‘It’s another legacy from my mother,’ he told her, seeing her look of surprise. ‘The bedrooms stay immaculate at all times in case of unexpected visitors. That’s you. Unexpected visitors.’ He managed another of his smiles, and even though it was crooked and weary it was a smile that made a girl want to take a backward step.
Or a forward step?
But he was talking in a dragging voice that had Erin suddenly looking sharply up at him. She needed to focus here. The burn on his forehead was blistering badly and his eyes were red-rimmed from the smoke. He might be hero material but he was badly shocked and he’d inhaled a lot more smoke than she had.
‘I’m afraid they won’t stay immaculate if my twins are sleeping in them,’ she said apologetically, and then, propelling her charges into the bathroom, she turned back to him with decision written all over her. House mother personified. ‘You go and take a shower yourself,’ she said. ‘And then go straight to bed.’
‘We’ll see. I do need to eat. I’ll meet you in the kitchen when the twins are settled.’ He managed a rueful smile. ‘That is, if you dare leave them alone.’
‘They’ll be good tonight,’ Erin told him, and she smiled as she ruffled the twins’ soot-blackened hair. The children were so tired they were sagging on their feet. ‘Won’t you, boys? I think any mischief has been blasted right out of you.’
‘We’re sorry, Erin.’
It was the first whisper she’d had out of either of them. She’d run a bath, washed them to within a whisker of their lives, rubbed them dry on Matt’s mother’s sumptuous white towels-and still managed to leave a streak or two of grey on the gorgeous linen-and then cradled them into bed. They shared the one bed, despite there being twin beds in the room.
In times of trouble these two stuck together and they were sticking together now.
And all the time they’d stayed silent.
Now, dressed in some very strange and ill-fitting pyjamas, they looked up at her from their shared pillow, and their eyes were still glazed with shock and fear and remorse.
‘We only made the bomb to scare Pansy,’ William said, trembling, and if he hadn’t sounded so pathetic Erin might have been tempted to laugh. Oh, heck… Pansy Poodle?
‘Why on earth would you want to scare Pansy?’
‘So Mr and Mrs Cole would move away and stop being nasty to you.’
That was all she needed! She was overtired and overemotional and now she had to blink back tears. They were such terrors but there was always a motive. They had such good little hearts.
Somehow she schooled her features into sternness, and hugged them both.
‘Well, we were very, very lucky that Mr McKay came to save us. You’ll promise me you’ll never, ever play with fireworks or matches again? Not even to scare Pansy?’
‘We promise,’ Henry told her and she looked down and knew that she had their word.
It wouldn’t be a bomb next time. Something else for sure, but not a bomb.
She tucked them in, hugged them again for good measure and wondered where Tigger was now. They loved Tigger, and when they realised he’d been burned… It didn’t bear thinking of.
Then she looked up at the sound of footsteps in the hall. Matt was standing in the doorway. He was clean now, big and bronzed and capable, dressed in clean jeans and an open necked shirt and with only the burn on his forehead to show any damage had been done.
He was back to the farmer she knew.
Charlotte was one lucky lady, Erin thought suddenly. A class above the likes of her or not, Matthew McKay was not bad as husband material.
Not only was he extremely good looking, with his thatch of sun-bleached brown curls, his weathered skin and his strongly muscled frame, but his deep brown eyes were twinkling with kindness. In his hands he held two mugs, and he carried them carefully over to the bedside table for the boys.
‘My Grandma always used to say a glass of warm milk is the best cure in a crisis,’ he told the twins. ‘So I brought you boys one each. There’s another for Erin when she’s had her shower.’ And then he smiled at Erin-a smile that somehow had the capacity to knock her senses reeling. ‘Off you go, and I’ll meet you in the kitchen when you’re clean.’
Darn, she must be more exhausted than she thought, Erin decided. She really was very close to tears, and his kindness was almost her undoing.
‘I’ve also brought my very favourite story book from when I was seven,’ he told her, motioning to a book tucked under his arm. ‘It’s all about fire engines. So I propose that you go and clean up while I read to the boys.’
‘Your throat…’
‘Hurts,’ he finished for her. ‘Well guessed. I’d imagine yours does, too. Luckily my book’s mostly pictures so the boys and I just have to look. So scoot.’ He smiled down at the two nervous little boys in their shared bed, and his smile was encompassing and kind. ‘Is that okay with you guys?’ he asked them. ‘It seems a bit unfair that we’re clean and Erin’s not.’
The boys considered in silence-and then slowly nodded in unison.
‘Great.’ Matt’s smile widened and he sank down onto the bed beside Erin. It was sort of crowded down there- four on the bed-but it was familiar and very, very comforting after the fear of the last hours. ‘I don’t know about you,’ he told Erin softly, ‘but I’m pooped and the sooner we get this lot asleep the sooner we can get to bed ourselves.’
Absolutely.
He was perfectly right.
So why did his words bring a blush to her face as she rose and headed gratefully to the bathroom?
And those tears were definitely still threatening.
By the time she’d showered, the twins were solidly, absolutely asleep. Wrapped in one of Louise’s vast towels, Erin checked them from all angles and decided it’d take another bomb to wake them, and even then it wasn’t a sure thing.
She didn’t blame them. She was exhausted herself, but Matt was nowhere to be seen.
He’d meet her in the kitchen, he’d said, but she couldn’t go and find him wrapped only in a towel. Her own clothes were disgusting, so she hauled on an enormous dressing gown she found in the donations pile and made her way through the house to find him.
The house was huge. Vast! It must have six or seven bedrooms, she thought as she padded barefoot down the passage, and when Matt emerged from a door in front of her she practically squeaked in fright.
‘Hey, I’m no ghost.’ Still those eyes twinkled as he put his hands on her shoulders to steady her. ‘Uh, oh. You’re done in.’
‘You must be, too.’ She looked up at him and saw that his eyes were still reddened slightly from the smoke and the burn on his forehead had blistered further. ‘You look a darn sight worse than me.’
‘I’d have to agree there.’ The laughter lines deepened as he took in her total appearance. ‘But only just. What you’re doing in a bathrobe that looks like it was designed for Mother Hubbard…’
That brought a chuckle. The robe was enormous. She swam in it, and it trailed out behind her like a flannelette bridal train.
His voice softened as he realised why she was wearing it. ‘Hell! I guess you’ll have all lost your own clothes.’
She had. She’d barely had time to take it in yet, but it was something she’d have to face. Most of her belongings were back in the blackened, smouldering ruin. However…
‘They were just things,’ she said resolutely, trying not to think of her mother’s seed pearl necklace that she’d loved so much. ‘Things can be replaced.’
‘You’re one brave lady.’
‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘I’ve never been so frightened in my life as I was this evening. I thought I’d lost them.’
‘The boys.’
‘Yes.’ He was leading her into the kitchen as they spoke, and at last she relaxed. Unlike the rest of the house, this felt like a proper home. The kitchen had ancient polished floorboards, big comfy furniture, a huge wooden table
