Their Baby Bargain

CHAPTER ONE

PEOPLE didn’t arrive at Bay Beach Orphanage driving fortunes on wheels. At least, they didn’t until now.

Wendy Maher cared for orphans, or for young children from broken homes with no money. Foster-parents tended to spend more on kids than on cars, and orphanage staff did the same.

Therefore Wendy shouldn’t even recognise this sports car-a gorgeous deep green Aston Martin DB7 Vantage Volante-much less know its worth. She watched the low-slung car purr into her driveway, and the fact that she could guess almost exactly what it cost was enough to make her blood boil.

Just as it always had at such waste…

She rose stiffly to her feet. A flutter of child’s clothes tumbled around her feet, but her attention was no longer on packing. Adam would have killed for a car like this, she thought bleakly. Adam-whose love for expensive cars and fast driving had destroyed more than just himself…

Good grief! What was she doing? She hauled herself back to the present with a jagged wrench. Thinking of Adam still led to heartbreak. She had better things to be thinking of than him.

Like-what on earth was this car doing here? Her Home-one of a series of Homes making up Bay Beach Orphanage-was on a dead-end road. Maybe the driver had turned in by mistake.

‘It’ll be someone asking for directions,’ she told Gabbie. Wendy’s five-year-old foster-daughter was also distracted from packing and was now staring out the window at the amazing car. Woman and child gazed at the car together. Then, as he emerged, they gazed at the driver.

The driver was certainly worth a good, long look. He seemed three or four years older than Wendy’s twenty-eight years-and he was drop-dead gorgeous! His blond-brown hair was attractively tousled and nicely sun-bleached. He was six feet tall, or maybe a little more. His skin was nicely tanned; he was expensively but casually dressed in cream moleskin trousers and an open-necked, quality linen shirt, and he was wearing the most superb leather jacket.

Or…it was superb if you were into statements of wealth, Wendy thought crossly. Which she wasn’t! This man and his car looked like something out of Vogue magazine. The cost of the jacket alone would pay more than a month of Wendy’s future rent, and the thought made her glower as he strode toward her front door.

Maybe she could charge him to tell him where to go?

The idea made her smile for the first time that day. She touched Gabrielle’s flaming curls in a gesture of reassurance, and then crossed to the hall.

‘Hello,’ she said, swinging the door wide and pinning a smile of greeting on her face that she didn’t feel like giving. ‘What can I do for you?’

‘I hope you can relieve me of a responsibility,’ he answered. ‘Is this the place where you leave babies?’

Silence.

Wendy stared. The man was smiling like a cover model, he was asking if he could leave a baby and he was talking as if he was delivering a parcel! His deep green eyes were twinkling engagingly, and his wide mouth was curved into a matching grin. He looked like a man used to getting his own way, Wendy thought. He had a wonderful smile-a smile to make you do things you had no intention of doing-and it made Wendy back a couple of steps in immediate mistrust.

‘I beg your pardon?’ she said blankly.

‘They told me this was an orphanage,’ His smile slipped a little, unsure. ‘The sign outside…it says Bay Beach Children’s Home.’

He was right. As if to emphasise his point, Gabbie now appeared at Wendy’s side. The little girl clung silently to Wendy’s skirt, put her thumb firmly in her mouth and stared.

The stranger looked enquiringly from one to another. Together, they were quite a pair-but they didn’t match.

Wendy had glossy black curls, twisted casually into a loose knot from which errant wisps were escaping at random. She was tall-five eight or so. She had olive skin, her warm grey eyes were widely set in her open, pleasant face and, although no one could ever call her plump, she was nicely rounded. She was cuddly, her kids decreed-and with her flowery skirt and her soft white blouse she looked as if she’d just stepped out of a mystical Celtic tale.

Wendy looked competent, kind and motherly-an image she’d worked hard to achieve and an image her children approved of very much. Especially Gabbie.

With Wendy assessed, the man looked down at Gabbie. There were few similarities.

Five-year-old Gabbie had startlingly red hair, tied into two short pigtails. Her snub nose was the complete opposite of Wendy’s, and her eyes were a deep, fathomless green. Her freckles stood out on her too-pale face; she was finely boned, and she couldn’t be any more different from Wendy if she’d tried to be.

This was not a mother-daughter relationship, the man’s expression said. He had come to the right place. His smile re-emerged as he faced the comfortable Wendy. This lady might not be his sort of woman, but she was who he needed right now.

