His Miracle Bride

hauled the door open.

Pierce.

‘I thought you were roses,’ she said. Stupidly. He looked fabulous, she thought. Hip-hugging, faded jeans. Open-necked shirt with a button missing. His hair doing this floppy thing over one eye. He was a bit sunburned.

He’d been at the beach. Of course he was sunburned.

He was…Pierce.

‘Roses?’ he asked, and she flinched.

‘They keep arriving.’

‘Roses do?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’m sorry I’m not roses. Should I fetch some and bring them back?’

‘Don’t be silly.’

‘Okay.’ He paused and took in the total package. Bare toes. Pig pyjamas. Hair that hadn’t quite been brushed today.

She wasn’t absolutely sure that the chocolates she’d been eating weren’t evident up there somewhere.

‘You have a brown splodge on your nose,’ he said.

There you go. ‘What of it?’ she muttered.

‘You’re doing a Miss Haversham for Mike?’

‘Miss Haversham?’

‘Dickens’s bride, who sits in her wedding finery for ever and for ever, watching mice run through the last vestiges of wedding cake.’

‘I’m wearing pyjamas and I’m watching Dallas.’

‘So you are. Can I come in?’

‘It’s Jules’s apartment.’

‘I promise I’ll keep it neat.’ He looked over her shoulder at the mound of cushions on the floor. Chocolate wrappers. Dying roses.

JR before someone shot him.

‘What do you want?’ she demanded before things went any further. ‘Let’s get this on a business footing. Don’t count chocolate wrappers.’

He smiled. ‘I have good news.’

He shouldn’t smile. It messed with her equilibrium. ‘The kids are happy?’

‘They’re missing you.’

‘They can hardly miss me when I knew them for less than a week.’

‘Yeah.’ He looked hesitant. ‘I guess. They’re having a great time at the castle. The last of Bessy’s chicken pox has disappeared. The kids are living on the beach. Oh, and Kirsty had a baby last night. A little boy. They called him Angus.’

‘That’s lovely.’

‘No, Susie says Angus is her name because that’s what the old earl was called. But Kirsty says she’s loved it for ever, and she met old Angus before Susie did. And Susie’s baby might be a girl.’

‘So…’

‘So all of Dolphin Bay has a view on whether it’s right or wrong. The current thinking is that if Susie’s baby is a boy they should just call him Earl and be done with it.’

‘Right.’ She swallowed. Why did she feel he was talking for the sake of talking? ‘I…Why aren’t you there?’

‘I’m surplus. The kids are happy and I needed to come to a meeting in town.’

‘So you drove up this morning.’

‘And I’m going back tonight.’

‘Right.’

Pause. JR was being icily sarcastic from the television behind them.

‘You’re not depressed, are you?’ Pierce asked, cautious.

‘No.’

Yet another moment’s loaded silence. She should ask him in, she thought.

She couldn’t. The idea was just too dangerous.

Scary.

Almost irresistible.

‘Would you…?’

‘I came to talk to you about Mike.’ He cut across her invitation before she could finish, and she blinked.

‘Mike.’

‘There’s news from Blake.’

‘Blake.’

‘Cut it out with the parrot thing,’ he said, and she managed a smile.

‘Right. Mike and Blake. What have they got to do with the price of eggs?’

‘Nothing, but they have everything to do with your financial situation,’ he told her. ‘Which is solved.’

‘Solved.’

‘Hey, didn’t I tell you-’

‘The parrot thing. Sorry. It’s just you’re so slow.’

‘Blake’s got your money back.’

She didn’t parrot that. She couldn’t. All her breath was knocked out of her.

‘You want to know how he did it?’ He was leaning against the door jamb looking so sexy she could just melt.

‘Of course.’ He ought to sew that button back on, she thought. It was doing her head in.

‘You had a credit card specifically for paying your artists,’ he said, and she somehow hauled her thoughts away from that missing button. Almost.

‘Y…yes.’

‘So your credit limit was huge. You’d buy and sell on almost straight away. The bank was happy with that because your professional reputation was impeccable.’

She found herself blushing. Ever since she’d met this man she’d felt wrong-footed-a dopy adult-cum-kid who was relying on her parents to bail her out. To have him say that…

‘Everywhere Blake enquired he got the same story,’ he said gently. ‘You’re brilliant.’

‘But not with money! Or with trusting. She’d given Mike a duplicate and made him a signatory.

‘See, here’s the thing,’ he said. ‘Blake used the consent forms you signed to track where the money went. If Mike had blown it at the casino you were up the creek without a paddle, but he didn’t. He’s astute, your Mike.’

‘He’s not my Mike.’

‘No.’ Pierce glanced across at JR, who was still not shot. Surely it should be soon? JR was beginning to bug her.

She wanted to focus exclusively on Pierce.

‘What he did was buy paintings,’ Pierce said. ‘Three paintings. Each worth a fortune.’

‘So…’

‘So we’ve got them back,’ Pierce said, not bothering to hide his exultation.

‘You got them back.’

‘You’re doing the parrot thing again.’

‘Will you cut it out?’ She was suddenly yelling. The woman behind her was yelling as well. Daytime soap-it had come to this.

She choked on sudden irrepressible laughter, and Pierce looked gobsmacked.

‘What?’

‘No. Something on telly.’

‘On telly.’

‘Now you’re doing it.’

‘Oh.’