Christmas Holiday Husband Read Online Free PDF Page A

Their first year has been rather neglected, I’m afraid. Robbie and Julia wanted to home-school them for a while—they’re so young to go to boarding school yet.” She turned away to return the milk jug to the big refrigerator. “Julia planned for them to go to her old school, Iona College. But Robbie’s much busier than your average farmer, and Julia ... well...”
    xxx
    Ellie banished her thoughts of the previous evening and shook herself back to the present moment, wondering where to put her sandals to dry. The bedroom she’d been assigned was a large, richly appointed room—much grander than she’d been expecting. Deep blue paper with a swirling gold botanical design covered the walls up to a gleaming timber picture-rail. The carved bed head and chests of drawers and long freestanding mirror looked like genuine antiques. A well stocked bookcase stood in one corner. Two stately leather armchairs flanked the open French doors. She’d pushed the ivory voile curtains aside before breakfast, and now they danced and floated in the slight breeze.
    She stepped between them onto the generous balcony that had remained unexplored the previous night. There were tubs of orange French Marigolds smelling sharply fragrant in the sun, and some outdoor chairs. Another set of French doors stood open a little further along. In today’s bright light she saw the balcony formed the roof of the big front portico—she’d parked her car directly beneath her feet yesterday. Smiling at that thought, she set her sandals on one of the chairs, then returned to her room and pulled on her spare pair before going downstairs to reclaim her pupils.
    The rest of the morning crept by with her ears ever alert for evidence of Tony. She hustled the twins into the schoolroom and made a start on the promised reading lessons. Ginny appeared after her early morning trip to arrange flowers in the small district church for a funeral that afternoon. Cardboard cartons were produced. Ellie cut one up and taped the pieces together to look something like the Wharemoana homestead, complete with portico. They walked briefly around the outside of the house as she sketched in windows.
    “Whose room is this?” she asked, felt pen poised.
    “Mine,” Caro squealed.
    “And this one?”
    “Ginny’s window.”
    “This one here?”
    “The schoolroom.”
    “How many windows in this wall?”
    “One... two... three!” yelled Ants.
    “And what colour is the door?”
    “Red...”
    She proceeded around the rest of the cardboard model, pointing to windows, labelling them, asking the girls to add up the totals on each wall... subtract one, subtract two.
    “And whose is this window upstairs?”
    “Mummy’s one.”
    “And this?”
    “Ellie’s window.”
    “And this?”
    “Daddy’s one.”
    Ellie blanched. He was sleeping in the room next to hers. The other French doors were his. “How many windows on this wall?” she asked, less steadily.
    “Five. And the little bathroom ones,” Ants added as an afterthought. Ellie inked those in with a less than steady hand.
    “And what colour is the roof?”
    “Green,” they chorused.
    “Okay, you can colour that in then,” she said, leading them back to the schoolroom table and pushing a box of felt pens and a paint-box across to them. Silence reigned as they concentrated on this interesting new game.
    She presumed ‘Mummy’s window’ was the master suite. Tony had not moved back into it. Maybe his memories were too vivid, his heart too wrecked to want to return there yet? Ellie turned her thoughts around and around.
    The picture of his drowsy body sprawled in bed just through the wall from her was hard to shake. The summer weather meant he’d be wearing little, if anything. She knew exactly how enticing he’d look... relaxed, sleepy eyed, deeply tanned. He’d been like that each evening in Sydney, ready to awaken her to ever more astonishing pleasure every time they made love. Once again the mere memory of