His confidence had returned with his smile. ‘You are part of Bay Beach Orphanage,’ he announced.

‘Yes.’ Wendy’s hands rested on Gabbie’s shoulders as the child’s thumb shifted nervously from one side of her mouth to the other. This little scrap was fearful of everything, and Gabbie’s biggest fear was always that she’d be snatched from the Wendy she loved. Sadly, it wasn’t an unreasonable fear. ‘This is a children’s home. But in answer to your query…’ She took a deep breath. ‘You’re asking is this the place you leave babies?’ Her brows creased together in a frown. Her urge was to slam the door in the stranger’s handsome face, but if there was a baby involved then she couldn’t do that. ‘Do you have a baby?’

‘Well, yes,’ the man said as if he was apologising. He smiled again. ‘I’ll bring her in, shall I?’

She followed the man to his car and, with Gabbie still clinging to her side, she waited as the man extricated a bundle from the rear of his fancy car. The infant was in a carry-cot and at least she’d been properly strapped in. In this job she’d seen babies in cardboard boxes-bureau drawers-anything.

But this little one was no neglected waif. The stranger was lifting her-if inexpertly. He was holding her as if she was made of glass, and the baby was a miniature version of himself. She was just beautiful!

She was the most beautiful baby Wendy had ever seen, and Wendy had seen a lot of babies.

The baby had the same soft blond-brown curls as the man, and the same twinkly green eyes, creasing into delight now that she was being lifted. She was wrapped all in pink-there was no possibility of mistaking this little girl for a boy!-and she looked about five or six months old.

And…her eyes said it for her: this was indeed a wonderful world. She was plump and well cared for and happy. Wendy, accustomed to seeing the most awful things that people could do to their children, sighed with relief that at least this baby was healthy.

‘I’m leaving tonight-I need to be in New York by the weekend,’ the man was saying. He held the baby awkwardly in his arms, proffering her toward Wendy. ‘But you’ll take care of her, won’t you? After all, that’s your job.’

There was only one answer to that. ‘No,’ Wendy said softly, and her eyes met his. Steady and sure, Wendy’s were eyes that had seen the worst the world had to offer, and then some. She’d thought nothing could surprise her-but it always did. ‘It’s not my job. Caring for your baby is your job.’

‘You don’t understand.’ He was still extending his pink, wrapped bundle, but Wendy wasn’t accepting. She held Gabbie’s clutching fingers with one hand, and kept her free hand firmly by her side.

‘I assume this is your daughter,’ she told him. She must be. The likeness was uncanny. ‘I’m not sure what’s happening here, Mr…’

‘Grey. I’m Luke Grey. And, no, she’s not my daughter.’

‘Mr Grey,’ she said and took a deep breath. ‘Mr Grey, you don’t just dump babies when you wish to go to New York. Or anywhere for that matter.’ Her voice was calm and unflappable, her training coming to the fore. ‘But you’re right. I don’t understand. Explain it to me.’

‘This is not my baby!’ But he broke off before he could go any further. Anyone would. An outraged yell from behind them was enough to break off conversations three blocks away.

It was Craig. Of course. Wendy turned to see a small boy emerge onto the veranda. He was holding a toy fire engine, and his expression said the end of the world had arrived. Right now! Which was nothing unusual. Craig’s calamity rate was usually one disaster every hour or so, and he was behind schedule.

‘Wendy, Sam broke the hook on my fire engine,’ he wailed, his voice still loud enough to announce his catastrophe to the whole of Bay Beach. ‘He broke the hook off my crane. Wendy, it’s broken…’

‘Don’t worry, Craig, I have glue,’ Wendy called to him, as if broken fire engines were normal. As they were. ‘Put it on the kitchen table, and I’ll fix it. But first…’ she gave Luke’s car an appreciative glance, which Luke didn’t appreciate at all ‘…look what’s in our driveway,’ she told the little boy. ‘Call Sam and Cherie, and bring them out to see this man’s really nice car.’

Then she managed a tiny internal chuckle as she watched Luke’s face go blank in dismay. No matter. Whatever human disasters were around, this car would give her children some pleasure.

It certainly did. The wailing switched off like a tap. ‘Wow!’ Stunned, five-year-old Craig stared at the sports car as if it had landed from Mars. ‘Is it real?’

