Beauty and the Wolf / Their Miracle Twins

by Faye Dyer, Lois, Logan, Nikki

  When. When custody went her way …

  ‘Looking for Bunyips?’ Flynn’s voice sounded behind her, deep and warm. Either his accent was easing off or she was acclimatising to the Aussie twang because he practically purred the next words. ‘You’ll have to go deeper into the bush for that.’

  Wow. Had she been lost in thought all that time or had he made the fastest return trip ever up to the main homestead? No. He wouldn’t be looking forward to this any more than she was.

  ‘I was just imagining you and your brother growing up here. How idyllic it must have been.’

  Flynn snorted. ‘Now I know Drew really didn’t speak about us.’

  That brought her around. ‘You thought I lied about that?’

  He shrugged and tossed his hat with the ease of practice onto its peg. ‘Nothing would surprise me.’

  She let go her natural instinct to take offence at yet another unfounded prejudice from Flynn. He was speaking to her: progress number one for a man who could go days without saying more than a handful of words. And he was speaking about Drew: progress number two. She wasn’t going to mess up the chance to learn more about what had happened between them. ‘You two didn’t play together here?’

  He looked at her strangely. ‘No. We’re from Sydney originally. I’m surprised my folks haven’t filled you in on our background.’

  No. Which only brought it more to her attention. Why would the family who would talk about anything not talk about that?

  ‘All of us lived there until I was fourteen and Drew was sixteen,’ he said.

  ‘Why did you move?’ En masse …

  His expression grew tense. ‘Lots of reasons.’

  Bel sank down onto one of his broad blue fabric sofas and studied him. ‘Any you care to share?’

  His eyes hardened. ‘With you? No.’

  Okay. Her lips tightened. ‘My mistake. I assumed dinner would come with conversation.’

  ‘My misspent youth isn’t really an entrée.’

  ‘What makes you think it’s yours I’m interested in?’

  His eyes flared and then darkened. ‘Ah, Drew again. I should have known.’

  ‘Maybe I’m curious about what shaped the man my sister married.’

  True, yet only half the truth. What she really wanted to know was how did the same geological forces that shaped the valley stretching out before them create two such different brothers. One made of air and water, the other of earth and fire.

  Flynn moved to the kitchen and pulled open the pantry to examine its contents.

  ‘Drew was more of a city boy at heart,’ he said, rummaging for ingredients and then setting a pot of water to fast boil.

  ‘And you weren’t?’

  ‘I thought this wasn’t about me.’

  ‘Of course. Carry on.’

  He looked a little flummoxed, as if he didn’t quite know how he’d just committed himself to continuing the discussion. ‘Not much to tell. He wasn’t a country boy.’

  ‘No. I can’t imagine it, really. The Drew I knew only liked to get his feet dirty on the rugby field.’ But she forgave him his aversion to nature for all of his other worthy qualities. His brilliant mind. His loyal heart. His fierce focus. That dogged competitiveness was something she’d admired about him, his ability to block out distractions and just go for his goals.

  But maybe it had a flipside when you were one of those distractions.

  Flynn snipped open a packet of ready-made gnocchi and tipped it into the simmering pot. He turned back to her with carefully neutral eyes. Pain leaked out despite his best efforts. ‘What did he tell you?’

  Bel’s heart squeezed. She stood and crossed to the opposite side of the kitchen island, hedging. ‘About you?’

  ‘About all of us. Where did he say he was from, if not here?’

  ‘Sydney. The suburbs’

  Flynn grunted and tossed a tin of whole tomatoes into a bowl. He punished the tomatoes with a masher. ‘And he never mentioned …’

  Having a brother? Bel chose her words carefully. ‘Did Gwen seem surprised when she met you?’

  Talking about her sister as though she was alive pulled painfully on Bel’s barely healed heartstrings.

  ‘Not particularly.’

  ‘Then he must have told Gwen. But never me, no.’

  ‘And never to your parents?’

  What did they have to do with anything? ‘Not as far as I know. Why is that?’

  He wielded the large kitchen knife he used to slice up some fresh herbs a little bit too well. ‘Search me.’

