The Heir’s Chosen Bride

CHAPTER TWELVE

‘SO YOU see, you need to come home.’

They weren’t going anywhere right now. The chief of airport security had raised his eyebrows, shrugged and shown Hamish, Susie and Rose into his office, closing the door on three trouble-makers.

‘Take her baggage off the plane,’ he growled to his staff as he left them to it. ‘American Airlines is already boarding. She’s officially missed the plane and if she objects I’ll have them booked for nuisance. Or something.’

But there was no way she’d object. The security head was smiling as he closed the office door behind them-and he just happened to nudge a wastepaper bin full of crumpled paper in Rose’s direction. He had kids himself and he knew what was needed here was a bit of distraction so the adults of the party could sort themselves out.

Rose obliged. She immediately started emptying the trash, paper by paper, perusing the security memos of the day with all seriousness, then ripping them into tatters, more thoroughly than any shredder.

Hamish wasn’t reading anything. He was holding every part of Susie he could reach.

‘But I still don’t understand,’ she whispered when she could finally find room to speak. She’d just been very thoroughly kissed. She was snuggled against him and he smelt of the sea. He tasted of the sea. Her Hamish. ‘Just because you found Taffy…’

‘I cried when I found Taffy,’ he told her. ‘It felt right. And then the thought of sending Taffy to you in America felt wrong.’

‘So you’re saying…?’

‘I want to marry you. I want to marry you more than anything else in the world.’ Then he hesitated. ‘No. That needs improvement. I already asked you to marry me and you very rightly threw it back in my face. But it’s different this time. It’s more than just the love thing. Susie, I want us to be a family more than anything else in the world.

‘Which means?’

‘Reorganising,’ he said bluntly. ‘Not taking you back to my life. Not being part of your life. Making a new life for all of us where all the pieces fit in a new whole. Where all of us are a part of it.’

‘Just because of Taffy,’ she whispered, awed.

‘Just because of you,’ he told her. ‘When I found Taffy, I thought how fantastic it was that I’d found her, and then I thought that I’d found our dog but I’d lost the most important person in the world. Here I was, crying about a pup when my life was gone. And I suddenly realised why you cried-and why you stopped crying. You must love me. You must. Please, Susie…’

‘Of course I love you,’ she said, and tried to smile. ‘How could I not love those knees?’

‘A woman with taste.’

She silenced him with a kiss, and the kiss lasted deeply and satisfactorily through the shredding of at least ten more security memos.

It was a kiss where all questions were answered. Where there was no need for words.

It was a kiss where two people found their home.

‘The first time I asked you to marry me I was dumb,’ Hamish whispered at last, when he could finally find the space to get the words out. She was cradled on his knees and he was holding her as if he’d never let her go. ‘But, Susie, I swear this is different.’

‘I know it’s different,’ she said scornfully. ‘You think I’m dumb?’

‘I’d never think you’re dumb.’

‘You don’t mind that I’ve been married before?’

He answered that with another kiss. ‘You don’t mind that I almost married Marcia?’

‘No, but this is different, too,’ she said, trying to be serious. ‘Marcia and you…you weren’t really engaged. But I did love Rory. I never thought I could love again, but his love, this love…it’s just…’

‘This is a love for who you are now,’ he said, hugging her tight while the world steadied on its axis. ‘Are you worried that I’ll be jealous of Rory? That I’ll make you put away his photographs? Hell, Susie, Rory’s part of my family and I need all the family I can get.’

‘No, but-’

‘Rory is part of who you are,’ he told her, refusing to be interrupted. ‘He loved you and he cared for you and how can I ever be anything but grateful that he found you out in the wide world and brought you into the Douglas clan?’

‘As Angus brought Deirdre,’ she whispered. ‘And all of us…somehow we’re all together. She wriggled on his knee, feeling suddenly like bouncing. The shock was wearing off and what was left was a searing blast of joy so great it almost overwhelmed her. ‘Oh, Hamish. Do you think we’ll live happily ever after with Ernst and Eric?’

‘They expect nothing less.’

‘In our castle?’

‘Sure, in our castle. With our pumpkins.’

‘As in all good fairy-tales.’ Her thinking was extending, past the confines of the man she loved to the world outside. ‘Where’s Taffy now?’

‘Out in the trolley racks.’

‘Where?’

‘With Harriet. Come and see.’

And when they finally found Taffy she wasn’t alone. The trolley racks were loaded.

Kirsty and Jake had shown the girls round the airport and had finally emerged to find the postmistress-and dog-in residence. So they’d settled down to wait, too-hoping that Hamish hadn’t talked himself onto Susie’s flight-and when Susie and Hamish and Rose emerged from the airport, it seemed half Dolphin Bay was waiting for them.

‘So you’ve come back to us,’ Jake said, but he wasn’t talking to the woman he’d said farewell to a couple of hours ago. He was talking to Hamish, gripping him on the shoulder as a man gripped a friend he hadn’t seen for years.

‘I guess I have,’ Hamish said, thinking of the impossibility of futures broking from Dolphin Bay, and then shrugging and thinking that impossibilities were made to be overcome.

‘I guess I have.’

E-mail From: Hamish Douglas

To: Jodie Carmody

Subject: Suggestion

Dear Jodie

Susie and I are delighted to hear you and Nick will be at our wedding next month, here in Dolphin Bay. With your pregnancy and your job as church secretary, we thought you’d be deeply embedded in your choir stalls.

But your letter, saying the stalls are finished and you and Nick are after adventure before the arrival of your little one, set us thinking. Maybe you’d like to share our adventure?

As you egged me on to discover, my life has changed. We have a castle, we have a little girl, we have a dog and we have a pumpkin patch. I have my financial training, Susie has her landscape gardening and we’ve been looking for ways of putting them together.

I can do some sharebroking from here, easily, with only the occasional trip to New York. But I need a secretary.

Susie can garden here to her heart’s content, but she needs people to enjoy her garden and eat her vegetables.

The castle is aging and maintenance is screaming to be done. The conservatory alone needs someone to care for it-someone who loves wood.

The castle needs people.

So we’ve decided to open our Castle By The Sea. It will be styled as a Cottage By The Sea, which is a famous holiday camp for children in need. Disadvantaged kids will come to us for the holiday of a lifetime. They’ll come in times of family crisis, they’ll spend two weeks here, on the beach, learning to garden, learning to farm in the experimental farm Susie’s planning. They’ll take time out from whatever crisis is in their lives. We’ve talked to the authorities. We have enthusiasm!

But we need someone with experience with disadvantaged kids. They’ll come with their carers, but we’d plan their experience. And-you see, Jodie, I do pay attention-I remember you telling me that Nick is a social worker. That he worked with disadvantaged kids and he loved it. We wondered whether he’d like to dip his toe in the water again.

Jodie, we’re not offering Nick a full-time job as a social worker or a woodworker, or you a full-time job as a secretary. Susie and I don’t intend to be full-time gardeners or sharebrokers either. But we are offering full-time commitment.

What we’d like is for you guys to have a house in the castle grounds-maybe helping build it could be Nick’s first job-and for you both to be Share-Castlers. Like share farmers, only different. This castle needs two families. We’re inviting you to be our partners.

You don’t need to answer at once. Terms need to be negotiated. There’s no way I’ll let you do this as a temp. What about it, Jodie? Will you share our happy ever after?

Think about it and let us know. With love from:

Hamish and Susie and Rose and Taffy and Ernst and Eric

Text Message from Jodie Carmody to Hamish Douglas

We’re on our way. P.S. Who are Ernst and Eric?