‘Why on earth would you want to scare Pansy?’

‘So Mr and Mrs Cole would move away and stop being nasty to you.’

That was all she needed! She was overtired and overemotional and now she had to blink back tears. They were such terrors but there was always a motive. They had such good little hearts.

Somehow she schooled her features into sternness, and hugged them both.

‘Well, we were very, very lucky that Mr McKay came to save us. You’ll promise me you’ll never, ever play with fireworks or matches again? Not even to scare Pansy?’

‘We promise,’ Henry told her and she looked down and knew that she had their word.

It wouldn’t be a bomb next time. Something else for sure, but not a bomb.

She tucked them in, hugged them again for good measure and wondered where Tigger was now. They loved Tigger, and when they realised he’d been burned… It didn’t bear thinking of.

Then she looked up at the sound of footsteps in the hall. Matt was standing in the doorway. He was clean now, big and bronzed and capable, dressed in clean jeans and an open necked shirt and with only the burn on his forehead to show any damage had been done.

He was back to the farmer she knew.

Charlotte was one lucky lady, Erin thought suddenly. A class above the likes of her or not, Matthew McKay was not bad as husband material.

Not only was he extremely good looking, with his thatch of sun-bleached brown curls, his weathered skin and his strongly muscled frame, but his deep brown eyes were twinkling with kindness. In his hands he held two mugs, and he carried them carefully over to the bedside table for the boys.

‘My Grandma always used to say a glass of warm milk is the best cure in a crisis,’ he told the twins. ‘So I brought you boys one each. There’s another for Erin when she’s had her shower.’ And then he smiled at Erin-a smile that somehow had the capacity to knock her senses reeling. ‘Off you go, and I’ll meet you in the kitchen when you’re clean.’