A Special Kind of Family. Marion Lennox
Читать онлайн книгу.
onto his third. But who was nit-picking? He surely wasn’t. Neither were the boys. As per Erin’s instructions, they’d helped rub butter into the flour and helped her cut scones from the dough. They’d painted on glaze to make crosses, using sugar and egg white. They’d stood with their noses practically pressed against the glass oven door as the scones…buns!…rose in truly spectacular fashion. And now they were lining up for their third as well.
As was Erin. She was eating like she hadn’t eaten for a week. He thought back to the retching of the night before. She was running on empty. He should have given her something…
‘I wouldn’t have been able to eat even if you’d offered,’ she said, and his gaze jerked to meets hers.
‘How did you know I was going to say—?’
‘I could see it,’ she said, wiping a daub of melted butter from her chin. ‘You had that look my intern gets when he forgets to take some really minor part of a patient history. Like how many legs my patient has.’
‘Like…’
‘I came on duty one morning a few weeks back,’ she continued, placidly reaching for another scone. ‘According to my intern’s notes, a patient who’d come in during the night was suffering from tingling in his legs. That was all it said. The nurses had set a cradle from his hips down so I couldn’t see. I chatted to the patient for a couple of minutes, then asked if he could wriggle his toes.’
‘And?’ She had him fascinated.
‘And he’d lost both legs in a motorbike accident twenty years ago,’ she said, glowering, obviously remembering a Very Embarrassing Moment. ‘He’d come in because he was getting weird tingling in his stumps and a bit of left-sided numbness. It transpired he’d had too much to drink, gone to sleep on a hard floor, then woken and panicked. I figured it out, but not before the students who were following me on my rounds did the world’s biggest snigger.’
‘So the look I had on my face just then…’
‘Yep. It was like my intern looked when I came out of the ward and asked why a small matter like lack of legs wasn’t in the patient notes. Last night all you did was not offer me a three-course meal when I was still queasy. So you can stop beating yourself up and pass me the jam.’
‘Yes, ma’am,’ he said faintly. ‘These are great s…buns.’
‘They are, aren’t they?’ she said smugly. ‘I taught myself from the Australian Country women’s Association Cookbook, circa 1978.’
‘Your mother didn’t teach you?’
‘No,’ she said shortly, and a shadow crossed her face.
‘Um…your mother…’ he started.
‘What about my mother?’
‘Will she have hot cross buns waiting for your arrival?’
‘Probably. Designer buns, though,’ she said. ‘She’ll have ordered them from the most exclusive and expensive baker in Melbourne. She’ll have unsalted butter imported from Denmark. If she wasn’t staying at Charles’s parents’ place she’d be serving them on china that cost more than my weekly salary per piece, but Marjory will be making up for that. Marjory has exquisite porcelain all her own.’
‘Marjory?’
‘Charles’s mother,’ she said, and bit into her scone with a savagery that made him blink.
‘Um…’
‘Don’t ask,’ she said. ‘I love them but they drive me nuts. In a while I’ll phone and ask them to come and get me.’ She looked down at her sarong and winced. ‘I’m not sure what they’ll think of my fashion sense. What do you think, boys?’
The little boys had been staring at her like she had two heads. They were totally entranced.
‘It’s very…nice,’ Martin tried.
‘My mum wore a blanket sometimes,’ Nathan offered.
‘Your mum…’
‘I’ve washed your clothes,’ Dom said, thinking maybe now was a good time to deflect the conversation. ‘I put them in the washer last night—they’re in the drier now. I’d expect you’ll have decent clothes in about half an hour.’
‘I think I ripped them.’
‘You may have,’ he agreed. ‘Did you have any more? In the car?’
‘Of course.’
‘I let the police know about the crash last night. If the local cop doesn’t arrive with your gear, we’ll go and get it.’
‘Did you really crash your car?’ Martin asked.
‘I did.’ Then, seeing the boys’ desire for gory detail, she relented. ‘Marilyn, the dog, was in the middle of the road. I swerved to avoid hitting her. My car went off the road and rolled all the way down to the river.
‘Rolled…’ Nathan breathed.
‘Rolled,’ she agreed. ‘Over and over. It was lucky I was wearing a seat belt or I’d have been squashed.’
‘You must have been scared,’ Martin said.
‘I was.’ She nodded, looking satisfactorily ghoulish. ‘I could have been deader than a duck.’ Her dark eyes twinkled. ‘If it was a dead duck, that is.’
But Martin wasn’t to be deflected. He was off in his own horror story. ‘You might have rolled into the river and drowned,’ he said, and frowned. ‘I think my dad drowned. My aunty said he drowned himself in booze.’
‘I’m so sorry,’ Erin said, focusing directly on the little boy before her. Her playacting disappeared. Her expression was suddenly adult to adult, and Dom thought, This woman is skilled. Empathic. Kind. Her whole body language said she cared.
‘I can’t even remember him,’ Martin said. ‘I can remember Mum but she’s gone, too.’
‘Does that make you really sad?’ Erin asked. Cautious.
‘No,’ cos Dom’s looking after me,’ Martin said, cheering up. ‘And Tansy, but Tansy’s not here. But you’re here, and now Marilyn is, too.’
‘The dog’s here only till this lady goes home,’ Dom said warningly and Erin thought…
‘No,’ Dom said.
She looked startled. ‘What?’
‘It’s two who can play at face-reading,’ he retorted. ‘I’m sorry you crashed your car. I’m also very sorry for Marilyn but I can’t keep her.’
‘You can’t…’ She paused. ‘No. I… Of course you can’t.’
‘I’m looking after two boys and the medical needs of this entire community,’ he said. ‘Normally I have a housekeeper…’
‘No wife?’ she said before she could stop herself.
‘No wife,’ he agreed, and smiled at her evident confusion. ‘I’m sorry. Last night you assumed there was, and because you were scared it seemed more sensible to let you believe it. We normally have a live-in housekeeper—Tansy. She’s great, isn’t she, boys? But her sister had a baby last week so Tansy’s flown to Queensland to help out. Which means when I get an urgent callout the boys have to come with me. I can hardly take Marilyn and the pups as well. I can only take on so much.’
‘Of course you can,’ she said, hurriedly. ‘I…I’ll think of something.’
‘Of course you will,’ he said, and had to bite back the urge to say, Stay here. Of course we can keep your dog. We can keep you, too, if you want.
Which was ridiculous. There was no earthly reason why he should look at this woman and feel his heart hammer in his chest. She was