“Julie.” He repeated her name and she stopped dead.

She might have known he’d come.

Dear heaven, he was beautiful. He was tall, almost lanky, still boyish even though he must be—what?—thirty-six by now?

He had the same blond-brown hair that looked perpetually as if he spent too much time in the sun. He had the same flop of cowlick that perpetually hung a bit too long—no hairdresser believed it wouldn’t stay where it was put. He was wearing his normal casual clothes: moleskins, with a soft linen shirt rolled up at the sleeves and open at the throat.

He was wearing the same smile in the caramel-brown eyes she remembered. He was smiling at her now. A bit wary. Not sure of his reception.

She hadn’t seen him for four years and he was wary. She didn’t know where to start. Where to begin after all this time.

Why not say it like it was?

“I don’t think I am Julie,” she said slowly, feeling lost. “At least, I’m not sure I’m the Julie you know.”

Christmas Where They Belong
Marion Lennox

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MARION LENNOX is a country girl, born on an Australian dairy farm. She moved on—mostly because the cows just weren’t interested in her stories! Married to a “very special doctor”, Marion writes for the Mills & Boon® Medical Romance™ and Mills & Boon® Cherish™ lines. (She used a different name for each category for a while—readers looking for her past romance titles should search for author Trisha David as well). She’s now had well over ninety novels accepted for publication.

In her non-writing life Marion cares for kids, cats, dogs, chooks and goldfish. She travels, she fights her rampant garden (she’s losing) and her house dust (she’s lost). Having spun in circles for the first part of her life, she’s now stepped back from her ‘other’ career, which was teaching statistics at her local university. Finally she’s reprioritised her life, figured out what’s important and discovered the joys of deep baths, romance and chocolate. Preferably all at the same time!

This book is dedicated to Lorna May Dickins.

Her kindness, her humour and her love are an inspiration for always.

Contents

Cover

Introduction

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

Extract

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

‘DIDN’T YOU ONCE own a house in the Blue Mountains?’

‘Um...yes.’

‘Crikey, Jules, you wouldn’t want to be there now. The whole range looks about to burn.’

It was two days before Christmas. The Australian world of finance shut down between Christmas and New Year, but the deal Julie McDowell was working on was international. The legal issues were urgent.

But the Blue Mountains... Fire.

She dumped her armload of contracts and headed for Chris’s desk. At thirty-two, Chris was the same age as Julie, but her colleague’s work ethic was as different from hers as it was possible to be. Chris worked from nine to five and not a moment more before he was off home to his wife and kids in the suburbs. Sometimes he even surfed the Web during business hours.

Sure enough, his computer was open at the Web browser now. She came up behind him and saw a fire map. The Blue Mountains. A line of red asterisks.

Her focus went straight to Mount Bundoon, a tiny hamlet right in the centre of the asterisks. The hamlet she’d once lived in.

‘Is it on fire?’ she gasped. She’d been so busy she hadn’t been near a news broadcast for hours. Days?

‘Not yet.’ Chris zoomed in on a few of the asterisks. ‘These are alerts, not evacuation orders. A storm came through last night, with lighting strikes but not much rain. The bush is tinder dry after the drought, and most of these asterisks show spot fires in inaccessible bushland. But strong winds and high temperatures are forecast for tomorrow. They’re already closing roads, saying she could be a killer.’

A killer.

The Blue Mountains.

You wouldn’t want to be there now.

She went back to her desk and pulled up the next contract. This was important. She needed to concentrate, but the words blurred before her eyes. All she could see was a house—long, low, every detail architecturally designed, built to withstand the fiercest bush fires.

In her mind she walked through the empty house to a bedroom with two small beds in the shape of racing cars. Teddies sitting against the pillows. Toys. A wall-hanging of a steam train her mother had made.

She hadn’t been there for four years. It should have been sold. Why hadn’t it?

She fought to keep her mind on her work. This had to be dealt with before Christmas.

Teddies. A wardrobe full of small boys’ clothes.

She closed her eyes and she was there again, tucking two little boys into bed, watching Rob read them their bedtime story.

It was history, long past, but she couldn’t open her eyes. She couldn’t.

‘Julie? Are you okay?’ Her boss was standing over her, sounding concerned. Bob Marsh was a financial wizard but he looked after his staff, especially those who brought as much business to the firm as Julie.

She forced herself to open her eyes and tried for a smile. It didn’t work.

‘What’s up?’

‘The fire.’ She took a deep breath, knowing what she was facing. Knowing she had no choice.

‘I do have a house in the Blue Mountains,’ she managed. ‘If it’s going to burn there are things I need to save.’ She gathered her pile of contracts and did what she’d never done in all her years working for Opal, Harbison and Marsh. She handed the pile to Bob. ‘You’ll need to deal with this,’ she told him. ‘I’m sorry, but...’

She couldn’t finish the sentence. She grabbed her purse and went.

* * *

Rob McDowell was watching the fire’s progress on his phone. He’d downloaded an app to track it by, and he’d been checking it on and off for hours.

He was in Adelaide, working. His clients had wanted to be in the house by Christmas and he’d bent over backwards to make it happen. Their house was brilliant and there were only a few decorative touches left to be made. Rob was no longer needed, but Sir Cliff and Lady Claudia had requested their architect to stay on until tomorrow.

He should. They were having a housewarming on Christmas Eve, and socialising at the end of a job was important. The Who’s Who of Adelaide, maybe even the Who’s Who of the entire country would be here. There weren’t many people who could beckon the cream of society on Christmas Eve but Sir Cliff and Lady Claudia had that power. As the architect of their stunning home, Rob could expect scores of professional approaches afterwards.

But it wasn’t just professional need that was driving him. For the last few years he’d flown overseas to the ski fields for Christmas but somehow this year they’d lost their appeal. Christmas had been a nightmare for years but finally he was beginning to accept that running away didn’t help. He might as well stay for the party, he’d decided, but now he checked the phone app again and felt worse. The house he and Julie had built was right in the line of fire.

The house would be safe, he told himself. He’d designed it himself and it had been built with fires like this one in mind.

But no house could withstand the worst of Australia’s bush fires. He knew that. To make its occupants safe he’d built a bunker into the hill behind the house, but the house itself could go up in flames.

It was insured. No one was living there. It shouldn’t matter.

But the contents...

The contents.

He should have cleared it out by now, he thought savagely. He shouldn’t have left everything there. The tricycles. The two red fire engines he’d chosen himself that last Christmas.

Julie might have taken them.

She hadn’t. She would have told him.

Both of them had walked away from their house four years ago. It should have been on the market, but...but...

But he’d paid a housekeeping service to clean it once a month, and to clear the grounds. He was learning to move on, but selling the house, taking this last step, still seemed...too hard.

So what state was it in now? he wondered. Had the bushland encroached again? If there was bushland growing against the house...

It didn’t matter. The house was insured, he told himself again. What did it matter if it burned? Wouldn’t that just be the final step in moving on with his life?

But two fire engines...

This was ridiculous. He was thinking of forgoing the social event of the season, a career-building triumph, steps to the future, to save two toy fire engines?

But...

‘Sarah...’ He didn’t know what he intended to say until the words were in his mouth, but the moment he said it he knew his decision was right.

