‘What will you do now?’
‘Cuddle her until she goes back to sleep.’
‘Ruby said you’re not getting work done.’
The yells from upstairs were getting more insistent. ‘Define “work”. But I guess it doesn’t matter. I just take one day-one moment-at a time.’ He walked to the door and then paused. ‘Shanni, you’ve helped me enormously today and I’m deeply grateful. If you leave right now I’ll still be grateful. I won’t put any more pressure on you. But you do need a bed for at least tonight?’
‘Wendy showed me her mother’s bedroom. She’d already made up the bed.’
‘Wendy wants you to stay.’ He put up his hands in mock defence. ‘I know. I said no pressure.’ He raised his gaze to the ceiling. ‘Okay, Bessy, I’m coming. We’ll leave Shanni here to make up her mind.’
‘I…I’ll think about it.’
‘Please.’
CHAPTER FOUR
SHE cleared the dishes. She finished wiping out the fridge and replacing the few things that were actually edible. Then she made her way through the darkened house to her bedroom.
She could hear footsteps upstairs, pacing back and forth. There was a soft male rumble. Pierce was comforting Bessy.
He was a bachelor. He’d taken on five children he didn’t know. The enormity of what he’d done left her gasping.
‘He’s a very nice boy,’ she told the dark, and she giggled.
But then her giggle faded. This was deadly serious. Pierce was fighting to keep these kids together. The least she could do was help.
But she didn’t do kids. And she had a career to resurrect.
‘You’ve stuffed up big time,’ she told the dark. She walked over to the bed and gave a tentative bounce. This must be the master bedroom. Pierce had let Maureen have the master bedroom?
Why had he bought a house with so many bedrooms? Had he thought of having a big family himself?
He really was…
A hunk. The thought of him pacing back and forth above her head with a baby cradled against his shoulder…
It was a very, very sexy image.
Whoa. ‘That’s exactly the attitude that gets you into trouble over and over again,’ she scolded herself. ‘And that’s the scary thing about staying. He’s extraordinarily attractive and he’s up to his eyeballs in domesticity, and you feel sorry for him, and if you’re not careful you’ll be installed as chief cook and bottle washer with your only payment a bit of snogging on the side.
‘He hasn’t got time for snogging.
‘Just as well.’ She said it out loud.
His footsteps paused right above her head. ‘I know it itches,’ she heard him say. ‘But we all need to sleep.’
A whimper.
‘In with me again? Bess, we need to cut this out.’
He was more than a hunk, she decided. He was gorgeous.
And up to his neck in kids.
‘So go to bed and stop thinking about him,’ she told herself, and crossed to the window to pull the blind.
There was a cow six inches from her nose.
She managed to stay silent. The cow gazed in, and she felt extraordinarily pleased with herself that she hadn’t yelped. The last thing she needed was for Pierce to come racing downstairs because she was scared of a cow. The cow was outside and she was inside.
Fine.
It was a very large cow.
Its face was enormous. And its eyes looked sort of wild. It wasn’t placidly gazing. Its head was moving back and forth, as if it was terrified.
Did cows get scared?
Upstairs Bessy started howling again. Obviously not even the enticement of sleeping with Pierce could placate her.
There was a moment’s silence as Bessy paused for breath to start the next yowl.
‘Git out.’
For a moment she thought she was imagining things. Who…?
‘Git out of our garden.’ It was a child’s voice, yelling. It sounded like an attempt to be commanding, but there was an edge of fear showing through.
She pulled up the window-just a little-not so much that the cow could put its head in. The cow had shifted aside, turning to face whoever was shouting.
The moon was almost full. She could see clearly into the garden.
It was seven-year-old Donald. The skinny one with the scared eyes and the look that said he distrusted the world. The rest of the kids had enjoyed painting this afternoon, but Donald had painted like he was performing a duty. He looked like a kid who was waiting for the axe to fall.
‘What are you doing out there?’ she called, and the cow turned to look at her. Still with the wild eyes.
It was a really big cow.
Huge.
