Molly gave a squeak of indignation and clutched at her towel as if her life depended on it. She could use another six inches of towelling here. Badly. ‘Sam, take Mr Baird out and close the door after you.’
‘We’re comfortable here,’ Sam said. He grinned and his aunt moaned.
‘Sam, don’t you dare turn into another machiavellian male before my eyes. I depend on you.’
‘That’s why we’re staying.’ Jackson grinned. ‘Because you depend on us.’
‘I don’t depend on you.’
‘You hear that, Sam? And that’s about a man she’s hoping to make a sale to.’
‘Get out.’ Molly was caught between laughter and exasperation. And something else. Jackson was engendering a feeling she hadn’t known she was capable of. The way he held Sam. The way he laughed down at her…
‘Get out,’ she said again, and her eyes locked on his and held.
A message passed between them.
A message?
No. It was more than that. It was a forging of a link, Molly thought faintly, and that link she didn’t fully understand, but it was a link for all that. Strong and warm and…
‘Get out,’ she said again, but this time it was more than that. Get out-and she wasn’t just talking about leaving the bathroom.
This man was starting to alarm her.
Starting? Ha!
And Jackson? He stood staring down at her for a long minute, and very gradually the laughter died from his eyes. Finally he nodded, and it was as if he’d come to a decision.
‘Right,’ he said. ‘We know when we’re not wanted.’ And he turned and walked back down the passage without a backward glance.
By the time she’d dressed and dried her hair she almost had herself under control. Almost. Molly was badly flustered and it showed. She blew dry her hair and didn’t concentrate, so she had to do it again-it was that or wear an unruly mop for dinner. Even when she wet and reblew it, her curls still flew everywhere.
No matter. It didn’t matter. Did it?
No. She dressed in jeans and a clean shirt, then changed her mind and donned a skirt-then went back to jeans. By the time she finished she was thoroughly disconcerted, and Sam was asking questions.
‘Why is it taking you so long? Don’t you know Mr Baird is waiting?’
It was exactly because Mr Baird was waiting that she was taking so long, Molly thought. She gave her curls a last despairing brush and headed for the kitchen, Sam skipping by her side.
Because, yes, Mr Baird was waiting.
To her dismay Doreen and Gregor had no intention of joining them for their barbecue.
‘Gregor hates sand,’ Doreen told them, casting an affectionate glance at her husband. ‘You’d think after forty years of living at the beach he’d grow accustomed to it.’
‘I’ll never get accustomed to sand,’ Gregor said morosely. ‘Foul stuff gets everywhere. You even find it between your toes!’
‘Don’t you like sand between your toes?’ Sam asked, his eyes falling to Gregor’s severely laced boots. The vision of Gregor’s old toes was somehow fascinating and repelling all at once.
‘Don’t tell me you do?’ Gregor demanded. ‘Well! There’s no accounting for taste. But that’s why Doreen’s packed you a hamper of everything you might fancy to eat on sand while I eat my dinner at the kitchen table like a gentleman.’
And that was that. They were, it seemed, dining on the beach alone. Just Molly and Jackson and Sam.
Great, thought Molly, and…help?
But the setting itself was magic. At any other time Molly would have loved it. The sun was sinking over the mountains, the surf was rolling in long, low swells onto the wide ribbon of beach, and the sand was still warm from the heat of the day. Gregor had been down before them and had lit a fire.
‘Main course is a nice piece of beef I’ve buried in the coals, and there’s spuds down there as well,’ he told them. ‘Just dig when you get hungry.’
Or eat the rest of their food? They could certainly do that. The appetisers alone would have satisfied even the hungriest of diners. Doreen had done them proud. They unpacked onto the picnic rug and discovered prawns on ice, and scallops and oysters in their shells. There were tiny sausage rolls, still warm. Delicate sandwiches, asparagus, chicken and avocado, smoked salmon…
And the sweets…
‘And this after morning tea, lunch and afternoon tea… The Grays must think we starve in our other lives,’ Molly said, awed, and Jackson grinned and reached for a prawn.
