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.’
* * *
They did have a good time. Amina was teary but, washed and dressed in a frivolous bath robe Rob had once given Julie, ensconced in the most comfortable armchair in the living room, tears gave way to bemusement.
Julie had wrapped the sensible gifts, two or three each, nice things carefully chosen. Rob, however, had taken wrapping to extremes, deciding there was too much wrapping paper and it couldn’t be wasted. So he’d hunted the house and wrapped silly things. As well as the scarf and a bracelet from Africa, Amina’s stocking also contained a gift-wrapped hammer, nails, a grease gun—‘because you never know what’ll need greasing’, Rob told her—and a bottle of cleaning bleach. They made Amina gasp and then giggle.
‘Santa thinks I might be a handyman?’
‘Every house needs one,’ Rob said gravely. ‘In our house I wear the tool belt but Santa’s not sexist.’
‘My Henry’s an engineer.’
‘Then you get to share. Sharing a grease gun—that’s real domestic harmony.’
Amina chuckled and held her grease gun like it was gold and they moved on.
Julie’s stocking contained the nightdress she’d lusted after four years before and a voucher for a day spa, now long expired. Whoops.
‘The girls at the spa gift-wrapped it for me four years ago,’Rob explained. ‘How was I to know it had expired?’ Then, ‘No matter,’ he said expansively. ‘Santa will buy you another.’
He was like a bountiful genie, Julie thought, determined to make each of them happy.
He’d made her happy last night. Was it possible...? Did she have the courage...?
‘You have another gift,’ Rob reminded her and she hauled her thoughts back to now.
Her final gift was a wad of paper, fresh from their printer. Bemused, she flicked through it.
It was Freezing—the Modern Woman’s Survival Guide, plus a how-to manual extolling the virtues of ash in compost. He’d clearly got their printer to work while she’d gift-wrapped. He’d practically printed out a book.
She showed Amina and both women dissolved into laughter while Rob beamed benevolently.
‘Never say I don’t put thought into my gifts,’ he told them and Julie held up the spa voucher.
‘An out-of-date day spa?’
‘They cancel each other out. I still rock.’
They chuckled again and then turned their attention to Danny.
Danny was simply entranced. He loved the pyjamas and his fire engine but most of all he loved the wombat puppet. Rob demonstrated. Danny watched and was smitten.
And so was Julie. She watched the two of them together and she thought: I know why I fell in love with this man.
I know why I love this man?
Was she brave enough to go there?
As well as snorkel and flippers—which Rob had received with open enjoyment before promising Danny that they could try them out in the bath later—Julie had given Rob a coat—a cord jacket. She remembered buying it for him all those years ago. She’d tried it on herself, rushing in her lunch hour, last-minute shopping. It had cost far more than she’d budgeted for but she’d imagined it on Rob, imagined holding him when he was wearing it, imagined how
