Adopted: Twins!

by Marion Lennox

  It was midnight. The phone had echoed through Shanni and Nick’s home, shrill with urgency, and Nick had answered it on the third ring. He’d listened in appalled silence, and then come to find Erin. Now, standing in the hall in her bare feet, she heard Matt’s fear echoing down the line.

  ‘What is it, Matt?’

  ‘Erin, the twins have gone.’

  ‘Gone.’ She took a deep breath, fighting down panic as she forced herself to think it through. Erin hadn’t survived this long as a House Mother by giving way to hysterics at every scare. ‘You mean they’ve run away.’

  ‘It looks like it.’

  ‘I…okay, Matt.’ She took a deep breath. ‘There’s no problem. You told them I was just around the bay, remember? They’ll be walking on the beach somewhere. I’ll come.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘N… No?’ She really took on board his fear then, and it was vivid and dreadful. It reached her heart, as his statement that the twins had disappeared had not. ‘Why not?’

  ‘I’ve checked. Like you, I thought of the beach first, so I took the farm bike down there straight away. But I went by the river first. Shanni and Nick’s house looks miles by beach, but it looks much closer across the water. The twins will have seen that. Erin, the rowing boat’s gone, and the tide’s running out at full pace. If they took the boat, they’ll now be well out to sea.

  ‘They promised they wouldn’t use the boat,’ Matt muttered. ‘They promised.’

  Quarter of an hour later, Erin and Matt were in the police launch, headed out into the bay-along with half the fishing population of Bay Beach. Every boat that wasn’t already out fishing was called into action. Rob McDonald was taking no chances.

  ‘I want them found, and I want them found fast. If they realise they’re drifting away from land, there’s no telling what they’ll do.’

  ‘But they promised,’ Matt said again into the night, and there was quiet desperation behind his words. ‘Maybe we’re wrong to be looking out to sea. Maybe they haven’t used the boat. It could have broken away itself. Erin, I trusted them not to break their word.’

  ‘I think they’re in the boat-and I don’t think they’ve broken their vow. Or-not on their terms.’ Erin’s voice was winter-bleak.

  ‘Erin, I heard them promise. I trust them.’

  ‘And you know what I said when they promised?’ she whispered into the night. The boat was slipping out of the harbour, a flotilla of fishing boats behind them. ‘I said: “While you’re living with me you obey my rules.” And then I left them.’

  He closed his eyes. ‘Erin…’

  ‘It’s not your fault,’ she said bleakly. ‘It’s mine. I let Tom talk me into this, and I might have known it would end in disaster.’

  Dear God…

  The sea mist had slipped in over the water. The night was almost eerie in its stillness. They stood alone in the bow, each feeling sick with what they might or might not find before them.

  Erin didn’t know where Charlotte was. She didn’t ask. Once she’d heard about Tigger’s removal, it was maybe just as well she didn’t know.

  Dear God… It was a prayer, said over and over again into the night.

  Instinctively, Matt’s arm came out and held Erin hard around her waist. For a moment she resisted, but her need for comfort was too great. She let herself be pulled into him, and they stayed that way as the rolling swells of the open sea hit the boat and Rob turned the launch out of the harbour and along the bay toward the tidal outpouring from the river.

  Matt and Erin didn’t move. They were a man and woman as one. With one prayer…

  It was the longest night Erin had ever known.

  The flotilla formed a pack. Rob and the most senior of the fishermen worked out a pattern of grid lines based on tides, currents and wind, and each boat was given a course to follow. It was a myriad of criss-crossing lines, with all hands of every boat glued to the guy ropes, and all eyes trying desperately to pierce the fog.

  Somewhere in this vast sea were two little boys in a rickety old rowing boat that was never intended to be strong enough to be buffeted by waves like this.

  The sea wasn’t at its wildest, but it was rough enough to frighten a grown man in an open rowing boat-much less children.

  ‘They don’t even have Tigger,’ Erin whispered brokenly at one point, and Matt’s arm tightened still further. He was trying to instil comfort with every ounce of his being, but at the same time he needed comfort himself.

  If only… If only…

  He’d been a crazy, blind fool to think this could ever work, he thought. Leaving the twins to Charlotte…

  He’d been left with his mother, and he still remembered the coldness. If his father hadn’t been there-if he’d had an Erin to run to…

  It might have been him in this damned rowing boat, he thought, and there was something of the lost and lonely child in the look he cast out over the water. Please let the boys be safe, he said to himself and finally out aloud. ‘Please…’

  ‘Matt?’

