Mctavish And Twins

скачать книгу бесплатно


‘Erin?’

‘Yes, sir?’

‘If you don’t shut up and come and eat some scones, your place will be at the bottom of the duck pond. I believe that was the remedy for harping women in times when the lower order knew their place.’

‘The ducking stool or nothing.’ She grinned. ‘But it will have been worth it. To harp or not to harp...’ She was feeling light-headed and silly and it showed. It was a glorious day. She was finally where she wanted to be— in Australia again after all these years. The horrid Caroline was nowhere to be seen and all seemed right with her world.

‘You’re nuts, Erin O’Connell,’ Mike McTavish said slowly, staring down at her with the beginnings of laughter in his eyes.

‘You’ve only just noticed that?’ Erin smiled up at him. ‘Well, Mr McTavish...sir...’ She bobbed a mock curtsey. ‘You ain’t seen nothin’ yet!’

What followed was a very happy half-hour. Mike and Erin’s conversation degenerated into silliness and the twins joined in with relish.

‘Now, best manners, please, you lot,’ Mike ordered as he and Erin entered the kitchen. ‘You know how Australia and England and Canada all have the same Queen?’

‘Yes?’ Both twins gazed at their uncle, bemused.

‘Well, this lady’s from America.’ Mike grinned. ‘And the Americans were so rude about paying for some tea a long time ago that the Queen didn’t want them any more. So...it’s up to us to teach her manners—show her we’re brought up properly in the Antipodes.’

The twins glanced nervously from Erin to Mike—and slowly relaxed. They didn’t understand what Mike was talking about but they could sense laughter in their big uncle and they were all too ready to join in.

The twins and the unknown Mrs Brown had excelled themselves. The scones were light, fluffy and delicious. There was a vast bowl of farm cream to go with them and strawberry jam tasting of strawberries straight from the garden.

‘Mrs Brown made strawberry jam last Monday,’ Laura told Erin importantly, helping herself to a fourth scone. ‘We helped.’

‘I hope you stayed clean all the time,’ Erin smiled. Then she caught herself. It was okay to mock Mike McTavish—but not the children. To her delight, though, Laura giggled.

‘We didn’t,’ Laura admitted. ‘Mrs Brown said we looked like two Indian warriors in war paint after we’d finished. She tossed us into the bath, clothes and all.’

Erin smiled back and then, because she couldn’t help herself, she added another question.

‘Doesn’t Caroline come on Mondays either?’

Silence.

Matthew slowly shook his head and both children stared down at their plates.

Then, as one, the twins pushed back their plates and rose.

‘We’ll meet you outside,’ Laura said. ‘We’ll go and pat Paddy.’

The message was plain: if you intend to speak about Caroline, we’re off.

The door slammed behind them and Erin slowly turned back to Mike.

‘I’m sorry...’

His laughter had faded as well.

‘I’ll thank you not to do that,’ he said savagely. ‘Criticizing Caroline in front of the children...’

‘I hardly criticized her,’ Erin muttered. ‘I only asked if she came on Mondays.’

‘You know exactly what you did.’

‘Yes.’ Erin stood up, gathering plates and carrying them across to the sink. This man wasn’t her social better, even though he had more money. He wasn’t even twenty years old any more, to her gawky fourteen years. She owed him nothing—and it was time he heard the truth. She turned back to face him, leaning against the bench with the table between them. ‘I know what I did. I inferred the twins don’t have fun when Caroline’s around. But it’s true, isn’t it?’

‘No.’

‘No?’ Erin shrugged. ‘They seem scared stiff of her if you ask me.’

‘Only because she disciplines them,’ Mike said slowly. ‘With me...with me they run wild. Laura especially. Matt just goes silent—sometimes for days on end—and I worry about him. I can’t seem to get through to the kid.’

He spread his hands. ‘Do you have any idea how difficult it is, Miss O’Connell, to be thrown in at the deep end as parent to two grief stricken six-year-olds? You’ve no idea, have you? I had to fly up to Sydney and collect them from their babysitter the night their parents were killed. I was at a bucks’ party when the call came. To be catapulted like that...’

He sighed and spread his hands. ‘Look, I’m doing my best, but I’m not a parent. Caroline takes on that role and I’m grateful to her. She makes sure they’re respectable and well disciplined and...and safe, and I’d be mad if I sat here and let you criticize her. We’re both doing what we can in a very difficult situation, Miss O’Connell, and your interference isn’t helping one bit.’

