‘Where’s your sense of adventure, Luke Grey? Sleeping outdoors is good for the soul. Two mattresses and a couple of the quilts I thumped the living daylight out of, and we’re set for the night.’

‘But-’

‘Oh, for heaven’s sake,’ she said, exasperated. ‘You’ve brought me here, Luke. You’ve shown us our new home, and we’re here to stay.’


It was the strangest night.

They dragged mattresses outside and set them up with quilts. Wendy used the bathroom-cold water only-and then, when it was Luke’s turn, he came out to find she was already under her quilt and ready for sleep. There was nothing for him to do but follow-under his own quilt on his own mattress four feet away.

It was so different!

Since ending university, Luke had been accustomed to money. He’d studied commerce and law, and his brilliant mind meant he’d been employed before the ink was dry on his degrees. He’d moved straight into a world where money was counted in thousands-or millions-and he’d lived in five-star luxury ever since.

He’d almost forgotten his roots. He’d almost forgotten why his mother had fought for custody and fought to bring him back here. He’d forgotten there were things money couldn’t buy. Like this place. The sea air. The silence.

Now he lay on his back on the mattress, with his hands linked behind him, and he stared upward at the veranda roof and saw the frayed ends of rope where a swing had once hung. A swing his mother had pushed him on, over and over.

Gabbie could have a swing like that, he thought-and after Gabbie, Grace.

‘Tell me about Gabbie,’ he said softly, into the hushed silence where the murmur of the sea was the only sound for ever. There was no traffic noise which felt truly strange. Luke hadn’t slept without traffic noise for twenty years. There was only silence…and his companions. But he knew Wendy wasn’t asleep and he badly wanted to talk.

‘Gabbie doesn’t look five years old,’ he tried again softly. ‘And…she looks scared.’

‘Her story’s not very pretty,’ Wendy murmured into the dark, and he knew once more that she was considering him. Letting him off the hook if he didn’t really want to hear.

Hell, did she never think of herself? Where were Wendy’s needs in all this?

But she wouldn’t talk of herself. He knew that now.

Focus on Gabbie…

‘So what is her story?’ he probed, and she sighed.

‘If you really want to know.’

‘If my plan works, she’ll be growing up with my half-sister,’ he growled. ‘I need to know her background.’

In the dark he felt rather than saw her smile. ‘I guess you do. Of course, you’ve been so desperate to obtain impeccable references for anyone coming near your sister…’

‘Don’t give me a hard time, woman,’ he told her, and she chuckled. Nice, he thought. She had the best chuckle. Rich and low, and so warm it made you want to reach out and…

Stop it! he ordered himself as a jab of reality sank home. This woman was his employee! If he messed this up, he’d have to find someone else to act as Grace’s nanny. First rule of thumb-you don’t mix business with pleasure!

Or business with…sex?

‘Just tell me about Gabbie,’ he managed hastily, hauling his thoughts back to logic with a savage jolt, and then he listened to the silence and wondered whether she’d reply.

She didn’t for a long, long moment. Finally she tossed back her quilt and rose. What was she wearing? he thought numbly as he watched her in the moonlight-some sort of soft nightgown that looked incredibly pretty? There were suddenly all sorts of undesirable thoughts racing in his brain, and none of them had anything to do with the subject he’d just brought up.

But Wendy was focused on Gabbie now. She crossed to the open window into the house and stood for a minute listening to the steady breathing of the child sleeping just under the sill.

Finally, satisfied that Gabbie was deeply asleep, she settled herself on her mattress under her quilt again, and still his unwanted sensual thoughts raced-and finally she answered his question.

‘Gabbie’s mother is a truly dreadful person,’ she said gently, and she said the harsh words so softly that for a minute Luke thought he hadn’t heard right. It wasn’t the sort of description he’d expect from such a woman as Wendy. He blinked into the night, but it came again. The harshness… ‘I’ve met a lot of sad people since I’ve started this job, and I’ve met kids who’ve been abused in all sorts of ways. Usually I can see reasons. I try and understand. But Gabbie’s mother, Sonia…’

Her voice grew hard-implacable. ‘If I could wave a magic wand and have Sonia disappear from the face of the earth, I’d wave it. I’ve never felt like that about any other person, and I hope I never feel like that again.’

‘Yes?’ Luke was staring again at the frayed ends of rope where his swing had swung, but he’d been jolted out of his thoughts of the past-and his thoughts of Wendy as a very desirable woman. Almost… ‘You’re going to tell me why?’

