Christmas Where They Belong

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 (#ulink_d9c8ce09-460b-5149-aa55-fb81ebbbc828)

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.’