“How long are you staying?” Zoe asked her as they organized stockings and she set them to making name tags to specify ownership.
“The day after Christmas,” she said. “I’ve changed my plane flight back to the States.”
The kids’ faces fell.
Joe’s face fell.
“We’d like you to stay longer,” he said gently, and she flashed him a look that said get on your side of the line again.
“I’m sorry, Joe,” she said softly. “It’s your life. Not mine.”
And that was that.
At least the kids were having a wonderful time. They loved Molly to bits. She’d rescued Christmas. She bossed them into activities all the way to Christmas Eve. She even bossed him, sending him out with a shopping list a mile long including things she’d figured the kids would love in their stockings.
She took the kids on their own secret shopping trip. The house was full of secrets, full of Christmas anticipation.
It was also full of tension as he watched her and saw the loneliness in her dark eyes and wondered whether he could ever find a way to approach her.
Christmas Eve. Two more sleeps ’til she left again.
“One more sleep ’til Santa,” the kids whooped, but the deadline until Molly left was an imperative one.
As dark fell they hung up their stockings and set out milk and cookies for Santa—and carrots for the reindeer—and then Molly bossed them all round the Christmas tree, set corny carols on the sound system and made them sing.
For Joe, who’d never done such a thing, it started off being almost embarrassing. But then…somewhere in the middle of “Silent Night,” when Zoe’s high little voice cracked and wobbled and she made up a couple of words of her own because she couldn’t read the sheet, when Molly smiled down at her and hugged her and lifted her up so they could sing together, he felt salty tears sting at the back of his eyes.
This was magic. Somehow he had to find a way to keep this for all of them.
And then the glass of the back door blasted open and the peace of Christmas Eve was shattered.
IT WAS A GUNSHOT.
They were upstairs. The main entrance was downstairs. The door was plate glass, reinforced, and it broke but it wouldn’t have disintegrated. The door was dead-bolted.
Fear had a wonderful way of focusing the mind. Joe could have stood motionless, waiting to see what would happen, but the shooting spree at the wedding was too recent, the sight of Tommy’s gun too fresh in his mind.
And the knowledge of the words Jean had overheard…
The kids… Despite the cops’ reassurance they’d come for the kids.
This was no burglary. Thieves didn’t blast their way into a house. Whoever was downstairs didn’t care that their presence had been announced.
Whoever was downstairs had deadly intent.
“Out,” he snapped, and before they could respond he’d lifted Lily, shoved Molly and Zoe toward the main bedroom and grabbed Charlie’s hand, tugging him along. By the time the second gunshot sounded downstairs they were in the master bedroom and he was hauling open the French doors.
The doors led to a balcony at the back of the house.
There was a massive palm tree hard against the window, with bougainvillea, a fabulous flowering vine, thick around its trunk. Was it strong enough to hold on to? It had to be. There was no choice.
“We need to run away,” he said harshly to the bewildered kids, and he lifted Charlie and held him out until he clung to the vine. “Charlie, climb down, fast, don’t wait for us but run until you get to the back of the pavilion behind the swimming pool. That’s the rule. Go!”
There was no time for reassurance. He was already lifting Lily.
But these kids had been trained to obey rules and it stood them in good stead now. They didn’t argue. Charlie was halfway down the vine before Lily had a grip. Joe grabbed Zoe out of Molly’s arms and Molly didn’t protest, either. She simply swung herself over the rail and down she went, acknowledging she couldn’t climb herself with Zoe.
“Go, Lily,” she said harshly to the little girl beneath her. “I’m right behind you.”
She trusted him, Joe thought. It was a flash of knowledge, a fleeting impression, but it steadied him. Molly trusted him. She depended on him.
They all depended on him.
He hauled the French doors shut, hoping it might give them precious moments while the gunman—or gunmen?—had to figure where they’d gone. Then he swung himself over the rail.
