Marion Lennox - His Miracle Bride

‘We’ll paint fish at the beach,’ Abby said.

‘Fish legs, then.’

‘Mermaids,’ Wendy said, and giggled.

Wendy giggling?

It was such an astonishing sound that it almost had Pierce driving off the road. He hadn’t heard Wendy giggle since her mother had died.

This woman was…

A godsend. Nothing more, he told himself, suddenly finding he needed to give himself a stern reminder of barriers. She was great for the kids.

She was cuddly.

He didn’t do cuddly. He didn’t do relationships.

Except, maybe, with Ruby.

Ruby’s husband had been a foster kid himself, physically scarred from years of childhood neglect. When he’d died young Ruby had declared her life mission was to rescue boys. There were too many children in the world to take them all, she declared, so she restricted herself to gawky adolescent males, and she loved them to bits.

He’d spent three years of his life with Ruby. His mother never abandoned him completely, so his childhood was made up of intermittent placements. After he met Ruby she took him every time.

Shanni had Ruby’s grin. She had Ruby’s way of greeting life head on. That was the only reason he was reacting to her like he was, he told himself. Because she was like Ruby.

Yeah, right. She wasn’t the least bit like Ruby. She was Shanni.

They lapsed into silence. Pierce turned onto the gravel track leading to the farm, and realized that he didn’t want this journey to end. Which was weird. He who held his independence as his most important asset had found a short journey with five kids, a pile of supplies and a woman with a wounded wing great.

‘So we’re setting out tomorrow,’ Shanni said, and he thought, okay, they could keep this businesslike.

‘Yep.’

‘We didn’t go today because-’

‘Because you need time to recover.’

‘I’m supposed to help you, not the other way round.’

‘You saved Donald.’

She thought about that. ‘So I did,’ she said at last. ‘There’s a silver lining to every cloud. I might be stuck here…’

‘You think you’re stuck?’

‘Of course I do.’ She seemed astonished. ‘I mean-’ She caught herself. ‘I mean, you all seem very nice, but I’m an art curator. This is a career blip. I’m here to regroup and then I’m out of here. So if you find someone else, feel free to employ them.’

‘Thank you,’ he said gravely.

‘Only not tomorrow, cos even though I shouldn’t come it was my idea to go to the beach and I really, really want to stay in a castle.’

‘So do I,’ said Donald.

‘Me, too,’ said Wendy.

And, to a chorus of ‘me, toos’, he turned into the farm. With his temporary housekeeper. Temporary childminder. Temporary…relationship?

He didn’t do relationships. Even temporary ones.

SHANNI woke at three in the morning. Her shoulder hurt.

Actually, it throbbed.

‘Wuss,’ she told herself, but her shoulder wasn’t in the mood to be told it was making too much fuss.

She needed painkillers. The doctor had given her lethal-looking night-time pills with instructions that she’d need them to go to sleep. But he’d said they’d make her dozy, and she was a bit wary of being dozy in this house. What if there was another bull? She’d taken a couple of milder analgesics and had managed to go to sleep, but now those bright blue suckers she’d put in the kitchen medicine cabinet looked pretty inviting.

The house was in darkness. She was still in the girls’ bedroom. Wendy and Abby were fast asleep. Carefully she threw back the covers, winced as the movement hurt her arm, then padded her way downstairs to the kitchen.

Pierce was sitting at the table, a sheath of plans spread out before him. He looked like a man who’d been working for hours.

He was wearing bright blue pyjamas. He had serious-looking glasses perched low on his nose. He’d been raking his hair with his fingers. His curls had separated into rake marks. He needed a shave again.

He was seriously cute.

He looked up, and she jumped.

‘Hey,’ he said, sounding as startled as she was. ‘It’s me who’s supposed to jump.’

‘Did I scare you?’

‘If you’re asking whether the sight of five feet three inches of woman with pyjamas covered in pink pigs and with one arm in a sling is enough to terrify me-you could be right.’ He stretched, like a big cat, and rose lazily to his feet. ‘Your arm’s hurting?’

‘I…Yes.’ Maybe the pink pigs weren’t such a good idea, she thought. They’d been a Kris Kringle Christmas gift from the gallery staff. She’d shoved them right to the back of her bureau, but when she’d been packing to come home she’d thought, why not, no one’s going to see me in bed ever again.

But she wouldn’t have minded a bit of feminine lace right now. Or even plain flannelette. Just not pigs.

‘They’re great,’ Pierce said, and grinned. There it was again-that grin. He could make her heart do somersaults.

