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“You’ll be gone again soon,” Mike said About the Author Title Page Acknowledgments CHAPTER ONE CHAPTER TWO CHAPTER THREE CHAPTER FOUR CHAPTER FIVE CHAPTER SIX CHAPTER SEVEN CHAPTER EIGHT CHAPTER NINE CHAPTER TEN CHAPTER ELEVEN CHAPTER TWELVE CHAPTER THIRTEEN CHAPTER FOURTEEN CHAPTER FIFTEEN CHAPTER SIXTEEN Copyright
“You’ll be gone again soon,” Mike said
Erin’s eyes flashed. “Define soon.”
“Look, I have no idea how long you’re staying, but I assume the farm will be sold and you’ll be off again....”
“Taking my pound of flesh with me.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“It’s what you inferred,” Erin said coolly. “That I’m here for my share of my grandfather’s farm. And I don’t like the inference.”
“But you are here for a holiday?” Mike demanded, his eyes meeting hers. Challenging.
Much of Trisha David’s childhood was spent dreaming of romance far from the Australian farming community where she lived. After marrying a fabulous doctor, she decided doctors were so sexy she could write a medical romance and has since written a considerable number under the name Marion Lennox. Now her vision of romance has broadened to include romances for the Harlequin Romance® series, and she plans to continue writing as Marion Lennox and Trisha David.
www.millsandboon.co.uk
With thanks to Art and Kerry Uytendaal, whose
knowledge and love of horses and riding at international
levels of competition made this book possible. This book
is dedicated to Matt and Laura, who, with Bethany,
Christopher and Bryce, are now climbing my haystacks.
CHAPTER ONE
AUSTRALIA had the farm, Grandpa and Mike McTavish—but America was definitely safer! On the final stretch home, Erin swerved to miss two kangaroos, one snake and one fat wombat. Her final obstacle was trouble.
The twins were in the centre of the road on a blind bend. They were tiny, the suitcase between them shoulder-high, and their faces grim as death.
The children didn’t flinch as Erin hit the brakes. They didn’t seem to notice how close they’d come to tragedy. Instead, they tugged their suitcase sideways round her truck and trailer—and kept right on walking.
Neither child looked at Erin as she climbed from the truck. In fact both were concentrating fiercely on not looking at her.
‘Hi,’ Erin tried.
No response.
Erin looked dubiously down at her grubby jeans and filthy riding boots. These children were immaculately clothed in matching boy-girl outfits. They wore cute little sailor tops, with the boy in white trousers and the girl in a white skirt.
Erin looked and smelled of horse. She had to admit she seemed a great example of ‘dangerous strangers’. Convincing these children to trust her was going to be hard.
‘Do you two realize I nearly squashed you?’ Erin demanded, raising her voice.
Still nothing. The children tugged their suitcase grimly on.
This wasn’t normal kids’ adventure, Erin decided, looking at their slumped shoulders and general dejection. These children had real misery driving them.
She couldn’t leave them here. They looked about six years old—certainly not old enough to be on their own. The road twisted through the hills and the next driver might not be handicapped by an ancient truck and a horse trailer. The children would have no chance against a fast car.
So Erin moved to block their path. She walked purposefully in front of them, lifted their suitcase from their grasp and hauled it over to the grass verge. Then she squatted so her eyes were on their level.
‘Excuse me, but you two nearly caused an accident,’ she growled softly, watching their faces for reaction. ‘I had to stop so fast I might have injured my horse. You can’t ignore me. It’s your responsibility to at least see what damage you’ve done.’
Boy and girl looked at each other.
Fear receded a little. This wasn’t a stranger accosting them. This was someone reminding them of their duty.
‘I... We’re sorry,’ the little girl quavered. ‘We didn’t mean to...’
‘That’s all very well,’ Erin said firmly. ‘But we need to check my horse. Stay off the road while I do it.’ She turned her back on the children and concentrated on opening the trailer.
Erin was almost sure Paddy was okay. Her old horse was sure-footed and calm—a veteran of years of international travel—and he’d coped with greater jolts to his trailer than this.
As Erin opened the trailer her horse swivelled to look at her with huge, reproachful eyes. His eyes almost spoke. ‘Now what?’ he seemed to be saying, and it was as much as Erin could do not to laugh.
‘Oh, Paddy, I’m sorry.’ She walked forward to stroke his nose. Another glance at the two watching children—another fast moment of thought—and then Erin shoved the ramp down and backed Paddy out onto the roadside.
