A Millionaire For Molly

CHAPTER SIX

IT WAS a magic meal. A magic night. They ate their fill and then took Sam down for a paddle in the shallows. The child had spent very little time at the beach in his life. Despite Jackson’s reassuring presence he was still wary of the water, so Jackson and Molly held him between them and did one-two-three-jumps over the waves until they were all exhausted.

And wet.

‘Why didn’t we wear our bathers?’ Molly demanded as they paused for breath. ‘Look at us. Sam, you’re wet up to your neck.’

‘Speaking of swimming-Sam, how do you feel about having a shot at real swimming tomorrow?’ Jackson asked him, adult to adult. ‘I’d be pleased to show you how.’

Molly held her breath as Sam perused Jackson’s face, but what he saw there seemed to reassure him.

‘That would be good.’

That would be good… Understatement of the year! Molly let her breath out in a rush and felt like singing or dancing or… Or she knew what. She let out a war whoop of triumph and did a pirouette in the shallows, spinning round and round and round while Jackson and Sam looked on as if she’d lost her marbles.

‘You know, she doesn’t look like any businesswoman I’ve ever met,’ Jackson told Sam gravely, and Sam nodded.

‘She’s not really a businesswoman. She’s just my aunty Molly.’

And that felt good, too, Molly thought. My aunty Molly. It was a claim of ownership, and Sam had never made that before either. She whooped across to him, seized him in her arms and spun him round with her until they were both dizzy and sank laughing in the shallows. Then they looked up…

To find Jackson with a very strange expression on his face. One Molly couldn’t read at all.

‘What?’ she said crossly, and he caught himself and managed a grin.

‘Nothing. I was just thinking.’

‘Don’t tell me. You were thinking how unsuitable I am to sell you a farm?’

‘Not at all,’ he said, and his grin deepened. ‘What I was really thinking was that if we tried I bet we could make the world’s biggest sandcastle. How about making a frog-right here on the beach?’

‘A frog?’ Sam was sitting on his aunt’s knee while the waves washed over him, flushed and happy and game. ‘How do you make a frog?’

‘Out of sand. Watch. And help. I’ve been involved in several great construction companies in my time. How about if I declare us the Molly, Sam & Jackson Construction Company Ltd, and we start building forthwith?’

And they did. An hour later there was a frog, four feet wide and almost as high, sitting up on his haunches regarding them all with frog-like eyes made of shells and the blandest of seaweedy smiles.

‘He looks like he wants to eat us all for breakfast,’ Molly said, sitting back and admiring her handiwork. ‘Oh, Jackson, he’s wonderful.’

It wasn’t just the frog that was wonderful, she thought, dazed with happiness. It was the whole night. Sam was by her side and she sank back on the sand and let him fall into the crook of her arm. The little boy was close to sleep. He was happier on this night than he’d been since the night his parents had been killed, and he was smiling up at them through closing eyes as the day drifted lazily into dreamtime.

‘What’ll we call him?’ he murmured, and Molly hugged him closer.

‘How about Lionel Two?’ she suggested, and Jackson laughed.

‘Great. Here we have the beginning of a frog dynasty called Lionel.’

‘And Mr Baird…’ It was all Sam could do to speak. His lids were closing regardless, but there was still urgency. ‘You will teach me to swim tomorrow?’

‘I will teach you to swim tomorrow,’ Jackson told him, and stooped to place a hand on the little boy’s face. Gently he closed his eyes. ‘Now, go to sleep, young man. Your aunt and I will clean up here and then carry you up to your bed.’

But Sam was no longer listening. Sam was asleep already.

It was just plain magic and there was no disputing it.

‘In Scotland they called this the gloaming,’ Molly said softly, watching the sleeping child beside her. She was sleepy herself-warm and tired and happy as she hadn’t been warm and tired and happy for years.

‘The gloaming?’ Jackson paused from packing to look a question.

