His Miracle Bride

He took a couple of moments to admire the view. Hell, he missed women. Twelve months now of enforced celibacy. Twelve months down and how many to go?

Not months. Years. What had he let himself in for?

‘You want a whisky?’ he asked the butt, and the butt stilled.

‘A whisky?’

‘Don’t say it like I’m the local lush,’ he said. ‘I allow myself one whisky when all the kids are in bed. Surely a man can have that without being accused of child neglect?’

‘Hey, I didn’t say…’ She was backing out of the refrigerator, butt wiggling.

‘You didn’t have to say. You were implying.’

‘Actually I wasn’t,’ she said, sitting up and wiping a strand of wilting lettuce from her nose. ‘I wasn’t implying anything. I was about to say that a whisky would be very nice indeed. And if it turns into two then I’m not going to report anyone to Social Welfare. Just so long as I can share.’

She smiled.

He stared. It was the cutest smile. Wide and white and cheerful, green eyes dancing behind it.

Hey, cut it out. This was not appropriate.

Hell, he’d lost sense of what was appropriate or not. He ran his fingers through his hair again—yeah, he’d meant to get a haircut but when was there ever time? Then he decided he was staring at her and wondering about haircuts when he should be pouring whisky.

He turned on his heel and headed for the living room. He poured two decent tumblers, decided ice was for sissies and headed back to the kitchen.

She was still on the floor.

‘You want to sit at the table?’

‘If I get up I might never get down again.’

‘The fridge can wait. You’ve done so much cleaning I’m feeling like a—’ He hesitated. He didn’t know what he felt like, he thought. Out of control? Yeah, maybe even more out of control than when his house had been full of dirty dishes.

‘You must really miss your wife.’

He’d reached down to give her a hand up. He stilled and Shanni stared at his hand, shrugged and heaved herself up. He shook himself.

‘Sorry.’

‘Hey, don’t apologize. I only lost my boyfriend and I’m doing dumb things, like not contacting my parents and making sure they hadn’t changed the locks before I come all the way to Australia.’

‘They’ve changed the locks?’

‘And put in tenants,’ she said grimly. ‘You’d think a daughter would know.’

‘You’re not close?’

‘See, there’s the thing,’ she said, sitting at the table and taking her first sip of whisky. She wrinkled her nose in appreciation. ‘I thought we were. I phone once a week. You’d think changing locks would be something they’d mention.’

‘I…I guess.’

‘Sorry.’ She took another sip. ‘We were talking about you. Your wife.’

‘You lost your boyfriend?’

‘He didn’t die,’ she said darkly. ‘More’s the pity.’

‘Right,’ he said, distracted. She looked really cute when she talked darkly. ‘So you just lost him?’

‘He went to bed with a model.’ She glowered some more. ‘In my bed. And then when I threw ice water over the pair of them he went out and spent our shared credit card to the hilt, and he isn’t even sorry.’

She glowered at the absent boyfriend and model. ‘But we’re talking about you. You and the five kids and the dead wife and Social Welfare. I’ve never seen such a mess.’

‘Thank you.’

She blinked. Then she put the whisky very carefully on the table.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I’ve had a long day. I landed in Sydney at five this morning. I took a cab to my parents’ and found they’d absquatulated. So I took my dad’s car and drove to my girlfriend’s apartment, to find a bedsit smaller than a shoebox. Then I remembered Ruby’s letter and rang you and asked if you still wanted a housekeeper, and you said yes, it’d be fine if I came straight away, so I ended up here. To find you’d absquatulated as well.’

‘Absquatulated?’ he said, distracted.

‘Taken yourself off to points unknown, generally leaving a mess behind. My mother’s a linguistics professor. Get over it.’

‘Right,’ he said, feeling dazed. ‘I didn’t…absquatulate.’

‘You just went to sleep.’

‘I’ve said I’m sorry.’

‘The kids were terrified. They were thinking they’d get carted off to care.’ She wrinkled her nose some more, perplexed. ‘See, that’s the part I don’t get. Why is Welfare so interested in you? Have you done something awful? I mean, today was appalling, but that sort of mess happens in the best families. If I told you how many times my parents forgot me…Anyway, that’s beside the point. I understand your wife dying was awful but Social Welfare isn’t usually a monster.’ She paused, thinking things through.