‘So I should have left them on the road yesterday? I should have driven right on?’

‘That’s not what I mean and you know it.’

‘It is what you mean in a sense,’ Erin said slowly. ‘You’re saying I should butt out of what’s not my business, and if I’d done that then I would have driven on yesterday instead of stopping.’ She took a deep breath. ‘It’s not in my nature to drive on through,’ she said softly. ‘I just can’t.’

‘It might not be in your nature but it’s in your blood,’ Mike said harshly. ‘Your family left your grandfather twenty years ago, and as far as I know there’s only been the one visit since.’

Erin’s chin tilted. ‘That’s right.’ She met his look. ‘I was sent out from America at fourteen.’

‘I do vaguely remember you,’ he admitted. ‘All steel braces and freckles.’ He smiled. ‘The freckles haven’t changed.’ Then he looked at her a little more searchingly. ‘If you’re the kid I remember—I thought of you as a loner. An unhappy, solitary sort of kid. Are you an only child?’

‘Yes.’

‘And your parents sent you out by yourself.’ He grimaced. ‘It can’t have been much fun.’

‘You’re judging my father, aren’t you?’ Erin said softly. ‘You have him all summed up. A man who leaves his father and goes halfway round the world without a backward glance. A man who sends his teenage daughter overseas on her own as a sop to his conscience—once and never again.’

‘Look, there may be reasons I don’t know...’

‘There are,’ Erin said dully. ‘If you’d asked my grandfather, then maybe you would have found out.’

‘Your grandfather doesn’t talk of his family,’ Mike told her. ‘We’ve been neighbours for a long time—but when I ask about his family he clams up. He’s been so darned lonely, though. He’s been just plain miserable for the past couple of years as his health has failed, and there’s pain comes into his eyes whenever anyone asks about his family. I can sense how much he misses family, and maybe that’s why I’m sounding so judgemental.’

‘You’ve no right...’

‘Well, if you don’t want me judging, then maybe you should answer some questions.’ Mike’s dark eyes didn’t leave Erin’s face. ‘Why no contact for so long and then, a month or so after Jack broaches the idea of selling the farm, why the sudden family interest after all these years?’

Erin stared. The dark eyes were challenging hers—and she could see clearly what was behind the question.

Somehow she made herself speak. It took more strength than she knew she possessed.

‘I guess...I guess I see what you’re thinking,’ Erin managed finally, her voice trembling. She walked forward and placed her hands on the table, her eyes huge in her white face. ‘You think I’ve been sent over to get what I can for us. Is that what you think?’

‘It’s the obvious conclusion,’ Mike agreed calmly. ‘The local land agent told me Jack was thinking of selling because he knew I’d be interested in buying if the farm is sold. Then suddenly we have family interest. A lonely old man suddenly has family after twenty long years.’

‘A lonely old man suddenly has me,’ Erin whispered.

Erin could hardly think. Her mind was a kaleidoscope of impressions—and the overriding feeling was pain. This man was judging people she loved. Judging her father...

All these years the locals here had been thinking her father was a heartless, uncaring emigrant.

She wondered vaguely if her father knew what was thought of him in the place he still regarded as home. How it would hurt if he guessed! Her father loved this place more than she did.

‘Erin...’ Mike rose from his chair. The colour had bleached completely from Erin’s face and he could see the pain washing through her eyes. He’d be a fool if he couldn’t see it—and if there was one thing Mike McTavish wasn’t it was a fool.

He moved swiftly behind her and his hands dropped to her shoulders. ‘Erin, don’t look like that. You can’t help what your father is.’

The touch of his hands burned through the light fabric of Erin’s shirt. She wanted comfort so much. She wanted this man’s arms around her so much it was a physical ache. Yet here he was hurting her—hurting those she loved. What she felt in her heart was so far from common sense that Erin felt herself almost torn in two. She pulled away in real distress.

‘Don’t you touch me,’ she whispered. ‘Don’t...’

‘I only...’

‘You only thought you’d comfort me,’ she managed, and then caught herself. Comfort her? Mike McTavish had done that once before and ten years of heartache had ensued. Well, she wasn’t taking any comfort from him now.

