Cinderella and the Billionaire

by Marion Lennox

  The last of her bristles disintegrated. For some stupid reason she felt her eyes fill. She swiped a hand across her cheek—and felt an oil streak land where the tear had been. Good one, Meg.

  ‘So is that enough?’ Matt McLellan’s tone turned acerbic, moving on. ‘Can we leave?’

  ‘After I’ve double-checked Bertha,’ she told him with a sideways glance at Charlie. He’d checked her personally? Yeah, and she was a monkey’s uncle. She could at least give the engine a quick once-over. ‘And when you and Henry have taken seasickness tablets and let them settle. Bass Strait, Mr McLellan, is not for pussies.’

  * * *

  What was he doing here?

  The Cartland case was nearing closure. He had to trust his staff not to mess things up.

  He checked his phone and almost groaned. No reception.

  ‘There’s not a lot of connectivity in the Southern Ocean.’ The skipper—if you could call this slip of a kid a skipper—was being helpful. ‘You can use the radio if it’s urgent.’

  He’d heard her on the radio. It was a static-filled jumble. Besides, the boat was lurching. A lot.

  The boat he was on was a rusty thirty-foot tub. ‘She’s all that’s available,’ Charlie had told him. ‘You want any better, you’ll have to wait until Monday.’

  He needed to be back in New York by Monday, so he was stuck.

  At least his instinct to distrust everyone in this tinpot hire company hadn’t gone so far as to refuse the pills Meg had insisted on. For which he was now incredibly grateful. His arm was around Henry, holding him close. Henry was almost deathly silent, completely withdrawn, but at least he wasn’t throwing up.

  They were almost an hour out of Rowan Bay. Three hours to go before they reached Garnett Island.

  He thought, not for the first time, how much better a helicopter would have been.

  There’d been no helicopters. Apparently there were bush fires inland. Any available chopper had been diverted to firefighting or surveillance, and the ones remaining had been booked up well before he’d decided to come.

  Beside him, Henry whimpered and huddled closer. There had been no choice. The thought of sending him here with an unknown travel escort had left him cold.

  Dumping him on an isolated island left him cold.

  He had no choice.

  ‘Boof!’

  He glanced up. Meg had turned to look at Henry, but she was calling her dog?

  They’d met Boof as they’d boarded. He was a rangy red-brown springer spaniel, turning grey in the dignified way of elderly dogs. He’d given them a courteous dog greeting as they’d boarded but Henry had cringed. Taking the hint, the dog had headed to the bow and acted like the carvings Matt had seen on ancient boats in the movies. Nose to the wind, ears flying, he looked fantastic.

  Now...one word from Meg and he was by her side.

  Meg was fishing deep in the pocket of what looked a truly disgusting oilskin jacket. She produced a plastic packet. Then she lashed the wheel and came over and knelt before Henry.

  ‘Henry,’ she said.

  Henry didn’t respond. Matt felt his little body shake, and with that came the familiar surge of anger on the child’s behalf.

  In anyone’s books, Amanda had been an appalling mother.

  Henry had been lonely when Amanda was alive and he was even more alone now.

  Meg had obviously decided to join the list of those who felt sorry for the little boy. Now she knelt with her dog beside her, her bag in her hand, and she waited.

  ‘Henry?’ she said again.

  There was a muffled sniff. There’d been a lot of those lately. Matt’s hold on him tightened and slowly the kid’s face emerged.

  They were both wearing sou’westers Meg had given them. Henry’s wan face emerging from a sea of yellow made Matt’s heart lurch. He was helpless with this kid. He had no rights at all and now he was taking him...who knew where?

  ‘Henry, Boof hasn’t had dinner,’ Meg said and waited.

  The lashed wheel was doing its job. They were heading into the wind. The boat’s action had settled a little.

  The sea was all around them. They seemed cocooned, an island of humanity and dog in the middle of nowhere.

  ‘Boof needs to be fed,’ Meg said, as if it didn’t matter too much. ‘He loves being fed one doggy bit at a time, and I have to go back to the wheel. Do you think you could feed Boof for me?’