‘It’s the magic time between the ending of the day’s work and the time for rest,’ she told him. ‘It’s when the world pauses for breath. And waits. It doesn’t know what it’s waiting for, but anything can happen in the gloaming. It’s full of promise for tomorrow and tomorrow after that.’

She was talking nonsense, she thought, her eyes resting on the sleeping Sam. He was curled against her on the rug, his dark lashes fluttering down under his too heavy glasses and his hand clutching a fistful of seashells. She loved this little boy so much…

The gloaming-this magic time of day-was a time of healing for Sam.

And for herself?

Definitely for herself.

She looked up and found Jackson watching her, and the expression in his eyes took her breath away.

‘We’d best get back to the house,’ she murmured, but the expression on his face made Molly falter. He was looking at her as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

But finally he found his voice. He knelt, and his hand came out to touch Sam’s hair. ‘Poor little tyke. It’s so damned unfair-that he’s lost so much.’

His sympathy touched her as nothing else could. ‘It is.’ She managed a smile. ‘But he’s had a wonderful day-thanks to you.’

‘And thanks to you. He’s safe now. His time of desperate sadness is past. He’ll move on.’

‘How do you know?’

‘I watched him tonight. He was letting go. Trusting. Placing bets on the world again and finding it not too bad a place after all.’

‘I hope so.’

‘I’m sure of it.’ And, as if propelled by forces out of his control, he put out a hand and traced her cheekbone, from her eyelids to the corner of her chin, where a tiny dimple peeped.

She didn’t move. She sat still as stone, willing it to happen.

It was the gloaming. The magic time. What happened now wouldn’t be taken forward. What happened now was for now.

‘Molly…’

She looked wonderingly into his face, her eyes a question.

‘Mmm?’

He didn’t know what to say, and when he found something it was inadequate. Far too inadequate. ‘You’re beautiful.’

She grinned. ‘Well, I guess that’s quite a compliment, coming from you.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘I mean you’ve been photographed with some of the world’s loveliest women.’

‘You’re just as lovely.’

‘Yes?’ She managed to keep smiling, but heaven knew it was hard. Somehow she forced a joke. ‘Gregor wouldn’t agree. There’s sand between my toes, Mr Baird. Sand!’

He chuckled, but he didn’t move. He stayed kneeling before her, taking in the sight of her, her smile, the way the child nestled in beside her.

Hell, he wanted to be part of this, he thought suddenly. Molly was faced with such a burden. He could help.

‘Do you need anything?’ he asked, and Molly frowned.

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean…’ He hesitated. Maybe it was the wrong thing to say, but it needed to be said. ‘I mean financially.’

A flicker of anger built from within. This was such a wondrous time-how dared he spoil it by talking about money? She shook her head, aware that the magic was fading. ‘No. Thank you very much, but you’ve helped enough. You’ve given us today, and you’re giving Sam tomorrow.’ She hesitated. ‘You do intend to keep your promise to teach him to swim?’

‘I’ll keep my promise.’

‘Well, there you go.’ She smiled. ‘That’s enough. So thank you.’

‘But after that? You’ll let me help?’

‘You’re going overseas,’ she reminded him. ‘You’re not much help there.’

‘But financially I could help.’

Again the anger. Was he obtuse? ‘I told you, I don’t need money.’

‘Well, what do you need?’

The man was totally insensitive. What did she need? What a question-when more and more she was starting to think what she needed was kneeling right in front of her.

But he couldn’t know that. He couldn’t see how vulnerable she really was.

‘I need friends,’ she muttered, and then she softened. ‘I can’t be more specific than that, but that’s what I do need-and Sam needs friends, too. People who’ll be there for us.’ She gave him a rueful smile. ‘Not people who jet around the world and are only in Australia one month in twelve. If that.’

Friends. He could do friends. Even if it was only for a month… ‘Then maybe I could see you again? When I’m in the country?’

‘Sam would like that.’ She met his eyes and her expression was a challenge. ‘But we won’t count on it. You promised Sam you’d take him swimming and it’s important-more important than you know-that you keep that promise. And you said you’d bring his frogs back here, and that’s important, too. But apart from that…please don’t make promises you can’t keep, Mr Baird.’

