Christmas Getaway (20 page)

He'd never met anyone like her in his life.

He remembered her anger back in the rose garden at the wedding chapel. Angry, she'd been beautiful.

Cajoling the kids, bossy and bouncy in the supermarket this afternoon, she'd been beautiful.

Intent on decorating the Christmas tree, she'd been gorgeous.

Telling him about her daughter, she'd been…stunning.

He felt winded. He felt…

Like Ruby had told him he'd feel one day.

Ruby, his sometime foster mother. He'd stayed with her all one summer when he was a kid, and then the social workers had found a place he and Erica could stay together so he'd been moved on. When that placement had fallen through, all the places at Ruby's had been taken.

But Ruby had kept in touch. He'd spent a couple of Christmases with her, and she'd kept on saying, “One day you'll fall in love.”

It was happening to Ruby's boys. Two of her permanent foster sons had fallen in love. He'd been invited to Pierce's wedding.

“It'll happen to you, too,” Ruby had said warmly to him
then, and he'd grinned down at the dumpy little ball of energy who was the only person in the world he'd walk on fire for.

“Only if you want to take me on,” he'd said, and she'd smiled her delight and tucked her arm possessively into his.

“That's lovely but I've had the love of my life,” she'd said. Ruby's husband had died young—there were photographs all over her house and she talked of him all the time. “Yours is still waiting,” she'd told him. “Let me know when it happens.”

And now it had. Just like Ruby had said it would. He'd looked down into Molly's confused eyes and he'd felt his world shift.

So when she'd offered herself to him tonight, he hadn't accepted. For he didn't want her on the terms she was offering. No one-night stand this.

But what was it? What sort of relationship could this ever be? An Australian stuck with three kids. An independent career lawyer who lived in the States; a woman with more baggage than he had.

Where the hell did he start?

Not by taking advantage of her. That was all he'd been able to figure so far.

She'd need time. How long to get over a jilting bridegroom? And she wasn't close to being over the death of her tiny daughter.

Where to start? He didn't have a clue. All he knew was that he'd started.

Maybe it was just the cocktails, he thought hopelessly.

Nope. He'd had the virgins. Plus light beer.

It was definitely Molly.

So what did he have here? He leaned against the door and he stared incredulously into his future. Three kids. Molly. Three kids. Molly.

Impossible. How to ask Molly to take on not only him, but also three kids?

She never would.

“But it won't be for want of asking,” he said, and then he realized he was talking aloud and Molly could hear and she probably already thought he had a kangaroo loose in the top paddock.

He summoned a smile. Sort of a smile.

He touched the door with the flat of his hand—a dumb gesture of a blessing to the woman inside.

And then he went upstairs to bed.

Alone.

 

A
ND ON THE OTHER
side of the door?

Maybe Molly should be examining the kiss in just as much detail, but events of the last few days had caught up with her. Joe had laid her on her pillows, he'd tucked her covers around her and he'd kissed her good-night.

It was enough.

She slept. Smiling.

S
HE SLEPT ROUND
the clock and then some. She woke and looked at her watch. It was 1:00 p.m. and she almost yelped.

She'd hardly slept since the wedding. She needed the sleep. But this morning she'd intended to be up and chirpy, stepping into Christmas organization and in charge of her world.

The events of the night before had altered things.

There were sounds from outside. Splashing. Kids' laughter. They were in the pool. Joe's deep voice, offering watermelon. Whooping and more splashing.

She smiled.

But then her smile faded. She lay and stared blindly up at the ceiling and thought about the kiss. About how it had made her feel.

The first cold shards of fear flickered through her.

Last night she'd been too exhausted to feel them. She'd simply let herself get sucked into the sweetness of the moment and it had turned into something else with frightening speed. That it hadn't gone further was thanks to Joe.

Not her.

The realization hit her with shattering force.

She started shaking. Not a faint tremble but a full-blown, teeth-chattering tremor that came of terror.

She was a mature woman, a lawyer, and she was shaking because of one kiss?

It wasn't that. She'd let her guard down. Once she'd let it down and she'd ended up with her daughter, with tragedy, with a loss that could never leave her. Twice she'd let it down and she'd ended up jilted at a schmaltzy wedding where her friends and business partners had been left staring at her with a mixture of sympathy and incredulity.

And last night? She hardly knew Joe and she'd just thrown herself at him. Had she learned nothing?

Nothing.

That's what it had to be. She felt cold and sick and exhausted. Somehow she got her dumb, shaking body out of bed and into the shower. She turned the water on hot and stood under it until the heat seeped into her and the shaking stopped. And she had herself together. Almost.

She dressed with care, in a sundress that had tiny capped sleeves, the most demure item of her honeymoon wardrobe. She'd buy a couple of plain shirts and long pants in town today. That'd make things better.

She dried her hair and tied it carefully into her corporate style. Smooth. Controlled.