  There was an almost-imperceptible shake of the head.

  Unperturbed, Meg opened the packet. ‘I guess I can do the first bit. Boof, sit.’

  Boof sat right before her.

  ‘Ask,’ Meg said.

  Boof dropped to the deck, looked imploringly up at Meg, then went back to sitting. He raised a paw. Please?

  Matt almost laughed.

  That was saying something. There hadn’t been any laughter in the last two weeks.

  But Meg’s face was solemn. ‘Great job, Boof,’ she told him and offered one doggy bit. Boof appeared to consider, then delicately accepted.

  And Henry was transfixed.

  ‘Does he do that all the time?’ he whispered.

  ‘His table manners are perfect,’ Meg said, giving Boof a hug. ‘Boof, would you like another one? Ask.’

  The performance was repeated, with the addition of a sweep of wagging tail. This was obviously a performance Boof enjoyed.

  There were quite a few doggy bits.

  But Meg glanced back at the wheel. ‘Boof, sorry, you’ll have to wait.’ She headed back to the wheel, and Boof dropped to the deck, dejection in every fibre of his being.

  ‘Can’t you give him the rest?’ Henry ventured, and Matt could have cheered.

  ‘If I have time later.’ Meg’s attention was back on the ocean.

  And Matt could feel Henry’s tension.

  From the time he’d heard of his mother’s death, he’d been almost rigid. With shock? Fear? Who knew? He’d accepted the news without a word.

  Social Services had been there early. Talking to Matt. If there’s no one, we’ll take care of him until we can contact his grandmother.

  Matt hardly had the time or the skills to care for a child, but in the face of Henry’s stoic acceptance his voice had seemed to come from nowhere.

  I’ll take care of him, he’d said.

  Almost immediately he’d thought, What have I done?

  To say Matt McLellan wasn’t a family man was to put it mildly. He’d been an only child with distant parents. He’d had a few longer-term lovers, but they’d been women who followed his rules. Career and independence came first.

  Matt had been raised pretty much the same as Henry. Care had been paid for by money. But he hadn’t been deserted when he was seven. His almost-visceral reaction to Henry’s loss had shocked him.

  So Henry had come home to Matt’s apartment. The place had great views overlooking the Hudson. It had the best that money could buy when it came to furnishings and art, but Matt pretty much used it as a place to crash. In terms of comfort for a seven-year-old there was nothing.

  They’d gone back to Amanda’s apartment to fetch what Henry needed and found almost a carbon copy of Matt’s place. The apartment was spotless. Henry’s room had designer children’s prints on the walls but it still spoke sterile. His toys were arranged almost as if they were supposed to be part of the artwork.

  Henry had taken a battered teddy and a scrapbook that Matt had had the privilege to see.

  He’d wanted nothing else.

  The scrapbook was in his backpack now. There was panic when it was out of reach, so the backpack had pretty much stayed on for the entire trip. And Teddy... When Matt had put on his oversized sou’wester, Henry had tucked Teddy deep in the pocket, almost as if he expected someone to snatch it away.

  A kid. A scrapbook. A teddy.

 
There’d been nothing else. And Matt had had no idea how to comfort him.

  ‘Maybe we could feed the dog,’ Matt said and waited some more.

  ‘Boof likes boys more than grown-ups,’ Meg said from the wheel. ‘Though he likes me best. The same as your teddy, Henry. I bet your teddy likes you best.’

  So she’d seen. His respect for her went up a notch.

  Actually, his respect was mounting.

  Even though it had annoyed him at the time, he’d accepted—even appreciated—her checking his authority to take Henry to the island. And her skill now... The way she turned the boat to the wind, her concentration on each swell... They combined to provide the most comfortable and safe passage possible.

  She was small and thin. Her copper curls looked as if they’d been attacked by scissors rather than a decent hairdresser. She’d ditched her oilskin and was now wearing faded jeans and a windcheater with the words Here, Fishy on the back. Her feet were bare and she seemed totally oblivious to the wind.

