TRISHA DAVID - Mctavish And Twins

‘Well, this lady’s from America.’ Mike grinned. ‘And the Americans were so rude about paying for some tea a long time ago that the Queen didn’t want them any more. So...it’s up to us to teach her manners—show her we’re brought up properly in the Antipodes.’

The twins glanced nervously from Erin to Mike—and slowly relaxed. They didn’t understand what Mike was talking about but they could sense laughter in their big uncle and they were all too ready to join in.

The twins and the unknown Mrs Brown had excelled themselves. The scones were light, fluffy and delicious. There was a vast bowl of farm cream to go with them and strawberry jam tasting of strawberries straight from the garden.

‘Mrs Brown made strawberry jam last Monday,’ Laura told Erin importantly, helping herself to a fourth scone. ‘We helped.’

‘I hope you stayed clean all the time,’ Erin smiled. Then she caught herself. It was okay to mock Mike McTavish—but not the children. To her delight, though, Laura giggled.

‘We didn’t,’ Laura admitted. ‘Mrs Brown said we looked like two Indian warriors in war paint after we’d finished. She tossed us into the bath, clothes and all.’

Erin smiled back and then, because she couldn’t help herself, she added another question.

‘Doesn’t Caroline come on Mondays either?’

Silence.

Matthew slowly shook his head and both children stared down at their plates.

Then, as one, the twins pushed back their plates and rose.

‘We’ll meet you outside,’ Laura said. ‘We’ll go and pat Paddy.’

The message was plain: if you intend to speak about Caroline, we’re off.

The door slammed behind them and Erin slowly turned back to Mike.

‘I’m sorry...’

His laughter had faded as well.

‘I’ll thank you not to do that,’ he said savagely. ‘Criticizing Caroline in front of the children...’

‘I hardly criticized her,’ Erin muttered. ‘I only asked if she came on Mondays.’

‘You know exactly what you did.’

‘Yes.’ Erin stood up, gathering plates and carrying them across to the sink. This man wasn’t her social better, even though he had more money. He wasn’t even twenty years old any more, to her gawky fourteen years. She owed him nothing—and it was time he heard the truth. She turned back to face him, leaning against the bench with the table between them. ‘I know what I did. I inferred the twins don’t have fun when Caroline’s around. But it’s true, isn’t it?’

‘No.’

‘No?’ Erin shrugged. ‘They seem scared stiff of her if you ask me.’

‘Only because she disciplines them,’ Mike said slowly. ‘With me...with me they run wild. Laura especially. Matt just goes silent—sometimes for days on end—and I worry about him. I can’t seem to get through to the kid.’

He spread his hands. ‘Do you have any idea how difficult it is, Miss O’Connell, to be thrown in at the deep end as parent to two grief stricken six-year-olds? You’ve no idea, have you? I had to fly up to Sydney and collect them from their babysitter the night their parents were killed. I was at a bucks’ party when the call came. To be catapulted like that...’

He sighed and spread his hands. ‘Look, I’m doing my best, but I’m not a parent. Caroline takes on that role and I’m grateful to her. She makes sure they’re respectable and well disciplined and...and safe, and I’d be mad if I sat here and let you criticize her. We’re both doing what we can in a very difficult situation, Miss O’Connell, and your interference isn’t helping one bit.’

‘So I should have left them on the road yesterday? I should have driven right on?’

‘That’s not what I mean and you know it.’

‘It is what you mean in a sense,’ Erin said slowly. ‘You’re saying I should butt out of what’s not my business, and if I’d done that then I would have driven on yesterday instead of stopping.’ She took a deep breath. ‘It’s not in my nature to drive on through,’ she said softly. ‘I just can’t.’

‘It might not be in your nature but it’s in your blood,’ Mike said harshly. ‘Your family left your grandfather twenty years ago, and as far as I know there’s only been the one visit since.’

Erin’s chin tilted. ‘That’s right.’ She met his look. ‘I was sent out from America at fourteen.’

‘I do vaguely remember you,’ he admitted. ‘All steel braces and freckles.’ He smiled. ‘The freckles haven’t changed.’ Then he looked at her a little more searchingly. ‘If you’re the kid I remember—I thought of you as a loner. An unhappy, solitary sort of kid. Are you an only child?’

‘Yes.’

‘And your parents sent you out by yourself.’ He grimaced. ‘It can’t have been much fun.’

‘You’re judging my father, aren’t you?’ Erin said softly. ‘You have him all summed up. A man who leaves his father and goes halfway round the world without a backward glance. A man who sends his teenage daughter overseas on her own as a sop to his conscience—once and never again.’

‘Look, there may be reasons I don’t know...’

‘There are,’ Erin said dully. ‘If you’d asked my grandfather, then maybe you would have found out.’

‘Your grandfather doesn’t talk of his family,’ Mike told her. ‘We’ve been neighbours for a long time—but when I ask about his family he clams up. He’s been so darned lonely, though. He’s been just plain miserable for the past couple of years as his health has failed, and there’s pain comes into his eyes whenever anyone asks about his family. I can sense how much he misses family, and maybe that’s why I’m sounding so judgemental.’

‘You’ve no right...’

‘Well, if you don’t want me judging, then maybe you should answer some questions.’ Mike’s dark eyes didn’t leave Erin’s face. ‘Why no contact for so long and then, a month or so after Jack broaches the idea of selling the farm, why the sudden family interest after all these years?’

Erin stared. The dark eyes were challenging hers—and she could see clearly what was behind the question.

Somehow she made herself speak. It took more strength than she knew she possessed.

‘I guess...I guess I see what you’re thinking,’ Erin managed finally, her voice trembling. She walked forward and placed her hands on the table, her eyes huge in her white face. ‘You think I’ve been sent over to get what I can for us. Is that what you think?’

‘It’s the obvious conclusion,’ Mike agreed calmly. ‘The local land agent told me Jack was thinking of selling because he knew I’d be interested in buying if the farm is sold. Then suddenly we have family interest. A lonely old man suddenly has family after twenty long years.’

‘A lonely old man suddenly has me,’ Erin whispered.

Erin could hardly think. Her mind was a kaleidoscope of impressions—and the overriding feeling was pain. This man was judging people she loved. Judging her father...

All these years the locals here had been thinking her father was a heartless, uncaring emigrant.

She wondered vaguely if her father knew what was thought of him in the place he still regarded as home. How it would hurt if he guessed! Her father loved this place more than she did.

‘Erin...’ Mike rose from his chair. The colour had bleached completely from Erin’s face and he could see the pain washing through her eyes. He’d be a fool if he couldn’t see it—and if there was one thing Mike McTavish wasn’t it was a fool.

He moved swiftly behind her and his hands dropped to her shoulders. ‘Erin, don’t look like that. You can’t help what your father is.’

The touch of his hands burned through the light fabric of Erin’s shirt. She wanted comfort so much. She wanted this man’s arms around her so much it was a physical ache. Yet here he was hurting her—hurting those she loved. What she felt in her heart was so far from common sense that Erin felt herself almost torn in two. She pulled away in real distress.