  He knew exactly why—his taut body language screamed it—but he wasn’t sharing. Interesting. And the fact that he was possibly more uncomfortable than she was in this conversation made him seem that bit more approachable.

  It was an evening for firsts.

  She didn’t need to understand his sudden tension to recognise it. But she did her bit to relieve it, and made light. ‘Anything I can do towards dinner?’

  ‘Sure, want to cut up some bread and butter it? Nice and thick between the slices.’

  ‘Your arteries may never forgive me,’ she said, smiling.

  ‘My arteries are in perfect shape.’

  Her eyes took that statement to its logical conclusion and drifted to his rear end. As she dragged them back somewhere more appropriate she met his in the reflective windows at the far end of the kitchen and the breath evacuated from her lungs. Heat surged up her throat.

  Busted.

  She carefully regulated her choppy respiration while she sliced the bread and levered wedges of village-made butter between the thick slices, and then took extra, extra care not to brush against him as they worked together in the country kitchen.

  ‘So what did you want to talk about?’ she eventually asked when the silence unnerved her more than whatever it was he wanted to say to her. When he didn’t immediately answer she tried again. ‘You said you wanted to talk.’

  Flynn turned his back on the simmering pot of pasta and crossed his arms over his chest. ‘I wanted to get some more ground rules sorted. If you’re going to stay.’

  ‘You’re assuming I am.’

  ‘The embryos took, against the odds. My money is on you going full-term.’

  Her whole body tightened. She hadn’t really been letting herself hope, just in case. And he’d treated her as if she were either impaired or incapable since the day she’d arrived, so to hear Flynn had faith in her … Or at least in her ability to incubate …

  ‘What if the lawyers get things sorted in record time? I could be out of here within weeks.’

  ‘The courts never do anything fast in my experience.’

  ‘Oh, had a lot to do with the legal system, have you?’ She meant it to be flippant, but that wasn’t how he took it. Again with the heavily shuttered look.

  And again, interesting.

  ‘We’ve got legal teams on two continents sifting their way through two separate judicial systems and rewriting the book on family law,’ he said. ‘It’s not going to be quick.’

  No. Probably not. Still, they were already three weeks into the twelve she imagined she’d be staying. ‘So what were you thinking?’

  ‘I’m thinking that Nan is definitely onto us. She’s way too perceptive. The look she threw me when I nicked up to the house …’ He took a moment to strain the steaming gnocchi in a large colander. ‘So, we may need to ramp up the appearance of us being … a couple.’

  That brought her eyes around to his. ‘Ramp it up how?’

  ‘Start planting wedding bell seeds. But nothing we can’t back out of if necessary.’

  Suddenly the sauce’s tantalising smell seemed a whole lot less aromatic. Had she really believed he’d gone off the marriage idea just because he hadn’t mentioned it in a couple of weeks? Her signature on a marriage certificate was part of their deal. The one thing that equalised them in the eyes of the law. Even his lawyers thought it was a good idea. They’d be going through with it whether either of them
wanted to or not.

  And the answer, for both of them, was not.

  ‘What exactly are you suggesting?’

  ‘I know we had an agreement—’

  ‘Which I suspect you’re about to welch out on.’

  ‘They’re never going to buy we’re a couple if we don’t touch each other, Bel. But I gave you my word. So we need to talk about it, to amend our agreement. Mutually.’

  I’ll break any part of you that so much as touches me. It burned her even more that one part of her actually appreciated his honesty. Despite everything else going on between them, he had at least been upfront with her on most things.

  ‘You want to start—’ Oh, my God, could this be any more awkward? ‘—touching?’

  ‘This is not just about the touching. There’s things we can both do better.’

  That got her blood racing. As far as she was concerned, she’d done everything he’d told her to. And more. Once started, Belinda Rochester liked to do things well. ‘Really? And how have I been lacking, in your estimation?’

  ‘This is sport to you. You’re not taking it seriously enough.’ He slid a small white bowl filled to the brim with hot, plump potato and flour morsels and drizzled in Napolitana sauce across the island bench to her. Then he dumped a chunk of farm-fresh bread on top.

