‘Hey, you can’t place the sins of the mother onto the children,’ Matt interceded. ‘She threw the twins out.’

‘Which is saying a lot about the children,’ Mrs Gregory said soundly. ‘That woman’s a slut, and if even she couldn’t put up with them…’

Hmm. ‘Mrs Gregory, how would you like a holiday,’ he said thoughtfully. This wasn’t boding well for the future at all. ‘Erin’s here and, with two adults, she and I can surely do the housework.’

‘She won’t. She won’t even notice if the house is a mess. I know her kind.’

‘She will.’ His lips tightened. Heck, his mother and Charlotte and their set had truly branded Erin. Just because of her father…

He finally wrung pancakes out of Mrs Gregory-by throwing in a few more Christian duties and an agreement to take an extended break for as long as they could manage without her-and now he carried the tray toward the bedroom with the air of one who’d achieved a major triumph. When he saw the grateful smile in Erin’s eyes the feeling grew, so his chest felt a whole six inches broader.

There was still something wrong, though. Something majorly wrong. The twins were polite-sort of-about the pancakes but they sat up in bed with the pancake tray on the table between them and they poked at Matt’s offering as if the end of the world was nigh.

‘You didn’t yell at them because of the fire?’ he asked Erin, frowning as she crossed to the window with her pancake plate. She’d done it as a deliberate ruse to talk to him without the twins hearing and it worked. He’d figured it out and followed her. Now they stood with their backs to the twins, as if the cattle grazing in the paddocks was taking all their attention.

She took umbrage at his suggestion. Yell at the twins? ‘Of course I didn’t,’ she told him. ‘They feel dreadful enough without me yelling at them. What do you think I am?’

‘Far too kind,’ he told her promptly, and she smiled but in an absent sort of way as she munched her pancake-which told him her thoughts were still on the twins.

‘I’m not.’ She glanced back at the twins. ‘Sometimes I feel I’m not kind enough. They need so much…’

‘Why the sad faces? Are they still scared?’

‘No.’ She shrugged, After all this man had done for them it seemed stupid to let him see how upset they were about one small Tigger, but there was something in his eyes that said he really wanted to know. He cared. ‘It’s just that they had a stuffed toy that they loved. They’ve now realised it’s been burned.’

He stared.

Then…

‘Wait right here,’ he told them soundly, and without another word he strode from the room and left them gaping after him.

And then he was back, and in his hands-at arm’s length because it was so disgusting-he carried the blackest, filthiest soggiest Tigger they’d ever seen. But it was…

‘Tigger!’

Erin barely got the word out before the boys were out of their beds, upending milk as they went and heading straight for Matt. They clung to what he held out to them-one to Tigger’s snout, one to Tigger’s tail, and all the grime in the world wouldn’t have made one ounce of difference to the love that shone from their eyes.

Their Tigger…

Erin was looking at him as if he’d produced a miracle, and the feeling was just great. His expanding chest almost popped the buttons on his shirt. ‘How on earth did you rescue Tigger?’

‘I never meant to,’ he told her and managed a shamefaced grin. ‘They thrust it at me in the fire and, to be honest, I thought it was a dead cat. I just shoved it down my shirt and kept going.’

‘A dead cat!’ Her lips twitched. ‘And do you always go around shoving dead cats down your shirt during house fires?’

‘Before anything else. They’re excellent for curing warts,’ he told her. ‘All you need is a graveyard and a full moon. Everyone tries to find them, but this time I got there first.’

He was ridiculous. She chuckled and suddenly things were just fine. The twins were inspecting their disgusting toy with relish. It appeared that the grime and general dishevelment made not the least difference to their affection.

How could it?

Matt grinned, trying to ignore the warm feeling Erin’s pleasure was giving him. ‘Doc Emily deserves some credit, too,’ he admitted. ‘She saw it when she was listening to my breathing and told me to hang on to it. Then I forgot it-until I took a shower, opened my shirt and it fell out. The damned thing nearly gave me a heart attack.’

‘I imagine it might.’ Erin’s smile was a mile wide. ‘We’re so lucky you didn’t toss it away.’

‘I could have.’ Matt’s eyes were resting on the twins. They’d sat on their shared bed again, one end of Tigger on each of their knees. ‘But by last night both Doc Emily and I had an inkling that whatever could be saved might be important.’

‘You have no idea how important,’ she said warmly. ‘Oh, Matt…’ Her eyes were glowing.

Whew! Her eyes were doing something to his insides which was truly spectacular. He needed to be grounded here.

He was.

The admiration session was interrupted before his chest buttons could finally pop from the strain. Just as Matt was starting to feel very peculiar indeed, another knock sounded through the room.

