His Miracle Bride

CHAPTER TWO

‘UM…YOU’RE Shanni,’ he said, and he sounded dumb.

‘You think?’ Shanni said, arching her eyebrows. She’d stopped walking toward him the minute the police car left the yard. She didn’t come one inch closer. ‘You might want to check. After all, it’s important to be sure who you leave in charge of your children.’

‘Look, I…’

The bouncing smile and the charm were put carefully aside. ‘What the hell are you playing at? Wendy’s terrified. I came within an inch of telling those policemen that these kids would be better off in foster care. What sort of a father are you? Where the hell have you been?’

He focused on the one tiny thing he had control over. ‘Do you mind watching your mouth? I’m teaching them not to swear.’

She took a deep breath. ‘You are kidding?’ she said at last. ‘Abandoned, starving kids being taught not to swear.’

‘They’re not starving.’

‘So what did you leave them for lunch?’

‘I don’t know,’ he said, forcing his dazed brain to think. ‘There’s eggs, steak, sausages, frozen chips…’

‘All of which require a stove,’ she said dangerously.

‘We’ve got a stove.’

‘And the kids were going to light it how?’ Shanni was looking at him like he was something that had crawled out of cheese.

‘Look, I went to sleep.’

‘Really?’ She raised one quirky eyebrow. ‘You had a little nap. So your kids starved.’

‘Kids don’t starve from missing lunch.’

She glared.

‘Dad,’ said a small voice, and it was Wendy, approaching from behind Shanni.

She stayed behind Shanni. She didn’t come near. It was like she was using Shanni as a shield.

The weight around his heart grew heavier. He’d let Wendy down. This puny kid who had the weight of the world on her shoulders. He’d been gaining her trust. A little.

‘Hell, Wendy…’

‘Don’t swear in front of the children,’ Shanni said icily.

‘Look, I fell asleep,’ he said desperately. ‘I didn’t sleep at all last night. Wendy, tell her I didn’t sleep. I had to take Bessy to the doctor’s, and then I had to wait for the prescription to be filled. I sat in the car and waited because you can’t leave kids alone in the car, and I just slept.’ He spread his hands. He might never convince Shanni, he thought, but it was Wendy who was important.

There was a lengthy pause while Wendy considered. Shanni remained silent.

‘He really didn’t sleep last night,’ Wendy said at last, talking to Shanni. ‘Maybe he didn’t sleep the night before, either,’ she added. ‘I had a nightmare and woke up. He made me hot chocolate.’

Shanni’s iciness thawed, just a little. ‘You’re saying he has an excuse?’

‘He looks awful,’ Wendy said.

‘He does,’ Shanni agreed. ‘When did he last shave?’

‘He looks okay when he’s shaved,’ Wendy said. ‘Or when he’s a little bit bristly. He’s too bristly now.’

This sisterhood thing was getting scary. But they were coming down on his side. Maybe.

‘Oooohh.’ It was Bessy, beaming at Wendy.

Wendy walked forward and snatched Bessy from his arms. Then she retreated behind Shanni again. They weren’t completely on his side. Wendy must have been terrified.

‘I’m really sorry,’ he told her, while Shanni practised her glare some more.

‘I thought you’d run away,’ Wendy said.

‘I won’t. I told you.’

‘Men tell lies. Mum said that. Men always tell lies.’

There was another lengthy pause, worse than the last. Pierce tried to think of what to say. Nothing came.

The silence extended. The three of them were gazing at him like he was a maw worm. Wendy and Shanni…even Bessy.

Then, ‘You know, my dad doesn’t tell lies,’ Shanni said, thoughtful. ‘Honest. And I’ve known my dad for twenty-nine years. He makes mistakes-once he even left me at the ice rink for five hours cos he was reading a really good book-but he doesn’t tell lies. Are you hungry?’ she asked him.

Food was the last thing he was thinking of. Though, come to think of it…

‘I guess I am a bit.’

‘There’s cold sausages,’ Wendy said. ‘We cooked a lot for lunch cos we thought you’d be home. And Shanni made choc-chip cookies.’

‘Shanni’s made choc-chip cookies?’ He stopped looking at Wendy. Yep, he’d betrayed a trust, and somehow he had to figure out a way to retrieve himself-but there was nothing he could do about that right now. But somehow Shanni’s ice-rink story had lessened the tension. And sausages…Choc-chip cookies…

‘They’re my specialty,’ Shanni said modestly. ‘You didn’t have choc chips so we had to squash a block.’

‘The fire’s not lit.’

‘We lit it,’ Wendy said. ‘We had to light it to get hot water to do the dishes. And I’ve eaten five choc-chip cookies.’

‘You lit the fire? But the wood…’

‘Shanni chopped it. The boys stacked it. The wood box is full.’

