Книга - Nanny Makes Three

Nanny Makes Three
Joan Kilby


A mother for Alice Ann His little girl thinks Melissa should be her nanny. After all, she’s kind, pretty and she smells nice. Gregory isn’t entirely convinced that those are the best qualifications to care for his precious daughter, but he’s prepared to give Melissa a chance. Alice Ann is so sweet and her father is so helpless that Melissa’s heart melts. It doesn’t hurt that Gregory is a very attractive man…But Melissa is looking for Something Big that will change her life. She won’t discover it while she’s looking after Gregory and his little girl – will she?







Gregory cleared his throat.

“I, uh, want you to know, although it goes without saying… I mean, you don’t have to worry that I’ll, ahem, take advantage of our situation.”

“What do you mean?” Melissa turned to face him, soapy water dripping from her hands.

“You’re a young attractive woman living in a house with a single man – ”

“Oh, that!” Melissa said, astonished. “I never imagined that you and I… Why, you’re too ol – ”

Old. He raised his dark brows. “I’m too what?”

“O-old-fashioned,” she stammered. “I mean that in the nicest sense possible. You’re a gentleman.” She took a deep breath. “Besides, you’ve made it quite clear you think I’m a loon.”

He smiled tightly, still stinging from her assessment. He wanted to tell her that younger women than her had given him the eye. “Loon might be a little harsh.”


ABOUT THE AUTHOR

When Joan Kilby isn’t working on her next romance novel, she can often be found sipping a latte at a pavement café and indulging in her favourite pastime of people watching. Originally from Vancouver, Canada, she now lives in Australia with her husband and three children. She enjoys cooking as a creative outlet and gets some of her best story ideas while watching her Jack Russell terrier chase waves at the beach.



Dear Reader,

I couldn’t wait to go back to Tipperary Springs to write about Melissa, Ally’s sister from Party of Three. I knew even then that Julio, the Argentinian acrobat, wasn’t right for her. But what man could hold her interest and keep her feet on the ground?

Melissa is, let’s face it, a bit of a ditz. Her hero had to be strong, unruffled and deeply caring. Gregory juggles a law practice with running a rare-breed pig farm and bringing up Alice Ann. On the surface, Melissa doesn’t appear to be the best person to help others. But as it turned out, there was a whole lot more to her than even she knew.

I had so much fun researching the Wessex Saddleback pigs that Gregory raises. I visited a couple of real farms and discovered for myself how delightful and individual these creatures can be. Like Melissa, at one point I was surrounded by a dozen young pigs all nibbling at my boots and pants. I was surprised to learn that when startled, the pigs bark like a dog, just before running away.

I hope you enjoy Melissa and Gregory’s story as much as I enjoyed writing it. I love to hear from readers. You can e-mail me at www. joankilby. com or write to me at PO Box 234, Point Roberts, WA 98281-0234, USA.

Joan Kilby




Nanny Makes Three


JOAN KILBY




www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)


I’d like to thank Fiona Chambers of Fernleigh

Farms, who generously took time out of her

busy work day to show me her gorgeous Wessex

Saddleback pigs and answer my many questions.

Anthony and Tina Dusty were also extremely

helpful, providing information and anecdotes

that played an important part in writing

this story.


CHAPTER ONE

MELISSA CUMMINGS BUZZED down Balderdash Road in her apple-green Volkswagen Beetle, flipping between stations in search of country music. A little Keith Urban would be nice, or Missy Higgins. All she could find were ads and news.

…fine and warm this autumn afternoon in Melbourne…

…woman and two children missing from their Ballarat home…

…two for one at Carpet Emporium…

Dappled light filtered through the towering gum trees that crowded the narrow road. Melissa rounded a bend and shrieked as a figure darted in front of the car. She swerved, barely missing a boy of about eight years old. She had a fleeting glimpse of carrot-red hair and a blue T-shirt before the kid, his small limbs churning, dived into the thick undergrowth.

Melissa brought the car to a skidding halt, her heart racing.

Where had the boy gone? Was he hurt?

In the rearview mirror she saw a toy fire engine lying on its side across the center line.

Slowly she reversed, winding down the window. “Hello, little boy? Are you all right?”

The hot afternoon was heavy with the throb of cicadas and the resinous scent of eucalyptus. A magpie lifted his black-and-white head and sent forth a liquid warble. Melissa gripped the wheel with one hand and worried at a hangnail on the other with her teeth. Had she actually hit the boy? She couldn’t remember feeling any impact. But if he wasn’t hurt, why hadn’t he come out of the bushes? He could be lying in there, unable to move. What if he needed a doctor?

She turned off the engine and climbed out of the car.

Picking up the fire engine, she wobbled into the bush in her high heels. “Helloo,” she sang out. “I’m coming.”

Dear God, please don’t let him be dead.

The dry grass brushed against her bare legs and left tiny seeds caught on the lace hem of her skirt. She forced herself to move steadily through the thick undergrowth. A trickle of perspiration dripped down her back beneath the sleeveless top. She crept to one side of a shrub and pulled back the leafy branches. A small boy, dirty and disheveled, peered up at her, clearly terrified.

“Thank goodness you’re alive.” Melissa held out his toy. “Are you hurt?”

The child snatched it from her hand and ran, only to stumble on a fallen limb hidden in the grass. He fell with a cry and rolled to one side, clutching his leg. Blood streamed from a gash on his shin.

At the sight of the blood, spots swam in front of Melissa’s eyes. She was going to faint. Deep breath in, deep breath out. First—stop the bleeding. She couldn’t even think until the boy’s leg was bandaged.

“Don’t worry,” she said, as much to reassure herself as him. “I’ve got a first-aid kit in my car.”

“Mum! Where are you?” The boy struggled to his feet, ignoring the blood still running down his leg. His ankle buckled under him.

“Josh!” A petite blond woman popped out from behind a bush a few yards away and pushed through the tall grass. She had a leather purse slung over her shoulder, and in her other hand she carried a plastic grocery bag. Her taupe linen top and khaki capri pants were smudged with dirt, and the scratches on her tanned calves were beaded with blood. When she reached the boy she threw her arms around him.

“Mummy!” A little girl of about six, with strawberry-blond hair, emerged from behind a large brushbox tree and waded through the grass to clutch at her mother’s legs. Her bare arm below the sleeve of her pink T-shirt sported a cluster of dark purple bruises, and there was another dark bruise across her cheekbone and eye.

“Did you fall and hurt yourself, too?” Melissa started to reach out, but the girl shrank back. “There’s a petrol station a few kilometers back. I could get some ice for that eye.”

“Callie’s fine.” The woman curled a hand protectively around her daughter’s shoulder as she urged the children back the way she’d come. “Josh’ll be fine, too.” The boy limped on his sprained ankle and the girl struggled to keep up, but neither made a peep.

Melissa frowned, confused by their reluctance to accept help. “His wound could get worse if you leave it,” she insisted, picking her way among fallen logs and scrubby weeds after them. “Infection, tetanus, gangrene…you can’t be too careful. You really should go to the hospital. I’d be happy to take you.”

“Mum?” The boy stopped and leaned on his mother. His voice quavered and his chin wobbled as he fought back tears. “I could use a Band-Aid.”

“Oh, Josh, darling.” She hugged him tightly. “Of course you can have a Band-Aid.” She turned to Melissa with a well-bred graciousness that not even soiled clothing could diminish. “Thank you for your kind offer of first aid, but no hospital, please.”

“Okay,” Melissa said carefully. What the heck was going on here? “I’m Melissa, by the way. What’s your name?”

The woman hesitated, her hazel eyes searching Melissa’s face. Finally she said, “I’m Diane. We’ll come back out to the road.”

At the car, Melissa grasped her large metal first-aid kit by its handles and heaved it out of her trunk. Then she carried it to Josh, who was sitting on a log in the shade of a gum tree.

Diane helped her lower the box to the ground. “This is the biggest first-aid kit I’ve ever seen.”

“I like to be prepared.” Melissa knelt before it and handed out gauze, butterfly adhesives, a tensor bandage, antiseptic ointment, scissors and tape. Her family thought she was a hypochondriac, but in her opinion one couldn’t do too much when it came to health and safety.

“Are you a nurse, too?” Josh asked. Tears had dried into tracks down his freckled cheeks.

“Me? No way! I’m petrified at the sight of blood.” Melissa glanced at Diane. “Are you a nurse?”

“I haven’t practiced since before Josh was born, but, yes, I’m a registered nurse.”

“Thank goodness! You can dress his wound.” Melissa’s stomach was still churning at the sight of Josh’s torn flesh. Bits of grass and dirt were caught in the sticky blood oozing from the deep gash.

“Mummy, I’m hurt, too.” Callie whimpered and thrust out her arm. In addition to the bruises, she had a fresh scrape on her elbow. “I want you to nurse me!”

“In a minute, darling,” Diane said. “As soon as I get Josh patched up.”

“I can manage your elbow,” Melissa said to Callie, who reluctantly came forward in response to her mother’s encouraging nod. “I’ve got Winnie the Pooh Band-Aids. Do you want Pooh Bear or Tigger?”