Paddy clattered obediently out like the gentleman he was. He stood in the sun, gazed appreciatively at the surrounding countryside and then put his nose down to the grass and started to graze.
‘He looks okay,’ the little girl said doubtfully. The fear in the children’s eyes had faded further, but their hands still clutched.
It was a start.
‘Paddy’s had a bad jolt,’ Erin said firmly. ‘He needs a few moments to recover.’ She ran her hand affectionately over Paddy’s gleaming black flank, and then along the blaze of white leading down from his wise old eyes. ‘I’d like you to meet Paddy,’ she said softly. ‘He’s my very favourite horse of all time and I’d hate anything to happen to him. And I’m Erin O’Connell. My grandpa owns a farm half a mile along this road and I’m on my way to visit him.’ She smiled. ‘You must live near here too.’
She paused—and waited.
‘We...we don’t,’ the little girl said at last. ‘But...but our uncle does.’
‘Does he?’ Erin smiled. She raised her eyebrows at the children. ‘I might know him. Paddy and I have told you our names. Aren’t you going to tell us yours?’
The little girl took a deep breath. She was clearly the spokesman for the two. Her brother stared numbly at Erin and his thumb moved slowly, surreptitiously towards his mouth.
‘I’m Laura McTavish,’ the little girl said at last. ‘And this is my brother, Matthew.’ She paused and then childish curiosity surfaced. ‘The way you talk sounds funny...’
Laura and Matthew McTavish...
McTavish.
Erin’s stomach gave a sickening lurch. Good grief! Was this some crazy coincidence?
Erin had come halfway across the world to see her grandfather, swearing all the way that she didn’t have to see Mike McTavish. Australia was a big place and she hadn’t seen Mike McTavish for ten years—not since her last visit to Australia when she had been fourteen. She didn’t have to ask about him or have any interest in him in any way, shape or form, she’d decided. For heaven’s sake, Mike McTavish was probably married with six kids by now.
Maybe these were two of the brood!
Mike would be about thirty by now, Erin thought He was certainly old enough to be a father. He’d been twenty when she’d seen him last, when fourteen-year-old Erin had suffered her first and only case of puppy love.
Unfortunately the puppy love had never quite faded.
Which was ridiculous, she told herself savagely. Her teenage crush had been totally one-sided. Erin doubted Mike McTavish even knew she existed, then or now.
Well... Erin shook away bitter-sweet memories with a fierce shrug. Erin’s teenage crush on Mike McTavish was history. She forced all her attention back on the twins.
‘I’m pleased to meet you, Matthew and Laura McTavish,’ she said slowly, looking from one child to the other, and trying not to search for a resemblance to a ten-year-old memory. ‘And I don’t have a funny accent, thank you very much. I’ve come all the way from the United States of America to visit my grandpa, and every person I’ve met in this country talks funny. It’s not me. It’s you.’
Erin held out her hand to be shaken. The twins were looking at Erin as if she were something newly arrived from another planet. An American, their look said. Good grief!
Laura was game, though. After only a moment’s hesitation the little girl solemnly took Erin’s hand and shook.
Not so her brother. One of Matthew’s hands gripped his sister so hard it must have hurt, and the other hand was attached to a thumb being sucked like grim death. Erin smiled down at him and let her hand fall. She mustn’t push too hard.
‘Can I give you a lift somewhere?’ Erin asked. She looked doubtfully down at their suitcase. ‘It seems a very heavy load. Where are you headed?’
‘No, thank you.’ Laura bit her lip. ‘We’re going to Sydney.’
‘I... I see...’ Erin swallowed. She frowned. ‘Laura, are you and Matthew planning to walk all the way to Sydney?’
‘Yes.’ Laura’s voice struggled to sound defiant, but it wobbled dangerously.
‘But, sweetheart, it will take you a month or more to walk that far.’
Something suspiciously like a sob broke from the little boy at Laura’s side, and the little girl gulped. Her face lost its colour.
‘We can do it,’ she whispered. ‘We...we have to. We’re going home.’
‘To your mom and dad?’
It was a guess, and the guess hurt. Erin had assumed the children must be holidaying here, but Laura tilted her chin and her face grew even more pale.
‘Our mum and dad are dead. They were killed in a car accident.’ There was no disguising the wobble in Laura’s voice now. ‘We’re supposed to be living with Uncle Mike, but...but we don’t like it and we’re going home.’
