Read Online A Child in Need by Marion Lennox - Free Book Online Page A

behind him and shoved him toward the door. ‘Know when you’re beaten, Your Worship. Out you go and don’t come back before three. That’s an order.’
    He stood on the pavement and couldn’t think of a single thing to say. Shanni was grinning like a Cheshire cat and, beside her, Harry was simply looking. And looking and looking, as if he couldn’t get enough of him.
    â€˜Shanni…’ He was starting to sound inane. He was starting to feel inane!
    â€˜I’ve ordered fish and chips,’ she said, ignoring him. ‘We’re collecting them down at the wharf in five minutes.’
    â€˜What if I don’t want to come?’ He sounded pathetic!
    â€˜Of course you want to come,’ she said kindly. ‘You just don’t think you do. Harry and I are here to change your mind. Shall we take your car—or walk?’
    â€˜I don’t…’
    â€˜Don’t want to drive? Okay.’ She beamed. ‘It’s not far. Harry doesn’t like cars and he’s been practising with the new heel on his cast like anything. And please, take your tie off.’
    â€˜No.’
    â€˜You look silly with it on.’ She twinkled up at him in the sunlight. ‘But it’s the same one you were wearing when we first saw you. Don’t you have a change of clothes?’
    â€˜I just brought the one suit. I’m heading back to Melbourne at the weekend.’ He’d go nuts if he couldn’t.
    â€˜Now that’s a waste of a weekend if ever I heard one,’ she said. ‘Spending it in the city changing designer ties!’
    And she smiled straight at him—and, despite himself, he was forced to smile right back. Unbelievable! And then he found himself walking at her side down toward the harbour. Harry clumped on bravely on her other side, clutching her hand and occasionally venturing a peep at him around the soft folds of her dress.
    â€˜Do you never go to Melbourne?’ Nick asked, trying to think of something to say to stop him sounding even more pathetic. As a lawyer and magistrate he was used to facing the world on his terms. It wasn’t often the world had him as off balance as this.
    â€˜I did my training there,’ she told him. ‘But I hated it. I came back here every weekend to get my fix of sea air and laid-back country lifestyle.’
    â€˜So you admit you need your fix of sea air. Well, I need my fix of city. We’re equally addicted, Miss McDonald.’
    â€˜We are indeed,’ she agreed equably. ‘Equally nuts, but if we’re comparing the sea to the city I know which I’d rather. What do you think, Harry?’ She tugged the little boy forward, scooped him up and placed him so he was between the two of them. ‘Do you think we’re nuts?’
    Harry considered. ‘No,’ he said at last, seriously, and Shanni chuckled her delight. She really did have the loveliest chuckle.
    â€˜You’re wonderful, Harry,’ she told him. Then she looked down at him. He was walking bravely but the cast must be a pain. ‘Do you want Nick to carry you?’
    â€˜No.’
    That was definite enough, Shanni considered. ‘Okay. What about playing One, Two, Three, Jump?’
    Harry didn’t know what she meant. His small face stared up at his kindergarten teacher in mute enquiry.
    â€˜We need to teach him,’ she told Nick, but Nick shook his head, as in the dark as Harry.
    â€˜Sorry.’
    â€˜Sorry, what?’ She stared at him.
    â€˜I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
    That stopped her dead. She whirled to face them, staring from Nick down to Harry and back to Nick again. ‘You mean…you both don’t know One, Two, Three, Jump?’
    â€˜Enlighten our ignorance,’ Nick said dryly, knowing she was about to do just that.
    But she gave him a strange look—reassessing. It was an odd sideways look, and it left Nick feeling