Stepping out of the Shadows by Robyn Donald

Author:Robyn Donald
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9781408973936
Publisher: HarlequinUKLtd
Published: 2012-03-14T23:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SEVEN

BACK at Manuwai Marisa parked the car carefully in the garage and held out the keys.

“Keep them,” Rafe told her negligently. “Use this car until you’ve got your own back.”

“I … Thank you.” It was on the tip of her tongue to ask when he’d be returning from his trip, but she restrained herself in time. It would have sounded far too personal—as though she had some right to know.

He said to Keir, “Look after your mum while I’m away, young man. She’s had a tough day.”

Keir managed the difficult task of registering both pride and dismay. “Yes, but when are you coming home?” he asked.

“Probably after six more sleeps.”

Watching Keir struggle with disappointment, Marisa winced. It was one thing to wonder if her son needed more male influence in his life; that he was fast fixing on Rafe as that influence was something else entirely. She didn’t want Keir to become attached to him, only to find he had no place in Rafe’s life.

She fought back a tide of weariness and put Keir to bed, where he dropped off immediately.

When she found that Nadine had ironed their smoke-stained clothes, weak tears sprang to her eyes as she stammered thanks.

“You’re worn out and no wonder,” Nadine said briskly. “I’ll make you a cup of tea.”

Marisa straightened. “I’d love that, but I need a shower more, and then shall we sit down and work out a system? I know our being here is making extra work for you, but I’ll make sure it’s as little as possible.”

The housekeeper smiled. “I enjoy having people around and it’s lovely to have a child in the house again. Makes it a home, somehow.”

Which warmed Marisa, but once she’d drunk the cup of tea she rang around the various estate agents.

And got the same answer—nothing to rent.

Still she kept trying, spurred on every morning by Keir’s eager query, “Is Mr Peveril coming home today?” Rafe had departed in the chopper, which he did fly to and from the local airport, to Keir’s complete entrancement, but every morning when either Marisa or Nadine said, “No, not today,” his face fell.

Marisa understood his feelings. Lovely as Manuwai homestead was, the place seemed empty without its driving force, the man who owned it.

She missed Rafe like an ache for something she’d never attain, a hunger that could never be satisfied.

Yet it was too easy to settle, to relax, to let the big house embrace them. She and Nadine worked out their system and enjoyed each other’s company, she met several of the farm workers, and Keir demanded to be allowed to travel in the school bus with his new best friend, the son of one couple.

“No, darling, we can’t do that,” she said at first.

Thrusting out his lower lip, he produced something too close to a whine. “Why? Manu said his mum said it was all right and she’d take me with him when she takes him and the other kids on the bus down to the gate.

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