Their Baby Bargain

by Marion Lennox

  ‘All this and modest to boot?’

  ‘If I don’t sing my praises no one will.’ She smiled. ‘I have a first-class honours degree in social work. I have nursing training-only one year but it’s enough for what I need it for. I have five years’ experience as a Home mother at Bay Beach Orphanage.’

  He frowned at that. It didn’t quite fit. ‘I would have imagined a social worker with a first-class honours degree would have been working in an organisational capacity rather than hands-on child care,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘Surely you don’t need those qualifications to be a Home mother.’

  ‘I like children,’ she said, and her voice was suddenly clipped.

  ‘You always wanted to be a Home mother?’

  ‘No. Only when…’

  ‘Only when your husband died?’

  ‘I…yes.’

  ‘I see.’ He nodded. ‘So when you say if you don’t sing your praises no one else will-it’s because you’re totally alone in the world?’

  ‘I have friends.’

  ‘Friends aren’t the same,’ he said softly. ‘I figured out that one early.’

  ‘When your mother died.’

  ‘As you say.’ He shrugged. ‘My grandparents and my mother died within two years of each other. It was pretty hard.’

  ‘I’d imagine it must have been.’ There was soft sympathy in her tone and he looked curiously across at her. She was sitting staring out into the moonlight, her face serene and calm. What she had said was an open invitation-to tell her all his troubles. Lay it all on her.

  How many people had done that to her, he thought suddenly. Wendy was that sort of woman. It was an almost irresistible compulsion-to burden her with his needs…

  Somehow he managed not to. ‘You haven’t finished telling me about you,’ he told her, and he received a surprised look for his pains. He was right, then. She was a woman who took on other people’s troubles and kept her own close to her heart.

  ‘What else do you need to know?’

  He surveyed her thoughtfully. What else…?

  ‘How did your husband die?’

  ‘Car crash,’ she said briefly. ‘How else?’

  How else indeed? There was a story behind this. ‘You sound bitter.’

  ‘Do I?’ She caught herself and managed a smile. ‘I shouldn’t be. It was a long time ago.’

  ‘It was a good marriage?’

  Her breath sucked in at that. He’d overstepped the mark and he knew it straight off. ‘That, Mr Grey, is none of your business,’ she told him. ‘And there are better ways to be exercising your mind right now than by going over past history.’

  He was still watching her-this lady with shadows. ‘Like what?’

  ‘Like, where are we going to sleep?’ Ever practical, Wendy’s mind closed completely to the nerve ends he’d just exposed. She’d learned long ago what to do when life slapped her in the face, or when something made her think of the past. She looked about her for what came next-and then she did it. Right now!

  ‘Mattresses,’ she said firmly, and he blinked.

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘You can sleep in the house if you want,’ she told him frankly. ‘But I’m not. I’ll sneeze all night. We have Gabbie’s room habitable-just-but the rest of the house is an environmental nightmare. Air pollution two hundred and twenty per cent and rising, I’d guess. We’ve stirred up dust that hasn’t been touched for twenty years. I’ll sleep on a mattress out here, under Gabbie’s window so I’ll hear if she wakes.’

  ‘Are you sure you don’t want us to pick ourselves up and go to a hotel?’ he said almost desperately, and she grinned.

  ‘Where’s your sense of adventure, Luke Grey? Sleeping outdoors is good for the soul. Two mattresses and a couple of the quilts I thumped the living daylight out of, and we’re set for the night.’

  ‘But-’

  ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake,’ she said, exasperated. ‘You’ve brought me here, Luke. You’ve shown us our new home, and we’re here to stay.’

  It was the strangest night.

  They dragged mattresses outside and set them up with quilts. Wendy used the bathroom-cold water only-and then, when it was Luke’s turn, he came out to find she was already under her quilt and ready for sleep. There was nothing for him to do but follow-under his own quilt on his own mattress four feet away.

  It was so different!

  Since ending university, Luke had been accustomed to money. He’d studied commerce and law, and his brilliant mind meant he’d been employed before the ink was dry on his degrees. He’d moved straight into a world where money was counted in thousands-or millions-and he’d lived in five-star luxury ever since.

