‘And I should be doing this for you.’ Erin took her chocolate and grimaced in guilt.

‘Nick made it,’ Shanni said placidly. ‘He’s still on sick leave, and Doc Emily says he might as well make himself useful. Light housework is fine, she told him, and you should have seen his face when she said it. Court appearances are out, but ironing’s in.’

Erin chuckled, but her heart wasn’t in it.

‘If only I could be sure Charlotte would look after them.’

‘Hey, she’s not a monster.’

‘She’s close!’

‘Matt loves her. She must have something going for her.’

‘Matt thinks she won’t disturb his life. That’s why he’s marrying her. She’s just like his mother.’

‘Hmm.’ Shanni plonked herself down on Erin’s bed and the bed sagged alarmingly. ‘Boy, I’m huge,’ she said placidly. ‘Not disturbing his life, hey? That’s not much of a basis for a marriage.’

‘It’s what he wants.’

‘Is it, I wonder?’ Shanni asked. ‘Or is it just what he thinks he wants?’ She wiggled more comfortably onto the bed and let her mug of chocolate rest on her very pregnant bulge. The baby inside her moved and her hot chocolate splashed onto her robe. She ignored it, as if such events were commonplace.

‘Nick used to think he liked being a bachelor,’ she added contentedly. ‘And here he is and he couldn’t be happier. Sometimes…well, sometimes men don’t know what they want. Sometimes it’s up to us women to show them.’

‘I sure don’t know how.’

‘Hmm,’ Shanni said again, and the look she cast at her friend was very thoughtful indeed.


It had to be tonight. Damnation! Just when he wanted to spend the night with the twins, he was forced to leave them with Charlotte.

But he had no choice. One of Matt’s prize cows was down with her first calf, and she was in all sorts of trouble. At eight Matt rang the vet, and at ten they were both knee deep in trouble.

From dinner time on, Matt didn’t see the twins. There couldn’t be a problem with them though, he told himself, as he worked on into the night. Charlotte had decreed that dinner was to be followed by the twins’ bedtime. That should be fine. So when finally his calf was successfully born, he headed wearily for the house with only a little guilt weighing him down.

But he couldn’t help thinking it would have been better if he’d been able to say goodnight to the twins himself.

And, at first glance, things were just fine.

Charlotte was sitting placidly in the sitting room waiting for him. This was the vision he’d had when he’d asked her to marry him, he thought as he opened the door. A man should come home to this, rather than what he was accustomed to-solitude and take-away pizza.

Charlotte was looking serene and lovely, and the room was looking beautiful to match. Even though the night hardly warranted it, the wind was getting up and she’d lit the fire. The vases were filled with carefully arranged flowers. She’d waxed the furniture, and all his mother’s carefully acquired porcelain pieces had been polished.

The room looked just as it had when his mother had been alive, and he paused on the threshold for a moment to savour it.

Order and calm, and two great kids in bed, sleeping soundly.

This was what he’d always known was right, and, as he crossed the room to give Charlotte a swift kiss of appreciation, he thought finally that he’d done the right thing.

But apparently not completely. Charlotte’s nose was wrinkling in distaste.

‘Phew. Matthew, you smell.’

‘Hey, I’ve washed and taken off my boots,’ he told her, offended. This was good, clean cattle smell after all. ‘I thought I’d come and find you before I took a shower.’

‘Then think again,’ she told him calmly. ‘Cattle smells in the living room are unacceptable.’

‘But we’ve succeeded in delivering a great little calf.’ He was determined to tell her his good news. ‘Mum and calf are both well.’

‘Matt…’

‘Aren’t you interested?’

‘After you’ve showered.’

‘Fine.’

Only it wasn’t fine. He knew instinctively that if Erin was here she’d be excited for him. Sure, the flowers wouldn’t be gorgeously arranged-maybe there’d be a bunch of daisies in a jam jar-and the porcelain wouldn’t be polished but…

Hell! This was what he wanted-wasn’t it?

‘I’ll just go and check the twins,’ he said and her brow snapped down as if he’d just mentioned something else that was distasteful.

‘There’s no need. They’re asleep.’

‘You didn’t have any trouble with them?’

‘Only a stupid argument about them sleeping in the same bed. They’re too old to do that. It seems they both wanted to sleep with that disgusting stuffed toy they insist on sharing. I solved the problem by taking it away from them.’

Silence. Then…

‘You took away Tigger?’ he said cautiously.