  ‘Mmm.’ He could hardly hear. Every ounce of his being was concentrating on trying to pierce the fog. He was willing the boys to appear.

  ‘Whatever happens,’ Erin said softly. ‘Matt, whatever happens, the boys know that you’ve loved them. That’s meant so much.’

  ‘Not enough,’ he managed.

  ‘You’re not to blame for this.’

  ‘I am.’ He closed his eyes for an instant before pushing them wide to continue searching. ‘I am to blame.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I didn’t have the courage to change my life. As I should have done. As I will if I ever have the chance again. Please…’

  And finally, just before dawn, they found them.

  There was a shout across the water from one of the fishing boats, and then another shout as the boat on the intersecting grid saw what they’d seen.

  Immediately every nose of every boat swung into the same point, and Matt and Erin almost fell over the bow in their effort to see.

  When they finally did, the fishing boat that had first seen them had seized the rowing boat with a grappling hook and was trying to haul it alongside.

  Which was easier said than done. The grappling hook was too short. The rowing boat hit the fishing boat with a sickening crunch, the next wave hit before there was time to lower a man to reach the children, and the fishing boat was forced to pull away. If it hadn’t, they ran the risk of crunching the row boat to splinters.

  Floodlights played out over the water. The children were crouched low in the boat, clinging to each other in terror.

  Rob pulled the police launch in close, but it was so rough he could do nothing. Half filled with water, the old wooden boat was threatening to capsize with every movement. And the twins didn’t look up. The men’s shouts and the noise of the engines over the roar of the sea was only increasing their terror.

  It was too much for Erin. Before anyone could stop her-before anyone could even realise what she intended-she’d grabbed a lifevest and jumped into the water.

  One second later, Matt followed.

  It took Erin precious minutes to clamber into the rowing boat, and she’d darn near capsized it as she did. But she was born and bred by the sea. The Douglas children had always had boats, mostly home-made by themselves, and there were always too many children in them. She was an expert in keeping old tubs afloat.

  And blessedly her self-taught skills didn’t let her down. By the time Matt’s head appeared, dripping, as he clung to the side, she was holding her two little boys to her as if her life depended on it, and she was able to move backwards to stabilise the boat and let Matt haul himself on board.

  And then she had the sense to shift again to the middle. So that once he was safely on board, Matt could take all of them into his arms. It was sandwich squeeze of half-drowned adults and kids, who held each other as if they’d never let each other go again. Forever.

  Around them the flotilla of fishermen and
police watched with blatant approval and the odd goofy smile. This was the happy ending they’d all wanted so badly.

  They should move. They should get the old tub into the lee of the harbour so they could shift the kids out of it.

  They should.

  But for this moment, no one moved at all. It was as if everyone knew that, right there and then, a family was being forged that would take more power than the sea to split asunder.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  THE children were asleep.

  Shocked to the core, they’d been held tight while ropes from the fishing boat tugged them slowly and safely back into the lee of the harbour. Once there, they were transferred to the police launch, William clinging for dear life to Erin, and Henry clinging just as closely to Matt. Then they’d been dried off and brought home.

  Charlotte wasn’t waiting.

  ‘I said a few unforgivable things to Charlotte,’ Matt told Erin briefly, as they put the twins through a warm bath and snuggled them into bed-the same bed-and watched them fall instantly asleep with their precious Tigger between them. ‘I don’t suppose she’ll be back.’

  ‘Oh, Matt, I’m so sorry.’

  ‘Don’t be. I’ve been a fool, and I’ve been blessed to get out of it as lightly as I have.’

  And now, dried and dressed themselves, they were standing in the living room watching the embers of Charlotte’s fire die in the grate. The first rays of dawn were breaking over the horizon out to sea.

  Erin still hadn’t bought herself a decent dressing gown. She was still wearing her huge flannelette welfare handout that made her look about ten years old, and, watching her, Matt thought back to the moment when he’d seen Erin dive from the boat.

  Something in him had almost died in that moment. For one awful minute until she surfaced, he’d thought he might lose all of them.

  He couldn’t bear it. And he couldn’t bear to waste another precious minute.

  ‘Marry me, Erin,’ he said, and the world held its breath.

  She stared. ‘M… Marry you?’

