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‘Who said?’
‘You said.’
‘True. Okay, I’ll buy that penthouse in Port Macquarie and do a bit of commuting. That sound feasible enough for you?’
‘Very feasible. Felicity wants to go to school in Port Macquarie next year. They’ve not long opened a new high school there. It has a great reputation already. It is rather expensive. But she said you could afford it.’
‘What? That girl! She’s incorrigible!’
‘Indeed. I wonder where she gets her ruthlessness from?’
‘Hey, don’t blame me for everything. She has half your genes, you know.’
‘You didn’t say that about her piano playing! You claimed all those genes.’
Suddenly, Nicolas grinned. ‘We’re arguing over our kid already.’
‘Parents always argue over their children.’
‘Do they? I rather like it.’
‘You won’t once the boys start calling. Which will be any day now.’
Serina almost laughed at Nicolas’s horrified expression. ‘She’s not old enough for boys.’
‘She’ll be thirteen next year. In two years she’ll be fifteen. I was fifteen when I went to your graduation.’
‘My God. Where is she now? Who’s she staying with whilst you’re over here?’
‘Kirsty’s parents.’
‘What? She’s back out there in bushfire land?’
‘We can’t mollycoddle her, Nicolas.’
‘Oh, yes I can. I’m her father. I can mollycoddle her all I like! You’re going home, Serina, and I’m coming with you.’
‘Really, Nicolas, are you quite sure about that?’ And sliding her arms up around his neck, she kissed him.
They didn’t fly home till after the New Year.
EPILOGUE
Christmas Day, one year later…
NICOLAS sat at the head of the huge dining table, with Serina on his right, and three-month-old Sebastian lying in his bouncinette between them.
‘How about a toast, everyone?’ Nicolas said, and lifted his wineglass high.
There were eight other people seated around the table. Ken, Janine and Kirsty; Bert and Franny; Margaret, Serina’s mother; Mrs Johnson; and of course, Felicity.
This was what a Christmas should be, Nicolas realised. Not presents so much—though he had gone over the top a bit this first year—but friends and family all gathered together.
‘Happy Christmas!’ he said, and clicked his wineglass against Serina’s.
‘Happy Christmas!’ everyone chorused.
Sebastian responded to the noise by rocking madly back and forth in his bouncinette, flapping his arms and laughing his highly infectious laugh.
Everyone laughed with him, then got on with eating. Everyone except Serina, who wanted to take a moment to drink in, not the wine, but her happiness.
What a year it had been! So much had happened, everything orchestrated by Nicolas with speed and efficiency. They’d married by special licence in the middle of January, at the old Rocky Creek church, then honeymooned in both New York and London, during which both Nicolas’s properties were sold. By the time they returned home to Australia in early February, Serina was well and truly pregnant. She’d actually fallen during the first week she’d spent with Nicolas in New York but kept that news to herself for a while.
On returning to Australia, Nicolas decided that the penthouse apartment—which he’d put a deposit on—wasn’t suitable for family living. So he pulled out of that contract, then took Serina and Felicity house-hunting. They ended up buying, not just a house, but a small acreage not far from the Port Macquarie racecourse. It had belonged to a horse trainer who’d decided to go farther north.
Both Felicity and Serina had fallen in love with the place at first sight, Felicity because of the stables—extremely suitable to house sick animals in!—and Serina because of the house, which, though only five years old, was in the design of a colonial farmhouse with a high pitched roof and verandahs all around. Although much larger, it reminded her of the house she’d been brought up in and where she’d always been very happy.
And it was from this new and much-loved home that Nicolas had driven her to the hospital to have their baby.
Her pregnancy was the only worry that this year had brought Serina. Despite being thrilled at falling so quickly, she had been secretly concerned that she might have to endure another ten-month pregnancy before popping out a clone of Felicity. The news during her four-month ultrasound that she was having a boy eased her mind somewhat, but she was still a little nervous over what her baby might look like, especially if his birth was delayed.
