‘And then I can clear off?’

‘That’s what you want to do-isn’t it?’

‘Of course.’

‘But I did decide I’d invite you up onto my veranda,’ she told him, as if granting some huge concession. ‘Just once. So you can see what you’ve given me.’

‘So you can point out that you don’t need me after two weeks?’

‘That, too. I keep getting the feeling that you see me as some sort of charity. Well, I was,’ she admitted with sudden candour. ‘You’ve saved me. I just wish I could save you back.’

‘Save me?’

‘You don’t have a very satisfactory life,’ she told him.

Good grief.

Marcus stared down at her in the moonlight. She was hugging her knees, looking at him in consideration. As if he was some sort of interesting bug…

The sensation was indescribable. He’d be less uncomfortable if the story of his life was splashed across the front page of the New Yorker.

‘Will you cut it out?’ he demanded.

‘Cut what out?’

‘Butting into what’s none of your business.’

‘If you don’t want me to,’ she said, obliging. She ducked down under her covers and disappeared up to her nose again. ‘Good night.’

He’d been dismissed. He should turn around and head down those rickety steps again. But…

But. It was a simple word and he couldn’t get over it. But. But what? He didn’t have a clue.

‘Aren’t you suffering from jet lag?’ he asked.

‘Jet lag? After the aeroplane bed I had? You have to be kidding.’ Her voice was muffled by bedclothes, almost indistinct.

‘I mean time zones,’ he said, a little bit desperately. ‘I feel as if it’s morning.’

‘I do, too, a bit,’ she agreed, still muffled. ‘But the cows will be awake at five o’clock. I have to get up then, so I need to sleep.’

‘You want me to go away.’

She put the sheet down a smidgeon and stared up at him, only her eyes above the sheet.

‘You’re lonely!’

‘No, I…’

‘Hattie’s house is creepy,’ she told him. ‘All that pink. I wouldn’t wonder if you’re lonely.’

‘And you’re not?’

‘I do miss the boys,’ she admitted. ‘Harry sleeps inside now. He has a computer and he reckons the cables get wet out here. So he ended up in the bedroom. But I liked it when they slept out here.’ She motioned to the other end of the veranda. ‘It’s a great place to sleep. If you like you could try it.’

‘What…share your veranda?’

‘It’s a very long veranda.’

‘Do you always ask strange men…’

‘You’re not a strange man. You’re my husband.’

Yes. Yes, he was. The thought was incredible.

‘And if I tell the dogs to attack they’ll do just that,’ she added.

Pop went his fantasy bubble. He choked. He turned to stare down at the mutts who were draped decoratively over the cushions. ‘I don’t believe it.’

‘Believe it,’ she said seriously. ‘Daniel did that for me the last time Charles came home.’

‘Did what?’

‘He trained the dogs. They’re great with cattle and they’re highly intelligent. Charles… Well, Charles gave me a hard time one night and Daniel decided if I was to stay here alone I needed protection. So now there’s just one word I have to say and they turn into a pack of snarling savages. Want to see?’

‘No!’

He was getting accustomed to the moonlight now and he could see her grin.

He wasn’t getting accustomed to the situation, though. This woman had stood beside him two days ago and promised to be his wife. She’d stood for press photographers, her hand in his, his lovely bride. She’d slept beside him in the plane, she’d tucked her hand in his as they’d gone through customs, she’d let him take control, manage things, do what he was good at.

What had he expected here?

Not this. An invitation to share her veranda with a pack of killer dogs between them.

But…

He stared out at the night. It was…perfect.

He could sleep here. He could sleep with Peta. Or he could go back to the pink puffy concoction that was Hattie’s bed, or to the horror-fantasy-poster-covered room that had been the creation of an adolescent Charles before he left home.

Three options.

‘It’s a very generous offer,’ Peta said cheerfully, following his line of thought. ‘I don’t make it to anyone. But now, if you don’t mind, I’m going to sleep.’

She turned over on to her side; the covers came right up, and her body language said that whatever he did was up to him. She’d made her offer and the rest was his business.


He should go home.

Home? Who was he kidding? Home was Hattie’s pink palace.

It wasn’t so different to his place in Manhattan, he thought. Both seemed suddenly indescribably bleak. He stared down at Peta for a long moment and then slowly walked the length of the veranda.

The bed was made up. It was three times the size of hers. The boys had slept in it, Peta had said. All the boys?

Maybe.

