Their Baby Bargain
Marion Lennox
Luke Grey had just been landed with a baby half sister he'd never known existed!A bachelor businessman couldn't possibly look after her - so who could? When Luke arrived at Bay Beach Orphanage, Wendy Maher made him a bargain: she'd look after the baby if Luke provided them with a home so Wendy could also foster another little girl.His house would do just fine! As long as Luke wasn't in danger of falling for his ready-made "family"….
“You can leave your car here for us,” Wendy said.
“My car?”
“Yes, your car.” She chuckled at the look on Luke’s face. “This way I’ll have something to do the grocery shopping in….”
“You’ll use my car to do the shopping?” Luke was practically gibbering.
“And then I know you’ll come back,” Wendy ended serenely. “That is—if you still want me to look after your baby?”
She raised her eyebrows and waited. He glared at her.
“What kind of a bargain is this?” His voice was rising through the roof.
“It’s a baby bargain,” she told him.
Families in the making!
In the orphanage of a small Australian seaside town called Bay Beach, there are little children desperately in need of love. Some of them have no parents, some are simply unwanted—but each child dreams about having their own family someday….
The answer to their dreams can also be found in Bay Beach! Couples who are destined for each other—even if they don’t know it yet—are brought together by love for these tiny children. Can they find true love themselves—and finally become a real family?
Look out for the next PARENTS WANTED story
by Marion Lennox
coming soon in Harlequin Romance
.
Their Baby Bargain
Marion Lennox
For all my loopy friends, without whose love and laughter
this book would never have been written.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER ONE
PEOPLE didn’t arrive at Bay Beach Orphanage driving fortunes on wheels. At least, they didn’t until now.
Wendy Maher cared for orphans, or for young children from broken homes with no money. Foster-parents tended to spend more on kids than on cars, and orphanage staff did the same.
Therefore Wendy shouldn’t even recognise this sports car—a gorgeous deep green Aston Martin DB7 Vantage Volante—much less know its worth. She watched the low-slung car purr into her driveway, and the fact that she could guess almost exactly what it cost was enough to make her blood boil.
Just as it always had at such waste…
She rose stiffly to her feet. A flutter of child’s clothes tumbled around her feet, but her attention was no longer on packing. Adam would have killed for a car like this, she thought bleakly. Adam—whose love for expensive cars and fast driving had destroyed more than just himself…
Good grief! What was she doing? She hauled herself back to the present with a jagged wrench. Thinking of Adam still led to heartbreak. She had better things to be thinking of than him.
Like—what on earth was this car doing here? Her Home—one of a series of Homes making up Bay Beach Orphanage—was on a dead-end road. Maybe the driver had turned in by mistake.
‘It’ll be someone asking for directions,’ she told Gabbie. Wendy’s five-year-old foster-daughter was also distracted from packing and was now staring out the window at the amazing car. Woman and child gazed at the car together. Then, as he emerged, they gazed at the driver.
The driver was certainly worth a good, long look. He seemed three or four years older than Wendy’s twenty-eight years—and he was drop-dead gorgeous! His blond-brown hair was attractively tousled and nicely sun-bleached. He was six feet tall, or maybe a little more. His skin was nicely tanned; he was expensively but casually dressed in cream moleskin trousers and an open-necked, quality linen shirt, and he was wearing the most superb leather jacket.
Or…it was superb if you were into statements of wealth, Wendy thought crossly. Which she wasn’t! This man and his car looked like something out of Vogue magazine. The cost of the jacket alone would pay more than a month of Wendy’s future rent, and the thought made her glower as he strode toward her front door.
Maybe she could charge him to tell him where to go?
The idea made her smile for the first time that day. She touched Gabrielle’s flaming curls in a gesture of reassurance, and then crossed to the hall.
‘Hello,’ she said, swinging the door wide and pinning a smile of greeting on her face that she didn’t feel like giving. ‘What can I do for you?’
‘I hope you can relieve me of a responsibility,’ he answered. ‘Is this the place where you leave babies?’
Silence.
Wendy stared. The man was smiling like a cover model, he was asking if he could leave a baby and he was talking as if he was delivering a parcel! His deep green eyes were twinkling engagingly, and his wide mouth was curved into a matching grin. He looked like a man used to getting his own way, Wendy thought. He had a wonderful smile—a smile to make you do things you had no intention of doing—and it made Wendy back a couple of steps in immediate mistrust.
‘I beg your pardon?’ she said blankly.
‘They told me this was an orphanage,’ His smile slipped a little, unsure. ‘The sign outside…it says Bay Beach Children’s Home.’
He was right. As if to emphasise his point, Gabbie now appeared at Wendy’s side. The little girl clung silently to Wendy’s skirt, put her thumb firmly in her mouth and stared.
The stranger looked enquiringly from one to another. Together, they were quite a pair—but they didn’t match.
Wendy had glossy black curls, twisted casually into a loose knot from which errant wisps were escaping at random. She was tall—five eight or so. She had olive skin, her warm grey eyes were widely set in her open, pleasant face and, although no one could ever call her plump, she was nicely rounded. She was cuddly, her kids decreed—and with her flowery skirt and her soft white blouse she looked as if she’d just stepped out of a mystical Celtic tale.
Wendy looked competent, kind and motherly—an image she’d worked hard to achieve and an image her children approved of very much. Especially Gabbie.
With Wendy assessed, the man looked down at Gabbie. There were few similarities.
Five-year-old Gabbie had startlingly red hair, tied into two short pigtails. Her snub nose was the complete opposite of Wendy’s, and her eyes were a deep, fathomless green. Her freckles stood out on her too-pale face; she was finely boned, and she couldn’t be any more different from Wendy if she’d tried to be.
This was not a mother-daughter relationship, the man’s expression said. He had come to the right place. His smile re-emerged as he faced the comfortable Wendy. This lady might not be his sort of woman, but she was who he needed right now.
His confidence had returned with his smile. ‘You are part of Bay Beach Orphanage,’ he announced.
‘Yes.’ Wendy’s hands rested on Gabbie’s shoulders as the child’s thumb shifted nervously from one side of her mouth to the other. This little scrap was fearful of everything, and Gabbie’s biggest fear was always that she’d be snatched from the Wendy she loved. Sadly, it wasn’t an unreasonable fear. ‘This is a children’s home. But in answer to your query…’ She took a deep breath. ‘You’re asking is this the place you leave babies?’ Her brows creased together in a frown. Her urge was to slam the door in the stranger’s handsome face, but if there was a baby involved then she couldn’t do that. ‘Do you have a baby?’
‘Well, yes,’ the man said as if he was apologising. He smiled again. ‘I’ll bring her in, shall I?’
She followed the man to his car and, with Gabbie still clinging to her side, she waited as the man extricated a bundle from the rear of his fancy car. The infant was in a carry-cot and at least she’d been properly strapped in. In this job she’d seen babies in cardboard boxes—bureau drawers—anything.
But this little one was no neglected waif. The stranger was lifting her—if inexpertly. He was holding her as if she was made of glass, and the baby was a miniature version of himself. She was just beautiful!
She was the most beautiful baby Wendy had ever seen, and Wendy had seen a lot of babies.
The baby had the same soft blond-brown curls as the man, and the same twinkly green eyes, creasing into delight now that she was being lifted. She was wrapped all in pink—there was no possibility of mistaking this little girl for a boy!—and she looked about five or six months old.
And…her eyes said it for her: this was indeed a wonderful world. She was plump and well cared for and happy. Wendy, accustomed to seeing the most awful things that people could do to their children, sighed with relief that at least this baby was healthy.
‘I’m leaving tonight—I need to be in New York by the weekend,’ the man was saying. He held the baby awkwardly in his arms, proffering her toward Wendy. ‘But you’ll take care of her, won’t you? After all, that’s your job.’