She sighed then, a long deep sigh that told Luke more than anything how much she’d struggled over this.

‘Sonia’s a money-grubbing, egocentric control freak,’ she said. ‘One of the other social workers knows her background-she knew her husband.’ Her voice fell away.

Damn, she had to go on now. ‘Can you tell me?’ he prodded.

‘I shouldn’t.’

‘If I’m spending any time here with the girls, then maybe I need to know,’ he said softly and thought, hell, maybe this was emotional blackmail. Did he intend to spend any time here?

But Wendy considered this and seemed to find it acceptable.

‘Gabbie’s dad was an accountant,’ she said. ‘According to my sources, Howard Rolands was a nice enough man but he made a serious mistake when he married Sonia.’

‘In what way?’

Wendy shrugged. ‘Rumour is that she married him for money and bled him dry. I only know for sure that the marriage lasted hardly any time at all. Then Howard left her. He took Gabbie with him and Sonia fought him every inch of the way.’

‘Maybe that’s understandable,’ Luke said, frowning. ‘It’s unusual for a mother not to get custody.’

‘Which is why she won it in the end,’ Wendy said bitterly. ‘Not because she wanted Gabbie. She took Gabbie back to hurt Howard and then, for the next two years she kept her as a tool to hurt him more. She refused access, she mistreated the child-never quite enough to lose access, you understand, but there are ways of hurting a child without actual physical abuse. We have a folder an inch thick of this poor man’s submissions to see more of his daughter. Finally he had a breakdown-and then he suicided.’

‘Hell,’ Luke said faintly into the night and Wendy nodded into the dark.

‘That’s right. It was hell. Only then, you see, Sonia didn’t have anything to gain by keeping Gabbie. She had no one to hurt. So she dumped her on us, and signed the release papers for pre-adoption. I had her first when she was three years old-a tiny, damaged, waif-like child who was afraid to open her mouth.’

‘And you fell for her?’

‘I fall for a lot of my kids,’ Wendy said ruefully. ‘It’s an occupational hazard. But Gabbie was special. I loved her and she blossomed, and then, when we figured she was ready for permanent bonding, we asked Sonia to sign the final adoption papers.’

‘And…’

‘Sonia’s answer was to take her away from us. She did a really good line in devoted-mother-making-good and took her back.’

‘But why?’

‘Who’d know?’ Wendy’s voice was harsh in the moonlight. ‘Certainly not because she loves her. She kept her for two months, undid all the good we’d done and then dumped her again. That time I was lucky enough to have a place free in the Home I was working in, so I took Gabbie back in with me. And it started all over again. Teaching her to trust. Preparing her for long-term bonding. And then Sonia moving in again to destroy all the good we’d achieved.’

‘But-’

But Wendy wasn’t listening to interruptions. It was as if she was talking to herself in the dark. ‘Gabbie’s been taken back six or seven times now, and after each time I’ve moved heaven and earth to get her back with me. The time before this I didn’t manage it. The Home I was running was full, and she had to go somewhere else. She’s starting to be permanently damaged, and I couldn’t bear it so-’

‘So you’ve quit your job over it?’

‘Sonia doesn’t really want her,’ Wendy said wearily. ‘I know that now. I’ve met the woman-done everything I can think of to make things right between them-but Sonia’s only interest seems to be preventing anyone else making life good for Gabbie. She signs her over and over again for pre-adoption, but each time she backs out. It’s as if she can’t punish her husband any more so she’ll punish Gabbie. Once Gabbie’s with social welfare, Sonia doesn’t even enquire where she is-until the next application comes up to have her permanently placed.’ She sighed. ‘But this way…’

‘This way?’

‘We’ve agreed that social services will leave her with me,’ she said. ‘I won’t apply for adoption-we’ll just quietly go on with our lives and hope Sonia leaves us alone. If she does interfere and takes Gabbie back, then, with social services’ permission, I’ll be waiting whenever she returns. Gabbie will know that. I’ll always be here for her.’

Silence. Luke thought this over, mulling it into the night. And he didn’t like what he thought.

‘I think,’ he said slowly, ‘that that’s the way of madness. To love a child and to let her go to someone like that, over and over… You’ll tear your heart in two.’

‘If I don’t do this, then no one else will,’ Wendy told him. ‘I’m the only chance Gabbie has. Gabbie’s mother might do her worst, but I need to be here, as a permanent refuge. I have to give her that chance.’