Uncle Mike. Not these children’s father then. Their uncle.
‘To Sydney?’ Erin murmured.
‘Yes.’
‘But... Are there different people living in your house in Sydney?’ Erin queried softly, and watched the pain grow worse on both their faces.
‘Yes,’ Laura quavered. ‘Uncle Mike says so. He says he’s really sorry but our house had to be sold to someone we don’t know and we can’t go back there.’ A defiant shake of her head. ‘But it’s our house. It’s my bedroom. Matthew’s got his own room too, and Daddy painted a yellow strip for him all the way round the ceiling just ’cos he liked it. If we go there...I mean, if we’re good...they’ll have to let us stay, won’t they?’
‘Honey, I don’t think they will,’ Erin said gently. ‘Laura, no matter how much they might want you to stay, the new adults in your Sydney house will send you straight back to your uncle Mike. They don’t have a choice, Laura. It’s the law.’
‘No.’
There was no point in dissembling. ‘Yes,’ Erin told her. She produced a tissue and gently dried two large tears welling from Laura’s fearful eyes. ‘Laura, is your Uncle Mike really so bad you can’t stay with him?’
Erin thought back to memories of Mike McTavish from ten years ago. The man was impossibly handsome—reason enough for a fourteen-year-old to fall in love—but he was also kind and gentle and laughing. At twenty he’d treated life as a joke, but when Erin’s grandfather had persuaded her to attend a local party Mike McTavish had seen a strange kid’s loneliness and had come across and asked her to dance.
With the older and prettier local girls so eager for his attention, that dance had been an act of pure kindness. The resultant misery it had caused by tumbling Erin head over heel in love with him was not Mike’s fault.
So... Could Mike McTavish have changed so much? Erin wondered. The Mike McTavish Erin remembered would not—could not—treat these children with cruelty.
‘He is bad!’ Laura said fiercely, seeing Erin’s look of doubt. ‘He is. He beats us and he doesn’t feed us except on chook food and he makes us work and work...’
‘I see.’ This was going from unlikely to impossible. The corners of Erin’s mouth twitched. ‘Laura...’
‘Y...yes?’
‘Does your uncle Mike really beat you?’
Laura tried to glare but it didn’t quite come off. Finally the little girl bit her lip and looked away.
Then, for the first time, Matthew spoke.
‘Something worse,’ the little boy whispered, hauling his thumb from his mouth. He stared at Erin as if he really needed her to understand.
‘What?’ The urge to gather this white-faced child in her arms and hold him close was almost overpowering but Erin fought it back.
‘Aunt Caroline cut Laura’s hair last night,’ Matthew managed, in a choked voice that was more agonized than Laura’s wildly accusing tone. ‘And Uncle Mike let her.’
Silence.
Erin looked at Laura’s beautifully cut bob. The little girl had fine blonde hair, gently waving. It was neat and clean and really short.
‘Your uncle cut Laura’s hair?’
‘Aunt Caroline did,’ Matthew whispered. The little boy looked at his sister’s closely cropped curls with an expression of horror. ‘Laura’s hair was so long Daddy used to call it her mane. Mummy sat on Laura’s bed every night and told us stories while she brushed Laura’s hair. She said, “Always wear your hair long, Laura, because it’s your crowning glory”. And Aunt Caroline cut it and Uncle Mike says, “What’s done’s done.” Now Aunt Caroline says it has to stay short all the time because it’s ridiculous to keep it long. So...so we have to go... We have to go away.’
Erin flinched.
There was so much pain in the little boy’s voice that Erin wanted to weep. A dull red rage was building inside her as she fought to find some way to respond. Of all the stupid, insensitive acts. Mike McTavish and the unknown, horrible Aunt Caroline had a lot to answer for. And Erin was darned if she’d defend adults who’d do such a thing.
She took a deep breath, searching for the right words. ‘Your aunt and uncle were wrong to cut your hair, Laura, when it meant so much to you,’ she managed. To her horror, Erin found she was choking back tears. ‘But—but I don’t think the answer is to run away.’
‘It is!’ Matthew whispered. Laura seemed too drained to speak, and it was Matthew who was now spokesman.
‘No.’ Finally unable to help herself, Erin reached forward to hug them both. ‘And I think you know it. Your uncle is the person who looks after you now, and you need to accept that. You don’t have a choice, kids. You must go home and face him—and tell him how you feel about Laura’s hair.’
