Christmas Getaway (21 page)

But it would take the point of a gun to make them move. The kids had gone past exhaustion. He ushered them into their makeshift camp. Molly sank to her knees and gathered them to her and he thought they were close to collapse.

He sank down with them. He felt helpless and sick at heart. All he could do was watch as the kids clung and clung.

But finally Charlie broke away. He turned and Joe saw his face was tearstained and terrified.

“Uncle Joe,” he whispered, and Joe was suddenly included. There were five of them in a sandwich hug, looking to each other for comfort.

He should be keeping guard. He should be looking behind them, but just for that moment he gave himself up to the sweetness and the comfort of the warm bodies.

It was Molly who emerged first. She looked…a mess, he thought. The moon was full tonight—a disadvantage for the hunted, but if there hadn't been a moon, maybe their flight would have been more perilous. Molly had bush-bashed her way through the undergrowth. Her face was a mass of scratches. Her hair was a tangle of matted curls, littered with leaves and twigs. He glanced at her hands and winced.

But she wasn't concerned about herself.

“You do lookout duty,” she said softly to him. “Kids, I know this is scary but Joe's here to look after us. He won't let anyone near. I need to look at Zoe's head. Can you help me? Lily, see that trickle of water running down the rock? Here.” She delved under her T-shirt and a minute later a soft cotton bra was in Lily's hands. “Wet this for me and we'll use it to wash your head, Zoe. Charlie, can you tug a bit more of this moss down and lay it over here. Let's make a Christmas Eve hidey-hole for all of us.”

 

S
HE WAS FANTASTIC
. She almost turned their situation into something normal. She was prosaic and comforting and the worst of the kids' fear dissipated in the face of her practicality.

“No, how can they find us? We've gone so far into the bush
I think we're almost back to America. In the morning your uncle Joe will fetch the police, the bad men will be arrested and we'll get on with Christmas. Meanwhile…let's play guess what's in the parcels under the Christmas tree. Lily, you saw the great big blue parcel with the purple bow and your name on it? What do you think it might be?”

Maybe if they hadn't been exhausted it mightn't have worked, but she lay down with them, hugged the kids against her and they guessed presents in whispers. She let them talk of nothing else and finally, finally they slept. They were like a litter of cubs in a warren, he thought as he watched them, taking comfort from each other as well as from Molly. The terrors had been too big to take in. Zoe's scratched face had faded in her mind—she had no knowledge how close she'd come to death and for her the terror was over.

But Molly's terror was still with her. As the last of the kids drifted off to sleep she gently disentangled herself and wriggled out to join him at the opening of the cleft.

“Nothing?”

“They won't come this far,” he said. He was pretty sure. They'd have to be experienced bushmen to follow them this far in. “Whoever…”

“One of them's Connor.”

He turned and stared at her. “You're sure?”

“His was the voice that yelled out.” She swallowed. “He'll be…he'll be the one that shot Zoe.”

A final betrayal. “Molly, I'm so sorry,” he said, but her eyes flashed fire.

“Don't be,” she muttered, and hauled herself forward so she was staring into the darkness with him. A tiny wallaby was nibbling grass on the other side of the clearing. He'd be their sentinel, Joe thought. The little creature had leaped away
when they'd arrived, but now that all was quiet, the wallaby was grazing again.

“Don't be sorry?”

“Not for me,” she said. “Not because I agreed to marry a lousy, bottom-feeding, murderous scumbag. I don't need sympathy. I may need psychiatric assessment but not sympathy.”

There was even grim humor in her words. He smiled and unconsciously his arm went round her waist and held. She stiffened for a fraction of a second and then relaxed and melted into him.

“You really think we've lost them?”

“What does Connor know about the Australian bush?”

“Zip.”

“There's your answer. It'd take an experienced tracker to find us, I reckon, and daylight, as well.”

“Then why are we whispering?”

“Because if there's a chance in a million I'm wrong…”

“There's not.”