There was only one answer to that. ‘No,’ Wendy said softly, and her eyes met his. Steady and sure, Wendy’s were eyes that had seen the worst the world had to offer, and then some. She’d thought nothing could surprise her—but it always did. ‘It’s not my job. Caring for your baby is your job.’
‘You don’t understand.’ He was still extending his pink, wrapped bundle, but Wendy wasn’t accepting. She held Gabbie’s clutching fingers with one hand, and kept her free hand firmly by her side.
‘I assume this is your daughter,’ she told him. She must be. The likeness was uncanny. ‘I’m not sure what’s happening here, Mr…’
‘Grey. I’m Luke Grey. And, no, she’s not my daughter.’
‘Mr Grey,’ she said and took a deep breath. ‘Mr Grey, you don’t just dump babies when you wish to go to New York. Or anywhere for that matter.’ Her voice was calm and unflappable, her training coming to the fore. ‘But you’re right. I don’t understand. Explain it to me.’
‘This is not my baby!’ But he broke off before he could go any further. Anyone would. An outraged yell from behind them was enough to break off conversations three blocks away.
It was Craig. Of course. Wendy turned to see a small boy emerge onto the veranda. He was holding a toy fire engine, and his expression said the end of the world had arrived. Right now! Which was nothing unusual. Craig’s calamity rate was usually one disaster every hour or so, and he was behind schedule.
‘Wendy, Sam broke the hook on my fire engine,’ he wailed, his voice still loud enough to announce his catastrophe to the whole of Bay Beach. ‘He broke the hook off my crane. Wendy, it’s broken…’
‘Don’t worry, Craig, I have glue,’ Wendy called to him, as if broken fire engines were normal. As they were. ‘Put it on the kitchen table, and I’ll fix it. But first…’ she gave Luke’s car an appreciative glance, which Luke didn’t appreciate at all ‘…look what’s in our driveway,’ she told the little boy. ‘Call Sam and Cherie, and bring them out to see this man’s really nice car.’
Then she managed a tiny internal chuckle as she watched Luke’s face go blank in dismay. No matter. Whatever human disasters were around, this car would give her children some pleasure.
It certainly did. The wailing switched off like a tap. ‘Wow!’ Stunned, five-year-old Craig stared at the sports car as if it had landed from Mars. ‘Is it real?’
‘Don’t touch it,’ Luke said immediately, and Wendy’s inner chuckle strengthened. What harm would a few sticky fingers do?
‘Bring your baby inside, Mr Grey,’ she told him. ‘You still need to explain.’
‘Will you take her?’ he said, and his voice was pleading. He held out his arms. ‘She’s…she’s wet.’
‘Babies often are,’ Wendy said placidly, still refusing to take his bundle. She led Gabbie up the veranda steps, leaving him to follow, like it or not. ‘Okay, we’ll change her nappy and then you can tell me all about your problems. But no, Mr Grey, I won’t take her. You carry your baby until I understand what’s going on.’
‘She’s not my baby.’
‘That’s what you said before.’ Seated now in Wendy’s kitchen, Luke was still holding his baby. Wendy had changed the little one’s nappy and wrapped her in dry blankets but then she’d handed her right back. Now she was making coffee while Luke sat uncomfortably with his beaming bundle and tried not to be distracted by what was happening out the window.
There were three children playing in his car. They couldn’t do any real harm, he decided, but he sent up a small prayer anyway. Please… The gorgeous leather upholstery would wipe clean…
‘So who’s baby is she?’ Wendy watched where his glance lay, and then dragged his attention back indoors. She handed over a mug of coffee and settled herself. Gabbie made a beeline for her lap and stayed close. Instinctively Wendy’s arms came around her and held tight. On Luke’s lap, his baby gurgled and chuckled and reached for the mug. There were two adults and two responsibilities. And a whole lot more outside…
‘You wouldn’t like to get those kids away from my car?’ he said uneasily.
‘Watch your coffee,’ she reminded him. ‘Babies burn and she can reach it. You can move your car onto the kerb if you’re uncomfortable.’ She refused to be ruffled. ‘While it’s in my yard I can’t drag the children away from it.’
‘Then will you hold the baby while I shift it?’ he begged, and she shook her head.
‘No, Mr Grey.’ She wasn’t taking his baby while he went to move his car. Instinct told her she’d never see him again.
And he saw exactly what she was thinking. He stared over the table at her, anger flaring. ‘Look, I could have just dumped her and run,’ he snapped.
‘And you didn’t.’ She nodded, not warming to the man in the slightest. He might have a smile to knock a girl sideways, but he wasn’t coming across well at all. He was a darn sight more worried about his car than his baby. ‘That’s very noble of you.’
The censure in her tone was obvious, and his brows snapped together in anger.
‘You think I’m a rat.’
‘It’s not my job to think anything of the kind,’ she told him. ‘I’m paid to worry about children—not to make judgements about the people who are caring for them. Or not caring for them.’
‘Hey, she was dumped on me!’
‘Really?’ Her grey eyes widened in polite disbelief and she looked from man to baby and back again. ‘You know,’ she said softly, ‘she looks very like you.’
‘I’d imagine she does,’ Luke said bitterly. ‘Of all the stupid…’ His eyes flew to Wendy’s again, the anger still there. ‘But she’s not my daughter. I swear.’
‘You’re related though?’
‘I guess we are,’ Luke said slowly, and for the first time his attention faded from his precious car. ‘I’ve been thinking.’ He cast a dubious look at the little girl he was holding, as if he was still trying to figure out where she’d come from. She’d grabbed a teaspoon; she was banging it on the table, and enjoying the occupation immensely. ‘She…she’s my half-sister.’
‘Your half-sister.’ Wendy sat back, had a couple of sips of coffee and hugged Gabbie some more. He’d explain, she guessed. Given time. Meanwhile, Gabbie was still trembling. She’d been trembling all day with the impending move. She needed hugging and Wendy was content to hug her. The rest of the kids had a great new toy to play with—a couple of hundred thousand dollars worth of new toy!—and, despite the fact that she had a train to catch, Wendy wasn’t into rushing.
For the baby’s sake, she could wait.
‘I didn’t even know she existed until today,’ Luke said bitterly. ‘Hell. You’re sitting there judging me for dumping her and until this morning I didn’t even know I had a half-sister.’ His eyes caught hers and held them, willing her to believe him.
And suddenly, unaccountably, Wendy did believe him. His eyes were also demanding she understand. She didn’t understand, but she found herself suspending judgement just a little. Her initial vision of playboy father landed with illegitimate baby was put to one side. For the moment.
‘Tell me about it,’ she said softly. She glanced out the window—just to check. Sam was sitting behind Luke’s steering wheel, Craig was in the passenger seat and Cherie was pretending to be the bonnet ornament. They had bare feet, she thought, and no one was wearing belt buckles. They wouldn’t scratch his precious car.
But Luke was now not watching his car. He had eyes only for Wendy, trying to make her see.
‘It’s my father,’ he said slowly. ‘This is my father’s baby.’
Wendy’s quick mind mulled this over. Family messes were what she was accustomed to—what she was trained to deal with. ‘You mean your father is also this little one’s father?’
‘I guess.’ Luke stared dazedly down at the bundle—who stared back with lively interest. ‘She does look like me, doesn’t she?’
‘She certainly does.’ Her voice softened. ‘She’s the spitting image of you, Mr Grey. Apart from the fact that you’re opposite sexes, you’re almost identical twins—thirty years apart.’
He stared at the baby for a long moment, trying to take it on board. Finally he shrugged. ‘Maybe I need to go back. Explain the whole damned thing.’
‘I have time.’
He nodded. This woman really was the most restful person, he thought suddenly. He’d been wallowing in panic ever since he’d opened his door at six this morning. There’d been a knock but when he’d opened the door all he’d found was the bundle. The baby.
