Marion Lennox - His Miracle Bride

‘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.’

‘Tell me about the paintings.’

‘Blake got an injunction,’ he said-with a visible effort. ‘On those forms you signed you said the partnership was over the day of the water tossing. Blake cancelled the card retrospectively, claiming Mike had no legal right to use a card in your name once the partnership was void, and anything he did buy certainly shouldn’t be his. On that basis Blake got an injunction to seize the paintings, and he moved so fast Mike had no room to object. The paintings will be sold on and used to pay off the card. Seeing Mike bought astutely, Blake seems to think they’ll more than pay off the card, with quite a lot left over. Legally you might have to spilt the profit with Mike, but with records showing you were paying him a salary then there’s a strong case for the entire profit being yours.’

‘Oh, Pierce…’ She was suddenly holding onto the door jamb herself. ‘Oh…’

‘He’s good, our Blake.’

‘He is.’ She wanted to cry.

‘Anyway that’s all I wanted to tell you,’ he said, sounding uncomfortable. ‘I’ll go.’

She wanted to throw her arms round his neck. Dammit…Dammit…

She did throw her arms round his neck. She indulged herself, for one wonderful moment, in burrowing her face in the lovely deep hollow above his collar bone, smelling the clean salt smell of him, feeling his warmth and his strength.

‘I don’t know how to thank you,’ she said, her voice muffled by neck.

But he was putting her away from him, gently but firmly, setting her at arm’s length.

‘That’s fine. You rescued Donald. I rescued you. We’re square.’

Right. Why did she feel like sobbing?

‘Oh, and the letters you wrote to my foster brothers…’

Whoops. Was this why he was holding her at arm’s length? She was so interfering. That was her life skill. To butt into other people’s lives, even if in the process it destroyed her own.

‘They’ve accepted it,’ he said. ‘They don’t understand, but they’ve agreed.’

She’d written to every one of them. Bullied into it, Ruby had given her their email addresses. Blake’s, Connor’s, Sam’s, Darcy’s, Dominic’s and Nikolai’s. She’d said simply that Pierce had adopted five children and had not told Ruby for fear of her wanting to be involved. She’d said that she was Ruby’s niece, that she’d discovered what was going on and that she’d told Ruby. She’d said the biggest way they could hurt Ruby was not to let her share their lives, and that what Pierce had done was cruel. She’d also said their stipulation that Ruby not share her home with whom ever she wanted was leaving Ruby with a lifetime of macramé and no pleasure. So could they please lift their stupid stipulation.

Uh-oh.

‘You read it?’ she whispered.

‘The whole six of them sent it on to me,’ Pierce said. ‘They’ve agreed. The stipulation’s lifted.’

But there was no pleasure in his words. ‘They don’t get it?’

‘They don’t get it.’

‘But you do?’ She held her breath.

‘Maybe I’m beginning to,’ he said. ‘You’ve taught me a bit. Ruby and her niece Shanni-taking in the waifs and strays of the world.’

‘Hey, it’s not me who’s taught you anything. I’d have hoped the kids could.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘If you have to ask then you really don’t understand. It’s just…’ She took a deep breath. ‘You know, being part of a family, a proper family, leaves you open for all sorts of hurt.’

‘Like when your parents change the locks?’

‘Exactly,’ she said, struggling to figure out what to say next. She was feeling more than a little disadvantaged. He was looking so damned sexy and she was in pyjamas. And she was in no position to lecture him when he’d just saved her financially.

‘But it’d hurt worse if I didn’t have them to change the locks,’ she said.

‘That’s because you haven’t learned to be independent.’

‘I hope I never have to.’

He didn’t reply. He was looking at her but he was looking through her, she thought. Holding himself in check. Not making real contact…

‘What will you do now?’ he asked, and she started, jolted out of preoccupation.