‘Right.’

‘Then, I know you’ll be back,’ she said serenely. ‘Sooner or later. Have car-will return.’

But, as Luke drove out the gate in his strange and battered jalopy, it wasn’t his car he was figuring how soon he could return to.

In fact, his car was about number four on his list.


What followed was a period of peace for Wendy-but not for long.

‘Tell me all. Tell me right now!’

It was three days later, and Shanni, Wendy’s best friend from years back, had arrived at the farm in a state of near stupefaction. Cute, vivacious, and just returned from her extended honeymoon, Shanni was here to rescue her friend from whatever dire peril she’d put herself into, and it had taken all Wendy’s counselling skills to get her to stay still and be reassured.

‘There’s nothing to tell.’ Wendy smiled her very nicest, placating smile. ‘It’s just a job. You have much more exciting news. Tell me about your honeymoon. Was it good?’

‘The best. But-’

‘How are Nick and Harry?’

‘Great, but-’

‘And your new house? Is it ready for you to move into?’

‘Wendy Maher, stop changing the subject.’ Shanni glowered across the table. ‘I leave the place for two months and what happens? I come home and my best friend is nowhere to be found-she’s resigned no less!-and Erin says she’s taken off with the most gorgeous man she’s ever seen in her life. To live with him, in truth-if I have my facts right, which I can’t believe I have.’ She looked around her, eyes narrowing. ‘Where is he?’

‘I have him hidden under my bed.’ Wendy chuckled. ‘For use after the kids go to sleep.’ Then she relented. ‘No, Shanni, my boss is not here. Luke rang last night. He’s in London seeing Grace’s mother.’

‘In London!’ Shanni fixed her with a don’t-mess-with-me look. ‘Yeah, right. Your boss is in London. And he’s left you here all alone. Wendy, there’s an Aston Martin in the backyard!’

‘He could hardly leave me on the farm without a car,’ Wendy explained, grinning. ‘It’s my grocery wagon.’

Shanni gaped. ‘A grocery wagon. A brand new Aston Martin sports car? He’s never gone away and left you with it to use for groceries?’

‘Of course,’ she said placidly, still smiling. ‘Don’t all the best nannies do their grocery shopping in brand new Aston Martins?’

There was silence while Shanni took this on board. Slowly her lips compressed, and her eyes turned thoughtful. ‘Nick had a sports car,’ she said finally, having thought things through. ‘Until he met me and Harry.’

‘Well, Luke still owns a sports car.’ Wendy shrugged and rose to make her friend coffee. ‘Don’t make a big deal of it, Shanni. He’s just left it here as collateral.’

Shanni’s intelligent eyes narrowed. ‘Collateral. Collateral for what?’

‘For him, I guess. To ensure he comes back.’

‘You think otherwise he’d do a runner?’

‘I have no idea,’ Wendy told her. ‘I have no idea in the wide world what makes Luke Grey tick.’

But still her friend eyed her thoughtfully. Then she gazed around her. Three days and an army of hired help-courtesy of Luke’s credit card and enthusiastic tradesmen-had worked wonders. The house was starting to look as it once had. It was gracious and welcoming and wonderful.

And the children…

Shanni had been Gabbie’s kindergarten teacher so she was one of the few people in the world Gabbie trusted. The little girl therefore decided this visit wasn’t important enough to interrupt her mud pie making on the veranda. Just through the window, still in sight of her beloved Wendy, Gabbie looked busy, up to her ears in mud, and as content as a little girl could possibly be.

And in the living room through the kitchen door, Grace was snoozing peacefully on a sheepskin rug, a baby at peace with her world.

All was right for these children, Shanni thought, and from where she sat the whole place looked like something out of Home Beautiful-only much, much cosier.

There was so much unexplained. It was all too much for Shanni. ‘Wendy, I’m going to bust if you don’t come clean,’ she declared. She rose, rounded the table, took her friend’s shoulders and spun her around to face her. ‘This place-this set-up-looks like a dream come true. There must be a catch. You tell me what’s going on or I swear, I swear, I’ll bust my stays.’

‘As if you ever wear stays!’

‘I might! We married women spread alarmingly,’ her friend muttered, glowering. And then she let herself get distracted. ‘Especially…especially when they’re pregnant.’

‘Shanni, you’re not pregnant!’

‘Just a little bit.’ Temporarily waylaid, Shanni grinned, her happiness transparent. ‘Plus we’ve got a new kitten called Darryl, and Nick thinks he knows where we can get a goat. So I’ve told you all my news. Everything. Now you tell me all, and I’m not leaving until you do. If you think I’ll leave my best friend in the power of some…some Aston Martin driver…’

‘I’m not in his power.’