‘Who’s complaining? Sausage roll, Sam? Lemonade? Champagne, Miss Farr?’
‘There’s four different types of wine.’ Molly was practically dumbfounded. ‘How did they do this?’
‘Mrs Gray rang up some people while you were out today,’ Sam told her. ‘They delivered stuff.’
They certainly must have. ‘You’ll have to push me home in a wheelbarrow if I wrap myself round this lot.’ She shook her head as Jackson offered her wine. ‘I’ll have lemonade, please.’
‘You’re not scared things might get out of control?’ he asked, gently teasing, and she flushed.
‘No. But I’m careful.’
‘Because of my reputation?’
‘I hardly think you’ll try a spot of seduction with Sam here,’ Molly snapped, and she got what she asked for.
‘What’s seduction?’ asked Sam.
‘Making ladies kiss you when they should know better,’ she told him. Her response was out before she could stop herself, and there was a crack of laughter from Jackson.
‘That means your Aunty Molly would really, really like to kiss me but she thinks she’s too respectable.’
‘Is that why she changed three times before she decided what to wear tonight?’ Sam asked, interested in this weird adult behaviour, and Molly was torn between embarrassment and laughter.
Suddenly laughter won. Well, why not? It was either laugh or blush to the roots of her hair, and Jackson had the upper hand already.
‘Hand me a sausage roll,’ she told Sam. ‘I’m missing out on valuable eating time talking about stupid things like kissing.’
‘I thought girls liked kissing.’ Sam was looking from Jackson to Molly and back again, trying to figure things out for himself. ‘You mean you don’t want to kiss each other?’
‘What, kiss Mr Baird? Why on earth would I want to kiss Mr Baird?’
Sam thought that one through and found it a reasonable question.
‘Well, I wouldn’t want to. But some people might.’
‘Kissing’s dangerous. You’ve read your fairy stories. Jackson could turn into a frog.’
‘Or a prince.’
‘Not a prince,’ Molly said decisively. ‘Millionaires don’t turn into princes. They always turn into frogs. It’s in the rules.’
‘But we like frogs.’
‘A frog called Jackson? I don’t think so. And besides, it’d be a toad.’
‘Thanks very much,’ Jackson said drily.
‘You’re welcome.’ Molly gave him her sweetest smile. ‘Now, Sam, I suggest we shut up and eat. Otherwise we might go hungry.’
‘What, with all this?’
‘And afternoon tea was so puny,’ Molly agreed mournfully. ‘I’m starving to my socks.’
Sam gave up the kissing issue as a bad job and giggled, a cheerful small boy sound that added to the impression of magic that was all around them. He’d laughed so little since his parents died, and here he was wolfing down sausage rolls and spreading his toes in the sand-and leaning back against Jackson, for heaven’s sake, almost as if he belonged there.
‘Me, too,’ he said cheerfully, munching his fourth sausage roll and giving a direct lie to his statement. ‘Mr Baird, are you starving to your socks?’
‘Deeper,’ Jackson said with aplomb. ‘I’m starving to my toenails.’
CHAPTER SIX
IT WAS a magic meal. A magic night. They ate their fill and then took Sam down for a paddle in the shallows. The
child had spent very little time at the beach in his life. Despite Jackson’s reassuring presence he was still wary of the water, so Jackson and Molly held him between them and did one-two-three-jumps over the waves until they were all exhausted.
And wet.
‘Why didn’t we wear our bathers?’ Molly demanded as they paused for breath. ‘Look at us. Sam, you’re wet up to your neck.’
‘Speaking of swimming-Sam, how do you feel about having a shot at real swimming tomorrow?’ Jackson asked him, adult to adult. ‘I’d be pleased to show you how.’
Molly held her breath as Sam perused Jackson’s face, but what he saw there seemed to reassure him.
‘That would be good.’
That would be good… Understatement of the year! Molly let her breath out in a rush and felt like singing or dancing or… Or she knew what. She let out a war whoop of triumph and did a pirouette in the shallows, spinning round and round and round while Jackson and Sam looked on as if she’d lost her marbles.
