Expecting Miracle Twins

by Barbara Hannay

  Jake blinked, dragged his mind into gear. ‘Er…do you mean the traditional food of the locals, or what we eat on the mine site?’

  ‘Both, I guess.’

  ‘Our cook serves mainly western food, but the Mongolians eat mutton. Loads of mutton. They even drink the mutton fat. It’s no place for vegetarians.’

  Mattie wrinkled her nose. ‘I rather like Mongolian lamb.’

  ‘The meals in Asian restaurants here in Sydney are nothing like the mutton eaten out on the steppe.’

  Mattie accepted this with a shrug. ‘Do you live in barracks, or one of those little round tents?’

  ‘I have a tent. They call it a ger.’

  ‘It sounds rather primitive.’

  ‘Actually, gers aren’t too bad. The walls are made out of layers of felt and they’re quite snug. In winter we have a stove for heating and in summer we can roll up the sides for ventilation.’

  ‘It’s a very different world, isn’t it?’ she said, glancing out through a window to the city lights.

  ‘That’s part of the attraction for me. Then again, I grew up in a remote part of the Outback, so I suppose that made it easier for me to fit in.’

  Her blue eyes challenged him. ‘Why do you work there?’

  Jake had been asked this question before, but suddenly, when Mattie asked him, he wished he had higher motives. There was no point, however, in trying to pretend he was a paragon of virtue.

  ‘I’m footloose and fancy free,’ he said, aware that his jaw was jutting at a defensive angle. ‘And the job offered a chance to see a really different part of the world. But the big drawcard is that it pays very well.’

  He expected to read disapproval in her eyes. To his surprise, she smiled. ‘And when you’re on leave you can party hard.’

  ‘Mostly.’

  The obvious fact that he’d been partying when Mattie had arrived on his doorstep and the equally obvious fact that he was nowhere near a party right now was not something Jake wanted to analyse too closely.

  ‘Tell me more about your paintings,’ he said quickly to change the subject.

  Mattie dismissed this with a graceful wave of her hand. ‘They’re just illustrations for a children’s book.’

  ‘Do you plan to write the story as well?’

  She nodded.

  ‘Have you been published?’

  ‘Uh-huh. I’ve had three books published so far.’

  ‘No kidding?’ He knew his eyes were wide with surprise. ‘That’s terrific. I’ve never met an author.’

  ‘Most people don’t think of me as a real author. They assume that children’s stories are incredibly easy to write.’

  ‘How could they be easy, when they’re created entirely out of your imagination? And you don’t just write the stories, you do the illustrations as well. Aren’t children supposed to be the harshest critics of all?’

  She nodded and smiled, clearly pleased by his enthusiasm.

  ‘What are your stories about?’

  Now Mattie looked embarrassed. ‘Nothing you’d be interested in.’ She poked her chopsticks into the noodles at the bottom of her bowl.

  ‘Try me.’

  ‘Don’t laugh,’ she ordered.

  ‘Wouldn’t dream of it.’

  ‘They’re about a little girl called Molly.’ Carefully, she laid the chopsticks across her bowl and sat back, arms folded.

  ‘And…’ Jake prompted.

  ‘Molly’s actually a white witch and, when her parents aren’t looking, she has all sorts of adventures. She goes around doing secret good deeds and terrific acts of heroism.’

  Just like her creator, Jake thought, and suddenly he was struggling to hide his amusement.

  Mattie’s eyes blazed. ‘I knew you’d laugh.’

  ‘I’m not laughing.’ Why couldn’t he stop smiling? ‘Honestly. I’m seriously impressed. I’m sure Molly’s stories are very popular.’

  ‘They seem to be.’ Mattie sniffed, then rolled her eyes, as if she hoped he would drop the subject.

  To make amends, Jake said quickly, ‘Would you like to go somewhere for coffee?’

  She almost glared at him. ‘Don’t you have other plans?’

  Across the table their gazes met, and held. Mattie’s eyes were very blue and steady and Jake had the distinct impression she was about to decline his invitation. Which was wise, wasn’t it? After all, they weren’t planning to hook up. To go on somewhere else for coffee implied taking another step—in completely the wrong direction.