She'd told the kids she'd spend Christmas with them. She couldn't go back on that. Okay, she would, but she sure as hell wasn't having any more of Joe's martinis. And she was staying her side of control.

 

I
T WAS LIKE A SWITCH
had been flicked.

With the kids she was laughing, happy, bossy, steering them into a full-blown Christmas with an energy that left him stunned.

With him she was cool, polite, even friendly. But she was on one side of a line and he was on the other, and if he so much as put a toe over he knew it.

They made plum pudding. The kids stirred the pudding
while Molly held the bowl. He went to have his turn and she placed the pudding bowl on the bench and stepped back.

They hung paper chains from the ceiling. She was sticking chains up and she overbalanced on the ladder. He caught her as she fell, but she whisked herself out of his arms so fast he barely had time to register the feel of her. And then she glared.

“Hey, you could at least say thank you,” he protested.

“Thank you,” she said stiffly, and moved on.

He knew why she was doing it. She'd let enough of herself out in those first few hours for him to realize how terrified relationships must make her feel. A one-night stand might be okay, but the way he felt… This was no one-night stand. He knew by the fear in her eyes that she felt the same.

That was a good sign—wasn't it? That she was fearful must mean she felt something like he did?

But how to break down the barriers?

He couldn't push. He knew it. He'd stepped back last night out of instinctive knowledge that here was something infinitely precious that could be smashed.

But to see it and let it go…

“How long are you staying?” Zoe asked her as they organized stockings and she set them to making name tags to specify ownership.

“The day after Christmas,” she said. “I've changed my plane flight back to the States.”

The kids' faces fell.

Joe's face fell.

“We'd like you to stay longer,” he said gently, and she flashed him a look that said get on your side of the line again.

“I'm sorry, Joe,” she said softly. “It's your life. Not mine.”

And that was that.

At least the kids were having a wonderful time. They loved
Molly to bits. She'd rescued Christmas. She bossed them into activities all the way to Christmas Eve. She even bossed him, sending him out with a shopping list a mile long including things she'd figured the kids would love in their stockings.

She took the kids on their own secret shopping trip. The house was full of secrets, full of Christmas anticipation.

It was also full of tension as he watched her and saw the loneliness in her dark eyes and wondered whether he could ever find a way to approach her.

Christmas Eve. Two more sleeps 'til she left again.

“One more sleep 'til Santa,” the kids whooped, but the deadline until Molly left was an imperative one.

As dark fell they hung up their stockings and set out milk and cookies for Santa—and carrots for the reindeer—and then Molly bossed them all round the Christmas tree, set corny carols on the sound system and made them sing.

For Joe, who'd never done such a thing, it started off being almost embarrassing. But then…somewhere in the middle of “Silent Night,” when Zoe's high little voice cracked and wobbled and she made up a couple of words of her own because she couldn't read the sheet, when Molly smiled down at her and hugged her and lifted her up so they could sing together, he felt salty tears sting at the back of his eyes.

This was magic. Somehow he had to find a way to keep this for all of them.

And then the glass of the back door blasted open and the peace of Christmas Eve was shattered.

 

I
T WAS A GUNSHOT
.

They were upstairs. The main entrance was downstairs. The door was plate glass, reinforced, and it broke but it wouldn't have disintegrated. The door was dead-bolted.

Fear had a wonderful way of focusing the mind. Joe could have stood motionless, waiting to see what would happen, but the shooting spree at the wedding was too recent, the sight of Tommy's gun too fresh in his mind.

And the knowledge of the words Jean had overheard…

The kids… Despite the cops' reassurance they'd come for the kids.

This was no burglary. Thieves didn't blast their way into a house. Whoever was downstairs didn't care that their presence had been announced.

Whoever was downstairs had deadly intent.

“Out,” he snapped, and before they could respond he'd lifted Lily, shoved Molly and Zoe toward the main bedroom and grabbed Charlie's hand, tugging him along. By the time the second gunshot sounded downstairs they were in the master bedroom and he was hauling open the French doors.

The doors led to a balcony at the back of the house.

There was a massive palm tree hard against the window, with bougainvillea, a fabulous flowering vine, thick around its trunk. Was it strong enough to hold on to? It had to be. There was no choice.

“We need to run away,” he said harshly to the bewildered kids, and he lifted Charlie and held him out until he clung to the vine. “Charlie, climb down, fast, don't wait for us but run until you get to the back of the pavilion behind the swimming pool. That's the rule. Go!”

There was no time for reassurance. He was already lifting Lily.

But these kids had been trained to obey rules and it stood them in good stead now. They didn't argue. Charlie was halfway down the vine before Lily had a grip. Joe grabbed Zoe out of Molly's arms and Molly didn't protest, either. She sim
ply swung herself over the rail and down she went, acknowledging she couldn't climb herself with Zoe.

“Go, Lily,” she said harshly to the little girl beneath her. “I'm right behind you.”

She trusted him, Joe thought. It was a flash of knowledge, a fleeting impression, but it steadied him. Molly trusted him. She depended on him.