Melissa took care of Callie’s scrape, then pulled the girl onto her lap while Diane swabbed the debris out of Josh’s wound, dabbed on the antiseptic and pulled the gaping edges together with butterfly adhesives. Melissa didn’t want to look, but couldn’t help admiring the capable, efficient way she worked, covering the cleaned wound and taping a gauze pad into place. Finally Diane wound a tensor bandage around Josh’s sprained ankle in a precise herringbone pattern and clamped the end with a metal clip. Brushing the tears from her son’s eyes, she said, “You’re a brave boy.”

Melissa helped Callie to her feet and started repacking the first-aid kit. “If you don’t mind me asking, why are you walking way out here in the middle of nowhere?”

Diane gathered up the scraps of wrapping from the bandages, not meeting her gaze. “We…we walked into Tipperary Springs and now we’re on our way back to…the farm where we’re staying.”

“Oh, so you’re here on holiday,” Melissa said. “My sister, Ally, manages a cottage-rental agency in Tipperary Springs. Maybe you met her—brown hair, colorful cardigans, quirky brooches?” Diane looked baffled and Melissa decided she must have gone to another agency. “You’ll love this area. There’s hiking, fishing, hot-air ballooning, the mineral springs….”

She trailed off, frowning, as the oddness of their situation sunk in. The town was five kilometers away, a long distance on a road with no footpath. “Did your car break down? Do you want to use my mobile phone?”

“We came by bus.” Once again Diane slung her purse over her arm, hefted her bag of groceries, then took a child by each hand. Looking cautiously both ways, she started walking off.

Melissa followed. “Buses don’t run along this road.”

“I told you, we walked from Tipperary Springs.”

The woman looked well-off; it didn’t make sense that they’d taken a bus to town and walked from there. And now Josh’s ankle was sprained and Callie was drooping like a wilted flower.

“Hop in the car. I’ll give you a lift to where you’re staying.” Diane hesitated and Melissa added, “Your son’s leg could start bleeding again. And you know he shouldn’t walk on a sprain.”

“I don’t mind if my leg bleeds,” Josh said bravely.

“Oh, sweetheart.” Diane squeezed his shoulder. “All right,” she said to Melissa. “Thank you.”

When they’d loaded the kids in the rear and Diane had taken the passenger seat, Melissa pulled back onto the road. Soon the thick stands of gum trees gave way to small farms nestled among rolling green hills. Diane stared out her window, absently fingering a single strand of cultured pearls.

“Where are you from?” Melissa asked, trying to make conversation.

“Ballarat.” Callie piped up from the backseat.

“Shut up, stupid!” Josh elbowed his sister.

“Mummy!” Callie howled.

“Stop, you two,” Diane said tensely.

“You haven’t come far for your holiday,” Melissa observed. Ballarat was barely a half-hour drive away.

“I-It was a spur-of-the-moment idea,” Diane replied.

Why would a well-dressed woman with two young children travel a short distance by bus to a small town, then walk out into the country? “This is none of my business, but—”

“Slow down! Please,” Diane added, as they passed a single-story cream brick house set back from the road. “Do you know Constance Derwent?” She craned her neck to look back at the property.

“No, I don’t,” Melissa said, slowing to a crawl. An apple orchard ran along the boundary with the pig farm next door. A sign out front advertised free-range eggs for sale. “Is that her house?”

“Yes, although she wasn’t home last time we checked. Stop here, please.” Diane pointed, not to Constance’s driveway, but to a rutted dirt track belonging to the next farm. “We’ll get out here.”

Melissa stopped, scanning the cluster of farm buildings on top of the hill. There was a barn, a water tank, a machine shed and an old bluestone cottage. A newer farmhouse on the far side of the yard was reached by a long gravel driveway that wound around a pond shaded by a weeping willow.

Black pigs with pink bands across their shoulders grazed in the sloping green field, some clustered next to small corrugated-iron shelters. Isolated in a small paddock of his own, a boar stood on top of a dirt mound. Melissa suppressed a shudder.

“I think this lane is for tractors,” she said. “The driveway is farther along. See, there’s the mailbox and a sign, Finch Farm.”

“This is the lane I want,” Diane insisted as she gathered up the handles of the grocery bag. “Don’t bother driving in. We can walk from here.”

“Oh, it’s no trouble.” Ignoring her protests, Melissa turned off the paved road and into the lane, dropping down a gear to climb the hill. Her long feather-and-bead earrings swayed against her bare shoulders as the Volkswagen jolted along the rutted track. “Have they renovated the cottage for holiday makers? If you don’t have a hot tub, make sure you go to the mineral baths in Tipperary Springs. You can take it from me, the mud bath is wonderful.”

This enthusiastic recommendation was met with silence. Melissa glanced in the rearview mirror and noted Josh and Callie’s solemn faces streaked with grime across the foreheads and around the chins, as if they’d already had a mud bath.

Diane was nervously scanning the paddocks and the farmyard. A utility truck was parked next to the barn, and now that they were closer, a Volvo sedan was visible at the side of the house. “The farmer’s back,” she muttered.

Melissa parked in front of the cottage of rough-hewn, blue-gray stones. The curtains were tightly closed even though it was broad daylight. Weeds flourished around the foundations and the building had an air of neglect. “You’d think they’d fix the place up better if they’re renting it out.”

“It’s fine,” Diane said. “Quick, children, get inside.” She climbed from the car, clutching her bag of groceries, as the kids scrambled out of the backseat. Josh led the way, liweekoldmping, and tugging on his sister’s hand as he hurried her toward the cottage.

“I’m sure it looks better on the inside,” Melissa said dubiously, getting out of the car.

At the sound of voices inside the barn, Diane quickened her pace to catch up to the children. She put her shoulder to the heavy door, gave a shove and pushed the children inside.

“Thank you so much,” she said to Melissa from the doorstep, in a rush of polished vowels. “You’ve been extremely kind.”

Melissa put a hand on the door before Diane could close it. The air inside smelled dank and musty. Chilly. “Wait a minute. Who are you? Why are you so nervous?”

“You have to go.” Perspiration beaded Diane’s top lip and the posh accent sounded strained. “Please, don’t tell anyone we’re here. I mean, no one.”

Melissa’s jaw dropped. Before she could recover, Diane shut the door.

“Hey!” a man called. “What are you doing?”

Melissa whirled around to see the farmer striding toward her. He was only about ten yards away, startlingly close. He was tall and tanned, with a lean muscular build and wide shoulders. His black hair gleamed in the sun and his red plaid shirt and rough black work pants accentuated both his size and striking coloring. A black-and-white dog trotted at his heels.

Melissa pressed her palms against the rough wood of the door at her back as she tried to process what was happening. Why would Diane and her children be hiding from this man? Wasn’t she a paying guest?

The farmer seemed to be sizing Melissa up with his dark brown eyes, taking her apart and putting her back together. Her hands were damp. She pushed off from the door and hurried forward to prevent him from getting too close to the cottage. She suspected this man wouldn’t appreciate being lied to.

And yet she was going to. With luck, he would never find out.


CHAPTER TWO

THE WOMAN HURRYING TOWARD him seemed very young, with rich, cherry-red hair—impossibly red hair—that fell past her bare shoulders in gentle waves. What was she doing here, anyway, when the house was clearly the main residence?

“Have you come about the ad?” Gregory asked, frowning.

“What ad?” Her deep blue eyes widened and she touched her long, feathery beaded earrings with slender fingers.

“For a nanny.” This girl-woman looked nothing like his idea of a nanny. Her black lace top, revealing a hint of cleavage, would be more suitable in a nightclub than a farmyard, and her smooth hands looked as if she’d never done physical work in her life.

“I’m Gregory Finch,” he said. “And this is…” He glanced around to see if his daughter had come out of the barn. There she was, poking bits of grass between the wire fence to her favorite pig, a twelve-week-old runt she’d nursed from a bottle. Her long dark hair was tangled and her pink corduroy dress hung down almost to her oversize blue gum boots. Love and worry infused him as he called her away from the pig she persisted in viewing as a pet. “Alice Ann!”

His daughter gave him a sunny smile and pushed her hair out of her periwinkle-blue eyes, the only legacy of her late mother. Skipping over to where he stood, she asked, “What is it, Daddy?”

“I want you to meet…” He glanced at the woman, eyebrows raised.

“Melissa.” Her tentative smile warmed generously. “Hi, sweetie. How old are you?”

The child threw out her tiny chest and twinkled up at her. “I’m four. I can ride a two-wheel bike.” She pointed to a shiny pink bicycle fitted with training wheels and propped against the barn. White tassels dangled from the handlebars and a vanity license plate picked out her name in red letters.

“What a big girl!” Melissa said, then added to Gregory, “She’s adorable. However, I’ve just accepted a job at a call center. It’s not quite what I wanted, but it’ll do for now—” She broke off to watch Maxie sniff the ground around the Volkswagen Beetle, then move in a zigzag path toward the cottage. Melissa’s hand went to her throat, her gaze riveted on the dog.

Alice Ann tugged on Gregory’s pant leg. “What’s Maxie doing, Daddy?”