‘It shouldn’t be in the garden,’ Donald said, struggling to sound brave. ‘Someone’s left the gate open. I saw it out the window. It’ll eat the rose Pierce planted when our mum died.’ He hiccupped on a sob, bravery disappearing. ‘I’m shooing it out the gate, but it won’t go.’
‘Donald, you’re too little be shooing cows. I’ll get Pierce.’
‘He’s busy with Bessy.’ She saw his small shoulders stiffen in resolution. ‘And I’m not too little. I can do it.’
‘But-’
‘Git on out,’ Donald said, but he’d moved backwards behind a camellia bush and she could no longer see him.
Despite his defiance, he sounded terrified.
Cows are harmless, she told herself, recalling the words of her farming-type friend.
Right.
She’d go upstairs and offer to take Bessy while Pierce sorted this, she thought, but Bessy’s howls were becoming frantic.
Two perils. Crying baby. Or cow.
Each equally daunting.
‘Shoo,’ Donald yelled but the cow didn’t move.
She could do this. Shanni Jefferson, cowgirl.
Right.
‘Donald, hop up on the veranda,’ she yelled out the window. ‘I’ll cope with the cow.’
She sounded decisive, she thought, pleased with the way her words had come out. In charge. A new life skill coming up. It was lucky she was still dressed in jeans and windcheater. Cowgirl gear.
She headed through the darkened house, towards the back door. She wouldn’t mind a torch-but Donald was on his own. Finding a torch would take time. Torches were for wusses!
Outside the garden was rambling and overgrown, but the moon was almost full. Rounding the house, she could see the vague shape of the cow framed against the light from her bedroom window. It still looked seriously big.
Gigantic.
How big did cows get?
She couldn’t see Donald.
The veranda at the front of the house started just past her bedroom window. Donald wasn’t on the veranda.
She could see where the cow had come from. There was a gate leading to the paddocks. It was wide open.
Where there was one cow, there were likely to be more cows. She looked round nervously, expecting more shadows.
Nothing. So…One cow. And Donald?
‘Shoo.’ Donald’s voice came from the camellias.
The cow was looking away from her. It was moving towards the sound of Donald’s voice. Pacing. Shaking its head.
It was so big…So big…
Something winged past her ear and stung. Whatever it was must have struck the cow, as the creature jolted, rearing back as if terrified.
‘Donald,’ she yelled, finally admitting to herself that she was really, really scared. Whatever Jules had told her about cows being harmless, suddenly she didn’t believe a word of it. And what had hit her ear? ‘Donald!’
The creature was lowering its massive head. It was concentrating every inch of its enormous being on something behind the camellias. It was pacing.
‘Sh…Shanni…’It was a terrified whisper, and to the creature it seemed like a starter’s gun. The creature heaved itself forward.
‘Donald!’ she screamed, and she launched herself blindly out of the dar
kness, lashing out at the shape in front of her.
Afterwards she couldn’t believe she’d done it. The creature was launching itself at the sound of Donald’s quavering voice. Shanni hit it side on, walloping into it with such force that it was shifted off course.
‘Get inside,’ she screamed. ‘Run. Donald, run.’
‘Pierce!’ the child screamed. ‘Pierce.’
Good call, she thought, but she wasn’t actually thinking all that clearly.
The creature was swinging aside, snorting, rearing back…
Dear God…
What did bullfighters do?
They ran. If they had any sense, they ran.
But the creature had a one-track mind. It was swinging back to face Donald again.
Donald was trying to scramble onto the veranda, but the veranda was almost three feet above the garden and the steps were too far away. He’d never pull himself up.
It was moving again. ‘No!’ She launched herself forward again, screaming, smashing her fist into the side of the creature’s head.
It flung round so fast she couldn’t move to avoid it.
‘Pierce!’ Donald screamed again.
It had horns. She grabbed a horn and clung. Stupidly. Crazily.
It swung so wildly she let go, tossed aside, landing in a limp heap four feet from the creature’s head.
It backed to see what was attacking it, finally deflected from Donald.