“You're very definite.”

“I am,” she said. “And you know what? If Connor comes, now I have a plan.”

“The plan would be to keep deathly quiet and hope he goes away.”

“No.”

“Then we'd run?”

“That's a bad idea, too,” she said. “With the kids he could outrun us without raising a sweat.”

It was what he'd been thinking, but he wasn't going to say it.

“Then what?”

“We attack,” she said.

“Um…right.”

“No, really,” she said, and she tugged over a tennis-ball-
sized chunk of granite. “There's lots of these. If there's two of them, I might need help, but if it's just Connor… I can sneak out behind the ferns to the other side of the clearing. Then I can come up behind and
thump.
”

“
Thump?
”

“I could do it,” she said. Her face tightened, all humor gone. “He shot Zoe. I could do it.”

There was a moment's stunned silence. Then he said, “I love you, Molly.”

Where had that come from? Wham, out of nowhere, it was a declaration that was as dumb as it was inappropriate. For Molly, who'd spent the night in shock, this must be just one more shock piled on the rest.

“You love me?” she whispered, and he opened his mouth to say sorry, it was a mistake, he hadn't meant to say it. But his words turned into something different.

“I didn't think I'd ever say it,” he said. “I wasn't sure such a thing exists. But I think I fell in love with you the first time I saw you and it's getting worse, not better. And dammit, you sit there with your hair full of twigs threatening to hit thugs with rocks…”

“Yeah, beautiful,” she said dryly.

“You are beautiful. You're the most beautiful woman I've ever met in my life.” Then, at the look in her eyes—bewilderment and the beginnings of fear—he shook his head, damning himself for being every kind of fool. “I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that.”

“I don't do love,” she whispered.

“No?”

“It leads to catastrophe.”

“Maybe it does, but maybe it doesn't,” he said, trying to
figure out the U-turn his own thinking had done. “Maybe true love's the answer to catastrophe.”

“That sounds like something you read in a fortune cookie.”

“Yeah, me, the great romantic,” he said dryly. “My love is like a fortune cookie.”

“Joe…”

“Okay, let's leave it.” What the hell was he doing, waiting for gunmen, telling a woman he loved her? If she thought he was a fruitcake, she'd be right.

“I'm scared,” she whispered.

“That makes two of us.”

“I didn't mean about Connor.”

“Neither did I,” he said softly. “You're not alone in thinking this is a huge, scary leap of faith.”

“I've tried it before.”

“Have you?” He lifted his hand to her face and cupped her chin. “Have you really tried loving? Can you look at me and say you loved the father of your child? That you loved Connor? That you knew and loved them both?”

“No, I…”

“Maybe it's because you didn't truly love that it turned out a mess.” He sighed, seeing confusion and doubt. “Sorry, Molly, look, what the hell would I know? I know nothing except what Ruby's hammered into me and I didn't believe a word of it until I met you. But let's leave it. Go back to the kids while I watch.”

“You think I'd sleep while you're out here alone?”

“It'd be sensible.”

“Yeah.” Then she shook her head. “No. I'm staying. Joe…”

“Yeah?”

“Whether you're right or not, whatever this love thing is or isn't, I can't figure it out right now. All I know is that this is deeply scary and I'm staying out here and I want your arm
around me. Please. We can sort everything else out…afterward. Is that okay?”

“It's fine by me,” he said, and tugged her to him and held her close.

 

S
HE SLEPT
.

She didn't mean to, but Joe leaned back against the rock face, she rested on his shoulder, he held her close and she sort of slipped down so her head was on his knees.

He ran his fingers through her curls, gently disentangling twigs and then raking her curls over and over as if she were a child who needed comfort.

He was watching out over the clearing. The children were soundly asleep behind them. She figured she should be watching out over the clearing, too—she was!—but the feel of his fingers in her hair was doing strange things to her. Weird, lovely sensations that made her feel…made her feel…safe and cherished. Home.