‘Yeah?’ The interior decorator was balancing on a ladder, her arms full of crimson tulle. The enormous drawing room was going to look stunning. ‘Could you hand me those ribbons?’

‘I can’t, Sarah,’ he said, in a voice he scarcely recognised. ‘I own a house in the Blue Mountains and they’re saying the fire threat’s getting worse. Could you make my excuses? I need to go...home.’

* * *

At the headquarters of the Blue Mountains Fire Service, things looked grim and were about to get worse. Every time a report came in, more asterisks appeared on the map. The fire chief had been staring at it for most of the day, watching spot fires erupt, while the weather forecast grew more and more forbidding.

‘We won’t be able to contain this,’ he eventually said, heavily. ‘It’s going to break out.’

‘Evacuate?’ His second-in-command was looking even more worried than he was.

‘If we get one worse report from the weather guys, yes. We’ll put out a pre-evacuation warning tonight. Anyone not prepared to stay and firefight should leave now.’ He looked again at the map and raked his thinning hair. ‘Okay, people, let’s put the next step of fire warnings into place. Like it or not, we’re about to mess with a whole lot of people’s Christmases.’

CHAPTER TWO

THE HOUSE LOOKED just as she’d left it. The garden had grown, of course. A couple of trees had grown up close to the house. Rob wouldn’t be pleased. He’d say it was a fire risk.

It was a fire risk.

She was sitting in the driveway in her little red coupé, staring at the front door. Searching for the courage to go inside.

It was three years, eleven months, ten days since she’d been here.

Rob had brought her home from hospital. She’d wandered into the empty house; she’d looked around and it was almost as if the walls were taunting her.

You’re here and they’re not. What sort of parents are you? What sort of parents were you?

She hadn’t even stayed the night. She couldn’t. She’d thrown what she most needed into a suitcase and told Rob to take her to a hotel.

‘Julie, we can do this.’ She still heard Rob’s voice; she still saw his face. ‘We can face this together.’

‘It wasn’t you who slept while they died.’ She’d thrown that at him, he hadn’t answered and she’d known right then that the final link had snapped.

She hadn’t been back since.

Go in, she told herself now. Get this over.

She opened the car door and the heat hit her with such force that she gasped.

It was dusk. It shouldn’t be this hot, this late.

The tiny hamlet of Mount Bundoon had looked almost deserted as she’d driven through. Low-lying smoke and the lack of wind was giving it a weird, eerie feeling. She’d stopped at the general store and bought milk and bread and butter, and the lady had been surprised to see her.

‘We’re about to close, love,’ she said. ‘Most people are packing to get out or have already left. You’re not evacuating?’

‘The latest warning is watch and wait.’

‘They’ve upgraded it. Unless you plan on defending your home, they’re advising you get out, if not now, then at least by nine in the morning. That’s when the wind’s due to rise, but most residents have chosen to leave straight away.’

Julie had hesitated at that. The road up here had been packed with laden cars, trailers, horse floats, all the accoutrements people treasured. That was why she was here. To take things she treasured.

But now she thought: it wasn’t. She sat in the driveway and stared at the house where she’d once lived, and she thought, even though the house was full of the boys’ belongings, it wasn’t possessions she wanted.

Was it just to be here? One last time?

It wasn’t going to burn, she told herself. It’d still be here...for ever. But that was a dumb thought. They’d have to sell eventually.

That’d mean contacting Rob.

Don’t go there.

Go in, she told herself. Hunker down. This house is fire-safe. In the morning you can walk away but just for tonight... Just for tonight you can let yourself remember.

Even if it hurt so much it nearly killed her.

* * *

Eleven o’clock. The plane had been delayed, because of smoke haze surrounding Sydney. ‘There’s quite a fire down there, ladies and gentlemen,’ the pilot had said as they skirted the Blue Mountains. ‘Just be thankful you’re up here and not down there.’

But he’d wanted to be down there. By the time he’d landed the fire warnings for Mount Bundoon had been upgraded. Leave if safe to do so. Still, the weather forecast was saying the winds weren’t likely to pick up until early morning. Right now there was little wind. The house would be safe.

So he’d hired a car and driven into the mountains, along roads where most of the traffic was going in the other direction. When he’d reached the outskirts of Mount Bundoon he’d hit a road block.

‘Your business, sir?’ he was asked.

‘I live here.’ How true was that? He didn’t live anywhere, he conceded, but maybe here was still...home. ‘I just need to check all my fire prevention measures are in place and operational.’

‘You’re aware of the warnings?’

‘I am, but my house is pretty much fire-safe and I’ll be out first thing in the morning.’

‘You’re not planning on defending?’

‘Not my style.’

‘Not mine either,’ the cop said. ‘They’re saying the wind’ll be up by nine, turning to the north-west, bringing the fire straight down here. The smoke’s already making the road hazardous. We’re about to close it now, allowing no one else in. I shouldn’t let you pass.’

‘I’ll be safe. I’m on my own and I’ll be in and out in no time.’

‘Be out by the time the wind changes, if not before,’ he said grudgingly.

‘I will be.’

‘Goodnight, then, sir,’ the cop said. ‘Stay safe.’

‘Same to you, in spades.’

He drove on. The smoke wasn’t thick, just a haze like a winter fog. The house was on the other side of town, tucked into a valley overlooking the Bundoon Creek. The ridges would be the most dangerous places, Rob thought, not the valley. He and Julie had thought about bush fire when they’d built. If you were planning to build in the Australian bush, you were stupid if you didn’t.

Maybe they’d been stupid anyway. Building so far out of town. Maybe that was why...

No. Don’t think why. That was the way of madness.

Nearly home. That was a dumb thing to think, too, but he turned the last bend and thought of all the times he’d come home, with kids, noise, chaos, all the stuff associated with twins. Sometimes he and Julie would manage the trip back together and that was the best. ‘Mummy, Daddy—you’re both here...’

Cut it out, he told himself fiercely. You were dumb to come. Don’t make it any worse by thinking of the past.

But the past was all around him, even if it was shrouded in smoke.

‘I’ll take their toys and get out of here,’ he told himself, and then he pulled into the driveway... and the lights were on.

* * *

She’d turned on all the lights to scare the ghosts.

No. If there were any ghosts here she’d welcome them with open arms—it wasn’t ghosts she was scared of. It was the dark. It was trying to sleep in this house, and remembering.

She lay on the king-sized bed she and Rob had bought the week before their wedding and she knew sleep was out of the question. She should leave.

But leaving seemed wrong, too. Not when the kids were here.

The kids weren’t here. Only memories of them.

This was crazy. She was a legal financier, a good one, specialising in international monetary negotiations. No one messed with her. No one questioned her sanity.

So why was she lying in bed hoping for ghosts?

She lay completely still, listening to the small sounds of the night. The scratching of a possum in the tree outside the window. A night owl calling.

This house had never been quiet. She found herself aching for noise, for voices, for...something.

She got something. She heard a car pull into the driveway. She saw the glimmer of headlights through the window.

The front door opened, and she knew part of her past had just returned. The ghost she was most afraid of.

* * *

‘Julie?’ He’d guessed it must be her before he even opened the door. Firstly the car. It was a single woman’s car, expensive, a display of status.