“She must have scented an animal. I hope possums haven’t gotten into the roof of the cottage.” He turned back to Melissa, eyeing her curiously. “If you didn’t come in response to my ad for a nanny, why did you come up the lane?”

“Well, I—” She broke off again.

Maxie was now running back and forth between the car and the cottage, whimpering and whining. She finally stopped in front of the wooden door, ears back.

“Oh!” Melissa exclaimed.

“Maxie, get away from there!” Gregory called. “Maxie!”

“The animal must be in there, Daddy. Should we look? Maybe it’s not a possum. Maybe it’s a bear.” Alice Ann bounced up and down in her squeaky gum boots, her eyes shining. “A polar bear with fluffy white fur and a blue satin collar.”

“There are no polar bears in Australia, with or without satin collars,” Gregory told her. “But maybe we should have a look for signs of possum.”

He walked over to the cottage, reached for the handle and nudged the dog gently aside with his foot. “Get away, Maxie, so I can open the door.”

“Excuse me!” Melissa slipped between him and the cottage more quickly than he would have thought possible. Her deep blue eyes met his at close range and the faint, fresh scent of wildflowers drifted up to him. “I came up the lane to…to buy free-range eggs. There’s no one home next door, and I wondered if you might have some for sale.”

“As it happens, I do,” Gregory stated, taking a step backward. “My neighbor forgot to take down her sign before she left on holiday. But I’m looking after her chooks. I have eggs up at the house for her regular customers.”

“Constance left you the eggs?” Melissa asked. “Constance Derwent?”

Gregory nodded, wondering at the peculiar emphasis she placed on the name. Maxie whined and scratched at the door.

“Do you think you could get me some? Now, I mean,” their visitor said urgently. “I’m late for an appointment.”

“Of course. Come up to the house.” Gregory dragged Maxie away from the cottage door by her collar. Alice Ann ran over to get her bike, and rode, weaving, across the hard-packed dirt yard.

“I’m one of Constance’s most regular customers,” Melissa assured him as they started for the house. “Two, three dozen eggs a week. I eat nothing else.”

Gregory stopped short. “You eat nothing but eggs?”

“Goodness, no. I mean, when I eat eggs I insist on free-range. Constance’s eggs are the best.” Nervously, she glanced around to see where the dog was.

“You don’t need to be afraid of my dog,” he said. “Behind that big bark she’s a complete softy.”

Melissa gave him a quick smile as she twisted her silver bangles. “Tell that to the polar bears.”

“See, Daddy?” Alice Ann said as she nearly crashed into him on her bike. “Melissa thinks there are polar bears in there, too.”

Gregory chuckled and shook his head. “You’ll see there aren’t any bears when I clean out that cottage this week for your new nanny.”

Beside him, Melissa breathed in sharply. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her stumble on the uneven ground in her high-heeled sandals. “Are you all right?”

“Yes, fine.” She smiled brightly. “What kind of pigs are these?”

“Wessex Saddlebacks,” Gregory said with quiet pride. “A rare breed originally from England. I’ve got five sows and a boar. This paddock holds the weaners—five months old. The smaller group in the next paddock are growers, about three months old.”

“My aunt and uncle kept pigs, the pink kind,” Melissa replied. “I used to spend a week at their farm every summer when I was a child.”

“Ah, so you have an appreciation for the animal,” Gregory said. “They’re smarter than some dogs and have loads of personality.”

Alice Ann brought her bike to a wobbly halt at the fence and dismounted. “Benny!”

At the sound of her voice, a young pig trotted over, grunting and squealing. Unlike the others, his pink saddle stopped short on one shoulder. His moist pink nose wiggled about, sniffing the air as he lifted his head to peer at the girl from under his floppy ears.

Melissa went to join the child. “Is Benny your pet?”

“Yes,” she said happily, and to Gregory’s exasperation, fed him a marshmallow from her pocket.

“Pigs aren’t pets.” He had tried to instill this concept into Alice Ann since Benny was born, five months ago. To no avail. No matter what he said to discourage her, she persisted in treating the runt like a puppy, and consequently he followed her around like one. Worse still, she took advantage of the fact that pigs had a sweet tooth to lure Benny, using all manner of sugary treats.

Alice Ann took no notice of him. Instead, she handed Melissa a marshmallow. “Do you want to feed him?”

“Are you sure this is okay for him to eat?” Melissa asked, glancing doubtfully at the sweet.

“He loves them,” the four-year-old replied. “Go on.”

Melissa stuck her hand through the wire and laid the marshmallow on the ground. Benny gobbled it up and grunted for more. Alice Ann produced a cookie and fed it to him.

Gregory shook his head as his daughter fussed over the pig. Heaven help her—and him—when the weaners were taken to the abattoir in a few days. Gregory had to tell her soon, but he could never seem to find the right moment.

“When’s Ruthie going to have her babies?” Alice Ann demanded, running back to her bike. “Will she have to go to the hogspital?”

“Pigs don’t go into hospital,” he replied, suppressing a smile. The heavily pregnant sow was lumbering up the hill with long tufts of grass hanging out of her mouth, on her way to the corner of the paddock where she was making a nest. “She’ll give birth right here on the farm.”

“Ruthie looks as though she’s ready to pop any minute,” Melissa said. “When is she due?”

“Early next week,” Gregory told her.

“I can’t wait to see the babies!” Alice Ann hopped on her bike and wobbled off toward the house. “They’ll go wee, wee, wee, all the way home.”

Gregory and Melissa followed. He stepped onto the back veranda and held open the screen door to the kitchen. “Excuse the mess.”

Newspapers and magazines he never got time to read were stacked on the antique sideboard; bills and work papers were scattered over the red-gum table. The breakfast dishes were still in the sink, the tiled floor needed sweeping and the granite counters needed wiping. Alice Ann’s last wardrobe change—a blue T-shirt and yellow cotton skirt—lay on the floor where she’d dropped them. He kept vowing he’d make time to clean up, but there was only him to take care of Alice Ann and the animals, while holding down a full-time job.

“Don’t worry,” Melissa said, glancing at the exposed beams and the open shelves holding the jars of cereal and dried fruit. “I like it.”

“I’ll only be a minute.” He went into the walk-in pantry and came back with two dozen eggs. Melissa took out a coin purse, then hesitated, chewing on her bottom lip.

“Constance usually charges two dollars a dozen,” he said, adding with a dry smile, “Or do you have a line of credit?”

“No, no.” Melissa gave him the coins. “Don’t bother seeing me out. Goodbye, Alice Ann. Take good care of Benny.”

“Bye, Melissa!” His daughter followed as far as the veranda and watched her walk across the yard to her car. Wistfully, she added, “I wish she was going to be my nanny.”

Gregory came outside, too. As unsuitable as Melissa was, he felt a slight pang of regret as she climbed into her Volkswagen and beetled off down the rutted lane.

And yet…there was something odd about her visit. If she was one of Constance’s regular customers, why did she have to ask if he was selling the eggs? She should have known. On the other hand, why would she lie about something like that?

“HI, EVERYONE.” Melissa went around the mahogany table in her parents’ dining room, dropping kisses. She’d never thought she’d be living back home, but she’d leased out her own tiny house when she’d taken an extended holiday to travel with her ex-boyfriend, an acrobat with the Cirque du Soleil. She was grateful to be welcomed back into the fold, but there were drawbacks, namely her parents’ close scrutiny of her life.

Her mom’s blue-and-white kitchen gleamed in the late afternoon sun that was streaming through the louvered blinds. The delicious aroma of roasting lamb permeated the family room. The TV in the corner showed a footy game in progress, the sound muted.

Ally, looking neat and cool in a watermelon-colored sundress, had come for dinner. “Where’ve you been?”

Melissa hesitated, remembering her promise to Diane. Did that include her family? “I, uh, gave some people a lift, then I stopped to buy free-range eggs,” she said, depositing the cartons on the counter.

“Two dozen!” Cheryl exclaimed, elegant as always in a black silk tank and white slacks. “You were with me yesterday when I picked up a dozen at the supermarket. What were you thinking?”

Whoops. She’d forgotten that. “Ally, do you want some?”

Her sister shook her head. “Ben brings home eggs from the restaurant.”

Melissa shrugged off the whole egg debacle and sank into an empty chair. Taking a kalamata olive from the dish in the center of the table, she turned to Tony. “How’s the olive-oil biz, Dad?”

“Excellent! Now I’m expanding into wine.” Tony pushed back his linen shirtsleeves to pour her a glass of Shiraz. “Hear anything from that circus fellow you were so keen on?”

“Honestly, darling!” Cheryl shot him a warning look.

“It’s okay, Mother,” Melissa assured her, even though it wasn’t really. “I’m over Julio. After I followed him to Adelaide and then Perth, I realized that although the Cirque du Soleil was going places, our relationship wasn’t. He accused me of not being flexible, but, hey, who can compete with acrobats?”

Ally, who knew better than to be fooled by her flippant tone, eyed her sympathetically. “You’re not as footloose as you’d like to think you are.”

Melissa lifted a shoulder noncommittally, but Ally had hit the nail on the head. Following Julio from town to town had made her realize how much she missed her home. He, on the other hand, wasn’t ready to settle down, and probably never would be. “It was fun for a while, but he wasn’t right for me.”

