Christmas at Waratah Bay

by Marion Lennox

  It seemed she’d hired what she needed. She intended to set Harold’s house up today and then bring the old man home tomorrow, Christmas Eve. She intended staying with him for a few days afterwards, the nurse told him, though it depended on how she managed, but she was determined to give him Christmas at home.

  Max stomped back out to his truck feeling . . . furious?

  Did he have the right to feel furious?

  “Yes,” he said out loud, and Bing, the old blue heeler who went everywhere with Max except into the actual hospital, looked at him with gentle enquiry.

  “I concede, Harold will love having Christmas at home, if she can manage it,” he told his dog, letting Bing jump from the truck tray into the cab. That was a treat. Bing was pretty keen on rolling in cow pats. The cab was usually only available to him in foul weather, but right now Max needed someone to talk to. Bing would have to do.

  “But where’s she been all these years?” he demanded. “Why now? Is the family suddenly worried he might leave the whole place to me? Or to a dog’s home?”

  Bing whined and put his nose on Max’s knee.

  “A dog’s home’d be a much better option than leaving it to those blood suckers,” he snapped, but then he thought of Sarah’s anger, her toe tapping—and what she’d said.

  She’d phoned. She’d written.

  And he’d seen the letters. For the last couple of years he’d been collecting Harold’s mail from town. It had been a good excuse to drop in, and it was little trouble. There was never much mail, but once a week, without fail, there’d been a crisp, white envelope, with Harold’s address hand-written in blue ink. In these days of emails the hand written letters had seemed special, and Harold had always reacted with quiet satisfaction.

  But he’d never told Max who they were from. He’d always put them away—for later. For the long nights when he was constantly alone?

  Had that been Sarah?

  What was a world-renowned model doing writing to a lonely old man? Carlton . . . That was the surname of the guy Lorissa had run off with, so Sarah must have changed her name yet again. Regardless, she was obviously the family member delegated to stay in touch.

  But she’d been phoning him as well? Harold had never said . . .

  But then, Harold never talked of his family. It hurt.

  Yeah, well, Max knew that feeling. He put his hand on Bing’s soft head.

  “There’s nothing we can do about it, mate,” he told him “Families . . . Who’d have anything to do with any of them?”

  *

  Sarah sat by the old man’s bed and held his hand. Harold was drifting off to sleep. He was very close to the end, Sarah thought, and not for the first time she wondered whether what she was doing was cruel.

  Max Ramsey obviously thought so. He’d reacted to her as if she was pond scum.

  “So I should have come earlier,” she said, speaking to herself, but Harold heard and opened his eyes.

  “You’re here now, girl,” he whispered. “That’s all that matters.”

  And, it was. It had to be.

  She hadn’t realized how alone the old man was. Harold had never said just how isolated he really was.

  Family . . . Max Ramsey had assumed she was just that. He had it figured; she was one of the step-daughters, and she’d let him go on assuming. For if she wasn’t an adopted daughter, she had no rights. Max could well move in and stop her taking Harold home.

  He thought she’d be killing her . . . father.

  Father . . . Grandpa, even.

  She just wished he was.

  Chapter Two

  ‡

  The house looked bleak and uninviting and nothing like the big homestead at all. Sarah stared round her in dismay. She’d left Harold—the plan was that she’d make the house ready and then return to the hospital in the morning and bring him back with her. Tomorrow was Christmas Eve. She had the rest of the day to make this place . . . home.

  Only it had never been home. She stared around and thought this must be a place for Harold to sleep, and nothing else.

  Unlike the big house. Max Ramsey would be there now, she thought bitterly, swanning round with his family and friends in a house that rightly belonged to Harold.

  And yet . . . it couldn’t have been Max’s fault that Harold had had to sell. Much as she’d hated the contempt she’d seen in the guy’s eyes, she couldn’t lay that on him. She knew very well what had happened. Harold had tried to put a good slant on it—“Lorissa’s got to have her share, the girls are expensive—and there’s a beaut’ little house I can subdivide off and live in . . . ”

  Beaut’ little house? She stood in the bleak kitchen and looked around with loathing. Right now, she wasn’t sure what she hated more, this house or the arrogant Max Ramsey. He’d judged her. Whether she was family or not, he’d decided she was the worst kind of low life. It hurt.

