Christmas at Waratah Bay (13 page)

Of the need to hold this woman as he’d never held another?

To hold her with love?

Love . . . There was an alien concept. Or not. His life had been full of . . .love. “Max, love your baby sister. Max, if you loved me you’d keep these kids out of my hair. Max, it’s up to you to love them, your mother can’t . . . ”

He’d had relationships before this. Of course, he had. They’d been fun, superficial links where he’d spelled out the boundaries from the start.

But there were no boundaries here. He was kissing her and she was kissing him back. She was holding his face in her gentle—if cold—hands. She was returning his kisses with a fierceness that matched his own.

Their needs matched. Their desire matched.

He wanted her. He wanted to be close, close, closer, and if it weren’t for this dammed turkey, and if they hadn’t been in the house’s communal bathroom and this house hadn’t been full of kids and Harold and his sister and her husband . . .

If it weren’t for all those things . . . But all those things were there and they should make him pull away.

They didn’t. He held and he kissed, and her body spooned against his. Their clothes were their only barrier—and heaven help him if they hadn’t been there. If he could feel her naked skin . . . how could a man stop then? He couldn’t.

He couldn’t go further and yet, in some strange way, it was enough. The warmth her body exuded . . . The sweetness of her mouth . . . The way her arms held him, fierce, possessive, loving . . . Things were shifting inside him, changing, settling into a new order.

He held her and he thought she was the most beautiful . . . the most precious . . .

“Um . . .Max . . . ”

“Mmm?” It was all he could do to get a sound out.

“The turkey.”

“Bigfoot can take care of himself,” he said, in a voice he scarcely recognized. “For now . . . For now, one turkey has to take a backseat to you.”

*

She’d come all
the way to Australia to see Harold before he died.

She hadn’t come here to fall in love with Max Ramsey.

This was complication upon complication. Falling in love with a puppy was going to tie her life in knots. Falling in love with Max was impossible.

How could she be melting into this man’s arms and thinking this was where she wanted to be for the rest of her life.

She couldn’t be. She had to be back in New York by New Year.

But . . . Don’t think forward. Max wasn’t thinking forward. He was plundering her mouth. He was making her melt and he was surely only thinking of right here, right now.

Right here, right now was surely all that could matter. Oh, but he made her feel . . .

And that was the trouble. He made her feel like she’d never felt before in her life. Like he was the other half of her whole.

Like she’d found her home.

She couldn’t stop. She was kissing and being kissed. She was falling deeper and deeper and deeper . . .

Manhattan. New York. In less than a week she had to be on that plane. Do not let yourself . . .

How could she not? The strength, the heat, the gentleness, the pure, arrant masculinity . . .

The way he’d cradled her puppy. The way he’d cared for Harold.

The way his family loved him.

Max . . .

Impossible, impossible, impossible, but he was kissing her still and in that kiss, anything was possible. Anything at all.

For this moment, nothing else could matter. For this moment, the turkey wallowed beside them and neither of them cared.

For this moment, Christmas was on the backburner. For now, everything was on the backburner.

There was only now. There was only each other.

“Uncle Max? Uncle Max?”

Yeah, okay, other things did matter. Somehow, they broke apart as five-year-old Vicki knocked—and entered. They were at least three inches apart by the time she saw them.

“Wow!” She stared at them in wide-eyed astonishment. Luckily, the bird was more astonishing than they were. “What’s that?”

“The turkey,” Max managed. He’d drawn back from Sarah, but he was still loosely holding.

“What are you doing?”

“We’re defrosting it for Christmas dinner,” Sarah added.

“Has Santa come yet?”

“No, and we’ve been looking all the time,” Max told her. “Do you need to use the bathroom?”

“I heard noises. I thought Santa might be in the bathroom.”

“He’ll be waiting until everyone’s asleep.”

“Then you ought to go to sleep,” Vicki said severely. “You’re keeping him away.”

“Right,” Max said, hugging Sarah closer. “But you go first.”

“Stop making noises.”

“We will.”

“Okay.” She glared at them. “I don’t want Santa not coming because you’re cuddling Sarah.”

“Got it,” Max said. “No cuddling.”

“Okay.” And Vicki beamed. “Not long now. Go to bed and pretend, even if you can’t sleep.”

And she headed off to do just that, leaving Sarah and Max a good foot apart.

With a turkey.

“Wise advice,” Sarah said. “Go to bed, Max.”

“You go to bed.”

