LITMIR.BIZ

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reread it now, holding it like she was handling a scorpion.

      Aunty Ruby’s letter read like she talked—so fast she hardly paused for breath.

      Pierce won’t let me help him. He was always the sweetest boy. I’m sure you thought so, too, and he’s had such a bad time. And now this. His wife died six months ago. His wife! He didn’t even tell me he was getting married, that’s how much he doesn’t want to bother me, and now she’s dead. And the boys are worrying about him. They say he’s falling behind in his work. He’s cutting corners, the boys say, and there’s a huge contract he’s risking losing. Mind, I think losing a wife makes any other loss irrelevant, but the boys won’t talk about that. No one will. They treat me as if I’m ancient, not to be bothered.

      Anyway dear, I know Michael broke your heart—at least your mother said he did though how you can love a man with a ponytail…but worse, you’ve lost your sweet little London gallery. If you were thinking about coming home…Could you bear to help with a baby for a few weeks until Pierce gets this contract sorted? He’s been looking for a housekeeper but the boys say he’s having trouble. I could go…but of course they won’t let me.

      Ruby’s frustration sounded through the letter. Beloved Ruby, who’d spent her life helping others, was being held at arm’s length by her foster sons, but she could no sooner resist sticking in her oar than she could breathe.

      If she couldn’t help, then she was sure that Shanni could.

      And Shanni just might.

      Housekeeper to a sort-of-cousin and his motherless baby? On a farm on the other side of the world from her life in London? In the normal scheme of things, she’d laugh at the suggestion.

      But this was Pierce MacLachlan…

      Pierce was one of Ruby’s many foster kids. At any family celebration, there’d always been three or four of Ruby’s waifs.

      There were three things affecting Shanni’s decision to help him.

      Number one was sympathy. She did remember Pierce. Twenty years ago, Pierce had been fifteen to her almost ten. She’d met him at her Uncle Eric’s wedding and she’d been shocked. Ruby had just taken him in—‘for the fourth time,’ she’d told Shanni’s mother. He’d looked far too skinny, far too tall for his clothes, far too…desolate.

      And now he’d lost his wife. That was awful.

      Shanni was a soft touch.

      And, okay, admit it. Twenty years ago she’d thought Pierce had the makings of…gorgeous. Her hormones had just been waking up. Pierce was a tall, dark and mysterious fifteen-year-old, all angular bones and shadows. In truth he’d probably just been excruciatingly shy and malnourished, but he’d run rings round the rest of her rowdy cousins. So added to sympathy was…lust?

      Yeah, right. She was a big girl now. Pierce was probably a five-feet-two midget with a pot belly. And she was supposed to be broken hearted.

      But then there was number three, and that was the biggie. She didn’t have enough money to stay in London. She’d lost her gallery and her lover. Ruby said Pierce had a farm. She could just pop in and see what the set-up was, and if it wasn’t suitable then she could retreat to her parents’ spare room and lick her wounds.

      Only, the option of her parents’ spare room was no longer available.

      So she was here. Facing four kids.

      Four kids? She was scared enough of one baby.

      She couldn’t stay, she thought, staring again at the four kids. But where to go? Where?

      She hadn’t done her homework before she’d headed home. She’d received Ruby’s letter and suddenly she’d just come. To find that her parents were overseas—well, she’d known that—but to her horror they’d sublet their house. Hadn’t they known their daughter was intending to need it? They might have guessed she’d flee to Australia without asking questions, to be met by strangers having a barbecue in their back yard.

      She sniffed, but she didn’t cry. When had she ever?

      She should have cried when she’d found Mike in bed with one of his stupid models—but even then…

      She’d come home mid-afternoon with the beginnings of the flu and had walked in and found them. Just like in the sitcoms, they hadn’t seen her. Well, they’d hardly been looking.

      She’d retreated to the laundry and filled a bucket. Then, while her whole body had shaken with suppressed rage—as well as the first symptoms of a truly horrid dose of influenza—she’d decided water alone wasn’t enough. She’d stalked into the kitchen and hauled out the ice. Even then they hadn’t heard her, though her hands were shaking so much she’d dropped two ice trays. It had taken five minutes before enough ice melted to bring the bucket of water to almost freezing, but it had definitely been worth the wait. Throwing it had been a definite high point.

      Though, in retrospect, maybe tears would have been better. For, although she’d been ruthless with the ice bucket, she hadn’t moved fast enough with the shared credit card. By the time she’d emerged from influenza and betrayal, Mike had revenged himself the only way a low-life creep with the morals of a sewer rat knew how.

      It had been enough to tip her over the edge financially. Her tiny mortgaged-to-the-hilt art gallery had ceased to be.

      But she was still irrationally pleased that Mike hadn’t seen her cry. If I can cope with Mike without tears, I can cope with this, she told herself, staring out at the kids on the gate while her stomach plummeted as far as it could go and then found a few depths she hadn’t known existed.

      The kids were puzzled that she wasn’t turning in. The oldest kid—a pre-adolescent girl with short, copper-red hair that looked like it had been hacked with hedge clippers—had jumped off the gate in preparation for opening it.

      Surely she’d got it wrong.

      She wound down the window—just a tad—admitting nothing.

      ‘Is this Two Creek Farm?’ she called.

      ‘Yes,’ the oldest boy called. ‘Are you Shanni?’

      ‘Yes.’ Her voice was so faint it was barely a squeak.

      ‘Finally.’ The girl with the bad haircut hauled the gate wide while the three kids still sitting on the top rail swayed and clung. ‘Dad says we can’t go inside until you get here. What are you doing, parking over there?’

      ‘Your dad’s expecting me?’

      ‘You rang. Didn’t you?’

      ‘Um…Yes.’

      The girl looked right, looked left, looked right again—had there ever been another car up here?—and crossed the road to talk. ‘Dad said, “Thank God, Ruby’s come up trumps. We’ve got a babysitter.”’

      ‘I see.’ She swallowed and looked again at the kids on the gate. ‘I guess…your dad’s name is Pierce?’

      ‘He’s Pierce MacLachlan.’ The girl poked her hand in the open car window. She was all arms and legs and a mouthful of braces. ‘I’m Wendy MacLachlan. I’m eleven.’

      ‘I see,’ Shanni said faintly, while her hand was firmly shaken.

      ‘The others are Bryce and Donald and Abby,’ Wendy told her. ‘Bryce is nine. Donald’s seven. Abby’s four. There’s Bessy as well, but she’s only eight months old so she doesn’t talk yet, and she’s away with Dad. She’s actually Elizabeth, but she’s too cute to be an Elizabeth.’

      Bessy. The baby. One true thing.

      ‘Where’s your dad?’

      ‘He had to take Bessy to the doctor. We think she’s got chicken pox. She hasn’t got any spots yet, but she’s grizzling so much she must be sick. Dad didn’t get any sleep last night. When you rang he looked like he

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