Marion Lennox - His Miracle Bride

‘Gee, that’s the sort of thing to say to stop me shaking,’ she muttered.

‘Shanni, you’re beat.’ He hesitated for a moment and then shrugged, seeming to shake off whatever scruples he might be feeling. Before she knew what he intended, he bent and scooped her up into his arms, holding her close.

‘What the-?’

‘I’m taking you to bed,’ he told her. ‘But not downstairs. Yeah, that’s Maureen’s room. No one’s been in it since she died. There’s a spare bed in Wendy’s room. I think you’d be better off sleeping with the kids.’

‘I’m a grown woman,’ she protested. ‘Hey, Pierce, I’m an independent career woman. Are you putting me to bed with the children?’

‘Too right I am,’ he told her. ‘You need company to get you to sleep.’ He gave a rueful grin. ‘I’d like to offer my services, but my bed’s already occupied. Me and Bessy-the woman of my dreams.’

She didn’t protest. He carried her into the spare bed in the girls’ room. He helped her off with what remained of her windcheater. He would have helped her more, but she suddenly woke enough to be independent.

‘I’m fine,’ she said and suddenly the atmosphere changed. She’d let him cradle her against him as he climbed the stairs. She’d seemed to need his warmth-his strength-but suddenly there was tension.

He retreated, leaving her to it. She was confused. He could see she was confused-and so was he.

Back in his bedroom, Bessy slept, which was a mixed blessing. ‘When I’m awake you might as well be awake, too,’ he told her. ‘When I go to sleep that’s when you’ll wail.’ But Bessy wasn’t listening. She had her chubby fist pressed into her mouth and she was seriously sucking her tiny knuckles as she seriously slept.

He should sleep himself. But too much had happened too fast. His heart rate was still up there, and it wasn’t going to slow down soon.

When he’d put his hands under the camellia, searching, he’d felt the blood and for a couple of awful moments, until he’d carried her to the veranda and been able to see the extent of the damage, he’d thought the worst.

Well, his heart rate hadn’t yet settled.

‘I do not need someone else to worry about,’ he told the sleeping Bessy. ‘A waif whose boyfriend’s duped her out of her livelihood, whose parents have left her stranded.’

‘Are you kidding? She’s a mature woman. Pushing thirty? She has to be. Did you see the way she organized the cleaning? She’s not a kid.’

‘It’s the way she looks at me.’

Bessy stirred and grunted and waved her small fist in the air. He took it, and she wrapped her fingers around his middle finger and clung.

Domesticity closed in from all sides.

‘I should never have bought this house.’

‘So sell it.’

‘No.’

‘Well, get out of here at least. Take Miss Bossy Boots to the sea. Give us all a break.’

He sighed. Sleep was nowhere.

Miss Bossy Boots was right before him. That awful moment when he’d dragged her out from under the bush, before he’d seen…

‘That’s what this is,’ he told himself. ‘It’s horror. And gratitude. She saved Donald.’

‘She’s some woman.’

See, that was just the route his thoughts didn’t want to take. He’d made one mistake in the past. Or two, he admitted, being ruthlessly honest.

One was buying this place. It had been a dumb-ass romantic gesture. His brothers had made him see how stupid it was.

The second was his response to Maureen. Maureen, if you’re dying…Hell of course you can bring the kids here. I’ll take care of you.

And now his life was down the toilet. His work was a disaster. If he didn’t get this project in…

Miss Bossy Boots had a point. Two apartments.

But the kids would want to be with him. Or he’d worry if they weren’t. There had to be a solution.

Beach.

Kids.

Castle.

He sat up so fast that Bessy woke and glared, then grinned in the moonlight and held up her arms for a cuddle.

‘Right,’ he said, hugging Bessy obligingly and throwing back the covers. ‘Let’s go look on the internet. Only I’m looking for a very specific place. A place I already know about. A place where I can back off and leave the emotion to trained professionalism.’

Including how he felt towards Shanni? How he might be feeling, but he was admitting nothing…

‘It’s a package deal,’ he told Bessy. ‘Ruby says it’s a place of miracles. Let’s hope she’s right.’

SHANNI went to sleep in a skinny kid’s bed, with Wendy and Abby sleeping almost within touching distance.

She woke and the kids’ beds were empty. She could hear voices from downstairs.

The room was empty.

She lay and stared at the ceiling, watching early morning sunbeams flicker on the wooden beams of the ceiling. This was the loveliest old farmhouse. She could see why Pierce had wanted it. It was a home.

The home he’d never had.

