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The way Lenore spoke about Cole, as if he was a piece of real estate she was considering, was hysterical. ‘I think you will. He might even call around here tomorrow on his way to his mother’s for Christmas lunch.’

‘Well, I look forward to that. I’m done for the day. Must get my beauty sleep before Santa arrives. Ready, Nance?’

‘As always.’

Taking her wife’s arm, Lenore started towards the door but paused as they rounded the table. ‘Jokes and men aside, are you doing okay, Hannah?’

There was no need to check what Lenore meant or to what she was referring. The Christmas-coloured elephant in the room was jingling loud and clear. ‘Yes. Yes, I am.’

‘Goodo. You know where we are if you need us.’

Nancy gave a small smile and together they shuffled off to bed.

Hannah sat for a long time in the lounge room, soaking in the quiet. Gazing up at the lights twinkling on the tree, visions of her father dancing in her head like so many sugar-plum fairies. His broad she’ll-be-right smile, the eager light in his eyes when he placed a perfectly prepared meal on the table, the flop of fair hair across his forehead when he fell asleep on the sofa after a long day pruning roses. For the first time in a long time, she went to her wallet and slid out the Polaroid photo from the zippered pocket, holding it gingerly between her thumb and forefinger. Faded now, and rough around the edges, but there he was, his arm around her in the photobooth, in a pair of oversized Elton John–style glasses and a fluorescent green feather boa draped around his neck. Herself, beaming into the camera in her tiara and top hat. Taken at her cousin’s wedding the year before he died. Secreted away for all these years.

The ache was there as always, deep in her gut, a darkness she would always carry, and yet there was a candle there too, dormant all these years, waiting to be lit. If all she remembered of her father was his death, it was as if his life didn’t matter. As if he never existed. As if the family he helped create never existed.

It was time.

She picked up her phone from the arm of the chair and started typing.

Hi Mum and Maddie, I hope you’re both well and life is good. It’s Christmas Eve and I’m thinking about Dad and how much he loved this time of year. How much we all did. And how much I miss you both. Maybe we can FaceTime tomorrow and raise a glass to Dad. xx

Everything inside her shaking, she sucked in a breath and pressed send. It was lunchtime in Denmark, but a reply came back within a minute.

I’d really like that, Hannah. So much.

Another ding and a second text:Send me the link, Hannah B, and I’m there.

Something quivered inside her, like the first tentative shake of sleigh bells before they broke into a full-scale jingle. Maybe this would be the start of a new tradition. Maybe they’d even spend Christmas together again sometime in the future. She lifted her eyes to the silver star gleaming in the uppermost branches of the tree, everything that had happened in the last few weeks shimmering like a dream. Only it wasn’t. Lenore and Nancy were here under her roof, Owen was safe and with a little luck and expert help would not be causing damage to himself or anyone else anytime soon, Crystal had brought order to the practice’s filing system and a little sparkle into Hannah’s life, and Cole … he made every single one of the paperback heroes she’d been secretly swooning over seem like boring imitations of the real thing.

Life in Yarrabee was turning out to be pretty damned fine.

She reached for the switch on the string of tree lights but a quiet voice stopped her in her tracks.

Don’t turn the lights out on Christmas Eve, Hannie, Santa won’t be able to find you.

Of course not. How could she have forgotten? They’d always left them on for the entire night and all of the next day.

‘Thanks for the reminder, Dad.’ She set the photo on the mantelpiece, securing it in place with the musical Santa statue she’d pulled from the storage box, the trim on his suit tarnished and faded but his beard still pristine and white. ‘Merry Christmas.’