Shanni had chopped the wood. She’d lit the stove. She’d made choc-chip cookies. He stared.

‘I know,’ she said, pseudo-modest. ‘Call me Wonderwoman.’

‘Ruby said you’re an artist.’ His tone was almost accusatory. He heard it, and tried desperately to retrieve himself. ‘I mean…’

‘I think I’m converting to wood chopping,’ Shanni said. ‘I’ve failed cows’ legs, and chopping vents anger.’

‘Anger…’

‘Now, why would I be feeling anger?’ she said, to Wendy rather than him. ‘To be brought here under false pretences…’

Whoa. Things were spinning away from him. ‘False pretences?’ he said weakly.

‘One baby,’ she said, and tugged Wendy against her in another display of the power of sisterhood. Men, the gesture said. The despicable species. ‘One baby does not equate to five kids. Ruby told me one baby. I rang you from my friend’s and you said one baby.’

Uh-oh.

‘I didn’t say one baby,’ he said weakly. ‘But, yeah, Ruby would have told you one baby. To be honest, when you rang I thought I’d get you here any way I could and try and bribe you into staying once you got here.’

Beam me up now, Scotty, he thought bleakly. I’m an outright bastard.

But suddenly they had a diversion. Bessy had been nestling against Wendy’s shoulder, content from her drive. But Bessy was eight months old. She hadn’t been fed since breakfast. She was a young lady with chicken pox.

Bessy suddenly recalled all this in one huge momentous wash of outrage. She opened her mouth, and she yelled.

‘Can you stay at least until we’ve fed Bessy?’ Pierce asked over the yells.

‘I’m staying until you’ve done some explaining,’ Shanni said grimly. ‘I need to murder you or I need to murder my Aunty Ruby, and I can’t figure out which.’

She should leave.

Since Bessy’s initial howl there’d been no time to do anything but run. There certainly hadn’t been time for explanations.

Bessy had needed feeding, bathing, soothing, more soothing, more feeding. The kids had needed baths and dinner. The cattle had needed feeding. Okay, Pierce had done that one on his own. Shanni had stayed in the kitchen and supervised the kids’ dinner while watching Pierce out the window.

There was a huge cow-a bull?-in the paddock closest to the house. Pierce had wheeled a vast bale of hay to the gate on a hand cart, opened the gate and spread the hay.

Wasn’t that dangerous? The cow had looked…looked…

Cute, she’d decided as Pierce had scratched it behind the ear. The big creature had almost purred, leaning its big body against Pierce until he staggered. Really cute.

Actually, not as cute as Pierce.

He was tall and lean and angular. His deep brown curls were unkempt and too long. He hadn’t shaved for a couple of days and he had shadows under his eyes. His jeans and windcheater looked like he’d been sleeping in them. He looked almost gaunt.

Her impression of Pierce aged fifteen had been that the guy was hot.

Nothing had changed.

What wasn’t hot was five children.

But she did feel sorry for him. To be stuck with five kids…

It was his choice.

It was hardly his fault that his wife had died.

No, but…

‘What are you thinking?’ Wendy asked shyly. The kids were tucking into scrambled eggs like there was no tomorrow.

‘I’m thinking you guys have hollow legs. What have you been eating?’

‘Pie…Dad’s not a very good cook.’

‘Do you call him Pierce?’

‘Yes, but not in front of people,’ Bryce told her, scooping up another mouthful of scrambled egg and closing his eyes in bliss. ‘This hasn’t got a single bit of black on it.’

‘Scrambled eggs is my second specialty, after choc-chip cookies.’

‘Pizza’s Dad’s specialty,’ Wendy said. ‘But the last time we ordered it Dad forgot we didn’t have any cash and the pizza guy wouldn’t take a cheque or credit card and now he won’t come back.’

‘I can make pizza.’

‘You’re kidding.’ It was Pierce, standing in the doorway, surveying the domesticity before him with amazement. ‘You cook pizza?’

‘She means she gets those boxes in the supermarket and thaws them out,’ Bryce said wisely.

‘I do not,’ she said, taking umbrage. ‘I can cook them from the ground up.’

‘Will you cook us one?’ Abby asked.

‘Maybe tomorrow. If I get the ingredients.’

‘Will you stay then?’ Donald was the quietest of the kids. He’d hardly spoken since she’d arrived. He’d simply watched her. Even when she’d set them all to painting, she’d been aware that Donald had never stopped watching her. Now he asked his question and it was like a challenge.

‘For tonight.’ She blinked. Yeah, okay, she was committing herself, but where else was she going to sleep? ‘Tell me you have a spare bed.’

‘We have a spare bedroom,’ Pierce said.

‘It’s Mummy’s bedroom,’ Donald said, still gazing at her with that unwavering stare.

Mummy’s bedroom. Oh, heck. ‘Um, doesn’t Daddy sleep there?’