  Her tanned face, her crinkled eyes... This woman was about as far from the women he mixed with as it was possible to get.

  And now she was focused on Henry. He saw Henry’s surprise as Meg mentioned Teddy. Henry’s hand slipped into his pocket as if he was reassuring himself that Ted was still there.

  ‘Ted likes me.’

  ‘Of course,’ Meg agreed. ‘Like Boof likes me. But Boof does love friends giving him his dinner.’

  She went back to concentrating on the wheel. Boof sat beside her but looked back at Henry. As if he knew what was expected of him. As if he knew how to draw a scared child into his orbit.

  Had there been kids in the past, scared kids on this woman’s fishing charters? He couldn’t fault the performance.

  But there was no pressure. Maybe it was only Matt who was holding his breath.

  Boof walked back over to Henry, gazed into his face, gave a gentle whine and raised a paw. Matt glanced up at Meg and saw the faintest of smiles.

  Yep, this was a class act, specifically geared to draw a sucker in. And Henry was that sucker and Matt wasn’t complaining one bit.

  ‘Can I have the doggy bits?’ Henry quavered.

  Meg said, ‘Sure,’ and tossed the bag. Matt caught it but she’d already turned back to the wheel.

  No pressure...

  He could have kissed her.

  He needed to follow Meg’s lead. He dropped the bag on Henry’s knee. ‘You might get your fingers dirty,’ he said, as if he almost disapproved of what Henry might do.

  ‘I can wipe them,’ Henry said.

  ‘I guess.’

  Henry nodded. Cautiously, he opened the bag.

  ‘Sit,’ he said to Boof, and Boof, who’d stood with alacrity the moment the bag opened, sat.

  ‘Ask,’ Henry said and the plan went swimmingly. A doggy bit went down the hatch. Boof’s tail waved and then he raised a paw again. His plea was obvious. Repeat.

  It was such a minor act, but for Matt, who’d cared for an apathetic bundle of misery for two weeks without knowing how to break through, it felt like gold. He glanced up at Meg, expecting her to be still focusing on the sea, but she wasn’t. Her smile was almost as wide as his.

  Did she know how important this was? She’d seen the legal documents. He’d told her the gist of the tragedy.

  Her smile met his. He mouthed a silent thank you with his smile, and her smile said, You’re welcome.

  And that smile...

  Back at the boatshed she’d said she was twenty-eight. He’d hardy believed her, but now, seeing the depth of understanding behind her smile...

  It held maturity, compassion and understanding. And it made him feel...

  That was hardly appropriate.

  She turned back to the wheel and his gaze dropped to her feet. The soles were stained and the skin was cracked.

  She’d said she’d been fishing since she was sixteen. She was so far out of his range of experience she might as well have come from another planet. There was no reason—and no way—he could even consider getting to know her better. That flash of...whatever it was...was weird.

  He went back to watching Henry feed Boof, one doggy bit at a time. The little boy was relaxing with every wag of the dog’s tail. Finally the bits were gone. He expected Meg to call Boof back, or that the dog would resume his stance at the bow. Instead, the dog leaped onto the seat beside Henry and laid his big, boofy head on Henry’s lap.

  Matt glanced up at Meg and, surprised, saw the end of a doggy command—the gesture of clicked fingers.

  Part of the service?

  She grinned at him and winked. Winked?

  Henry was feeling Boof’s soft ears. He wiggled his fingers, and the dog rolled his head, almost in ecstasy.

  Henry giggled.

  Not such a big thing?

  Huge.

  His hold on him tightened. This kid was the child of a business connection. Nothing more, but that giggle almost did him in.

  He glanced back at Meg and found her watching him. Him. Not Henry. His face. Seeing his reaction.

  For some reason that made him feel...exposed?

  That was nuts. He was here to deliver a child to his grandmother and move on. There was no need for emotion.

  He didn’t do emotion. He hardly knew how. That Meg had somehow made Henry smile, that she’d figured how to make him feel secure... How did she know how to do it?

  Matt McLellan was a man in charge of his world. He knew how to keep it ordered, but for some reason this woman was making him feel as if there was a world out there he knew nothing about.

