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“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.
