Adopted: Twins!

by Marion Lennox

  ‘You wear dresses,’ Henry said stubbornly and William tilted his chin in agreement.

  And Matt found himself with the kids. Yep, Erin wore dresses. She looked great in dresses, even the crimplene.

  ‘Go into town and buy yourself something decent,’ he growled. ‘Now. Today. I can look after the twins.’

  ‘My dresses are home-made,’ she told him.

  ‘So? My mother’s sewing machine is still here. Buy yourself what you need and I’ll twin-sit while you sew.’

  ‘We’ll help,’ the twins announced, and Erin grinned at the thought that conjured up.

  ‘Oh, great. I can see a twin sewed into each side of the zipper-with Sadie’s nose at the bottom.’

  They chuckled at that, but Matt wasn’t to be sidetracked. ‘Seriously, Erin…’

  ‘Mmm?’ It was time for her to tilt her chin.

  He tilted his right back. He could be obstinate, too. ‘The clothes Charlotte bought were just to tide you over until you got a wardrobe you liked.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘The draper’s open on Saturday afternoon. You could go in now.’

  ‘But the twins-’

  ‘The twins and I have more work to do,’ he told her. ‘And I’m more than capable of looking after them by myself.’ Then he paused at the sound of a car pulling up outside. He knew that sound. ‘And maybe I don’t have to,’ he continued. ‘Here’s the help I need.’

  It was Charlotte.

  Of course it was Charlotte, and Erin schooled her face into an expression of pleasure. After all, Charlotte had shopped for her, and she was Matt’s affianced wife. The fact that Erin had never been able to stand the woman should be irrelevant. So as Charlotte walked into the kitchen-without knocking-she found Matt and Erin smiling a welcome, and the twins looking up from their bacon with expressions of distrust.

  The distrust was nothing new or personal. The twins distrusted the world.

  ‘You’re still eating breakfast!’ Charlotte, as beautifully presented as ever in her smart slacks and blouse and beautifully arranged chignon, stopped on the threshold and stared at them all in amazement. Her eyes fluttered to the delicate silver watch on her wrist. ‘Matt, darling, it’s ten o’clock!’

  And then she saw the mud on the floor, and her breath drew in horror. ‘What on earth has been going on?’

  ‘They’ve been cleaning Cecil,’ Erin told her, rising and crossing to the woman at the door. She kept her smile straight, took Charlotte’s hands in hers and kissed her lightly on the cheek before Charlotte could pull away. ‘I hear congratulations are in order. You’re engaged to be married! That’s lovely news, Charlotte. And you’re not to be disgusted with us. This is our second breakfast-and the mud is Cecil mud.’

  ‘Cecil…’ Charlotte thought this through and her face cleared. ‘Oh, the bull. Of course. You’ve been cleaning your wonderful bull for tomorrow’s show. But, Matt, you know you should have stripped at the door-or made the children do it at least.’

  She regarded the twins as one might regard two interesting but slightly disgusting creatures from the sea, and it took an almost Herculean effort for Erin to keep her smile pinned on.

  ‘It’ll only take minutes to mop, but the troops were hungry,’ she told her.

  ‘Well, I guess it was in a good cause,’ Charlotte said reluctantly. ‘As long as you do intend mopping, Erin. I don’t see that Matt has the time. We’re leaving at the crack of dawn tomorrow.’

  ‘You’re leaving?’ It was Henry, his eyes swivelling toward Matt. His face was horrified.

  ‘I’m taking Cecil to the show,’ Matt told him. ‘It’s a two-day affair so I’ll only be away for one night.’ His brow creased. ‘I didn’t think you were coming, Charlotte?’

  ‘I’ve managed to find a place at the hotel,’ she told him. ‘The Royal’s very expensive, but it still has places.’ She gave her tinkling laugh, the laugh that made Erin shudder. ‘I thought…now that we’re engaged we should do things together.’

  Urk. The boys winced, and inwardly Erin winced along with them. Charlotte’s sweetness was almost repelling.

  And it seemed Matt found it almost as distasteful. He dredged up a smile and rose, carrying his plate across to the sink.

  ‘Well, that’s great.’ Then he turned back to Erin, and his face was under control again. ‘Erin, now that Charlotte’s here, I want you to hop it. Go into town and do your shopping.’

