The One Winter Collection. Rebecca Winters

had a healthy, lusty, slippery bundle of baby girl in her arms.

      She gasped and staggered but she had her. She had Amina’s baby.

      Safe. Delivered.

      And seconds later a tiny girl was lying on her mother’s tummy. Amina was sobbing with joy, and a new little life had begun.

      * * *

      After that things happened in a blur. Waiting for the afterbirth and checking it as the book had shown. Clearing up. Watching one tiny girl find her mother’s breast. Ushering an awed and abashed Henry into the room, with Danny by his side.

      Watching the happiness. Watching the little family cling. Watching the love and the pride, and then backing out into the night, their job done.

      Julie reached the passage, leaned against the wall and sagged.

      But she wasn’t allowed to sag for long. Her husband had her in his arms. He held her and held her and held her, and she felt his heart beat against hers and she thought: here is my home.

       Here is my family.

       Here is my heart.

      ‘Love, I need to check the boundaries again,’ he said at last, ruefully, and she thought with a jolt: fire. She hadn’t thought of the fire for hours. But of course he was right. There’d still be embers falling around them. They should have kept checking.

      ‘We should have told Henry to check,’ she managed.

      ‘Do you think he would have even seen an ember? You take a shower. I’ll be with you soon.’

      ‘Rob...’ she managed.

      ‘Mmm?’

      ‘I love you,’ she whispered.

      ‘I love you too, Dr McDowell.’ He kissed her on the tip of the nose and then put her away. ‘But then, I always have. All we need to do now is to figure some way forward. Think of it in the shower, my Jules. Think of me. Now, go get yourself clean again while I rid myself of my obstetric suit and put on my fireman’s clothes. Figuring roles for ourselves... This day’s thrown plenty at us. Think about it, Jules, love. What role do you want for the rest of your life?’

      And he was gone, off to play fireman.

      While Julie was left to think about it.

      * * *

      There was little to think about—and yet there was lots. She thought really fast while she let the water stream over her. Then she towelled dry, donned her robe and headed back out onto the veranda.

      Rob was just finishing, heading up the steps with his bucket and mop.

      ‘Not a single ember,’ he announced triumphantly. ‘Not a spark. After today I doubt an ember would dare come close. Have I told you recently that we rock? If I didn’t think Amina might be asleep already I’d puff out my chest and do a yodel worthy of Tarzan.’

      ‘Riiiight...’

      ‘It’s true. In fact I feel a yodel coming on right this minute. But not here. Do you fancy wandering up the hill a little and yodelling with me?’

      And it was such a crazy idea that she thought: why not? But then, she was in a robe and slippers and she should...

      No. She shouldn’t think of reasons not to. Move forward.

      ‘That’s something I need to hear,’ she said and grinned. ‘A Tarzan yodel... Wow.’ She grabbed his mop, tossed it aside, took his hand and hauled him out into the night.

      ‘Jules! I didn’t mean...’

      ‘To yodel? Rob McDowell, if you think I’m going through what we’ve gone through without listening to you yodel, you’re very much mistaken.’

      ‘What have I done?’ But Rob was helpless in her hands as she hauled him round the back of the bunker, up through the rocks that formed the back of their property, along a burned out trail that led almost straight up—it was so rocky here that no trees grew, which made it safe from the remnants of fire—and out onto a rock platform where usually she could see almost all over the Blue Mountains.

      She couldn’t see the Blue Mountains tonight. The pall of smoke was still so thick she could hardly see the path, but the smoke was lifting a little. They could sometimes see a faint moon, with smoke drifting over, sending them from deep dark to a little sight and back again. It didn’t matter, though. They weren’t here to see the moon or the Blue Mountains. They were here...to yodel.

      ‘Right,’ Julie said as they reached the platform. ‘Go ahead.’

      ‘Really?’

      ‘Was it all hot air? You never meant it?’

      He chuckled. ‘It won’t be pretty.’

      ‘I’m not interested in pretty!’

      ‘Well, you asked for it.’ And he breathed in, swelled, pummelled his chest—and yodelled.

      It was a truly heroic yodel. It made Julie double with laughter. It made her feel...feel...as if she was thirteen years old again, in love for the first time and life was just beginning.

      It was a true Tarzan yodel.

      ‘You’ve practised,’ she said accusingly. ‘No one could make a yodel sound that good first try.’

      ‘My therapist said I should let go my anger,’ he told her. ‘It started with standing in the shower and yelling at the soap. After a while I started experimenting elsewhere.’

      ‘Moving on?’

      ‘It’s what you have to do.’

      ‘Rob...’

      ‘I know,’ he said. ‘You haven’t. But you will. Try it yourself. Open your mouth and yell.’ And he stood back and dared her with his eyes. He was laughing, with her, though, not at her. Daring her to laugh with him. Daring her to yodel?

      And finally, amazingly, it felt as if she could. How long had it been since she’d felt this free? This alive? Maybe never. Even when they were courting, even when the twins were born, she’d always felt the constraints of work. The constraints of life. But now...

      Rob’s hands were exerting a gentle pressure but that pressure was no constraint. She was facing outward into the rest of the world.

      She was facing outward into the rest of her life.

      ‘Can you do it?’ Rob asked, and he kissed the nape of her neck. ‘Not that I doubt you. My wife can do anything.’

      And she could. Or at least maybe she could.

      Deep breath. Pummel a little.

      Yodel.

      And she was doing it, yodelling like a mad woman, and she took another breath and tried again and this time Rob joined her.

      It was crazy. It was ridiculous.

      It was fun.

      ‘We’ve delivered a Christmas baby,’ Rob managed as finally they ran out of puff, as finally they ran out of yodel. ‘A new life. And we’re learning Christmas yodelling duets! Is there nothing we’re not capable of? Happy Christmas, Mrs McDowell, and, by the way, will you marry me? Again? Make our vows again? I know we’re not divorced but it surely feels like we have been. Can we be a family? Can we take our past and live with it? Can we love what we’ve had, and love each other again for the rest of our lives?’

      And the smoke suddenly cleared. Everything cleared. Rob was standing in front of her, he was holding her and the future was hers to grasp and to hold.

      And in the end there was nothing to say except the most obvious response in the whole world.

      ‘Why, yes, Mr McDowell,’ she whispered. ‘Happy Christmas, my love, and yes, I believe I will marry