“Hold on round my neck,” he ordered Zoe, swinging her around to his back. When she didn’t respond, he reached for her arms, linked them about his neck and said, “You’re a baby monkey. Hold on to me or you’ll fall off.”
Heaven knew what she thought. To push a child so far…
But her arms tightened. Her hands linked around his neck and she clung.
He reached for the vine and swung out, away from the balcony.
The vine gave, not able to take their combined weight. He fell, but he grabbed more vine as he went. That snapped, too, but it was a series of lurches rather than a freefall and he landed on his feet, Zoe still blessedly attached.
Lily and Charlie and Molly were already three shadows flying around the side of the swimming pool pavillion. He ran, hauling Zoe to his front as he went so he could hold her in his arms, and shoving his way along a path that was overgrown from disuse.
A harsh male voice came from above.
“There they are…”
The blast of a gun.
He felt Zoe jerk in his arms but he couldn’t stop. He ran, and he ran. Round the side of the pavilion.
Where…
They were there, flattened against the wall. Molly had the kids by each hand.
“The beach,” he said. “Straight down the path and then to the left and into the trees. Go!”
It took less than a minute to reach the beach. The kids were flying, faster than he could ever have expected them to run, and Zoe was still clinging to him. Every moment he anticipated more blasts from behind. But he’d destroyed the vine. Maybe they’d had to go back downstairs and out and around. Whatever, Molly and he and the kids seemed to have been granted a few moments’ grace.
The beach opened out before them, calm and clear in the moonlight, but this was no safe haven. Out here they were exposed.
“We go into the rain forest,” he said, making it up as he went. “Molly, just push through. Shove in as hard as you can, as fast as you can. Kids, follow her and I’m coming behind.”
Zoe whimpered in his arms. He clung tighter but there was no time for reassurance.
“Go,” he said, and they did.
The rain forest here was so thick it was almost impenetrable, but they were in no mood to be stopped. Molly was tearing vines apart, shoving her way into the forest with a desperation born of fear. Burdened with Zoe, Joe could hardly help her but she didn’t need help. She pushed and pushed and pushed.
Then emerged into a clearing.
It was a clearing made by rocks—a slab of granite where nothing could grow. Molly almost fell out onto it, and the kids and Joe followed.
How far had they gone? They’d been pushing for twenty minutes.
Zoe was cradled against his shoulder. His shoulder was wet. Warm…
Startled he put his fingers up to touch and then held them up. They were thick with blood.
“Zoe!” He hauled her back so he could see her. Zoe gazed back at him, big-eyed and fearful. A jagged scratch ran down her temple.
Molly had seen. She reached for the little girl and held her as Joe checked the wound, running his fingers lightly over the damaged skin, feeling rather than seeing.
It wasn’t deep. This was no bullet hole. Maybe a bullet had grazed the side of her head above Joe’s shoulder, that was all, or maybe it was simply a graze from a branch she’d hit. Whatever—she was okay.
His knees damn near gave way under him.
“Is she dead?” Charli
e quavered, and Joe ordered his knees to stiffen.
He managed a smile. Somehow. “You’re not dead, are you, Zoe?” he asked, and the little girl shook her head. He grabbed the shoulder of his shirt and ripped—the sleeve came off on the third tug and he tied it round Zoe’s head with speed. The blood wasn’t pumping. Pressure should stop it.
They’d been lucky.
“Where to?” Molly whispered, and he looked at her in the moonlight and thought hell, if anything happened to her…if anything happened to these kids…
“It’s miles to the nearest house, and there’s only one road in. I don’t think it’s safe to try and get to help tonight. We need to go a bit farther into the forest and find somewhere safe to see the night out. Only let’s go a bit slower now and keep really, really quiet.”
“You think they’re following?”
He was sure they’d follow if they could. But the damaged vine had given them a head start. Had they made so much noise they could be followed?
“I haven’t got my phone,” Molly said, distressed. “I can’t call for help.”