  ‘But what for?’ Charlotte looked from Erin to Matt and back to Erin. ‘I did all the shopping you could possibly want yesterday.’

  ‘And it was wonderful,’ Erin told her, but Matt shook his head.

  ‘Charlotte, if everything you owned in the world was destroyed by fire, could you imagine another woman supplying you with everything you need on one shopping trip? Without even discussing it with you first? You don’t think that Erin might just want to buy a couple of things herself?’

  ‘I guess…’ Charlotte faltered at Matt’s logic, but she obviously didn’t. In her view, Erin was a charity case, and charity cases deserved what they got.

  But Matt was no longer listening. ‘Go, Erin.’

  ‘I’ll just clean up-and the boys can come with me.’

  ‘No.’ Matt’s voice was implacable. He took her shoulders, steered her to the door and forcibly propelled her out. ‘Charlotte and the boys and I will clear up, and then we’ll take hay around the cattle. We’ll be so busy we’ll hardly miss you. I don’t expect you back here before four o’clock. So go.’

  She cast one worried look at the twins, but Matt wasn’t taking no for an answer.

  ‘If you’re sure…’

  ‘I’m sure. And so’s Charlotte. Aren’t you, sweetheart?’

  Charlotte was stumped. There was nothing for a well brought-up young woman to say to that but yes, and she rose to the occasion with fortitude.

  ‘Of course.’ Charlotte gave them all her very sweetest smile. ‘You go and do your shopping, Erin. I’ll look after your responsibilities.’

  Drat the woman!

  Erin’s hands clenched on the steering wheel all the way into town, and by the time she got there she was still having trouble calming down. What Matt saw in that cold-blooded barracuda… Couldn’t he see what she really was? She was so nice to Matt, but so darned nasty to those she didn’t consider important.

  It was nothing to do with her, she told herself, as she drove into Bay Beach. Matt’s love life was Matt’s business, and that was that.

  She was here to shop.

  And then she saw Shanni emerge from the greengrocer. Her face brightened. Shanni was a really good friend. Like Erin, she was a local girl from a farm where money wasn’t in oversupply and so, like Erin, she’d been given the cold shoulder by Charlotte from a very early age. What Erin needed now was a coffee, a chat with her friend and a very long whinge.

  ‘Where are the kids?’ she called, and Shanni beamed as she dumped her shopping in her car and headed across the car-park to her friend.

  ‘They’re at Mum’s. Oh, great. I was just going to head out to see you. You want a coffee and a chat?’

  ‘Do I ever,’ Erin told her. ‘If you don’t mind a bit of bitchiness thrown into the gossip.’

  ‘That’s my very favourite kind of gossip,’ Shanni said, and tucked Erin’s arm into hers. ‘What gives?’

  Back at the farm it was Matt’s temper that was giving. He’d loaded the trailer with hay, the twins had helped cheerfully enough but when they headed out to the paddocks Charlotte decided she was coming, too.

  Then, as William heaved his first bale off the trailer-no mean feat for one so small-she told him how to do it right.

  ‘The cattle trample it if you put it down in full bales,’ she told William sharply. ‘Wait until Matt cuts the twine and then throw it off a quarter at a time.’

  William’s small face fell, he dropped behind the trailer and Henry, after looking at his twin, decided to do likewise.

  They stumped along unwillingly, waiting to go home. Charlo
tte scolded. Matt tried to make things right but the more that was said the more the twins turned stubborn and mute.

  ‘You’ll be glad to get away tomorrow,’ Charlotte told him. ‘Kids are okay in small doses-in very small doses.’

  ‘They’re good kids.’

  ‘If they were good kids they’d have been adopted long before this.’

  ‘Hush!’ Charlotte’s voice was carrying. Matt cast a glance behind him. He didn’t think the twins had heard, but… ‘Be a bit careful of what you’re saying.’

  ‘I’m only telling the truth,’ Charlotte said stubbornly. ‘For heaven’s sake, they actually burned down a whole house. They should be a bit grateful for what you’re doing instead of grumping along like two spoiled brats.’

