LITMIR.BIZ

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smiled, so she must be okay, and he felt inordinately relieved. ‘I’m not experienced at decorations. Put a few up in the ward last year when I worked Christmas week. Santa Claus was a big hit with the mums and their new babies.’

      Now, there was a fantasy. Maybe he could dress up as Mr Claus and she’d sit on his knee. Naughty Simon. ‘Santa has potential for lots of things.’ He could feel the smile in his voice and packed that little make-believe away for later. Then he realised that, of course, she’d missed out on family Christmas for most of her life too. Not a nice thought. ‘I’m guessing he didn’t visit the home?’

      She looked at him with disgust. ‘Don’t go there, Simon. I’m fine. They looked after me and I was never hungry. Lots of kids can’t say that.’

      Okay, he knew that, but there was more to being cared for than food in your belly, he thought as he hung each loop of Christmas lights over the tiny hooks under the eaves, and winced again at how easy his own childhood had been.

      He glanced towards the kitchen, where his sister stood watching Louisa tweak the tree.

      Maeve had been loved and cared for and told she was wonderful since the day she was born. A lot of the time by Simon because he’d thought the sun shone out of his youngest sibling. Though that wasn’t doing him much good at the moment.

      He remembered his father saying Tara was tough. He guessed she’d had to be. ‘Okay. Moving on.’ And he tried to. ‘As you are inexperienced I will explain. You, Mrs Claus, have to hold the big ladder while I put the star up.’

      ‘Louisa has a star?’ The look she gave him made up for everything. She appreciated him backing off. Okay. He’d avoid the orphanage topic but he still planned to make this Christmas special.

      ‘Yep. In the bag.’

      Tara undid the string and peered in. ‘A blue one. Looks three feet tall?’

      He was going down the stairs to the lawn. ‘Goes on the corner of the roof.’ He pulled out a large metal ladder from behind a water tank stand, and the long ladder reached all the way to the top of the roof.

      Simon sneaked a look at her face, saw excitement growing as they put up the decorations, no matter how hard she tried to hide it.

      She was loving this!

      The thought made his heart feel warm and a feeling of delighted indulgence expanded in his gut. ‘Louisa has everything Christmas. It started after she married Ned. Grandfather discovered she’d always wanted Christmas decorations and each year he bought something even more extravagant for her collection. She has a whole nativity scene with life-sized people for the front lawn, and all the animals move.’

      ‘Now, that is seriously cool.’ Tara’s eyes shone as she looked at the ladder. Then she frowned as she looked back at him. ‘If you can climb that and not worry, then parachuting would be a cinch.’ She crossed over to him, carrying the star, and waited for him to put his foot on the bottom rung.

      He looked at her but ignored the parachute comment. ‘Hmm. The decorations are cool, but not when you have to assemble them and put them up, then pull them down every year. I could live without the ladder climb.’ He grinned at her and knew she could tell he didn’t mind. ‘Dad usually does it but he asked me to start. Louisa likes it up before December and that’s tomorrow.’

      He sighed, glanced at the ladder and held out his hand. ‘Better get it over and done with. At least there’s clips up here for the star. It just snaps into a slot and the wiring is already in place. It will be exciting for the little girls when they come home.’

      She grinned. ‘You’re a wonderful grandson. And brother.’

      He edged up a step at a time. ‘Don’t think so. Sometimes I only see them once a year at Christmas.’

      She raised her voice. ‘They said you write to them.’

      He stopped. Looked down at her. ‘I send a pretty card or a funny postcard every now and then. They phone me on Sundays if I’m not working.’

      She couldn’t imagine what it would be like to have someone do that. Imagine if Simon did that for her? Her whole world would gain another dimension, and then she stopped herself. Smacked herself mentally. He was just a nice guy. A nice guy who seemed to like kissing her?

       CHAPTER EIGHT

      THE FOLLOWING SATURDAY was Tara’s birthday. She hadn’t mentioned it, so he hadn’t, but he’d quietly arranged a cake at the place where they were going to breakfast after the jump.

      He’d learnt something as a brother of four plus two sisters. Women loved surprises.

      He didn’t even know why he was looking forward to Tara’s adventure when he hated the whole concept of risk, except now he wouldn’t miss it because it involved Tara. He hoped he wasn’t getting too caught up in the whole Tara fantasy. It wasn’t like it was a date.

      She’d started off quiet, and he’d wondered if she was sorry she’d asked him. In truth, the discussion had been before he’d kissed her, but then as they drew closer to the jump zone she became more animated.

      He glanced across at her face, eyes shining, a huge grin on her face, and she squirmed in her seat like the kid she’d never had the chance to be. This was a whole new side to the woman he considered the most self-sufficient young woman he’d met, and he savoured her little bursts of conversation in a new way from his previous lady friends.

      She had her own ideas, often contrary to his, on work, on politics, on sport even, but was always willing to listen to another point of view.

      He’d rarely enjoyed a conversation so much. He could have driven all day with her beside him instead of doing what he’d come to do. Watch Tara jump out of a plane.

      When they arrived Simon followed Tara from his car and almost had to run to keep up. Now, that was what he called eagerness to embrace the experience. He might even be starting to get her interest, even if he didn’t share it.

      He’d read the skydiving webpage when he hadn’t been able to sleep last night. It had been intriguing with the way they mentioned ‘changing your life with a jump’, though he couldn’t see how Tara’s life needed changing in that way. She was the most centred person he knew to be around.

      Apparently, sky-diving freed you of the minutiae of the everyday that could cloud the joys of living.

      Okay, rave on, yet the expression had resonated with him and made him wonder with a startling moment of clarity if that was what he did.

      He organised and pre-planned as much as he could, as if he could keep all the facets of his world—in his mind he could picture pregnant Maeve, so that included his sisters—in order and safe from the possibility of harm.

      He glanced up as another plane droned overhead into a scatter of puffy clouds in the blue sky. Safe from harm? Well, that went out the window with skydiving. Literally.

      Simon shrugged and guessed he could imagine the small stuff didn’t matter when you were hurtling at two hundred kilometres an hour through those clouds before your parachute opened. If it opened. He shuddered and increased his pace.

      Inside the flimsy building—how much money did they spend on this operation anyway, and just how safe were they?—Simon’s gaze travelled around suspiciously until he realised what he was doing and pulled himself up. Tara would be saying he could draw bad luck with negative thoughts, and despite his scepticism he refocussed on the woman he’d brought here, and just looking at her made his mind settle.

      She was grinning like there was no tomorrow. He jerked his thoughts away from that one as she beckoned him over.

      ‘Simon?’

      Her expression puzzled him—eager, mischievous, with just a touch of wariness. ‘They could squeeze you in

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