larder. I think that’ll do.’
‘God help us,’ said Hamish.
‘We’re wasting time,’ Susie retorted. ‘I could be spreading toast with anchovy paste this very minute. Goodnight, guys.’ And she towed her husband anchovy-wards without another word.
Leaving Shanni with Pierce. Alone.
Really alone.
As soon as the pair below went inside the floodlights flicked off. Hamish and Susie had obviously decided the pair on the roof needed darkness as well as solitude.
This wasn’t altogether wise. It wasn’t wise at all. Pierce was looking blank. Verging on appalled.
Wrong look. Shanni took a couple of steps backwards.
‘There’s no need for you to come into town tomorrow,’ she managed. ‘Wendy and I will be fine.’
‘She flinches when I’m near.’
‘Only when she forgets…that you’re you.’
‘So maybe I should be working on that.’
‘It’s not so important if you’re going to step back,’ she said diffidently, trying hard not to think how close he was. How she wanted him so much to take her hands again. To…
No. ‘If you’re really planning on finding a housekeeper and seeing them only on weekends…’ she managed.
‘It’s the sensible thing to do.’
‘Is it?’
‘I don’t commit,’ he said, sounding confounded, and she nodded. Okay. A girl had some pride.
‘Me either. Not after Mike.’
It was just as well to get that out in the open. It was a declaration that what had just passed between them was an aberration, nothing more.
‘I’m sorry I kissed you,’ Pierce said, which proved he was following her train of thought and agreeing.
‘It was a very nice kiss,’ she said cautiously, trying really hard to keep her voice neutral. ‘I’ve never been kissed on battlements before. Though, I thought it was me kissing you.’
‘You want to do it again?’
Whoa. He was asking? What was he thinking, when his face still had that appalled look? ‘N…no.’
‘Best not,’ he said gravely. ‘We wouldn’t want to give the gargoyles the wrong impression.’
‘Right.’ She ought to turn round and head inside, she thought, but she couldn’t quite get her feet to do the turning. ‘So you’re never intending to get married? To have kids of your own?’ Was she out of her mind, asking questions like this? But they sort of begged to be asked.
‘That’s why I agreed to marry Maureen.’
‘You don’t think that maybe one kid might be fun?’ Her mouth seemed to be working independently of her head.
‘I have five.’
‘You made that decision before being landed with five kids,’ she said, sticking to her guns. ‘No babies.’ She hesitated. ‘Why do you hardly ever see Ruby?’
‘I see Ruby. Once a month I drop in and say hello, or at least I did until I had the kids to look after on my own.’
‘A nice formal visit, whether she wanted it or not.’
‘Yes. But she does want…’
‘Oh, I bet she wants. But do you?’
‘Pardon?’
‘Do you love Ruby?’
‘I owe Ruby everything.’
‘Yet you married and adopted five kids, and you didn’t tell her.’
‘She’d get involved.’
‘So you’re saving Ruby from herself as well as saving you?’
‘You don’t have a clue.’
‘No,’ she said cautiously. This feeling deep within was growing stronger by the minute. This feeling that somehow she’d fallen for this man twenty years ago and had been waiting ever since. It was dumb, but it was there, and it was making her throw caution to the wind. ‘But I’m starting to wonder…do you? Ruby lives for involvement. You know she lost her husband when they’d only been married for three years?’
‘I know that.’
‘And it nearly killed her. But instead of closing herself off she opened herself to every needy kid.’
‘As I’ve done.’
‘You haven’t opened yourself to anyone. You’re still talking about a housekeeper.’
‘I can’t cope with the kids alone.’
‘You want your housekeeper to cope with them alone.’
‘No, I don’t.’
‘But you’re still thinking it’d be nice just to see them on weekends. Yet when Wendy doesn’t want you it breaks your heart.’
‘Hell, Shanni…’
‘You don’t know what you want,’ she said sagely. ‘You bought a great big farmhouse cos you thought Ruby might be able to use it to save a few more kids. And then your foster brothers thought Ruby needed to retire, so you went along with that. But it’s against your instincts. You know, your instincts were right in the first place.’
‘Hell, I was thinking of temporary fostering. Not the full-time care of five-’
‘Grandkids. Ruby would treat these kids as grandkids and, Pierce, these kids so need a grandmother.’
‘I won’t do that to her.’
‘It’s what she wants.’
‘Then the rest of my foster brothers are right. She has to be protected from herself.’
‘Oh, Pierce.’
‘Your feet will be getting cold.’
She looked down at her feet. ‘So they will.’
‘If you don’t want to be kissed, then you’d better go back to bed.’
That took her aback. ‘If I stay here will you kiss me?’ She sounded almost forlorn, she thought. She sounded as if she wanted to be kissed-which she did, with every fibre of her being-but she knew it wasn’t going to happen.
For the feeling was gone. What she’d said had been some sort of challenge, and it had made him draw back.
‘I need to work,’ he said, not answering her question, and she thought it had been dumb to ask. Or maybe it hadn’t. Maybe it had forced the end to intimacy.
‘Right,’ she said.
‘Do you still wish to stay here for the two weeks?’ he asked, suddenly unsure.
‘It’s a free holiday.’
‘You know we’d be okay if you really wanted to stay with Ruby.’
‘Thanks, but I’m staying.’ Maybe it wasn’t wise, but she was involved, she thought, whether she liked it or not. If she went to Ruby’s, she’d spend her time wondering what the kids were doing. What Pierce was doing.
Three days ago she’d been up to her ears in financial and emotional disaster, and now here she was distracted by five needy kids and one needy male.
He wasn’t needy. He was a gorgeous hunk, in charge of his world.
He was…Pierce. The Pierce of her childhood. The Pierce of now.
He didn’t want to kiss her again.
‘I can lend you money,’ Pierce said.
There was a moment’s stillness.
‘You want me to go?’
‘I never said…’
‘No, but do you want me to go?’
‘Hell, Shanni, I just don’t want you to get the wrong idea.’