‘I don’t need your comfort,’ she said bleakly. ‘I don’t need anything you have on offer, Mike McTavish, and my father sure as heck doesn’t need your good opinion. My father was brought up next door to you—he’s told me he and your father were good friends—and yet after we arrived in Pittsburgh all my father’s letters to yours went unanswered. He wondered why. And now I know. It was vicious, idle gossip and judgement. Judging things you know nothing about. Well, you and all the people in this nosy, judgemental district can take a long hike for all I care. There’s only my grandfather that matters.’

And, to her horror, she felt tears welling up and threatening to fall.

Erin blinked—and blinked again. And then she sniffed.

She was darned if she was going to cry before this man. No way!

She didn’t cry. She never cried!

She wiped the threatening tears angrily away with one hand while fending off Mike McTavish’s comfort with the other. A hand went down to her jeans pocket, searching for a tissue—and found nothing.

‘Don’t touch me,’ she whispered again.

‘I won’t.’

Mike had seen the searching hand, though. Without comment, he handed her a large, man’s handkerchief and then stood back watching—as one would watch a strange, unknown creature one didn’t know how the heck to deal with.

Erin accepted the handkerchief with real gratitude. She blew her nose hard and glared—and, to her disgust, found Mike McTavish was smiling.

‘A good blow always makes you feel better.’ Then, as Erin looked helplessly down at the handkerchief, his grin deepened.

‘You seem to accuse me of being landed gentry,’ he smiled. ‘Well, here’s a gesture for you. Keep the handkerchief. I can afford it!’

‘Th—thanks,’ she whispered, her anger disappearing and an awful grimness seeping in. She’d exposed herself with this man—and she didn’t like it one bit.

As always, when feeling her worst, Erin sought for laughter. She looked down at the damp handkerchief.

‘Are you sure you want me to keep it?’ she managed. ‘There’s three perfectly good quarters left.’

‘I’m absolutely sure.’ Mike’s smile was one of pure admiration.

Erin’s watery smile faded. If only he didn’t make her feel so...so... So like being fourteen years old all over again!

‘I’m...I’m going home now,’ she whispered. ‘Tell the twins...tell the twins they’re welcome to visit me. If they cut across the paddocks it’s a safe walk to my grandpa’s farm—but I won’t be coming back here.’

Mike nodded, as if her statement had been expected. ‘I’ll tell them.’

‘You will let them come?’ Erin found herself suddenly anxious. ‘You will let them visit?’

‘The twins can visit whoever they like,’ Mike said calmly. ‘And I’m sure they’d love to see you again.’

Implying that Mike McTavish wouldn’t, Erin thought bleakly. Erin could hear that decision clearly in his voice.

‘Fine.’ Erin practised her glare one last time, even if her glare was still watery. Mike’s dark eyes were watching her calmly now, unsmiling. ‘I’ll go...’

She turned to the door but the door was flung open before she reached it.

‘Mike...Erin, come quick...’ It was Laura, white faced with terror, bursting through the door and almost falling with the force of her entry. ‘Erin, Matthew’s on Paddy and Paddy took off down the paddock so fast I can’t catch him. And he’s taking Matthew away...’

CHAPTER FOUR

PADDY and Matthew were well away.

Mike and Erin burst through the back door as one—to find the yard empty. Paddy had been hitched to the trough. There was no Paddy and no Matthew.

‘Where...?’ Mike gazed round, fast. There was no sign of boy or horse.

‘Paddy wanted something to eat,’ Laura faltered. ‘At least, we thought he did. So me and Matt took him over into the wheat paddock—just to give him a taste...’

‘The wheat paddock...’ Mike was already starting to run, his big hand gripping Laura’s. Erin ran too, unsure of where they were going but darned if she was being left behind. ‘Laura, you did say Matt was on the horse?’ Mike demanded. They were halfway across the yard, Laura being half carried by the speed of Mike’s run.

‘Matt wanted to get up on Paddy’s back,’ Laura sobbed, breathless from running. ‘So we held Paddy near the gate and Matt climbed on. And Matt said “Giddyup” and Paddy did. They rode all the way up the paddock and Paddy was going really, really fast and Matt yelled “stop” but Paddy didn’t...’

Neither did Mike. He ditched Laura’s hand and his long legs left both Erin and Laura behind. By the time Erin reached the gate behind the house, Mike was already through, shading his eyes and trying desperately to see across the sea of wheat.