His Miracle Bride

‘Excellent,’ Nick said, dropping his crowbar. ‘Hey, Jodie,’ he yelled, up to an open turret window. ‘Kirsty. The poxy tribe are here. We’re going to the beach.’

‘Not without us,’ a woman’s voice yelled in response from an open window above them.

‘Anyone who wants to do something boring like go to the bathroom or tote luggage gets to stay behind and come down with Jodie and Kirsty,’ Susie said. ‘Kirsty’s really pregnant, and she’s as slow as a snail. The rest of us…Let’s collect our ice-creams and hit the waves.’

Shanni and Pierce were left staring at each other, stunned. The kids, Susie, Nick and Jodie, and Taffy the dog, with a very pregnant Kirsty bringing up the rear, could be heard descending the track to the beach.

‘Bessy doesn’t go to strangers,’ Wendy was explaining to Susie.

‘I’m not a stranger,’ Susie was saying. ‘I’m Susie. I’m Rose’s mum. Bessy, you like me, don’t you? Nick, are you carrying Rose?’

‘Sure,’ Nick called from behind. He sounded as American as Susie. ‘Me and the twins and Donald are guarding your backs.’

‘What’s the set-up here?’ Shanni asked, dazed, though Pierce looked as dazed as she felt.

‘This place is geared up to give kids holidays,’ he told her. They were standing in a now deserted castle forecourt. The action was all over the road and down the cliff path.

‘But what’s its story? Who’s Susie? Is she really a…lady?’

‘The new Earl of Loganaich-Hamish-was a New York financier before he inherited the castle. Hamish is married to Susie. Hamish’s ex-secretary is Jodie. Jodie’s husband, Nick, is a social worker they invited to come out from America to help them set this place up. Susie’s twin, Kirsty, and her husband are local doctors in Dolphin Bay. The twins are theirs-Susie’s nieces. Rose-the toddler-is Susie’s.’ He grinned. ‘Don’t look like that. It’ll become clearer. I came here to do renovation plans, and for the opening, but I’m still trying to match dogs and kids to grown ups. It’s chaos, but it’s great chaos.’

‘It looks fabulous. And you never thought of bringing the kids here before?’

‘To be honest, I’ve been too busy to think past the nose on my face since Maureen arrived,’ he confessed. ‘It wasn’t until you suggested we all go to the beach that I thought of it.’ He hesitated and then admitted, ‘Yeah, and Ruby’s known here. Even if I had thought of it I’d have worried it’d get back to her. Me not coping with five kids.’

‘You don’t mind her knowing now?’

‘Susie swears it can stay in confidence.’

‘And Susie’s fine with the chicken pox?’

‘There aren’t any other kids here at the moment. They keep two weeks of every six open for emergencies, and we slotted into that. Everyone here has either been poxed or inoculated.’

‘So.’ She swallowed. More than ever she thought she wasn’t needed. She’d wanted time at the beach, but this was starting to seem…dangerous. Where was the excuse to stay? ‘I should just slope off.’

‘Why?’

‘I’m hardly needed.’ The kids had reached the beach now. Their astonished cries could be heard from where they stood. ‘You’re hardly needed, and I’m needed even less. The kids have disappeared without a backward glance.’

‘I’ll be doing some work here. As per your suggestion.’

‘By the look of it you’ll be able to. Even Bessy’s gone with them. So I can just…go.’

But the whoops and cries from the beach were enticing. She wanted to walk over to the edge of the cliff and look.

‘To Ruby’s?’ Pierce asked. ‘To the macrame?’

‘I can find somewhere. I’m not exactly friendless.’

‘I’m sure you’re not.’ He hesitated, looking across the road as well. The kids’ voices floated up, delirious with excitement. ‘We need to go and see…’

‘You need to go and see.’

‘We both need,’ he said, suddenly decisive. ‘You’ve just promised you’ll sleep in the kids’ wing, and I don’t see you breaking that promise.’ He put his hands on her forearms, fixing her to the spot. ‘Shanni, you suggested this. This was your idea, and it’s a fantastic one. I employed you to look after my kids and you’re doing just that in bringing them here. You’ve had a rotten time in London-anyone can see that. You’ve also been a lot sicker with your influenza than these kids have been with their chicken pox.’

‘How do you know?’

‘You’re washed out.’

‘I am not!’

‘And you have bigger shadows under your eyes than I do. The accommodation here is booked for two adults and five children. I intend to play with the kids and do some work. I think you should spend the next two weeks lying on the beach getting your colour back.’

‘I am not washed out.’

‘So you normally look like Susie’s moaning and clanking Lady of the Castle?’

‘I…’ She floundered, wishing for a mirror. Or an exit. ‘I don’t. I’m sure I don’t.’

He grinned. ‘You’re sure you normally don’t look as pale and wan as this? That’s what I thought. You’ve two weeks at the beach. Get used to it. Now…You don’t happen to remember what case we packed our swimming gear in?’

‘The red one.’

‘There you go, then. You’re useful already. Let’s go join the troops. Oh, and Shanni…’

‘What?’ she said, trying to figure whether she was being railroaded against her wishes or whether she really did want to stay.

He placed his finger on her lips. The movement was so unexpected she took a step back.

‘The kiss last night,’ he said, and he was smiling. ‘I’m not taking it seriously, so neither should you.’

She shouldn’t be here.

Shanni lay in the dark in her fabulous bedroom and stared at the moonlit ceiling, wondering what on earth she was doing, staying in a castle for disadvantaged children.

Things had moved so fast in the last few weeks she felt…weird. One moment she was running a struggling but hip art gallery in London, the next she was recuperating from flu in a castle on the coast of New South Wales. She had a velvet canopy over her bed. She was surrounded by gold embossed wallpaper. There was a fireplace at the end of the room so big and so ornate it looked like a work of art in its own right. The bathroom down the end of the hall had a picture of QueenVictoria staring sternly down at her, a chandelier hung from the ceiling and an aspidistra dangled over the cistern.

She’d giggled when she’d seen the picture first, but when she’d gone back later Queen Vic’s matriarchal stare had seemed disapproving.

‘I’ll make a donation and pay my keep,’ she’d told the monarch, but Victoria’s disapproval had only seemed to deepen.

She could go and stay with Ruby. She was sure Pierce would sign Ruby’s dratted consent form.

Or she could camp on Jules’s floor.

But for how long?

And suddenly it all seemed overwhelming. Grey and heavy and hard.

It had all happened too fast. Finding Mike and his horrible floozy had been dramatic and sordid, and she’d been too ill with influenza to think straight. But strangely now, in this fabulous bedroom, with five needy kids within calling distance, with Pierce just down the hall, it was the first time she’d seen clearly the mess her life was in.

She was twenty-eight years old-twenty-nine in three weeks. She’d lost her gallery and her apartment. She had no money and no career.

‘And no one will employ me,’ she whispered. ‘I’m qualified as a curator of an art gallery, yet the only one I’ve ever owned went bust. Some qualification. I’ll never get another job as a curator and I know it.

‘Maybe a provincial gallery…’

‘It’s too small a world. Mike will have bad-mouthed me, and he has powerful friends. I lost my head and my