tail.
‘He’s perfect,’ William breathed.
He wasn’t, actually, Matt thought, looking at the battered toy that had seen years of loving service. Patches of Tigger’s fur were completely worn off, his eyes were decidedly crooked, there was a piece missing from one ear and a bit of stuffing was coming out of his rump.
‘Absolutely perfect,’ Erin agreed, grinning from ear to ear. ‘And I’ve never seen him so clean.’ She poked the stuffing back into his rump. ‘Wasn’t it clever of Mr McKay to save him? I’ll sew his bottom up tonight but meanwhile…’
‘Meanwhile, now he’s fixed, can we see the farm?’ Henry said, bounding up and turning pleading eyes from one adult to another. With Tigger restored to glory, things were obviously okay in his world and he was ready to move on.
‘Yes, please,’ breathed William, and Matt looked into their combined eyes and could no sooner deny them than fly.
Adopted: Twins! Page 5
