Christmas Where They Belong

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 (#ulink_c8b4b762-89f1-5586-a7e4-84e3bdadb3db)

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.’