‘Jackson,’ he growled, and she nodded.

‘Okay, Jackson. But, please-’

‘Leave you alone? Is that what you’re asking?’

‘I don’t know.’ But suddenly she did know. This man had the capacity to tilt her world, and the last six months had seen her world tilted quite enough. So there was only one way to answer him. ‘Yes.’

They stared at each other for a long, long minute.

She wasn’t just asking for Sam, Jackson thought. She was asking for herself. Don’t offer what you can’t follow though with. Don’t play with us. Don’t break our hearts.

Damn.

And she was looking at him as if he had the capacity to do just that. It unmanned him. It made him want to make all sorts of rash promises. Promises she knew already that he couldn’t keep.

But still she watched him. The sun had slipped below the horizon and the moon wasn’t yet up. The soft, rose-coloured hues of the horizon were playing over the beach, shifting the colour of the sand, reflecting in the enormity of Molly’s eyes. She was so beautiful.

He couldn’t help himself.

Just once, he thought, and he leant and took her face in his hands. And kissed her.

Well, why not? The child was deeply asleep on the rug beside them. There was no-one but this man and this woman. And what harm was there in a kiss?

None, but if the kiss was a seal on a promise…

And that was what it felt like. It was a promise half made and now met head-on. Two halves of a whole, meeting and merging and becoming their rightful one.

This was their second kiss. The first had been a kiss of triumph-of warmth and laughter and joy. This took it further. This was no light kiss between a man and a woman with common cause for joy. This was a kiss that took one man and joined him to one woman for ever.

For the heat that flooded through them was unimagined-a heat that neither had experienced before. It felt so right. So much a part of them. Because it was what both had been searching for for life, but neither had known until this moment.

The kiss deepened and deepened again. They were kneeling on the sand, the sleeping child beside them. The waves were washing in and out, unnoticed but forming a glorious backdrop for their passion. The moon was just above the horizon, setting its silver ribbon of light across the surf-aimed just at them.

As a blessing…

His hands held her close, exploring her body, feeling the softness and the yielding wonder of her. His mouth tasted her, savoured her, gloried in her…

And for Molly, after that first moment of shock as his mouth met hers, she knew that this was where she wanted to be for the rest of her life. That whatever this man asked of her she was prepared to give. Because, in a sense, she’d given already. She’d given her heart.

He was so large and so male. The feel of his fingers in her hair sent heat surging right through her body. She gloried in him. Her tongue tasted him, needed him, took him, and when his hands slipped down the soft cotton of her bra and caressed the soft curves of her breasts it was as much as she could do not to groan with pleasure.

Dear heaven… Oh, love…

Her fingers moved to slip inside his shirt so she could feel the nakedness of his chest, feel his nipples, feel the muscles across his chest and the way his whole body was taut with desire. Taut with desire for her.

Oh, love…

This couldn’t last. She knew it couldn’t. Jackson Baird was right out of her league. But for now he was kissing her and she wanted nothing more. All she wanted was that this wonder flooding through them both should be allowed to run its own sweet course-to take them where it willed within the kiss itself.

Neither could break the moment.

Molly’s face was in Jackson’s hands again, and her sweetness was threatening to engulf him. Her joy, her love of life, her laughter-damn, even her efficiency. All of her. All of her was in this kiss, and he’d never felt anything so wonderful in his life.

Her body was pliant in his hands. Her sweetness was in his heart. She was a world away from anyone he’d ever met.

She was Molly…

He wanted her so badly. He felt his body stiffen with desire and gave an almost audible groan. Some things weren’t possible. Not here. Not now. Even if he’d brought precautions, there was the child to consider.

As if on cue Sam stirred between them and sighed in his sleep. Not much, but enough. It was enough to break the link-to let reality glimmer in.

And with reality came confusion. They were left staring at each other in the waxing moonlight, neither knowing where to take this. Neither understanding what had happened. Only knowing that it had happened and life itself had somehow been transformed.