She rolled sideways, trying to find her feet.
It was moving. It was moving…
‘No!’ She pushed herself fiercely sideways, rolling into the undergrowth. Oh, God…
A horn hit her shoulder with a sickening thud. She felt a crash and a fierce jabbing pain but she kept rolling. ‘No!’
But suddenly there was another player.
‘Get. Get, get, get.’ It was a man’s fierce shout. Pierce. He was launching himself down from the veranda, yelling at the top of his lungs. His yells were filling the night.
She was flinching for the next impact, but it didn’t come.
‘Get, get, get!’
She rolled again, deeper into shadow, and dared to look out. The creature was staring in at her, hitting the ground with its hoof, gathering momentum for another rush. But Pierce was beside it, silhouetted against the moon, swinging something that looked like a rifle.
Shoot it, she thought, but she was too dazed to think more.
‘Move, move, move!’ Pierce’s yells could have woken the dead. He was powering into the creature’s path, putting himself between Shanni and everything else, lashing out like his rifle was a scythe.
The creature swung to face him.
‘Get, get, get!’ Pierce was giving it no time to think. He was right in its face, swinging his weapon, smashing forward. He was yelling, hitting, pushing…
The creature backed. Backed some more.
Pierce was following it, right on top of it, giving it no quarter.
Back. Back out of the garden. Back…
The creature turned, confused, beaten, lumbering towards the gate. And as it did Shanni saw…a dangly bit underneath.
As if she’d needed confirmation.
It was through the gate now. The great wooden gate swung closed with a crash. The rifle was tossed aside.
‘Donald, are you okay? Donald…’ Pierce was striding through the garden, hauling himself up on the veranda, tugging Donald into his arms. ‘What the hell…?’
‘Shanni,’ Donald quavered.
‘Are you okay?’ She could see their shapes on the veranda, huddled together.
‘Yes.’ It was a whisper. ‘It hit Shanni. She’s down there.’
‘Shanni?’ He put Donald away at arm’s length. ‘Where?’
‘It was trying to hit her. I…I think it did.’
‘Stay there, mate. Don’t move.’ He was jumping down from the veranda, crashing through the undergrowth, searching in the direction the bull had been aiming for. ‘Shanni. Shanni, where are you? Shanni…’ His voice cracked in desperation.
She had to speak. ‘I’m here,’ she managed, but she had to try again because her voice didn’t quite work. ‘H…here.’
Then, as he swore and swore again, as he dived beneath the undergrowth, as he knelt beside her and swore even more, as he put his hand on her shoulder and felt the warm stickiness of blood and stopped swearing-stopped even breathing-she asked the question she most wanted to know.
‘Why don’t you use test tubes?’
They were all in the kitchen. Everyone. Wendy was sitting in the rocker by the fire, cradling Bessy. Donald was standing about as close to Wendy as he could get. Abby was at Donald’s feet, hugging his legs. Bryce had decreed everyone needed cocoa and was making it. Very slowly. His hands were shaking.
Shanni was doing a lot of shaking herself.
Pierce had ripped her windcheater even more than the bull had. He’d exposed a long, shallow graze that ran from her underarm almost to her throat. He had a bowl of soapy water and he was washing it and swearing under his breath.
‘Not in front of the children,’ she whispered.
‘I locked that gate,’ he muttered, towelling her shoulder with care. ‘It was padlocked. I’m not a fool. The chain’s been cut.’
‘Clever bull.’
‘The bull’s sausages,’ he told her. Then he shook his head. ‘No. I don’t know what’s going on, but Clyde’s normally even sookier than the cows he services. There’s things going on I don’t understand.’ He was inspecting her wound, his face grim. ‘I don’t think this needs stitching, but maybe we need to get you checked out.’
‘You’re thinking of leaving the kids while we go to the nearest hospital?’
‘If we need to…’
‘We don’t need.’
‘But-’
‘Just put a bandage on it,’ she said. ‘Bandages will make me better.’ She looked down into Abby’s huge eyes. ‘Don’t bandages make things better?’