‘He sleeps upstairs in Bessy’s room,’ Abby said.

‘She keeps waking up,’ Bryce added.

‘Wendy used to get up to her when Mummy was sick,’ Donald said, tilting his chin. ‘Cos Mummy didn’t want Pierce to. But Pierce does it now.’

‘Didn’t your mummy die when Bessy was born?’

‘Just after,’ Donald said.

This was stuff she didn’t understand. She wasn’t sure that she wanted to try. ‘Isn’t it bedtime?’ she asked weakly, and Pierce nodded.

‘It surely is.’

‘Will Shanni tell us a bedtime story?’ Abby asked.

‘I will,’ Pierce said gruffly.

‘We want Shanni,’ Wendy said.

‘I’m washing up.’ Shanni was feeling completely confused. What was going on here? Pierce looked defeated. Battle weary and exhausted. And he’d slept today.

‘Your dad reads you bedtime stories,’ she managed. ‘That’s his job. I’m the housekeeper-I keep house. It’s up to Pierce to keep kids.’

Pierce took almost an hour to read them their stories. When he finally came downstairs, Shanni was sitting on the kitchen floor surrounded by stuff.

The more he looked at her, the more he remembered that ten-year-old Shanni. She’d made him smile then and she had that power still, just by sitting in the middle of his kitchen floor. Which was dumb. Dangerous, even.

‘What you doing?’ he managed.

‘This isn’t a fridge, it’s an ecosystem.’ She carefully didn’t look at him. Instead she held up a jar where purple fuzz fought with green slime. ‘Didn’t Fleming invent penicillin this way? Are you searching for a patent cure for chicken pox?’

‘Leave it.’

‘Hand me a rubbish bag,’ she said. ‘Left to breed, this could take over the world.

He found a rubbish bag and held it out. She scooped in so much stuff that even he was hornswoggled.

‘I’m usually neat,’ he said defensively, and she nodded.

‘I remember you at fifteen. You were…neat.’

He glowered. ‘I believe I was wearing a suit.’

‘Blue pinstripe if I recall.’

‘That the rest of the boys thought was…’

‘Poncy. Yeah, I remember you were teased.’

He gazed down, trying to figure things out. Where did she fit? He couldn’t remember. Ruby had simply referred to her as ‘our Shanni’. Our Shanni would love to come and help out.

All he could remember was the oversized bow and the stomping foot and the smile. Mostly the smile.

‘I can’t exactly remember the connection,’ he said apologetically.

‘My dad is Ruby’s younger brother.’

‘So you are…?’

‘Lucy and Will’s daughter. They’re academics. They’re currently in Switzerland.’

‘I don’t remember Lucy and Will. But I remember you.’

‘Gee, thanks.’

‘You stood on Mac’s toe.’

‘I did, didn’t I?’ she said, and grinned at the memory. ‘He’s grown up to be a used-car dealer. Ruby says he married a woman who’s a real harpy. Good old Mac.’

‘Why did you come?’

‘Aunty Ruby asked me.’ She held up something greenish. ‘Courgette?’

‘Cucumber.’

‘A bit past its use-by date, wouldn’t you say?’

‘I-Yes.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me you had five kids?’

‘I don’t believe I told you anything.’

‘But Ruby didn’t say.’

‘Ruby doesn’t know.’

‘Ruby doesn’t know you have five kids?’

‘No.’

‘You didn’t tell Ruby?’

‘I barely see Ruby. There’s no need to tell her everything.’

‘Yeah, so omit a little something. Like four kids. Something’s rotten here and I don’t know what.’ She’d been foraging in the rear of the fridge and now she emerged triumphant. ‘No, this is dried out. I’m sure it’s a courgette.’

‘Could we cut this out?’

‘Cleaning?’

‘The inquisition.’ He raked his fingers through his hair. ‘And will you get off my floor? I hardly know you.’

‘You know me enough to trust me with your kids.’

‘I had no choice. I had a doctor’s appointment and there was no other available appointment until tomorrow. I loaded the kids in the car, then realized the tyre was flat and so was the spare. You were coming. Ruby said you were trustworthy. So I trusted.’

‘You left me alone deliberately?’

‘No,’ he roared, so loudly that there was a whimper from above their heads.

‘You’ve woken Bessy,’ Shanni said.

‘Shush.’

They both shushed. Bessy whimpered again, and then settled.

‘Take that outside,’ Shanni said, motioning to the rubbish. ‘It’s disgusting.’

He did. It gave him room to take a few deep breaths. He stared up at the night sky and counted to ten. Then he decided to count to a hundred.

Finally he figured he’d better return. Shanni was still cleaning his fridge. All he could see of Shanni was one very cute, denim-clad butt emerging from his refrigerator.

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.’