But he couldn’t deny he owed her a great deal. She’d been sole carer of his children for three long, difficult months.
With the twins skipping at his heels, he followed Holly inside the apartment. It was then, without warning, that he was sideswiped by a new emotion—the realisation that his beautiful bride was gone for ever.
It was crazy to feel like this now. Truth was, Gray had already lost Chelsea three years ago when she left him. He’d done his grieving then, and in time he’d moved on, eventually finding comfort in a healthy cynicism for the married state.
Now, suddenly, the finality of her passing hit him like a physical blow. A sense of loss descended like black, suffocating cloud.
Don’t break down. Not now. Not in front of the children.
He heard Holly say gently, ‘You’ve had a long journey. Why don’t you go through to the living room? Take the weight off. I have coffee brewing.’
Gray was grateful for the normality and everyday ease of her welcome. ‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘Thanks for everything, Holly.’
Their gazes met in an unexpected moment of connection. Holly was smiling, but Gray thought he saw tears glistening in her dark eyes and he felt a painful tightening in his throat.
He spoke more gruffly than he meant to. ‘Come on, kids, show me the way.’
* * *
Holly told herself to keep smiling as she watched Gray and his children head down the hall. Alone in the kitchen, however, she was fighting tears as she filled the coffee-maker.
It was two months now since her break-up with Brandon, but Gray’s arrival at last brought it all back—memories of the horrible phone call, the heartbreak in the following weeks of anxiety, of hoping against all hope for another call. It was all a mistake, Holly. I really do love you.
But on top of that pain … she felt so tense, so conflicted about this reunion.
Oh, she was very happy for Anna and Josh. She knew how much they needed their father, and it was wonderful to see how thrilled they were. But she wasn’t sure she could bear to let them go all the way back to Australia.
Of course, Gray had every right to take his children home, and there was no denying that he loved them.
Just now, when he’d hunkered down in the corridor to hug them, Holly had seen the way he closed his eyes and held them close against his heart. She’d watched the concentrated emotion in his face, and she’d been so moved she’d almost spoiled the moment by weeping.
Until then, she hadn’t realised how fragile she was after the emotional pressure cooker of the last three months.
She and the children had been through so much together, and they’d grown incredibly close. When Chelsea had died so suddenly, the very foundations of their world had been shaken and Holly had needed to dig deep, discovering a sensitivity and wisdom she hadn’t known she possessed.
Even though Chelsea’s parents lived close by in a luxury Westside apartment, they’d been too shocked and grieving to be of much help. They’d gladly handed over their grandchildren into Holly’s full-time care until Gray Kidman arrived to claim them.
Looking back, Holly wasn’t quite sure how she’d managed. In a cruelly short space of time she’d lost Chelsea, her cousin and her best friend, and then Brandon. Filled with despair, she’d wanted to crawl away and hide for a decade or two, and she might have done exactly that if Anna and Josh’s needs hadn’t been even greater than hers.
To give them the love and attention they’d needed, she’d been forced to put her own heartbreak aside.
So … in a way the children had saved her. But right now, she was finding it hard to accept that her role as an integral player in this little team was almost over. She couldn’t imagine living without them.
‘Look, Daddy.’ Anna lifted her top lip.
‘Wow. You’ve lost a tooth.’
The little girl grinned proudly, revealing the gap. ‘I left it under my pillow and the Tooth Fairy came.’
‘Lucky you.’
‘Josh hasn’t lost any teeth yet.’
His son’s lips were tightly pressed together, and Gray caught a flicker of embarrassment in the boy’s eyes. Clearly, sibling rivalry was alive and well, and no doubt Josh felt left behind in the race to shed baby teeth.
‘Josh must have extra tough teeth,’ Gray suggested.
The boy sent him a grateful smile.
To change the subject, Gray unzipped a pocket on the outside of his duffel bag and drew out a small packet.
‘Is that a present?’ asked Anna, eager-eyed.
‘It’s a game to share with your brother. A card game. Snap. With pictures of the Outback on the back.’
‘Your Outback?’
He smiled uncertainly. ‘Yes. My Outback.’
The twins had been three when they’d left his home—he doubted they’d remember it.
They knelt at the coffee table as Gray fanned the cards onto its smooth glass surface, showing bright photos of kangaroos, pink-flowering gum trees and wide red plains shimmering beneath sunburned skies.
‘Is that where you’re going to take us?’ asked Josh.
Gray nodded.
‘Is your house like this one?’ Anna picked up a card that showed a faded, shabby homestead with a broad iron roof standing alone in the middle of a sparse red desert.
‘More or less,’ Gray admitted with some reluctance.
The little girl stared with large worried eyes at the rather ugly house and stark forbidding landscape.
‘We have more trees than that and quite a decent garden,’ Gray amended, feeling rather like a real estate agent trying to sell inadequate property. ‘My homestead is painted white, and there are lots of extra buildings.’
‘What kind of buildings?’
He realised now that he should have brought proper photos of Jabiru Creek Station, instead of these generic tourist images. ‘We have machinery sheds and storage sheds and houses for the ringers.’
‘What are ringers?’
‘They’re stockmen.’
‘Cowboys,’ added Holly cheerfully as she came into the room with a coffee pot and two black and white mugs.
‘Except that in Australia we don’t call them cowboys,’ Gray amended with a smile.
‘Can we ride horses?’
The animated excitement in Josh’s face was a stark contrast to the sudden fear in Anna’s dark brown eyes. Gray’s chest tightened. His daughter looked so much like her mother. So beautiful, like a delicate flower, and right now, so worried and sad.
‘I have a nice little horse that you can learn to ride,’ he told Josh. For Anna’s sake he added, ‘But you don’t have to ride if you don’t want to.’
He tried to cheer Anna with a smiling wink. She wouldn’t remember how she used to love to ride in the saddle in front of him, while he kept one arm around her and one hand holding the reins. To his dismay, her lower lip trembled. Damn. He had so little experience in handling kids. The simplest thing could suddenly become a huge problem.
Holly, who’d made herself comfortable in an armchair, leaned forward and picked up another card—a picture of blue sky reflected in a large pool of water at the bottom of a steep red-walled gorge.
‘Look, Anna,’ Holly said. ‘Isn’t this beautiful?’