  She didn’t even look at it. Her eyes were too busy being outraged. ‘This is not sport. I am not having fun. I am doing my best to honour the conditions that you set in this ridiculous plan.’ She clenched both fists on the table. ‘I hate lying to your family.’

  He tucked into the dinner as if they were discussing the weather, not lining up a quickie wedding that would only end in a quickie divorce and heartbreak for whichever of them went home empty-handed. ‘All the more reason to get a move on with appearing crazy for each other so that a sudden wedding announcement isn’t going to be suspicious.’

  ‘In the way turning up out of the blue with a strange girl and abandoning her with your family wasn’t at all suspicious?’

  ‘I have not abandoned you.’

  ‘You know you have. Everyone has noticed, I’m just amazed no one’s mentioned it openly.’ Yet.

  ‘They wouldn’t intrude on my business.’

  How she wished that had been the same in her upbringing. ‘They’re family, Flynn. That’s what families do.’

  ‘Not with me.’

  Bel stared. What was that, the fourth mention about his background? ‘Okay, I’ll bite. How come you get away with the whole brooding Heathcliff thing? What makes you so special?’

  He forked two more loads of pasta into his mouth before deigning to answer. A single shoulder shrugged. ‘My family respect my privacy.’

  ‘Rubbish. No families are respectful of each other’s privacy.’ Especially not the concentrated, intimate Bradleys. ‘What’s really going on? Or should I ask your nan?’

  He shot her a dark glare as he soaked up the last of his sauce in the thick bread. ‘I imagine they’ll tell you eventually, anyway.’

  ‘Tell me what?’

  He pushed back in his seat and took a moment to wipe at his mouth with the clean brown serviette. ‘I got in some trouble when I was younger.’

  She picked at her gnocchi and waited for him to continue.

  ‘You don’t look very surprised,’ he said, offended.

  ‘The most surly and closed-in man I’ve ever met has a shady past. What a shocker!’

  His glare only intensified.

  She scraped off half the butter from her bread. ‘Drugs?’

  ‘Why would you assume drugs straight up?’

  Was it because that was the rebellion of choice in her social circle? Or was it because it was the last thing in the world Drew would have become involved with and Flynn was fast becoming the yang to Drew’s yin in her mind. ‘You seem like an ideal candidate for chemical escapism.’

  ‘Actually chemicals were about the only thing I wasn’t into.’

  That got her attention. ‘When you said trouble I assumed you meant of the suspended-from-school-for-shaving-your-head variety. What are we talking about?’

  His eyes dropped away. ‘The only time I shaved my head it was a requirement of the … institution I spent some time in.’

  Bel blinked. ‘You were in prison?’

  ‘Juvenile Detention. Three months. When I was fourteen.’

  She pushed her plate away. ‘What did you do?’

  ‘It’s more a question of what I got caught for. I had a slow start at school, had some trouble reading, struggled with grades. Eventually I got in with the wrong crowd, tried to keep up with the ringleaders and did too good a job of it. Got busted joyriding and took the heat for my friends.’

  She spluttered. ‘Did Drew know?’

  His eyes hardened. ‘It was Drew that dobbed me in to the police. I gather my … exploits were reflecting badly on him.’

  ‘Drew reported you?’ She couldn’t imagine that of the man she’d known. Not her Drew.

  ‘He thought it would be character-building.’

  Wow. ‘That must have been tough to get past. As brothers.’

  His eyes dropped for a moment. ‘In those early weeks in detention I really felt it.’

  ‘Did you ever resolve it with him?’

  He shook his head after a long pause.

  ‘You two never even spoke about it?’

  He frowned. ‘What was there to say? He ratted me out. And he wasn’t all that interested in making up for lost time when I came out of Rangeview. While I was in there my whole family upped sticks and moved to Oberon and they brought me here the day I was released.’

  ‘Far away from all your shady friends?’

  He shook his head. ‘Away from everyone’s friends.’