“It’s a shame, considering you gave up your job at the boutique to go with him,” Ally said. “Have you found anything else yet?”

“I’ve got a job in telemarketing.” Melissa fixed an animated expression on her face and said in a singsong voice, “Would you like a tropical holiday? Every purchase of $50,000 dollars or more comes with a weekend in Cairns, staying in two-star luxury. Airfaresnotincluded.”

Her family responded with worried frowns and anxious biting of lips. For goodness’ sake. Any minute they’d break into a rousing chorus of ‘How do you solve a problem like Melissa?’”

“It’s just for a while,” she said defensively. “Eventually I’ll find something better.”

“Don’t wait another second to start looking,” Ally said. “Let’s make a list of possibilities.” She pulled a pen and notepad from her purse and in her precise handwriting jotted down a heading.

Melissa sighed. It probably read Jobs Even Melissa Could Do.

“How about waitress?” Ally suggested. “I could ask Ben if they need anyone at Mangos.”

“No thanks,” Melissa said. “I’d be hopeless at remembering people’s orders.” She tore off a chunk of crusty bread and dunked it in the bowl of olive oil.

“Farm worker?” Tony suggested.

Melissa shook her head. “You know I’d never get my fingernails dirty. I don’t own so much as a pair of blue jeans, much less work boots.”

“What about the Mineral Springs Resort?” Cheryl asked. “You could get a job as a masseuse.”

“She’d need a diploma in massage therapy for that,” Ally objected. “But they did run an ad last week for someone to work behind the counter selling aromatherapy oils and tickets to the mineral baths.”

“Now there’s a career worthy of my enormous intellect.” Melissa peeled a microscopic piece of skin off her hangnail.

“You got good grades in school,” Cheryl reminded her. “You just never did anything with them.”

“I didn’t have a clue what I wanted to do. I still don’t,” she admitted. “I do know that I’m sick of small jobs that lead nowhere and have no higher purpose.”

What she didn’t add was that she hated always being perceived as an underachiever. Her family loved and supported her, but they didn’t expect much. Nobody did, including herself. Maybe seeing the incredible feats performed by Julio and his fellow circus troupers had given her grandiose ideas. Or maybe she’d simply come to a crossroads in her life. But since returning to Tipperary Springs she’d felt stifled and restless for change. She wanted more.

“You must have some idea about what you’d like to do,” Tony said.

“I want to do Something Big,” Melissa said, opening her arms wide to show them all just how big.

Ally carefully placed her pen on the table and exchanged a glance with their mother. Melissa let her arms fall with a sigh and resumed her examination of her hangnail. It was definitely getting infected.

“You mean, like brain surgery?” Tony asked cheerfully as he refilled his own glass from the nearly empty bottle of Shiraz. He held the ruby liquid up to the light, squinted at it, then took a sip.

Sweet man. He was such an optimist that if she’d said yes he’d have believed she would go ahead and try it. To him, nothing was impossible, even when he was proved wrong beyond a shadow of a doubt.

She thrust her thumb under Ally’s nose. “Do you suppose this is serious?”

“No.” Ally waved her away without looking. “You’d think a hangnail is terminal.”

“It is a hangnail,” Melissa replied, examining it with renewed alarm.

Ally heaved a long-suffering sigh. “Never mind that. Have you updated your résumé recently? I’ll make copies at work for you.”

“I’ll get it.” Melissa went down the hall to her bedroom and came back with a couple sheets of paper. She borrowed Ally’s pen and inked in corrections. “I’ll have to type it up first.”

“Leave it with me,” her sister insisted. “It’ll take me five minutes and then it will be done.”

And done right was the implication.

Melissa felt terrible. Ally managed a busy cottage-rental agency, Mother owned and ran a successful art gallery, Tony—well, no one in his right mind would want his checkered track record. Still, he’d started up half-a-dozen businesses in his life and not all of the failures were his fault. In fact, the olive grove was still going strong. What had Melissa ever done that was noteworthy?

“When I stopped for the eggs, the farmer was looking for a nanny for his four-year-old daughter,” she said. At the time she’d dismissed the idea but after this discussion, being a nanny didn’t seem so bad.

“What do you know about kids?” Ally said doubtfully.

“I was one once myself.” Melissa popped another olive in her mouth. “I could be a nanny. If I wanted to.”

The oven timer beeped. “Dinner’s ready,” Cheryl said. “Melissa, can you help set the table?”

“Sure.” She pushed back her chair to get up. Then froze. The footy game had been interrupted by a news bulletin. Diane’s face flashed up on the TV screen, flanked by pictures of Josh and Callie. Melissa grabbed the remote and stabbed at the volume.

“…Diane Chalmers and her two young children disappeared yesterday from their home in an exclusive district of Ballarat,” the female reporter was saying. “Mrs. Chalmers’s car was found abandoned half a mile from the bus station. Judge James Chalmers is appealing to the public for any information leading to the recovery of his wife and children. Foul play has not been ruled out.”

A florid-faced man with silver hair told the reporter in a quiet, tightly controlled voice the details of his missing family. Then, his gray eyes intense and glistening, he turned to the camera and begged Diane to come home.

“That poor man,” Cheryl said, clucking softly.

“I—” Melissa stopped. Was he who Diane was running from? Melissa couldn’t say anything. Her family would insist she go to the police. But they hadn’t seen Diane’s desperation.

“I hope the police find them, poor things,” Cheryl added, “and that they haven’t come to any harm.”

Now Judge Chalmers was saying that his wife had gone through a depression and wasn’t emotionally stable. Melissa bit at her hangnail. Had she done the wrong thing in protecting Diane? She’d seemed balanced, aside from her anxiety. But was Melissa qualified to judge? What if Diane’s children were in danger?

“Maybe his wife wasn’t abducted,” Melissa suggested. “Maybe she ran away from him.”

“Why would she do that?” Tony asked.

“He might have abused her. Or the children,” she added, recalling the bruises on Callie’s face and arm.

“He’s a judge,” Cheryl said firmly. “Judges don’t do things like that.”

“How do you know?” Melissa asked.

“It’s against the law.”

“Lots of people break the law.” Melissa gave Tony a pointed look. “Some of them get away with it.”

“You can see how upset he is that they’re gone,” Ally objected.

“It could be an act.”

“Why are you against him?” her sister inquired. “You don’t even know the man.”

“Why are you defending him?” Melissa countered.

“Girls!” Cheryl interrupted. “Dinner’s ready.”

The roast lamb their mother put on the table seemed like a feast when Melissa thought about Diane, Josh and Callie in the cold, dark cottage. The farmer obviously didn’t know about them, which meant they probably didn’t have electricity or heat. Even if they did, Diane wouldn’t risk cooking for fear of being detected. God knows what they’d eat—probably tinned beans. Cold beans, at that.

She had to go back, Melissa decided. She couldn’t just abandon them without knowing if they were all right. She barely listened to the others chatting about the olive harvest, the new glass artist, whose work Cheryl was displaying in her gallery, and the town’s worryingly low water supply.

As soon as they were finished eating, Melissa jumped up. “I hate to eat and run, but I’ve got to get going.”

“You didn’t mention you were going out tonight,” Cheryl said. “Where to?”

This was exactly why she couldn’t stand living at home. Her mother was asking politely, out of curiosity, and Melissa owed her a courteous reply, but wasn’t used to accounting for her every action. “I’m going to visit some friends.”

Cheryl followed her. “Have you got your key?”

“Yes, Mother.” Spying the platter of leftover lamb, Melissa paused. “Can I take some of this meat?”

Cheryl’s eyebrows rose under her platinum-blond coif. “I suppose so. Is it for your friends? Can’t they cook for themselves?”

“They don’t have the use of a kitchen at the moment,” Melissa said. Technically speaking, it was probably true. “They’re living on cold tinned food.”

“Renovating,” Ally deduced with a shudder. “I know what that’s like. Don’t they have a microwave?”

“The electricity’s out.” Melissa rummaged in a drawer for a large freezer bag.

“Let me, darling,” Cheryl said, as if, goodness knows, Melissa couldn’t manage on her own, and began placing slices of meat inside the bag, one at a time.

Melissa watched impatiently for a moment, then took the bag out of her mother’s hands and, grasping the leg of lamb by the frilled bone, shoved the whole thing in. “May I take the potatoes, too?”

“If you like,” Cheryl said, astonished.

“Gravy?” Tony offered, holding up the gravy boat.

“Too messy.” Melissa zipped up the bag and upended the pan of roast potatoes into another one. Then she lifted a hand in farewell to her wide-eyed, speechless family. “See you all later. Thanks for doing my résumé, Ally. Say hi to Ben and Danny.”

“Will do,” Ally murmured.

“Are you sure there’s nothing else you want to take?” Tony asked.

“Now that you mention it…” Melissa turned to her mother. “Do you have any blankets I could borrow?”

“For your friends?” Cheryl asked, one eyebrow raised.

“Since the electricity’s out they have no heating.” There might be blankets stored in the cottage, but she wasn’t banking on it.

While Cheryl went down the hall to the linen closet, Melissa slipped behind the kitchen counter and pocketed the salt and pepper.

