her cry. If I can cope with Mike without tears, I can cope with this, she told herself, staring out at the kids on the gate while her stomach plummeted as far as it could go and then found a few depths she hadn’t known existed.
The kids were puzzled that she wasn’t turning in. The oldest kid—a pre-adolescent girl with short, copper-red hair that looked like it had been hacked with hedge clippers—had jumped off the gate in preparation for opening it.
Surely she’d got it wrong.
She wound down the window—just a tad—admitting nothing.
‘Is this Two Creek Farm?’ she called.
‘Yes,’ the oldest boy called. ‘Are you Shanni?’
‘Yes.’ Her voice was so faint it was barely a squeak.
‘Finally.’ The girl with the bad haircut hauled the gate wide while the three kids still sitting on the top rail swayed and clung. ‘Dad says we can’t go inside until you get here. What are you doing, parking over there?’
‘Your dad’s expecting me?’
‘You rang. Didn’t you?’
‘Um…Yes.’
The girl looked right, looked left, looked right again—had there ever been another car up here?—and crossed the road to talk. ‘Dad said, “Thank God, Ruby’s come up trumps. We’ve got a babysitter.”’
‘I see.’ She swallowed and looked again at the kids on the gate. ‘I guess…your dad’s name is Pierce?’
‘He’s Pierce MacLachlan.’ The girl poked her hand in the open car window. She was all arms and legs and a mouthful of braces. ‘I’m Wendy MacLachlan. I’m eleven.’
‘I see,’ Shanni said faintly, while her hand was firmly shaken.
‘The others are Bryce and Donald and Abby,’ Wendy told her. ‘Bryce is nine. Donald’s seven. Abby’s four. There’s Bessy as well, but she’s only eight months old so she doesn’t talk yet, and she’s away with Dad. She’s actually Elizabeth, but she’s too cute to be an Elizabeth.’
Bessy. The baby. One true thing.
‘Where’s your dad?’
‘He had to take Bessy to the doctor. We think she’s got chicken pox. She hasn’t got any spots yet, but she’s grizzling so much she must be sick. Dad didn’t get any sleep last night. When you rang he looked like he might cry.’
‘Oh,’ Shanni said. Even more faintly. She looked over to where the other three children were swinging on the opened gate. ‘Have you all had chicken pox?’
‘Oh yes,’ Wendy said blithely. ‘I had it first and then Donald and Abby and Bryce got it all together. Dad said he was going round the twist, but I helped.’
‘I’m sure you did.’
‘We didn’t want Bessy to catch it, but she did anyway. Dad’s buggered.’ She blinked. ‘Whoops, I’m not supposed to say that. Dad says. But when you rang and said you were coming Dad said, “Thank God, I’m so buggered I’ll pay half my kingdom for decent help.” And then he looked at all of us and said he’d pay all his kingdom.’
A lesser woman would turn around right now, Shanni thought. A lesser woman would say whoops, sorry, there’s been a dreadful mistake, and go find a nice homeless shelter rather than face this.
‘We shouldn’t be here by ourselves,’ Wendy admitted, her voice faltering just a little. ‘But the station wagon’s got a flat tyre, and when Dad pulled out the spare it was flat, too. Mum must have had a flat tyre and not told Dad…She swallowed. ‘Before…. before she died. Anyway, Dad’s car’s only a two-seater, and he really needed to take Bessy to the doctor and we won’t all fit. So I said we’d be fine, only he worries about Abby cos she keeps doing stuff like getting her toe stuck in the sink. So I promised we’d sit on the gate and not move until you came. Abby promised faithfully not to fall off.’
‘Ruby,’ Shanni said to herself under her breath. Dear, dotty Aunty Ruby…
How could she cope with this? What she wanted was breathing space. Time to get her head clear, paint a little, take time to think about where she wanted to go from here. A bit of wandering on a farm, taking in the sights, maybe with a cute little baby in a pram. Winning the gratitude of a boy she’d once felt sorry for.
And solitude, solitude and more solitude.
There was a shriek from the other side of the road. The boys had swung the gate hard and, despite her promise, Abby had fallen backwards. The four-year-old was hanging by the knees, her blonde pigtails brushing the dirt. Her hands were dragging on the ground, trying to find purchase, while the gate swung wildly to and fro.
‘Help,’ she yelled. ‘Wendy, heeeelp.’
Wendy sighed. She looked to the right, looked to the left, looked to the right again and stomped back across the road. The kid’s boots look too tight, Shanni thought. Her feet looked like they hurt.
Wendy yanked Abby backwards into her skinny arms, staggering under her weight. The gate sung wildly again with its load of two little boys.
‘Are you coming in?’ Wendy called across the road, still staggering. Abby was far too heavy for her.
Shanni met her look head on.
It was a strange look for a child. She doesn’t think I’m coming in, Shanni thought. It was a look of a child who’d needed to grow up before her time. Despite herself, her heart lurched.
Oh, help. Stop it, she told herself. Stop it.
You’re such a soft touch, her friends told her, and she knew they were right. Before she’d left London she’d had to find homes for the three cats she’d taken in against her better judgement, plus twenty cacti her elderly neighbour had persuaded her to water when she’d gone away for the weekend—only the weekend had turned out to be a decision to join her son in the Riviera for ever.
A lesser woman would have ditched the cacti. She hated cacti.
She’d boxed them up and taken them halfway across London to a batty cactus lover she’d found on the internet.
Even Mike…He hadn’t had anywhere to stay, and he’d been such a promising artist. Had she mistaken sympathy for love?
So don’t you dare feel sorry for this family, she told herself. Leave. Now.
But Wendy was watching her, her small face closed. She wasn’t expecting help. And then she stopped looking at Shanni—decision made.
‘It doesn’t matter what Dad said,’ she told her little sister. ‘I’ll take you inside.’ She hugged her little sister in a gesture that was pure protection, turning her back on Shanni. ‘You’ve scraped your fingers. We’ll find a plaster.’
Oh, heck.
‘What did you say your names were?’ Shanni called.
‘Bryce,’ the oldest