  Bel vividly remembered the day she’d dropped out of the school she’d never fitted in, moved out of her parents’ world and into a grown-up flat, alone. How cut off from everything she’d felt until she started building her own life. And that had been her choice. In Flynn and Drew’s case … ‘That must have been really hard on everyone.’

  Tiny crescent creases formed at the corners of his tight lips.

  ‘That wasn’t a criticism, just an observation. You didn’t ask to be moved away.’ She tipped her head. ‘Is that why your parents tiptoe around you? Because of how they ripped you from your world?’

  His eyes came up, blazing. ‘They traded their lives for mine. I always understood it. I never judged them.’ And just like that, his great affection and loyalty to his family made perfect sense. Except for one thing.

  ‘Unlike your brother.’

  He sighed and pushed his dinner away. ‘Drew was never happy here. He loved the city. He knew our whole lives were revolving around me at that time.’

  ‘Did he blame you?’

  ‘He didn’t need to.’ That was Flynn-speak for yes. ‘He toughed it out here for two years, then got the Oxford scholarship. Everyone was so flat-out proud of him. No one from Oberon had done anything like that.’

  ‘That’s when he lost touch with you all?’

  His eyes drifted out to the rapidly darkening skies. ‘The truth is he started losing touch from the moment we drove through the property’s gates.’

  Understanding began to dawn. ‘Until he came to us.’

  ‘A shiny new family across the ocean.’

  Bel clamped her hands together under the table. ‘They’re not so shiny, let me tell you.’

  ‘Regardless, they were a clean slate. He could be anyone he wanted with them. Tell them anything.’

  Or not tell them. Bel took a deep breath. ‘You missed him.’

  ‘He did what he needed to survive. I was in no position to challenge that, given the lengths my family went to to make sure I did.’

  ‘Meanwhile, I would have given anything to get out of my family and into one like Drew’s. Like yours. A family who loved each other enough to move the earth for one another.’

  ‘You loved your sister,’ he pointe
d out.

  ‘Yes, and my Gran. But they were highlights in an otherwise unremarkable set of relationships. And I lost Gran early.’

  ‘You didn’t get on with your parents?’

  ‘Gwen and I … We were very different. She fitted and I didn’t—it was that simple.’

  His eyes were steady and cautious. ‘It’s never that simple.’

  She shrugged.

  ‘You two sisters were physically very different …’ he started.

  She knew what he was saying. Or not saying. Lots of people had not said it in the past. Someone else’s egg in the nest.

  The room was darkening as rapidly as the skies outside. Flynn reached behind him for the box of matches that sat next to the stove and lit the fat warped candle that sat on the timber table top between them. It meant he didn’t leave the table. It meant he was still listening. It meant his face suddenly became all sharp angles and flickering shadows caused by the single light source, and it only made her breath catch more.

  So ridiculous.

  ‘I longed to be adopted,’ she went on. ‘I even had my DNA checked.’

  He paused, the still-burning match in his fingers. ‘You’re kidding.’

  ‘When I was thirteen. I faked my mother’s consent and had a bunch of hair samples analysed.’

  Betcha thought you were the only bad kid on the block …

  ‘And?’

  ‘Sadly, no. I wasn’t illegitimate either, no matter what the glitterati hinted. I wouldn’t for a moment think my mother was above cheating on my father but … no … the truth is a lot less glamorous.’

  ‘Just a regular black sheep?’

  ‘A red sheep.’ With her grandfather’s ginger colouring in an otherwise all-blonde family.

  His eyes creased.

  ‘It took me years to work out why I felt so out of place there, and then years more to accept the truth.’

  ‘Which was?’

  She shrugged and hoped the candlelight would disguise a whole lifetime of hurt. ‘My parents wanted a little girl, and they got Gwen.’ She took a breath and straightened. ‘And then they got me.’

  Realisation hit. ‘You were unplanned?’

  ‘Mother blamed a dodgy IUD back in the days of shonky contraception. She didn’t like anything about the pregnancy process the first time. She didn’t like getting sick, she didn’t like getting fat once the novelty of the whole pregnant-glow wore off. She wasn’t interested in doing it again. I felt about as welcome as an STD.’ If conception could be called a disease.