“Why aren’t these people more organized?” Ally asked. “They should have thought of cooking and heating before they started renovating.”

“You know how some of Melissa’s friends are,” Cheryl said, coming back into the room with an armful of folded blankets.

“I should resent that,” Melissa said mildly. Just because she was hopelessly impractical didn’t mean her friends were.

“How many are there?” Cheryl asked, piling the blankets into her arms. “Who are they?”

“Golly, you people ask a lot of questions!” She staggered to the front door, loaded down with blankets and bags of food.

“Would they like some olive oil?” Tony called after her, holding out a bottle of his premium extra virgin.

“Not this time, but thanks,” Melissa said. “’Bye!”

She threw everything into the backseat of the Volkswagen and drove back to the turnoff to Balderdash Road, parking a hundred meters from the farm. She just hoped the dog was inside the house; otherwise, she might have to sacrifice the lamb, and that would be a shame.

Melissa got out of the car with her bundle of blankets and bags of food and walked up the long track to the cottage. The tiny beam of her pocket flashlight wobbled along the shadowed ruts.

The yard was dark except for a pool of light spreading from the bare bulb above the door of the barn. The curtained windows of the house glowed yellow. She tried not to think about Gregory, but his image rushed into her mind—silky black hair, dark eyes watching her….

She reached the cottage and tapped lightly on the door with the end of the flashlight. No response. She turned the handle and pushed hard. The door creaked open.

“Diane?” she called softly into the blackness, “it’s me.”


CHAPTER THREE

YAWNING, ALICE ANN snuggled deeper beneath her raspberry-pink comforter and hugged her stuffed Piglet closer. Her hair was still damp from her bath and dark brown tendrils curled around her cheeks.

Gregory, sitting on the edge of the bed, reached over to turn out her bedside lamp. “Good night, sweetheart.”

“Daddy?” she said sleepily. “Why can’t Melissa be my nanny? She smelled pretty. Like flowers.”

“Did she?” Gregory asked, pretending he didn’t remember, even though he recalled quite clearly the scent of violets and wild roses.

“So can she, Daddy?”

“She’s not a nanny, sweetheart. Even if she wanted the job, the question of who looks after you is an important decision. We need to consider qualifications and experience, not just how nice a person is or how she smells. I only want what’s best for you. Do you understand?”

“I guess so.” She sighed and hugged Piglet closer.

“I’m going to call Mrs. Blundstone tomorrow.”

“Not Mrs. Blundstone!” Alice Ann sat up, her arms braced against the bed. “She’s a witch. She’ll turn me into a cane toad! Then she’ll make me blow up like a balloon and ’splode into yucky stuff and fly all over the place and go splat and—”

“Alice Ann. Where do you get these crazy ideas?” Gregory said sternly. “Mrs. Blundstone has many years’ experience both as a teacher and as a nanny.”

“I hate her!” His daughter flung herself back onto her pillow. “She never smiled at me, not once. And she didn’t say hi to Benny.”

Gregory smoothed her tangled hair back from her forehead. “I need to talk to you about Benny.”

Her scowl faded into a smile that put a dimple in her right cheek. “He’s nearly as big as the other weaners now, isn’t he, Daddy?”

“Yes, he is. Benny’s a fine pig. A valuable pig.” Gregory paused. This was as difficult for him to say as it would be for his daughter to accept. “You see, sweetheart, the time has come for the weaners to leave our farm.”

A tiny frown creased Alice Ann’s forehead. “Why? This is their home.”

“Not…forever.” Gregory cleared his throat.

She straightened up. “But you don’t mean Benny.”

“Benny, too, I’m afraid.”

Alice Ann clutched her Piglet, anxious and angry. “He’ll miss me so much. Why does he have to go away?”

Gregory scratched the back of his head, feeling perspiration form on his scalp. “He’s getting big. It’s time for him to leave, to go to…a better place.”

“How can it be better when he won’t have me to play with?” Alice Ann argued. “Where is he going?”

“It’s a special place just for pigs,” he fibbed, hating himself. “Benny will love it. You want Benny to be happy, don’t you?”

“Yes.” She thought for a minute. “Is it like the resort Grandma Finch went to on the Gold Coast?”

“Well…” Gregory began, then stalled.

“A pig resort!” Eyes shining, Alice Ann paid no attention to her dad’s protest as she danced Piglet across her pink coverlet. “Benny’s going to a five-star pig resort.”

“Wait a minute—”

“I bet it’s beautiful,” she declared, rapidly embellishing. “A fancy chef will make his favorite slop. There will be green fields where he can lie in the sun—” with an elaborate sigh she sank blissfully into her pillow “—all day long.”

“It sounds mighty fine,” Gregory said, smiling despite himself. “The weaners might like it so much they won’t want to come home.”

“Not Benny.” Alice Ann shook her head solemnly. “He’s my extra specialest piggy. He’ll come back as soon as he can. And if he doesn’t, we’ll go get him, won’t we, Daddy?”

“We’ll see.”

“We will.” She nodded decisively, settling the matter.

Gregory tucked the covers around her. “Time to sleep now.”

She yawned. “I liked her dangly earrings, too.”

Melissa again. Gregory recalled the way her earrings had cast feathery shadows over the soft skin and fragile bones at the base of her neck. Ridiculous bits of fluff and frivolity, totally out of place on a farm.

“She has a tiny weeny space between her front teeth just like me.” Alice Ann bared her teeth to show him the gap.

Gregory smiled. As if he didn’t know every freckle and hair on his daughter’s precious body. He’d noticed Melissa’s teeth, too, though. That kind of perception was unusual for him.

“Mrs. Blundstone will make a wonderful nanny,” Gregory said. “She’ll bake cookies, play dress up and read you all the storybooks you want.”

He stopped, realizing Mrs. Blundstone had said nothing about cookies and playing dress up. When he’d interviewed her, she’d talked about reading readiness and giving Alice Ann a head start on arithmetic. Which was good because that’s what he wanted in a nanny.

“I’m tired, Daddy,” Alice Ann told him, yawning again. “Night-night…”

“Sleep tight…” he replied, falling in with their nighttime ritual.

“See you tomorrow…” Alice Ann’s eyes fell shut. In the lamplight her lashes were soft crescents against her rosy skin.

“In the morning light,” Gregory finished softly. He touched the back of his finger to her cheek, but his baby was already fast asleep.

MELISSA’S FLASHLIGHT illuminated a small lounge room packed with furniture. There were three couches plus one…two…three…four armchairs. There was an outdoor table and a kitchen table, both with chairs piled upside down on top. A narrow walkway next to the wall led around a breakfast bar to the galley kitchen. Cardboard boxes were piled in the far corner of the lounge room. To the right, a doorway presumably led to the bedrooms.

“Diane?” she whispered again, “it’s me, Melissa.”

A scuffling sound from a back room caught Melissa’s attention. Diane peered around the doorway, shielding her eyes from the light with her hand. Melissa turned the flashlight beam on herself. “It’s me,” she repeated.

Diane whispered to her children to stay back, and came into the room. “What are you doing here?”

Josh and Callie ignored her warning and crept after her, Callie clutching the hem of her mother’s blouse.

“I brought you some food and blankets.” Melissa edged between the couches and the wall. She laid the blankets over the back of a couch and set the bags of food on the breakfast bar. From her shoulder bag she produced a large bottle of water she’d had in her car.

“You shouldn’t have come.” Melissa could tell by the tense expression on Diane’s narrow face just how frightened she was. “Someone could have seen you or heard your car.”

“I left my car on the road. No one saw me.” Melissa began unzipping the bags of food. “Are you hungry? My mother’s roast lamb is sensational. I couldn’t bring the gravy, but I’ve got salt and pepper. I didn’t even think about plates or cutlery. Is there some in the kitchen? There’s roast pumpkin and potatoes—” She broke off, realizing Diane and her children remained silent. “Don’t you like lamb?”

“We love lamb.” Diane drew in a deep breath and blinked. “Don’t we, kids?”

“All we’ve had today was crackers and cheese,” Callie said, “and apples.”

Josh eyed the sliced meat and potatoes. “I’m starving.”

“Come and eat,” Melissa urged, stepping back to make room for them.

Diane went to the kitchen curtains and tugged them closer until they overlapped. “Someone might see your flashlight.” She helped Josh and Callie to a piece of meat and a potato each. “The cottage has been stripped of everything. There are no dishes. No water or electricity.”

“How did you get in?” Melissa asked.

“The door was open,” Diane said with a shrug. “Yesterday we arrived to stay with Constance next door. When she wasn’t home we didn’t have anyplace else to go. So we waited over there unitl it was dark, then snuck in here.”

The explanation only sparked more questions, but food came first. The children ate ravenously, taking bites before they finished chewing the previous mouthful. Diane consumed her food with a refined yet single-minded intensity that was as revealing as if she’d gorged herself.

When they finished eating, Diane wiped her hands on a tea towel Melissa had stuffed in the bag with the food, and handed the towel to Josh. She heaved a heartfelt sigh. “Thank you. The children will sleep better tonight just having a full stomach.”

“You were on the news tonight.”

Diane’s head came up sharply. “What did they say?”