“Mine’s in my pocket but I’ve checked. There’s no reception. So we’re on our own. We’ll walk as far as we can, but from now on let’s slow down a little, and creep. No talking. Not even whispering. Let’s try not to damage the bush so they can’t see where we’ve gone. And then let’s find somewhere we can sleep the night.”
THEY CROSSED THREE rocky outcrops, and each time Joe had them change direction and bush-bash farther along. But they couldn’t go on forever. Lily was stumbling now, whimpering. Finally they emerged to a fourth open space with a cliff at the rear. This had to be it, and blessedly it was. In a cleft in the rock Joe found enough space for the five of them to stay. There was thick moss over the base of the rocks. There were ferns in front—he could see between them, just, so he could detect anyone approaching—and, best of all, the cleft wound into the hills and opened up again fifty yards back. If they needed to they could back away before they were seen.
But it would take the point of a gun to make them move. The kids had gone past exhaustion. He ushered them into their makeshift camp. Molly sank to her knees and gathered them to her and he thought they were close to collapse.
He sank down with them. He felt helpless and sick at heart. All he could do was watch as the kids clung and clung.
But finally Charlie broke away. He turned and Joe saw his face was tearstained and terrified.
“Uncle Joe,” he whispered, and Joe was suddenly included. There were five of them in a sandwich hug, looking to each other for comfort.
He should be keeping guard. He should be looking behind them, but just for that moment he gave himself up to the sweetness and the comfort of the warm bodies.
It was Molly who emerged first. She looked…a mess, he thought. The moon was full tonight—a disadvantage for the hunted, but if there hadn’t been a moon, maybe their flight would have been more perilous. Molly had bush-bashed her way through the undergrowth. Her face was a mass of scratches. Her hair was a tangle of matted curls, littered with leaves and twigs. He glanced at her hands and winced.
But she wasn’t concerned about herself.
“You do lookout duty,” she said softly to him. “Kids, I know this is scary but Joe’s here to look after us. He won’t let anyone near. I need to look at Zoe’s head. Can you help me? Lily, see that trickle of water running down the rock? Here.” She delved under her T-shirt and a minute later a soft cotton bra was in Lily’s hands. “Wet this for me and we’ll use it to wash your head, Zoe. Charlie, can you tug a bit more of this moss down and lay it over here. Let’s make a Christmas Eve hidey-hole for all of us.”
SHE WAS FANTASTIC. She almost turned their situation into something normal. She was prosaic and comforting and the worst of the kids’ fear dissipated in the face of her practicality.
“No, how can they find us? We’ve gone so far into the bush I think we’re almost back to America. In the morning your uncle Joe will fetch the police, the bad men will be arrested and we’ll get on with Christmas. Meanwhile…let’s play guess what’s in the parcels under the Christmas tree. Lily, you saw the great big blue parcel with the purple bow and your name on it? What do you think it might be?”
Maybe if they hadn’t been exhausted it mightn’t have worked, but she lay down with them, hugged the kids against her and they guessed presents in whispers. She let them talk of nothing else and finally, finally they slept. They were like a litter of cubs in a warren, he thought as he watched them, taking comfort from each other as well as from Molly. The terrors had been too big to take in. Zoe’s scratched face had faded in her mind—she had no knowledge how close she’d come to death and for her the terror was over.
But Molly’s terror was still with her. As the last of the kids drifted off to sleep she gently disentangled herself and wriggled out to join him at the opening of the cleft.
“Nothing?”
“They won’t come this far,” he said. He was pretty sure. They’d have to be experienced bushmen to follow them this far in. “Whoever…”
“One of them’s Connor.”
He turned and stared at her. “You’re sure?”
“His was the voice that yelled out.” She swallowed. “He’ll be…he’ll be the one that shot Zoe.”
A final betrayal. “Molly, I’m so sorry,” he said, but her eyes flashed fire.