  And she’d been expecting . . . nice. Harold’s letters had sung the praises of his generous neighbor, and she’d been looking forward to meeting him. When Max had walked into the ward, her first reaction was pleasure that she’d finally be meeting a man Harold had described as kindness itself.

  Well, that anticipation had died fast. There wasn’t a lot of “nice” about the way he’d treated her.

  But then, there’d been . . . something else. Definitely something else. The way she’d reacted to him was weird. She was normally cool and controlled, but Max Ramsey had gotten right under her skin.

  Why? Was it his looks? They were certainly . . . impressive.

  He looked what he was, every inch a farmer. He wore faded moleskins, a flannel shirt with rolled sleeves, open at the throat and dusty, elastic-sided boots. His face looked weathered, and his eyes looked perpetually creased against the sun. His deep black hair had tinges of sun fade at the ends.

  He’d make a good model.

  Ha! She thought suddenly of the moment in the street where she’d been accosted by a stranger—“Excuse me, but you have the most wonderful face. Those cheekbones are extraordinary . . .” She’d laughed it off, but not before the woman had pressed a card into her hand. That night, in a quiet moment on the wards, she’d checked the woman’s credentials on the internet and decided why not—and her life had changed.

  For the better? If she’d appeared today in shabby clothes would Max have reacted more favourably? But that wasn’t worth thinking of, for if it hadn’t been for modeling, she’d never have been able to be here at all. The loans she’d taken to get through nursing had been eye watering.

  But she was no longer a nurse. She now moved in the rarified world of celebrities and she finally had the money to get here. Max Ramsey was no part of that world and he had no wish to be.

  She could just imagine how he’d react if someone approached him in the street and told him he had great cheek bones.

  The thought steadied her. She chuckled and decided she needed to move on. Stop thinking of Max Ramsey, she told herself. She needed to figure how to get this stove lit—a wood stove, for heaven’s sake! No matter, she’d manage. She hoped. She needed to unpack the car and get organized.

  “I’m glad you think something’s funny.”

  She almost jumped out of her skin. She whirled and he was standing in the doorway. Max . . .

  “Do you mind?” He was bigger than she remembered from hospital, filling the door. She was tall, but he was taller. It wasn’t often that Sarah had to look up to a guy, but she had to look up to him.

  Momentarily. She had no intention of keeping looking.

  “What’s funny?” he demanded again and she had an almost overwhelming desire to say: “Thinking of you on a New York catwalk. Thinking of you in my world.”

  But, suddenly it wasn’t funny any more. The catwalk was a long way away. It was good that she was here, she decided, glancing out the window at the paddocks rolling down to the bay and the sea beyond. So much of her life wasn’t real.

  The one time she’d been here had been real. Magic.
When things got too bad, this was the place she always returned to in her head.

  But not this house. And not this man.

  “Nothing’s funny,” she retorted. “This house is the pits.”

  “And yet you promised . . . ”

  “I promised to bring him home for Christmas and I will.” She glared around her at the whitewashed kitchen, then through to the whitewashed lounge-room. The carpet was a sickly green, threadbare. Two faded armchairs sat in front of a television. There weren’t a lot of creature comforts.

  She’d brought Christmas decorations. She’d also brought food, pre-ordering and picking it up in Sydney after she’d hired a car.

  The food would be okay—maybe. That oven looked . . . challenging, and her cooking skills were minimal at the best of times, but she had turkey breasts she could fry and a small pudding with microwave instructions.

  But the place . . . The Christmas decorations wouldn’t go far here.

  Help. And who was there to help her?

  Okay, she told herself. Let’s put personal issues aside. This guy’s been visiting Harold. Harold says he drops in on him all the time. There must be a certain amount of attachment.