Rob normally drove a Land Rover. Okay, maybe that was a status thing as well, he conceded. He liked the idea that he might spend a lot of time on rural properties but in truth most of his clients were city based. But still, he couldn’t drive a car like the one in the driveway. No one here could. No one who commuted from here to the city. No one who taxied kids.

Every light was on in the house. Warning off ghosts?

It had to be Julie.

If she was here the last thing he wanted was to scare her, so the moment he opened the door he called, ‘Julie, are you here? It’s Rob.’

And she emerged from their bedroom.

Julie.

The sight of her made him feel... No. He couldn’t begin to define how he felt seeing her.

It had been nearly four years. She’d refused to see him since.

‘I slept while they died and I can’t forgive myself. Ever. I can’t even think about what I’ve lost. If I hadn’t slept...’

She’d thrown it at him the day he’d brought her home from hospital. He’d spent weeks sick with self-blame, sick with emptiness, not knowing how to cope with his own grief, much less hers. The thought that she blamed herself hadn’t even occurred to him. It should have, but in those crucial seconds after she’d said it he hadn’t had a response. He’d stared at her, numb with shock and grief, as she’d limped into the bedroom on her crutches, thrown things into a suitcase and demanded he take her to a hotel.

And that had pretty much been that. One marriage, one family, finished.

He’d written to her. Of course he had, and he’d tried to phone. ‘Jules, it was no one’s fault. That you were asleep didn’t make any difference. I was awake and alert. The landslip came from nowhere. There’s nothing anyone can do when the road gives way.’ Did he believe it himself? He tried to. Sometimes he had flashes when he almost did.

And apparently, Julie had shared his doubts. She’d written back, brief and harsh.

I was asleep when my babies died. I wasn’t there for them, or for you. I can barely live with myself, much less face you every day for the rest of my life. I’m sorry, Rob, but however we manage to face the future, we need to do it alone.

And he couldn’t help her to forgive herself. He was too busy living with his own guilt. The mountain road to the house had been eroded by heavy spring rains and the collapse was catastrophic. They’d spent the weeks before Christmas in the city apartment because there’d been so much on it had just been too hard to commute. They were exhausted but Julie had been desperate to get up to the mountains for the weekend before Christmas, to make everything perfect for the next week. To let the twins set up their Christmas tree. So Santa wouldn’t find one speck of dust, one thing out of place.

He’d gone along with it. Maybe he’d also agreed. Perfection was in both their blood; they were driven personalities. They’d given their nanny the weekend off and they’d driven up here late.

But if they’d just relaxed... If they’d simply said there wasn’t time, they could have spent that last weekend playing with the boys in the city, just stopping. But stopping wasn’t in their vocabulary and the boys were dead because of it.

Enough. The past needed to be put aside. Julie was standing in their bedroom door.

She looked...beautiful.

He’d thought this woman was gorgeous the moment he’d met her. Tall, willow-slim, blonde hair with just a touch of curl, brown eyes a man could drown in, lips a man wanted to taste...

It was four years since he’d last seen her, and she was just the same but...tighter. It was like her skin was stretched to fit. She was thinner. Paler. She was wearing a simple cotton nightgown, her hair was tousled and her eyes were wide with...wariness.

Why should she be wary of him?

* * *

‘Julie.’ He repeated her name and she stopped dead.

She might have known he’d come.

Dear heaven, he was beautiful. He was tall—she’d forgotten how tall—and still boyish, even though he must be—what, thirty-six?—by now.

He had the same blond-brown hair that looked perpetually like he spent too much time in the sun. He had the same flop of cowlick that hung a bit too long—no hairdresser believed it wouldn’t stay where it was put. He was wearing his casual clothes, clothes he might have worn four years ago: moleskins with a soft linen shirt, rolled up at the sleeves and open at the throat.

He was wearing the same smile, a smile which reached the caramel-brown eyes she remembered. He was smiling at her now. A bit hesitant. Not sure of his reception.

She hadn’t seen him for four years and he was wary. What did he think she’d do, throw him out?

But she didn’t know where to start. Where to begin after all this time.

Why not say it like it was?

‘I don’t think I am Julie,’ she said slowly, feeling lost. ‘At least, I’m not sure I’m the Julie you know.’

There was a moment’s pause. He’d figure it out, or she hoped he would. She couldn’t go straight back to the point where they’d left off. How are you, Rob? How have you coped with the last four years?

The void of four long years made her feel ill.

But he got it. There was a moment’s silence and then his smile changed a little. She knew that smile. It reflected his intelligence, his appreciation of a problem. If there was a puzzle, Rob dived straight in. Somehow she’d set him one and he had it sorted.

‘Then I’m probably not the guy you know, either,’ he told her. ‘So can we start from the beginning? Allow me to introduce myself. I’m Rob McDowell, architect, based in Adelaide. I have an interest in this house, ma’am, and the contents. I’m here to put the most...put a few things of special value in a secure place. And you?’

She could do this. She felt herself relax, just a little, and she even managed to smile back.

‘Julie McDowell. Legal financier from Sydney. I, too, have an interest in this house.’

‘McDowell?’ He was caught. ‘You still use...’

‘It was too much trouble to change it back,’ she said and he knew she was having trouble keeping her voice light.

‘You’re staying despite the fire warnings?’

‘The wind’s not due to get up until tomorrow morning. I’ll be gone at dawn.’

‘You’ve just arrived?’

‘Yes.’

‘You don’t want to take what you want and go?’

‘I don’t know what I want.’ She hesitated. ‘I think...there’s a wall-hanging... But it seems wrong to just...leave.’

‘I had two fire engines in mind,’ he admitted. ‘But I feel the same.’

‘So you’ll stay until ordered out?’

‘If it doesn’t get any worse, maybe I can clear any debris, check the pumps and sprinkler system, fill the spouts, keep any stray spark from catching. At first light I’ll go right round the house and eliminate every fire risk I can. I can’t do it now. It’s too dark. For the sake of a few hours, I’ll stay. I don’t want this place to burn.’

Why? she wanted to say. What does this house mean to you?

What did it mean to her? A time capsule? Maybe it was. This house was what it was like when...

But when was unthinkable. And if Rob was here, then surely she could go.

But she couldn’t. The threat was still here, even if she wasn’t quite sure what was being threatened.

‘If you need to stay,’ she ventured, ‘there’s a guest room.’

‘Excellent.’ They were like two wary dogs, circling each other, she thought. But they’d started this sort of game. She could do this.

‘Would you like supper?’

‘I don’t want to keep you up.’

‘I wasn’t sleeping. The pantry’s stocked and the freezer’s full. Things may well be slightly out of date...’

‘Slightly!’

‘But I’m not dictated to by use-by dates,’ she continued. ‘I have fresh milk and bread. For anything else, I’m game if you are.’

His brown eyes creased a little, amused. ‘A risk-taker, Jules?’

‘No!’

‘Sorry.’ Jules was a nickname and that was against the rules. He realised it and backtracked. ‘I meant: have you tried any of the food?’

‘I haven’t tried,’ she conceded.

‘You came and went straight to bed?’

‘I...yes.’