“Don’t be,” she muttered, and hauled herself forward so she was staring into the darkness with him. A tiny wallaby was nibbling grass on the other side of the clearing. He’d be their sentinel, Joe thought. The little creature had leaped away when they’d arrived, but now that all was quiet, the wallaby was grazing again.
“Don’t be sorry?”
“Not for me,” she said. “Not because I agreed to marry a lousy, bottom-feeding, murderous scumbag. I don’t need sympathy. I may need psychiatric assessment but not sympathy.”
There was even grim humor in her words. He smiled and unconsciously his arm went round her waist and held. She stiffened for a fraction of a second and then relaxed and melted into him.
“You really think we’ve lost them?”
“What does Connor know about the Australian bush?”
“Zip.”
“There’s your answer. It’d take an experienced tracker to find us, I reckon, and daylight, as well.”
“Then why are we whispering?”
“Because if there’s a chance in a million I’m wrong…”
“There’s not.”
“You’re very definite.”
“I am,” she said. “And you know what? If Connor comes, now I have a plan.”
“The plan would be to keep deathly quiet and hope he goes away.”
“No.”
“Then we’d run?”
“That’s a bad idea, too,” she said. “With the kids he could outrun us without raising a sweat.”
It was what he’d been thinking, but he wasn’t going to say it.
“Then what?”
“We attack,” she said.
“Um…right.”
“No, really,” she said, and she tugged over a tennis-ball-sized chunk of granite. “There’s lots of these. If there’s two of them, I might need help, but if it’s just Connor… I can sneak out behind the ferns to the other side of the clearing. Then I can come up behind and thump.”
“Thump?”
“I could do it,” she said. Her face tightened, all humor gone. “He shot Zoe. I could do it.”
There was a moment’s stunned silence. Then he said, “I love you, Molly.”
Where had that come from? Wham, out of nowhere, it was a declaration that was as dumb as it was inappropriate. For Molly, who’d spent the night in shock, this must be just one more shock piled on the rest.
“You love me?” she whispered, and he opened his mouth to say sorry, it was a mistake, he hadn’t meant to say it. But his words turned into something different.
“I didn’t think I�
��d ever say it,” he said. “I wasn’t sure such a thing exists. But I think I fell in love with you the first time I saw you and it’s getting worse, not better. And dammit, you sit there with your hair full of twigs threatening to hit thugs with rocks…”
“Yeah, beautiful,” she said dryly.
“You are beautiful. You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met in my life.” Then, at the look in her eyes—bewilderment and the beginnings of fear—he shook his head, damning himself for being every kind of fool. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”
“I don’t do love,” she whispered.
“No?”
“It leads to catastrophe.”
“Maybe it does, but maybe it doesn’t,” he said, trying to figure out the U-turn his own thinking had done. “Maybe true love’s the answer to catastrophe.”
“That sounds like something you read in a fortune cookie.”
“Yeah, me, the great romantic,” he said dryly. “My love is like a fortune cookie.”
“Joe…”
“Okay, let’s leave it.” What the hell was he doing, waiting for gunmen, telling a woman he loved her? If she thought he was a fruitcake, she’d be right.
“I’m scared,” she whispered.
“That makes two of us.”
“I didn’t mean about Connor.”
“Neither did I,” he said softly. “You’re not alone in thinking this is a huge, scary leap of faith.”
“I’ve tried it before.”
“Have you?” He lifted his hand to her face and cupped her chin. “Have you really tried loving? Can you look at me and say you loved the father of your child? That you loved Connor? That you knew and loved them both?”
“No, I…”
“Maybe it’s because you didn’t truly love that it turned out a mess.” He sighed, seeing confusion and doubt. “Sorry, Molly, look, what the hell would I know? I know nothing except what Ruby’s hammered into me and I didn’t believe a word of it until I met you. But let’s leave it. Go back to the kids while I watch.”
“You think I’d sleep while you’re out here alone?”
“It’d be sensible.”
“Yeah.” Then she shook her head. “No. I’m staying. Joe…”
Christmas Getaway Page 22
