His Miracle Bride

And there’d be no dipping of toes with someone like Pierce. He had five kids. It’d be like jumping over Niagara Falls.

Right. So stay sensible. She gave herself a mental shake and rolled onto her side, preliminary to getting out of bed.

Mistake.

Last night she’d had what she thought was a grazed shoulder. Now…Maybe it was a compound fracture. Plus gangrene. Or something worse.

She whimpered and rolled onto her back.

‘Ouch!’ said a voice from the door. She looked over, and there was Pierce. He had a couple of kids behind him. He was smiling.

He’d shaved, she thought inconsequentially. He was wearing linen pants and a green polo shirt with a little alligator icon on the chest. He looked like he’d stepped straight off the cover of Vogue.

He made her feel…

‘It’s nine o’clock,’ Wendy said from behind him. ‘Pierce said it’s time to wake you.’

‘I’ve made a doctor’s appointment for you in half an hour,’ Pierce said apologetically. ‘Or we would have let you sleep longer.’

‘A doctor’s appointment?’

‘The man from the garage brought a new tyre for Mum’s wagon,’ Bryce said. ‘So we can come with you.’

‘There’s a little seat in the back,’ Wendy added. ‘So it’s a seven-seater. Isn’t that lucky?’

‘Cos there’s seven of us,’ Abby added importantly. ‘You want to hear me count?’

‘How’s the arm?’ Pierce asked.

That was the only thing that she could make sense of. She lay back and looked at him, solidly looked at him, at his anxious face, at the amazing good looks of the man, at his worried frown and the way his brow just puckered at the edges.

‘I feel like I need painkillers,’ she confessed. ‘But then I already feel like I’ve taken them. Giddy.’

‘You do need to see a doctor.’

‘Maybe,’ she said cautiously.

‘Right, then. Will you stay in bed? I can carry you to the car.’

‘I’m getting up,’ she said indignantly.

‘You’re sure?’

‘Yes.’

‘Do you need help to get dressed?’

‘No.’ In fact-and she wasn’t admitting this for quids-she’d gone to sleep in her bra and knickers. It had hurt too much to take her bra off.

‘Wendy, stay and help her,’ Pierce ordered. ‘The rest of you, breakfast. Bryce is on toast duty. There’ll be half a ton toasted by the time you get down.’ He smiled at her, that heart-stopping smile that made her heart, well, not stop, but it was a near-run thing. ‘Take care of her, Wendy.’

‘I…’

‘Oh, and we’ve organized the beach,’ he added as if it was an afterthought. ‘Your offer of internet hunting was noted with gratitude, but we’ve found our own place.’

‘We’re going to a castle,’ Bryce said, sounding awed. ‘A castle at the beach. The castle at Dolphin Bay. So we’re having hot dogs today and beach tomorrow as soon as Pierce has found someone to take care of the farm.’

She felt like she was caught in a tidal wave, washing her along with a momentum that didn’t allow her time for breath. Not that she wanted to breathe. Her shoulder hurt. Boy, did it hurt. It hurt all the time she dressed and all the time she had breakfast, and it hurt as she walked out to the car.

She was aware of Pierce’s eyes on her every step of the way, so she fought it. She grinned at the antics of the kids-she tried to keep up with the backchat-but in the car she subsided into blessed silence. She didn’t speak again until they pulled up outside the doctor’s surgery.

Pierce was out of the car almost as soon as they stopped, hauling open the passenger door, helping her out, his expression grave.

‘Well done you,’ he said softly, and he put his finger under her chin in a gesture of reassurance. ‘We should have called the ambulance last night. What a hero.’

‘I’m not a hero,’ she managed, but she whished he wouldn’t do this. Look at her like this. Touch her…

She’d thought he was fabulous when he was fifteen. He’d grown…fabulouser?

‘Did you get any sleep at all?’

‘I was jet lagged,’ she managed. ‘I would have slept if I’d been on the rack.’

‘And that’s how you feel this morning? Like you spent the night on the rack?’

‘A bit.’ He was helping the kids out of the car now. ‘Um, where are you guys going?’

‘We’re coming to the doctor’s with you,’ Bryce explained.

‘You have to be kidding.’ She stared at them like they were out of their collective minds.

‘If you get an injection you need someone to hold your hand,’ Abby said, and put out her hand in offering.

‘I’ll be fine,’ Shanni said, backing away. What was she getting into?

‘Okay. We’ll fetch our mended tyre and do the supermarket shopping while we wait,’ Pierce told her, grinning. ‘But I want the truth about what the doctor says.’

There was no way Shanni was giving him the truth about what the doctor said. Because after a cursory glance at her arm-‘Badly bruised, lacerations, you’d expect it to be painful for a few days, I’ll prescribe painkillers.’-the doctor started in on a subject he cared about more than Shanni.

‘What the hell is that idiot about, letting cattle wander? The man’s a lunatic.’

There was such dislike in the doctor’s voice that she flinched. ‘The bolt to the paddock was cut,’ she said, confused. ‘It’s criminal negligence, or worse, but it’s not Pierce’s fault. Pierce should be calling in the police.’

‘It’s criminal negligence,’ he agreed. ‘But it’s not Mr MacLachlan who should be calling the police. It’s you. If he let bulls graze without protective barriers…’ He grimaced. ‘It’s the last straw. There’s no way I’m letting those children stay at risk.’ He reached for the phone.

Something was seriously screwy.

She put her hand firmly on the telephone, forcing him to replace it.

‘Indulge me,’ she said slowly. ‘Charge me for a long consultation if you must. But I’ve been employed as a nanny for Pierce’s children. I need you to be honest. As one professional to another, tell me why you think Pierce MacLachlan is a bad parent.’

Supermarket shopping was Pierce’s least favourite pastime. Not that these kids were ill behaved-on the contrary, they’d had such a hard time while their mother had been ill that every time he put anything but bread and pasta in the trolley it seemed an occasion for general rejoicing. But supermarkets in small country towns were full of small country people. That’s what they were, he thought, as he passed one matron after another with her nose raised in sniffy disapproval. Small minded and mean.

Where was the legendary country hospitality? Nowhere. It was a great idea of Shanni’s to go to the beach. Maybe he should move the whole lot of them there permanently.

Though wherever he went he’d probably get this level of disapproval, he thought. Single dad with a gaggle of disparate kids.

‘Can you tell me where the hot-dog rolls are?’ he asked a middle-aged woman stacking shelves, and she practically bristled.

‘Aisle ten,’ she snapped.

‘It’s aisle three.’ Shanni’s voice shocked them all. It was so loud it stopped everyone in their tracks.

He swivelled to see where the voice was coming from.

Shanni was at the end of their aisle, and she was holding a microphone. The mike was obviously the one used for messages such as, ‘Gimme a price on the broccoli.’

Shanni seemed to have purloined it for her personal use.

‘I can see bread from here,’ she boomed. ‘Hot-dog rolls in aisle three. The lady’s telling lies.’

‘I never-’ The shelf-stacking lady’s jaw dropped almost to her ankles.