Which was a really dumb sensation. She was as out of her comfort zone as she was ever likely to get. Somewhere out there in the night was Connor with a gun. She was as far away from her home as she was likely ever to be. But she felt herself melting into the sensations he was creating. She felt herself sliding….

 

S
HE WOKE
, startled by a sudden rush of movement. Joe jerked sideways. Her eyes flew open, adrenaline surging back.

“It's okay,” he whispered, and pointed outward.

Their sentinel had turned into eight sentinels. Eight wallabies. There was a veritable army between them and danger.

One was staring back into the cleft in what looked like indignation.

“He stuck his nose in here,” Joe said. “I gave him a helluva
fright. He jumped about two feet, and hit me with his tail as he did a one-eighty turn.”

She smiled, fear dissipating. Safer and safer.

“What time is it?”

“Just after five. An hour 'til dawn.”

She'd slept so long? “Joe, I'm so sorry. I should have stayed awake.”

“It was all my pleasure,” he said in that deep gravelly voice that said he spoke the absolute truth.

“You…you think…”

“I'm not thinking anything.”

“Hey,” she said, and wriggled in his arms so she could smile up at him. “Hey, it's Christmas. Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas yourself,” he said, and kissed her lightly on the nose, then went back to looking out past the wallabies.

He'd been watching all night as she slept.

He was still holding her, lightly, not possessively. If she wanted to move away, he'd release her in a moment.

She thought back to the night she arrived. He'd wanted her. She knew that.

But he'd backed off. He hadn't pushed her.

He'd told her he loved her.

Until this moment the enormity of what he'd said hadn't sunk in. She was too caught up in present terror and past tragedy. But it hit her now, not as a flash of knowledge, something cerebral, but as a sweeping tide of warmth that started somewhere deep within and grew and grew until it threatened to overwhelm her.

It was Christmas morning and this man had given her his love. Just like that. If she didn't want it, he wouldn't push it further. He was asking for nothing.

He was simply giving her his love.

There were complications. The Molly who'd been trained to stay impersonal, who'd been independent forever, who'd lost her baby, was screaming at her now. What sort of love could this be? Joe lives in Australia. He has three kids. He's been a foster kid; he'll know more than you do how to keep himself to himself.

But he wasn't keeping himself to himself now. He was calmly watching the clearing, keeping himself in harm's way while he protected those he loved.

Including her. His love included her. It was like a song, insidious in its sweetness. That this man might be her family…

And the knowledge was suddenly overwhelming, shoving aside all doubts. This was a risk worth taking. It was a leap into the unknown, but what a leap…

He glanced down at her, vaguely questioning. Concerned. “Hey, don't look like that,” he said. “It was only a kiss on the nose.”

“So it was,” she whispered. “It wasn't enough.”

His face stilled. “It wasn't…”

“Enough. Do you realize you've given me your love for Christmas morning?”

“I'm not sure that you want it.”

“I wasn't sure that I did, either,” she said, lifting her hand and running her fingers across the stubble of his chin. “It was all pretty much a blur last night.”

“Yeah. It was inappropriate….”

“See, I've just been thinking,” she whispered. “Is it ever inappropriate to tell someone you love them?”

“I'm not sure. I don't know the rules.”

“Neither do I,” she said, and summoned a smile. It was time to be brave here. It was time to take her leap. “But I do know a couple of rules. And the biggie right here is that it's Christ
mas morning and you've given me a gift and I need to give you something back.”

“I haven't…”

“You don't think your love is a gift?”

“Only if you want it,” he said gravely, and her heart seemed to turn over. With the first tentative acceptance of self-knowledge. How could she have been so blind? How could she have spent these last days with this man and not realized that he was so far apart from her previous life that he was a different world. A new and wonderful world that she needed to be a part of.

“See, I've been lying here and thinking,” she whispered, allowing herself the luxury of running her fingers down the harsh bone structure of his face. “I'm thinking I've been a bit of a coward.”