‘Convince me.’

‘Of course I will.’


But, at the end of a half-hour explanation-plus another half an hour of question time-Shanni rose reluctantly to leave and she wasn’t convinced at all.

‘How do you know he’ll return?’

‘Are you kidding?’ Wendy motioned outside. ‘Do you know how much that thing’s worth? He’ll be back.’

‘You don’t think he’d return anyway-because he loves his little sister?’

‘Maybe he will in time,’ Wendy said dubiously. ‘But if he does love her, he doesn’t know it yet.’

‘So you think he’ll come back, give you legal status as her nanny and then he’ll go?’

‘That’s the plan.’

‘But…he’ll visit?’

‘I hope he does.’ Wendy didn’t sound all that sure. ‘It’s important for Grace that he does.’

‘You know…’ Shanni surveyed her friend thoughtfully ‘…if this Luke is anything like Erin described, it’d be pretty easy to fall in love with such a man.’

‘You have to be joking!’

‘Stranger things have happened. Look at me and Nick.’

‘I’ve done the love thing,’ Wendy told her friend, and her voice was flat and final. ‘Sure, he’s cute, but there’s no possibility I’m going down that road again.’

‘Adam’s been dead for six years.’

‘And so has the baby he killed. It doesn’t get one inch easier.’

‘And yet you love Gabbie,’ Shanni said softly, and there was a sudden catch in her voice that she couldn’t hide. Her own pregnancy had made her feel even more just how dreadful Wendy’s sorrow had been, but somehow she found the courage to make herself say what had to be said.

‘Wendy, you blame yourself for what happened but it hasn’t stopped you loving again. You love Gabbie. I can see it every time I look at you. The way Gabbie’s been treated is tearing you in two. And Grace… How much must it hurt you to lift a babe who’s the same age as the baby who was killed by Adam’s foolhardiness? Wendy, if you’ve learned to love again…’

But Wendy’s face had closed. ‘Loving children is different.’

‘Than loving a man? Maybe. Because it was Adam who caused you such pain.’ Shanni probed gently. She knew this must hurt, but it still needed to be faced. ‘Not every man’s like Adam, Wendy. Luke can’t be blamed for Adam’s mistakes.’

‘Because I loved Adam too much, a child died,’ Wendy said harshly. ‘I should never have let him drive like that. But he was showing off-like a kid with a new toy with his damned fast car-and he was so happy! I was stupid, stupid, stupid-because I was in love-and a baby in the other car paid the price. And her parents.’

‘Adam paid his price, too,’ Shanni reminded her. ‘He’s dead. It’s over, Wendy.’

‘Yes, it’s over.’ Wendy turned and sat down at the table, and her shoulders slumped. ‘I know. It’s finished. But I loved Adam too much, and I lost control. I will never, ever feel like that again. I’ll love my children, I’ll protect them, and that’s all.’

‘Wendy…’

‘For heaven’s sake, Luke’s way out of my league anyway,’ Wendy told her, trying to smile. ‘He’s rich, he spends his life abroad, and he’s gorgeous. What would a man like that want with the likes of me?’


Which was just what Luke Grey was asking of himself at that very minute.

Ten thousand miles away, Luke was face to face with Grace’s mother, and suddenly, inexplicably, he wanted Wendy with him. Right now!

Lindy was gorgeous. How had his father-a man who’d been in his late sixties-ever attracted a woman like this? Luke checked out the woman who he’d finally tracked down in one of London’s best hotels, and he could find no answer. Sure, his father had charm, but one glance told him this was a lady accustomed to the best that money could buy, and then some.

He’d discovered by now that she was a model, and it showed. Lindy was almost six feet tall; she was willow-slim, with fabulous chestnut curls draped ever so carefully down to her breasts. Each curl looked individually arranged. Her eyes were sky-blue, huge and wondrous. Her rosebud lips were pouting prettily at her unexpected visitor, and her gorgeous, gold kimono looked as if it was straight from a designer’s collection.

She must have cost his father a mint, Luke thought cynically. No wonder the old man had died in so much debt. But why did one look at her make him feel like running a mile?

‘You didn’t need to come all this way to find me,’ Lindy told him, and her voice was carefully modulated to a sexy whisper. Luke’s mistrust deepened. He knew that this was the way she’d speak to any attractive man in her orbit.

‘I had quite a time finding you,’ Luke admitted, hauling himself into business mode. It was the only way to cope here. ‘Someone in your modelling agency gave me a break and told me where you were.’

Her eyes flared with anger. ‘They shouldn’t have. I told them…’