‘You know, she doesn’t look like any businesswoman I’ve ever met,’ Jackson told Sam gravely, and Sam nodded.
‘She’s not really a businesswoman. She’s just my aunty Molly.’
And that felt good, too, Molly thought. My aunty Molly. It was a claim of ownership, and Sam had never made that before either. She whooped across to him, seized him in her arms and spun him round with her until they were both dizzy and sank laughing in the shallows. Then they looked up…
To find Jackson with a very strange expression on his face. One Molly couldn’t read at all.
‘What?’ she said crossly, and he caught himself and managed a grin.
‘Nothing. I was just thinking.’
‘Don’t tell me. You were thinking how unsuitable I am to sell you a farm?’
‘Not at all,’ he said, and his grin deepened. ‘What I was really thinking was that if we tried I bet we could make the world’s biggest sandcastle. How about making a frog-right here on the beach?’
‘A frog?’ Sam was sitting on his aunt’s knee while the waves washed over him, flushed and happy and game. ‘How do you make a frog?’
‘Out of sand. Watch. And help. I’ve been involved in several great construction companies in my time. How about if I declare us the Molly, Sam & Jackson Construction Company Ltd, and we start building forthwith?’
And they did. An hour later there was a frog, four feet wide and almost as high, sitting up on his haunches regarding them all with frog-like eyes made of shells and the blandest of seaweedy smiles.
‘He looks like he wants to eat us all for breakfast,’ Molly said, sitting back and admiring her handiwork. ‘Oh, Jackson, he’s wonderful.’
It wasn’t just the frog that was wonderful, she thought, dazed with happiness. It was the whole night. Sam was by her side and she sank back on the sand and let him fall into the crook of her arm. The little boy was close to sleep. He was happier on this night than he’d been since the night his parents had been killed, and he was smiling up at them through closing eyes as the day drifted lazily into dreamtime.
‘What’ll we call him?’ he murmured, and Molly hugged him closer.
‘How about Lionel Two?’ she suggested, and Jackson laughed.
‘Great. Here we have the beginning of a frog dynasty called Lionel.’
‘And Mr Baird…’ It was all Sam could do to speak. His lids were closing regardless, but there was still urgency. ‘You will teach me to swim tomorrow?’
‘I will teach you to swim tomorrow,’ Jackson told him, and stooped to place a hand on the little boy’s face. Gently he closed his eyes. ‘Now, go to sleep, young man. Your aunt and I will clean up here and then carry you up to your bed.’
But Sam was no longer listening. Sam was asleep already.
It was just plain magic and there was no disputing it.
‘In Scotland they called this the gloaming,’ Molly said softly, watching the sleeping child beside her. She was sleepy herself-warm and tired and happy as she hadn’t been warm and tired and happy for years.
‘The gloaming?’ Jackson paused from packing to look a question.
‘It’s the magic time between the ending of the day’s work and the time for rest,’ she told him. ‘It’s when the world pauses for breath. And waits. It doesn’t know what it’s waiting for, but anything can happen in the gloaming. It’s full of promise for tomorrow and tomorrow after that.’
She was talking nonsense, she thought, her eyes resting on the sleeping Sam. He was curled against her on the rug, his dark lashes fluttering down under his too heavy glasses and his hand clutching a fistful of seashells. She loved this little boy so much…
The gloaming-this magic time of day-was a time of healing for Sam.
And for herself?
Definitely for herself.
She looked up and found Jackson watching her, and the expression in his eyes took her breath away.
‘We’d best get back to the house,’ she murmured, but the expression on his face made Molly falter. He was looking at her as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing.
But finally he found his voice. He knelt, and his hand came out to touch Sam’s hair. ‘Poor little tyke. It’s so damned unfair-that he’s lost so much.’
His sympathy touched her as nothing else could. ‘It is.’ She managed a smile. ‘But he’s had a wonderful day-thanks to you.’
‘And thanks to you. He’s safe now. His time of desperate sadness is past. He’ll move on.’