  ‘That’s what I said.’ He took the two short steps to bridge the space between them, and he pulled her to him. Somehow he couldn’t bear not to, and as her soft body yielded to his he knew that he could never let her go again.

  Dear God, he loved her so much. How had he not known it before? He loved her and loved her and loved her.

  But she was pushing him away, and her eyes were troubled. ‘Matt, it’s just the night. It’s shock or something. You love Charlotte.’

  ‘I don’t love Charlotte.’ He glanced down at the beautifully polished coffee table and there was a diamond ring, lying where she’d tossed it in indignation at what he’d said to her. ‘And she doesn’t love me,’ he continued. ‘You see? She’s given me back my ring. Not that I want it.’

  ‘So now you…’ Erin paused, still troubled. ‘You want me to wear it?’

  He shook his head at that, absolutely definite. ‘No way.’ Suddenly his arms were holding her again, and a woman would have to have super powers to resist his hold.

  ‘Not that,’ he said. ‘Charlotte can have it if she wants it, but you’re not wearing her ring. You and Charlotte…you’re about as different as two women could be and I was a fool to see it. Erin, I love you. The ring we buy, we buy together, and it’ll be a ring full of colour and light. Just like you. Sapphires and rubies and… I don’t know. Everything. All the colour you’ve brought into my life.’

  Dear heaven… Somewhere deep inside, Erin’s heart was starting to sing.

  But not now. Not yet. She couldn’t!

  ‘Matt…’

  He kissed her lightly on her damp hair, and then, because he could resist no longer, he tilted her chin and kissed her deeply on her mouth. The kiss lasted forever, and was a vow all by itself.

  ‘Yes, love?’ he said, and his voice was a husky whisper, filled with passion.

  ‘Matt…’ She was trying so hard to make herself say what had to be said. She must! Tonight she’d known. As well as loving this man, she had other loves. ‘Matt, I can’t leave the twins.’

  Was that all that was troubling her? With a shout of triumph, he lifted her high and whirled her above his head. ‘The twins? You think I don’t love the twins like I’ll love my own children? They’re part of you, my love. A package deal. It’s all or nothing, and I want it all!’

  ‘You…’ She was swinging dizzily off her feet. ‘You mean you’ll adopt the twins?’

  ‘We’ll adopt the twins,’ he said simply, and looking down into his gorgeous, loving eyes she knew at last that he spoke the truth. Here then was her happy ever after ending.

  Here was her home.

  He set her down on her feet, and his voice became surer. He took her hands in his, and their eyes locked.

  ‘So you’ll marry me?’ he asked.

  Yes, her heart screamed but there were things that needed to be said. It was only fair to warn him.

  ‘Matt, your life will be chaos.’

  ‘I’ve discovered I love chaos.’

  ‘But you love your mother’s lovely things!’ She looked around the room. ‘This carpet… The porcelain… There’ll be accidents. I know the kids. We won’t be able to keep the house to the standards you like.’

  The answer to that was easy. He lifted one piece of porcelain-a droopy Romeo and Juliet, for heaven’s sake-and let it drop. It hit the grate and smashed into a thousand pieces. Then, as Erin gasped in horror, he grabbed the blackened poker from the fire. Very deliberately he walked across the room and drew in huge letters on the once pristine carpet.

  MATT LOVES ERIN!

  ‘Matt!’ She was shocked to the core. ‘That’s vandalism. If you were mine, I’d spank you.’

  ‘Hmm…’ His loving eyes mocked a challenge. ‘You want to try?’

  ‘Matt McKay!’

  ‘Erin Douglas,’ he teased right back. ‘Now, will you marry me, or do I have to smash every piece of porcelain in the place before you agree?’

  ‘We’d be much better packing it up as a wedding present for Charlotte and Bradley,’ Erin said seriously, and Matt gave a whoop of pure joy.

  ‘Very practical.’ She was in his arms again. ‘Very sensible. You’re my own gorgeous, sensible, crazy, House Mother. My love. My heart. My Erin. Now… Are you going to admit that you’ll marry me? Or am I going to have to kiss you senseless, and keep right on kissing you until you finally grow so weak you agree?’

  And what was a girl to say to that?

  ‘Yes, please,’ she said. ‘If only to stop you kissing me senseless.’

  ‘I have news for you,’ he told her. ‘I intend to do that anyway!’

  Marion Lennox

  ***

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