  Yeah. Right. But they didn’t look like spoiled brats, Matt thought as he tried to cheer them up. They just looked like kids who knew they were hopeless and expected to be told that at every available opportunity.

  ‘Come and help me brush Cecil,’ he told them as they finally fed out the last of the hay. ‘He’ll be dry by now, and he needs to be brushed like he’s never been brushed before if he’s to win.’

  ‘Oh, Matt, really…’ Charlotte again, unable to resist putting in her oar. ‘As if they know the right way to brush a bull. I’ll help.’

  ‘Boys…’

  ‘I want to watch TV,’ Henry said, and William chewed his bottom lip and said nothing.

  ‘I’d really appreciate it if you could help me.’

  Silence.

  Erin arrived back at the farm feeling very much better. There was nothing like venting a little spleen with a friend, she thought cheerfully as she turned into the gate. That, a couple of bolts of material, a really gorgeous ready-made dress, new shoes and a bottle of her favourite perfume supplied by Shanni had made her feel she was ready to face the world again.

  Or ready to face Charlotte.

  They were in the kitchen. Erin pushed wide the door and knew they’d been talking about her. The conversation stopped dead as she entered, and Matt bit his lip.

  It wasn’t anything good, Erin thought, but then, when had Charlotte ever said anything nice about her? Or anyone who had less money and influence than Charlotte?

  ‘Hi,’ she said brightly, determined to be cheerful. ‘I had to come home. Bay Beach ran out of things I could buy.’

  ‘Did the insurance money run to all this?’ Charlotte asked incredulously, looking at Erin’s parcels. She sniffed. ‘That’s the same perfume as Sally wears. It costs a mint. And you’ve never bought a dress from Della’s!’

  ‘I do get paid,’ Erin said gently. ‘I’m not exactly a welfare case, Charlotte.’ She dumped her parcels and somehow kept right on smiling. Then, because she knew it’d cut right to the bone, she couldn’t resist. ‘I even had money left over for lacy knickers. Because a girl just never knows…’ And that was enough of that! ‘Where are the boys?’

  ‘They’re watching television,’ Charlotte snapped, watching Matt’s face and not being reassured at all. He’d definitely heard what Erin said, and there was definitely a level of interest there. ‘They’ve been distinctly unhelpful.’

  ‘I expect they’re tired,’ Matt threw in, trying to appease-and trying not to think of Erin in lacy knickers-but Erin was no longer listening. She left them to each other.

  If Matt was stupid enough to believe he loved Charlotte, then they deserved each other.

  The twins weren’t watching television.

  Erin went from there to the bedrooms. Then she searched the house, but there were no twins. Finally she returned to the kitchen.

  ‘They’re not in the house,’ she told Matt, and watched as his eyes widened. ‘Where else could they be?’

  ‘They’re watching television.’ He walked forward as if he thought she just wasn’t looking hard enough, and flung open the sitting room door. The television was blaring, but there were no twins.

  They looked at each other-and they started to run.

  She checked the river first.

  It was Erin’s golden rule. Check out worst-case scenarios and work backward. The most dangerous places for the twins to be were the machinery shed and the river, so while Matt checked the sheds, she ran down along the track they’d used to go swimming.

  They weren’t there, but something else was there that made her suck in her breath in dismay.

  Oh no!

  She looked back up at the house, and her fears were confirmed. There was Matt, emerging from the shed where Cecil had been groomed. He was holding a twin by each hand. Erin couldn’t see his face, but she could guess it’d look like thunder.

  Because as soon as he saw the empty stall, he’d have guessed.

  She turned around again and she sighed.

  The river flowed on golden sand, and then curved away inland. As it did, the sand turned to mud.

  That was where Cecil was. He was no longer confined, brushed and beautiful in the shed, ready for tomorrow’s show. He was rolling full length in the mud, doing what every self-respecting bull would do, given all the peculiar odours they’d put on his body.

  He was getting it all off.

  And he was now disgusting!

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  ‘THEY deserve to be spanked. I’ll do it if you won’t.’ Charlotte was at her vitriolic best and Erin silently counted to ten before she put herself between Charlotte and the boys. Somehow she forced herself to think fast. She needed a defensive weapon here, and luckily she had one, just granted to her by an indignant Shanni.