The silence lasted into the stillness as the moon rose over the clouds and burst forth in all its glory. The glimmer of silver became a shaft of glorious, shimmering wonder-they were on a knife-edge and it could go either way.

But in the end sense won. Of course sense won. When had it not?

‘I’m…I’m sorry,’ Jackson murmured into the stillness, and he somehow broke away to stand apart from her. It had needed only that for Molly to haul herself together-to banish the confusion she was feeling and replace the sensation with anger. Sorry!

‘You hardly seduced me,’ she muttered, and pulled backwards, gathering Sam into her arms as though the sleeping child was a shield. ‘It was one kiss-and I kissed you right back.’

One kiss does not a relationship make, her tone said, and Jackson took a deep breath and thought, She’s right. There were so many other factors at play here. This was not sensible. It was not even possible!

His future was mapped out. Sensible and settled. Just him and his half-sister against the world…

‘Give me Sam.’ He stooped and lifted the child from her, using the movement to pull himself together. Then he stood cradling the little boy to him and looking down at Molly as she hauled their picnic stuff together. She wasn’t looking at him.

Maybe she couldn’t.

‘Time to go home?’ he said softly, and she shoved the last things in the picnic hamper and rose. She was angry, but it was impossible for him to tell if she was angry with him or with herself.

‘Yes,’ she said briefly. ‘It’s time to go home.’

‘It’s been a wonderful night.’

‘Apart from the past few moments,’ she muttered. ‘And they were just plain stupid!’

Just plain stupid?

Jackson lay awake into the night and thought about those words. Just plain stupid.

She was right, he thought. It was stupid. Because they were worlds apart.

Why?

The question hammered him in the dark. Why was it so impossible?

Because she didn’t understand.

Understand what?

Understand him.

Hell, he should have had more sense than to ever let a relationship get this far, he told himself savagely in the dark.

Unbidden, a vision of his parents came into his mind-his parents as he remembered them best. He’d been about four at the time, and it was the same sort of ugliness that had dogged him all through his childhood. There’d never been any doubt that his parents loved each other, but they’d seemed intent on destroying each other from the time he could first remember.

So their relationship had been a series of tumultuous merges. They’d come together with mutual need and their love would hold them for maybe a day. Maybe not even for that long. Then the tempers would flare again, with Jackson caught in the middle.

He’d been used as a tool. A weapon.

‘You love me most, don’t you Jackson?’ his mother would demand of him, and his father would grasp his hand and try and drag him away.

‘The boy wants to be with me.’

The boy hadn’t wanted to be anywhere, and the boy who’d become a man was just the same. If that was love he wanted no part of it.

You don’t recover from that sort of damage, Jackson thought bleakly. How could he ever admit to himself that he could love like that? It wasn’t a wonderful emotion you could sink into. It left you exposed to pain and then more pain after that. And then there’d been Diane, and that had hurt still more.

So now he was solitary, and he liked it that way. His father had walked out for the final time when he was ten years old and his mother had punished him the best-or the worst-way she could think of. She’d had an affair that had resulted in Cara-and when that hadn’t been enough for her she’d driven herself furiously into a tree. Because of love…

Love could go take a hike, he told himself into the night. He’d take care of Cara and no one else. He wanted no emotional dependence. Ever.

‘Mr Baird is nice,’ Sam murmured sleepily to Molly as she tucked him into bed. His arms came up to claim her for a goodnight kiss. Such a gesture was unusual, to say the least, and Molly sat down on the bed and hugged him back.

‘Yes, Sam. He is nice.’

‘He kissed you.’

So Sam hadn’t been soundly asleep. There was no sense in denying it. ‘He did.’

And Sam was off and running. ‘Do you think he might like us enough to marry you?’

‘Hey.’ She laughed, but her laugh was decidedly hollow. ‘We’ve only known the man since yesterday.’

‘But he is nice.’