  “I need help,” she said and watched his eyebrows hike.

  “From me?”

  “There aren’t a lot of people around who can give it.”

  “You can say that again. Where’s your family?”

  She ignored that one. Supercilious toe-rag. “I need a tree,” she told him.

  “You’re never serious.”

  “You know I’m serious.” She put her hands on her hips and glared. “Okay,” she snapped. “You don’t approve. You think bringing Harold home will put his health at risk. You know what? You might be right. It might even kill him, but you know what else? I don’t think he cares. His last few letters have been trying to disguise how hopeless he feels, but the last two he wrote he didn’t even try. That’s why I’m here. And yes, I should have been here ten years ago, but I wasn’t and there’s not a thing either you or I can do about it. The doctors tell me he’s failing fast. We don’t have much time. What we can do is make his last Christmas . . . better.”

  “We?” he said, incredulously.

  “Harold says you visit him all the time and you don’t have to. I’m assuming you’re fond of him. If you’re fond of him, help me.”

  “I offered to pay for a nurse.” He was leaning on the door jamb, long, lean . . . dangerous? The image flashed through her mind of a panther, idling at the moment, but every sense on the alert. Ready to spring. He didn’t take his eyes from her, pinning her with his gaze. “When he got sick I wanted him to come up to the big house.”

  “To your house?”

  “I own it. It’s never seemed mine.”

  “Harold surely thinks it’s yours. I know he wouldn’t intrude. I expect you have a family who thinks it’s yours, too.”

  “I don’t do family.” His words were snapped and it was her turn to raise her brows.

  “Not even a little bit?”

  “Leave it.” And she heard anger. And something else.

  But, it wasn’t the time to probe. “Ouch,” she said. “Sorry. I’m the last one to stand on toes.” Then, she stared down at her sandals. “Actually that’s not true. I’m always standing on toes. I have big feet.”

  “But cute,” he said before he could help himself and she grinned.

  “I pay a fortune for pedicures. If you look closely I have little gorillas on each of my big toes.”

  “You’re kidding me.”

  She regrouped, grinned and did a conscious eyelash flutter. She had the moves right—hadn’t the world’s best photographers taught her? Plus, she knew she had the eyelashes. “If you get me a Christmas tree I’ll let you close enough to see,” she told him, and fluttered some more.

  “Is that . . . ”

  “A proposition?” Her smile widened. She knew the effect of her smile on men, and she used it. I believe it is. It’s not every man who gets to see my gorillas. Mind, it’s feet at fifteen inches, and not an inch closer.”

  “You play hard ball.” He still didn’t take his eyes off her.

  “Yeah, but I really want a tree.”

  “It won’t look any good in this dump.”

  “No,” she said. “It won’t. But I’ve promised Harold a Christmas and a Christmas he’s going to get. We’ll have a tree and imagine the rest.”

  “Imagine happy families?”

  “That’s the one,” she said, ignoring his sudden switch to scorn. “If you can’t have a real one you might as well pretend.”

  “But you . . . ”

  “You know, Max Ramsey, my time is precious,” she snapped, forgetting the seductive tone. She didn’t have time for it. “It’s four o’clock and if you won’t help me get a tree, I need to get back into town and either persuade someone to deliver one, or figure how to tie one on the top of my hire car. If you won’t help me, then go away. If you’d like to drop by on Christmas morning for a mince pie then you’re very welcome, because I know Harold would like that, but otherwise . . . thank you and goodbye.”

  “Why are you thanking me?”

  “Because you have been good to Harold,” she conceded, her tone softening. “He’d have been so lonely without you.”

  “No thanks to you and your family.”

  “So here you go again, judging.” She shook her head “I’m not interested in your judgment, Mr. Ramsey. I’m not interested in your condemnation, either. We all do what we have to do, and we can’t do everything. I’m here now. This is all the time I have, and I’ll use it the best way I can. Harold may well only have this one last Christmas and I’m damned if I’ll let your judgment spoil it. Help me or go away.”