‘How do you know?’
‘I watched him tonight. He was letting go. Trusting. Placing bets on the world again and finding it not too bad a place after all.’
‘I hope so.’
‘I’m sure of it.’ And, as if propelled by forces out of his control, he put out a hand and traced her cheekbone, from her eyelids to the corner of her chin, where a tiny dimple peeped.
She didn’t move. She sat still as stone, willing it to happen.
It was the gloaming. The magic time. What happened now wouldn’t be taken forward. What happened now was for now.
‘Molly…’
She looked wonderingly into his face, her eyes a question.
‘Mmm?’
He didn’t know what to say, and when he found something it was inadequate. Far too inadequate. ‘You’re beautiful.’
She grinned. ‘Well, I guess that’s quite a compliment, coming from you.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘I mean you’ve been photographed with some of the world’s loveliest women.’
‘You’re just as lovely.’
‘Yes?’ She managed to keep smiling, but heaven knew it was hard. Somehow she forced a joke. ‘Gregor wouldn’t agree. There’s sand between my toes, Mr Baird. Sand!’
He chuckled, but he didn’t move. He stayed kneeling before her, taking in the sight of her, her smile, the way the child nestled in beside her.
Hell, he wanted to be part of this, he thought suddenly. Molly was faced with such a burden. He could help.
‘Do you need anything?’ he asked, and Molly frowned.
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean…’ He hesitated. Maybe it was the wrong thing to say, but it needed to be said. ‘I mean financially.’
A flicker of anger built from within. This was such a wondrous time-how dared he spoil it by talking about money? She shook her head, aware that the magic was fading. ‘No. Thank you very much, but you’ve helped enough. You’ve given us today, and you’re giving Sam tomorrow.’ She hesitated. ‘You do intend to keep your promise to teach him to swim?’
‘I’ll keep my promise.’
‘Well, there you go.’ She smiled. ‘That’s enough. So thank you.’
‘But after that? You’ll let me help?’
‘You’re going overseas,’ she reminded him. ‘You’re not much help there.’
‘But financially I could help.’
Again the anger. Was he obtuse? ‘I told you, I don’t need money.�
��
‘Well, what do you need?’
The man was totally insensitive. What did she need? What a question-when more and more she was starting to think what she needed was kneeling right in front of her.
But he couldn’t know that. He couldn’t see how vulnerable she really was.
‘I need friends,’ she muttered, and then she softened. ‘I can’t be more specific than that, but that’s what I do need-and Sam needs friends, too. People who’ll be there for us.’ She gave him a rueful smile. ‘Not people who jet around the world and are only in Australia one month in twelve. If that.’
Friends. He could do friends. Even if it was only for a month… ‘Then maybe I could see you again? When I’m in the country?’
‘Sam would like that.’ She met his eyes and her expression was a challenge. ‘But we won’t count on it. You promised Sam you’d take him swimming and it’s important-more important than you know-that you keep that promise. And you said you’d bring his frogs back here, and that’s important, too. But apart from that…please don’t make promises you can’t keep, Mr Baird.’
‘Jackson,’ he growled, and she nodded.
‘Okay, Jackson. But, please-’
‘Leave you alone? Is that what you’re asking?’
‘I don’t know.’ But suddenly she did know. This man had the capacity to tilt her world, and the last six months had seen her world tilted quite enough. So there was only one way to answer him. ‘Yes.’
They stared at each other for a long, long minute.
She wasn’t just asking for Sam, Jackson thought. She was asking for herself. Don’t offer what you can’t follow though with. Don’t play with us. Don’t break our hearts.
Damn.
And she was looking at him as if he had the capacity to do just that. It unmanned him. It made him want to make all sorts of rash promises. Promises she knew already that he couldn’t keep.
But still she watched him. The sun had slipped below the horizon and the moon wasn’t yet up. The soft, rose-coloured hues of the horizon were playing over the beach, shifting the colour of the sand, reflecting in the enormity of Molly’s eyes. She was so beautiful.
A Millionaire For Molly Page 8