  He’d almost forgotten his roots. He’d almost forgotten why his mother had fought for custody and fought to bring him back here. He’d forgotten there were things money couldn’t buy. Like this place. The sea air. The silence.

  Now he lay on his back on the mattress, with his hands linked behind him, and he stared upward at the veranda roof and saw the frayed ends of rope where a swing had once hung. A swing his mother had pushed him on, over and over.

  Gabbie could have a swing like that, he thought-and after Gabbie, Grace.

  ‘Tell me about Gabbie,’ he said softly, into the hushed silence where the murmur of the sea was the only sound for ever. There was no traffic noise which felt truly strange. Luke hadn’t slept without traffic noise for twenty years. There was only silence…and his companions. But he knew Wendy wasn’t asleep and he badly wanted to talk.

  ‘Gabbie doesn’t look five years old,’ he tried again softly. ‘And…she looks scared.’

  ‘Her story’s not very pretty,’ Wendy murmured into the dark, and he knew once more that she was considering him. Letting him off the hook if he didn’t really want to hear.

  Hell, did she never think of herself? Where were Wendy’s needs in all this?

  But she wouldn’t talk of herself. He knew that now.

  Focus on Gabbie…

  ‘So what is her story?’ he probed, and she sighed.

  ‘If you really want to know.’

  ‘If my plan works, she’ll be growing up with my half-sister,’ he growled. ‘I need to know her background.’

  In the dark he felt rather than saw her smile. ‘I guess you do. Of course, you’ve been so desperate to obtain impeccable references for anyone coming near your sister…’

  ‘Don’t give me a hard time, woman,’ he told her, and she chuckled. Nice, he thought. She had the best chuckle. Rich and low, and so warm it made you want to reach out and…

  Stop it! he ordered himself as a jab of reality sank home. This woman was his employee! If he messed this up, he’d have to find someone else to act as Grace’s nanny. First rule of thumb-you don’t mix business with pleasure!

  Or business with…sex?

  ‘Just tell me about Gabbie,’ he managed hastily, hauling his thoughts back to logic with a savage jolt, and then he listened to the silence and wondered whether she’d reply.

  She didn’t for a long, long moment. Finally she tossed back her quilt and rose. What was she wearing? he thought numbly as he watched her in the moonlight-some sort of soft nightgown that looked incredibly pretty? There were suddenly all sorts of undesirable thoughts racing in his brain, and none of them had anything to do with the subject he’d just brought up.

  But Wendy was focused on Gabbie now. She crossed to the open window into the house and stood for a minute listening to the steady breathing of the child sleeping just under the sill.

  Finally, satisfied that Gabbie was deeply asleep, she settled herself on her mattress under her quilt again, and still his unwanted sensual thoughts raced-and finally she answered his question.

  ‘Gabbie’s mother is a truly dreadful person,’ she said gently, and she said the harsh words so softly that for a minute Luke thought he hadn’t heard right. It wasn’t the sort of description he’d expect from such a woman as Wendy. He blinked into the night, but it came again
. The harshness… ‘I’ve met a lot of sad people since I’ve started this job, and I’ve met kids who’ve been abused in all sorts of ways. Usually I can see reasons. I try and understand. But Gabbie’s mother, Sonia…’

  Her voice grew hard-implacable. ‘If I could wave a magic wand and have Sonia disappear from the face of the earth, I’d wave it. I’ve never felt like that about any other person, and I hope I never feel like that again.’

  ‘Yes?’ Luke was staring again at the frayed ends of rope where his swing had swung, but he’d been jolted out of his thoughts of the past-and his thoughts of Wendy as a very desirable woman. Almost… ‘You’re going to tell me why?’

  She sighed then, a long deep sigh that told Luke more than anything how much she’d struggled over this.

  ‘Sonia’s a money-grubbing, egocentric control freak,’ she said. ‘One of the other social workers knows her background-she knew her husband.’ Her voice fell away.

  Damn, she had to go on now. ‘Can you tell me?’ he prodded.

  ‘I shouldn’t.’

  ‘If I’m spending any time here with the girls, then maybe I need to know,’ he said softly and thought, hell, maybe this was emotional blackmail. Did he intend to spend any time here?