‘He’s very nice. But the man’s a millionaire, Sam. The likes of him don’t look at the likes of us.’

‘Why not?’

‘He’ll marry someone of his own class.’

‘That’s silly.’ He was drifting into sleep but refusing to be shifted from his lovely fantasy. ‘And what’s class?’

‘It’s like the case of Cinderella and the Prince,’ she told him, rumpling his hair and removing his glasses to lay them on the bedside table. ‘The way I see it, it would have been pretty uncomfortable to be Cinderella.’

‘Why?’

‘Because she’d have had to say thank you for the rest of her life and she wouldn’t have liked it.’

‘Maybe Cinderella could have got a job, like lots of married ladies do. Like you.’ He giggled. ‘Cinderella could have sold palaces for a living.’

She grinned at the image. ‘Oh, sure. And she’d sell glass slippers on the side. You’re letting your commercial ventures run away with you, kiddo.’ She kissed him soundly. ‘Now-sleep, young man.’

‘But what about you and Mr Baird?’

‘You know, there’s about as much chance of me kissing your frog, Lionel, and having him turn into a handsome prince as there is of me kissing Jackson Baird and having him propose marriage.’

Sam liked that. He chuckled sleepily and turned towards his frog box.

‘Lionel might like it if you kissed him.’

‘And after Mr Gray went to all that trouble to find a Mrs Lionel for him!’ Molly rose and grinned. ‘Mrs Lionel might have something to say to any frog-kissing I might like to do.’

‘You’re funny.’

‘No.’ The smile died from her eyes as she stooped to tuck his covers closer. ‘Just sensible. Someone has to be.’

‘Miss Copeland?’

After a sleepless night Molly rose early to catch the elderly lady at home. From what she knew of old ladies she’d be more likely to find her alert at breakfast than at midnight, and frankly she hadn’t had herself enough in control to phone last night.

She was right in her guesswork. Hannah Copeland answered on the first ring and sounded wide awake. ‘Yes, dear. I was hoping you’d call.’ Molly had talked to her briefly on Friday night, so the elderly landowner knew what to expect. ‘Does he like my farm?’

‘He wants to buy.’

‘Oh, I am pleased. That’s very nice, dear. Is three million too much?’

‘It’s a very reasonable price. To be honest, you could ask more. If you were willing to subdivide…’

‘No, dear, I do not want to subdivide.’

‘It’s just the place is really worth much more. Are you sure you want to sell?’

‘To the right buyer-yes, I am.’

‘And you think Jackson Baird is the right buyer?’

There was a pause on the other end of the line, as if the lady was considering how much it was wise to tell. Finally she decided to be frank. ‘My mother was a friend of Jackson Baird’s grandmother,’ she told her. ‘She was so worried about Jackson. Has he turned out well, dear?’

Molly blinked. ‘I…yes. I guess you could say he’s turned out very well.’

‘He’s not married?’

‘Um…no.’

‘I didn’t expect he would be after those awful parents.’ She paused as Molly waited. ‘But my mother and his grandmother worried so much about him, and I know they’d approve of me doing this.’

‘Miss Copeland, I don’t think Jackson Baird needs any favours,’ Molly said bluntly. ‘The man’s extremely wealthy.’ She hesitated, but the silence on the end of the line told her to move on. So she did. ‘You did say on Friday that if he was interested there were a couple of stipulations you’d make?’

‘Yes.’

‘The Grays being one of them?’

‘You guessed?’ Her pleasure sounded down the line. ‘Of course. I’d never want Gregor or Doreen to have to move.’

‘I’m sure Jackson will agree to that.’

‘And I trust you. You have a lovely voice. Mrs Gray says you have a little boy?’

‘Doreen rang you?’

‘Yesterday.’

‘You don’t mind that I brought Sam?’

‘Of course I don’t mind, dear. The place needs children. I’d rather hoped that despite his parents’ example Mr Baird might have a wife himself. Do you think he’s the marrying kind?’

Whew. Molly shook her head at that one. ‘I can hardly ask him,’ she said frankly. ‘Don’t tell me you want to make that a condition of sale?’