  Before he could think of a way to extricate himself from this trap of his own making, Mattie smiled slowly.

  ‘Coffee sounds good,’ she said and her smile deepened, revealing an enchanting dimple. ‘Your place or mine?’

  He couldn’t help returning her smile. She was cleverly letting him off the hook, placing them back on their correct footing. As flatmates. For one more day.

  ‘Try my place,’ he said smoothly. ‘It’s very handy—just around the corner.’

  A breeze was blowing in from the harbour and it buffeted them as they walked home, making it hard to talk. When they reached the flat, Brutus was as eager to see Jake as he was to see Mattie. Jake laughed as he gave the little dog a scratch behind his silky ears.

  Mattie offered to get the coffee started, but she wasn’t at all surprised when Jake announced that perhaps he would go into the city for a bit, after all. She wasn’t surprised, but she was disappointed, which was utterly silly. She knew she didn’t want to get involved with him. But she also knew she was the kind of girl men left behind when something better came along.

  She waved him off with a bright smile. ‘Have a good evening.’

  ‘You too.’

  ‘And if you take Roy out tomorrow, I hope you have a good time.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  Jake paused on the front step and looked back at her as she lifted a hand to hold back her windblown hair. She twisted a strand lightly around one finger and tucked it behind her ear. There was nothing flirtatious about the gesture, but Jake seemed to be transfixed. His gaze scalded her as he stared at her hand, and then at her hair, at her ear.

  His interest was so intense that Mattie couldn’t breathe. She swayed against the door frame and her legs threatened to give way. She’d never really understood what swooning involved, but she was certain that if Jake had touched her at that moment she would most definitely have swooned.

  But Jake gave a slight shake of his head and the possibility vanished. ‘Would you come?’ he asked.

  ‘Pardon?’ Mattie felt dizzy and confused. What was he asking? Surely he wasn’t inviting her to go out with him for a fun-filled night on the town?

  ‘Tomorrow,’ he said with a smile. ‘When I take Roy out, will you come too?’

  Whoosh! It was like having a bucket of cold water dumped on her head. A chilling dash of reality. Now Mattie knew without a shadow of a doubt that Jake hadn’t followed her to the café tonight because he liked her new hairdo, or the way she looked in her best silk blouse. He hadn’t shared a table with her because he fancied her.

  And he wasn’t interested in taking her out now. The unflattering truth was—Jake was the same as everyone else in Mattie’s life—he needed her help.

  Sooner or later, everyone turned to Mattie Carey for help, but this time, for her emotional health, she knew she must say no. She shook her head. ‘Sorry.’

  He frowned at her. ‘Don’t tell me you have another appointment. What is it this time? A manicure?’

  She looked down at her hands. ‘I…I need to get on with my book.’

  ‘Couldn’t you spare just one day, Mattie?’

  His dark eyes were shining with sincerity, but she refused to be taken in. After one meal with him, she was already a mess. If she spent a whole day in his company, she would fall completely under his spell, and that was unwise. It was worse than that. It was ridiculous. Perilous.

  She’d tried one long-distance relationship and she was still flinching at th
e memory almost three years later. She never wanted to embark on another, especially not now when she was on the verge of becoming pregnant with someone else’s baby.

  ‘It would be a pity if you couldn’t make it,’ Jake said, watching her closely. ‘I know Roy would really enjoy your company.’

  At the mention of Roy she started to weaken. Poor old fellow. Was she making a mountain out of a molehill? Jake was simply asking for help to entertain an old man. How could she try to read romance into that?

  And, after all, helping people was what she did best.

  Behind her back, she crossed her fingers and hoped she wasn’t making a really bad mistake. ‘All right,’ she said. ‘I’ll come for Roy’s sake.’

  As soon as Jake left, Mattie spread out her art things and started on another illustration for her book. This was to be a double-page spread and she wanted to create a scene with Molly at her bedroom window, looking out at the city at night.

  She would show Molly and her cat silhouetted against the yellow light of the bedroom window. There would be houses dotted through the night, all with brightly lit windows. Through the windows, she would show glimpses of people who needed Molly’s help. A sick child, a lonely old woman, a lost kitten.