‘Then maybe we both need supper.’ He checked his watch. ‘It’s almost too late for a midnight feast but I could eat two horses. Maybe we could get to know each other over a meal? If you dare, that is?’

And she gazed at him for a long moment and came to a decision.

‘I dare,’ she said. ‘Why not?’

* * *

He put the cars in the garage and then they checked the fire situation. ‘We’d be fools not to,’ Rob said as they headed out to the back veranda to see what they could see.

They could see nothing. The whole valley seemed to be shrouded in smoke. It blocked the moon and the stars. It seemed ominous but there was no glow from any fire. ‘And the smoke would be thicker if it was closer,’ Rob decreed. ‘We’re safe enough for now.’

‘There are branches overhanging the house.’

‘I saw them as I came in but there’s no way I’m using a chainsaw in the dark.’

‘There’s no way you’re using a chainsaw,’ she snapped and he grinned.

‘Don’t you trust me?’

‘Do I trust any man with a chainsaw? No.’

He grinned, that same smile... Dear heaven, that smile...

Play the game. For tonight, she did not know this man.

‘We have neighbours,’ Rob said, motioning to a light in the house next door.

‘I saw a child in the window earlier, just as it was getting dark.’

‘A child... They should have evacuated.’

‘Maybe they still think there’s time. There should still be time.’

‘Let me check again.’ He flicked to the fire app on his phone. ‘Same warnings. Evacuate by nine if you haven’t already done so. Unless you’re planning on staying to defend.’

‘Would you?’ she asked diffidently. ‘Stay and defend?’

‘I’d have to be trustworthy with a chainsaw to do that.’

‘And are you?’ The Rob she knew couldn’t be trusted within twenty paces of a power tool.

‘No,’ he admitted and she was forced to smile back. Same Rob, then. Same, but different? The Rob of after.

This was weird. She should be dressed, she decided, as she padded barefoot back to the kitchen behind him. If he really was a stranger...

He really is a stranger, she told herself. Power tool knowledge or not, four years was a lifetime.

‘Right.’ In the kitchen, he was all efficiency. ‘Food.’ He pushed his sleeves high over his elbows and looked as if he meant business. ‘I’d kill for a steak. What do you suppose the freezer holds?’

‘Who knows what’s buried in there?’

‘Want to help me find out?’

‘Men do the hunting.’

‘And women do the cooking?’ He had the chest freezer open and was delving among the labelled packages. ‘Julie, Julie, Julie. How out of the ark is that?’

‘I can microwave a mean TV dinner.’

‘Ugh.’

But Rob did cook. She remembered him enjoying cooking. Not often because they’d been far too busy for almost everything domestic but when she’d first met him he’d cooked her some awesome meals.

She’d tried to return the favour, but had only cooked disasters.

‘What sort of people occupied this planet?’ Rob was demanding answers from the depths of the freezer. ‘Packets, packets and packets. Someone here likes Diet Cuisine. Liked,’ he amended. ‘Use-by dates of three years ago.’

She used to eat them when Rob was away. She’d cooked for the boys, or their nanny had, but Diet Cuisine was her go-to.

‘There must be something more...’ He was hauling out packet after packet, tossing them onto the floor behind him. She was starting to feel mortified. Her fault again?

‘You’ll need to put that stuff back or it’ll turn into stinking sog,’ she warned.

‘Of course.’ His voice was muffled. ‘So in a thousand years an archaeological dig can find Diet Cuisine and think we were all nuts. And stinking sog? For a stink it’d have to contain substance. Two servings of veggies and four freezer-burned cubes of diced meat do not substance make. But hey, here’s a whole beef fillet.’ He emerged, waving his find in triumph. ‘This is seriously thick. I’m hoping freezer burn might only go halfway in or less. I can thaw it in the microwave, chop off the burn and produce steak fit for a king. I hope. Hang on a minute.’

Fascinated, she watched as he grabbed a torch from the pantry and headed for the back door. That was a flaw in this mock play; he shouldn’t have known where a torch was. But in two minutes he was back, brandishing a handful of greens.

‘Chives,’ he said triumphantly and then glanced dubiously at the enormous green fronds. ‘Or they might have been chives some time ago. These guys are mutant onions.’

Clarissa had planted vegetables, she remembered. Their last nanny...

But Rob was taking all her attention. The Rob of now.

She’d expected...

Actually, she hadn’t expected. She’d thought she’d never see this man again. She’d vaguely thought she’d be served with divorce papers at some stage, but she hadn’t had the courage or the impetus to organise it herself. To have him here now, slicing steak, washing dirt from mutant chives, took a bit of getting used to.

‘You do want some?’ he asked and she thought no. And then she thought: when did I last eat?

If he had been a stranger she’d eat with him.

‘Yes, please,’ she said and was inordinately pleased with herself for getting the words out.

So they ate. The condiments in the pantry still seemed fine, though Rob dared to tackle the bottled horseradish and she wasn’t game. He’d fried hunks of bread in the pan juices. They ate steak and chives and fried bread, washed down by mugs of milky tea. All were accompanied by Rob’s small talk. He really did act as if they were strangers, thrust together by chance.

Wasn’t that the truth?

‘So, Julie,’ he said finally, as he washed and she wiped. There was a dishwasher but, as neither intended sticking round past breakfast, it wasn’t worth the effort. ‘If you’re planning on leaving at dawn, what would you like to do now? You were sleeping when I got here?’

‘Trying to sleep.’

‘It doesn’t come on demand,’ he said, and she caught an edge to his voice that said he lay awake, as she did. ‘But you can try. I’ll keep watch.’

‘What—stand sentry in case the fire comes?’

‘Something like that.’

‘It won’t come until morning.’

‘I don’t trust forecasts. I’ll stay on the veranda with the radio. Snooze a little.’

‘I won’t sleep.’

‘So...you want to join me on fire watch?’

‘I...okay.’

‘You might want to put something on besides your nightie.’

‘What’s wrong with the nightie? It’s sensible.’

‘It’s not sensible.’

‘It’s light.’

‘Jules,’ he said, and suddenly there was strain in his voice. ‘Julie. I know we don’t know each other very well. I know we’re practically strangers, but there is only a settee on the veranda, and if you sit there looking like that...’

She caught her breath and the play-acting stopped, just like that. She stared at him in disbelief.

‘You can’t...want me.’

‘I’ve never stopped wanting you,’ he said simply. ‘I’ve tried every way I know, but it’s not working. Just because we destroyed ourselves... Just because we gave away the idea of family for the rest of our lives, it doesn’t stop the wanting. Not everything ended the night our boys died, Julie, though sometimes...often...I wish it had.’

‘You still feel...’

‘I have no idea what I feel,’ he told her. ‘I’ve been trying my best to move on. My shrink says I need to put it all in the background, like a book I can open at leisure and close again when it gets too hard to read. But, for now, all I know is that your nightie is way too skimpy and your eyes are too big and your hair is too tousled and our bed is too close. So I suggest you either head to the bedroom and close the door or go get some clothes on. Because what I want has nothing to do with reality, and everything to do with ghosts. Shrink’s advice or not, I can’t close the book. Go and get dressed, Julie. Please.’

She stared at him for a long moment. Rob. Her husband.

