ONCE SHE GOT over the astonishment that ‘his place’ was a mansion right on the shores of Sydney Harbour, and the initial doubts that she could live in a place like this, Fran gave in to the joy, and delight, and excitement, that came with being in love.
They walked hand in hand around the garden, looking out at the magnificent view, east towards the Heads and west towards the Opera House. Steve plucked one of the hibiscus flowers from bushes that ran rampant in the garden, and settled it securely behind her left ear, with a kiss and a murmured, ‘Mine!’
‘It’s huge,’ Fran said of the house, uncertain about his wealth now, uncertain she belonged.
‘Don’t give it a thought,’ he assured her. ‘I had an apartment in town for a long time, but after Liane died, it had too many memories for me so I sold it. And, anyway, now the people I see as my family are growing up, it’s good to have the space for them to come and stay. Liane’s daughter Nikki will be down in the Christmas holidays—she’s doing very junior work experience at the university, wants to be a scientist.’
‘Not that you have to worry about the size of the house or visitors,’ Steve hurried on to explain. ‘I just use the bottom floor. It used to be servants’ quarters but it’s got the great views as well. And I’ve a live-in housekeeper, Molly, who takes care of the upstairs, visitors and all.’
Fran heard the words but could barely take them in, and looking at the house—mansion—she knew it should be filled with children and doubts assailed her once again.
‘Stop it,’ Steve said, picking up on her uncertainties. ‘It’s just a house and if you hate it, then we’ll move.’
He took her in his arms and kissed her, long and hard, and, in kissing him back she released all the emotion that had been building since she’d left the island. So it wasn’t surprising when he whispered, ‘Maybe indoors?’ and led her up onto a patio, and through French doors leading into an area that must have been either extensively renovated or had been very luxurious servants’ quarters.
And again doubts assailed her.
‘I don’t think I’m up to this,’ she whispered. ‘I don’t belong in a place like this.’
Steve eased her away from his body so he could see her face.
‘You mean a home? That’s all this is, Fran, my home. Our family’s home! And if the family grows as we would like it to, then we’ll banish the guests down here and we’ll shift upstairs to fit them all in. Did I tell you Pop and Hallie’s home was an old nunnery? It’s how they managed to house so many waifs and strays. Can’t we do that?’
She read the excitement in his eyes and realised it was echoed deep within her.
‘Yes, I’d like that,’ she said, already thinking of a young girl in her apartment block whose abusive stepfather was making her life miserable. Yes, there’d be laws to protect the children and hoops to be jumped through, and her own baby to consider, but, yes, the idea of being able to build a special family was truly wonderful.
* * *
They flew to Braxton the following Friday, to be met by a tall, charming, blond and blue-eyed man who greeted Steve with a bow.
‘Sir Stephen,’ he said, then enveloped Steve in a warm hug.
‘And this is Francesca? My, Steve, she’s a vast improvement on that woman you thought you were going to marry.’
He took Fran’s hand and kissed her fingers.
‘Welcome to the madness,’ he said with a smile that could probably charm the kookaburras she could hear down from their trees.
‘Just ignore him,’ Steve was saying. ‘If it wasn’t for the fact that he can give us a lift home in his little helicopter, I wouldn’t have told him we were coming.’
‘Liar!’ Marty responded. ‘There’s not one of us that wouldn’t turn up to meet the woman Steve’s going to marry. Well, none of us that were all here at the same time. If everyone turned up we’d have to hire the village hall.’
Grabbing Fran’s bag, he led the way back out of the building and across the tarmac to where a little helicopter stood.
‘Mad about choppers,’ Steve said to Fran. ‘Women, too!’ he added, and Marty laughed.
‘He’s actually a paramedic but now flies the rescue helicopter out of Braxton. It’s doubly useful to have a pilot with advanced paramedic experience.’ Steve paused, turning to Marty. ‘Which reminds me, Marty, a woman I know, Emma Crawford, is coming up to work at Braxton A and E. You’ll probably run into her some time.’
‘You let him know other women?’ Marty teased as they climbed into the little vehicle, Marty insisting Fran sit up front so she could see the view so Steve was crowded with the bags in the back.