And maybe it wasn’t such a bad childhood. He stared down at the mound of bedclothes and thought of four little boys tumbled among the pillows. With Peta sleeping close by.

Not so bad. Not so bad at all.

He hesitated, but not for long. He turned and stared at the mound of bedclothes that was Peta.

No choice.

He slipped off his outer clothes and slid under the bedclothes, feeling like a kid on a camping trip. And here was another surprise. There were no burst bedsprings. No thread-bare blankets. The bed enfolded him. The smells and the sounds enfolded him and one of the dogs came up and put his nose above the side of the bed, nosing a hopeful enquiry.

‘Let me see. I’m guessing you must be Tip. You’re one of the killer pack?’

A wag of the tail and a low woof. A quiver of the backside. Hopefulness personified.

‘If you have fleas you’re out of here.’

‘He has no such thing!’ It was an indignant squeak from the other end of the veranda.

‘I thought you were asleep?’ Then Marcus gasped as the big dog accepted the flea enquiry as a welcome and wriggled right in. Right across his chest.

‘Tip likes it there,’ Peta said in satisfaction. ‘I’ve never slept with a husband. Doesn’t it feel odd?’

Odd? That was the understatement of the century, Marcus thought. He lay and stared outward at the stars while Peta settled again and the big dog started to snore gently beside him.

He’d never sleep. How could he sleep?

He’d never sleep.

He slept.

CHAPTER NINE

MARCUS BENSON hadn’t slept for more than four hours straight since he was fourteen years old. He hadn’t needed to. Hadn’t wanted to. If he slept then he dreamed, and now it was easier to wake and log on to the world’s financial markets and exercise his brain by making money rather than letting his thoughts dwell on the demons in his past.

Until this night.

He slept. The sun crept over the horizon. Peta rose and took herself off to the dairy. The dogs bounded off after her, jubilant at having their mistress back in her proper place, and still Marcus slept.

He woke as Harry tore round the side of the house, hauling a school bag over his shoulder while he manoeuvred a piece of toast with half his mouth.

He glanced sideways at the veranda and stopped short.

‘You!’

It was hard to say who was more surprised-Harry or Marcus. They stared at each other. Marcus stared down at his watch. Then stared back at Harry.

‘You slept with Peta.’ It wasn’t an accusation. There was no aversion in Harry’s tone-just surprise.

‘I slept on this end of the veranda,’ Marcus said hurriedly. ‘Peta slept on the other.’

‘Yeah, she’d never share with us,’ Harry said, taking another mouthful of toast. ‘We told her it was warmer in bed with us but she preferred the dogs. Guess she preferred the dogs to you, too, huh?’

‘I guess so,’ Marcus said weakly. ‘Um… Are you off to school?’

‘Yeah. Yikes.’ Harry looked round to where a faint cloud of dust in the distance heralded an arriving school bus. ‘Gotta go. What’s for tea tonight? Something good? Ace. See ya.’ And he was off in a tangle of toast, school bag and undone shoelaces.

Marcus watched him run, saw him catch the bus by the skin of his teeth, grinned, and then turned back to the enigma of his watch.

His grin faded. How on earth had he slept so long?

No matter. He had.

From the dairy there was the gentle hum of the milking machine and the occasional moo of an indignant cow. Peta was up? Peta was working?

Before him?

The thought was almost unbelievable. So, too, was the thought that she was working and he was sleeping.

He was supposed to be rescuing her, he thought. Great Prince Charming he was. Marry the girl and send her back to her cinders.

But helping her wasn’t as simple as it had seemed. Two minutes later he walked in the dairy door-only to have the nearest cow start back in alarm and Peta call, ‘Stop right there.’

He stopped.

This was a different Peta yet, he thought. She was a woman at work. In faded jeans, a checked overshirt with rolled up sleeves, her hair caught back with a couple of serviceable combs and her knee-high rubber boots liberally coated with mud, she looked every inch at home in her environment.

As opposed to Marcus. The cows stared at him as if he’d landed from outer space and that was exactly how he felt.

‘I’ve come to help,’ he told her.

‘Thanks, but you’ll scare the cows.’

‘Why will I scare the cows?’

‘They’re not used to seeing New York billionaires in their dairy.’

‘You didn’t have to tell them I was a billionaire,’ he said cautiously and she smiled.

‘They might have guessed by the shoes. Soft suede shoes don’t cut it here.’

‘I guess they don’t.’ He looked down at his footwear. ‘Um… Would your brothers have any rain boots I can borrow?’