The One Winter Collection. Rebecca Winters

didn’t laugh at you.’

      ‘No,’ he said and he stooped and took her hands in his. ‘You laugh with me. Every time I laugh, I know you’re laughing too. And every time I’m gutted it’s the same. That’s what’s tearing me apart the most. I’ve known, these last four years, that you haven’t been laughing. Nor have you been gutted because I would have felt it. You’ve just been frozen. But I want you, Jules. I want my lovely, laughing Julie back again. We’ve lost so much. Do we have to lose everything?’

      He was so close. His hands enfolded hers. It would be so easy to fall...

      But it was easier to make love to him than what he was asking her now. She remembered that closeness. That feeling that she was part of him. That even when he drove her crazy she understood why, and she sort of got that she might be driving him crazy too.

      They’d fought. Of course they’d fought. Understanding someone didn’t mean you had to share a point of view and often they hadn’t.

      She’d loved fighting with him and often she hadn’t actually minded losing. A triumphant Rob made her laugh.

      But to start again...

      Could she?

      She so wanted to, but...but...

      She was like the meat she had taken out from the freezer, she thought tangentially. On the surface she was defrosting but at her core there was still a deep knot of frozen.

      If she could get out of here, get away from Rob, then that core would stay protected. Her outer layers could freeze again as well.

      Was that what she wanted?

      ‘Jules, try,’ Rob said, drawing her into his arms and holding her. ‘You can’t waste all that hair on legal contracts. Waste it on me.’

      ‘What do you think I’m doing now?’

      ‘But long-term? After the fire.’

      ‘I don’t know.’ The panic was suddenly back, all around her—the panic that had overwhelmed her the first time she’d walked into the twins’ empty bedroom, the panic that threatened to bring her down if she got close to anyone. The abyss was so close...

      ‘I won’t push you,’ Rob said.

      ‘So making love isn’t pushing?’

      ‘That wasn’t me,’ he said, almost sternly. ‘It was both of us. You know you want me as much as I want you.’

      ‘I want your body.’

      ‘You want all of me. You want the part that wants to be part of you again. The part that wants to love you and demands you love me back.’

      ‘Rob...I can’t!’ How could she stop this overwhelming feeling of terror? She wanted this man so much, but...but...

      She had to make one last Herculean effort. One last try to stay...frozen.

      ‘It’s...time to get dressed,’ she managed, and he nodded and lifted his fingers through her curls one last time.

      ‘I guess,’ he said ruefully, achingly reluctant. ‘But let’s try. Let the world in, my Julie. Let Amina see what her magic produced.’

      ‘Only it’s not magic,’ she whispered. ‘We can’t cast a happy-ever-after spell.’

      ‘We could try.’

      ‘We could destroy each other.’

      ‘More than we already have?’ He sighed. ‘But it’s okay. Whatever you decide has to be okay. I will not push.’ He kissed her once again, on the nape of her neck, and it was all she could do not to turn and take him into her arms and hold him and hold him and hold him. She didn’t. The panic was too raw. The abyss too close.

      But he was twisting a towel around his hips. It nearly killed her to see his nakedness disappear. If the world wasn’t waiting...

      Someone was banging on the front door. Luka started barking.

      The world was indeed waiting. It was time to dress. It was time to move on.

      * * *

      Rob reached the front door first. He’d hauled jeans on and left it at that. Amina and Danny must be still asleep, or waking slowly, because only Luka was there, barking hysterically.

      The knocking started again as he reached the hall, but for some reason his steps slowed.

      He didn’t want the world to enter?

      Maybe there was a truck outside, emergency personnel offering to take them down the mountain, evacuate them to safety. The authorities would want everyone off the mountain. This place was self-sufficient but most homes were dependent on essential services. That first truck had been the precursor to many. The army could even have been called in, with instructions to enforce evacuation.

      He didn’t want to go.

      Well, that was dumb. For a start, Amina desperately needed evacuation. It wasn’t safe for an eight months pregnant woman to be here, with no guaranteed way out if she went into labour. With the ferocity of the burn and the amount of bushland right up to the edges of the roads, normal traffic would be impossible for weeks. So many burned trees, all threatening to fall... They needed to get out as soon as it was safe to go.

      And yet...and yet...

      And yet he didn’t want to leave.

      Maybe he could send Amina and Danny away and keep Julie here.

      As his prisoner? That was another dumb thought. He couldn’t keep her against her will, nor would he want to, but, even so, the thought was there. The last twenty-four hours had revealed his wife again. He knew she was still hurting. He knew that breaking down her armour required a miracle, and he also knew that once they were off the mountain, then that miracle couldn’t happen. She’d retreat again into her world of finance and pain.

      ‘She has to deal with it in her own time.’ The words of his shrink had been firm. ‘Rob, you’ve been wounded just as much as she has, but you’re working through it. For now it’s as much as you can do to heal yourself. You need to let Julie go.’

      But what if they could heal together? These last hours had shown him Julie was still there—the Julie he’d loved, the Julie he’d married.

      But he couldn’t lock her up. That wasn’t the way of healing and he knew it.

      What was? Holding her close? She’d let him do that. They’d made love, they’d remembered how their bodies had reacted to each other, yet it had achieved...nothing.

      Could he keep trying? Dare he? These last years he’d achieved a measure of peace and acceptance. Would taking Julie to him open the floodgates again? Would watching her pain drive him back to the abyss? Only he knew how hard it had been to pull himself back to a point where he felt more or less at peace.

      He knew what his shrink would say. Move away and stay away. Leave the past in the past.

      Only the past was in their shared bedroom, with hair that glistened under his hands, with eyes that smiled at him with...hope? If he could find the strength... If, somehow, he could drag her to the other side of the nightmare...

      Enough of the introspection. The knocking continued and he’d reached the door. He tugged it open, Luka launched himself straight out—and into the arms of a guy standing on the doorstep.

      The man was shorter than Rob, and leaner. He looked in his forties, dark-skinned and filthy. He looked...haggard. His eyes were bloodshot and he hadn’t shaved for a couple of days. He was leaning against the door jamb, breathing heavily, but as Luka launched himself forward he grabbed him and held him as if he was drowning.

      He met Rob’s eyes over Luka’s great head, and his look was anguished.

      ‘Amina?’ It was scarcely a croak.

      ‘Safe,’