Visitors were coming thick and fast this morning, Erin thought, but what the heck. They had Tigger. With Tigger, they could save the world! They could cope with anything.

But it was Charlotte, and suddenly Erin wasn’t so sure if anything included Charlotte.

She was amazingly early, Erin thought, and then she glanced down at her wrist-watch and stared in disbelief. It was after nine o’clock. Help!

And she looked like this!

‘Charlotte,’ Matt said warily, and the tone of his voice summed up all of their feelings.

Charlotte gave him her most sympathetic smile-heroine racing to save hero!-and then she moved straight to practicalities.

‘Mrs Gregory told me you were feeding the children their breakfast in the bedroom,’ she said briskly. ‘Why on earth don’t you do it in the kitchen? At least you can wash the floor there.’

And then she looked again-and saw Tigger. She physically flinched.

‘What…what on earth is that?’

‘It’s Tigger,’ Erin said, and beamed her joy with the world. Even Charlotte couldn’t burst her bubble this morning. ‘He’s a bit fire-stained. As we all are. Hi, Charlotte. Isn’t it the most wonderful morning?’

Erin’s greeting startled Charlotte out of her composure. ‘I suppose it is.’ She looked Erin up and down-aristocrat to a low life form somewhere under the level of porriwiggle. ‘What on earth are you wearing?’

‘At a guess, I’m modelling old Mr Harbiset’s hand-me-down dressing gown,’ Erin told her, refusing absolutely to be ruffled. ‘He’s the only local I can think of who’s fat enough to own a dressing gown this size, and Mrs Harbiset’s always giving things to charity.’ She gave a fast twirl, ballerina-like, and the flannelette dressing gown swung out almost full circle around her bare legs. ‘Isn’t it great? You think the style will take off?’

Charlotte somehow managed a smile. Then she turned to face Matt, excluding Erin and the twins nicely from her ordered world.

‘Matt, darling, I’ve talked to my parents,’ she told him sweetly, in a tone that said she’d solved all his troubles. ‘And they’ve been terrific. They say the orphanage can have the use of the stables until the Home is rebuilt.’

‘The stables?’ Matt blinked and Erin raised her eyebrows politely. Stables?

‘I don’t mean the stables proper, silly,’ Charlotte said, giving him the benefit of her delicious, tinkling laugh. She threw the twins a look that said she wasn’t so sure that stables wouldn’t be the best place for them, but then went bravely on. ‘No. There’s living quarters directly above the horse boxes. We used them for the men when I housed all my horses there, but now I’ve moved out they’re empty. They’re still quite liveable.’

‘That’s very generous of your parents,’ Matt said, thinking it through. ‘But the living quarters were built for use by the stable lads, weren’t they?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then they’re pretty basic.’

‘Yes, but it’s almost summer.’ Charlotte beamed. ‘There’s a little kitchenette and a dormitory and a bathroom. Everything they need.’

‘One dormitory?’

‘Yes.’

‘So Erin would be sharing the dormitory with the children?’

‘That’s what she does, sweetheart.’ Charlotte gave Erin her very nicest smile. Her beam widened, all her problems solved and she reached out to take Matt’s hand. ‘She won’t mind, darling. Caring for children is her job. Isn’t it, Erin?’

Hmm. Erin might have continued to twirl but she had also been listening. And thinking-fast.

‘It is,’ Erin said thankfully. ‘And I’m very grateful. But I’m afraid I can’t accept any offers before our director comes down here and sorts things out. Meanwhile, if Matt’s offer still stands…’

‘When’s your director coming?’

‘This morning, I imagine,’ Erin said dryly. She glanced at her watch. Tom Burrows had been in Sydney this week, but she’d imagine news of the fire would have him down here by lunch time. ‘I’ll pass on your offer to him and he’ll come out and see your parents-and the stables.’

‘Hey, hang on a minute!’ Matt wasn’t having a bar of this. ‘The kids are staying here.’

‘You must see that’s impossible.’ Charlotte was still at her sweetest.

‘Why?’

She lowered her voice, just enough to make the twins aware that they were being discussed without them hearing.

‘Because they’re juvenile delinquents, that’s why. They burned down the last place they stayed in. Heaven knows what they’d do here.’

But that was enough for Erin. Her hackles had well and truly risen. Juvenile delinquents? At seven years old?

If she didn’t get rid of this woman soon she’d lose her temper-which maybe wasn’t such a good idea, she thought, as she’d really, really like to stay here for a while. This set-up was perfect for the twins. They had a farm where they could be relatively isolated from the rest of the community.