  ‘You touch them and I’ll… I’ll publish the poetry you and Bradley Moore wrote to each other when you were teenagers!’

  What a threat! Erin’s voice was whisper-quiet and desperate, but everyone knew she meant it. Matt’s eyebrows flew up in astonishment. Charlotte gasped and took a step back, allowing Erin to crouch protectively before her two white-faced little boys.

  Now what? Erin thought desperately. The boys knew exactly what they’d done, and how naughty they’d been. Now they flinched, but they met her look, defiant and expecting the worst.

  Why did she always want to hug them?

  She couldn’t. Matt was still holding them a hand apiece. He was angry, she knew. He’d been distracted momentarily by her stupid threat to Charlotte, and she could see her threat would surface to haunt her, but meanwhile he had every right to be angry.

  ‘What the…?’ Charlotte was shocked to the core. ‘You never…’

  ‘You used Rob McDonald as a go between,’ Erin said, and managed a smile. This was kids’ poetry they were talking about. It was only teasing, after all. Wasn’t it? ‘Silly move, Charlotte. Rob might be a police sergeant, but at fifteen he wasn’t so law-abiding. The dratted boy copied them and Shanni found them a couple of weeks ago when she was cleaning up out at her parents’ farm.’

  It might be crazy, and wholly unethical, but as a desperate ruse it worked brilliantly. As a distraction, this was a beauty!

  ‘That’s ridiculous,’ Charlotte managed, right off track.

  ‘Yep!’ It was, but Shanni had laughingly suggested it as a weapon, and it had been in Erin’s head at the wrong time. Bay Beach was a very small town with a very long memory!

  ‘Poetry,’ Matt said blankly. ‘Bradley?’ and Erin had to choke back laughter and concentrate on the important issue here.

  ‘Do you know where Cecil is now?’ she asked the boys gently. She was more dismayed than angry. Heaven, it was as if they tried to drive off anyone who was good to them. They’d all put in so much work to make Cecil splendid, and to undo it all now didn’t make any sense. ‘He’s down in the mud by the river, and he’s filthy,’ she continued. ‘All the work that you and Matt did is wasted.’

  ‘We don’t care,’ William whispered.

  ‘Now Matt won’t be able to go to the show,’ Henry added. He was scared stiff, but still there was a whisper of defiance. ‘With her!’

  And there was the crux of the matter. They wanted Matt to stay righ
t here, so they’d taken matters into their own hands.

  Help! Erin thought bleakly. They needed to be punished-but how? She couldn’t let them off scot-free, and here was Charlotte ready to thrash them. All of them. Erin included.

  The woman looked at explosion point. Maybe Erin’s threat hadn’t been such a good idea.

  Concentrate on the twins, she told herself. ‘You’d better go to your room,’ she said wearily, trying to block out Charlotte’s fury and think what was best. Her head was spinning. ‘Oh, Matt, I’m so sorry.’

  ‘There’s no need for you to be sorry.’ Matt’s face was still grim, but there was a trace of understanding behind his eyes. Now they’d given their reason, he could see it and, damn, he’d had fun with the kids himself. He could see why they didn’t want it to end. He hadn’t thought it important-he’d assumed they’d be fine here with Erin while he was away for the night-but looking at it from a kid’s perspective he could see where they were coming from.

  And he could see the problem Erin had with them now. They needed consequences, but where were the consequences in this one? He stay home and they’d won? That’d achieve nothing except trouble next time. Or he’d work until midnight getting the bull ready again, and leave them all to be upset in his absence. Erin feeling guilty and the kids feeling bad.

  Consequences…

  Charlotte was quietly having kittens by his side. What had Erin said? Bradley Moore… Well, well.

  Consequences!

  ‘This is a real shame,’ he said, and made himself look gravely at the twins instead of at Erin. He still had their hands. Now he gave them both a gentle tug so they were facing him. Unlike Erin, he didn’t stoop. He stayed looking down at them from his great height, and he schooled his features into sad instead of angry.

  Or…sadness instead of laughter?

  ‘I can’t believe you did this-just when I’d made the extra bookings,’ he told them, and they stared.

  ‘Bookings?’ The twins knew they were expected to respond but they didn’t know how. They didn’t know what the word meant.