  And when Henry snuggled even closer, when Henry’s hands stilled on the big dog’s head, when Henry’s eyes fluttered closed... When he fell asleep against Matt with all the trust in the world, the feeling intensified.

  Once again he glanced at Meg and found her watching. And the way she looked at him...

  It was as if she saw all the way through and out the other side.

  * * *

  She shouldn’t be here. She should be home, slashing her grass, doing something about Grandpa’s veggie patch. If he could see the mess it was in, he’d turn in his grave. That veggie patch had been his pride and joy.

  She’d let it run down. She’d had no choice. The last months of her grandfather’s life he’d been almost totally dependent. She didn’t begrudge it one bit but she’d come out the other side deep in debt. She now had to take every fishing charter she could get.

  The veggie patch was almost mocking her.

  She should sell the whole place and move on. It’d cover her debts. She could go north, get a job in a charter company that wasn’t as dodgy as Charlie’s, make herself a new life.

  Except the house was all she had left of Grandpa. All she had left of her parents.

  Stop it. There was nothing she could do to solve her problems now, so there was no use thinking about them. She was heading out to Garnett Island. The money would help. That was all that mattered.

  Except, as the hours wore on, as Bertha shovelled her way inexorably through the waves, she found herself inexplicably drawn to the man and child seated in the stern.

  They’d exchanged niceties when they’d first boarded: the weather, her spiel about the history of this coast, the dolphins, the birds they might see. The guy... Matt...had asked a few desultory questions. Other than that, they’d hardly talked. The child had seemed bereft and the guy seemed as if he didn’t want to be here.

  And then she’d convinced Henry to feed Boof and something had happened. She’d seen them both change. She’d seen the kid light up. She’d seen him pat Boof and then snuggle into the side of the man beside him.

  And she’d seen Matt look as if he was about to cry.

  What was it between the pair of them? What was a Manhattan financier doing carting a kid down in
to the Southern Ocean to dump him on Garnett Island?

  Except the guy now looked as if he’d cracked wide open. He cared. Something had shifted inside him, and when he’d smiled at her...

  Um...not. Let’s not go there. This was a seriously good-looking guy being nice to an orphan, and if that wasn’t a cliché for hearts and violins nothing was.

  But that smile...

  Was nothing to do with her. She was doing a job, nothing else.

  They were getting close to Garnett now. She could see its bulk in the distance. There were a couple of uninhabited rocky outcrops in between, the result of some long-ago volcanic disturbance. She needed to watch her charts, watch the depth sounder. Not think about the pair behind her.

  And then, suddenly, she had something else to think about. Bertha coughed.

  Or that was what it sounded like, and after a lifetime spent at sea Meg was nuanced to every changing engine sound. She checked the dials.

  Heat?

  What the...? She’d checked everything obvious. How could the engine be heating? And almost as she thought it, she caught her first faint whiff.

  Smoke.

  CHAPTER TWO

  SMOKE?

  Oh, dear God.

  Meg had a sudden flashback to a couple of days back. She’d been bringing in a fishing charter and she’d seen Graham, Charlie’s son, coming out of the inlet. He’d been in this boat.

  Rowan Bay was a marine reserve, a fish breeding ground. It was tidal, shallow, full of drifting sand and water grasses. It was a good place to add to your catch for the day—if you weren’t caught by the fisheries officers.

  And if you didn’t care about your boat.

  She was suddenly hearing her grandpa’s voice.

  You go in there in anything bigger than a dinghy, you’re an idiot. Operating in murky waters can cause blockages in the cooling-water intake. That can lead to engine overheating.

  Graham was an idiot.

  But now wasn’t the time for blaming. Almost instinctively, she shut the motor down, grabbed the fire extinguisher and headed below.

  The whiff of smoke became a wall.

  Meg O’Hara was not known to panic. There’d been dramas at sea before. She’d swum to shore when a motor died. She’d dived overboard to clear a fouled propeller. She’d even coped with a punter having a heart attack as he’d caught a truly excellent bluefin tuna.