His Housekeeper Bride

while on retreat. Special thanks to Nikki for reading

at short notice. I thank you all.

PROLOGUE

St Agatha’s Hospice, Sydney, fifteen years ago

THERE she was again, standing just outside the window, giving him her sweet smile, her little encouraging wave. His friend with the sunny redgold curls, big brown eyes and brave, dimpled smile that made her look like Shirley Temple.

She was in the copse of trees and flowering shrubs in the middle of the hospice that she called the garden. The secret garden, she called it—named for her favourite book, which she read over and over to herself, as well as to her little brothers.

It was her escape from a reality and a future even grimmer than his.

She was his escape. They’d met only in the confines of this hospital during the times her mother’s and Chloe’s hospitalisations coincided, yet she saw, understood him, as his family no longer did. Sometimes he felt as if he was standing in a black and blinkered place, screaming for help, but surrounded by people who saw only Chloe’s needs, who were tuned only to Chloe’s voice.

Except for this thirteen-year-old girl who knew almost nothing about his life—a girl he never saw unless he was here. ‘Shirley Temple’ was his light and warmth in a dark, cold world, his colour and life. Everything had faded to black or white except for her.

Mark waved back at her, letting her know he’d join her soon. Their brief exchanges of maybe twenty minutes made her day bearable, just as they did his. They talked, or didn’t talk; it didn’t matter. It was the only time in the day when she wasn’t playing the adult, and when he actually felt like the kid he still was.

He glanced briefly back inside the room, but everything in there was a blur of white, a deathly shade of pale. The blankets, the walls, the gown Chloe wore, her face—even the blue oxygen tube going into Chloe’s nostrils—had somehow faded into the pale thinness of her. Beneath her knitted pink cap her hair was in a plait, roped over her shoulder, thin and dull. Even shining with lipgloss her mouth looked defeated, transparent. Her eyes were like a delicate cobweb on a winter morning, rimed with frost. Broken with a touch. She was sixteen, and she was dying….

He was seventeen, and he was watching his best friend die—just as he’d been watching it for five endless years. Chloe had turned from childhood pal to his lover and bride of four weeks, and, watching her, he wanted to scream, to punch holes in the walls, to bolt as far away from this place as he could.

Oh, help—that sounded so selfish when he’d loved her almost all his life! But part of him felt as if he’d begun to die too when she’d got cancer, or as if he was chained to a cage: he wasn’t in the cage but he couldn’t fly away, either—and the only person who understood how he felt was a thirteen-year-old kid.

Carrie and Jen would be here in five or ten minutes. Chloe’s best friends came every day after school, to tell them who was dating who, who’d broken up with who, and how ugly it had got. About the fight between Joe Morrow and Luke Martinez over who’d lost the opening game of the football season, and ‘—don’t choke—Principal Buckley is getting married—like, at forty. How gross is that? He’s so old.’

When Carrie and Jen came, Mark took off for a while. It was his time to breathe, to be. Chloe would fill him in on the Big News after. It gave them something to talk about.

Waiting for his escape time, he let his gaze touch all the reminders of life and normality. There was the massive Get Well card—as if she had a choice—signed by the whole school—even old Buckley and Miss Dragon-face Martin; the flowers-and-hearts and stick-figure finger paintings by Katie, his six-year-old sister, and Jon, Chloe’s eight-year-old brother; the flowers his other sisters Bren and Becky picked for Chloe every day…

There was also a photo of Chloe, Jen and Carrie in a group hug, from when their school year had gone to the Snowy Mountains. Clear-skinned, tanned and laughing, Chloe looked so beautiful and healthy—as if nothing could hurt her. He remembered her smell that day. Like wind and sunshine and smiles. To her, it had been as if taking a six-hour trip on a bus was Everest and she’d conquered it.

It was the last time she’d gone out with her class.

As he stood by the bed he kept trying to calculate when he’d last had a day not spent in hospital, or at a doctor’s office or thinking about illness and death. It was all a blur—as if he was a slow car stuck on a fast freeway. Everyone else around him rushed and flew, while he chugged along, unable to go faster. Just waiting.

It was a sunny day outside, a soft spring afternoon, perfect for testing the capabilities of his new motorised go-cart. But he was stuck in this room, watching the life drain out of Chloe, and there was nothing he could do about it.

‘Prof…? Prof?’

The pain lacing her voice tore at his guts, but Mark couldn’t make his head lift. The girl in the bed—strained, so thin, the hollows beneath her eyes the biggest and most colourful part of her—wasn’t his best friend. This girl had given up. Secondary cancer had gone from her bones to her lungs, and finally her brain. It was over—apart from the endless waiting.