She gazed at him for a long moment and then she rose. “Okay.”

“Okay?” Just like that?

“I know pig stubborn when I see it,” she told him. “You won’t let me splash my turkey in private, and if I stay here we can’t keep our hands off each other. Which is stupid, no matter how we look at it. I’m going back to Manhattan by New Year. There’s no earthly use in staying here cuddling you. So you play the martyr, I’ll go to bed.”

“To sleep?”

“Are you kidding? But Vicki’s instructed us to pretend, so pretend I will. I’ll set the alarm for five and come and take over again. Separate shifts, Mr. Ramsey, it’s the only way to go.”

And, before he could say a word, before he could reach out and touch her and undo all her resolutions, she whisked herself out of the bathroom and closed the door behind her.

Even if it nearly killed her to do so.

*

She lay in
bed and stared at the ceiling and thought of all the reasons why she could not fall in love with Max Ramsey. They were all excellent reasons, good, sensible, solid arguments, which lined up to form one impenetrable barrier.

Except he was still in the bathroom, defrosting her disaster.

Disaster . . .

“That’s what falling in love with Max would be,” she told herself. “So don’t.”

But then a little voice whispered . . .

“Maybe I already have.”

There was a whimper beside the bed. Gerome was stirring. Bing stirred as well and did some licking, but Gerome was caught up in his own little nightmare and refused to be comforted.

Sarah leaned down and caught him up, tucking him into her bed. Then, as Bing whimpered, she tossed the covers back.

“Come in, too,” she told Max’s dog. “The more the merrier. I’ll be on my own again soon enough, and besides, you’re the closest thing to Max I can find.”

*

He didn’t do
relationships. He didn’t want the whole complicated mess that came with them.

He and Sarah? No and no and no.

He rolled the turkey. This was what family was all about, he told himself. It was being stranded with a disaster on Christmas day.

Only this time he didn’t quite believe his own narrative. Sarah hadn’t stranded him with this turkey. His own pig-headedness had done that.

He’d wanted to be stranded—with Sarah.

“And now it’s just you and me,” he told Bigfoot. “That’s life. She’ll go back to Manhattan, you’ll get eaten and there’ll just be me again. Which is the way I want it.”

Except, she was right here in this house. And she was . . . Sarah. And the way he was feeling . . .

“I should get right in there with you,” he told Bigfoot. “You and I . . . we both need cold water in large quantities.”

‡

C
hristmas morning for
the last few glorious years had been peaceful. He’d given himself the day off work, he’d slept late and he’d spent the rest of the day in magnificent, wonderful silence. He hadn’t felt responsible for anyone. He hadn’t felt guilty for anything.

Today, though, was not about silence. Sarah had relieved him on turkey duty at five (nicely defrosting, he’d reported at handover) and he’d barely hit the pillow when Katie’s brood was up and whooping.

He checked Harold and found him awake, pushing himself up on his pillows, looking flushed and almost as excited as the kids.

“A house-full. We have kids for Christmas. Max, can you help me to the living room? I want to see the kids with stockings. And I have something for you, and for Sarah. Two parcels in the bottom of my bag—yours is labeled, the other I was going to post, but didn’t get a chance. Wasn’t that lucky that I can give it to her in person?”

Lucky . . . that Sarah was here? Two days ago, he’d have laughed at the thought. Now he looked at the old man’s transparent happiness and he almost agreed with him.

Lucky . . .

He helped Harold dress, helped him to the big front room with Sarah’s enormous Christmas tree, swung the door wide and stared in amazement.

Santa had been here. Every stocking was laden. Under the tree was an enormous pile of gifts. There was a plate of shortbread on the hearth with bites taken out and an empty beer glass with bits of white whisker stuck on the lip.

Santa had been with bells on.

Katie was lying on the settee looking like a beached whale, but a very smug and self-satisfied beached whale. Doug was under the tree with the kids.

Of course, he thought, dazed. These were Katie and Doug’s kids, and Katie and Doug had taken responsibility. Why had he been subconsciously gearing for disappointment?

Doug was putting the kids aside, bounding up to help with Harold, pushing two chairs together to make a second settee.

Sarah came bustling in from the kitchen, beaming a smile a mile wide. She was wearing an enormous apron, red and gold. She was wearing a Santa hat with fake white pigtails and red ribbons.

She had flour on her nose and she was carrying an enormous pudding basin.

Damn, where was mistletoe when a man needed mistletoe? He’d trade every gift . . .