But he didn’t want attachment. He didn’t want marriage. It was like he’d bought the place just so he could bring up stray kids.

Maureen must have been so relieved to find him.

Pierce.

A nice boy…

He was nice, she thought, still half asleep, drifting in the warmth and comfort of her tiny bed. He was really nice.

Yeah, and she’d thought Mike was nice, she told herself harshly as she realized where her thoughts were taking her. She needed to haul them right back under control. Her judgement in men was seriously flawed. She needed time out-at least a year or so before she’d even think about dipping a toe in the water again.

And there’d be no dipping of toes with someone like Pierce. He had five kids. It’d be like jumping over Niagara Falls.

Right. So stay sensible. She gave herself a mental shake and rolled onto her side, preliminary to getting out of bed.

Mistake.

Last night she’d had what she thought was a grazed shoulder. Now…Maybe it was a compound fracture. Plus gangrene. Or something worse.

She whimpered and rolled onto her back.

‘Ouch!’ said a voice from the door. She looked over, and there was Pierce. He had a couple of kids behind him. He was smiling.

He’d shaved, she thought inconsequentially. He was wearing linen pants and a green polo shirt with a little alligator icon on the chest. He looked like he’d stepped straight off the cover of Vogue.

He made her feel…

‘It’s nine o’clock,’ Wendy said from behind him. ‘Pierce said it’s time to wake you.’

‘I’ve made a doctor’s appointment for you in half an hour,’ Pierce said apologetically. ‘Or we would have let you sleep longer.’

‘A doctor’s appointment?’

‘The man from the garage brought a new tyre for Mum’s wagon,’ Bryce said. ‘So we can come with you.’

‘There’s a little seat in the back,’ Wendy added. ‘So it’s a seven-seater. Isn’t that lucky?’

‘Cos there’s seven of us,’ Abby added importantly. ‘You want to hear me count?’

‘How’s the arm?’ Pierce asked.

That was the only thing that she could make sense of. She lay back and looked at him, solidly looked at him, at his anxious face, at the amazing good looks of the man, at his worried frown and the way his brow just puckered at the edges.

‘I feel like I need painkillers,’ she confessed. ‘But then I already feel like I’ve taken them. Giddy.’

‘You do need to see a doctor.’

‘Maybe,’ she said cautiously.

‘Right, then. Will you stay in bed? I can carry you to the car.’

‘I’m getting up,’ she said indignantly.

‘You’re sure?’

‘Yes.’

‘Do you need help to get dressed?’

‘No.’ In fact-and she wasn’t admitting this for quids-she’d gone to sleep in her bra and knickers. It had hurt too much to take her bra off.

‘Wendy, stay and help her,’ Pierce ordered. ‘The rest of you, breakfast. Bryce is on toast duty. There’ll be half a ton toasted by the time you get down.’ He smiled at her, that heart-stopping smile that made her heart, well, not stop, but it was a near-run thing. ‘Take care of her, Wendy.’

‘I…’

‘Oh, and we’ve organized the beach,’ he added as if it was an afterthought. ‘Your offer of internet hunting was noted with gratitude, but we’ve found our own place.’

‘We’re going to a castle,’ Bryce said, sounding awed. ‘A castle at the beach. The castle at Dolphin Bay. So we’re having hot dogs today and beach tomorrow as soon as Pierce has found someone to take care of the farm.’

She felt like she was caught in a tidal wave, washing her along with a momentum that didn’t allow her time for breath. Not that she wanted to breathe. Her shoulder hurt. Boy, did it hurt. It hurt all the time she dressed and all the time she had breakfast, and it hurt as she walked out to the car.

She was aware of Pierce’s eyes on her every step of the way, so she fought it. She grinned at the antics of the kids-she tried to keep up with the backchat-but in the car she subsided into blessed silence. She didn’t speak again until they pulled up outside the doctor’s surgery.

Pierce was out of the car almost as soon as they stopped, hauling open the passenger door, helping her out, his expression grave.

‘Well done you,’ he said softly, and he put his finger under her chin in a gesture of reassurance. ‘We should have called the ambulance last night. What a hero.’

‘I’m not a hero,’ she managed, but she whished he wouldn’t do this. Look at her like this. Touch her…

She’d thought he was fabulous when he was fifteen. He’d grown…fabulouser?

‘Did you get any sleep at all?’

‘I was jet lagged,’ she managed. ‘I would have slept if I’d been on the rack.’

‘And that’s how you feel this morning? Like you spent the night on the rack?’

‘A bit.’ He was helping the kids out of the car now. ‘Um, where are you guys going?’