Panic? Maybe it wasn’t panic, he thought. Maybe panic was far too mild a word for it.
‘My father wasn’t very reliable,’ he said slowly. He took a deep breath, watching her reaction. There wasn’t one. Her face was carefully noncommittal and he had the feeling it’d take a lot to shock her. ‘Well, maybe that’s an understatement. I…I need to be able to make you see. My father had charisma. Anything he wanted, he got. He only had to smile…’
Wendy nodded. She could see that. She just had to look at Luke’s smile and she could see that.
‘He married my mother,’ Luke went on, his smile disappearing completely now and his voice bitter. ‘I suppose that’s one thing. The marriage lasted for a whole twelve months but at least I was born legitimate. I was the son he always said he wanted, but he wasn’t into fatherhood. It cramped his style. When he walked out, my mother went back home—her parents lived on a farm just out of Bay Beach—and I was brought up here. Sort of.’
‘Sort of?’ She’d never heard of this man, she thought, and she’d been in the district for years.
‘Of course, sort of. His son being brought up as a country hick didn’t suit my father one bit. To my father, ego was everything,’ Luke said bitterly. ‘I had to have the best. Despite my mother’s protestations, I was sent away to the best boarding schools, and the most prestigious university in Australia. I have no idea how he managed the school fees, and the fact that my mother lived on the breadline didn’t worry him a bit. He went from debt to debt. He lied, schemed, swindled—conned his way through life. I didn’t know it all. My mother kept it from me and she died when I was twelve, so it’s only in the last few years I found out just what his lifestyle was really like.’
‘And this baby?’
‘This little one was the result of an affair with a woman forty years his junior,’ he told her. ‘She left a letter this morning, explaining all. Apparently he set her up as he always set up his women—in the height of luxury. He lavished the best on her, and she had no reason to believe there wasn’t heaps more cash to come. She became pregnant and had their baby, she must still have been attracting him because he somehow kept supporting her—and then, a month ago, he died.’
Wendy grimaced. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Don’t be,’ he said grimly. ‘There was no love lost between my father and me. Once I was old enough to realise how he got his money I never accepted another cent. Lindy, however, depended on him, and I gather she depended on him totally. He’s lied to her, he’s dead and now she’s been evicted from her gorgeous apartment and been left to her own devices.’
‘I see.’ Wendy couldn’t help herself. Her eyes swung to the window again. To the car. And her eyes asked a question.
He got it in one. Understanding flashed into his eyes, and with it, anger. ‘I’m a futures broker,’ he snapped, following her line of thought exactly. ‘So sure, I’m wealthy, but the money I earn is earned honestly. It’s nothing to do with my father.’
‘But you’re not sharing? With, who did you say, Lindy?’
‘I’ve hardly had a chance,’ he snapped. ‘Even if the idea of supporting my father’s mistress appealed to me—which it doesn’t—I wasn’t asked. I was overseas when my father died and I had no idea Lindy even existed. There’s been no contact between me and my father for years. I paid for the funeral and I thought that was it. Then today…’
‘Today?’
‘Lindy must have known about me,’ he said bitterly. ‘Maybe my father told her I existed and she came looking. Anyway, this morning the baby was dumped in her carry-cot in my lobby. The note Lindy left also said that she only had the baby because my father was so persuasive—he must have been having a late-life crisis or something. But now there’s no money she has no intention of staying saddled with a daughter. So she’s leaving. The baby’s all mine, the note said.’
All yours…
Wendy gazed across the table at Luke and he gazed back. Take this problem away from me, his eyes pleaded.
And those eyes… His father’s eyes… They could persuade a woman to do anything, she thought. They’d persuaded a young woman to have a baby she didn’t want. They could persuade her…
No! She needed to harden her heart.
Blood ties were the most important link a baby could have, Wendy knew. That truth had been drilled into her over and over, all through her career as a social worker. Maintain family links at all costs. Sever those links only if the child is in dire peril.
This baby was sitting on her half-brother’s lap, banging her spoon and chirruping as if the world was her oyster. She had a great big brother. Healthy, wealthy and secure, he could easily support her. If Wendy could swing it, this baby was set for life.
‘I assume you don’t live in Bay Beach now,’ she said softly, thinking hard as she spoke.
‘No. I have an apartment in Sydney and another in New York. I move around.’
‘You’ve driven this little one here—all the way from Sydney?’
He seemed a bit disconcerted at that. ‘Yes.’
‘Can I ask why?’ She hesitated, watching his face. ‘There are child care services in Sydney. You just had to look up the phone book to find one.’
‘I sort of wanted—’
‘You sort of wanted—what?’
He looked up and stared at her, his eyes blank. ‘Hell,’ he said at last. ‘It’s hard.’
‘I can see that.’
‘What’s your name?’ he asked suddenly, and she smiled.
‘Sorry, I should have said. It’s Wendy. Wendy Maher.’
‘Well, Wendy…’ He shook his head, his look still confused. On his lap his tiny sister had let her spoon fall sideways. She was squirming into his chest, and her dark little lashes were fluttering downward. He must have stopped along the road and fed her, Wendy thought. She was fed and warm and sleepy. Unconsciously Luke’s arms held her close as she nestled into him, and Wendy’s eyes warmed at the sight. Maybe…
‘I knew there was an orphanage here,’ he told her. ‘I remembered it and rang—to make sure it still existed. As a child I spent some time in the original Home under I guess what you’d call respite care, when my mother was ill and my grandparents couldn’t cope.’
‘I see.’
‘And…’ he was desperately trying to make her understand ‘…Bay Beach is a great place to grow up.’
‘It is at that.’ Damn. That hurt. Wendy’s grip tightened on Gabbie. She couldn’t give a Bay Beach upbringing to Gabbie, she thought bitterly, much as she’d love to. Still, a stable home had to be better than a specific location.
‘The best time in my life was when I lived here as a child,’ Luke continued, watching her face as if he was trying to guess her thoughts. ‘When my mother and my grandparents were alive it was great. The beach! The freedom!’ He gestured to the children outside. ‘These kids…they’re lucky.’
Yeah, right. He needed to pull the wool from his eyes on that one. Dumping his sister and running, and then telling himself it was all for the best because Bay Beach was a great place to grow up…
‘No, Mr Grey, these children aren’t lucky,’ she said firmly. ‘These children have problems. They don’t have parents who care for them. For now, these children are alone in the world. I’m a paid child care worker, and they only have me or those like me.’
There was a long, drawn out silence. In Luke’s arms, his tiny sister finally closed her eyes, nestling back into his chest with absolute trust.
Trust…
He stared across the table at Wendy. This woman was still young, he thought, but she was a far cry from the women he spent his free time with. She was a world away from them. There was warmth in her eyes, and compassion and caring. She could be beautiful, he thought. With a little make-up—a modern hairstyle—some decent clothes…
No!
She was beautiful now, he decided. She needed none of those things.
Why?
It was indefinable. He looked into the calm, grey depths of those luminescent eyes and he knew, despite what Wendy said, that these kids were lucky. Sure, they had dreadful problems, but in the midst of their crises, they’d found Wendy. ‘It’ll do for my sister,’ he said softly. ‘If that’s all there is. Her mother’s abandoned her, but there’s no one I’d rather leave her with than you.’
CHAPTER TWO
IT WASN’T going to happen.
He had his solution all mapped out, Wendy thought, looking across the table at him. Ha! She stared at him with trouble in her eyes and, as she tried to find words to reply, there was a thump on the door and a woman burst into the kitchen. It was Erin. Running late, as usual.
Like Wendy, Erin was in her late twenties, but unlike Wendy she was blonde, she was bouncy and she appeared supremely unfrazzled by life. She beamed at Wendy, and held up her hands in apology.
