Beauty and the Wolf / Their Miracle Twins (23 page)

She’d almost chickened out, waiting at the departure lounge. She had a passport, a fully cleared credit card, packed suitcases, full womb, and all the reason in the world to want to run.

But she’d made a few promises to Gwen in the tiny hours of the morning she’d been due at the hospital for the transfer, and honouring the one about giving those babies the best life she could—a better life than she’d had—meant something to her. Enough to see her striding, stiff-backed, down the gangway and onto the flight to hell.

‘This is the high country,’ Flynn said. ‘The tablelands of the Blue Mountains. We’re eleven hundred metres above the heat. I hope you brought some warmer clothes.’

She let her eyes drift around them.

‘Not what you imagined …?’

She frowned, surprised by the miracle of conversation with Mr Strong-Silent-Type. ‘Its name sounded a lot more … magical.’

Oberon.
She’d had visions of Shakespeare and forests filled with Faeries. But while this little mountain town might not have horned folk and showering petals, it certainly wasn’t without charm. Very Australian—particularly since it was the only part of Australia outside of Sydney’s airport that she’d actually seen in anything other than a passing blur—and rather pretty. ‘You live in town?’

‘Nope. About ten kilometres back towards Jenolan. A place called Bunyip’s Reach.’

‘Why have we stopped here?’

‘I figured you might like a break. And we could use the time to get our stories straight.’

She looked at him. ‘We’ve had nothing but time for the past twenty-four hours.’

‘You didn’t seem—’ He searched for the right word.

Approachable?
No, probably not. She’d had the airline music pounding in her ears and her eyes glued to her e-reader pretty much the whole way. As though she was seated next to a total stranger. Actually, she might have tried to strike up a conversation with a total stranger …

‘—ready to talk,’ he finished.

Talk? With the man who hadn’t managed more than fifty words to her since forcing her hand in the hospital? Bel took a deep breath of cold mountain air. The cleanest air she’d ever tasted. Then she tucked her arms more tightly around herself. ‘What do you mean, get our stories straight?’

He glanced behind him. ‘Let’s get a hot drink. You’re freezing. You seriously are going to have to dress warmer up here.’

The too familiar slice of his judgement stung. Was this how it would go? Him alternating between hostility and blatant condescension?

‘I’ve been dressing myself successfully since I was four, Flynn. I’m sure I’ll manage.’ Now that she knew how unexpectedly like home the highlands were.

They walked a couple of blocks to a coffee house in awkward silence.

He spoke to several people on the way into the café, lots of nodding and curious glances and exchanges of
‘mate’
. He was popular with the locals; that didn’t bode particularly well for the quality of everyone else in the town, if an arrogant jerk was on the favoured-sons list.

It was only when they were seated with a herbal tea for Bel and a coffee for Flynn that he started speaking to her again, his eyes hard and determined. ‘So, I wanted to set some ground rules.’

She lifted her eyebrows. ‘Really?’
You and what army?

‘There are things that my family doesn’t need to know just yet. But obviously they’ll have questions …’

‘You’re coming home with a bride-to-be, pregnant with their other son’s baby. I should think so.’

His lips tightened and his eyes flicked evasively out to the beautiful bush view.

‘They do know about the embryos?’ she asked. Because he surely would have told her something this important before now if they didn’t.
Surely.

His lips didn’t loosen. Her mouth dropped open. ‘They don’t know?’

‘No one knows. I’m the only one who’s seen the letter.’

‘Are you serious?’ Her squeal drew curious eyes from the other patrons. ‘How are you planning on explaining—’ she waved her hands between them ‘—
this
, then?’

‘We’ll tell them I’m the father.’

She needed a second to gather her wits, which were scattered like straws around her. ‘Really? And—what?—you met me on the outward flight to London, we got busy in the inflight loos and then you popped a ring on my finger? Fast work, Bradley.’

‘No.’ He expelled a frustrated breath slowly. ‘They won’t buy that for a minute. They know me.’

Finally! The voice of reason …

‘I’m thinking we met in Melbourne last year,’ he fabricated, ‘where you were finishing your gap year …’

‘I’ve never been to Melbourne. And I never had a gap year.’ Not that he’d asked.