‘We can’t.’ Both children stared at her, appalled.
‘Well, how about if I take you?’ Erin suggested softly. ‘What if Paddy and I take you home and stay with you while you talk to your uncle? What if we help make him understand?’
‘But she’ll be there,’ Laura whispered, her voice laced with revulsion. ‘Aunt Caroline.’
‘Paddy and I can cope with Aunt Caroline,’ Erin promised. ‘You see if I’m right.’ She looked across at her old horse and smiled. ‘We’ve had a lot of experience with crabby aunts. Paddy had one once who could make him turn to jelly in his horseshoes, but together we fixed her right up.’
Laura and Matthew looked at Paddy and the first trace of smiles dimpled out from the pair. ‘Really? Paddy’s aunt... What...what did you do?’
‘We sprinkled Aunt Nobby’s hay with a whole container of pepper,’ Erin smiled. ‘As far as we know Aunt Nobby’s still sneezing.’
Matthew’s pale little face creased into the beginnings of laughter.
‘Could we do that to Aunt Caroline?’ Laura asked breathlessly.
Erin pretended to consider—and then solemnly shook her head.
‘I don’t think so. I don’t know how you’ll make your Aunt Caroline eat hay.’
A chuckle. Then Laura gripped Erin’s hand and looked down at her feet, as if figuring out a confession.
‘Aunt Caroline’s not really our aunt yet,’ the child confided. ‘But she says to call her that because she will be after she marries Mike.’
No six children. Not even a wife—yet!
‘Well, there you go.’ Erin smiled, shoving away such a treacherous thought. Such a useless thought! ‘Caroline’s not even a dinky-di aunt, and maybe if she gets to be one you could put pepper in her wedding cake. That’d fix her.’
Heaven help her if the twins really did pepper a wedding cake, Erin thought ruefully, but it was more important now to put a smile on the two small faces than to consider consequences. ‘But believe me,’ she added, ‘Paddy and I can cope with an “almost aunt” with our hands and hooves tied behind our backs. Now...’ She smiled down at both of them. ‘If I promise to stay with you until no one’s angry, and if I also promise to ride Paddy over and see you tomorrow, will you let me take you home?’
Matthew looked at Laura and Laura looked at Matthew. The bleakness falling back into their eyes made Erin’s heart melt, but some unspoken message passed between the twins and they nodded as one.
‘Okay, Erin,’ Laura sighed in a voice much too old for her years. ‘Matthew and I would be grateful if you’d take us h—’ She caught herself. ‘We’d be grateful if you could take us back to Mike’s and Aunt Caroline.’
CHAPTER TWO
MIKE McTAVISH...
How many times had Erin said that name aloud to herself when she was fourteen? For weeks she’d been in a daze of teenage ecstasy, thinking and dreaming of nothing but Mike McTavish. She remembered saying his name as a mantra to put herself to sleep and practising her signature as Erin McTavish, Erin McTavish, Erin McTavish—but now every time Mike’s name ran through her mind she was conscious of nothing but anger.
The children sat beside her in the truck as Erin drove the short distance to the McTavish farm, their eyes staring straight ahead and their expression stoic.
It would be easier to cope with tears, Erin thought grimly. This bleak resignation was breaking her heart.
What sort of hard-hearted toad had Mike McTavish become? He and his precious Caroline.
The McTavish farm was just past Erin’s grandpa’s. ‘We’re neighbours,’ Erin smiled. ‘That means I’ll be able to see you heaps. I’m staying here for ages.’
‘Why?’ Laura asked, her tone implying that Erin was mad to even think of living here.
‘Because my grandpa’s old and he needs me,’ Erin said softly. ‘And I love my grandpa.’
‘Not like us,’ Laura said bleakly and turned away. ‘We don’t love anybody. Except...except each other.’
‘You don’t think you could love your uncle Mike?’
‘We might,’ Laura said bitterly. ‘But he says he can’t look after us on his own—so he’s marrying Aunt Caroline.’
End of conversation. Nothing else was said until they turned into the McTavishes’ gate.
Erin hadn’t visited the McTavish house before, but she’d seen the house from the road and little had changed in ten years. The McTavishes were ‘old money’—part of what the Australian establishment called the ‘Squatocracy’. The McTavish forebears had been squatters generations ago, wealthy Britons taking up huge tracts of rich farming land and handing their wealth on to their children and their children’s children.
