knew, and after this night she’d stop wondering again. But on Christmas morning the ghosts would see her stuffing the snorkel and flippers in his stocking. He’d head out into the burned bush with his pails of water so animals wouldn’t die and, while he did, she’d prepare him a Christmas.
And the ghosts would see her lie in his arms this night.
‘Yes,’ she whispered because the word seemed all she could manage. And then, because it was important, she tried for more. ‘Yes, please, Rob. Tonight...tonight I’d like to sleep with you once more.’
* * *
Christmas morning. The first slivers of light were making their way through the shutters Rob had left closed because there was still fire danger. The air was thick with the smell of a charred landscape.
She was lying cocooned in Rob’s arms and for this moment she wanted nothing else. The world could disappear. For this moment the pain had gone, she’d found her island and she was clinging for all she was worth.
He was some island. She stirred just a little, savouring the exquisite sensation of skin against skin—her skin against Rob’s—and she felt him tense a little in response.
‘Good, huh?’
He sounded smug. She’d forgotten that smugness.
She loved that smugness.
‘Bit rusty,’ she managed and he choked on laughter.
‘Rusty? I’ll show you rusty.’ He swung up over the top of her, his dark eyes gleaming with delicious laughter. ‘I’ve been saving myself for you for all this time...’
‘There’s been no one else?’
She shouldn’t have asked. She saw the laughter fade, but the tenderness was there still.
‘I did try,’ he said. ‘I thought I should move on. It was a disaster. You?’
‘I didn’t even try,’ she whispered. ‘I knew it wouldn’t work.’
‘So you were saving yourself for me too.’
‘I was saving myself for nobody.’
‘Well, that sounds a bit bleak. You know, Jules, maybe we should cut ourselves a little slack. Put bleakness behind us for a bit.’
‘For today at least,’ she conceded, and tried to smile back. ‘Merry Christmas.’
‘Merry Christmas to you, too,’ he said, and the wickedness was back. ‘You want me to give you your first present?’
‘I...’
‘Because I’m about to,’ he said and his gorgeous muscular body, the body she’d loved with all her heart, lowered to hers.
She rose to meet him. Skin against skin. She took his body into her arms and tugged him to her, around her, merging into the warmth and depth of him.
Merry Christmas.
The ghosts had backed off. For now there was only Rob, there was only this moment, there was only now.
* * *
They surfaced—who could say how much later? They were entwined in each other’s bodies, sleepily content, loosely covered by a light cotton sheet. Which was just as well as they emerged to the sound of quiet but desperate sniffs.
Danny.
They rolled as one to look at the door, as they’d done so many times with the twins.
Danny was in the doorway, clutching Luka’s collar. He was wearing a singlet and knickers. His hair was tousled, his eyes were still dazed with sleep but he was sniffing desperately, trying not to cry.
‘Hey,’ Rob said, hauling the sheet a little higher. ‘Danny! What’s up, mate?’
‘Mama’s crying,’ Danny said. ‘She’s crying and crying and she won’t stop.’
‘That’ll be because your house is burned and your dad’s stuck down the mountain,’ Rob said prosaically, as if this was the sort of thing that happened every day. ‘I guess your dad won’t be able to make it here for a while yet, so maybe it’s up to us to cheer her up. What do you think might help?’
‘I don’t know,’ Danny whispered. ‘Me and Luka tried to hug her.’
‘Hugs are good.’ Rob sat up and Julie lay still and watched, trying not to be too conscious of Rob’s naked chest, plus the fact that he was still naked under the sheet, and his body was still touching hers and every sense...
No. That was hardly fair because she was tuned to Danny.
She’d been able to juggle...everything when they were a family. She glanced at her watch. Eight o’clock. Four years ago she’d have been up by six, trying to fit in an hour of work before the twins woke. Even at weekends, the times they’d lain here together, they’d always been conscious of pressure.
Yeah, well, both of them had busy professional lives. Both of them thought...had thought...getting on was important.
‘You know, hugs are great,’ Rob was saying and he lay down again and hugged Julie, just to demonstrate. ‘But there might be something better today. Did you remember today is Christmas?’
‘Yes, but Mama said Santa won’t be able to get through the burn,’ Danny quavered. ‘She says...Santa will have to wait.’
‘I don’t think Santa ever waits,’ Rob said gravely. ‘Why don’t you go look under the Christmas tree while Julie and I get dressed? Then we’ll go hug your mama and bring her to the tree too.’
‘There might be presents?’ Danny breathed.
‘Santa’s a clever old feller,’ Rob told him. ‘I don’t think he’d let a little thing like a bush fire stop him, do you?’
‘But Mama said...’
‘Your mama was acting on incorrect information,’ Rob told him. ‘She doesn’t know Australia like Julie and I do. Bush fires happen over Australian Christmases all the time. Santa’s used to it. So go check, but no opening anything until we’re all dressed and out there with you. Promise?’
‘I promise.’
‘Does Luka promise, too?’
And Danny giggled and Julie thought she did have senses for something—for someone—other than Rob.
To make a child smile at Christmas... It wasn’t a bad feeling.
Actually, it was a great feeling. It drove the pain away as nothing else could.
And then she thought...it was like coming out of bleak fog into sunlight.
It was a sliver, the faintest streak of brilliance, but it was something that hadn’t touched her for so long. She’d been grey for years, or sepia-toned, everything made two-dimensional, flat and dull.
Right now she was lying in Rob’s arms and she was hearing Danny giggle. And it wasn’t an echo of the twins. She wasn’t thinking of the twins.
She was thinking this little boy had been born in a refugee camp. His mother had coped with coming from a war-torn country.
She’d wrapped the most beautiful alpaca shawl for Amina, in the softest rose and cream. She knew Amina would love it; she just knew.
And there was a wombat glove puppet just waiting to be opened.
‘Go,’ she ordered Danny, sitting up too, but hastily remembering to keep her sheet tucked around her. ‘Check out the Christmas tree and see if Rob’s right and Santa’s been. I hope he’s been for all of us. We’ll be there in five minutes, and then we need to get your mama up and tell her things will be okay. And they will be okay, Danny. It’s Christmas and Rob and I are here to make sure that you and your mama and Luka have a very good time.’
*