She was his temporary housekeeper. And, after Mike, your selection criteria is seriously flawed, she told herself. Do not think cute.

‘They’re all the fashion in London,’ she said defensively.

‘I believe you.’ His smile widened.

Whoa. Stop it, stop it, stop it.

‘Sit by the fire,’ he told her. He walked round and pulled the fireside rocker forward.

‘I’m all right.’

‘Sit.’ Before she knew what he intended, he caught her round the waist, picked her up and deposited her in the chair. Just as if she was one of his kids.

She didn’t feel like one of his kids. She felt imperiled.

There’s a dumb thing to think, she told herself crossly. Just because he’s so…male.

‘I’ll make you some cocoa,’ he said, turning his back to her, which was a relief. When he wasn’t smiling the pressure dropped. Just a bit. ‘You shouldn’t take those pills on an empty stomach. Cocoa and chocolate cookies coming up. I can strongly recommend the cookies, and there’s nothing like a nice hot cup of cocoa to make you sleep.’

‘Thank you, grandpa.’

‘Hey, we both have pyjamas on,’ he retorted. ‘If I’m grandpa, you’re grandma.’

She should make some smart retort. She should. But the first six retorts she made in her head were all classified dangerous after the very barest of examination. She subsided into what she hoped was dignified silence while he filled the kettle.

‘We can go to the beach tomorrow,’ he told her. ‘I’ve had no less than five phone calls offering to take care of the cattle any time I need a break. Thanks to you.’

He was smiling at her too warmly. Much too warmly. She was starting to colour.

‘What are you working on?’ she asked, as much for something to fill the silence as for interest. In truth her shoulder was hurting so much she shouldn’t be interested in anything but pain relief. The fact that, despite the pain, she was very interested indeed in a man in blue pyjamas was a bit of a worry.

Actually, it was a very definite worry, and it was growing more definite every second.

‘A railway station,’ he said. ‘Want to see?’

‘I…Yes.’ She went to rise, but he was before her, hauling the table sideways so it was in reach. He lifted the first set of plans and laid it on her knee. ‘This is the overall concept. The rest is detailed working plans.’

He went back to his cocoa making. She tried to turn her attention to the plans.

Which suddenly wasn’t difficult. These were…

Amazing.

‘This is huge,’ she whispered. ‘A major metropolitan hub. A whole new network. I think I saw this advertised in London. Didn’t they run a competition for ideas?’

‘They did. We won.’

‘We?’

‘My company.’

She whistled. This was almost enough to make her forget her shoulder. She lifted plan after plan, looking at the meticulous detail as well as the truly astounding master plan.

‘But you’re brilliant,’ she whispered at last.

‘I know,’ he said laying cocoa, chocolate cookies and two blue pills before her. ‘And handsome and rugged and strong and heroic, and so humble you wouldn’t believe.’

She choked.

‘Take your pills,’ he ordered.

‘Yes, sir.’ She did.

‘Ruby says you’re no halfwit yourself,’ he said.

‘Ruby says the nicest things.’

‘She does, doesn’t she? Oh, and speaking of Ruby and her boys…’ He turned and rustled under the pile of papers on the table. ‘I rang Blake tonight-Blake’s another of Ruby’s boys-about the dreaded Mike and his use of your shared credit card.’

‘Hey.’ What was he doing interfering in her life? ‘You have no right…’

‘I don’t,’ he said regretfully. ‘That’s what Blake said. He says maybe Mike acted unlawfully, but he wouldn’t know unless you let him have access to your details. He faxed me a permission form for you to fill in. If you want to sign it he’ll look into it.’

‘There’s nothing Blake can do.’

‘He’s a Ruby’s boy,’ Pierce said modestly. ‘Between us, Ruby says we’re going to rule the world. A Ruby dynasty.’

‘It’s no good establishing dynasties if none of you intend to have families,’ she said absently. She ate a chocolate cookie, absently read Blake’s form, thought what the heck, filled it in, signed it and went back to considering Pierce. She shouldn’t. But he really was well worth considering. ‘But maybe you could form a foster dynasty,’ she suggested. ‘A world run by people without mothers.’ She thought about her own and glowered. ‘It might just work.’

‘Hey,’ he said, guessing where her thoughts had gone. ‘They only sublet their house.’

‘Only,’ she said darkly. ‘I have a doll called Susie Belle I keep in my bedroom. If any kid’s messing with Susie Belle…’

‘You want us to organise a Susie Belle hit? Armed men, at dead of night, sweeping in, “Nobody move, the doll’s ours.”’