‘You know, unless things are really dire, the authorities don’t take kids from parents. I can’t see them dragging children off to foster care just cos their dad went to sleep in the sun after a night with a sick baby.’

‘No. I…’

‘So have you done something ghastly? I mean, not that you’d confess. But I’ve been scrubbing the fridge and thinking that I should just leave. Except that I’m broke and I don’t have anywhere to go. Except Aunt Ruby’s.’

‘You don’t want to go to Ruby’s?’ He was having trouble keeping up.

‘Ruby has macramé meetings in her kitchen every weekday morning. She’s offered to teach me. And she says she has to get your permission anyway if she wants to have me for more than just a couple of weeks. Which is weird.’ She hesitated. ‘But you’re sidetracking me. I keep thinking of Wendy. Wendy like she was when I arrived. Terrified. Expecting the worst. There must be something horribly wrong for her to look like that. I don’t know what it is, and maybe I should leave, but I’ve decided I need to figure it out. Because now I’m hooked. If you’re hurting these kids I’ll—’

‘You’ll what?’

‘I don’t know,’ she confessed. ‘I can’t figure out why they’re terrified. Because the way you cuddle Bessy…You even seem nice.’

‘Thank you.’

‘You know what I mean. You look normal.’

‘Yet I was a fifteen-year-old in a pinstripe suit when first you met me.’

‘You’re distracting me.’ She looked at his whisky glass. He looked at it too.

‘You do think I’m a drinker.’

‘Hey, I just wondered. I mean, if I had five kids and a dead wife I might crack as well. And it would explain.’

‘It explains nothing.’

‘Then you need to give me some other explanation,’ she said. ‘Because I want to know why your kids are terrified.’

He stared into his whisky glass.

‘Tell me or I retreat to macramé.’

His eyes flew to hers. He expected to see laughter, but he didn’t. She was deadly serious.

She really cared, he thought. She was worried about these kids.

The sensation was so novel that he blinked.

‘There’s a simple explanation,’ he said, meeting her look head on.

‘Which is?’

‘These aren’t my kids. They’re nothing to do with me. Until twelve months ago I’d never seen any of them before in my life.’

CHAPTER THREE

THERE was a long pause. Shanni had pulled open the fire door of the oven, to let the warmth of the flames give comfort to a kitchen that was only just warming up. The fire crackled behind them. He should put music on or something, he thought inconsequentially. The atmosphere was too intimate.

Maybe music would make it worse.

‘They’re not your kids,’ she said at last. She wasn’t taking her eyes off him, seemingly ready to judge by how he looked as well as what he said.

‘No,’ he said. There was nothing else to say.

‘I did wonder,’ she said mildly. ‘They don’t look like you. They keep forgetting to call you “Dad”. And they didn’t know if you had Abba.’

‘Abba?’

‘Never mind. I thought maybe they’d been calling you “Pierce” and you’d made them change for the welfare people.’

‘I made them change for the welfare people.’

‘But…’ She sighed. She downed the dregs of her whisky, looked at the bottle and sighed again. ‘I’ve got jet lag and a muddled head,’ she confessed. ‘Don’t give me any more whisky.’

‘And Bessy’s likely to be up in the night.’ He rose and took the whisky bottle into the next room, returned and closed the door firmly behind him. They both looked at the door with longing. But no. They were mature adults, and there were no answers in a whisky bottle.

‘I’ll make coffee,’ he said and she nodded. Mature adults. Coffee. Right.

‘You’d better tell me,’ she said, while he fiddled with cups and kettle and instant coffee. Instant. She’d come from the coffee centre of the world. Agh.

‘I married their mother,’ he said.

‘Right.’ She thought about it. ‘So Bessy’s yours?’

‘No.’

‘So Bessy’s not yours.’

‘They’re none of them mine.’

‘So when did you marry their mother?’

‘Seven months ago. Just after Bessy was born. Three weeks before Maureen died.’

‘Oh,’ she said in a small voice. ‘I see.’

‘Do you?’ He sounded angry. He had his back to her but she could hear tension and anger—and resentment.

‘Hey, I cleaned your fridge,’ she said. ‘I’m the patsy in this set-up.’

Anger faded. His shoulders shook—just a little. ‘The patsy?’

‘The pig in the middle. The girl with the soggy cucumber. Shoot around me, but not at me.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘That’s better,’ she said approvingly as he carried mugs of coffee across to the table. He really was good looking, she thought absently. And that hair was so ruffled. She could just reach over and touch it…

Cut it out, she told herself fiercely. What is it with you and long-haired men?