‘Sorry I’m late. You must have been panicking. I had to take Ben Carigan to placement. But what on earth is happening? That is the best car in your driveway! Fabulous. I’ve never seen such a car. Don’t tell me you’ve found someone to drive you to Sydney? But if you have, where are you going to put the luggage? There’s never room…’
Then she paused for breath, realised Wendy wasn’t alone and she turned her high-beam smile on to Luke. ‘Oh, hi. Sorry…’
Then she checked out Luke’s baby. Her effervescence faded and she glanced again at Wendy, her smiling eyes asking a question.
Erin was a Home mother, too, and Home mothers had rules. They didn’t interrupt. The kitchen tables of the Homes that made up Bay Beach Orphanage saw heaps of emotion, and both Wendy and Erin were trained to deal with it. And they were also trained to disappear when it was right to disappear. ‘You want me to go and haul children off your gear stick?’ she asked, backing to the door. ‘Craig’s trying his best to unscrew it.’
‘No.’ Wendy shook herself, as if she was coming out of a dream. This wasn’t her job. Not any more. ‘I need to move.’ She gave Gabbie a swift hug, set her on her feet and rose herself. ‘Mr Grey, this is Erin Lexton, our new Home mother. Erin, this is Mr Luke Grey, and this little one is his half-sister.’ She stood, considering the pair of them, and then motioned to the sleeping baby. ‘By the way, you didn’t say. Does your sister have a name?’
‘It’s Grace,’ Luke said, also rising. ‘Her name is Grace.’
‘It’s a very pretty name,’ Erin said, her intelligent eyes taking everything in. ‘Your…half-sister, did Wendy say?’
‘Yes.’
‘Luke’s asking us to take Grace in and care for her,’ Wendy told her. ‘I was about to tell him it’s impossible.’
‘It sure is.’ Erin smiled apologetically and shrugged. ‘We’re full to bursting. As soon as Gabbie and Wendy leave, I have twins coming in. They’re eight years old, and trouble personified. I’ve had them before when their unfortunate mother’s had enough. That counts me out for taking any more, and the other Homes are packed as well. Mary and Ray have room for another one, but their Home’s for teenagers. Mary hasn’t done mothercraft.’
Then she frowned, subjecting Luke to a really close stare. ‘Pardon me for saying this…’ She looked from Luke to Wendy and back to Luke again. ‘With that car, if you can’t look after your sister yourself, then surely you can afford a nanny to care for her. Surely you don’t need welfare.’
‘Which is just what I was about to tell Mr Grey when you arrived,’ Wendy agreed. ‘The cost of replacing a tyre for that thing out there…’ she couldn’t quite keep the disdain from her voice ‘…would pay a nanny for a month. There are nanny agencies in Sydney, many of them excellent. We can even recommend one for you.’
Luke’s brow snapped down in distaste. ‘I don’t want her to stay in Sydney. Not with hired help.’
Wendy sighed. Oh, dear… However, this was not her problem. None of this was her problem. Erin was walking in, she was walking out, and her time as Home mother at Bay Beach was over.
‘Erin, Mr Grey has been landed unexpectedly with his half-sister,’ she told her replacement. ‘He needs help—assistance in locating the child’s mother, counselling, social services maybe. Could you ring Tom at head office and organise him an appointment?’ She managed a smile at Luke, took Gabbie’s hand and forced herself to go on. Leaving was the hardest thing. To walk away…
She must. For Gabbie.
‘I’m afraid I don’t work here any more,’ she said softly. ‘I’m sorry, Mr Grey, but Erin is Home mother here now. If you’ll excuse us, Gabbie and I have a train to catch.’
‘No!’ It was a sharp order from one accustomed to command, and Wendy raised her eyebrows in polite enquiry as Luke rose to his feet and snapped out the word. ‘No?’
‘Just what I said. No! What do you mean, you’re leaving?’ Luke reached forward, took her hand and held on. He was like a drowning man who’d been thrust a stick to pull him to shore, only to have someone try and snatch it away again. ‘You can’t. I want you to look after my sister.’
Wendy looked down at their linked hands, a tiny frown creasing between her eyes. It felt…odd. This was her job, she told herself. She’d had parents clutch her before.
It didn’t normally feel like this.
‘Mr Grey, Wendy has resigned,’ Erin said softly, her eyes darting back and forth. She knew what Wendy was going through—who better?—and she knew that Wendy needed to leave, but there was something about Luke Grey…
Apparently Wendy was nothing to do with this man—Erin’s first wild hope that a wealthy boyfriend had arrived out of the murky past had been unfounded—and it was against the rules to break confidentiality.
But then, Erin didn’t necessarily follow formal rules. Her sharp mind was working overtime. She’d been worrying about her friend for weeks, and suddenly there seemed a glimmer of an answer. If she could swing it…
‘Mr Grey, Wendy’s taking Gabbie on as a permanent foster child,’ she told him, ignoring Wendy’s sharp intake of breath. ‘Gabbie’s mum won’t have her adopted. She keeps taking her back—but often for only weeks at a time—and every time Gabbie returns she has to be placed wherever there’s room. Wendy’s decided she wants to be available full-time for Gabbie—so every time her birth mum abandons her she can always go back to Wendy.’
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake…’ Wendy managed. She gave Erin a stunned look. ‘Erin—’
‘And she’s burned out,’ Erin retorted, ignoring Wendy completely. She was focused solely on Luke, and she was fighting for her friend. ‘She’s had years of saying goodbye to kids and it’s got to her. Apart from what happened before she came here… Anyway, it’s taken its toll, so she’s opted out. Starting now. The only problem is, Wendy has little money. Because of high holiday rentals there’s nowhere in Bay Beach she can live cheaply and there’s no work here except what she’s doing now. She’s spent every spare cent she’s ever earned on her kids. So she’s taken a one-room apartment in Sydney, which’ll be the pits.’
‘Erin, this is none of Mr Grey’s business,’ Wendy ex-postulated. ‘I can’t—’
‘Isn’t it?’ Erin smiled suddenly, and there were machia-vellian lights twinkling in her eyes. Honestly—the woman was incorrigible. ‘Isn’t it just?’ She turned back to Luke and she beamed. ‘I’ve suddenly had the best solution! You’re saying you need someone to care for your baby, and you want that someone to be Wendy. Wendy needs a pay packet. Ideally she wants to stay here. At Bay Beach—’
‘Erin, stop!’ Wendy was ready to throttle her. ‘I can hardly stay here,’ Wendy retorted. ‘There’s nowhere to rent—even if I could afford it.’
‘Yes, there is.’ Luke’s voice came out of nowhere—almost as if he hadn’t meant it to happen—and both women stared at him.
‘I beg your pardon?’ Wendy was so far out of her depth she didn’t know whether she was hearing right. Erin had just exposed far more than she’d wanted her to expose. Why? This man had nothing to do with her.
But apparently Luke had other ideas.
‘I have a place you can have rent-free,’ Luke told her. ‘You take care of my little sister, Wendy Maher, and I’ll give you a home in Bay Beach for however long you want it.’
You could have heard a pin drop. No one spoke at all.
Amazingly, even the bubbly Erin was silent. She was just plain stunned. She’d thrown the embryo of an idea into the air, and suddenly a miracle was happening.
Erin talked all the time but she knew when to shut up. She shut up now.
‘I…’ Wendy pushed a couple of errant curls from her eyes and tugged her hand away from Luke. Luke was still holding it, and he didn’t let her go now. ‘Please.’ She tugged again. ‘I have a train to catch.’
‘To a one-room apartment in Sydney when you want to stay here? And how are you going to make a living?’
‘I can get a job in child care while Gabbie’s at school.’
‘You know darn well those types of jobs are like hen’s teeth,’ Erin retorted—and then subsided at the look in her friend’s eyes. Oh dear—maybe she had gone too far.
