‘Merry Christmas!’ responded Joe and the two men greeted each other with handshakes and hearty back slaps. Joe’s smile was wide as he turned back to Ellie and Jacko. ‘Come and meet Steve. He was in Afghanistan with me, but he’s set up in Townsville now and he’s started his own chopper charter business.’
Pinning on her brightest smile, Ellie took Jacko’s hand and encouraged him forward. ‘Hi, Steve. Nice to meet you.’
‘You, too,’ Steve said warmly. ‘Merry Christmas.’ He shook hands with Ellie, then bent to ruffle Jacko’s hair. ‘Hello, young fella. You’re a chip off the old block if ever I saw one.’
‘This is Jacko,’ Joe said proudly, adding a bright-eyed smile that included Ellie.
‘Hi, Jacko.’ Steve waggled his eyebrows comically, making the little boy giggle.
To Ellie, he said, ‘I remember how excited Joe was when this little bloke was born. The news came through when we were all in the mess. You should have seen this man.’ He slapped a big hand on Joe’s shoulder. ‘He was so damn proud, handing around his phone with a photo of his son.’
‘How...how nice.’ Ellie was somewhat stunned. She glanced at Joe, saw the quick guarded look in his eyes, which he quickly covered with an elaborate smile.
‘And now Jacko’s a whole two years old,’ Joe said.
‘You’re a lucky little bloke, Jacko,’ announced Steve and then he nodded to the helicopter. ‘And you’re certainly in for an exciting Christmas.’
An exciting Christmas? Ellie frowned. What was this about?
She was struck by a ghastly thought. Surely Joe wasn’t planning to take Jacko with him? ‘What’s going on?’ she demanded.
Now it was Steve who frowned.
‘Everything’s fine, Ellie,’ Joe intercepted quickly in his most soothing tone. ‘Steve’s brought out extra things for Christmas.’ Turning to Steve, he said, ‘I haven’t told Ellie about this. I was keeping it as a surprise.’
‘Ah!’ Steve’s furrowed brow cleared and was replaced by another grin. He winked at Ellie. ‘Romantic devil, isn’t he?’
Clearly Joe’s Army mates didn’t know about their divorce. Ellie found it difficult to hold her smile.
‘Stand back then, Mrs Madden, while we get this crate unloaded.’
Dazed, she watched as Steve Hansen climbed back into the helicopter and began to hand down boxes and packages, which Joe retrieved and stacked on the ground.
There was an amazing array. Boxes, supermarket bags, wrapped parcels. A snowy-white Styrofoam box with Townsville Cold Stores stamped on the side.
As the last carton came out, Joe turned to Ellie with a complicated lopsided grin. ‘I thought you deserved a proper Christmas. You know, some of the fancy things you were missing.’
She gave a bewildered shake of her head. ‘You mean this is all fancy Christmas food? For me?’
‘North Queensland’s freshest and best,’ responded Steve from the cockpit doorway. ‘I set my wife Lauren on the hunt and she’s one hell of a shopper.’
Ellie was stunned. ‘Thank you. And please thank Lauren.’ Again she was shaking her head. ‘I can’t believe you and your wife have gone to so much trouble, especially on Christmas Eve. It’s such a busy time.’
Steve shrugged. ‘Joe knew exactly what he wanted, and bringing it out here has been my pleasure.’ He gave another of his face-splitting smiles. ‘Besides, I’d do anything for your husband. You know Joe saved my life?’
‘No,’ Ellie said faintly. ‘I didn’t know that.’ She hardly knew anything about Joe’s time in the Army.
‘Out in Oruzgan Province. Your crazy husband here broke cover to draw enemy fire. I was literally pinned between a rock and a hard place and—’
‘Steve,’ Joe interrupted, raising his hand for silence, ‘Ellie doesn’t need to hear your war stories.’
But Steve was only silenced momentarily. ‘He’s way too modest,’ he said, cocking his thumb towards Joe. ‘They’re saying we’re all heroes, but take it from me—your husband is a true hero, Ellie. I guess he’s never told you. He risked his life to save mine. He was mentioned in despatches, you know, and the Army doesn’t hand those out every day.’
‘Wow,’ Ellie said softly.
Wow was about all she could manage. The admiration and gratitude in Steve’s eyes was so very genuine and sincere. She had difficulty breathing.
He risked his life to save mine.
But Joe obviously hadn’t told Steve that he was now divorced, which made this moment rather confusing and embarrassing for Ellie, not to mention overwhelming. Her throat was too choked for speech. Her lips were trembling. She pressed a hand to her mouth, willing herself not to lose it in front of these guys.
‘Thanks for sharing that, Steve,’ she managed to say eventually. ‘Joe never tells me anything about Afghanistan.’ To keep up the charade, she tried to make this sound light and teasing—a loving wife gently chiding her over-protective husband.
‘Well, it’s been a pleasure to finally meet you and Jacko,’ Steve said. ‘But I’m afraid I have to head back. We’re throwing a Christmas party at our place tonight. Pity you guys can’t join us, but Lozza will have my guts for garters if I’m late.’
Already, he was climbing back into the cockpit.
Without Joe.
‘You’d better hurry and get your things,’ Ellie told Joe.
‘My things?’
‘You’re not leaving without your luggage, surely?’
His blue eyes shimmered with puzzled amusement as he stepped towards her. Touched her lightly on the elbow. ‘I’m not leaving now, Ellie,’ he said quietly. ‘I’m not going anywhere till the floods go down.’
‘But—’
He cupped her jaw with a broad hand. ‘Relax. It’s cool.’ His smile was warm, possibly teasing. His touch was lighting all kinds of fires. ‘I couldn’t let you eat all this stuff on your own.’
And then his thumb, ever so softly, brushed over her lips. ‘Let’s wave Steve off, and get these things inside. And then we can really start planning our Christmas.’
Our Christmas.
Joe was free to leave. Steve Hansen would have taken him back to the coast in a heartbeat—no questions asked. Instead Joe had chosen to stay.
And the way he’d looked at her just now was like the Joe of old.
But that was crazy. He couldn’t... They couldn’t...
She mustn’t read too much into this. It was Christmas and Joe wanted to spend more time with Jacko. It was the only logical, believable explanation—certainly, the only one Ellie’s conscience could accept.
But as Steve took off with the downdraught from his chopper flattening the grass and sending the cattle in the next paddock scampering, she had to ask, ‘So, if you knew Steve could fly out here, why didn’t you get him to rescue you?’
Joe shrugged. ‘It would have been difficult, leaving the hire car stranded here.’
It was a pretty weak excuse and Ellie didn’t try to hide her scepticism.
‘Besides,’ Joe added smoothly, ‘you and I decided on a truce, and how can you have a truce between two people if one of the combatants simply walks away?’
As excuses went, this was on the shaky side too, but Ellie wasn’t going to argue. Not if Joe was determined to uphold their truce.