  There was a moment’s silence—a long silence—but she let it hang. Max stood, lean and watchful. Still like the panther. Was he expecting her to break and run? Sarah wondered, but there was no way she would. She stood with her arms folded and she tapped her toe and then, she looked at her watch. He really was the most irritating . . .

  “I’ll help,” he said.

  Deep breath. It was like a panther had spoken—just as unexpected. But, play it cool. “Well, hooray. If you could find me a tree . . .”

  “If it’s to be Harold’s last Christmas, we’ll do it properly,” he snapped. “The whole box and dice.”

  “You want more than one mince pie?”

  “I want a proper Christmas for Harold. If you really are a nurse . . . ”

  “I told you . . . ”

  He put up his hands as if in surrender. “Fine. I believe you. You really are a nurse and you really are intent on bringing Harold home for Christmas. But this isn’t his home. It’s never been his home. He was born in the big house, and he lived there until your mother demanded . . . ”

  “Stop, right there.” She should explain, she thought, but there were complications enough in this equation. This wasn’t the time to throw more in.

  “Okay,” he conceded. “Until circumstances beyond both of our control intervened to make life impossible, Waratah Bay was his home. Let’s take him there.”

  She gasped. “But that’s your home.”

  “There’s only me and the dogs in it. There’s room. And it’s hardly been changed since he lived there.”

  “You said he won’t . . . ”

  “He won’t come home with me,” he said. “But if you’re there, I don’t think there’d be an argument. I assume you know the big house? You were there as a child. I assume you remember it?”

  Did she remember it? She loved that house. She thought of that appalling winter when she was fifteen and so miserable she wanted to die. She thought of Harold, and the gift he’d given her that year, and despite the fact that she had to stay in control in front of this man—she must—she felt her eyes well with tears. She gave her face an angry swipe and she hauled herself under control.

  “Yes,” she snapped. “Of course I remember it.”
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br />   “So what if we tell Harold that I’ve invited you both to stay with me. Just for Christmas. I don’t use the bedroom he used. He sold me most of the furniture with the house, so it’s pretty much intact. You can have . . . whichever bedroom you used. You can treat the house as yours.”

  “For Christmas.”

  “I’m not offering an extended stay.”

  “I’m not asking.”

  “So you’ll come?”

  “He’d love it,” she whispered. “One last time at the Bay. Oh, Max, you might be a judgmental creep, but that’s really kind.”

  “Wow, thanks . . . ”

  But, she’d moved on. “We could set a tree up in the living room, but it’d have to be big. Huge. Do you have a truck? Of course you have a truck, you’re a farmer. And there are boxes full of decorations in his attic—unless you’ve tossed them. Have you tossed them?”

  “No . . . ”

  “Well, then. And the dogs. You said his dogs are there. Really?”

  “Really.” He seemed confounded.

  “Well, then,” she said again and she beamed, a beam that lit the room, a beam that told him exactly why she made a living as a supermodel. “I was about to write you off,” she told him and before he knew what she was about she’d crossed the room, reached up—and kissed him. It was a featherlight touching of the lips, nothing more, and it shouldn’t have had the power to do anything. The fact that it rocked him was . . . was . . .

  “I’ve changed my mind,” she said, before he could react and she reached back to the kitchen table and grabbed her purse. “I’ve decided you’re a very nice man, all the more because you’ve made your offer before I’ve had the chance to unpack. Christmas at Waratah Bay. This will be fantastic, I know it. Okay then, Max Ramsey, enough of your gloomy predictions. Enough of your negativity and your pox on family. For now, for this Christmas, we’re Harold’s family. So let’s go get ourselves a Christmas tree and get on with it.”

  Chapter Three

  ‡

  What had he done?

  He’d invited this woman home for Christmas.

  He didn’t do Christmas. He guarded his solitude like diamonds. He loved walking from room to room, alone. He loved sitting by the fire at night, the only sound the crackling of burning logs and the occasional wuffle of dogs.