‘I’ll pay you well,’ Luke told Wendy. This was a man accustomed to making fast decisions and he’d made one now. ‘Your friend’s right. I can afford to pay for a nanny. I’ll check out the going rate and pay you more. Plus living expenses. You can live at the farm.’
‘The farm?’
‘I have a farm.’ He smiled and took pity on the look of sheer bewilderment on her face. His hand holding hers pressed it gently, and then he released her fingers. She let her hand fall to her side, but she looked down at it, as if it still contained…
What? She didn’t know. Some trace of future trouble? Something she didn’t understand at all.
‘I told you my grandparents owned a farm outside Bay Beach,’ he told her. ‘Well, it’s just south of here and it’s gorgeous. There’s two hundred acres of prime grazing land, with beachfront and the river forming the northern boundary. When they died they left it to me—in trust so my father couldn’t get his hands on it. Because I loved it so much, I’ve never sold it. It’s been let for agistment—a local farmer runs his cattle on it—but the house is still there and it’s empty. If you want it, it’s yours.’
‘If I want it?’ Wendy stared at him as if he’d lost his mind. A farm. Here! If she wanted it….
‘Of course she wants it,’ Erin said briskly. ‘Just say yes, Wendy.’ She fixed her friend with a steely look. ‘Say yes, dope. Fast!’
‘No!’ Wendy shook her head. By her side, Gabbie was still watchful. Wary. Reminding her to be careful. The world had kicked this little one around too much for Wendy to take any more risks on her behalf. An inner voice was screaming at her to be careful.
‘Where did you say the farm was?’ she asked.
‘Two miles out of town.’ Luke let his eyes crease into his accustomed smile. Finally this mess looked like getting sorted.
‘What was your grandparents’ name?’
‘Brehaut.’
‘The Brehaut place!’ Wendy stared, and Erin let her breath out in a gasp of excitement.
‘Oh, it’s gorgeous. The Brehaut farm…’
‘That house hasn’t been lived in for twenty years,’ Wendy said, puzzled. ‘No one could ever figure out why.’
‘And now we know,’ Erin said exultantly. ‘Isn’t it the most exciting thing?’
‘Is it liveable?’
‘Yes, I think so.’ A trace of uncertainty entered Luke’s eyes. ‘I keep it maintained. The farmer who uses the land keeps it weatherproof.’
‘Weatherproof isn’t the same as liveable.’
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, Wendy,’ Erin snapped. ‘You can fix the place.’
‘While I care for a baby and a five-year-old.’ Wendy shook her head. ‘Mr Grey—’
‘Luke.’
‘Luke, then.’ She met his look head on, steel meeting steel. On the surface this offer seemed too good to refuse, but Gabbie was by her side and Gabbie was why she’d thrown in a perfectly good career and was moving on.
‘It’d include Gabbie?’ she asked. ‘I’d have the run of the house and Gabbie could stay with me?’
‘The house has five bedrooms,’ he said, expanding on his theme, and worry fading by the minute. This was looking better and better. Over the years he’d fretted about the farm, knowing he should sell it, but always he’d held back. Sentiment, he guessed, though he told himself it was a reasonable investment. Now, if Wendy was to fix it up a bit… Make it a home…
‘You’d set it up legally?’ she asked.
‘Watertight,’ he told her. ‘I need to go to New York tonight, but I’ll send my lawyer down from Sydney. I’ll instruct him to do whatever necessary to have you stay.’
Wendy blinked. There had to be a catch. Somewhere.
She looked at the baby sleeping in Luke’s arms. Grace. Grace and Gabbie. She’d be caring for two little girls…
This could be perfect. This way, if—when—Gabbie’s mother demanded time with her daughter there wouldn’t be such a hole in her life. She’d remain busy doing what she loved best, and there’d still be a home waiting for Gabbie when she returned.
But the house hadn’t been lived in for how many years? And the unknown factor—this new little baby’s mother—could return at any minute, and reclaim her baby. She’d only dumped her this morning. There was all the reason in the world to suppose she’d change her mind, and where would that leave Wendy and Gabbie?
No! There were dangers everywhere she looked, and if she didn’t catch this train—when did it leave?—oh, good grief, in less than an hour!—she’d be too late to get the keys to her new apartment. She’d lose it and she’d be stuck with nowhere to live in Sydney.
On the other hand, if she agreed and took two small children out to a derelict farm, and Luke headed back to New York…
She’d be stuck, she thought wildly. She could be in the biggest mess, and it wasn’t just her. It would be Gabbie and Grace as well. She had no legal right to take on the responsibility for this baby. She wondered whether Luke did. Probably not. So it had to be said.
‘No,’ she said firmly, and bit her lip as she heard herself say it. It was such a glorious idea. To say no was dreadful—but she had to be sensible.
‘Wendy!’ Erin wailed.
‘May I ask why not?’ Luke was in businessman mode here—moving in organisational capacity. This was what he was good at. ‘It’s a very good offer.’
‘It may be an exceptional offer,’ she told him. ‘But if the farm’s a wreck then it’s not. Or if I’m accused of taking Grace when I have no legal right to care for her. I’ll bet you haven’t even thought of the legal ramifications of guardianship. Have you?’
His eyes went blank. Clearly he hadn’t. ‘No.’
‘Then, I thank you for your very kind offer,’ she said firmly. ‘But I can’t accept. Unless…’
‘Unless?’
‘Unless you postpone your trip to New York. Unless you spend enough time with us at the farm to ensure it’s liveable, and you don’t leave for New York until everything’s legally settled and I’m happy that the children have a secure and reasonable place to live.’
He didn’t like it.
For the next ten minutes Luke produced every argument he could think of to have her change her mind. At the end of the ten minutes she simply took Gabbie’s hand and led her from the room.
‘We have a train to catch,’ she reminded him simply. ‘I’m pushed for time. Goodbye, Luke.’
Goodbye…
Balked, he glared after her but it made no difference. The kitchen door swung closed behind her and he glared at Erin instead.
‘She’s right,’ Erin said helpfully. Sadly but helpfully. ‘Wendy needs the legal rights to care for your baby, and she doesn’t have them. And if no one’s lived in that place for twenty years it’ll be a mess. You know it. Kids need safe places to live.’
‘I need to be in New York.’
‘Then, you have different priorities,’ she told him. ‘When do you plan on leaving?’
‘Now. Tonight. Midnight if I can get back to Sydney on time.’
‘And what do you plan on doing with Grace?’
‘She’s not my responsibility,’ he said helplessly, staring down at the sleeping baby in his arms.
‘In that case leave her with our children’s services and they’ll find placement for her in Sydney.’ Erin tilted her chin. She was taking a big risk and she knew it. She held her breath.
He glared at her some more.
And then he looked down at the child in his arms and his glare sort of died.
‘I…’
‘You don’t want to do that, do you?’ Erin asked gently.
‘No.’
‘What’s so important in New York?’
‘Meetings. I’m a broker.’
‘I’ll bet you have the internet and e-mail and all sorts of other technological gadgetry to overcome this crisis,’ she said brightly. ‘Teleconferencing, maybe? I hear it’s all the go. We even use it here to link up with our Sydney offices.’
He glowered. ‘I’ll bet there’s not even a phone at the farm.’
‘Which is one reason Wendy is right in saying she can’t agree to live there yet. You don’t have a mobile phone?’
‘Of course I have a mobile, but…’
‘There you go, then.’ She smiled again, all objectives achieved. ‘I’d stop her packing, if I were you,’ she said kindly. ‘Once she gets on that train you’ll have lost the greatest nanny a man could ever hire. Wendy’s simply the best.’
And Luke, staring down at her bright smile, knew that it was true. He knew instinctively that in Wendy he had someone he wouldn’t mind entrusting a baby he cared for.
Cared for?