‘And then we bumped into each other in London. Went out a few times, for old times’ sake. One thing led to another.’

She frowned. ‘And then you proposed?’

He shrugged. ‘What can I say? I’m a passionate guy.’

‘Uh-huh. And you never mentioned me to your family, this wonderful girl you met in Melbourne that drove you to such acts of passion? They won’t find that strange?’

‘Actually, I did meet a girl in Melbourne last year. Just not you. But they won’t know that.’

That shut her up. How stupid was she not to have considered he might have a girlfriend tucked away somewhere? A girlfriend who would be crushed when her man came home with a pregnant bride in tow. God, could this get any more complicated?

‘Oh, no … Will she—’

He waved away the concern. ‘She’s history.’

Literally? Or only now, since he unexpectedly had other
plans? But if he wasn’t the type to join the Mile High Club, then hopefully he wasn’t the type to so carelessly dispose of a human being. Despite what he’d threatened back in the hospital.

She took a head-clearing breath. ‘So Melbourne, then. Last year. Party? Football? Pub?’

‘I’m thinking somewhere more suitable for a woman of your … breeding.’ Somehow he made the word more of an insult. ‘Flemington. The Melbourne Cup. The races seems more credible, don’t you think?’ His lip almost curled.

Bel frowned. ‘I have no idea. I’ve never been.’

His eyes narrowed. ‘You’ve never been to a horse race?’

‘Barbaric sport.’

‘But you’re a Chelsea girl.’

She shrugged. ‘So?’

‘Polo?’

A polo match, she
had
attended. But only one. ‘Polo’s vaguely more humane. But rather dull.’

‘So I guess fox-hunting is out of the question? Steeplechase?’

She gave him
the look
. ‘Okay this isn’t getting us anywhere. How about we just rule out the animal-based sports altogether? Won’t your family find it difficult to believe that both their sons should happen to meet a Rochester? In a country this size?’

He studied her closely. ‘Which is why we won’t be using your real name. What’s your middle name?’

‘Ah, no. Not going to happen.’

He leaned forward. Scenting a kill. ‘Why not?’

‘Because I don’t like it. Can’t I just make something up?’

‘No. What is it?’

‘None of your business.’ Of course she could just lie and he wouldn’t be any the wiser but there was something about his serious grey regard. The way he just … stared. He lifted one eyebrow.

‘Oh, fine. It’s Belaqua.’

He stared at her. ‘Belinda Belaqua …’

‘You see my concern?’

He frowned. ‘Sounds like a porn star.’

She was too stunned that he’d cracked a joke to be seriously offended. ‘Thank you so much.’

‘You’ll have to pick something else.’

She searched around in her subconscious. ‘Depp?’

‘Be serious.’

‘Pitt.’

‘Belinda …’

She wasn’t prepared for the kick-in-the-ribs that her name on his lips would bring. And she couldn’t blame Drew for this one—he’d only ever called her Bel. How did someone as disagreeable as Flynn manage to make seven letters sound so … gorgeous? She smiled overly brightly. ‘Clooney, then.’

His eyes narrowed. ‘Belinda Clooney. Okay, that sounds vaguely possible. But only because my parents live in a Country’n’Western bubble and barely go to the movies. And we’ll spell it with a “u”.’

There it went again … Her heart, tumbling like a pair of knickers in the dryer just because of the way he said her first name. She fought it valiantly with her weapon of choice—flippancy. ‘You have a bit of the George about you, actually.’

‘Uh huh.’

‘Mostly in the forehead. Your smile. Though you have your brother’s eyes …’ The moment the words were out she regretted them. They caused such a deep sorrow in his expression, she yearned for the flat, dead look to return.

He cleared his throat. ‘If you want to get specific, we both have my nan’s eyes.’

The sorrow was replaced with patent affection. It made him seem more human. Just marginally. ‘Will I meet her? Your nan?’

‘You’ll do more than meet her. You’ll be living with her for the first while, at least until we can get hitched.’

Bel froze. ‘You’re offloading me on your grandmother?’ After dragging her all this way?

The look he gave her then was strange. Sad and baffled at the same time. ‘Drew really didn’t tell you anything about us, huh?’

‘Maybe Gwen didn’t want him to. We’ll never know.’ She pointlessly stirred her coffee. Just for something to occupy her suddenly weak fingers.