‘Come on, Prof, look at me.’ Chloe’s thready voice gained strength by that hard-headed will of hers—the same will that had talked him into playing with her when they were four and he’d hated girls. The same stubborn faith that had made her believe he’d marry her one day—she’d been saying it since they were five—and had seen her become his research partner in the inventions he made in his backyard workshop. The same adorable persistence that had given him acceptance at school when the other kids had thought his flow of ideas strange and stupid. Because Chloe had believed in him, because beautiful, popular Chloe Hucknall had said she was going to marry Mark Hannaford, he’d become part of the inner circle.

‘I know you hate looking at me now, but I wouldn’t ask if it weren’t important.’

He didn’t hate it—or her—but he hated what she was about to ask, what he knew she’d say. Because she’d been asking the same thing for days—for weeks now. He felt like a sleepwalker bumping into the same wall over and over.

He’d turned seventeen five weeks ago. Last time he’d looked he’d been twelve, asking what osteosarcoma was and when was Chloe getting better, because he had this massive idea he needed to work on with her. Then the days and years had become like potatoes under a masher. Though he’d gone to school and found a part-time job, got his learner’s permit and his driver’s licence, had worked hard and passed all his exams, created things for her to marvel at or give ideas for improvement, this place, this pain, was all that was real.

‘Mark—please. I need you.’

I need you. The words he’d answered from the time she’d roped him into fixing her Barbie doll after Milo Brasevic had ripped its head off. He felt encased in darkness, with dark shutters fallen over his soul, yet he made himself look at her, and from somewhere deep inside he even forced a smile. It felt weak and hollow, but he managed it—for her, his best friend, the girl he’d loved ever since he could remember.

‘Yeah? Whaddya want, Slowy?’

Mark and Chloe—the Mad Professor and Slowy. Always had been, always would be.

Chloe’s answering grin was weak, but her thin, pale face was radiant with the love she’d never tried to deny in all the years they’d known each other. ‘You didn’t promise yet, George.’ For no reason he’d ever known, she called him George when she was trying to be funny. ‘I swear, I won’t die until you promise,’ she joked, her eyes glistening with tears of cheated wishing for all the years they’d never have together.

‘Then I’ll never do it,’ he replied huskily.

Chloe stopped smiling. ‘Stop it, Mark. It doesn’t help—and I’m so tired. I know you’re not gonna do so well without me, but you have to promise…’ She closed her eyes, but the tears kept squeezing through. ‘Don’t spend all your time going for a scholarship, or hanging out in your shed alone with your inventions. You—you have to find another girl to love when you grow up, have kids…’

What was he supposed to say to that? Yes, dear? He knew how much it cost her to keep on asking day after day, because he couldn’t stand to think of another guy touching her even if he’d been the one lying in that hospital bed.

Chloe was dying, and he had to live the rest of his life without her.

The bile rose hard and hot and fast, like a burning catapult. He turned and stumbled out of the ward—he wasn’t going make it to the bathroom.

He made it outside the swinging doors, past the metal garbage can, and ran through the first door—the one leading to the tiny walled-in garden—before the sickness hit.

His hands and legs shook so badly he couldn’t make his knees or his feet work. His breathing hurt, and there was a burning pain all the way up his chest and throat—but it was better than going back and having Chloe see him like this.

He knew that she’d try to force him to give the promise—or get their parents to talk to him again. Give her the promise, Mark. Do it for Chloe.

The same words he’d been responding to for five years—from going with her to her specialist appointments, to going back to school, to marrying her in a hasty backyard ceremony a few weeks ago.

Sometimes he just wished he’d had a choice to make. He’d like to know he’d have done all he had without the family’s persuasive tactics.

‘Here,’ came a sweet, piping voice from behind him.

Mark’s voice was croaky as he realised she was there. ‘Hey, Shirley Temple.’

He liked calling her that as much as he liked the fact that she never used his name. If they didn’t say Mark and Mary this wasn’t real, it wasn’t happening to them…and without names their shared time seemed a harmless dream, far from grim reality.

She was holding out a wet flannel to him. Crouching on the path beside him, she seemed luminous as the sun dipped behind the wire fencing at the end of the garden and framed her reddishblonde curls. He knew those big fox-brown eyes of hers would be filled with the silent understanding only she could give. ‘Put it on your face and your neck. It helps take the burning away.’

He took the cloth and wiped his face and throat. The pain eased a little. ‘Thanks.’

‘Keep it there.’ She handed him a glass of water. ‘Sip it slow.’

He nodded and sipped, and it eased the pain a little more. He felt it again—the unspoken connection. This pale, tired girl, looking so young until you looked in her eyes, felt like his only ally in a war he hadn’t signed up to fight. ‘Thanks.’

‘You’re welcome.’ She reached out and touched his hand.

He could feel her hand shaking, could see her corkscrew curls bobbing with the effort to stay steady. ‘Bad day?’ he asked quietly.