“That you’d disappeared from home, and the police aren’t ruling out foul play.”

“What’s foul play, Mummy?” Callie asked.

“It’s when the ball goes out of bounds,” Josh explained. “Now shush.”

“Your husband is offering a reward.” Melissa watched Diane’s face. “He’s worried you might be hurt.”

“Hurt! That’s a good joke,” Diane said bitterly. “And he’s a good actor. He ought to be, considering how much practice he gets.”

“He said he won’t rest until he finds you and brings you home,” Melissa added.

“Oh, he wants us back, all right. He’s short-listed for a seat on the Supreme Court. He’d lose all hope of that if his wife brought charges against him.” Now Diane was studying Melissa’s face. “I guess you’ve figured out that I’ve run away from him.”

“We should go home,” Josh said suddenly. “Maybe he really does miss us and won’t be so angry from now on.”

“I’m sorry, Josh, that’s not an option.” Diane put her arms around her children. “Everything will be all right once we get hold of Constance.”

“Apparently she’s away,” Melissa said. “The farmer didn’t say where or for how long. I couldn’t ask too many questions. It would have seemed odd, since I more or less told him I was a friend of hers. Was she expecting you?”

“No, but she said I could come anytime and bring the kids. I couldn’t reach her before we left. I didn’t even consider the possibility of her being away.” Diane worried at her bottom lip. “She’s retired and lives on her own, so it’s not unusual for her to take off for a day or two, but I should have been able to reach her on her mobile phone. I’ve tried a dozen times and it’s never on.”

“She could be out of range,” Melissa pointed out. “Or even overseas.” She paused. “Wouldn’t you be more comfortable in a motel?”

“I can’t afford it,” Diane said. “James froze the bank accounts. I came away with just the money I had in my purse, and most of that went for the groceries I bought today.”

“What about your credit cards?”

“Canceled,” Diane said. “James talked me into giving up work after we were married, so I was never able to get a credit card in my own name. Anyway, if I went to a motel or used a credit card, the police would be able to track me.”

“Do you have any other friends or relatives you can stay with?”

“My family lives on the other side of the country, in Perth. They think James is some sort of god,” Diane said disdainfully. “I left him once before. My own mother told me to go home and patch things up because he was a ‘good provider.’”

“Well, I’m sure you must have had a solid reason to leave him,” Melissa said.

Diane opened her mouth to speak, then thought better of it and turned to Josh. “You kids take the blankets and put them on the bed.”

“It’s dark in there.” Callie pressed herself against her mother’s legs, her fearful gaze on the black doorway.

“Josh, have you got your penlight?” Diane asked.

“Come on, Callie.” Josh took it from his pocket and gave it to his sister to light the way. Then he gathered up the blankets and the two children shuffled into the other room.

Diane waited until they’d gone. In a low voice, she said, “James…abuses me. I put up with it for years because he threatened to take the kids away from me if I divorced him.”

“Surely he couldn’t do that,” Melissa protested.

“I believe he could,” Diane said simply. “He knows everyone in the judicial system, as well as the social-welfare agencies and the police. Everyone either admires him or is afraid of his power and influence. No one would believe me.”

“What made you decide to leave again?”

Diane twisted the glittering diamond on her left hand. She said, in a hard voice, “This time he hurt Callie.”

So it was true. The bruises had been inflicted by Callie’s father. Melissa felt sickened by the thought. “How awful,” she murmured. “What happened?”

Staring into the darkness, Diane said quietly, “We’d been away on a trip and came home to find newspapers piled up on the porch. I was running around doing so many things beforehand that I’d forgotten to suspend our subscription while we were gone. James was furious. He said it was like advertising to burglars that we weren’t home.”

“That’s an honest mistake,” Melissa said. The kind she might make.

“He didn’t think so. He…” Shivering, Diane wrapped her arms around herself. “He punched me in the stomach. He’d never hurt me in front of the kids before. Callie shouted at him to stop. He didn’t want the neighbors to hear so he grabbed her by the arm and started dragging her to her room. She screamed. He yelled at her to be quiet. She kept on screaming… She screamed and screamed.” Diane covered her ears as if to block out the sound. In a voice choked with tears, she said, “James backhanded her across the face and knocked her flying. She was bleeding above her eyebrow.”

“Oh, God.” Melissa’s stomach was churning at the horrible image. Numbly, she groped for a tissue in her purse and gave it to Diane. It seemed a painfully inadequate response.

The woman blew her nose. “I couldn’t stay in that house a minute longer. I will not let him hurt my kids.”

Melissa was silent, recalling the angry purple bruises on Callie’s arm and the side of her face. Men who could do that to their own child were beyond her experience, almost beyond her comprehension.

“How did he get away with it for so long?” Melissa finally asked. “Didn’t anyone notice? Surely he wouldn’t want it known that he, a respected judge, was guilty of wife bashing.”

“He’s careful not to leave marks,” Diane said dryly. “At least until yesterday, when he belted Callie. As for how he gets away with it…” She gave a short humorless laugh. “In public he’s charming. He treats me like a queen. Even our closest friends think our marriage is made in heaven. Except for Constance, James has everyone fooled.”

They’d been standing in the narrow kitchen while they talked. Now, as if drained by her confidences, Diane sagged against the breakfast bar. The torch threw shadows on her face, emphasizing her fatigue and distress.

Melissa went into the lounge room and took a couple of bentwood chairs off the kitchen table. With a sigh, Diane sank onto one and let her limbs relax.

“How does Constance know the truth?” Melissa asked when she was seated, too. “Did you confide in her?”

“She used to live next door to us in Ballarat. One day she came through the back gate to have coffee with me. The kitchen door was open onto the deck.” Diane paused. “Constance saw him hit me. She’s the only eyewitness, the only person who could testify on my behalf in court.”

Melissa frowned, trying to understand how Diane could have so few resources. “Why didn’t you go to the police?”

“Constance wanted me to. But when I told James, he threatened to take the children away from me.” Diane smoothed her hands over her pants as if trying to iron out the wrinkles. “He told me exactly who he would call—you’ve probably read their names in the newspaper—and how he would convince them that I was an unfit mother.”

“He was bluffing.” Melissa scoffed, but a chill went through her.

“I’d been on medication for depression after Callie was born,” Diane said with a self-deprecating lift of her shoulder. “Worded right, it becomes a serious mental illness…even though I was always able to look after my children. When Constance moved away she begged me to come live with her, but I was too afraid he would take my kids.”

Whether he could or not, Diane clearly believed it was true. Melissa looked around at the dank cottage hung with cobwebs and smelling of mice droppings. “Why don’t you come home with me? I’m staying with my parents, but I’m sure when I explain your situation they’d be happy to have you.”

“I couldn’t possibly. The more people who know where I am, the greater likelihood that James will find me. He could make trouble for you and your family just because you sheltered me.”

Melissa hated to think of the trouble James could make for her father if he delved into Tony’s past. Some of Tony’s earlier businesses, if not outright illegal, had bent the law. Now that he’d established a thriving and wholly legitimate olive grove, she couldn’t have him brought down by a vindictive judge. “Won’t he persecute Constance?”

“Probably. She says bring it on. She’ll testify against him anytime. I’m desperate enough now to take her up on her offer.”

From the other room they heard a volley of sneezes. Diane rolled her eyes. “Josh is allergic to dust.”

“That’s not good.” Restless, Melissa got up and started tidying the food bags. “I wish I could do something.”

“You’ve done more than enough and I appreciate it,” Diane said. “Don’t worry about us. We’ll be fine here until Constance comes back.”

“Here? You mean, in the cottage?” Melissa asked. “It could be days. Maybe even weeks.”

“There’s a tap outside the barn for water and we’re using the outdoor toilet,” Diane told her. “The farmer is away during the day and the farm is so far from the road that no one driving by will notice us if we don’t move around too much.”

“What about food?” Melissa glanced at the remains of the lamb. “There’s enough here for another meal, but after that…”

“Constance has an apple tree in her yard. And we can take some of the eggs. We won’t be able to cook them, so we’ll just have to learn to swallow quickly.”

Melissa shuddered at the thought. This probably wasn’t the best time to remind her she could get salmonella poisoning by eating raw eggs. “What about the dog?”

“Josh made friends with her this morning before we went into Tipperary Springs,” Diane said. “She was scratching because she wants to get in and play with him.”

“Maxie’s not your only worry,” Melissa told her. “The farmer is planning to clean out this building for a nanny to stay in. Sooner rather than later by the sounds of it.”

For the first time the woman appeared to lose heart. Her shoulders sagged and in the dim light her fair complexion turned even paler. “I didn’t know. That changes everything. What shall we do?”

Why was she asking her? The way Diane’s gaze was fixed anxiously on Melissa, she seemed to expect an answer. Josh and Callie had come out of the other room and stood in the doorway waiting, like their mother, for her reply.

Melissa tried not to squirm. The thought of Diane and her children being dependent upon her for their well-being in the immediate future was truly scary. If they knew what kind of ditz she was they wouldn’t be asking her for help. But she couldn’t leave them to fend for themselves. Until Constance returned, they had no one else.

