His Miracle Bride

‘Special kids?’

‘Not as special as you,’ Susie told her and smiled. ‘Kids come in and I look at them and they’re just kids. And by the time they go…’ Her eyes glimmered for a moment. ‘I’ll miss you all. You guys come back soon.’

She turned to her pancake batter and stirred with sudden violence. She sniffed.

Here was another one, Pierce thought. Tossing her heart at whoever needed it…

Like Ruby.

Like Shanni.

Didn’t they know…?

What?

The thought was suddenly unclear. The argument as to why he couldn’t be like that, too.

Bessy tossed a toast crust. It hit him right in the face, leaving a smear of jam over his left eyebrow.

The kids looked shocked-and then they giggled. They wouldn’t have giggled two weeks ago. This place was a gift.

Women like Ruby and Susie and…Shanni were a gift.

Enough. He had to move on.

‘Okay. Dolphins and then home,’ he told the kids, mock-severe. ‘And there’ll be no more toast tossing.’

Bessy chortled. Pleased with the reaction from the first piece, she tossed again.

Bull’s eye!

‘Will the balloons stay up until they get here?’

‘The instructions say they’ll stay up for twenty-four hours.’ Ruby was fitting red and gold balloons over the helium cylinder while Shanni tied ribbons. ‘I’ll sue if they don’t last that long.’

‘That one’s going down already.’

‘That’s cos you didn’t tie it tightly enough. Do you think we have enough sausage rolls?’

‘Dwayne’s mother’s organizing the food.’

‘I’m not keen on Dwayne as a boy’s name. Do you like my boys’ names?’

‘I do.’ Shanni frowned. ‘Did you choose them for their names?’

‘Just luck for four of them,’ Ruby said. ‘But then it got to be sort of a joke. My manly little boys with heroic names. So when I got Connor, Darcy and Dominic as unnamed babies I went straight to my favourite romance novels and found their names there.’

Shanni choked. ‘Your babies were named from romance novels?’

‘Can you think of a better way?’

‘Um…no.’

‘And at least they’re original. Not like two women fighting over one baby name. Eh, Susie? Eh, Kirsty?’

‘Don’t bring it up,’ Susie said darkly. ‘Kirsty, stop gooing over Angus and hand me those streamers.’

There were balloons on the gate.

‘There are balloons on our front gate,’ Bryce said.

‘Look at the balloons,’ Abby said.

‘Do you think someone’s pleased we’re home?’ Wendy asked. She’d been quiet all the way home. Coming back to the farm wasn’t unalloyed pleasure. The kids would have to start school again, and Pierce was aware they’d been given a tough time by the local kids. But what could he do?

‘Maybe Ruby’s housekeeper is here,’ he said cautiously, driving in through a gate that was already open.

‘I miss Shanni,’ Abby said.

‘She was never a housekeeper.’

‘She was better than a housekeeper,’ Bryce said.

Yeah. Pierce agreed with that.

‘There’s a car parked around the back of the shed,’ Donald piped up. ‘It’s not Shanni’s car,’ he added.

It looked like…it was! A police car.

What the…?

If he was in for another inquisition…

It didn’t fit with the balloons on the gate.

He took a deep breath. ‘Okay,’ he said, suppressing the urge to turn the car round and head back to the castle. ‘We need to find out what’s going on.’

‘Do you think it might be scary?’ Abby asked.

‘Not scary,’ he said, though when he glanced across at Wendy’s set face he wasn’t so sure. ‘Balloons aren’t scary.’

‘Housekeepers might be,’ Wendy whispered.

‘There’s only one way to find out,’ Pierce said stoutly. ‘Let’s go and see.

He parked the car. Silence. Not a sound.

They walked forward to the back door. Maybe the balloons had been left as a message of sorts. Maybe.

He went to unlock the back door but it swung open at his touch.

People.

If he’d have to describe that day later on in life, the only word he would find to fit was ‘chaos’.

He swung open the door and the place erupted.

There was a cacophony of noise. Bagpipes-someone was playing the bagpipes. Hooters. Whistles. Cheering. Someone was letting off streamer bombs. Someone? Lots of someones.

He backed away but people were tugging him in.

The kids were being picked up and carried into the room.

Susie had Abby. Susie!

Hamish had Donald.

Ruby was surging forward to lift Bessy from his arms.

Blake was there. His big brother! Blake was bending down, talking urgently to Bryce, then swinging him up on his shoulders.

Nikolai. Wasn’t Nik supposed to be in Mexico?

And Dwayne. The kid from the supermarket. And Dwayne’s mum. And the pharmacist. And the doctor. The cops as well. And numerous sun-worn couples he vaguely recognized as neighbours, and their kids, and…

Jake, the Dolphin Bay doctor from the castle was there from the castle as well, with Kirsty and their twins. Kirsty was laughing and holding a blue swathed bundle with pride. And Jodie and Nick. The whole castle team.

Shanni was elbowing her way through the mass, until she reached Wendy.

‘Wendy,’ she said in satisfaction. She hugged the little girl, who was clinging to Pierce. ‘You’re with me.’ Pierce felt her lifted away, but he felt like hanging on. Wendy might need him.

He might need Wendy.

Dwayne was holding a cake on a tray before him.

Dwayne?

The cake was massive. Vast and chocolate-coated, surrounded by strawberries, it had great red lettering on the top.

Welcome Home from All of Us.

From all of them.

Pierce stared round the crowded room. There were so many people that they didn’t fit. They were squeezing themselves in from out in the corridor. There were people on the back veranda with their heads in the window.

It sounded like there were people on the roof.

Dwayne’s mother gave Dwayne a poke in the small of the back. He gulped.

‘We wanted to welcome your family home,’ the boy managed, talking like he was strangled. ‘Um…Mum said…’

‘His mum said we’ve treated you like the pits,’ his mother said stoutly from behind him. ‘All of us have. We had five orphans in our midst and…Well, we were cruel, and it won’t happen again. The freezer’s got so many casseroles in it now that we’ve had to borrow Enid Murrihy’s second freezer and put it in the back shed. She says you can keep it,’ she added. ‘As long as she can put things in when her second daughter’s due home. Her daughter’s allergic, you understand, so she brings new-fangled food from the city. Enid freezes it and then buries it when Brenda goes home. She’s buried tons and tons of wheat-free bread-you wouldn’t believe.’