‘Tell me about Maureen,’ she said instead and took a mouthful of coffee, swallowing regrets about a magnificent coffee maker she’d left behind in London. Okay, it was Michael’s, but it had been bought with her credit card and it made the best coffee. And that rat…

She wasn’t thinking clearly.

‘Maureen,’ she said again, and Pierce looked confused.

‘Look, I’m jet lagged,’ she said. ‘I’m not making sense to me.’

‘You suddenly looked a long way away.’

‘I was mourning coffee. Tell me about Maureen.’

‘She was my foster sister sort of.’

There was a pause. Sort of foster sister. Hmm.

‘Ruby only fosters boys.’

‘You think I’m telling lies?’

‘I’m not thinking anything,’ she said. ‘Thinking hurts.’

‘She’s great, your aunt Ruby.’

‘She’s lovely to everyone.’

‘I guess.’

Whoops. ‘I’m sorry,’ Shanni said repentantly. ‘I dare say you and Ruby have a lovely, personalized, meaningful relationship and I wouldn’t dream of disparaging it.’

He choked on his coffee.

‘She’s a bit…batty,’ he said, and Shanni grinned.

‘We’re together on that one. But you’d better tell me the rest.’

‘It’s not much use.’

‘You want me to finish the refrigerator?’

‘I…’

‘Okay, I’ll finish the refrigerator anyway,’ she said, and gave him a rueful smile. ‘I’m a sucker for a job well done. But tell me or I’ll bust.’ She pulled up a spare kitchen chair, put her feet up, had a couple of sips of coffee—ugh—and forced herself to relax. ‘You’re one of Ruby’s strays. That must have been hard.’

‘I guess.’ He shook his head. ‘No. I had a mother who didn’t want me but wouldn’t put me up for adoption. The times with Ruby were not the hard times. You come from a nice normal family.’

‘Are you kidding?’

‘Well, a family with a mum and a dad, and I’d imagine you were wanted.’

She thought of her eccentric parents and she grinned. ‘Yep. They wanted me. They weren’t quite sure what to do with me when they got me—they still aren’t—but they wanted me.’

‘I was a mistake.’

She looked at his stern face. There was a curl dripping over his left eye. She could just…

Cut it out!

‘You were a mistake?

‘My mother got pregnant during an affair with a very wealthy man. She thought getting pregnant would force him to marry her. She was wrong.’

‘Oh.’

‘And he denied everything. I can imagine my mother might have been a bit…’ He sighed. ‘Anyway, there wasn’t DNA testing back then. She was screwed. So she put me into foster care, but every time she started a relationship she pulled me out again. To play happy families. And one of those relationships included Maureen.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘No, well…’ He shrugged. ‘You have no idea what drop kicks my mother used to fall for. Jack was maybe the worst. But he had a kid, too. Maureen. He ended up abandoning her, but when he met my mother Maureen was nine and I was seven.’

‘So?’ Shanni prodded. He looked like he was a long way away—remembering. He was staring straight through her. Now he gave himself a slight shake, as if tugging himself back to now.

‘Okay. Dreary story. Jack was a sadist, but my mother thought everything he did was wonderful. So we were at his mercy. But Maureen was older and a bit harder than me. And for some reason she decided she liked me.’ He shrugged. ‘Okay, let’s be honest. I loved the idea of having a big sister, and she thought having a brother was cool. It wasn’t like we had anything else.’

The words chilled her and she winced, but Pierce didn’t notice. He was seeing back, a long time ago.

‘She was there for me,’ he said softly. ‘It was the longest of any of my mother’s relationships. We were together two years. And every time he…’ Once more a shrug. ‘Well, she was always there for me. She’d fly at Jack like a tigress, biting, scratching, yelling. She’d end up as badly beaten as me but it got so…Well, he knew when he raised a hand to me he had us both to contend with, and it helped.’

‘Oh, hooray for Maureen,’ Shanni said shakily, and Pierce nodded, faintly smiling.

‘She was great.’

‘And then?’

‘Then my mother and Jack split, and we were put in different foster homes. We tried to stay in touch,’ he said sadly. ‘Maureen used to write. Every six months or so I’d get a scrawly letter telling me what she was doing in her life. Then when we reached adulthood the letters ceased. The last letter said she’d met the man of her dreams and was moving to Perth.’

