Home? Who was he kidding? Home was Hattie’s pink palace.
It wasn’t so different to his place in Manhattan, he thought. Both seemed suddenly indescribably bleak. He stared down at Peta for a long moment and then slowly walked the length of the veranda.
The bed was made up. It was three times the size of hers. The boys had slept in it, Peta had said. All the boys?
Maybe.
And maybe it wasn’t such a bad childhood. He stared down at the mound of bedclothes and thought of four little boys tumbled among the pillows. With Peta sleeping close by.
Not so bad. Not so bad at all.
He hesitated, but not for long. He turned and stared at the mound of bedclothes that was Peta.
No choice.
He slipped off his outer clothes and slid under the bedclothes, feeling like a kid on a camping trip. And here was another surprise. There were no burst bedsprings. No thread-bare blankets. The bed enfolded him. The smells and the sounds enfolded him and one of the dogs came up and put his nose above the side of the bed, nosing a hopeful enquiry.
‘Let me see. I’m guessing you must be Tip. You’re one of the killer pack?’
A wag of the tail and a low woof. A quiver of the backside. Hopefulness personified.
‘If you have fleas you’re out of here.’
‘He has no such thing!’ It was an indignant squeak from the other end of the veranda.
‘I thought you were asleep?’ Then Marcus gasped as the big dog accepted the flea enquiry as a welcome and wriggled right in. Right across his chest.
‘Tip likes it there,’ Peta said in satisfaction. ‘I’ve never slept with a husband. Doesn’t it feel odd?’
Odd? That was the understatement of the century, Marcus thought. He lay and stared outward at the stars while Peta settled again and the big dog started to snore gently beside him.
He’d never sleep. How could he sleep?
He’d never sleep.
He slept.
CHAPTER NINE
MARCUS BENSON hadn’t slept for more than four hours straight since he was fourteen years old. He hadn’t needed to. Hadn’t wanted to. If he slept then he dreamed, and now it was easier to wake and log on to the world’s financial markets and exercise his brain by making money rather than letting his thoughts dwell on the demons in his past.
Until this night.
He slept. The sun crept over the horizon. Peta rose and took herself off to the dairy. The dogs bounded off after her, jubilant at having their mistress back in her proper place, and still Marcus slept.
He woke as Harry tore round the side of the house, hauling a school bag over his shoulder while he manoeuvred a piece of toast with half his mouth.
He glanced sideways at the veranda and stopped short.
‘You!’
It was hard to say who was more surprised-Harry or Marcus. They stared at each other. Marcus stared down at his watch. Then stared back at Harry.
‘You slept with Peta.’ It wasn’t an accusation. There was no aversion in Harry’s tone-just surprise.
‘I slept on this end of the veranda,’ Marcus said hurriedly. ‘Peta slept on the other.’
‘Yeah, she’d never share with us,’ Harry said, taking another mouthful of toast. ‘We told her it was warmer in bed with us but she preferred the dogs. Guess she preferred the dogs to you, too, huh?’
‘I guess so,’ Marcus said weakly. ‘Um… Are you off to school?’
‘Yeah. Yikes.’ Harry looked round to where a faint cloud of dust in the distance heralded an arriving school bus. ‘Gotta go. What’s for tea tonight? Something good? Ace. See ya.’ And he was off in a tangle of toast, school bag and undone shoelaces.
Marcus watched him run, saw him catch the bus by the skin of his teeth, grinned, and then turned back to the enigma of his watch.
His grin faded. How on earth had he slept so long?
No matter. He had.
From the dairy there was the gentle hum of the milking machine and the occasional moo of an indignant cow. Peta was up? Peta was working?
Before him?
The thought was almost unbelievable. So, too, was the thought that she was working and he was sleeping.
He was supposed to be rescuing her, he thought. Great Prince Charming he was. Marry the girl and send her back to her cinders.
But helping her wasn’t as simple as it had seemed. Two minutes later he walked in the dairy door-only to have the nearest cow start back in alarm and Peta call, ‘Stop right there.’
He stopped.
This was a different Peta yet, he thought. She was a woman at work. In faded jeans, a checked overshirt with rolled up sleeves, her hair caught back with a couple of serviceable combs and her knee-high rubber boots liberally coated with mud, she looked every inch at home in her environment.
As opposed to Marcus. The cows stared at him as if he’d landed from outer space and that was exactly how he felt.
‘I’ve come to help,’ he told her.
‘Thanks, but you’ll scare the cows.’
‘Why will I scare the cows?’
‘They’re not used to seeing New York billionaires in their dairy.’
‘You didn’t have to tell them I was a billionaire,’ he said cautiously and she smiled.
‘They might have guessed by the shoes. Soft suede shoes don’t cut it here.’
‘I guess they don’t.’ He looked down at his footwear. ‘Um… Would your brothers have any rain boots I can borrow?’
‘There’s another giveaway.’ She adjusted the cups on a sleek, fat cow and then rose to bring the next cow into the bail. ‘We-the cows and I-call them gumboots.’
‘Why?’
‘Because the cows and I are Australian.’ The cow pulled back from her and she sighed. ‘Yeah, the boys all have gumboots you can borrow but it won’t help. You’re making it hard for me.’
‘Just by being here?’
‘Cows don’t like strangers.’
‘I have to do something,’ he told her. ‘If you think I’m just going to sit round being ornamental for two weeks…’
‘Don’t you like being ornamental?’
‘I’ve never really thought about it,’ he admitted. ‘I don’t think so.’
‘So you really want to work?’
Hmm. A little voice was telling him to be cautious. ‘I might.’
‘Well, then. You could get rid of the pink.’
‘Pardon?’
‘You could paint Hattie’s house.’
‘So that you can live in it?’
‘I’m staying on my veranda. But the boys bring friends home from university and a non-pink guest house would be nice.’ She gave him her very nicest smile. ‘That is, if you really do want to be useful. But I’m happy if you’re not.
