LITMIR.BIZ

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she gazed down at their intently sleeping countenances. How could anyone doubt them?

      At seven years old, Henry and William were gorgeous. They had bright, curly, carrot-red hair, smatterings of freckles on their cute, snub noses, and a look on their faces that said they were the work of angels.

      That look, Erin knew to her cost, was entirely misleading. There was a solid reason they were in care. Their mother couldn’t control them, and by the time they were four, with no husband and seven other children to look after, she’d abused them unmercifully and then simply abandoned them to foster care.

      That hadn’t worked either. Up until now, no foster parents could cope with their trouble-making, and after each effort to find them a home, back they’d come to the orphanage every time. If it could be organised, they were placed with Erin. Erin could usually control them, but even Erin found it tough.

      She sighed. What would she do with them? They were holy terrors, but as she looked down at their sleeping faces her heart twisted with pain for the two little boys she was starting to love.

      They shouldn’t be in the orphanage. They were sharp as tacks—maybe clever enough to be categorised as intellectually gifted, Erin thought, remembering a few of the truly amazing spots of trouble they’d landed themselves into. As well as that, they were engaging and lovable, and they desperately needed a mother and a father to love them.

      If only they weren’t intent on destroying the world!

      Still, for now they were asleep and she was feeling as if a miracle had occurred! She took herself back to the kitchen, kicked off her shoes and put her feet up in bliss.

      ‘Here’s to a miracle,’ she told herself, raising her wine glass in a toast to the evening. ‘Here’s to an excellent night.’

      Back in their bedroom, Henry and William’s plan was working like a dream.

      They’d strung thread from the kitchen door to the top of their bedroom door. Then they’d tied their stuffed toy, Tigger Tiger, to the thread, and they’d frayed it so it’d break at the first movement of the kitchen door.

      The plan was perfect. If Erin left the kitchen, the thread snapped and Tigger fell to the floor. Unless the thread tangled in Erin’s feet—which would have been really, really unlucky—she’d never notice.

      As Tigger landed, there was just enough time for the boys to shove what they were doing under the bed, grab Tigger, scramble under the bedcovers and flick off the light before Erin appeared to check.

      So to Erin, all was beautifully, unnaturally normal, and they concentrated fiercely on looking asleep as she tiptoed over to them.

      ‘Goodnight, you rascals,’ she’d whispered, and they’d both had to concentrate even harder not to giggle.

      Then, with Erin gone, they picked up the end of the thread and retied Tigger in his warning position. And then they retrieved what was under the bed.

      Brilliant! Absolutely excellent.

      But the bomb wasn’t meant to go off when it did.

      The plan was for Henry to carry it outside in the toe of his slipper. It was scary to carry it in his bare fingers, and a slipper should hold it safe. Their bomb was a hand-taped ball stuffed with matches and fire-crackers, designed to go off when thumped on the ground. They knew how volatile it was, but they weren’t stupid.

      After carrying it carefully outside, the plan was to lob it over the next-door fence.

      It was eight at night. At eight every night, just as the news ended on the telly, their next door neighbours, Helmut and Valda Cole, let their pet poodle out for her evening run.

      Pansy Poodle never went more than two feet into the garden so there was no fear of hitting her. But she might just about turn inside out with the bang, and Mr and Mrs Cole would go berserk. Which would be very interesting indeed!

      Henry and William disliked the Coles, and they knew exactly what the Coles thought about them—and orphans in general. The Coles were raising a petition to have all the orphanage houses put together. ‘To put all the troublemakers in the one spot!’ They were even nasty to Erin, which was unthinkable.

      Henry and William mightn’t always do as Erin wanted, but she gave the best cuddles of anyone they knew, and even when they were in serious trouble she just sighed, ruffled their hair and said, ‘What am I going to do with you, you twerps?’

      And Pansy Poodle yapped so much she woke the baby, and when Henry poked his finger through the fence—just to say hello—she’d bitten him! It had taken fifteen minutes of Erin’s cuddles before Henry had stopped shaking.

      The Coles, therefore, had to be got rid of before they upset Erin further, or before Pansy bit someone else, and the only thing that might make them move was if they thought their poodle was in danger. Hence the bomb, the construction of which had been learned from spying on the bigger kids at school.

      Only then…

      Well, Henry was pushing the bomb into the slipper and William was holding the slipper up so it’d slide in, and it wouldn’t quite fit—and then Henry got nervous and the slipper sort of fell sideways.

      The tape-wound ball, stacked really, really tightly with matches and firecrackers, fell heavily onto the floor and rolled under the curtains by the bed.

      Henry and William stared at it for one horrified moment—and then dived for cover under the opposite bed.

      The explosion reverberated through the house and into the night beyond. Instantly the lights went off as the electricity safety switch cut in, and there was the sound of crashing glass from along the veranda. The smell of smoke swept into the kitchen, and then the fire alarm in the corridor ceiling started to scream.

      Bay Beach Orphanage, Home Number Three, was on fire.

      Matt heard the fire alarm before he rounded the corner. That was no big deal, he thought. His smoke detector at home went off every time he burned his toast. Which, he had to admit, was often.

      But Matt was driving with his truck window down, and the alarm was loud enough to make him glance sideways. He was now right out front of one of the Bay Beach Homes—and what he saw made him slam his foot on the brake and pull to dead halt.

      He left his truck sitting where it was, engine still on, and he started to run.

      ‘Take the baby.’

      Matt knew Erin Douglas. Of course he did. Everyone in Bay Beach knew everyone else, and these two had gone to school together.

      Not that they’d got on. Erin was three years younger than Matt, and maybe he still thought of her as the bossy, forthright kid she’d been way back in third grade. Over the years he’d danced with her a few times at local functions, but she definitely wasn’t his type.

      It didn’t stop him appreciating her. With a lovely figure; with a clear, almost luminescent complexion and huge blue eyes, she’d always had her share of boyfriends. She was definitely attractive, he’d decided, in a blonde, curvy sort of way, but she was a bit…well, sassy, and inclined to laugh at the world—and at him in particular.

      Matt was wealthy and his family were descended from the landed gentry. Normally that stood him in good stead with women, but with Erin it was almost as if she was mocking him because of it.

      And she always looked frazzled, he thought. She didn’t fuss if her shoulder-length curls were tangled, and her make-up was always scant and looked like it had been applied in haste. Yeah, he knew all the Home Mothers looked like that—they had such little time to themselves—but it wouldn’t hurt her to take a bit more effort.

      She wore brightly coloured dresses, nipped in to a neat waistline and then blousing out in soft folds to mid-calf. They looked home-made, Charlotte had told him, and he could see that they were.

      The last time he’d seen her had been at the local school fête. One of her kids had painted her face as a butterfly,

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