‘But he wasn’t? The man of her dreams?’

‘Who’d know?’ Pierce said bitterly. ‘All I do know is that Maureen was wild as be damned. From what I’ve learned since, she seemed bent on self-destruction.’

‘Drugs?’ Shanni thought of the five children. ‘No…’

‘She didn’t do drugs. That would have been suicide. She was diabetic.’

‘Oh.’

‘She just wanted kids,’ Pierce said wearily. ‘All her life she wanted a family—maybe that was why she was so defensive of me—and she was going to get a family no matter how much it took.’

‘But the diabetes…’

‘That’s what I meant about self-destruction. Every time she got pregnant her body seemed to disintegrate. Only she just couldn’t seem to stop herself.’ He hesitated. ‘She’d meet some lowlife and think he was the answer to her prayers and end up pregnant.’

‘But not with you?’

‘She’d been in Western Australia,’ he said. ‘We’d lost touch completely. Only then, just under a year ago, she came to find me. I was doing very nicely as an architect in Sydney. I’d bought this place as a weekender. I’m a confirmed bachelor, and I was pretty content with what life was dealing me.’

‘But?’

‘But Maureen’s kidneys were failing. She was pregnant and refusing to terminate, but she’d been told the pregnancy would destroy what was left of her kidneys. She sat in my office in Sydney and she told me everything about her life. She spelled it all out, and she asked for my help. She hated asking, but she was desperate.’

‘Oh Pierce.’

‘Maureen was so ill she was facing having to have the children fostered. She couldn’t bear subjecting them to the life she’d had. She’d brought it on herself but, well, maybe I could see what was driving her. And, while she was talking, that time…the times she took the beating for me came back. I didn’t have a choice. There’s a dialysis unit at Murribah, half an hour north of here. I offered her a home here for as long as she needed.’

Silence. She stared across the table at him for a long, long moment. Then she smiled. ‘I always thought you were a nice boy,’ she said warmly. ‘Despite the pinstripes.’

He smiled back, but it cost him a bit, that smile. It was hard for him to tell this story, she thought.

‘Okay. Moving on. You asked for the whole story so you’ll get it. I was already having trouble with the neighbours here. What I didn’t realize when I bought this place was that one of the bidders was a huge dairy corporation. They’d been looking for a site for their new factory, which would have meant the locals didn’t have to pay cartage for their milk. But I’d fallen in love with the place and paid more than it was worth. So the factory went somewhere else. Then I’d no sooner taken possession when along came four kids and a mother who looked desperately sick and was pregnant again. I drove a bright yellow sports car when the kids looked starving. Maureen wouldn’t talk to anyone about her background, and no one ever asked me. I’ve been judged and found wanting in just about every respect.’

She swallowed. ‘I’m so sorry.’

‘Don’t be. I’m sorry enough for myself. Anyway, Maureen had Bessy and she grew even more ill. We were hoping against hope for a transplant but it didn’t happen.’

‘So…marriage?’

‘You see, Social Welfare had taken care of these kids before, in periods when Maureen was desperately sick. So the kids were on file. It’s not hard to understand. There are good people in the department who were genuinely worried. Then we had the community bad-mouthing us. Maureen started believing—and maybe she was right—that as soon as she died they’d send the kids to foster homes, regardless of what I wanted.’

‘There are some good—’ she started cautiously, but he was before her.

‘You don’t need to tell me there are some great foster homes,’ Pierce said explosively. ‘Foster parents are some of the best people in the world. Generous, big hearted, taking on all comers even though getting attached comes at the price of having their hearts ripped out over and over.’

‘Goodness,’ she said. ‘Did I hit a nerve?’

He managed an apology for a smile. ‘Yes,’ he said, consciously lowering his voice. ‘Sorry. If I hadn’t had Ruby I’d be in such a mess now. But I was on my own, and these kids aren’t. Despite Maureen’s often incompetent care, they love each other, and they’ll defend each other to the death. They should never be separated, and there’s the problem. You think there’ll be a foster parent who’ll take on five kids?’

‘I guess…Maybe not.’

‘They’d be put into a group home,’ he said. ‘The welfare people told Maureen that, as if it was something good. A house in the community with paid carers. That’s what Maureen couldn’t come to terms with. A series of people employed to care. Maureen hated the idea, and by the time she became desperately sick I hated the idea as well. You’ve seen Wendy. She’s been Maureen’s principal carer for years. It took so long to teach her that I could help. Even now she doesn’t completely trust me. Why should she? But I couldn’t bear…I just couldn’t bear…’

‘So you married their mother.’