Her ex-husband. Her ex-life.

She’d closed the door on him four years ago. If she was to survive, that door had to stay firmly closed. Behind that door were emotions she couldn’t handle.

She turned away and headed inside. Away from him. Away from the way he tugged her heart.

* * *

He sat out on the veranda, thinking he might have scared her right off. She didn’t emerge.

Well, what was new? He’d watched the way she’d closed down after the boys’ deaths. He was struggling to get free of those emotions but it seemed Julie was holding them close. Behind locked doors.

That was her right.

He sat for an hour and watched the night close in around him. The heat seemed to be getting more oppressive. The smoke hung low over everything, black and thick and stinking of burned forest, threatening enough all by itself, even without flames.

It’s because there’s no wind, he told himself. Without wind, smoke could hang around for weeks. There was no telling how close the fire was. There was no telling what the risks were if the wind got up.

He should leave. He should make Julie leave, but then... But then...

Her decision to come had been hers alone. She had the right to stay. He wasn’t sure what he was protecting, but sitting out on the veranda, with Julie in the house behind him, felt okay. He wasn’t sure why, but he did know that, at some level, the decision to come had been the right one.

Maybe it was stupid, he conceded, but maybe they both needed this night. Maybe they both needed to stand sentinel over a piece of their past that needed to be put aside.

And it really did need to be put aside. He’d watched Julie’s face when he’d confessed that he wanted her and he’d seen the absolute denial. Even if she was ever to want him again, he’d known then that she wouldn’t admit it.

Families were for the past.

He sat on. A light was still on next door. Once he saw a woman walk past the lighted window. Pregnant? Was she keeping the same vigil he was keeping?

If he had kids, he’d have them out of here by now. Hopefully, his neighbour had her car packed and would be gone at dawn, taking her family with her.

Just as he and Julie would be gone at dawn, too.

The moments ticked on. He checked the fire app again. No change.

There were sounds coming from indoors. Suddenly he was conscious of Christmas music. Carols, tinkling out on...a music box?

He remembered that box. It had belonged to one of his aunts. It was a box full of Santa and his elves. You wound the key, opened the box and they all danced.

That box...

Memories were all around him. Childhood Christmases. The day his aunt had given it to them—the Christmas Julie was pregnant. ‘It needs a family,’ his aunt had said. ‘I’d love you to have it.’

His aunt was still going strong. He should give the box back to her, he thought, but meanwhile... Meanwhile, he headed in and Julie was sitting in the middle of the living room floor, attaching baubles to a Christmas tree. She was still dressed in the nightgown. She was totally intent on what she was doing.

What...?

‘It’s Christmas Eve tomorrow,’ she said simply, as if this was a no-brainer. ‘This should be up. And don’t look at the nightgown, Rob McDowell. Get over it. It’s hot, my nightie’s cool and I’m working.’

She’d hauled the artificial tree from the storeroom. He stared at it, remembering the Christmas when they’d conceded getting a real tree was too much hassle. It’d take hours to buy it and set it up, and one thing neither of them had was hours.

That last Christmas, that last weekend, the tree was one of the reasons they’d come up here.

‘We can decorate the tree for Christmas,’ Julie had said. ‘When we go up next week we can walk straight in and it’ll be Santa-ready.’

Now Julie was sitting under the tree, sorting decorations as if she had all the time in the world. As if nothing had happened. As if time had simply skipped a few years.

‘Remember this one?’ She held up a very tubby angel with floppy, sparkly wings and a cute little halo. ‘I bought this the year I was trying to diet. Every time I looked at a mince pie I was supposed to march in here and discuss it with my angel. It didn’t work. She’d look straight back at me and say: “Look at me—I might be tubby but not only am I cute, I grew wings. Go ahead and eat.”’

He grinned, recognising the cute little angel with affection.

‘And these.’ Smiling fondly, he knelt among the ornaments and produced three reindeer, one slightly chewed. ‘We had six of these. Boris ate the other three.’

‘And threw them up when your partners came for Christmas drinks.’

‘Not a good moment. I miss Boris.’ He’d had Boris the Bloodhound well before they were married. He’d died of old age just before the twins were born. Before memories had to be put aside.

They’d never had time for another dog. Maybe now they never would?

Forget it. Bauble therapy. Julie had obviously immersed herself in it and maybe he could, too. He started looping tinsel around the tree and found it oddly soothing.

They worked in silence but the silence wasn’t strained. It was strangely okay. Come dawn they’d walk away from this house. Maybe it would burn, but somehow, however strange, the idea that it’d burn looking lived in was comforting.

‘How long do Christmas puddings last?’ Julie asked at last, as she hung odd little angels made of spray-painted macaroni. Carefully not mentioning who’d made them. The twins with their nanny. The twins...

Concentrate on pudding, he told himself. Concentrate on the practical. How long do Christmas puddings last? ‘I have no idea,’ he conceded. ‘I know fruitcakes are supposed to last for ever. My great-grandma cooked them for her brothers during the War. Great-Uncle Henry once told me he used to chop ’em up and lob ’em over to the enemy side. Grandma Ethel’s cakes were never great at the best of times but after a few months on the Western Front they could have been lethal.’

‘Death by fruitcake...’

‘Do you remember the Temperance song?’ he asked, grinning at another memory. His great-aunt’s singing. He raised his voice and tried it out. ‘We never eat fruitcake because it has rum. And one little bite turns a man to a...’

‘Yeah, right.’ She smiled back at him and he felt strangely triumphant.

Why did it feel so important to make this woman smile?

Because he’d lost her smile along with everything else? Because he’d loved her smile?

‘Clarissa made one that’s still in the fridge,’ she told him. Nanny Clarissa had been so domestic she’d made up for both of them. Or almost. ‘And it does contain rum. Half a bottle of over-proof, if I remember. She demanded I put it on the shopping list that last... Anyway, I’m thinking of frying slices for breakfast.’

‘Breakfast is what...’ he checked his watch ‘...three hours away? Four-year-old Christmas pudding. That’ll be living on the edge.’

‘A risk worth taking?’ she said tightly and went back to bauble-hanging. ‘What’s to lose?’

‘Pudding at dawn. Bring it on.’

They worked on. There were so many tensions zooming round the room. So many things unsaid. All they could do was concentrate on the tree.

Finished, it looked magnificent. They stood back, Rob flicked the light switch and the tree flooded into colour. He opened the curtains and the light streamed out into the darkness. Almost every house in the valley was in darkness. Apart from a solitary light in the house next door they were alone. Either everyone had evacuated or they were all sleeping. Preparing for the danger which lay ahead.

Sleep. Bed.

It seemed a good idea. In theory.

Julie was standing beside him. She had her arms folded in front of her, instinctive defence. She was still in that dratted nightgown. Hadn’t he asked her to take it off? Hadn’t he warned her?

But she never had been a woman who followed orders, he thought. She’d always been self-contained, sure, confident of her place in the world. He’d fallen in love with that containment, with her fierce intelligence, with the humour that matched his, a biting wit that made him break into laughter at the most inappropriate moments. He’d loved her drive to be the best at her job. He’d understood and admired it because he was like that, too. It was only when the twins arrived that they’d realised two parents with driving ambition was a recipe for disaster.

