They could, she thought as she headed for the shutters. They could make the fire plan work.
And maybe, after last night... Maybe...
Too soon. Think of it later. Fire first.
* * *
She fixed the windows—fast—then checked the pits. They were overgrown but the mounds of dirt were still loose enough for her to shovel. She could bury things with ease.
She headed inside, grabbed a couple of cases and headed into the boys’ room.
And she lost her breath all over again.
She’d figured yesterday that Rob must have hired someone to clean this place on a regular basis. If it had been left solely to her, this house would be a dusty mess. She’d walked away and actively tried to forget.
But now, standing at their bedroom door, it was as if she’d just walked in for the first time. Rob would be carrying the boys behind her. Jiggling them, making them laugh.
Two and a half years old. Blond and blue-eyed scamps. Miniature versions of Rob himself.
They’d been sound asleep when the road gave way, then killed in an instant, the back of the car crushed as it rolled to the bottom of a gully. The doctors had told her death would have been instant.
But they were right here. She could just tug back the bedding and Rob would carry them in.
Or not.
‘Aiden,’ she murmured. ‘Christopher.’
Grief was all around her, an aching, searing loss. She hadn’t let herself feel this for years. She hadn’t dared to. It was hidden so far inside her she thought she’d grown armour that could surely protect her.
But the armour was nothing. It was dust, blown away at the sight of one neat bedroom.
It shouldn’t be neat. It nearly killed her that it was neat. She wanted those beds to be rumpled. She wanted...
She couldn’t want.
She should be thinking about fire, she thought desperately. The warnings were that it’d be on them in less than an hour. She had to move.
She couldn’t.
The wind blasted on the windowpanes. She needed to tape them. She needed to bury memories.
Aiden. Christopher.
What had she been thinking, wondering if she could move on? What had she been doing, exposing herself to Rob again? Imagining she could still love.
She couldn’t. Peeling back the armour, even a tiny part, allowed in a hurt so great she couldn’t bear it.
‘Julie?’ It was a yell from just outside the window.
She couldn’t answer.
‘Julie!’ Rob’s second yell pierced her grief, loud and demanding her attention. ‘Jules! If you’re standing in that bedroom thinking of black you might want to look outside instead.’
How had he known what she was doing? Because he felt the same?
Still she didn’t move.
‘Look!’ he yelled, even more insistent, and she had to look. She had to move across to the window and pull back the curtains.
She could just see Rob through the smoke haze. He was standing under a ladder, not ten feet from her. He had the ladder propped against the house.
He was carrying a chainsaw.
As she watched in horror he pulled the cord and it roared into life.
‘What’s an overhanging branch between friends?’ he yelled across the roar and she thought: He’ll be killed. He’ll be...
‘Mine’s the easier job,’ he yelled as he took his first step up the ladder. ‘But if I can do this, you can shove a teddy into a suitcase. Put the past behind you, Julie. Fire. Now. Go.’
He was climbing a ladder with a chainsaw. Rob and power tools...
He was an architect, not a builder.
She thought suddenly of Rob, just after she’d agreed to marry him. He’d brought her to the mountains and shown her this block, for sale at a price they could afford.
‘This can be our retreat,’ he’d told her. ‘Commute when we can, have an apartment in the city for when we can’t.’ And then he’d produced his trump card. A tool belt. Gleaming leather, full of bright shiny tools, it was a he-man’s tool belt waiting for a he-man. He’d strapped it on and flexed his muscles. ‘What do you think?’
‘You’re never thinking of building yourself?’ she’d gasped and he’d grinned and held up a vicious-looking...she didn’t have a clue what.
‘I might need help,’ he admitted. ‘These things look scary. I was sort of thinking of a registered builder, with maybe a team of registered builder’s assistants on the side. But I could help.’
And he’d grinned at her and she’d known there was nothing she could refuse this man.
Man with tool belt.
Man with ladder and chainsaw.
And it hit her then, with a clarity that was almost frightening. Yesterday when she’d woken up it had been just like the day before and the day before that. She’d got up, she’d functioned for the day, she’d gone to bed. She’d survived.
Life went on around her, but she didn’t care.
Yesterday, when she’d told her secretary she was heading up to the Blue Mountains, Maddie had been appalled. ‘It’s dangerous. They’re saying evacuate. Don’t go there.’
The thing was, though, for Julie danger no longer existed. The worst thing possible had already happened. There was nothing else to fear.
But now, standing at the window, staring at Rob and his chainsaw, she realised that, like it or not, she still cared. She could still be frightened for someone. For Rob.
But fear hurt. Caring hurt. She didn’t want to care. She couldn’t. Somehow she had to rebuild the armour. But meanwhile...
Meanwhile Rob was right. She had to move. She had to bury teddies.
* * *
He managed to get the branches clear and drag them into the gully, well away from the house.
He raked the loose leaves away from the house, too, easier said than done when the wind was blasting them back. He blocked the gutters and set up the generator so they could use the pump and access the water in the tanks even if they lost the solar power.
He worked his way round the house, checking, rechecking and he almost ran into Julie round the other side.
The
