Christmas Kisses Collection. Louise Allen

loved more than anyone and anything in the world. And more than she had ever dreamed possible.

      ‘Thank you,’ she responded as she gently turned to stir the little girl fast asleep and leaning against her. Running her fingers down the child’s ruddy cheeks, she softly kissed the top of her head. ‘Wake up, Bea, my precious little sleepyhead.’

      The little girl silently protested at being disturbed and nestled in tighter to the warmth of her mother’s woollen overcoat. Her eyelashes flickered but her eyes were far too heavy to open.

      ‘Well, I hope this part of your marathon travel’s been pleasant,’ the driver commented.

      ‘Very pleasant, thank you.’

      ‘So how many hours have you two been travelling to be here this morning?’

      ‘I think it’s about thirty five hours, but it feels like for ever,’ she replied with a little sigh, thinking back over the logistical nightmare they had survived. ‘We left Perth early yesterday, Australian time, had a layover in Singapore before we headed on to Heathrow, and then the sixty-mile trip to the Cotswolds with you,’ Juliet added as she continued to try and wake her still-drowsy little girl as gently as possible. She wasn’t sure just how coherent she was but didn’t want to appear rude. She had a lot on her mind, including the impending in-utero surgery on the quadruplets within the week. The reason she had been seconded halfway around the world at a minute’s notice.

      Keeping all four babies viable was everyone’s focus. And something everyone agreed could not be done with Juliet on the other side of the world. Well, almost everyone agreed. She knew she would have her work cut out convincing the quads’ OBGYN, Dr Charlie Warren. She presumed he would be leaning towards bed rest, high-protein diet and medication for the quads’ mother. It was conservative and Juliet was surprised that he was not encouraging the laser surgery. She’d had no time to research the man but assumed he might be perhaps closer to the driver’s age and had managed previous TTTS cases in that manner. But once he heard her argument for the surgery, surely the traditional English physician would see that her method had clear benefit? Particularly once she stated her case and the supporting statistics. How could he not? With both hospitals agreeing that Juliet was best placed to undertake the procedure, all she needed was the parents’ approval. She was not about to allow Teddy’s overtly conservative OBGYN to question the validity of her surgical intervention. It was an argument she was more than prepared to have. And to win.

      But that wasn’t the issue that had weighed most heavily on her mind on the long flights over to the UK. It was her parenting. How responsible was it to drag her daughter with her? she had wondered incessantly. And with less than twenty-four hours’ notice. The poor little girl barely knew what was happening. The only thing that she could really comprehend was a plane trip to see snow.

      Up until that point Juliet and Bea’s lives had been so settled and planned. Some might say overly so, and among those were Juliet’s parents. They had openly encouraged her to take Bea with her and together enjoy the opportunity to travel. In her home town, Juliet’s mother looked after Bea three days a week and the other two days Bea was in childcare only five minutes from Juliet’s workplace at the Perth Women’s and Children’s Medical Centre. When the proposition of travelling to the UK had been forced upon her, Juliet’s parents had quickly had to push her out of her comfort zone and into embracing the opportunity. Her mother had immediately brought the suitcases down from the attic and personally delivered them to Juliet’s home and offered to help her pack. Juliet didn’t doubt it would be better for the quads for her to be there but it was not just her any more. She had her daughter to consider in every decision she made.

      ‘I just hope I’m doing the right thing in dragging Bea to the other side of the world for such a short time,’ Juliet had muttered in the car on the way to the airport at five-thirty in the morning. Her father had been driving, her mother next to Bea in the back seat.

      ‘That’s just it, honey, it might not be a short time,’ her father reminded her as he pulled up at traffic lights and turned to his daughter. ‘You don’t know when the quads will arrive and it’s best you stay until they do. There could be post-operative or postnatal complications, so it’s better to remain there up to the birth.’

      ‘I know you’re right, but this whole trip is so rushed, I’ve had no time to prepare mentally. I know it’s too late, but I can’t hide the fact I’m having second thoughts about everything.’

      ‘It’s an amazing opportunity to consult at Teddy’s and no one can come close to your level of expertise,’ he said with pride colouring his voice as the lights changed and he took off down the highway. ‘It’s part of a teaching hospital, and along with assisting those four babies, not to mention their mother, you can add value to the students’, interns’ and residents’ learning experience. You’re the best in your field, Juliet. And I should know since I’ve operated alongside you more than once. It’s time you took your skills out to the world, not just in research papers and journals and lecture tours, but in person in an operating theatre.’

      ‘Dad, you’re completely biased.’

      ‘Nonsense, your father’s right. We’re both proud of you and you need to take that knowledge and expertise where it’s needed most. Those babies and their parents need you,’ her mother argued from the back seat. Her voice was soft but her tone was firm. Gently she kissed the top of her granddaughter’s head. ‘While we’d love to have Bea stay with us if it was for your three-day trip to Auckland, this is not three days. Poor little thing, she would fret terribly without you for any longer than a few days and visiting the UK will be such a wonderful experience for her too. It will be her first white Christmas.’

      ‘And mine,’ Juliet said, but her tone lacked her mother’s enthusiasm as she drummed her fingers nervously on the leather upholstered seat. There was an uneasiness stirring in the pit of her stomach.

      ‘Exactly, so stop questioning your decision. It’s made now, you’re both going,’ her father piped up as he took the turnoff to Perth International airport in the dawn light. ‘You’ve been hiding away, Juliet. You’re not the only professional woman who’s going it alone as a single mother. It’s not the eighteen hundreds, and you don’t need a man to help you realise your dreams. You have your career and Bea.’

      She was hardly going it alone, in her opinion, with all of the help her parents provided, she thought as she looked out of her window and up into the still-darkened sky. But her father was right, she mused. She didn’t need a man to experience or enjoy life. She and Bea would be just fine on their own. The plane would be up in that same sky in less than two hours, the sun would be up and they would be heading off to the other side of the world. To see four babies…and snow.

      Juliet tried to muster a smile for everyone’s sake. Her parents were always forthcoming with their very modern wisdom and they were generally right about everything. The quads needed surgical intervention and Bea needed to be with her mother. And Juliet could hardly stand being away from her daughter for a day, let alone the possibility of three or four weeks. So if Juliet went, then so would Bea.

      Initially she wasn’t sure how she would manage but when the information had arrived via email the night before, providing the details of the onsite hospital crèche, it had given Juliet no valid reason not to say yes to everything. Besides which, the tickets had been arranged. There was no turning back. And so it was that, with less than a day’s notice, Juliet and Bea had left their sunburnt homeland behind and were on their way to Teddy’s.

      ‘It’s a beautiful part of the world,’ the driver announced, bringing Juliet back to the present. ‘I’ve lived here for almost thirty years. Raised my children and now my grandchildren. You’ll be sure to love it too.’

      Juliet smiled at the way the man praised his home town. ‘I won’t be here quite that long, but long enough to enjoy the stunning scenery.’ She looked out from the car window across fields blanketed in snow and dotted with trees and bushes in variant shades of green, all dusted by a fresh layer of white drift along the fences. It was so picturesque and a very long way from the long hot summer days of home. Since she