  In her head, Mattie knew exactly how this illustration should look, but tonight something wasn’t gelling. She couldn’t slip into the ‘zone’—into the happy, creative space that usually cocooned her from the rest of the world while she lost herself in her work.

  Tonight Jake Devlin-size thoughts kept intruding. She couldn’t stop thinking about him, kept seeing the way he’d looked at her when she’d innocently fiddled with her hair. She was sure she’d never forget the heart-in-mouth connection she’d felt, as if they were suddenly, perfectly in tune.

  She was sure that if she’d been any other girl Jake would have kissed her then, but of course he hadn’t. Instead, the astonishing vibe that passed between them had remained unacknowledged. And there wasn’t much point in trying to read anything into it. Even if there had been a momentary spark with Jake, Mattie had learned not to trust such feelings.

  For years she’d wondered if she would ever fall in love. There’d been a high school crush, but that had only lasted one term before she’d been unceremoniously ‘dropped’. She’d taken a long time to get over that blow to her self-esteem and, in the years that followed, she’d dated the occasional local boy but there’d been no one special.

  Then, three and a half years ago, a hot-looking stranger had arrived in Willowbank.

  Pete from Perth had a cute smile and he’d ambled into her parents’ hardware store and set his cap at Mattie and swept her completely off her feet. She’d been crazy about him and when he’d returned to Western Australia she’d taken the long flight over there to stay with him. She had done this every month for seven months and Pete had helped to pay for her fare. She’d felt very worldly and sophisticated. And needed.

  Pete had promised her the world…well, a diamond ring and a white wedding, a house in the suburbs plus two children…which was everything that Mattie had wanted. But then the day had come when Pete had rung from Perth and Mattie had heard the difference in his voice.

  Something had happened.

  When he’d suggested that the air fares to Perth were too expensive for her to keep flying over, it had been dead easy to start putting two and two together. But she’d been too scared to ask the crucial questions. She hadn’t wanted to hear the answers.

  Finally, however, Pete had sent her a text message:

  Sorry, I need to check out of this wedding. It’s not you, baby, it’s me.

  She’d rung back in a blind panic and heard the truth she’d desperately feared. Yes, he’d found someone else and could she return the engagement ring by registered mail?

  That had been nearly three years ago.

  Mattie’s heart hadn’t just broken, it had shattered and bled. And she’d felt such a loser. So ashamed. Ashamed that she’d fallen for a guy so cowardly he’d called off his wedding via a text message.

  And she was ashamed that everyone—yes, literally everyone in Willowbank—had known about her wedding plans. From the mayor down to the butcher’s apprentice, the whole town knew she’d been dumped. Not only had her pride been hurt, however. She’d lost faith—in men, in herself, in the romantic twaddle everyone called love.

  Her friends had tried to tell her that she shouldn’t see this as a failure. Easy for them to say. They hadn’t been a hair’s breadth from happily-ever-after and then discarded by remote control.

  Mattie thought it was perfectly reasonable that she’d given up on her foolish dream of a husband and family. Utterly logical that she’d retreated from the dating circus and hadn’t had a boyfriend since. It was far safer to care for people and find countless ways to be helpful than to risk another train wreck for her heart.

  Next morning, however, Mattie was pleased she’d agreed to visit Roy. She took one look at his twinkling blue eyes and she liked him instantly. He had thinning hair, carefully combed over his sun-spotted scalp, a wiry body and thin legs, bandy from a lifetime spent astride a horse, but there was something lived-in about him that made her feel very comfortable as they shook hands.

  Impulsively, she gave him a hug. Then she saw the shining joy in Roy’s eyes when he greeted Jake, and a fresh coil of happiness warmed her heart.

  ‘You must be keen to get out of here, mate,’ Jake told Roy lightly. ‘You came bolting out of that door like a racehorse out of the starting gate.’

  ‘I didn’t want to waste a minute.’ Roy’s pale blue eyes were shining with the wicked glee of a schoolboy planning to skip school. ‘The nursing mafia ganged up on me,’ he told them. ‘They reckon I can only stay out for two hours.’

  ‘What happens if you’re not back in time?’ Jake asked. ‘Do you turn into a pumpkin?’