The children’s children hadn’t squandered their wealth. The McTavish homestead was long and low and gracious, set in beautiful gardens with mature oaks giving blessed shade from the summer sun. It was the biggest house in the district. It was the biggest farm.
And it seemed Laura and Matthew had been missed.
As Erin’s truck and trailer pulled into the yard the front door of the house burst open and a woman came striding quickly down the verandah steps towards them.
It didn’t take the children’s automatic bracing beside her to know this was the feared Aunt Caroline. The woman was older than Erin’s twenty-four years—closer, in fact, to Mike’s thirty—and somehow Caroline was just how Erin had imagined her.
Erin knew women like this. What Caroline wore was almost a uniform in upper crust rural circles—a uniform the same almost everywhere in the world.
Everything about this woman was oh-so-carefully casual. She wore designer jeans and her silk shirt fell softly open at the throat to reveal a single strand of pearls. A silk scarf casually tied back her immaculately sculpted, shoulder-length hair and her oh-so-chic sunglasses were pushed up from her beautifully made-up face.
And her face, underneath the expensive cosmetics, was cold and angry.
The woman ignored Erin. She cast one disdainful look at Erin’s truck as she strode towards it, saw the children and reached up to haul the passenger door open. Matthew and Laura instinctively cringed against Erin.
‘Oh, you naughty children.’ The woman’s voice was carefully modulated but it was razor-sharp for all that. ‘Where on earth have you been? Your uncle’s wasted half the morning out scouring the country and we were just about to call the police.’ She fixed them with a look of dislike. ‘How dare you cause us such trouble? Your uncle will be so angry!’
‘Hi,’ Erin said loudly across the children’s heads.
‘You must be Aunt Caroline. I’m Erin O’Connell.’
The woman cast Erin a look that put Erin firmly in her place—obviously way down in the animal kingdom wedged somewhere between a bedbug and a maw-worm.
‘Thank you for bringing the children home,’ she said briefly. She glanced at Erin again, taking in the state of Erin’s clothes, and her delicate nose wrinkled in distaste. ‘I suppose you want something for your trouble.’
Ugh! A tip to the lowlife...
‘You’re dead right I do,’ Erin snapped. ‘I want to see the children’s uncle.’
‘If you wish to see someone then you can see me,’ Caroline snapped back. ‘I’m their aunt.’
‘Not yet, you’re not.’ Erin smiled her sweetest smile. Once upon a time women like this had been able to make Erin quail, but not any more. ‘Until you marry their uncle I assume you’re not the children’s legal guardian, and that’s who I need to speak to.’
The woman stared.
This was aristocratic reaction to the news that the peasants were revolting, Erin thought with grim amusement, and looked down with a rueful smile at her soiled jeans and T-shirt. In fact, Erin had to admit that this peasant was extremely revolting! Smelly to go with it.
It couldn’t be helped. Erin waited calmly to see what the woman would say.
She never found out. There was a sudden sound of frantic barking, two collie dogs flew out from behind the machinery shed to investigate the strange truck on their property—and behind them strode Mike McTavish.
Mike stopped dead when he saw the truck, and as the farmer saw Laura and Matthew in the cab Erin saw his face slacken with relief.
As Erin’s face froze...
Mike McTavish...
Erin stared, and somewhere around her heart she felt a sickening jolt. It seemed that the ghost of fourteen-year-old Erin still had the power to hurt. Mike McTavish was just the same as Erin remembered—only more so!
The farmer had the build of someone who pumped weights, but this man hadn’t built his muscles in a sweaty gymnasium. He’d built his muscles from heaving hay-bales and working constantly on the land. The McTavishes had money, Erin knew, but this man obviously didn’t sit back and expect the hired help to do his hard work for him.
He was older, of course—ten years more mature than the Mike McTavish she remembered. His face had become weathered from a life spent outdoors, and the hardworking image was deepened by the rough moleskins, open-necked khaki shirt and heavy work boots he wore.
Erin blinked and blinked again as her heart gave the same lurch she remembered. She still remembered the sensation when a youthful version of this man had walked across the dance floor—all those years ago.
Mike was still blatantly good-looking. His deep brown unkempt hair showed traces of bleaching from the harsh Australian sun and his farmer’s eyes were creased from the same bright glare—but he was still the same Mike McTavish...