‘Is that what they call it?’ she said, and her voice was indifferent. ‘It’s revolting. I locked it in the pantry.’

He guessed he could only be thankful she hadn’t burned it! ‘But they’re asleep anyway?’

‘Of course.’

Only, of course, they weren’t. When he checked, they weren’t even in their beds.


‘Erin?’

It was midnight. The phone had echoed through Shanni and Nick’s home, shrill with urgency, and Nick had answered it on the third ring. He’d listened in appalled silence, and then come to find Erin. Now, standing in the hall in her bare feet, she heard Matt’s fear echoing down the line.

‘What is it, Matt?’

‘Erin, the twins have gone.’

‘Gone.’ She took a deep breath, fighting down panic as she forced herself to think it through. Erin hadn’t survived this long as a House Mother by giving way to hysterics at every scare. ‘You mean they’ve run away.’

‘It looks like it.’

‘I…okay, Matt.’ She took a deep breath. ‘There’s no problem. You told them I was just around the bay, remember? They’ll be walking on the beach somewhere. I’ll come.’

‘No.’

‘N… No?’ She really took on board his fear then, and it was vivid and dreadful. It reached her heart, as his statement that the twins had disappeared had not. ‘Why not?’

‘I’ve checked. Like you, I thought of the beach first, so I took the farm bike down there straight away. But I went by the river first. Shanni and Nick’s house looks miles by beach, but it looks much closer across the water. The twins will have seen that. Erin, the rowing boat’s gone, and the tide’s running out at full pace. If they took the boat, they’ll now be well out to sea.


‘They promised they wouldn’t use the boat,’ Matt muttered. ‘They promised.’

Quarter of an hour later, Erin and Matt were in the police launch, headed out into the bay-along with half the fishing population of Bay Beach. Every boat that wasn’t already out fishing was called into action. Rob McDonald was taking no chances.

‘I want them found, and I want them found fast. If they realise they’re drifting away from land, there’s no telling what they’ll do.’

‘But they promised,’ Matt said again into the night, and there was quiet desperation behind his words. ‘Maybe we’re wrong to be looking out to sea. Maybe they haven’t used the boat. It could have broken away itself. Erin, I trusted them not to break their word.’

‘I think they’re in the boat-and I don’t think they’ve broken their vow. Or-not on their terms.’ Erin’s voice was winter-bleak.

‘Erin, I heard them promise. I trust them.’

‘And you know what I said when they promised?’ she whispered into the night. The boat was slipping out of the harbour, a flotilla of fishing boats behind them. ‘I said: “While you’re living with me you obey my rules.” And then I left them.’

He closed his eyes. ‘Erin…’

‘It’s not your fault,’ she said bleakly. ‘It’s mine. I let Tom talk me into this, and I might have known it would end in disaster.’

Dear God…

The sea mist had slipped in over the water. The night was almost eerie in its stillness. They stood alone in the bow, each feeling sick with what they might or might not find before them.

Erin didn’t know where Charlotte was. She didn’t ask. Once she’d heard about Tigger’s removal, it was maybe just as well she didn’t know.

Dear God… It was a prayer, said over and over again into the night.

Instinctively, Matt’s arm came out and held Erin hard around her waist. For a moment she resisted, but her need for comfort was too great. She let herself be pulled into him, and they stayed that way as the rolling swells of the open sea hit the boat and Rob turned the launch out of the harbour and along the bay toward the tidal outpouring from the river.

Matt and Erin didn’t move. They were a man and woman as one. With one prayer…


It was the longest night Erin had ever known.

The flotilla formed a pack. Rob and the most senior of the fishermen worked out a pattern of grid lines based on tides, currents and wind, and each boat was given a course to follow. It was a myriad of criss-crossing lines, with all hands of every boat glued to the guy ropes, and all eyes trying desperately to pierce the fog.

Somewhere in this vast sea were two little boys in a rickety old rowing boat that was never intended to be strong enough to be buffeted by waves like this.

The sea wasn’t at its wildest, but it was rough enough to frighten a grown man in an open rowing boat-much less children.

‘They don’t even have Tigger,’ Erin whispered brokenly at one point, and Matt’s arm tightened still further. He was trying to instil comfort with every ounce of his being, but at the same time he needed comfort himself.

If only… If only…

He’d been a crazy, blind fool to think this could ever work, he thought. Leaving the twins to Charlotte…

He’d been left with his mother, and he still remembered the coldness. If his father hadn’t been there-if he’d had an Erin to run to…