‘No.’ But she sounded wistful. ‘I’m no matchmaker. But I do want my farm to go to someone who’ll love it as I have.’ There was a pause, then, ‘I’d like to meet Jackson. In person.’

‘I’m sure we can arrange that.’

‘And I want to meet you. Will you bring him to lunch with me on Monday?’

‘I think my boss-’

‘No. You.’

Molly thought that through. Fine. If that was what it took to get a sale… ‘I’ll check with Jackson now. Can I bring the contract to lunch?’

‘Bring whatever you want.’ The old lady’s smile sounded down the phone. ‘But don’t book anything else for the afternoon. I like long lunches.’

Molly had a very long shower and when she met Jackson over the breakfast table she was formality itself.

‘Good morning. How did you sleep?’

He’d decided on formality as well, but now it was pushed on him he didn’t like it very much. Two could play at this game.

‘Fine, thank you. And you?’

‘Like a top,’ she lied.

‘Where’s Sam?’

‘He ate at dawn with Mr Gray,’ she told him. ‘It seems they had an assignation. The frog croaking just before sunrise is truly wonderful. Gregor’s told him that there are ten different species to be listened to.’

‘Fantastic.’

‘It is fantastic.’ She was prattling like a fool, and serving herself far too much from the feast filling the kitchen table. ‘I’ve rung Miss Copeland.’

‘My, you have been busy.’

‘It’s my job to be busy.’

‘Of course.’

‘Don’t you want to hear what she had to say?’ She poured a glass of orange juice so fast she spilled it. Oh, for heaven’s sake, she was acting like a schoolgirl.

‘I do want to hear what she has to say.’ He sank courteously into a chair and waited for her to recover.

‘She says she’ll sell-as long as you keep Doreen and Gregor on and you meet her for lunch on Monday and you turn out to be a nice person.’

‘A nice person?’ He raised a quizzical eyebrow.

‘She didn’t elaborate.’ She shrugged. ‘It seems money itself isn’t the aim of the exercise. I have a feeling if she doesn’t like you-or even if she doesn’t like me-then she’ll pull out of the sale. So it’s up to the pair of us to define nice.’ She already had. She was staring at her plate-at anything rather than him.

But he was looking straight at her, considering. ‘You know, it is underpriced.’

‘That’s hardly the line of an eager buyer.’ She concentrated again on her orange juice-concentrated really, really hard. She didn’t want this man to be nice, she thought. She wanted the ruthless businessman she’d heard of. Ruthless she could cope with. For some reason nice made her want to weep.

Then Sam yelled from outside the window and stomped in to find them. Molly was almost glad of the interruption.

‘We counted eleven different frog calls! Mr Gray says he’s hard pushed to tell the difference, but he’s got a recording that’ll tell us in the library. He says it’s time for breakfast and then we can go swimming. Can we go swimming, Mr Baird?’

Jackson’s eyes met Molly’s and he smiled-she was way out of her depth all over again, and she stayed out of her depth all day.

And it was some day-a day full of Jackson. She watched him swim with her small nephew. She watched him patiently take Sam step by step through the early stages of swimming as if he had all the time in the world and this was the most important thing he could do with his time.

She watched him laugh with triumph as Sam conquered floating, and she watched his eyes swing up the beach to find her. The message they held was pure, unadulterated delight. He could as well have been a child himself.

Where was the ruthless businessman now?

She watched him towel Sam dry and tow the sleepy little boy back to the farmhouse. And she watched him devour another of Doreen’s enormous meals and compliment her, then share a joke with Gregor and…

And twist each and every one of them round his little finger, she thought. The man’s charm had them all in thrall.

There was a side to Jackson that she hadn’t seen, she thought desperately. There must be. He hadn’t gained his fearsome reputation for nothing. So beware…

But her heart wasn’t being the least fearful. Her heart wasn’t being the least bit sensible.

Her heart was falling head over heels in love with Jackson Baird.