He didn’t care for Grace.
But… He stared down at the sleeping baby, and his tiny half-sister stirred in his arms and snuggled closer.
‘Hell!’
‘It is, isn’t it?’ Erin said sympathetically. ‘Or it will be if you don’t stop Wendy from boarding that train. New York or Wendy, Mr Grey. You choose—but choose now.’
‘Hell!’ he said again.
‘Swearing won’t help,’ she said sweetly. ‘Choosing will.’
An hour later, Wendy was in the front passenger seat of an Aston Martin sports car, being driven south.
Against her better judgement.
She should be on a train to Sydney right now, she told herself. That was the place for sedate foster parents. If she was on a train, the wind wouldn’t be blowing in her hair, she’d have all her suitcases in the luggage racks above her head, and she’d have Gabbie safely on her knee.
Now the wind was very definitely blowing in her hair and her unruly knot was almost completely unwound. Her luggage was back at Bay Beach—there was no chance it’d fit into Luke’s miniscule baggage compartment and he’d organised a taxi to bring it out later. Grace was in her carry-cot, and Gabbie was sitting in the car’s rear seat with her mouth as wide open as her eyes. She looked in a state of shock.
Which just about summed up how Wendy was feeling.
‘I’ve been bamboozled,’ she said faintly. ‘I don’t have a clue what I’m doing here.’
‘That makes two of us,’ Luke said, not without sympathy. ‘I should be heading for the airport right now.’ He shifted his hands on his steering wheel and grimaced. ‘There’s something sticky on this.’ Then he stared down with horror as he saw two grey marks on his leather steering wheel. ‘Someone’s touched this with sticky hands!’
Good grief, Wendy thought blankly. After all that was happening, the man was worrying about a sticky steering wheel!
‘It’ll wash off,’ she said shortly.
‘You’re sure?’
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, it’s only red jelly. The kids had red jelly for lunch. It dissolves in warm water.’
‘There’s red jelly on my steering wheel,’ he groaned. And then he looked closer. It wasn’t red. It was definitely grey.
‘How can this be red jelly?’
‘It’s red jelly mixed with things.’ She had the temerity to grin. ‘Hey, I said they had red jelly for lunch. That was two hours before you arrived. They did things after that. playdough. Mud. Finger paints…’
‘I don’t want to know!’
Silence. He could feel her disapproval from the other side of the car—as if she thought this was some huge piece of ostentation.
‘You like your car, then?’ she said cautiously, and he managed a smile. Okay, maybe it would wash off.
‘Wouldn’t you? She’s gorgeous. If you knew what she cost me, first and last—’
‘I could make a very good guess what she cost you,’ Wendy said tartly. ‘Aston Martin Vantage Volante. Whew! She’s worth a fortune.’
‘You don’t know—’
‘I’ll bet I do know. To within ten thousand dollars or so, anyway, and, with a car like this, what’s ten thousand dollars?’ She grimaced. ‘What else could I guess about this car?’ She thought it through, and Adam’s tones of reverence were still with her. ‘I’d guess it has an all-alloy, quad cam, forty-eight valve, twelve cylinder engine? Zero to sixty miles per hour in approximately five seconds. Top speed of about a hundred and sixty miles an hour. Yes, she’s some plaything, Mr Grey.’
‘How the heck…?’
‘And if you knew what I could do with a quarter of the money this car cost you—’
‘Hey, I’m your employer,’ he interrupted. ‘You’re not here to give me moral lectures!’
‘Let me out, then,’ she said serenely. ‘Moralistic lectures come with the package.’
For a moment she almost thought he would. His foot eased from the accelerator, and then Grace gurgled from her carry-cot in the back seat and the impossibility of dumping this woman anywhere hit home.
‘Where did you learn about cars?’ he asked grudgingly, and she wrinkled her nose. In truth it was sort of nice to have the warm sea air blowing through her hair and a gorgeous leather seat enfolding her, but she wouldn’t admit it for the world.
‘My ex-husband was a car fanatic.’
‘Oh.’ He looked sideways at her. ‘You’re divorced?’
‘He’s dead.’
There was something about the way she said it that precluded any more questions. Back off, her tone said, and he had the sense to do just that.
‘Right.’
‘You’re not married?’
‘No.’ He grinned and looked sideways at her. ‘I decided early to love cars instead. They’re cheaper.’
‘Oh, sure.’ She took a deep breath. ‘Mr Grey, do you have any idea what you’re letting yourself in for? In one day, you’ve assumed responsibility for one baby, you’ve hired a nanny, you’ve agreed to accommodate another child…’
‘It’s no great shakes,’ he said. ‘I can afford it. Just as long as none of you cause me any bother.’
‘And if we do?’
‘Then I’m out of here.’ His grin deepened. ‘I will be anyway. Emotional attachment is not my style. I’ll get the legalities all drawn up and then I’ll leave.’
‘Just as long as the house is liveable.’
‘It will be.’
It wasn’t.
The house hadn’t been entered for twenty years. It was like turning back a time machine, Wendy thought wonderingly. With Gabbie still pressed by her side she walked from room to room. Luke walked beside her carrying Grace, and he didn’t speak either.
The house was ghostlike. Windows had been broken and boarded up. Furniture was covered with dustsheets, and cobwebs hung in vast nets draped from the ceiling. Underneath it all, the house was big and gracious and old, and the furniture was of quality, but the curtains had disappeared into moth-eaten shreds, the carpets were threadbare and the dust lay in blankets over everything. Wendy’s nose wanted to sneeze the minute Luke opened the door.
They walked from room to room in stunned silence. It was a piece of history that time had forgotten, and its ambience almost overwhelmed her. How much more must it stun Luke, Wendy thought, when the house was full of memories—of how it had been when he’d been a boy?
There were photographs everywhere, and most of them were of Luke. There were frames of Luke as a baby, looking just like Grace. A cobwebbed portrait hung on the wall—it surely must be Luke as a chubby toddler, grinning from his mother’s knee. The woman who held him, even then, showed weariness, defeat and traces of illness on her face, and Wendy found herself wondering how she’d died.
There were more. She lifted a frame from a carved side table and blew away the dust, and there was Luke at about five years old. He was standing between an elderly couple and they were holding his hands with pride. Even covered with dust, the love shone through.
No wonder Luke had kept this place, Wendy thought. No wonder he’d instinctively brought Grace here. He might have been packed off to boarding school, but here, even dust-coated and tattered, this place had been his home.
And maybe it still was. She glanced sideways and caught the look that flashed across his face—and it was a look of raw pain.
‘Apart from the dustsheets and window boarding, it’s hardly been touched since they took my grandmother to hospital,’ Luke said at last. He was speaking in a hushed whisper—it was that sort of place.
‘It must have been a beautiful home.’
‘As you said, though,’ he said sadly, ‘it’s uninhabitable now.’
‘Not quite.’ Wendy braced her shoulders and looked down at Gabbie. ‘We like a challenge, don’t we, Gabbie?’
‘Is this where we’re going to live?’ Gabbie asked in a quavering voice and Wendy picked her up and hugged her close.
‘Yes. Absolutely. And it’s going to be the best home that girls like us could ever ask for. Underneath all this dust it’s beeyootiful!’
‘We need to stay at a hotel tonight,’ Luke said doubtfully. ‘Maybe if we put in a team of cleaners and carpenters…’ He could see his trip to America being postponed indefinitely. Damn, this had seemed such a good idea. But now…
Wendy was shaking her head. ‘No. This is fine—better than I thought it might be. We don’t need to move any more. Gabbie spends her life moving, don’t you, Gabbie? If this is home, then it’s home from now on.’