Still they’d managed it. They’d juggled it. They’d loved...

Loved. He looked at her now, shivering despite the oppressive heat. She looked younger, he thought suddenly.

Vulnerable.

She’d never been vulnerable and neither had he.

But they’d loved.

‘Julie?’

‘Yes?’ She looked at him and she looked scared. And he knew it was nothing to do with the fires.

‘Mmm.’

‘Let’s go to bed,’ he said, but she hugged her arms even tighter.

‘I don’t...know.’

‘There’s no one else?’

‘No.’

‘Nor for me,’ he said gently. He was treading on eggshells here. He should back off, go and sleep in the spare room, but there was something about this woman... This woman who was still his wife.

‘We can’t...at least...I can’t move forward,’ he told her, struggling to think things through as he spoke. ‘Relationships are for other people now, not for me. But tonight... For me, tonight is all about goodbye and I suspect it’s goodbye for you as well.’

‘The house won’t burn.’

‘No,’ he said, even more gently. ‘It probably won’t. At dawn I’ll go out and cut down the overhanging branches—and even with my limited skill with power tools, I should get them cleared before the wind changes. Then we’ll turn on every piece of fire-safe technology we built into this house. And after that, no matter what the outcome, we’ll walk away. We must. It’s time it was over, Jules, but for tonight...’ He hesitated but he had to say it. It was a gut-deep need and it couldn’t be put aside. ‘Tonight, we need each other.’

‘So much for being strangers,’ she whispered. She was still hugging herself, still contained. Sort of.

‘I guess we are,’ he conceded. ‘I guess the people we’ve turned into don’t know each other. But for now...for this night I’d like to take to bed the woman who’s still my wife.’

‘In name only.’ She was shivering.

‘So you don’t want me? Not tonight? Never again?’

And she looked up at him with those eyes he remembered so well, but with every bit of the confidence, humour, wit and courage blasted right out of them.

‘I do want you,’ she whispered. ‘That’s what terrifies me.’

‘Same here.’

‘Rob...’

‘Mmm.’

‘Do you have condoms? I mean, the last thing...’

‘I have condoms.’

‘So when you said relationships are for other people...’

‘Hey, I’m a guy.’ He was trying again to make her smile. ‘I live in hope. Hope that one morning I’ll wake up and find the old hormones rushing back. Hope that one evening I’ll look across a crowded room and see a woman laughing at the same dumb thing I’m laughing at.’

That had been what happened that night, the first time they’d met. It had been a boring evening: a company she worked for announcing a major interest in a new dockland precinct; a bright young architect on the fringes; Julie with her arms full of contracts ready to be signed by investors. A boring speech, a stupid pun missed by everyone, including the guy making the speech, and then eyes meeting...

Contracts handed to a junior. Excuses made fast. Dinner. Then...

‘So I’m prepared,’ Rob said gently and tilted her chin. Gently, though. Forcing her gaze to meet his. ‘One last time, my Jules?’

‘I’m not...your Jules.’

‘Can you pretend...for tonight?’

And, amazingly, she nodded. ‘I think...maybe,’ she managed, and at last her arms uncrossed. At last she abandoned the defensive. ‘Maybe because I need to drive the ghosts away. And maybe because I want to.’

‘I need more than maybe, Jules,’ he said gently. ‘I need you to want me as much as I want you.’

* * *

And there was the heart of what she was up against. She wanted him.

She always had.

Once upon a time she’d stood before an altar, the perfect bride. She remembered walking down the aisle on her father’s arm, seeing Rob waiting for her, knowing it was right. She’d felt like the luckiest woman in the world. He’d held her heart in his hand, and she’d known that he’d treat it with care and love and honour.

She’d said I do, and she’d meant it.

Until death do us part...

Death had parted them, she thought and it would go on keeping them apart. There was no way they could pick up the pieces that had been their lives before the boys.

But somehow they’d been given tonight.

One night. A weird window of space and time. Tomorrow the echoes of their past could well disappear, and maybe it was right that they should.

But tonight he was here.

Tonight he was gazing at her with a tenderness that told her he needed this night as well. He wanted that sliver of the past as much as she did.

For tonight he wanted her and she ached for him back. But he wasn’t pushing. It had to be her decision.

Maybe I can do this, she thought. Maybe, just for tonight, I can put my armour aside...

Her everyday life was now orchestrated, rigidly contained. It held no room for emotional attachment. Even coming here was an aberration. Once the fire was over, she’d return to her job, return to her life, return to her containment.

But for now...that ache... The way Rob talked to her... That he asked her to his bed...

It was like a siren call, she thought helplessly. She’d loved this man; she’d loved everything about him. Love had almost destroyed her and she couldn’t go there again, but for tonight... Tonight was an anomaly—time out of frame.

For tonight, she was in her home with her husband. He wasn’t pushing. He never had. He was simply waiting for her to make her decision.

Lie with her husband...or not?

Have one night as the Julie of old...or not?

‘Because once we loved,’ he said lightly, as if this wasn’t a major leap, and maybe it wasn’t. Maybe she could love again—just for the night. One night of Rob and then she’d get on with her life. One night...

‘But not if you see it as scary.’

His gaze was locked on hers. ‘It’s for pleasure only, my Jules,’ he said softly. ‘No threats. No promises. No future. Just for this night. Just for us. Just for now. Maybe or yes? I need a yes, Jules. You have to be sure.’

And suddenly she was. ‘Yes,’ she said, because there was nothing else to say. ‘Yes, please, Rob. For tonight, there’s no maybe about it. Crazy or not, scary or not, I want you.’

‘Hey, what’s scary about me?’ And he was laughing down at her, his lovely eyes dancing. Teasing. Just as he once had.

‘That’s just the problem,’ she whispered. ‘There’s nothing crazy about the way I feel about you. That’s what makes it so scary. But, scary or not, for tonight, Rob, for the last time, I want to be your wife.’

* * *

For those tense few minutes when they’d first seen each other, when they’d come together in the house for the first time in years, they’d made believe it was the first time. They were strangers. They’d relived that first connection.

Now...it was as if they’d pressed the fast forward on the replay button, Rob thought, and suddenly it was the first time he was to take her to bed.

But this was no make-believe, and it wasn’t the first time. He knew everything there was to know about this woman. His wife.

But maybe that was wrong. Yes, he knew everything there was to know about the Julie of years ago, the Julie who’d married him, but there was a gaping hole of years. How had she filled it? He didn’t know. He hardly knew how he’d filled it himself.

But for now, by mutual and unspoken consent, those four years didn’t exist. Only the fierce magnetic attraction existed—the attraction that had him wanting her the moment he’d set eyes on her.

They hadn’t ended up in bed on their first date, but it had nearly killed them not to. They’d lasted half an hour into their second date. He’d gone to her apartment to pick her up...they hadn’t even reached the bedroom.

And now, here, the desire was the same. He’d seen her in her flimsy nightgown and he wanted her with every fibre of his being. And even if it was with caveats—for the last time—he tugged her into his arms and she melted.

Fused.

‘You’re sure?’ he asked and she nodded and the sound she made was almost a purr. Memories had been set aside—the hurtful ones had, anyway.