‘I live with Nan and Pop and my parents on Bunyip’s Reach.’

Bel frowned. ‘What? Like a commune?’

His laugh then was immediate and, for once, entirely sarcasm free. ‘It’s not a commune. It’s called a family. And the Reach is one hundred and seventy acres.’

Her frown continued. ‘You all live together?’ In her family that was inconceivable. She’d left home at seventeen. Moved into the tiny flat her grandmother had left her as part of an inheritance.

‘Well, no. I have my own place in a private croft. It’s only small but it was built for Drew and I to share when we got older. You’ll be staying with my family.’

‘But they’re complete strangers!’ Except that they were also going to be the grandparents and great-grandparents of the babies she carried … Her hand slipped to her belly.

‘So am I.’

That was true enough. Yet somehow he seemed so … not. Was it because he reminded her of Drew? ‘Better the devil you know and all that. Why can’t I just move straight in with you?’

He turned both hands upwards as though it was the most evident thing in the world. ‘Because we’re not married.’

She blinked at him. ‘They’re going to find out soon enough that I’m pregnant. I think they’ll know we’ve been sleeping together.’

Fictionally …
Fictionally
.

His eyes grew cold again. ‘Assuming you are pregnant. We
won’t marry until we have absolute confirmation of that. What would be the point?’

Right. Because, if she wasn’t, then warp technology wouldn’t get her out of here quick enough. On that they were both agreed.

She shifted forwards in her seat. ‘So, let me just clarify … I lie about my name. I lie about how and when I met you. I lie about how I got up the duff. I lie about marrying you. And then, later, when the court case is resolved, I just confess all to your family and trust they’ll have a good laugh?’

His lips tightened again. ‘It’s not like I thought this through. If you recall, my hand was rather forced by circumstance.’

She gaped. ‘
You
were forced? I didn’t see anyone holding the lives of two small babies to ransom to get
you
to comply. Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t march into your family’s house and tell them exactly who I am and exactly why I’ve come?’

He leaned in closer. ‘Because my family hates yours. You wouldn’t be welcome.’

That took her aback. ‘What?’

‘My family does not have the fondest feelings for the Rochesters.’

‘But they’ve never met us. They’ve only met—’ Instantly, her hackles rose.
They didn’t like Gwen
. Her beautiful, courageous sister. The desire to defend was overwhelming. ‘So that’s where you get your judgemental bent from—your parents?’

‘Judgemental?’ he snorted. ‘This coming from the woman who looked at me like I was filthier than the mud on my boots back in the hospital.’

She stumbled again. She could hardly tell him that the earth on his boots was the only reason she hadn’t given him
both
barrels of what-for. She fought the conversation back on track.

‘So they won’t like me, big deal. Although lying is just one more thing for them to hate me for later.’ His glance was steady and a tiny little lightbulb came on somewhere far back in her
mind. She narrowed her eyes. ‘But you don’t care about that, do you?’

He pushed his lower lip out and paused. Was he debating whether to tell her the truth or not? ‘Not particularly, no. You’ll be back in England, so what does it matter?’

‘Then why on earth do you imagine I’ll play along with this ridiculous charade?’

‘Because you lost your sister the way my mother lost her favourite son. And because finding out that son had children that she could never hold would be like ripping her heart out all over again.’

Bel had truly loved her brother-in-law—despite the secrets Drew had apparently been keeping. He’d been everything she could have wished for her sister, and the sort of man she secretly wished for herself. It was hard not to sympathise with a mother so deeply wounded by the loss of such a man.

‘So if the court ruled in your favour, what would you do?’ she asked.

‘
When
the court rules in my favour I’ll tell my parents the truth.’

‘And
when
it doesn’t?’

‘Then I’ll tell them nothing. You and I will just break up and you’ll head back to England.’

There was no way she knew him well enough to even begin asking this kind of question but she asked him anyway. ‘What makes you think losing your children would hurt them less than losing Drew’s?’

His eyes held steady, though they grew guarded and he considered her for an age before finally answering. ‘Past experience.’ But then they flicked away and when they returned they’d gone back to carefully neutral. ‘You can send photos every birthday. Which is more than we got from Drew.’