Marion Lennox - Adopted - Twins!

It made her look as if the jeans and windcheaters Charlotte had chosen were totally unsuitable.

Suddenly he had a thought. This was one thing that was suitable, at least.

‘Erin?’

‘Yes?’ She paused from her clothes gathering and looked up in enquiry.

She was expecting him to go to bed and leave her, he thought. She was expecting nothing from him at all.

He felt his midriff clench in sudden pain. Hell, he wanted to do something for her so badly, and all he had was this. He shoved his hand into his back pocket and found what he’d been searching for.

‘Tom showed me the layout of your house and which was your bedroom,’ he told her, his suddenly gruff voice failing to hide his inexplicable emotion.

‘Yes?’

‘There were a few things we were able to salvage.’

Her face stilled. ‘It wasn’t all completely burned?’

‘The roof burned and the ceiling caved in,’ he told her, seeing her sudden look of hope and wanting to dispel it before it started. ‘The weight of the ceiling, and the soot and smoke and water effectively destroyed most of your stuff. But the base of your bedroom didn’t actually catch fire. The roof caved in while it was still smouldering, but it was doused fast. So the lads from the fire brigade and I made a really good search and we found these.’

And he lifted up what he was holding-a string of seed pearls.

As pearls went they were what he’d been brought up to believe were inadequate. Both his mother and Charlotte would have scorned these as trumpery, he knew. But to Erin…

To Erin they weren’t trumpery. She stared at the string dangling from his fingers, then took a tentative step forward as if she couldn’t believe what she was seeing.

‘My mother’s necklace.’ She whispered the words. It was as if she wasn’t able to believe what she was seeing, and any minute they’d be snatched back from her.

‘It’s the only trinket we found that was recognisable,’ he told her. ‘Did you have much jewellery?’

‘That’s all I had.’ She lifted it from his fingers and stared down at it, still disbelieving. ‘Oh, Matt…’

‘I’m sorry we couldn’t retrieve more stuff,’ he said awkwardly, but she lifted her face to his and her eyes were bright with unshed tears.

Then, before he knew what she was about-before he could take one step to defend himself-she threw her arms around his neck, raised herself on her tiptoes and kissed him soundly on the lips.

It was a kiss of thanks-nothing more. It was a kiss of gratitude.

So how it had the capacity to knock him sideways-to have him catch her waist in his hands and pull her in to him and kiss her back-to feel like his world was shifting on its axis and shifting forever-who could say?

Matt couldn’t.

He could only feel, but feel he did. He felt the way her body felt delicious under his hands. The way her mouth yielded to his and the touch of her hair against his, the moulding of her breasts to his chest-the fragrance of her…

He didn’t understand this in the least. He could only feel and feel some more, and when she finally pulled away he could only regret her parting, and regret it with every inch of his being.

‘Oh, Matt, thank you,’ she whispered, and the tears in her eyes were real now, threatening to slide down her cheeks. She blinked them back, fast and furious, and then made a grab for her pile of clothes. Carefully sorted heaps were ignored. They were crumpled into one vast mound of clothes, gathered against her breast almost as a defence.

‘Goodnight, Matt.’

And then she fled, taking her clothes and her necklace twin-wards, before her tears finally were allowed to run free. She left Matt staring after her, wondering what the hell he’d just done.

He’d just restored a necklace to its owner.

And now something else needed restoring but it was nothing tangible. In fact, he didn’t have a clue what it was.

But it was a long time before he slept that night. And when he slept, he didn’t dream of the lady he was about to marry.

He dreamed of seed pearl necklaces, and he dreamed of Erin.

DESPITE the emotions of the day, Erin slept soundly. In fact, she slept more soundly than she remembered sleeping for years.

It was because Matt was here, she thought as she drifted toward unconsciousness. As House Mother she always slept on the brink of waking. There was always a child in need. And before that…

Her mother had died when Erin was just fourteen. Erin had been the oldest of the kids. Her father had crumpled with her mother’s death so she’d reared her siblings with love and also, she had to admit, with pleasure. When the last child left home she moved on to being an orphanage House Mother, but her choice of career meant that from the time she was fourteen there’d always been a child dependent on her.

There was no one else to share her load.

But here, at the other end of the house, slept Matt. She wasn’t totally in charge. The feeling was novel, and she shouldn’t indulge it, but in truth it was also wonderful.

She indulged it. The twins slept soundly and Erin totally relaxed. She slept on dreamlessly, and she couldn’t guess that at the other end of the house Matt stirred and tossed and fretted because he couldn’t get her out of his head.

Erin woke at dawn when Matt crept silently into the room next door.

She might have been sleeping soundly, but she was still a House Mother. Some things were instinctive, and protection was one of them. The moment the twins’ bedroom door opened, her eyes were wide and she was pushing herself up in bed wondering what was wrong.

She’d propped the bathroom doors open between the two rooms so she could see, and she could see clearly straight through. Matt was in his working clothes and he was tip-toeing towards the twins.

‘What’s wrong?’ It came out as a whispered croak of surprise.

He cast her a look of annoyance-annoyance with himself for waking her. ‘Hell, Erin, I’m sorry. You go back to sleep. I’m after the twins.’

She found her right voice. ‘What on earth for?’

‘The twins hurt my dog,’ he explained. ‘So I told them last night that they need to accept responsibility for what they’d done. Sadie needs to rest for a week, and therefore the twins need to take over Sadie’s workload.’ He reached the bed the boys were still sharing and touched two small shoulders. ‘Okay, guys. Wake up. It’s six a.m. You know what we need to do.’

And, amazingly, they did. They opened their eyes, they smiled shyly up at Matt as if this had been expected, and to Erin’s astonishment, they moved straight into dress mode.

‘What on earth are you doing?’

‘Tell her, boys.’ Matt smiled at her-and then he carefully diverted his attention elsewhere.

Hell! What was happening here?

Following orders, Erin was wearing one of the welfare shirts as sleepwear. It was buttoned to the neck and it was a man’s shirt to boot, but the sight of Erin fresh from sleep, tousled and rumpled, with her curls flying free and her gorgeous blue eyes wide with enquiry somehow had the power to make something inside him kick.

Hard.

Luckily a twin spoke, giving him time to gather his wits.

‘We’re rounding up the cows,’ Henry told Erin solemnly, hauling on the ill-fitting trousers he’d worn the day before. ‘You have new clothes to wear now,’ Erin told him, and then took on board what Henry had said. ‘Rounding up cows?’

‘The boys don’t need new clothes to do what they need to do,’ Matt told her, still carefully concentrating on the twins. ‘In fact, new clothes would be completely wasted. We’re cutting Cecil out from where he’s been serving the cows. He’s due at the Lassendale Cattle Show tomorrow.’