A Millionaire For Molly

Baird might have a wife himself. Do you think he’s the marrying kind?’

Whew. Molly shook her head at that one. ‘I can hardly ask him,’ she said frankly. ‘Don’t tell me you want to make that a condition of sale?’

‘No.’ But she sounded wistful. ‘I’m no matchmaker. But I do want my farm to go to someone who’ll love it as I have.’ There was a pause, then, ‘I’d like to meet Jackson. In person.’

‘I’m sure we can arrange that.’

‘And I want to meet you. Will you bring him to lunch with me on Monday?’

‘I think my boss-’

‘No. You.’

Molly thought that through. Fine. If that was what it took to get a sale… ‘I’ll check with Jackson now. Can I bring the contract to lunch?’

‘Bring whatever you want.’ The old lady’s smile sounded down the phone. ‘But don’t book anything else for the afternoon. I like long lunches.’

Molly had a very long shower and when she met Jackson over the breakfast table she was formality itself.

‘Good morning. How did you sleep?’

He’d decided on formality as well, but now it was pushed on him he didn’t like it very much. Two could play at this game.

‘Fine, thank you. And you?’

‘Like a top,’ she lied.

‘Where’s Sam?’

‘He ate at dawn with Mr Gray,’ she told him. ‘It seems they had an assignation. The frog croaking just before sunrise is truly wonderful. Gregor’s told him that there are ten different species to be listened to.’

‘Fantastic.’

‘It is fantastic.’ She was prattling like a fool, and serving herself far too much from the feast filling the kitchen table. ‘I’ve rung Miss Copeland.’

‘My, you have been busy.’

‘It’s my job to be busy.’

‘Of course.’

‘Don’t you want to hear what she had to say?’ She poured a glass of orange juice so fast she spilled it. Oh, for heaven’s sake, she was acting like a schoolgirl.

‘I do want to hear what she has to say.’ He sank courteously into a chair and waited for her to recover.

‘She says she’ll sell-as long as you keep Doreen and Gregor on and you meet her for lunch on Monday and you turn out to be a nice person.’

‘A nice person?’ He raised a quizzical eyebrow.

‘She didn’t elaborate.’ She shrugged. ‘It seems money itself isn’t the aim of the exercise. I have a feeling if she doesn’t like you-or even if she doesn’t like me-then she’ll pull out of the sale. So it’s up to the pair of us to define nice.’ She already had. She was staring at her plate-at anything rather than him.

But he was looking straight at her, considering. ‘You know, it is underpriced.’

‘That’s hardly the line of an eager buyer.’ She concentrated again on her orange juice-concentrated really, really hard. She didn’t want this man to be nice, she thought. She wanted the ruthless businessman she’d heard of. Ruthless she could cope with. For some reason nice made her want to weep.

Then Sam yelled from outside the window and stomped in to find them. Molly was almost glad of the interruption.

‘We counted eleven different frog calls! Mr Gray says he’s hard pushed to tell the difference, but he’s got a recording that’ll tell us in the library. He says it’s time for breakfast and then we can go swimming. Can we go swimming, Mr Baird?’

Jackson’s eyes met Molly’s and he smiled-she was way out of her depth all over again, and she stayed out of her depth all day.

And it was some day-a day full of Jackson. She watched him swim with her small nephew. She watched him patiently take Sam step by step through the early stages of swimming as if he had all the time in the world and this was the most important thing he could do with his time.

She watched him laugh with triumph as Sam conquered floating, and she watched his eyes swing up the beach to find her. The message they held was pure, unadulterated delight. He could as well have been a child himself.

Where was the ruthless businessman now?

She watched him towel Sam dry and tow the sleepy little boy back to the farmhouse. And she watched him devour another of Doreen’s enormous meals and compliment her, then share a joke with Gregor and…

And twist each and every one of them round his little finger, she thought. The man’s charm had them all in thrall.

There was a side to Jackson that she hadn’t seen, she thought desperately. There must be. He hadn’t gained his fearsome reputation for nothing. So beware…

But her heart wasn’t being the least fearful. Her heart wasn’t being the least bit sensible.

Her heart was falling head over heels in love with Jackson Baird.

CHAPTER SEVEN

‘FRANCIS?’

‘Mr Baird.’ Roger Francis answered on the first ring and his tension was palpable. ‘What’s the decision?’

‘No decision yet. The property is just what I’ve been looking for but I’m required to meet the owner. It seems the old lady’s only selling if she approves of me and if she approves of the selling agent. She’s set up a lunch for us both tomorrow.’

‘And if things don’t go well?’

‘Then I’ll be back looking at the Blue Mountain property again. And it may well happen. As I said, she seems just as interested in her saleswoman as she is in me. She sounds a real eccentric-but then at her age and with her degree of wealth I guess it’s her prerogative.’

‘Sure.’ But Roger didn’t sound sure. He sounded tense as hell.

Well, it was late on Sunday night, Jackson thought. Maybe he’d interrupted something important. But the man was on his payroll; he was paid to be on call at all hours and he hardly ever earned his keep. And there was something Jackson wanted him to do.

‘You want me to check the titles?’

‘Um…no.’

‘Then what…?’

‘I want you to check the saleswoman.’

‘Pardon?’

‘Molly Farr.’ Jackson hesitated, knowing he was stepping over the line of reasonable business practice. But he guessed she was in financial trouble and he wanted to know how badly.

‘I want a bit of background briefing,’ he told him. ‘In a hurry.’

‘Molly?’

‘Michael!’

‘Molly, love…’

What on earth was he on about? Molly had barely walked in the door before the phone had started to ring, and when she’d recognised her ex-fiance’s voice she’d come close to dropping the receiver. ‘I can’t believe I’m hearing this. What did you call me?’

‘Molly, we need to talk. Something’s come up.’