‘Yes. We moved fast, in the window of opportunity before Maureen became too ill. We married. I applied to legally adopt them. Maureen filed everything saying she approved, and she assigned me as their legal guardian.’

‘Oh, Pierce.’

‘It’s not noble,’ he said. ‘At least, it wasn’t supposed to be noble. I’m paid ridiculous amounts for the work I do. I thought I’d house the kids, employ a housekeeper, someone to run the farm and come down here on weekends.’

‘But?’

‘Have you any idea how hard it is to find a housekeeper for five kids? In this community? I found a woman who did intermittent babysitting for a while, but the kids hated her and she quit two weeks ago. And now we’ve had chicken pox followed by school holidays. I’m going round the twist.’

‘I see that you are.’

‘And then Ruby said she’d contacted you and persuaded you to give us a try. Hence I’ve had one day of child care, a clean kitchen and a sparky clean fridge. And kids who weren’t taken away from me today. For which I’m eternally grateful.’ He hesitated. ‘Shanni, dare I ask that you’ll stay?’

‘I’m not a housekeeper.’

‘You’re excellent at scrubbing.’

‘That’s only because I’m suffering severe loss of pride. I need to vent my spleen. Scrubbing works.’

‘Ruby says you’re an artist.’

‘I’m not.’

‘No?’

‘I love dabbling with paints. Did you see my cow this afternoon? Perfect, except for one leg looking longer than the others. I measured it. It’s not. It’s perspective, but I can’t work it out.’

‘So you’re an abstract artist?’

‘I did a degree in fine arts. I worked as a curator for a tiny gallery here and an even tinier one in London. Then I scraped up enough money to open my own. It was miniscule, but it was devoted to one particular kind of art that I love. My parents lent me money. I didn’t eat. I put everything into it that I had.’

‘And?’

‘And like I said, I caught my artist boyfriend in bed with one of my models. I tossed ice water on them, and he retaliated by using my credit card to spend a fortune. I had the choice of risking my parents’ money and keeping on trying or bailing out. I bailed out.’

‘Ouch.’ He hesitated. ‘You never tried recovering your money?’

‘He said he’d have me for assault.’

‘I see,’ he said cautiously. ‘So you fled home.’

‘Yep. To you.’

‘And now?’

‘I’ll go to Ruby’s. I’ll get a job somewhere and move on.’

‘But it’d help if you could stay here for a bit while you regroup?’

‘It might,’ she admitted. ‘But I don’t intend to fall in love with these kids.’

‘Of course not.’

‘So don’t even think I might be a long-term proposition.’

‘I’m not looking for a long-term proposition.’

‘I don’t fall for kids. I don’t fall for you.’

Uh-oh. Why had she said that? It had come from nowhere but suddenly it was important that she say it.

He so needed a shave. He looked so vulnerable.

Stop it. She gave herself a sharp metaphoric slap to the side of the head. Do not fall for Pierce MacLachlan because you feel sorry for him.

‘Just because I’m a soft touch…’ she whispered, and he smiled.

‘Two of us. Two soft touches. We’re doomed.’

‘Speak for yourself.’

There was another whimper from above his head, but this time it didn’t stop. It built fast to a wail. He winced, set his coffee mug down with a sigh and rose. ‘She slept for three hours. I can’t expect much more.’

‘What will you do now?’

‘Cuddle her until she goes back to sleep.’

‘Ruby said you’re not getting work done.’

The yells from upstairs were getting more insistent. ‘Define “work”. But I guess it doesn’t matter. I just take one day—one moment—at a time.’ He walked to the door and then paused. ‘Shanni, you’ve helped me enormously today and I’m deeply grateful. If you leave right now I’ll still be grateful. I won’t put any more pressure on you. But you do need a bed for at least tonight?’

‘Wendy showed me her mother’s bedroom. She’d already made up the bed.’

‘Wendy wants you to stay.’ He put up his hands in mock defence. ‘I know. I said no pressure.’ He raised his gaze to the ceiling. ‘Okay, Bessy, I’m coming. We’ll leave Shanni here to make up her mind.’

‘I…I’ll think about it.’

‘Please.’

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