‘What’s this Sir Stephen thing?’ she asked Marty, who grinned in response while Steve gave her a stern order to just look at the view.
Which was spectacular! They rose first over a fairly large town, then thick rainforest, until the coast appeared, the dark blue ocean spreading out to the horizon, bordering headlands and curves of sandy bays.
‘It’s beautiful,’ Fran said, and both the men agreed, something in their voices telling her it was also very special.
Then they were swooping low towards a small town set beside a golden arc of sand.
‘Wetherby,’ the two men chorused, and again their voices told her it was special.
She knew why Steve had been here, but Marty?
She could find out later, because now they had banked over a large, grim-looking building and were settling down onto a flat mown paddock behind it.
‘The Nunnery!’ Marty announced, waving his hand towards the building. ‘And the garden between it and us is where we poor foster children slaved endlessly.’
‘In between the beatings,’ Steve put in, and both men laughed.
Clambering out wasn’t quite as easy as getting in and by the time they were all out, with the luggage, a tall, plump woman was bustling towards them.
‘Hallie!’ Steve cried, lifting her in his arms and swinging her around.
‘Put me down, I’ve told you not to do that!’ she said, though obviously no one took any notice for now Marty was swinging her around too.
Back on her feet and looking only slightly flustered, she came towards Fran.
‘My dear, I cannot tell you how happy I am that Stephen has finally met the woman of his dreams.’
And with that she enveloped Fran in a warm hug.
‘Now, we’ll ignore those two idiots, they’ll have a lot to catch up on, just come inside and tell me all about yourself.’
She took Fran’s arm and led her through the burgeoning garden to a much-used back door.
‘We practically live in the kitchen,’ she explained, ‘although these days most of the time it’s only me and Pop. Plenty of the children who lived here come back, but the time Marty and Steve were here was special as there were a number of them about the same age, so they really bonded. You’ll meet Izzy later, she’s coming to dinner with Nikki, who was Liane’s daughter.’
The chatter stopped rather abruptly and Hallie studied Fran for a moment.
‘Has Steve spoken to you of Liane?’
Fran nodded.
‘He told me how troubled she was—broken, I think he said—and how he’d always loved her. Then how she’d got back on drugs and died after her daughter was born.’
‘That daughter is our Nikki! Well, Izzy and Mac’s Nikki really but…we like to think of her as a little bit ours.’
Hallie said the name as if, of all the children who’d passed through her hands, Nikki was special to her.
Fran thought back, then remembered Nikki had been a drug-addicted baby and all the care in rearing her that that would have entailed. Izzy would have needed help and no doubt that help would have come from Hallie.
No wonder Nikki was special!
‘And your own family?’ Hallie asked.
Fran smiled.
‘Just a mother and she’s climbing mountains in South America at the moment, although I did manage to catch her in a place where there was network coverage a few days ago and tell her about Steve.’
‘Climbing mountains in South America?’ Hallie echoed, and Fran’s smile grew wider.
‘That’s how I felt when she first announced her plan. My father left us when I was young and Mum did all she could to make sure I got a good education. She worked two jobs and scrimped and saved so I could go to private school because I was interested in science and she felt I’d get better science teachers in a private school.’
She paused, thinking how much more she understood about her mother now—because she was pregnant?
She didn’t know, but as she talked to Hallie about the woman who had always preached restraint, who had written up weekly timetables for study, meals and chores, and to whom good manners were more important than a degree, she began to understand her mother.
‘I think she put so much into my life, to ensure I had a good job, a safe marriage, a happy family, that she did nothing for herself.’
She paused, wondering how to put her mother into words.
‘She was devastated when my first marriage broke down, but when I talked to her about it, told her it was better to be without a man than to be tied to someone who no longer loved me, she not only understood but she saw her life in a different light. She threw in her job and went travelling, mostly in mountainous areas, insisting you see things more clearly in mountain air.’
Hallie laughed.
‘I don’t do mountains but I often climb up onto the roof here—it’s flat and quite safe—to think about things.’
The men came in, obviously in search of the tea she and Hallie had failed to make.
‘Not to worry,’ Marty said. ‘We boys will do it.’