She couldn’t take them to her house or even tell her family about them. Friends were out, too. Diane trusted her only because she’d had to after Melissa had barged in.

Melissa couldn’t keep sneaking in here at night. Sooner or later Maxie would catch her outside and bark her fool head off. No, if she was going to bring food and other essentials to Diane and her kids she had to be on the spot. Then she had to find out where Constance was and get her to return home. Meanwhile she had to somehow delay Gregory’s cottage cleanup.

She put on a big smile so Diane and her kids wouldn’t know how nervous she was. “Don’t worry about a thing. I have a plan.”


CHAPTER FOUR

MELISSA KNOCKED on the front door of the farmhouse early the next morning. She was wearing her lucky skirt, a filmy sky-blue cotton number that fell to midcalf, with a white top. The air was scented by the jasmine entwining the pillars of the veranda, and from the paddocks came the soft grunting of the pigs.

The door swung open. Gregory’s black eyebrows arched. “Good morning. Are you out of eggs already?”

He had on a charcoal-gray suit with a crisp white shirt open at the neck. A blue silk tie was slung over his shoulder. Freshly shaved, he smelled faintly of lime and leather.

“I thought you were a farmer,” she declared.

“Only part-time. I’m a lawyer.” Gregory arranged the tie around his neck and flipped the wide end around the narrow one to draw it through the loop. “Thompson, Thompson and Finch, Main Street, Tipperary Springs.”

Melissa heard the thud of small bare feet running on hardwood before Alice Ann poked her head around her father’s leg. “You came back!”

“Hi, Alice Ann.” Melissa smiled at her. “How are you?”

“I’m afraid it’s not a very good time,” Gregory said. “As you can see, I’m getting ready for work. And Alice Ann is going to play school.”

“Are you going in your pajamas?” Melissa asked, bending down to tweak the girl’s uncombed hair.

Alice Ann giggled and pulled at the top of her Miss Piggy pj’s. “No.”

“Go get dressed, quickly now,” Gregory said. Then he turned to Melissa. “What can I do for you?”

“I’d like to apply for the nanny job, after all.”

Alice Ann had started to leave, but on hearing this she began to jump up and down. “Yay! Say yes, Daddy!”

Gregory hesitated, glancing at his watch. “I have to be at work in forty-five minutes and I need to drop this one off first, but I guess I could give you a quick interview.” He stepped back. “Come in.”

Melissa moved past him into the foyer. In the lounge room to her left unfolded laundry was dumped on one of a facing pair of dark leather sofas. The wood coffee table between them was strewn with papers, coffee cups and dirty plates. A toy barn with plastic fences enclosing small herds of horses, cows and sheep took up most of the area rug.

Gregory led her past that room and into the kitchen, where he waved her to a seat at the table. “Would you like coffee? Only instant, I’m afraid.”

“Instant’s fine.”

While the kettle boiled, Melissa helped him clear away the breakfast dishes so they would have a spot to sit. Her heart sank. This man didn’t need a nanny; he needed an army of maids.

Alice Ann skipped back into the room. She’d dressed herself in a lilac T-shirt, a mauve skirt that was back to front and dark purple socks. Her uncombed brown hair fell in a tangle below her shoulders. She carried her father’s yellow legal pad and pen from the sideboard to the table. Climbing on a chair, she said, “Come on, Daddy. Let’s start the interview.”

“Just a minute.” Over at the counter Gregory made coffee and got out milk and sugar.

“I’ll start.” Alice Ann picked up the pen and turned to Melissa with an air of great seriousness. “Will you tell me bedtime stories?”

Melissa replied, equally solemnly, “Definitely. I don’t always read with accuracy but I have wonderful expression.”

Frowning in concentration, Alice Ann painstakingly printed a couple of wobbly capital letters on the legal pad. She looked up. “What do you mean, ackracy?”

“Accuracy means correctness,” Melissa explained. “Sometimes I change the story as I go along to make it more interesting.”

“I like the sound of that.” The girl drew a big tick on the legal pad next to the letters she’d printed. She turned to her father. “Don’t you, Daddy?”

Gregory brought the coffee over and sat opposite Melissa. “I’ll be asking the questions from now on,” he said. “Go brush your hair, please.”

“Oh, but I don’t want to miss anything!” Alice Ann stayed where she was.

Melissa raised her eyebrows at this act of insubordination, but Gregory chose to ignore it for the moment, so she shrugged. “Fire away.”

“Are you prepared to live on the premises?” he asked.

“That suits me very well,” Melissa replied. “At present I’m staying with my parents because my house is rented out. I’ve been away for some months…on holiday.”

“I see. Well, my plan is to clear out the cottage this week and turn it into the nanny’s quarters. But the previous owners left a great deal of old furniture stored there,” Gregory said. “Until I get to it, the nanny will have to occupy the guest room in the house.”

“I’m adaptable,” she told him.

Gregory tapped his pen on the legal pad. “I’d like to hear about your experience caring for children. What are your qualifications?”

Ah, now that was her whole problem. She wasn’t trained for anything. “I’m really good at playing dress up. I can bake cookies, too. And make things out of play dough.”

Good grief, she sounded like a candidate for day care herself. She didn’t blame him for that skeptical expression. How would Ally respond to these questions? Her sister would be brisk and efficient. She would radiate competence. Melissa sat up straighter and placed her hands in her lap so she wouldn’t fidget. “I did a lot of babysitting when I was younger. Even now I look after friends’ kids all the time.”

“You wouldn’t spend the day playing,” Gregory informed her. “The successful candidate will be expected to perform light housekeeping duties such as cooking and cleaning, in addition to teaching school readiness.”

“I know my ABC’s,” Alice Ann declared proudly.

“You’re smart!” Melissa said to the little girl. Then she added to Gregory, “Is there to be no playtime?”

“I didn’t say that. If you’re efficient, you should have an hour or so in the afternoon.”

“Oh, I’m very efficient,” Melissa assured him. “Why, I can…” she racked her brain “…wash dishes and talk on the phone at the same time.”

Gregory made a note on his legal pad. Alice Ann did the same, laboriously printing random letters of the alphabet. Melissa craned her neck to see what Gregory was recording about her, but his writing was deeply slanted and close, illegible upside down. His hands were long and strong, the nails clean and well cared for. There was none of the ground-in dirt she used to see in her uncle’s hands, although a thin jagged cut ran across the base of one thumb, where he must have sliced it on wire or something similarly farmlike.

“Punctuality is essential,” Gregory said, looking up. Melissa straightened and paid attention. “You’d have to take Alice Ann to and from play school every morning, which lasts from nine o’clock until noon.”

“Punctuality is my middle name.” Melissa made a show of checking her vintage watch, which kept lousy time but looked great with her outfits. Oops. Quickly she dropped her hands back in her lap before he could see that it was off by ten minutes.

“I don’t approve of corporal punishment,” Gregory added. “Alice Ann never does anything naughty enough to warrant a spanking.”

“I would never do that. I would…” Melissa tried to remember what her friend Jenny called it when she put Tyler on a stool in the hall. Something to do with time…“Time out. I would give her a time out.”

Gregory nodded approvingly and Melissa breathed a sigh of relief. Until he asked, “Can you cook?”

“Can I cook!” Melissa scoffed, bluffing outrageously. “My brother-in-law is the head chef at Mangos. He taught me everything I know.” Which amounted to almost nothing although that wasn’t Ben’s fault.

“Do you have a résumé?” Gregory asked.

“I do!” Melissa was delighted to be able to answer truthfully. She fished in her purse for a couple of folded sheets and handed them across the table. Too late, she realized she’d brought the original, not the revised version Ally had typed up for her.

Gregory perused the marked-up document, his frown growing deeper by the second. He was good-looking for an older man. Okay, slightly older. Fine lines crinkled the corners of his eyes, but his hair was thick and lusciously dark. As Melissa watched, a strand broke away and drifted down his forehead.

“Have you had many other applicants?” Melissa asked.

“It’s only fair to tell you I’m seriously considering offering the job to Minerva Blundstone, a retired educator with six years’ experience as a nanny.”

“Oh. She was my teacher in sixth grade.” Melissa’s heart sank. There was no way she could compete with ol’ Blundy. She was very strict.

“Mrs. Blundstone is a witch,” Alice Ann said with an exaggerated shudder. “She’ll turn me into a mouse, like in that movie. Then a cat will catch and eat me!”

“That’s enough nonsense. Go wash your face and do your teeth, then bring me the hairbrush.”

“But Daddy—”

“No buts.”

With an elaborate sigh, Alice Ann climbed down from the chair and ran into the hall.

“She has a wonderful imagination,” Melissa commented.

Gregory’s dark brows came together. “Sometimes it can be a problem.”

“How so?”

He turned his pen end over end in his long fingers. “The problem is Benny, the runt she’s taken a fancy to. This is my first crop of weaners, and Alice Ann has no idea he and the others are going to be butchered. She’s forever concocting wildly improbable scenarios about his future. Very soon she’s going to be confronted by the reality of farm life.”

“I guess it has to happen sometime.”

“Her mother passed away a year ago. Even though Benny’s only a pig, I hate to burden Alice Ann with another death in her life, another loss. I’m finding it very difficult to break the truth to her.”