‘I’m sure,’ she whispered and tugged his face close and her whisper was a breath on his mouth.

He lifted her and she curled against him. She looped her arms around his neck and twisted, so she could kiss him.

Somehow he made it to the bedroom door. The bed lay, invitingly, not ten feet away, but he had to stop and let himself be kissed. And kiss back.

Their mouths fused. It was like electricity, a fierce jolt on touching, then a force so great that neither could pull away. Neither could think of pulling away.

He had his wife in his arms. He couldn’t think past that. He had his Julie and his mind blocked out everything else.

His wife. His love.

* * *

She’d forgotten how her body melted. She’d forgotten how her body merged into his. How the outside world disappeared. How every sense centred on him. Or on them, for that was how it was. Years ago, the moment he’d first touched her, she’d known what marriage was. She’d felt married the first time they’d kissed.

She’d abandoned herself to him then, as simple as that. She’d surrendered and he’d done the same. His lovely strong body, virile, heavy with the scent of aroused male, wanting her, taking her, demanding everything, but in such a way that she knew that if she pulled away he’d let her go.

Only she knew she’d never pull away. She couldn’t and neither could he.

Their bodies were made for each other.

And now...now her mouth was plundering his, and his hers, and the sensations of years ago were flooding back. Oh, the taste of him. The feel... Her body was on fire with wanting, with the knowledge that somehow he was hers again, for however long...

Until morning?

No. She wasn’t thinking that. It didn’t matter how long. All that mattered was now.

Somehow, some way, they reached the bed, but even before they were on top of it she was fighting with the buttons of his shirt. She wanted this man’s body. She wanted to feel the strength of him, the hardness of his ribs, the tightness of his chest. She wanted to taste the salt of him.

Oh, his body... It was hers; it still felt like hers.

Four years ago...

No. Forget four years. Just think about now.

His kiss deepened. Her nightgown was slipping away and suddenly it was easy. Memories were gone. All she could think of was him. All she wanted was him.

Oh, the feel of him. The taste of him.

Rob.

The years had gone. Everything had gone. There was only this man, this body, this moment.

‘Welcome home, my love,’ he whispered as their clothes disappeared, as skin met skin, as the night disappeared in a haze of heat and desire.

Home... There was so much unsaid in that word. It was a word of longing, a word of hope, a word of peace.

It meant nothing, she thought. It couldn’t.

But her arms held him. Her mouth held him. Her whole body held him.

For this moment he was hers.

For this moment he was right. She was home.

* * *

He’d forgotten a woman could feel this good.

He’d forgotten...Julie?

But of course he hadn’t. He’d simply put her in a place in his mind that was inaccessible. But now she was here, his, welcoming him, loving him.

She tasted fabulous. She still smelled like...like... He didn’t know what she smelled like.

Had he ever asked her what perfume she wore? Maybe it was only soap. Fresh, citrus, it was in her hair.

He’d forgotten how erotic it was, to lie with his face in her tumbled hair, to feel the wisps around his face, to finger and twist and feel her body shudder as she responded to his touch.

The room was in darkness and that was good. If he could see her...her eyes might get that dead look, the look that said there was nothing left, for her or for him.

It was a look that had almost killed him.

But he wouldn’t think of that. He couldn’t, for her fingers were curved around his thighs, tugging him closer, closer...

His wife. His Julie. His own.

* * *

They loved and loved again. They melted into each other as if they’d never parted.

They loved.

He loved.

She was his.

The possessive word resonated in his mind, primeval as time itself. She was crying. He felt her tears, slipping from her face to his shoulder.

He gathered her to him and held, simply held, and he thought that at this moment if any man tried to take her his response would be primitive.

His.

Tomorrow he’d walk away. He’d accepted by now that their marriage was over, that Julie could never emerge from the thick armour she’d shielded herself with. In order to survive he needed to move on. He knew it. His shrink had said it. He knew it for the truth.

So he would walk away. But first...here was a gift he’d long stopped hoping for. Here was a crack in that appalling armour. For tonight she’d shed it.

‘For tonight I’m loving you,’ he whispered and she kissed him, fiercely, possessively, as if those vows they’d made so long ago still held.

And they did hold—for tonight—and that was all he was focusing on. There was no tomorrow. There was nothing but now.

He kissed her back. He loved her back.

‘For tonight I’m loving you, too,’ she whispered and she held him closer, and there was nothing in the world but his wife.

CHAPTER THREE

NOTE: IF A bush fire’s heading your way, maybe you should set the alarm.

He woke and filtered sunlight was streaming through the east windows. Filtered? That’d be smoke. It registered but only just, for Julie was in his arms, spooned against his body, naked, beautiful and sated with loving. It was hard to get his mind past that.

Past her.

But the world was edging in. The wind had risen. He could hear the sound of the gums outside creaking under the weight of it.

Wind. Smoke. Morning.

‘Jules?’

‘Mmm.’ She stirred, stretched like a kitten and the sensation of her naked skin against his had him wanting her all over again. He could...

He couldn’t. Wind. Smoke. Morning.

Somehow he hauled his watch from under his woman.

Eight-thirty.

Eight-thirty!

Get out by nine at the latest, the authorities had warned. Keep listening to emergency radio in case of updates.

Eight-thirty.

Somehow he managed to roll away and flick on the bedside radio. But even now, even realising what was at stake, he didn’t want to leave her.

The radio sounded into life. Nothing had changed in this house. He’d paid to have a housekeeper come in weekly. The clock was still set to the right time.

There was a book beside the radio. He’d been halfway through it when...when...

Maybe this house should burn, he thought, memories surging back. Maybe he wanted it to.

‘We should sell this house.’ She still sounded sleepy. The implication of sleeping in hadn’t sunk in yet, he thought, flicking through the channels to find the one devoted to emergency transmissions.

‘So why did you come back?’ he asked, abandoning the radio and turning back to her. The fire was important, but somehow...somehow he knew that words might be said now that could be said at no other time. Certainly not four years ago. Maybe not in the future either, when this house was sold or burned.

Maybe now...

‘The teddies,’ she told him, still sleepy. ‘The wall-hanging my mum made. I...wanted them.’

‘I was thinking of the fire engines.’

‘That’s appropriate.’ Amazingly, she was smiling.

He’d never thought he’d see this woman smile again.

And then he thought of those last words. The words that had hung between them for years.

‘Julie, it wasn’t our fault,’ he said and he watched her smile die.

‘I...’

‘I know. You said you killed them, but I believed it was me. That day I brought you home from hospital. You stood here and you said it was because you were sleeping and I said no, it wasn’t anyone’s fault, but there was such a big part of me that was blaming myself that I couldn’t go any further. It was like...I was dead. I couldn’t even speak. I’ve thought about it for four years. I’ve tried to write it down.’

‘I got your letters.’

‘You didn’t reply.’

‘I thought...the sooner you stopped writing the sooner you’d forget me. Get on with your life.’

‘You know the road collapsed,’ he said. ‘You know the lawyers told us we could sue. You know it was the storm the week before that eroded the bitumen.’

‘But that I was asleep...’