‘And jelly beans,’ Abby said. ‘There’s bandages in the bathroom.’ She hugged Donald’s legs a bit more and then rose stoutly to her feet, almost offering herself as personal sacrifice. ‘I’ll get them. But I don’t know about jelly beans.’
It was a big deal for Abby, going through the house by herself, Shanni thought. These kids…
They were the bravest kids. She could see exactly why Pierce didn’t want them separated.
‘Do we have jelly beans?’ she demanded.
‘No,’ Pierce said ruefully. ‘Omission on my part.’
‘No jelly beans?’ She was watching Donald. ‘What sort of a dad is this who doesn’t supply jelly beans?’
‘He’s okay,’ Donald said diffidently.
‘Yes, but he needs help.’ She swallowed. Her shoulder was, in truth, really painful, but this was no time for whinging. Donald looked so white he appeared to be about to pass out. He needed a mum, she thought. He needed someone to cuddle him until the terror passed. But there was something about the set of his small shoulders that said he wouldn’t be accepting cuddles. Not from her. Not from Pierce. He was holding himself aloof.
‘Pen and paper,’ she said. ‘Donald, fast.’
‘What…Why?’
Abby reappeared with Elastoplast. Pierce started cutting and sticking. Ouch, ouch and ouch, thought Shanni.
‘A list,’ she said stoutly. ‘Top of the list-jelly beans.’
‘Next on the list-broom,’ Pierce said and she blinked.
‘We need a broom?’
‘I broke the top off slamming the gate home.’
‘You had a broom? I thought you had a rifle.’
‘A broom.’
‘My hero,’ she muttered. ‘Hero with broomstick. What a man.’
‘Sorry.’ But he was smiling. She’d made him smile, she thought, and it felt okay.
‘So, broom,’ she told Donald. ‘And the makings of hot dogs.’
‘Why hot dogs?’ Pierce asked.
‘Because I feel like a hot
dog and I’m wounded. Wounded people can ask for whatever they want.’
‘I like hot dogs,’ Donald said cautiously.
‘I think they’re made from bulls,’ she told him, and she grinned. ‘Double rations of hot dogs just as soon as we can get to the store.’
‘That might be next week,’ Pierce warned her. ‘I get groceries delivered on Monday.’
‘Monday’s too far. If the stores were open now I’d want my hot dog now.’ She sighed. ‘But I’m willing-at great personal sacrifice-to wait till tomorrow. Wendy and I can take care of the house. You can take Donald and do a shopping expedition. A hot dog hunt.’
‘Does that mean you’re staying for a bit?’ Wendy asked, and it seemed like the whole room held its breath.
Was she? She gazed round the room and saw five needful faces. Six if she counted Pierce, who was looking like he was trying to look uninterested.
Needful, too, she thought, but then that was suddenly a dangerous thought.
Ware sympathy, she told herself sternly, but she was still staying. ‘If it’s okay with you,’ she said diffidently, and not looking at Pierce. ‘I’ve come here nursing shattered pride, and now I have a broken shoulder to recover from as well. Recovering might take some time.’
It took time to settle everyone. Shanni sat in the big rocker by the fire while Pierce put his brood to bed. The children’s bedrooms were upstairs as well. She could hear them talking in muted tones. Kids’ questions. Pierce’s rumbling answers. Bessy’s plaintive whinging. More rumbles. A child’s voice-Wendy’s-sounding bossy.
She should go to bed, Shanni thought, but she was still feeling shaky. The gentle rocking of the old chair and the crackling of the flames inside the stove were infinitely comforting.
Silence fell upstairs. She might go to sleep where she was, and that didn’t seem a bad option. Preferable to going to a strange bed.
But some plans were doomed to failure.
‘Why aren’t you in bed?’ It was Pierce, standing in the doorway, staring across at her in concern.
‘I’m going,’ she said without much conviction. ‘As soon as I’m warm.’
‘It’s a warm night.’
His Miracle Bride Page 5