She walked over to the window—they were standing in what must be the formal living room—grabbed a board from the window and pulled. The board broke free, a rush of warm salt air flowed into the musty room and outside she could see…
‘The sea!’ Wendy said exultantly. ‘Look, Gabbie, the sea!’ Beyond the wide, gracious veranda, across a paddock where Hereford cattle gazed in placid contentment under the shady gums, lay the sea. From here it looked as if there was a sandy beach, maybe even safe for swimming. It looked—wonderful!
‘The sea, the sea, the sea!’ Wendy lifted Gabbie and swung her round and round, delight shining from her eyes. She wasn’t sure how this had happened, but this was a dream! ‘We’re going to love living by the sea, Gabbie, love. Any time your mum doesn’t want you, then you’ll live here with me. By the sea. In this house which is going to be the most wonderful place on God’s earth.’
Then she set Gabbie firmly down, fixed her with a grin, hauled up her sleeves and turned to eye Luke with a speculative gleam.
‘All it needs is work.’
‘Hey, I’m a futures broker,’ Luke said in an alarmed voice, seeing the thoughts running riot behind the gleam. ‘I’m not a cleaner.’
‘And I’m a social worker, and Gabbie is a five-year-old ward of the state. But, as of now, we’re all of us cleaners. Needs must, Mr Grey. Gabbie, let’s choose you a bedroom first, and we’ll clean that out from stem to stern. Because Gabbie’s bedroom is the most important room in this house.’
‘Hey!’
‘Yes?’ Wendy raised her eyebrows politely at Luke. ‘You don’t agree?’
‘We can hire cleaners.’
‘Not tonight we can’t. We’re the cleaners. If you want us to make this a home, then you need to put some effort into it. Like now!’
‘I’m not dressed for it.’ He stared down at his leather jacket and immaculate trousers and Wendy grinned.
‘And you have lesser clothes at home? Go on, Luke Grey. Surprise me. Tell me you have old, paint-stained overalls in your garage—from all that odd jobbing you do at weekends.’
He had the grace to give a half-hearted smile. ‘Well, maybe not.’
‘So these clothes maybe aren’t your best clothes?’
He thought of his designer suits. ‘Hell, no.’
‘See, it could have been worse,’ she said cheerfully, arranging Grace’s carry-cot carefully in a dust-sheeted armchair and covering it with a shawl. ‘There you go. Your baby’s safe and sleeping, and it’s time for the rest of us to work. Gabbie’s room first.’
‘I thought…’ he was so stunned he could hardly get his voice to work ‘…the kitchen, maybe.’
‘We have children, Luke Grey,’ she said softly. ‘Get your priorities right. We need a fire—outside I think, because it’s my bet the chimney’s blocked and we need hot water. It’ll take a brave person to tackle that fire stove, and maybe I’m not the person to do it. At least not tonight. And if I’m not brave enough, I’m darned sure that you’re not. Bailing out to a hotel! Goodness, what a wimp! Right, Luke. Right, Gabbie. Let’s get this house habitable.’
If anyone had told Luke when he’d woken that morning that instead of flying to New York he’d spend the afternoon and evening on his knees with a scrubbing brush and a nose full of dust and cobwebs, he’d have told them they were dreaming.
But that’s just what was happening. Wendy didn’t let him off the hook for a minute. While Grace snoozed, she set them to work like there was no tomorrow and, with the wimp label ringing in his ears, he gritted his teeth and did it.
The room Gabbie chose was miniscule—a tiny boxroom added on to the end of the house. Its windows looked out over the ocean almost all the way to Hawaii, but that wasn’t why she’d chosen it.
‘You tell me where you’re sleeping,’ she’d demanded of Wendy, and Wendy had nodded and had carefully chosen the room with an adjoining door. To the boxroom…
‘We’ll be able to sleep with our doors open and talk,’ Gabbie had whispered and Luke had wondered not for the first time what was behind this little girl’s terror.
Not that he’d had time for much wondering. ‘We’re not going to bed until we have Gabbie’s room perfect,’ Wendy decreed, and while he scrubbed she was marching outside with linen and blankets and rugs and curtains to hang over the ancient clothes line. She armed Gabbie with a broom, she used a bigger one herself, and together they thumped them free of generations of dust.
They aired them in the sea breeze, they inspected Luke’s handiwork and then Wendy graciously approved the return of her cleaned soft furnishings. She had Gabbie marching in and out with pillows on her head—and giggling. She had Luke scrubbing as if his life depended on it. Even Grace slept as if she’d been ordered to.
This wasn’t a boss-employee kind of relationship, Luke thought grimly as he scrubbed. Or if it was, he knew who was the boss. And it wasn’t him!
Finally, however, Wendy called a halt.
‘Okay. We have one bedroom and one living room sorted. Kind of. Now, it’s dinnertime.’
‘Dinner…’ Luke sat back on his heels—he’d been scrubbing skirting-boards and wiping out a spider’s nest—and regarded his handiwork with a kind of detached pride. Gabbie’s bedroom did look good. They’d unboarded the two unbroken windows—it’d look a whole heap better when they’d had a glazier in—but you could see the sea, and in every other way it looked just as it had twenty years back.
He’d slept in here sometimes, he remembered. His official bedroom had been one of the bigger front ones, but the room adjoining this had been his mother’s and sometimes he’d crept in here to sleep when he’d been ill, or when his mother had been ill and he’d worried, or in the days before he’d had to leave again for boarding school…
He’d chosen this room because he loved it, and he’d lain here at night while he and his mother had talked until he’d slept. This was the best…
Oh, for heaven’s sake! He shook his train of thought away with anger. How long since he’d been sentimental like this?
But the bed was made up again with a patchwork quilt he remembered his mother and grandmother making, and there was a painting on the faded yellow wall that he remembered his grandfather buying…
Grandpa would like Gabbie sleeping under that painting, Luke decided, and then caught Wendy looking at him with a strange expression on her face. It was as if she could see what he was thinking.
She didn’t let on. Instead she teased him with a smile. ‘Resting on your laurels, Mr Grey?’
‘I don’t see why I shouldn’t,’ he retorted, stung. ‘I certainly deserve to.’ He held up his hands. ‘Look. Blisters! I have housemaid’s hands, lady. And—’
‘And?’
‘I’m hungry.’
He was, too, he realised. Starving. But there was no food in the house.
‘That’s all fixed.’ Her smile intensified, and he gazed up at her in astonishment. She really was the most extraordinary woman! ‘I’ve taken the liberty—’
‘Another liberty!’ He groaned, struggled to his feet and held up his hands in mock horror. Hell, he had housemaid’s knees, too. ‘Woman, if you take one more liberty—’
‘The taxi cab who brought our luggage is coming back at seven-thirty,’ she told him, unperturbed. She glanced at her watch. ‘That’s in ten minutes. He’s bringing a heap of groceries—I gave him a list—including baby food, nappies—and pizza!’
‘Pizza!’ Not for nothing was Luke a giant on Wall Street. He focused on the important thing here straight away. ‘Pizza’s arriving here in ten minutes?’
‘Wash first, then we eat,’ she told him. ‘I even found soap. It looks handmade and it’s gorgeous. There’s a pile in the bathroom cupboard. And I’ve dusted off some towels. Dinner’s outside by the fire in ten minutes, Mr Grey. Get yourself washed and you’re welcome to join us.’
How could he resist an invitation like that?
Luke headed for the bathroom, which, even though the years had made their ravages here as well, still smelt strangely of his mother and his grandmother. He washed under the cold water—tomorrow he’d have to see what was happening with the hot water service—and then he stood for a long time staring in the dusty mirror at his face.
The last time he’d looked in this mirror he’d been so young. He’d come home from boarding school for the weekend and his grandmother had had a heart attack.
‘Go wash up, boy,’ a neighbour had told him, taking rough sympathy on his tear-streaked self. The ambulance had left, and the boy couldn’t have stayed here alone. ‘Get yourself ready and we’ll take you back to school.’