  ‘More likely Prince Charming.’ Roy laughed and gave Mattie a wink.

  He wasn’t walking too steadily, and she quickly offered her arm for support as he made his way to the car.

  ‘Thank you, sweetheart,’ he said, but then he shot a gimlet glance Jake’s way. ‘How did a black-hearted rascal like you find this lovely lass?’

  Mattie held her breath and watched Jake’s face. She wondered how he would answer this. He would be as keen as she was to make sure that Roy didn’t jump to the wrong conclusion about them. He was unlikely to say, Oh, Mattie turned up on my doorstep. Or, We’re sharing a flat. But how else could he explain?

  She needn’t have worried. Clearly, Jake was more practised at coming up with smooth answers to awkward questions than she was. ‘Mattie and I met through a mutual friend,’ he said with a slow smile that did not include her. ‘One of my mates from Mongolia comes from the same country town as Mattie.’

  ‘Where’s that?’ Roy asked and Mattie silently congratulated Jake for managing to steer the conversation in a safe direction.

  ‘A little town called Willowbank,’ she told him. ‘West of the Blue Mountains.’

  Roy was delighted. ‘So you’re a country girl.’

  ‘Born and bred.’

  ‘I knew it.’

  Roy might have waxed lyrical about the superior charms of country girls, but they’d reached the car. Mattie suggested that Jake should drive and that Roy should have the front passenger seat because it was easier for him to get in and out, and she insisted that she was perfectly happy in the back.

  As Jake drove out of the nursing home’s carefully manicured grounds he said, ‘Mattie and I planned a ferry trip on the harbour, but I don’t think we’ll have time for that if you only have a couple of hours. Is there somewhere else you’d like to go?’

  They’d emerged onto the busy main road and Roy peered through the windscreen at the expanse of red-roofed houses with television aerials and powerlines. He squinted at the busy lanes of traffic zooming up and down. ‘I don’t s’pose there’s a park nearby? Somewhere with a little patch of bushland?’

  ‘Sur
e to be,’ Jake asserted confidently. ‘We’ll keep our eyes peeled.’

  ‘If all else fails, we could go to the Botanical Gardens,’ Mattie suggested. ‘But, I must admit, I don’t know much about the parks here. I’m not very familiar with Sydney.’

  ‘Now, if you were looking for pubs,’ said Jake, ‘I’d be your man.’

  But they were in luck and they found a leafy park quite quickly.

  Pleased with themselves, they helped Roy out of the car, and the old man stood with his hands on his hips and looked about him at the smooth sweep of lawns dotted with picnic tables and chairs, at the gas-fired barbecues and big shade trees, carefully pruned to give a clear view beneath them. He looked at the ornamental lake, where young mothers and toddlers were feeding ducks. Then he tipped his head back and stared up at the clear blue sky and drew in a deep breath.

  ‘What do you reckon?’ Jake asked with a hopeful smile.

  Roy looked about him again and he nodded slowly. ‘It’s nice.’

  Mattie could see the wistful sadness in his face.

  ‘But it’s not what you hoped,’ Jake suggested carefully.

  Roy’s face pulled into a worried grimace. ‘It’s…it’s all very tidy, isn’t it?’

  Mattie laughed to ease the tension. ‘You want proper bush—straggly gum trees with fallen branches and knee-high dry grass, don’t you, Roy?’

  He smiled sheepishly. ‘S’pose I do.’

  ‘And you want to be able to smell eucalyptus leaves.’

  Roy nodded.

  ‘And to boil a billy over a campfire.’

  ‘Don’t get carried away, Mattie,’ Jake warned, signalling frowning looks over Roy’s head. ‘There’s no way we can do all that here.’

  But Mattie was already thinking ahead. This was her very favourite situation. She was never happier than when she detected a need in someone—an almost impossible need—and then figured out a way to meet it. The impulse had begun as a game when she was very young—anticipating a simple need her mother might have, like knowing, without being asked, whether to pick beans or peas from the garden.

  It had been easy for Mattie because she knew her mother’s habits—beans with beef and peas with lamb—but her mother would exclaim with delight when she discovered the peas in the colander, already shelled, or the beans topped and tailed.