They all depended on him.

He hauled the French doors shut, hoping it might give them precious moments while the gunman—or gunmen?—had to figure where they'd gone. Then he swung himself over the rail.

“Hold on round my neck,” he ordered Zoe, swinging her around to his back. When she didn't respond, he reached for her arms, linked them about his neck and said, “You're a baby monkey. Hold on to me or you'll fall off.”

Heaven knew what she thought. To push a child so far…

But her arms tightened. Her hands linked around his neck and she clung.

He reached for the vine and swung out, away from the balcony.

The vine gave, not able to take their combined weight. He fell, but he grabbed more vine as he went. That snapped, too, but it was a series of lurches rather than a freefall and he landed on his feet, Zoe still blessedly attached.

Lily and Charlie and Molly were already three shadows flying around the side of the swimming pool pavillion. He ran, hauling Zoe to his front as he went so he could hold her in his arms, and shoving his way along a path that was overgrown from disuse.

A harsh male voice came from above.

“There they are…”

The blast of a gun.

He felt Zoe jerk in his arms but he couldn't stop. He ran, and he ran. Round the side of the pavilion.

Where…

They were there, flattened against the wall. Molly had the kids by each hand.

“The beach,” he said. “Straight down the path and then to the left and into the trees. Go!”

It took less than a minute to reach the beach. The kids were flying, faster than he could ever have expected them to run, and Zoe was still clinging to him. Every moment he anticipated more blasts from behind. But he'd destroyed the vine. Maybe they'd had to go back downstairs and out and around. Whatever, Molly and he and the kids seemed to have been granted a few moments' grace.

The beach opened out before them, calm and clear in the moonlight, but this was no safe haven. Out here they were exposed.

“We go into the rain forest,” he said, making it up as he went. “Molly, just push through. Shove in as hard as you can, as fast as you can. Kids, follow her and I'm coming behind.”

Zoe whimpered in his arms. He clung tighter but there was no time for reassurance.

“Go,” he said, and they did.

The rain forest here was so thick it was almost impenetrable, but they were in no mood to be stopped. Molly was tearing vines apart, shoving her way into the forest with a desperation born of fear. Burdened with Zoe, Joe could hardly help her but she didn't need help. She pushed and pushed and pushed.

Then emerged into a clearing.

It was a clearing made by rocks—a slab of granite where
nothing could grow. Molly almost fell out onto it, and the kids and Joe followed.

How far had they gone? They'd been pushing for twenty minutes.

Zoe was cradled against his shoulder. His shoulder was wet. Warm…

Startled he put his fingers up to touch and then held them up. They were thick with blood.

“Zoe!” He hauled her back so he could see her. Zoe gazed back at him, big-eyed and fearful. A jagged scratch ran down her temple.

Molly had seen. She reached for the little girl and held her as Joe checked the wound, running his fingers lightly over the damaged skin, feeling rather than seeing.

It wasn't deep. This was no bullet hole. Maybe a bullet had grazed the side of her head above Joe's shoulder, that was all, or maybe it was simply a graze from a branch she'd hit. Whatever—she was okay.

His knees damn near gave way under him.

“Is she dead?” Charlie quavered, and Joe ordered his knees to stiffen.

He managed a smile. Somehow. “You're not dead, are you, Zoe?” he asked, and the little girl shook her head. He grabbed the shoulder of his shirt and ripped—the sleeve came off on the third tug and he tied it round Zoe's head with speed. The blood wasn't pumping. Pressure should stop it.

They'd been lucky.

“Where to?” Molly whispered, and he looked at her in the moonlight and thought hell, if anything happened to her…if anything happened to these kids…

“It's miles to the nearest house, and there's only one road in. I don't think it's safe to try and get to help tonight. We need
to go a bit farther into the forest and find somewhere safe to see the night out. Only let's go a bit slower now and keep really, really quiet.”

“You think they're following?”

He was sure they'd follow if they could. But the damaged vine had given them a head start. Had they made so much noise they could be followed?

“I haven't got my phone,” Molly said, distressed. “I can't call for help.”

“Mine's in my pocket but I've checked. There's no reception. So we're on our own. We'll walk as far as we can, but from now on let's slow down a little, and creep. No talking. Not even whispering. Let's try not to damage the bush so they can't see where we've gone. And then let's find somewhere we can sleep the night.”

 

T
HEY CROSSED THREE
rocky outcrops, and each time Joe had them change direction and bush-bash farther along. But they couldn't go on forever. Lily was stumbling now, whimpering. Finally they emerged to a fourth open space with a cliff at the rear. This had to be it, and blessedly it was. In a cleft in the rock Joe found enough space for the five of them to stay. There was thick moss over the base of the rocks. There were ferns in front—he could see between them, just, so he could detect anyone approaching—and, best of all, the cleft wound into the hills and opened up again fifty yards back. If they needed to they could back away before they were seen.