‘Don’t touch it,’ Luke said immediately, and Wendy’s inner chuckle strengthened. What harm would a few sticky fingers do?

‘Bring your baby inside, Mr Grey,’ she told him. ‘You still need to explain.’

‘Will you take her?’ he said, and his voice was pleading. He held out his arms. ‘She’s…she’s wet.’

‘Babies often are,’ Wendy said placidly, still refusing to take his bundle. She led Gabbie up the veranda steps, leaving him to follow, like it or not. ‘Okay, we’ll change her nappy and then you can tell me all about your problems. But no, Mr Grey, I won’t take her. You carry your baby until I understand what’s going on.’

‘She’s not my baby.’

‘That’s what you said before.’ Seated now in Wendy’s kitchen, Luke was still holding his baby. Wendy had changed the little one’s nappy and wrapped her in dry blankets but then she’d handed her right back. Now she was making coffee while Luke sat uncomfortably with his beaming bundle and tried not to be distracted by what was happening out the window.

There were three children playing in his car. They couldn’t do any real harm, he decided, but he sent up a small prayer anyway. Please… The gorgeous leather upholstery would wipe clean…

‘So who’s baby is she?’ Wendy watched where his glance lay, and then dragged his attention back indoors. She handed over a mug of coffee and settled herself. Gabbie made a beeline for her lap and stayed close. Instinctively Wendy’s arms came around her and held tight. On Luke’s lap, his baby gurgled and chuckled and reached for the mug. There were two adults and two responsibilities. And a whole lot more outside…

‘You wouldn’t like to get those kids away from my car?’ he said uneasily.

‘Watch your coffee,’ she reminded him. ‘Babies burn and she can reach it. You can move your car onto the kerb if you’re uncomfortable.’ She refused to be ruffled. ‘While it’s in my yard I can’t drag the children away from it.’

‘Then will you hold the baby while I shift it?’ he begged, and she shook her head.

‘No, Mr Grey.’ She wasn’t taking his baby while he went to move his car. Instinct told her she’d never see him again.

And he saw exactly what she was thinking. He stared over the table at her, anger flaring. ‘Look, I could have just dumped her and run,’ he snapped.

‘And you didn’t.’ She nodded, not warming to the man in the slightest. He might have a smile to knock a girl sideways, but he wasn’t coming across well at all. He was a darn sight more worried about his car than his baby. ‘That’s very noble of you.’

The censure in her tone was obvious, and his brows snapped together in anger.

‘You think I’m a rat.’

‘It’s not my job to think anything of the kind,’ she told him. ‘I’m paid to worry about children-not to make judgements about the people who are caring for them. Or not caring for them.’

‘Hey, she was dumped on me!’

‘Really?’ Her grey eyes widened in polite disbelief and she looked from man to baby and back again. ‘You know,’ she said softly, ‘she looks very like you.’

‘I’d imagine she does,’ Luke said bitterly. ‘Of all the stupid…’ His eyes flew to Wendy’s again, the anger still there. ‘But she’s not my daughter. I swear.’

‘You’re related though?’

‘I guess we are,’ Luke said slowly, and for the first time his attention faded from his precious car. ‘I’ve been thinking.’ He cast a dubious look at the little girl he was holding, as if he was still trying to figure out where she’d come from. She’d grabbed a teaspoon; she was banging it on the table, and enjoying the occupation immensely. ‘She…she’s my half-sister.’

‘Your half-sister.’ Wendy sat back, had a couple of sips of coffee and hugged Gabbie some more. He’d explain, she guessed. Given time. Meanwhile, Gabbie was still trembling. She’d been trembling all day with the impending move. She needed hugging and Wendy was content to hug her. The rest of the kids had a great new toy to play with-a couple of hundred thousand dollars worth of new toy!-and, despite the fact that she had a train to catch, Wendy wasn’t into rushing.

For the baby’s sake, she could wait.

‘I didn’t even know she existed until today,’ Luke said bitterly. ‘Hell. You’re sitting there judging me for dumping her and until this morning I didn’t even know I had a half-sister.’ His eyes caught hers and held them, willing her to believe him.

And suddenly, unaccountably, Wendy did believe him. His eyes were also demanding she understand. She didn’t understand, but she found herself suspending judgement just a little. Her initial vision of playboy father landed with illegitimate baby was put to one side. For the moment.

