EPILOGUE

‘DO YOU THINK international travel with children comes under the heading of spontaneity and fun?’ Alistair asked with a wry smile as he tramped along a wide, golden sand beach with a baby carrier on his back.

Claire laughed as she adjusted the baby carrier on her own back. ‘Nothing about travelling with babies and all of their associated gear can be called spontaneous.’

‘Their creation, however, was both spontaneous and fun,’ Alistair teased as he slid his hand into hers and squeezed it.

‘It was.’ She leaned in and kissed him on the cheek. She was more in love with him now than on the day she’d said, ‘I do,’ in the beautiful stained-glass chapel at the castle and she was absolutely stunned that it was even possible. ‘Bringing the twins to my homeland is fun.’

The twins—a boy and a girl now eleven months old—squealed in delight. Thrashing their arms wildly, they touched hands now that their parents were walking close enough so they could reach each other from their carriers.

Claire breathed in the fresh, salty air and felt peace invade her bones. She enjoyed London but she loved Australia and its wide-open spaces more. She couldn’t quite believe she—they—were here in Queensland. The last nineteen months had been momentous. Two weeks after Alistair had proposed, he’d accompanied her to the routine pregnancy ultrasound. As she lay on the table with her hand encased in Alistair’s, excitement on hearing the baby’s heartbeat had turned from joy to shock and back to joy again when they’d heard two heartbeats.

‘Twins? But how?’ she’d asked inanely.

Alistair had laughed. ‘Any twins in your family?’

‘Dad has twin brothers.’

‘There you go,’ he’d said, kissing her on the forehead. ‘Now this is the sort of inherited condition I can get behind.’

Being pregnant and studying for her exams had been tough but with her study regime and Alistair’s help—both practical and emotional—she’d passed. The good news had arrived just before she’d gone into labour. A paediatrician had been on hand at the birth to check for any cardiac irregularities but both children were declared to have healthy hearts. Their six-month check-ups had all been normal and they were kicking goals on all their developmental milestones, although Claire noticed Emily did things just that little bit earlier than Noah. It was typical girl power.

Parenthood had brought with it both joy and delight along with exhaustion, but she and Alistair were used to functioning on limited sleep courtesy of years of working in hospitals. It didn’t faze them too much. They’d become experts at walking the floor, bouncing the pram and driving around London in the wee small hours, all sure-fire ways to get unsettled babies back to sleep. The biggest surprise—and the most appreciated—had been Alistair’s decision to cut back his work hours so he could be around more for hands-on help. Claire, loving motherhood but missing work, took up the two days a week that Alistair had dropped. It was a perfect solution. Just recently, with the twins close to their first birthday, they felt they’d found their groove and had decided to bring them out to Australia to meet her parents as well as taking a well-earned beach holiday.

At the prospect of the twenty-four-hour journey, Alistair had said, ‘We’re either brave or stupid.’

‘We’re both,’ she’d said, kissing him with gratitude. ‘And I love you for it.’

A pacific gull and a cormorant swooped over the gently breaking waves and then dived, probably having just spotted a school of fish and dinner. The sun, now a vivid orange ball of fire, dropped low to the horizon, shooting out fingers of red and yellow flames that lit up the scudding clouds. Claire felt the chill in the breeze for the first time.

‘We should probably take them home.’

‘Dinner, bath, bed?’

‘For us or them?’ she teased.

His eyes darkened just the way she liked. ‘Twins first and then us.’

‘I’ll hold you to that.’ They turned around and walked back towards the beach access track. Not able to hold back her sigh, she said, ‘I can’t believe we’ve only got one day of our holiday left.’

‘What if we stayed?’

She laughed and gave him a gentle elbow in the ribs. ‘You’re just procrastinating because you don’t want to face the flight back to London.’

‘Well, there is that,’ he said with a grin, but then his expression sobered. ‘I’m serious, Claire. What if we stayed and worked in Australia? I enjoyed my time in Sydney as a registrar so I know what I’m in for. I’ve loved this holiday and I love this country. Your mother’s besotted by the twins—’

‘There’s not a big call for neurosurgeons in Gundiwindi,’ she said, thinking of her dusty hometown.

‘True, but there is in Brisbane. The city’s only a few hours’ drive away for your parents, which is a lot closer than London. Plus, your dad’s talking about retiring closer to the coast.’

‘Is he?’

‘He told me they’d been looking at properties in the hinterland.’

Her mother had mentioned something in passing along those lines but she hadn’t thought anything of it because she couldn’t imagine her father ever leaving Gundiwindi. The idea of having her parents closer for support was very tempting, as was the opportunity for the twins to grow up with grandparents. ‘But what about your mother?’ she asked, trying to be fair. ‘If we stay here, then she misses out.’

‘You know as well as I do Mother’s not really a natural at being an extra-pair-of-hands type of a grandmother. She prefers children when they’re older. We’ll Skype her each week and buy a big house with a large guest room and an en-suite. She can fly out anytime she wants to visit. But I can pretty much guarantee she won’t do that until they’re at school.’

Anticipation and excitement started to bubble in her veins. She stopped walking and turned to face him. ‘You’ve really thought about this, haven’t you?’

‘I have.’

‘What about our friends and colleagues? The castle? Won’t you miss the old girl?’

‘Paddington’s always going to have a place in my heart, because it’s where I met you. But times change and we need to change with them.’

She’d never asked him to consider moving to Australia because they’d met in London. ‘You’d really do this for me?’

‘It’s not a hardship, Claire. Yesterday, when you were at the beach with your parents, I made enquiries at Brisbane’s public and private hospitals.’ He stroked her face. ‘Would you like to go into private practice with me in Brisbane, Ms Mitchell?’

Marvelling at how lucky she was to have him in her life, she didn’t have to think twice. ‘Yes, please.’ Throwing her arms around her neck, she kissed him, welcoming the future and all it had to offer.

* * * * *