  But Wendy considered this and seemed to find it acceptable.

  ‘Gabbie’s dad was an accountant,’ she said. ‘According to my sources, Howard Rolands was a nice enough man but he made a serious mistake when he married Sonia.’

  ‘In what way?’

  Wendy shrugged. ‘Rumour is that she married him for money and bled him dry. I only know for sure that the marriage lasted hardly any time at all. Then Howard left her. He took Gabbie with him and Sonia fought him every inch of the way.’

  ‘Maybe that’s understandable,’ Luke said, frowning. ‘It’s unusual for a mother not to get custody.’

  ‘Which is why she won it in the end,’ Wendy said bitterly. ‘Not because she wanted Gabbie. She took Gabbie back to hurt Howard and then, for the next two years she kept her as a tool to hurt him more. She refused access, she mistreated the child-never quite enough to lose access, you understand, but there are ways of hurting a child without actual physical abuse. We have a folder an inch thick of this poor man’s submissions to see more of his daughter. Finally he had a breakdown-and then he suicided.’

  ‘Hell,’ Luke said faintly into the night and Wendy nodded into the dark.

  ‘That’s right. It was hell. Only then, you see, Sonia didn’t have anything to gain by keeping Gabbie. She had no one to hurt. So she dumped her on us, and signed the release papers for pre-adoption. I had her first when she was three years old-a tiny, damaged, waif-like child who was afraid to open her mouth.’

  ‘And you fell for her?’

  ‘I fall for a lot of my kids,’ Wendy said ruefully. ‘It’s an occupational hazard. But Gabbie was special. I loved her and she blossomed, and then, when we figured she was ready for permanent bonding, we asked Sonia to sign the final adoption papers.’

  ‘And…’

  ‘Sonia’s answer was to take her away from us. She did a really good line in devoted-mother-making-good and took her back.’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘Who’d know?’ Wendy’s voice was harsh in the moonlight. ‘Certainly not because she loves her. She kept her for two months, undid all the good we’d done and then dumped her again. That time I was lucky enough to have a place free in the Home I was working in, so I took Gabbie back in with me. And it started all over again. Teaching her to trust. Preparing her for long-term bonding. And then Sonia moving in again to destroy all the good we’d achieved.’

  ‘But-’

  But Wendy wasn’t listening to interruptions. It was as if she was talking to herself in the dark. ‘Gabbie’s been taken back six or seven times now, and after each time I’ve moved heaven and earth to get her back with me. The time before this I didn’t manage it. The Home I was running was full, and she had to go somewhere else. She’s starting to be permanently damaged, and I couldn’t bear it so-’

  ‘So you’ve quit your job over it?’

  ‘Sonia doesn’t really want her,’ Wendy said wearily. ‘I know that now. I’ve met the woman-done everything I can think of to make things right between them-but Sonia’s only interest seems to be preventing anyone else making life good for Gabbie. She signs her over and over again for pre-adoption, but each time she backs out. It’s as if she can’t punish her husband any more so she’ll punish Gabbie. Once Gabbie’s with social welfare, Sonia doesn’t even enquire where she is-until the next application comes up to have her permanently placed.’ She sighed. ‘But this way…’

  ‘This way?’

  ‘We’ve agreed that social services will leave her with me,’ she said. ‘I won’t apply for adoption-we’ll just quietly go on with our lives and hope Sonia leaves us alone. If she does interfere and takes Gabbie back, then, with social services’ permission, I’ll be waiting whenever she returns. Gabbie will know that. I’ll always be here for her.’

  Silence. Luke thought this over, mulling it into the night. And he didn’t like what he thought.

  ‘I think,’ he said slowly, ‘that that’s the way of madness. To love a child and to let her go to someone like that, over and over… You’ll tear your heart in two.’

  ‘If I don’t do this, then no one else will,’ Wendy told him. ‘I’m the only chance Gabbie has. Gabbie’s mother might do her worst, but I need to be here, as a permanent refuge. I have to give her that chance.’

  ‘As you’ll give Grace a chance?’