‘Tell me about it,’ she said softly. She glanced out the window-just to check. Sam was sitting behind Luke’s steering wheel, Craig was in the passenger seat and Cherie was pretending to be the bonnet ornament. They had bare feet, she thought, and no one was wearing belt buckles. They wouldn’t scratch his precious car.

But Luke was now not watching his car. He had eyes only for Wendy, trying to make her see.

‘It’s my father,’ he said slowly. ‘This is my father’s baby.’

Wendy’s quick mind mulled this over. Family messes were what she was accustomed to-what she was trained to deal with. ‘You mean your father is also this little one’s father?’

‘I guess.’ Luke stared dazedly down at the bundle-who stared back with lively interest. ‘She does look like me, doesn’t she?’

‘She certainly does.’ Her voice softened. ‘She’s the spitting image of you, Mr Grey. Apart from the fact that you’re opposite sexes, you’re almost identical twins-thirty years apart.’

He stared at the baby for a long moment, trying to take it on board. Finally he shrugged. ‘Maybe I need to go back. Explain the whole damned thing.’

‘I have time.’

He nodded. This woman really was the most restful person, he thought suddenly. He’d been wallowing in panic ever since he’d opened his door at six this morning. There’d been a knock but when he’d opened the door all he’d found was the bundle. The baby.

Panic? Maybe it wasn’t panic, he thought. Maybe panic was far too mild a word for it.

‘My father wasn’t very reliable,’ he said slowly. He took a deep breath, watching her reaction. There wasn’t one. Her face was carefully noncommittal and he had the feeling it’d take a lot to shock her. ‘Well, maybe that’s an understatement. I…I need to be able to make you see. My father had charisma. Anything he wanted, he got. He only had to smile…’

Wendy nodded. She could see that. She just had to look at Luke’s smile and she could see that.

‘He married my mother,’ Luke went on, his smile disappearing completely now and his voice bitter. ‘I suppose that’s one thing. The marriage lasted for a whole twelve months but at least I was born legitimate. I was the son he always said he wanted, but he wasn’t into fatherhood. It cramped his style. When he walked out, my mother went back home-her parents lived on a farm just out of Bay Beach-and I was brought up here. Sort of.’

‘Sort of?’ She’d never heard of this man, she thought, and she’d been in the district for years.

‘Of course, sort of. His son being brought up as a country hick didn’t suit my father one bit. To my father, ego was everything,’ Luke said bitterly. ‘I had to have the best. Despite my mother’s protestations, I was sent away to the best boarding schools, and the most prestigious university in Australia. I have no idea how he managed the school fees, and the fact that my mother lived on the breadline didn’t worry him a bit. He went from debt to debt. He lied, schemed, swindled-conned his way through life. I didn’t know it all. My mother kept it from me and she died when I was twelve, so it’s only in the last few years I found out just what his lifestyle was really like.’

‘And this baby?’

‘This little one was the result of an affair with a woman forty years his junior,’ he told her. ‘She left a letter this morning, explaining all. Apparently he set her up as he always set up his women-in the height of luxury. He lavished the best on her, and she had no reason to believe there wasn’t heaps more cash to come. She became pregnant and had their baby, she must still have been attracting him because he somehow kept supporting her-and then, a month ago, he died.’

Wendy grimaced. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Don’t be,’ he said grimly. ‘There was no love lost between my father and me. Once I was old enough to realise how he got his money I never accepted another cent. Lindy, however, depended on him, and I gather she depended on him totally. He’s lied to her, he’s dead and now she’s been evicted from her gorgeous apartment and been left to her own devices.’

‘I see.’ Wendy couldn’t help herself. Her eyes swung to the window again. To the car. And her eyes asked a question.

He got it in one. Understanding flashed into his eyes, and with it, anger. ‘I’m a futures broker,’ he snapped, following her line of thought exactly. ‘So sure, I’m wealthy, but the money I earn is earned honestly. It’s nothing to do with my father.’

‘But you’re not sharing? With, who did you say, Lindy?’

‘I’ve hardly had a chance,’ he snapped. ‘Even if the idea of supporting my father’s mistress appealed to me-which it doesn’t-I wasn’t asked. I was overseas when my father died and I had no idea Lindy even existed. There’s been no contact between me and my father for years. I paid for the funeral and I thought that was it. Then today…’

‘Today?’