‘We should have stayed in the city that night. We shouldn’t have tried to bring the boys home. That’s the source of our greatest regret, but it shouldn’t be guilt. It put us in the wrong place at the wrong time. I’ve been back to the site. It was a blind curve. I rounded it and the road just wasn’t there.’

‘If we’d come up in broad daylight, when we were both alert...’

How often had he thought about this? How often had he screamed it to himself in the middle of troubled sleep?

He had to say it. He had to believe it.

‘Jules, I manoeuvred a blind bend first. A tight curve. I wasn’t speeding. I hit the brakes the moment I rounded the bend but the road was gone. If you’d been awake it wouldn’t have made one whit of difference. Julie, it’s not only me who’s saying this. It was the police, the paramedics, the guys from the accident assessment scene.’

‘But I can’t remember.’ It was a wail, and he tugged her back into his arms and thought it nearly killed him.

He was reassuring her but regardless of reason, the guilt was still there. What if...? What if, what if, what if?

Guilt had killed them both. Was killing them still.

He held her but her body had stiffened. The events of four years ago were right there. One night of passion couldn’t wash them away.

He couldn’t fix it. How could it be fixed, when two small beds lay empty in the room next door?

He kissed her on the lips, searching for an echo of the night before. She kissed him back but he could feel that she’d withdrawn.

Same dead Julie...

He turned again and went back to searching the radio channels. Finally he found the station he was looking for—the emergency channel.

‘...evacuation orders are in place now for Rowbethon, Carnarvon, Dewey’s Creek... Leave now. Forecast is for forty-six degrees, with winds up to seventy kilometres an hour, gusting to over a hundred. The fire fronts are merging...’

And all his attention was suddenly on the fire. It had to be. Rowbethon, Carnarvon, Dewey’s Creek... They were all south of Mount Bundoon.

The wind was coming from the north.

‘Fire is expected to impact on the Mount Bundoon area within the hour,’ the voice went on. ‘Bundoon Creek Bridge is closed. Anyone not evacuated, do not attempt it now. Repeat, do not attempt to evacuate. Roads are cut to the south. Fire is already impacting to the east. Implement your fire plans but, repeat, evacuation is no longer an option.’

‘We need to get to a refuge centre.’ Julie was sitting bolt upright, wide-eyed with horror.

‘There isn’t one this side of the creek.’ He glanced out of the window. ‘We’re not driving in this smoke. Besides, we have the bunker.’ Thank God, they had the bunker.

‘But...’

‘We can do this, Jules.’

And she settled, just like that. Same old Jules. In a crisis, there was no one he’d rather have by his side.

‘The fire plan,’ she said. ‘I have it.’

Of course she did. Julie was one of the most controlled people he knew. Efficient. Organised. A list-maker extraordinaire.

The moment they’d moved into this place she’d downloaded a Fire Authority Emergency Plan and made him go through it, step by step, making dot-points for every eventuality.

They were better off than most. Bush fire was always a risk in Australian summers and he’d thought about it carefully when he’d designed this place. The house had been built to withstand a furnace—though not an inferno. There’d been fires in Australia where even the most fireproof buildings had burned. But he’d designed the house with every precaution. The house was made of stone, with no garden close to the house. They had solar power, backup generators, underground water tanks, pumps and sprinkler systems. The tool shed doubled as a bunker and could be cleared in minutes, double-doored and built into earth. But still there was risk. He imagined everyone else in the gully would be well away by now and for good reason. Safe house or not, they were crazy to still be here.

But Julie wasn’t remonstrating. She was simply moving on.

‘I’ll close the shutters and tape the windows while you clear the yard,’ she said. Taping the windows was important. Heat could blast them inwards. Tape gave them an extra degree of strength and they wouldn’t shatter if they broke.

‘Wool clothes first, though,’ she said, hauling a pile out of her bottom bedroom drawer, along with torches, wool caps and water bottles. Also a small fire extinguisher. The drawer had been set up years ago for the contingency of waking to fire. Efficiency plus.

Was it possible to still love a woman for her plan-making?

‘I hope these extinguishers haven’t perished,’ she said, pulling a wool cap on her head and shoving her hair up into it. It was made of thick wool, way too big. ‘Ugh. What do you think?’

‘Cute.’

‘Oi, we’re not thinking cute.’ But her eyes smiled at him.

‘Hard not to. Woolly caps have always been a turn-on.’

‘And I love a man in flannels.’ She tossed him a shirt. ‘You’ve been working out.’

‘You noticed?’

‘I noticed all night.’ She even managed a grin. ‘But it’s time to stop noticing. Cover that six-pack, boy.’

‘Yes, ma’am.’ But he’d fielded the shirt while he was checking the fire map app on his phone, and what he saw made any thought of smiling back impossible.

She saw his face, grabbed the phone and her eyes widened. ‘Rob...’ And, for the first time, he saw fear. ‘Oh, my...Rob, it’s all around us. With this wind...’

‘We can do this,’ he said. ‘We have the bunker.’ His hands gripped her shoulders. Steadied her. ‘Julie, you came up here for the teddies and the wall-hanging. Anything else?’

‘Their...clothes. At least...at least some. And...’

She faltered, but he knew what she wanted to say. Their smell. Their presence. The last place they’d been.

He might not be able to save that for her, but he’d sure as hell try.

‘And their fire engines,’ he added, reverting, with difficulty, to the practical. ‘Let’s make that priority one. Hopefully, the pits are still clear.’

The pits were a fallback position, as well as the bunker. They’d built this house with love, but with clear acceptance that the Australian bush was designed to burn. Many native trees didn’t regenerate without fire to crack their seeds. Fire was natural, and over generations even inevitable, so if you lived in the bush you hoped for the best and prepared for the worst. Accordingly, they’d built with care, insured the house to the hilt and didn’t keep precious things here.

Except the memories of their boys. How did you keep something like that safe? How did you keep memories in fire pits?

They’d do their best. The pits were a series of holes behind the house, fenced off but easily accessed. Dirt dug from them was still heaped beside them, a method used by those who’d lived in the bush for generations. If you wanted to keep something safe, you buried it: put belongings inside watertight cases; put the cases in the pit; piled the dirt on top.

‘Get that shirt on,’ Julie growled, moving on with the efficiency she’d been born with. She cast a long regretful look at Rob’s six-pack and then sighed and hauled on her sensible pants. ‘Moving on... We knew we’d have to, Rob, and now’s the time. Clearing the yard’s the biggie. Let’s go.’

* * *

The moment they walked out of the house they knew they were in desperate trouble. The heat took their breath away. It hurt to breathe.

The wind was frightening. It was full of dry leaf litter, blasting against their faces—a portent of things to come. If these leaves were filled with fire... She felt fear deep in her gut. The maps she’d just seen were explicit. This place was going to burn.

She wanted to bury her face in Rob’s shoulder and block this out. She wanted to forget, like last night, amazingly, had let her forget.

But last night was last night. Over.

Concentrate on the list. On her dot-points.

‘Windows, pits, shovel, go,’ Rob said and seized her firmly by the shoulders and kissed her, hard and fast. Making a mockery of her determination that last night was over. ‘We can do this, Jules. You’ve put a lot of work into that fire plan. It’d be a shame if we didn’t make it work.’

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.

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