  ‘That’s different.’ Wendy smiled and Luke heard the smile in her voice. It was strange the way he was starting to know what her face would be doing, even though he couldn’t see her. ‘That’s a paying proposition.’

  ‘So you think you won’t love my little half-sister like you love Gabbie?’

  ‘In your dreams.’ Wendy sounded startled. ‘Payment or not, I’ll love her to bits.’

  ‘Now, how did I know you’d say that?’ Luke grinned to himself. ‘Loving people to bits. That’s your speciality, isn’t it, Wendy Maher?’

  ‘Only children,’ she said hastily.

  ‘You’d never think of marrying again?’ He got that in before he could help himself, and afterwards he could never figure out why he’d suddenly needed to know. Why her answer seemed so important…

  To his surprise, she didn’t back off, but answered him with another question. ‘Why on earth would I want to do that?’

  ‘It must get pretty lonely,’ he said softly. ‘Just with the kids.’

  ‘Lonely like you are?’ He heard her smile again. ‘You don’t have kids, Luke Grey, and you’re not all that lonely-as far as I can see. Mind, you have a wonderful car, don’t you? Money on wheels. That’s what love’s all about, now, isn’t it, Luke? A heap of metal on four bits of rubber and a man’s smitten.’

  And that was it. It was all he was going to get from her. She’d had enough questions for one night. She tried to take the faint note of bitterness from her voice as she turned away from him and pulled her quilt firmly around her, in a gesture that might almost have been defence.

  ‘Goodnight, Luke,’ she said gently, and she was nearly back on an even keel again. ‘I have my kids and you have your car. Who could ask for more?’

  Who indeed? His gorgeous car…

  Luke tried to think of his car as he hauled his quilt up to his nose and tried to sleep himself. Wendy was right-or she had been until now. Thinking of his sleek little Aston Martin was usually the way he made his mind turn off tricky problems-financial dealings or love-life complexities. His car was an extravagance, he conceded, but she was worth every cent of what he’d paid for her. A man could lie in bed at night and know he’d made it when he owned that car.

  But not tonight. Not now. Not with Wendy sleeping four feet from him, a tiny baby sleeping between them and one needful little girl just through the wall. His priorities seemed to have shifted.

 
; He lay in bed and he couldn’t keep his mind on his car for more than two seconds flat.

  A man might have made it-but in Wendy’s eyes he hadn’t made it anywhere, Luke thought bitterly.

  Nowhere at all.

  When he woke she was feeding his baby.

  The veranda was facing east. The sun rising over the sea was basking them in the glow of dawn, and his first sight was Wendy sitting on the edge of the veranda with Grace in her arms.

  He could only stare.

  She was wearing the same nightgown she’d been wearing the night before. By moonlight it had looked soft and clingy and incredibly expensive-the sort of nightgown a man just had to touch. By daylight he saw it was not the least bit expensive-it was simple cotton and worn to softness rather than made that way-but it looked no less desirable. Wendy’s hair had been untied from its knot-it was tumbling about her shoulders in a mass of dark, unruly curls-and the way she looked it wasn’t her nightgown that looked soft and desirable. It was Wendy!

  She was incredibly, gut-wrenchingly beautiful!

  Why hadn’t he seen that yesterday? Or…maybe he had, but every time he saw her she was growing more so.

  ‘Good morning, Luke.’ She turned and smiled at him, and her smile was enough to blast him back into oblivion. Her smile was dawn all on its own. ‘I’m glad you’ve decided to rejoin the land of the living. I thought Grace would have woken everyone from here to Bay Beach, but you and Gabbie are obviously made of sterner stuff.’

  ‘She…’ His voice came out a sort of squeak and he coughed and tried again. For heaven’s sake-there was something about this woman that made him feel as if he was a fifteen-year-old adolescent with his first crush. Now he was sounding like it! He deliberately lowered his voice. ‘She was crying?’ It came out as a ridiculous growl, and her eyes creased into laughter.

  ‘Yes, Luke, she was crying. Yelling, more like. She’s a lady who knows what she wants. I imagine it must be a family trait.’

  That set him back. Family traits…

  He had family! he thought again suddenly, with a jolt of awareness that made him blink. Right here, in this gorgeous woman’s arms, was his family.