And that was that. He’d stared for a long time into this mirror, knowing he’d been irretrievably changed: he was now alone. Then he’d walked out of the house, and he’d known in his gut that he wouldn’t be back. That had been the end of his family. First his grandfather, then his mother, and finally Gran…
Loving people hurt. Getting attached hurt.
Coming back here hurt like hell!
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, get out there and eat your pizza,’ he told his older, wiser face. ‘I don’t know why on earth you’re bothering with this kid—with a baby!—but if you must, you must. Just organise her a life and then get out. Take your car and ride off into the sunset. Fast.’
Because any other way would lead to…what? Emotional attachment? Pain he’d sworn never to experience again.
No. He couldn’t face that.
And then he heard a horn sound at the gate, and a cow lowing in the distance as it was forced to move aside for the taxi. Here, then, was dinner. And nappies. And domesticity.
‘It’s just for a week,’ he told himself harshly. ‘And then you leave!’
CHAPTER THREE
DINNER was a very, very different affair to the way Luke usually enjoyed it. Dinner, for him, was usually a social event. Sure, he was accustomed to eating out, but his eating out included expensive restaurants and cordon bleu food and beautiful women…
Here there was no expensive decor, the food was certainly not cordon bleu and the women… There were three. Grace and Gabbie and Wendy. Three women, and each was so far from his usual company it almost made Luke smile.
‘What?’ said Wendy, as she saw him take his mouthful of pizza and stare down at it as if it was food landed from Mars. ‘Don’t you like it?’
He looked at it with doubt. Did he? Bay Beach Pizza was hardly gourmet fare. ‘It’s not even wood-fired,’ he offered.
‘Oh, sadness! Welcome to the real world.’ Wendy grinned. ‘Wood-fired pizza… Good grief! Wave it over the fire, and give it some smoke if you must. Me, I’m just going to eat mine!’
She did, and she enjoyed every mouthful. Well, why not? They were eating their pizza sitting on the edge of the veranda, with the camp fire they’d lit blazing brightly between them and the sea. It was a glorious night. The sun was setting behind the house, the breeze was warm and the sound of the surf was a series of hushed murmurs as it flowed in and out to the shore. The smell—of fragrant eucalyptus, of old wood burning slowly to embers, and of sea and salt and pizza—was good enough to bottle.
It was just great, Wendy thought. She sat back and watched as Gabbie seriously engaged in pizza-eating—everything was a serious business for Gabbie—and Luke fed his baby sister the bottle Wendy had prepared for him, and down in the paddocks the cows looked up in wonder.
‘The cows think we’re crazy,’ she told Gabbie. ‘Fancy eating pizza when we have all this great grass!’
Gabbie looked at her gravely—and then her small face crinkled into a smile. She gave a tentative chuckle. ‘That’s silly.’
‘It is, isn’t it?’ She swept the little girl up into her arms and hugged, pizza and all. If she was any happier she’d burst. This could work! If Gabbie’s mother kept away…
She looked over to Luke and found him watching her strangely. He was like the cows, she thought—he couldn’t understand where she was coming from.
‘Tell me about you,’ he asked her softly. ‘What made you become a Home mother? Why are you here?’
That was easy. ‘I’m here because this is the best place in the world. Isn’t it, Gabbie?’
‘No, but—’
‘But what?’ She raised her eyebrows and it made him pause.
What indeed? She was an employee, he told himself. Just an employee. He shouldn’t delve any deeper than he needed. But he hadn’t had an employee like this before, and she had him fascinated.
‘Tell me what your qualifications are, for a start.’
‘You’ll sack me if I don’t make the grade?’
He sighed and shifted Grace to the other knee—and then looked down in dismay at the knee she’d been shifted from. It was wet! Heck, how many nappy changes did babies need?
‘I’m not sacking you,’ he told her, but he was now thoroughly distracted. ‘Holy cow! Look at this. How can she be wet already? You realise I only have one pair of trousers? You might have luggage for a lifetime, but for me this was only meant to be a day trip.’
‘More fool you,’ she said serenely. ‘Never take a baby anywhere without changes of clothes for everyone. It’s the first rule of parenting, Mr Grey.’
‘Then, it’s lucky I don’t need to learn any more,’ he said tartly, and then caught himself as Grace looked up at him. His half-sister’s tiny eyes widened—and it was as if she’d understood what he’d said and was gazing at him with reproach.
Hell! This wasn’t just a baby, he thought suddenly. This was a person! She was a little girl who’d grow up and want to know her family. Who’d need to be told…
His chain of thought was suddenly overwhelming and, Wendy, looking across at him, saw panic flare in his eyes. And understood.
‘Luke, let’s take one day at a time,’ she said softly. ‘You were worrying about wet trousers. I doubt we need to go any deeper than that at the moment.’
‘Until tomorrow…’
‘Until tomorrow,’ she agreed and smiled. ‘By tomorrow those wet trousers might start being on the nose and you’ll definitely have to move on. But for now—as social workers, we tell our clients when they’re having some overwhelming crisis to just focus on the next few minutes. Then the next few hours. The days will take care of themselves. Survival first, Luke, and everything else will follow.’
‘So…’ panic faded in the face of her calmness ‘…you’re advising me to have another piece of pizza?’
‘I guess I am.’ She smiled her enchanting smile that, for some reason, made his insides do strange things. Sitting on this veranda where he’d spent such great times as a kid, looking out over the sea, holding a baby in his arms and having this woman sitting beside him…
This was about as far from his international jet-setting life as it was possible to be. He’d taken his shoes off—they were Gucci, after all, and a man didn’t scrub floors in Gucci footwear—and his bare feet were brushing the grass as he sat on the edge of the veranda. His laptop computer was locked in the car boot and his phone was silent.
There were only the emerging stars and the silence of this place he’d loved. How long since he’d experienced a night like this?
How long until he would again?
He’d leave as soon as he had this mess sorted out, he decided, but then… The thought came out of nowhere, like a gift. When he came back he could visit! Whenever he was in Australia he could drive down to the country and see his half-sister—and this woman and her Gabbie. They’d be waiting for him, like a family.
The prospect gave him a warm glow right in the middle of his solar plexus and he couldn’t help a tiny, smug smile creeping across his face.
Brilliant. This was brilliant!
‘How often do you think you’ll come?’ Wendy asked, and he snapped back into the present with a start. She was eyeing him curiously, and by the look on her face she knew exactly what he was thinking.
‘I…’
‘Grace will need someone to attach to,’ Wendy said softly. ‘If her mother really doesn’t want her…then, like it or not, you’ll be it.’
‘I guess I don’t mind.’ He thought it through, still feeling self-satisfied with his arrangements. What problem would one baby be? Money was no hassle and he’d have his secretary buy her gifts. He’d send them to her often…
But then the thought came back to him of his father, and how much his father’s treatment of him had hurt. His father, paying expensive school fees, sending him over-the-top gifts, with cards not written in his handwriting.
Never wanting to see him…
‘It doesn’t work,’ Wendy said softly. ‘You know it doesn’t.’
‘What?’
‘Being a parent by proxy.’
‘You’d know?’
‘I know.’ She sighed and hugged Gabbie closer. Of course she knew. Some of the warmth went out of the evening and she hauled herself back to practicalities. And responsibility. Of course. That was her role in life. Picking up responsibility where other people left off… ‘Ready for bed, love?’ she asked the little girl.
‘In my new bed with the pretty quilt?’ Gabbie asked.
‘That’s the one.’
‘And you’ll stay out here?’
‘Yes. Luke and Grace and I will be just under your window. We’ll stay out here for a while because it’s so dusty in the house. But I’ll sit on your bed with you until you go to sleep. Okay?’
Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.
Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».
Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию (https://www.litres.ru/marion-lennox/their-baby-bargain-42459931/) на ЛитРес.
Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.