‘Lindy must have known about me,’ he said bitterly. ‘Maybe my father told her I existed and she came looking. Anyway, this morning the baby was dumped in her carry-cot in my lobby. The note Lindy left also said that she only had the baby because my father was so persuasive-he must have been having a late-life crisis or something. But now there’s no money she has no intention of staying saddled with a daughter. So she’s leaving. The baby’s all mine, the note said.’

All yours…

Wendy gazed across the table at Luke and he gazed back. Take this problem away from me, his eyes pleaded.

And those eyes… His father’s eyes… They could persuade a woman to do anything, she thought. They’d persuaded a young woman to have a baby she didn’t want. They could persuade her…

No! She needed to harden her heart.

Blood ties were the most important link a baby could have, Wendy knew. That truth had been drilled into her over and over, all through her career as a social worker. Maintain family links at all costs. Sever those links only if the child is in dire peril.

This baby was sitting on her half-brother’s lap, banging her spoon and chirruping as if the world was her oyster. She had a great big brother. Healthy, wealthy and secure, he could easily support her. If Wendy could swing it, this baby was set for life.

‘I assume you don’t live in Bay Beach now,’ she said softly, thinking hard as she spoke.

‘No. I have an apartment in Sydney and another in New York. I move around.’

‘You’ve driven this little one here-all the way from Sydney?’

He seemed a bit disconcerted at that. ‘Yes.’

‘Can I ask why?’ She hesitated, watching his face. ‘There are child care services in Sydney. You just had to look up the phone book to find one.’

‘I sort of wanted-’

‘You sort of wanted-what?’

He looked up and stared at her, his eyes blank. ‘Hell,’ he said at last. ‘It’s hard.’

‘I can see that.’

‘What’s your name?’ he asked suddenly, and she smiled.

‘Sorry, I should have said. It’s Wendy. Wendy Maher.’

‘Well, Wendy…’ He shook his head, his look still confused. On his lap his tiny sister had let her spoon fall sideways. She was squirming into his chest, and her dark little lashes were fluttering downward. He must have stopped along the road and fed her, Wendy thought. She was fed and warm and sleepy. Unconsciously Luke’s arms held her close as she nestled into him, and Wendy’s eyes warmed at the sight. Maybe…

‘I knew there was an orphanage here,’ he told her. ‘I remembered it and rang-to make sure it still existed. As a child I spent some time in the original Home under I guess what you’d call respite care, when my mother was ill and my grandparents couldn’t cope.’

‘I see.’

‘And…’ he was desperately trying to make her understand ‘…Bay Beach is a great place to grow up.’

‘It is at that.’ Damn. That hurt. Wendy’s grip tightened on Gabbie. She couldn’t give a Bay Beach upbringing to Gabbie, she thought bitterly, much as she’d love to. Still, a stable home had to be better than a specific location.

‘The best time in my life was when I lived here as a child,’ Luke continued, watching her face as if he was trying to guess her thoughts. ‘When my mother and my grandparents were alive it was great. The beach! The freedom!’ He gestured to the children outside. ‘These kids…they’re lucky.’

Yeah, right. He needed to pull the wool from his eyes on that one. Dumping his sister and running, and then telling himself it was all for the best because Bay Beach was a great place to grow up…

‘No, Mr Grey, these children aren’t lucky,’ she said firmly. ‘These children have problems. They don’t have parents who care for them. For now, these children are alone in the world. I’m a paid child care worker, and they only have me or those like me.’

There was a long, drawn out silence. In Luke’s arms, his tiny sister finally closed her eyes, nestling back into his chest with absolute trust.

Trust…

He stared across the table at Wendy. This woman was still young, he thought, but she was a far cry from the women he spent his free time with. She was a world away from them. There was warmth in her eyes, and compassion and caring. She could be beautiful, he thought. With a little make-up-a modern hairstyle-some decent clothes…

No!

She was beautiful now, he decided. She needed none of those things.

Why?

It was indefinable. He looked into the calm, grey depths of those luminescent eyes and he knew, despite what Wendy said, that these kids were lucky. Sure, they had dreadful problems, but in the midst of their crises, they’d found Wendy. ‘It’ll do for my sister,’ he said softly. ‘If that’s all there is. Her mother’s abandoned her, but there’s no one I’d rather leave her with than you.’