He turned to Fran.
‘You’ll find he’s been totally domesticated so don’t spoil it by waiting on him hand and foot.’
The man they all called Pop came in as they were demolishing a freshly baked sponge cake.
He greeted Fran warmly, then congratulated her.
‘I’ve had some good lads come through here—even count that bloke Marty among them—but Steve’s special so you be good to him.’
‘Or you’ll go down and bash her up?’ Marty teased.
And although Pop smiled, he nodded towards Fran.
‘I’m quite sure Fran knows what I mean.’
It was her turn to nod. It wasn’t anything she could put into words but deep down she knew the words were true. Steve was special.
* * *
After a riotous dinner during which she’d somehow promised Nikki she could be a bridesmaid at her wedding, assured Izzy that of course she’d take care of Steve and had admitted, under Mac’s acute questioning that, yes, she was pregnant, she and Steve were able to escape upstairs.
‘Not to my old bedroom,’ he explained to her as he led her along a corridor. ‘This is a little flat that Pop made for Izzy when she and Nikki came home from Sydney. They use it for visitors now those two are living with Mac in the old doctor’s house.’
He led her into the tiny living room, closed the door, and put his arms around her.
‘Are you okay?’ he asked, running his fingers through her hair and massaging her shoulders. ‘It’s been a big day and they’re all mad, that lot.’
But Fran heard the love he felt for every one of them.
‘Very okay,’ she told him, nestling closer.
He showed her the main bedroom and bathroom, then helpfully stripped off her clothes, all the while telling her of his love, so in the end they left the shower until later, needing only to be together in the best possible way.
It wasn’t until they were finally in bed that she was able to repeat the question she’d asked earlier.
‘Why Sir Stephen?’
He laughed and pulled her close, so her head rested on his shoulder.
‘I had the two grandparents as you know, one from each side of the family. I imagine, as they lived next door to each other and both of them had housekeepers and gardeners, gossip travelled fairly swiftly between the two houses. So, my grandmother would send me a cricket set at the beginning of summer, and within days my grandfather would send a better one. I think we eventually had enough sets to kit out an entire team.’
‘Did they compete at birthdays and Christmas as well?’ Fran asked, smiling at the thought of the orphan boy receiving all these gifts.
‘Of course—stupendous gifts just kept arriving, so many I could share them around all the kids.’
‘Ah,’ Fran murmured, ‘hence Sir Stephen—the noble knight dispensing gifts!’
Steve chuckled and held her closer, because for some reason, now he was back in the place that had become his true home, she felt more truly his.
* * *
‘Want a run?’ he asked when she opened bleary eyes next morning. ‘Please,’ he added, ‘it’s a special run.’
She was out of bed within minutes, showering and pulling on a T-shirt and shorts then light sneakers and joining him as he led the way out of the still sleeping house.
He pointed out the hospital on the way down towards the beach, and the old colonial house where Izzy and Mac lived with Nikki, then they were on the coastal path.
‘We’ve all run it at different times—in fact, Izzy met Mac on it—but you must admit it’s special.’
He looked at the woman he loved, wanting her to see the beauty of the place he loved.
‘Very special,’ she assured him, and it took all his strength of character not to kiss her there and then, because he knew he’d probably have followed the kiss by dragging her into the sand dunes.
So they ran, slowly, to take in the beauty of the craggy headlands and the curving bays, the wind-bent casuarinas and crashing waves that broke against the cliffs.
They stopped at a fresh water tap, there to serve people walking the coastal path, which stretched for miles along this part of the coast.
They drank freely then stood up, looking out at the little curve of golden sand, the surf rolling in gently, the smell of the ocean drawn deep into their lungs.
Side by side in this beautiful place, arms around each other’s waists, Steve could only think that this must be perfection.
‘I love you, Francesca Hawthorne,’ Steve said, taking her hand and lifting it to his lips to drop a kiss into her palm then close her fingers around it.
‘And I you,’ she said, then gave him a kiss to hold in his palm.
Which, Steve decided as they came back into Wetherby, must have made them both look quite demented, striding along, each with one hand closed firmly on a kiss…