Jennie Adams - Parents Of Convenience

That worried Phoebe.

Meanwhile, Max was staring at her with that unwelcoming expression still stamped all over him.

‘Yes, it’s me,’ she said. ‘In the flesh.’ She offered him a view of the point of her chin. ‘Given the circumstances, I thought I might have received a warmer welcome.’

She was here to turn this chaos around for him, after all. It may have been pure fantasy to believe he would fall down in abject relief at the sight of her, but she had at least expected civility, not an immediate return to their old hostility.

In other words, you got your hopes up and got them whacked back down to size quick smart. Surely you know better than that? Life didn’t dish out lollipops, Phoebe had found. You made your own joy, or you did without. She chose to make her own, and usually she did quite well at it.

‘You’ve caught me at a bad moment.’ Max ran a hand through dark, already ruffled hair.

Familiar, slightly wavy hair that had always given her itchy fingers, not that it meant anything. She had an appreciation of fine things, that was all. She really couldn’t be held accountable for the fact that she found Max aesthetically pleasing. Nor for the fact that her artistic interpretation of Max seemed to be creating more of a problem than usual this visit.

The din was back in full force again. She pitched her voice to rise above it. ‘I’d guess you’ve had a few of those today. Bad moments, that is.’ She gestured to a congealed glob of green stuff which was stuck to his shirt and resisted the urge to smirk. Max never got in a mess, in any sense of the word. ‘Rough lunch?’

‘There was a slight problem with the meal plans, yes.’ His eyes narrowed to warning slits and his strong jaw clamped into an uncompromising line.

She had goaded him slightly, she admitted, but just the tiniest bit. In the past he had taken far more from her without letting it get to him. He really must be feeling his difficulties.

‘If you’ve come to visit Katherine,’ he said, ‘I’m afraid you’ve picked the wrong time. She’s not here.’

‘Well, yes, I know that.’ She pursed her lower lip over her upper. A habit she had when she needed to work out a particular complexity. Why was he pretending that he hadn’t expected her?

He waved a hand at the mêlée, which was continuing behind him. ‘As you can see, I have my hands full. I don’t have time to entertain.’

‘What do you mean, entertain?’ It was Phoebe’s turn to frown. After all, Katherine’s request, or rather Max’s request made through his sister, had brought Phoebe here. She knew as well as anyone that Katherine was snowbound in Montana and not likely to appear back in Oz any time soon. Yet Max acted as though he hadn’t known Phoebe was coming. A sinking feeling started up inside her and quickly took hold.

‘Katherine didn’t tell you it was me.’ It was the only explanation. At the continued incomprehension on Max’s face, Phoebe knew she was right. No wonder Katherine had been so cagey on the phone. ‘The nanny. Katherine didn’t tell you that I was to be the nanny for your boys.’

His face darkened beneath his tan. ‘You schemed with Katherine to play nanny to my sons?’

Of all the arrogant nerve! She blinked several times while righteous anger roared through her. ‘I answered a plea for help,’ she articulated very slowly, as if that would help her to calm down at all. ‘Quite a different thing, Max.’

Schemed, indeed! For two pins Phoebe would leave him to his pride, and his problems. Except his boys deserved better than that. They deserved to have proper care, and that field of care just happened to be her speciality.

Any fool could see they were feeling scared and uneasy. Phoebe could fix that and, now that she thought about it, she wasn’t going to let the small matter of a short-sighted, incompetent new parent get in her way. Even if that parent was Max Saunders. ‘It was your plea, as it happens.’

‘In the first place,’ Max growled, ‘I don’t plead. I certainly never gave out any such plea for help from you.’

She had already figured that out. Phoebe sucked her lungs full of air and got ready to blast him. ‘That’s not the impression Katherine gave me. She said—’

‘Never mind what she said. I can guess.’ His face darkened even further. ‘I’ll kill her.’

‘Whatever.’ Phoebe wasn’t thirteen years old any more. Nor fifteen, nor sixteen, nor even eighteen and, yes, they had fought it out all through those formative years of hers. Had fought over her right to be in charge of herself, even though Max had had nothing to do with the keeping of her. Had fought about politics and economics and dyeing her hair black and orange. And had fought about pretty much everything else as well.

Max was thirteen years her senior. For a while, that had given him an advantage, but eventually she had caught up. Had learned to hold her own ground and started winning her share of the skirmishes.

Now she was a mature twenty-two. An experienced child-care worker and, although he had no idea of it yet, in this case, Max’s salvation. She had no intention of allowing him to browbeat her into defeat before she even gave things a try.

Besides, she loved these mountains and this vast sheep and apple farm that had belonged to Saunders family members for generations.

Phoebe refused to acknowledge, even to herself, that she needed to come here sometimes. Just to soak up that oh-so-false feeling of belonging.

Hmph. If she owned Mountain Gem she would involve herself hands-on, not leave it to a manager who didn’t even live on the same property. It seemed as good a thing as any to get aggressive about right now.

‘How’s the rare and precious stone business coming?’ she sniped. ‘Made any more millions lately?’ Max had clinched a deal with the elusive Danvers Corporation recently to sell Saunders original jewellery creations through Danvers’s Australian stores. Phoebe knew that much because Katherine had told her how pleased Max had been.

Katherine had also mentioned that Max had dated Cameron Danvers’s daughter Felicity once or twice in recent months. Phoebe wondered if Max mixed business and pleasure often, then pushed the thought aside. Why should she be interested in the long line of women who paraded through Max’s life, be they past or present?

‘I’ll set up the video link and have my managerial team give you a report,’ Max sniped back over the noise of his boisterous and not at all happy sons. ‘Since I’ve been stuck working from home, that’s as close as I ever get to the business. Where would you like to hear from first? Greece? France? Germany?’

He made it sound as though watching over his sons was a real chore. Something he’d had foisted on him and didn’t want.

Phoebe paused. Perhaps that was exactly how he felt. If that was the case, it simply underlined how important it was that the boys had someone here who would stand firmly in their corner. ‘Actually, Max, I’m not that interested in your business.’

‘Trying to goad me, Phoebe?’ He offered a smile that was one hundred per cent gleaming irritation. ‘If so, you’ll have to do better than that.’

‘No offence meant.’ She gave him the benefit of an unblinking and unrepentant stare. ‘I was just expressing my thoughts.’

‘Always a dangerous pastime where you’re concerned.’

The dart barely made an impact. For one thing, she was used to his barbs. And, for another, he was avoiding the real issue. ‘There are other commitments in life that are even more important than making money.’

He glared at her. ‘Is there a point to this?’

Phoebe pulled a face. Not willing to admit a thing, are you, Max?

‘Well, you still look like you need help.’ She glanced at the howling and kicking boys. No way would she desert them to Max’s ministrations, or lack thereof. ‘A lot of it, I’d say. Whatever Katherine may have led us to believe, and I might add she’s hoaxed both of us not just you, that fact remains.’