“I hope you don’t want the new nanny to give her the bad news?” Melissa asked, horrified at the thought.

“No,” Gregory assured her, “that’s my responsibility.”

“Poor little girl,” Melissa said softly. “I’m sorry about your wife.”

“I was never married to Alice Ann’s mother,” he replied, his jaw tightening. “She—”

“Do my hair, Daddy,” his daughter said, running back into the room waving a small pink brush.

Gregory took the brush and started tugging it through her snarled hair. He came to a knot and left the brush stuck there. Tapping Melissa’s résumé, he asked, “You’ve held a variety of jobs, but none remotely connected to child care. Plus there’s a big gap in your work history. Were you on holiday for the whole ten months?”

“Come here, honey,” Melissa called to Alice Ann. She straightened the girl’s skirt, then extricated the brush and gently worked through the tangles, strand by strand. She glanced at Gregory, knowing her explanation wasn’t going to sound good. “I was traveling with the Cirque du Soleil.”

“You ran away and joined the circus?” he asked skeptically.

“Were there lion tamers?” Alice Ann made claws with her fingers and roared at Melissa.

“No, it’s not that kind of circus,” she said, laughing. “My former boyfriend is a highwire artist,” she replied. “Our relationship didn’t work out so I came back.”

“You up and ran off for ten months,” Gregory mused. “That suggests a certain lack of stability on your part.

“Or adventurousness.” Melissa finished combing out the tangles. She picked a pair of sparkly purple hair clips from the handful Alice Ann had brought and pinned them on either side of her head.

Gregory studied her through narrowed eyes, then dropped his gaze to his notes. Finally he looked up. “Why do you want to be a nanny?”

Melissa opened her mouth, but no brilliant lies came out. Finally she settled on the truth, or as close to the truth as she could get without giving Diane away. “I want to do Something Big.”

“Something Big?” His eyebrows lifted, as if her answer surprised him. “Something Big,” he repeated thoughtfully, and his expression softened. “You believe looking after children is that important?”

Melissa nodded. She did, actually, although in all honesty she hadn’t imagined herself doing it until about twelve hours ago. Gregory seemed impressed, though, so she just smiled and tried to look like a competent, caring mother substitute.

“I’ll have to think it over and get back to you.” He got up, indicating the interview was over, and held out his hand. “Thank you for coming by.”

“Thank you.” She wasn’t expecting the pulse of warmth as their palms clasped, or the jolt when his eyes met hers. “I—I’ll need that résumé back, if you don’t mind.”

Gregory scribbled down her phone number on his legal pad and handed her the sheets. “Your good copy, is it?”

Ignoring his comment, Melissa crouched to say goodbye to Alice Ann and drew the girl into a hug. “If I don’t see you again, take care. You’re just perfect. Don’t let anyone turn you into a mouse, or anything else you’re not.”

Alice Ann nodded, eyes wide. “I’ll watch out for that mean old witch. I’ll turn her into a bat!”

Melissa rose to her feet and started down the steps of the veranda. “I’ll look forward to hearing from you.”

Yeah, right, she thought as she walked back to her car. When pigs fly! What a disaster. She gave a last smile and a wave to Gregory and Alice Ann, then put her car in gear and set off. He was probably calling Mrs. Blundstone right now. Soon Alice Ann would be reading at a fourth-grade level. Melissa would wind up selling time-shares in the Simpson Desert over the phone to little old ladies. Diane and her kids would be found and sent back to her abusive husband. And Gregory would believe he’d done the right thing and wonder why he was still lonely.

Melissa drew up with a start. Gregory, lonely? Where had that come from? He was a successful lawyer, a handsome man. He most likely had heaps of friends, not to mention women hanging around. But there was something in his eyes that said he was looking for more. Maybe like her, he didn’t even know what that something was. Or who. Okay, now she was getting fanciful.

Her mobile phone rang just as she was about to turn out of his driveway onto Balderdash Road. “Hello?”

“The job is yours.” Gregory’s voice sounded deeper over the phone.

Melissa slammed on the brakes and the car slewed sideways in the gravel. “You mean it?”

“Yes,” he replied. “Can you move in tomorrow?”

“I’ll move in tonight!”

“You are keen.” Gregory chuckled. “Okay, then. Come for dinner at six.” He paused. “I did mention, didn’t I, that I would also expect you to help out with the pigs occasionally?”

“The pigs?” she repeated slowly.

“Yes,” Gregory said. “Is that a problem?”

Melissa swallowed. “No, not at all. I love pigs.”


CHAPTER FIVE

“YOUR ROOM IS HERE, across the hall from Alice Ann’s. Mine is at the end of the corridor, past the bathroom.” Gregory stepped back, allowing Melissa to go in first.

“This is lovely.” She dropped her purse and overnight bag on the floor and slowly looked around.

White muslin curtains billowed at the open window next to the bed with its burgundy silk coverlet. Alice Ann had picked some dandelions from the yard and wild irises from the pond and placed them in a jar on the dresser.

Gregory followed her in, carrying one suitcase and an open box of books. The room seemed smaller with her in it. The faint scent of her perfume… Her bright hair, her soft laugh, her ultra femininity…it all made him wonder if he’d made a huge mistake. He wouldn’t have worried about Mrs. Blundstone keeping him awake at night. But Alice Ann had begged him to hire Melissa, and knowing he was soon going to upset his daughter about Benny, he’d given in.

He set the suitcase on the bed and lowered the box to the floor. A couple of volumes slid off the top. Picking them up, he glanced at the titles. “Emergency Medicine, Handbook of Alternative Medicine, First Aid for Dummies. Are you studying for a degree?”

“No, just personal interest.” Melissa took the books from him and slotted them into the bookshelf next to the bed.

“Right. Well, I’ll let you settle in,” he said as he backed out of the room. “Dinner will be ready in a few minutes.”

Back in the kitchen, Gregory shifted stacks of papers and coloring books to the already overflowing sideboard. “Lie down, Maxie,” he growled as the dog followed him back and forth across the room. Maxie retired to her place beneath an old wooden armchair. “Alice Ann, pick up your toys before someone trips on them.”

“Okay, Daddy.” She scrambled to her feet and started to gather up her plastic barn and farm animals. “Did Melissa like the flowers?”

“I loved them,” Melissa said from the doorway. “Thank you.”

Gregory glanced up. “I apologize for the mess.”

“That’s what I’m here for.” She cleared a used coffee cup off the table and took it to the sink. “Where do you keep your plates?”

“I’ll show you.” Alice Ann dropped her toys back on the floor and ran to a cupboard. “In here. The spoons and stuff are in this drawer. And the glasses are up there.”

“Can you help me set the table?” Melissa asked, smiling. The girl nodded vigorously and took handfuls of cutlery from the drawer.

“I’m a very plain cook, I’m afraid. This is left over from yesterday.” Gregory drained spaghetti into a bowl and set the casserole dish of Bolognese sauce on the table. A double handful of mixed lettuce leaves constituted a salad. “I’m looking forward to your gourmet cooking.”

Melissa touched her dangly earring. “Yes, well, I like to keep it simple, too.” She cocked her head toward Alice Ann, who had taken her place at the table. “Kids don’t generally like fancy food.”

“Alice Ann is an exception to that rule,” Gregory said, gesturing for Melissa to be seated. “She eats anything.”

The child grinned. “I’m a little piggy. Oink, oink.”

“You’re skinny for a piggy,” Melissa said as she started to scoop noodles into the girl’s bowl. “Say when.”

“When!” Alice Ann shouted after two big forkfuls.

“She eats anything, just not much of it.” Gregory picked a lettuce leaf out of the salad bowl and dropped it on her plate.

Alice Ann ignored it and started twirling spaghetti around her fork. “How old are you, Melissa? Daddy was wondering.”

“I was not.” All he’d said was that Melissa looked awfully young. “It’s not polite to ask,” he told his daughter, adding to Melissa, “I beg your pardon.”

“I don’t mind,” she said. “I’m twenty-six.”

“Daddy’s eleventy-seven,” Alice Ann informed her.

“He’s aged well.” Melissa handed him the bowl of pasta. “You don’t look a day over eleventy-five.”

“Thirty-seven,” he corrected. “Alice Ann, tonight before bedtime we’ll review your numbers up to one hundred.”

Melissa frowned at him with a little shake of her head that set her feathery earrings fluttering. Was she saying he was too hard on his daughter? He tried to do the right thing, but there was nothing like attempting to understand a small girl to make a grown man feel inadequate. “Alice Ann’s starting school next year,” he explained. “I want her to be as prepared as possible.”

“So I guess you read to her a lot,” Melissa said, taking a bite of salad.

“Of course.” He shifted uncomfortably, recalling his recent battle of wills over Alice Ann’s choice of books.

“He won’t read Charlotte’s Web,” Alice Ann complained. “It was from Grandma Finch and he took it away.”

“You’re not quite old enough for that book,” Gregory said. Saving a pig was all very well in a children’s book, but this was real life, and Gregory didn’t want Alice Ann getting any crazy ideas. He turned to Melissa to change the subject. “How do you know Constance?”





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