have stood that—but a visitor. Katherine Saunders’s kooky friend. Tolerated by Kath’s big brother, but barely. It had been easy to keep her own emotional distance that way, too.
Today, she was here at Max’s request. To rescue him. It tipped the scales. Yeah. That must be why these feelings had risen to the surface after she had buried them so well. With a determined sniff she focused her thoughts on the here and now. It was much more interesting, anyway.
‘Hello, Max.’ She pitched her voice louder. ‘I knocked but nobody heard me, so I just came in.’
Even from behind, Max was a commanding presence. Tall. Dark-haired. Broad-shouldered, slim about the hips and with those long, long legs. When he faced her she knew that grey eyes would look directly into hers from beneath winged brows.
Her mouth watered suddenly, and she blinked. This was Max, for heaven’s sake. The long-time antagonist of her life. The man who drove her crazy every time they met. So what was with the isn’t he gorgeous? reaction? That had never happened to her before!
Enough of this, she decided. She primed her lungs and gave it her best bellow across five paddocks effort over the screeching. ‘I see the Saunders men are doing their utmost to show the Blue Mountains a good time. Just fancy, two four-year-old boys making more combined racket than an entire Sydney daycare group put together.’
That did the trick. The boys paused momentarily in their noise. And Max whipped around so fast she barely saw the movement. She reacted, though. Her heart paused for a long moment, then restarted at double time.
A sense of panic washed through her and she told herself to wake up. This wasn’t attraction. It couldn’t be. Her system was just girding up for battle. Yes, that was much more acceptable. ‘Hello, Max. I’m here. I’ll bet you’re pleased I’ve arrived.’
Max didn’t look at all happy to see her, even though he should have been. Instead he stiffened. ‘Phoebe.’
The single word, spoken in gravelly accents, managed to convey his deep displeasure at the sight of her.
What was with him, anyway? Didn’t he remember this had been his idea? It was not as if she would have dropped everything and cadged a lift out of Sydney to get to him if he hadn’t made his need crystal clear. Through Katherine, admittedly, but even so…
She supposed she couldn’t expect Max to go too crazy admitting he needed help. It was, after all, the first time he had ever done so, to her knowledge.
And, from her viewpoint, this was about helping the boys, not about Max. When Katherine had phoned Phoebe from America she hadn’t only mentioned that Max wasn’t coping very well. She had hinted that Max seemed solely focused on getting the boys tidied into some small pocket of his life as quickly as possible.
That worried Phoebe.
Meanwhile, Max was staring at her with that unwelcoming expression still stamped all over him.
‘Yes, it’s me,’ she said. ‘In the flesh.’ She offered him a view of the point of her chin. ‘Given the circumstances, I thought I might have received a warmer welcome.’
She was here to turn this chaos around for him, after all. It may have been pure fantasy to believe he would fall down in abject relief at the sight of her, but she had at least expected civility, not an immediate return to their old hostility.
In other words, you got your hopes up and got them whacked back down to size quick smart. Surely you know better than that? Life didn’t dish out lollipops, Phoebe had found. You made your own joy, or you did without. She chose to make her own, and usually she did quite well at it.
‘You’ve caught me at a bad moment.’ Max ran a hand through dark, already ruffled hair.
Familiar, slightly wavy hair that had always given her itchy fingers, not that it meant anything. She had an appreciation of fine things, that was all. She really couldn’t be held accountable for the fact that she found Max aesthetically pleasing. Nor for the fact that her artistic interpretation of Max seemed to be creating more of a problem than usual this visit.
The din was back in full force again. She pitched her voice to rise above it. ‘I’d guess you’ve had a few of those today. Bad moments, that is.’ She gestured to a congealed glob of green stuff which was stuck to his shirt and resisted the urge to smirk. Max never got in a mess, in any sense of the word. ‘Rough lunch?’
‘There was a slight problem with the meal plans, yes.’ His eyes narrowed to warning slits and his strong jaw clamped into an uncompromising line.
She had goaded him slightly, she admitted, but just the tiniest bit. In the past he had taken far more from her without letting it get to him. He really must be feeling his difficulties.
‘If you’ve come to visit Katherine,’ he said, ‘I’m afraid you’ve picked the wrong time. She’s not here.’
‘Well, yes, I know that.’ She pursed her lower lip over her upper. A habit she had when she needed to work out a particular complexity. Why was he pretending that he hadn’t expected her?
He waved a hand at the mêlée, which was continuing behind him. ‘As you can see, I have my hands full. I don’t have time to entertain.’
‘What do you mean, entertain?’ It was Phoebe’s turn to frown. After all, Katherine’s request, or rather Max’s request made through his sister, had brought Phoebe here. She knew as well as anyone that Katherine was snowbound in Montana and not likely to appear back in Oz any time soon. Yet Max acted as though he hadn’t known Phoebe was coming. A sinking feeling started up inside her and quickly took hold.
‘Katherine didn’t tell you it was me.’ It was the only explanation. At the continued incomprehension on Max’s face, Phoebe knew she was right. No wonder Katherine had been so cagey on the phone. ‘The nanny. Katherine didn’t tell you that I was to be the nanny for your boys.’
His face darkened beneath his tan. ‘You schemed with Katherine to play nanny to my sons?’
Of all the arrogant nerve! She blinked several times while righteous anger roared through her. ‘I answered a plea for help,’ she articulated very slowly, as if that would help her to calm down at all. ‘Quite a different thing, Max.’
Schemed, indeed! For two pins Phoebe would leave him to his pride, and his problems. Except his boys deserved better than that. They deserved to have proper care, and that field of care just happened to be her speciality.
Any fool could see they were feeling scared and uneasy. Phoebe could fix that and, now that she thought about it, she wasn’t going to let the small matter of a short-sighted, incompetent new parent get in her way. Even if that parent was Max Saunders. ‘It was your plea, as it happens.’
‘In the first place,’ Max growled, ‘I don’t plead. I certainly never gave out any such plea for help from you.’
She had already figured that out. Phoebe sucked her lungs full of air and got ready to blast him. ‘That’s not the impression Katherine gave me. She said—’
‘Never mind what she said. I can guess.’ His face darkened even further. ‘I’ll kill her.’
‘Whatever.’ Phoebe wasn’t thirteen years old any more. Nor fifteen, nor sixteen, nor even eighteen and, yes, they
