“This is not good.” Bree sat at the kitchen table, spooning breakfast into baby Tāne’s mouth while simultaneously studying the weather forecast on her tablet. “Invercargill Airport is closed due to fog.”

Their son sneezed, spraying homemade apple puree all over his high chair and his daddy’s T-shirt.

Harley laughed, not at all perturbed even though they were running twenty minutes late and Carter had vanished outside again to triple-check on their rabbits, Queenie and Sushi. He leaned down and Tāne grabbed Harley’s face in his chubby hands, one of them hooking into his daddy’s mouth. Harley made gobbling noises around the tiny fingers and Tāne let out an infectious giggle. The sound still melted Bree to the core.

“Don’t encourage him,” she said. “He’s a show-off, like his dad.”

Harley turned his handsome, apple-smeared face toward her. “You didn’t mind me showing off for you in bed this morning, Mrs. Komeke.”

Yes, well, that was the reason they were now running late to catch their flight this morning.

“Hush,” she said. “What are we going to do?”

“Pay our firstborn twenty bucks to babysit and go back to bed for the rest of the day?” Harley asked with an unrepentant grin. He took the bowl from her hands and spooned another mouthful of apple into their son.

“You wish.” Bree turned her tablet toward him so he could see the screen. “We might miss our connecting flight from Invercargill to Christchurch.”

“We’ll wing it, babe. Don’t worry your pretty little head.” He waggled his eyebrows, obviously baiting her.

Luckily she loved him or he’d be wearing Tāne’s breakfast in the next breath.

Bree tossed a damp washcloth across the table to her husband, the one used to clean down the disaster area that was Tāne’s face after mealtimes. Their boy loved his kai almost as much as his dad and big brother, Carter.

“I seem to recall it was your idea to have a beach holiday Christmas with my sister and brother-in-law this year,” she said.

“Camping, barbecues, swimming, beach cricket—what’s not to love about traditional Kiwi festivities? Right, Tāne?” Harley handed their son the plastic spoon to play with while he tackled the face-wiping debacle which was a lot like grappling with a pissed-off octopus.

“Right.” Bree rolled her eyes and stood. “Along with sand covering everything, sand flies biting any exposed skin, and no sexy times for a week—sounds like a blast.”

“Oh, there’ll be sexy times,” Harley said with a wicked grin. “Why do you think I picked a beach campsite next to a grove of trees to pitch a tent?”

“Harley Komeke, I am not doing it in a—”

The interruption of Carter flinging open the back door cut off her last word.

“Auntie Bree! It’s real, real windy outside and, Harley, are you sure Zoe and Jade’ll remember to feed Queenie and Sushi while we’re away?”

Their ten-year-old son, who Bree’d given up to her sister to raise after she’d fallen pregnant as a teenager, was staying with them over part of the summer Christmas holidays. During the school year, he lived with Bree’s sister, Amy, and her husband, Paul, who he called ‘Mum and Dad.’ At least once every eight weeks they flew up to see Carter for a weekend, or he came to stay with them for a long weekend or during the school holidays.

“They’ll remember,” Harley said reassuringly. “Zoe and Jade promised, and mates don’t let other mates down, right?” He held out a fist to bump and Carter grinned, tapping his smaller fist to it.

Bree’s heart gave a little squeeze at the unmistakeable resemblance of father and son, even though Harley would never try and replace the close bond between Carter and his adoptive father, Paul.

Carter turned toward her. “Are we ready to go yet? We’ll miss the plane.”

Harley’s gray eyes crinkled with humor, his gaze fixed on Tāne’s carryall bag to which Bree was adding last minute disposable nappies and his favorite stuffed toy, a plush kiwi bird dressed in an All Blacks T-shirt—a gift from Harley and Ford’s birth father. Yes, he and his twin brother were also adopted. To say their family dynamics were complicated was an understatement. It made the festive season interesting, at least.

Harley stood, patting down his jeans for his keys. “We’ll get to the airport quicker if you give me a hand loading up the car.”

“Sweet as,” Carter said.

Bree smiled and swooped on Tāne. She kissed the soft dark curls on his head and ducked away before he could use his sticky fingers to grab a handful of her hair. “Let’s get you cleaned up and hit the road.”

Twenty minutes later they parked beside the single prefab building next to the airport—not really an ‘airport’ in any sense of the word, but whatever. There were only a couple of other cars in the tiny parking lot, one of them the little hatchback that Del and Shaye Westlake had purchased not long after Dels’ scooter and Boris the sea lion had one too many encounters.

While Harley and Carter wrestled with their suitcases, Bree got Tāne out of his car seat and hurried toward the prefab. Wind whipped her hair into a frenzy around her face, and Tāne began to howl, his little feet kicking into her stomach.

She was spitting hair out of her mouth and wondering how the heck to get the door with an armful of squirming, screaming baby, when it opened from the inside. Del rushed out and pinned the door open for her, the wind fighting against him, threatening to slam it shut again.

Bree shot inside while Del continued to hold the door for Harley and Carter bringing up the rear with the luggage. Tāne’s howls quietened to sniffles as he gazed around wide-eyed—as if Oban’s mini airport was the most fascinating place in the world. She spotted Carly and Kip at the passenger desk. Kip was talking on his cell phone while Carly was deep in conversation with Robert, one of only a handful of staff members manning the airport.

Carly was gesticulating toward the windows that overlooked the runway, but due to the wind screeching and rattling the corrugated iron roof above them, Bree couldn’t hear what she was saying. But she didn’t need Carly to break out into interpretive dance to have a damn good idea of the conversational gist.

Bree crossed over to the desk, and as she drew closer she glimpsed the shine of tears in her friend’s eyes.

“Everything okay?” Bree came to a halt beside her.

By the time Carly turned around, Tāne had already locked his chubby hands around two long strands of her shiny auburn hair with a joyful squawk.

Carly did a funky duck-and-contort with a squawk of her own until Bree managed to unhook her son’s fists.

“Sorry! Sorry! You know how much he loves your hair,” Bree said.

“All the girls’ hair.” Carly found her special-for-Tāne smile and stole him from Bree. She rested his padded little rump on the countertop and bumped her nose gently to his. “Hongi with Aunty Carly. There now,” she said when he laughed and made another grab for her hair. “How’s my little buddy this morning? Ready for Santa to bring you lots of new toys?”

“I think his daddy is looking forward to playing with any new toys more than Tāne is,” Bree said dryly. She switched her gaze to Robert who was spider-walking his fingers up Tāne’s spine, making him giggle even more.

“Morning, Robert. What’s going on?” she asked.

“Like I was telling them.” Robert rolled a bony shoulder. “We’re awful sorry, but this morning’s flight has been canceled, and this afternoon’s is looking none too likely for us getting airborne either.” He tilted his head toward the runway. “It’s the wind.”

“The ferry’s grounded today, too,” Carly said glumly. “And the Invercargill flights are all on hold, even if we could get off the island.”

Harley and Del appeared beside them, Harley’s damn, what can you do? mouth twist indicating Del had already filled him in on the situation. While she and Harley could catch a flight tomorrow morning or even tomorrow afternoon and still make their family Christmas, the same couldn’t be said for Kip and Carly. Her friend had driven them all nuts singing about snowmen and roasting chestnuts and sleigh rides for weeks, and now they were stuck here for Christmas. Which, to add insult to injury, not only wouldn’t be a white one, but likely instead a wet and windy one.

“We’ve got insurance,” Kip said. “Don’t worry about it, babe. We’ll only lose a little bit by changing the dates—we can have New Year’s in Aspen instead.”

If Bree’s left hand hadn’t been clutching Tāne’s baby bag, she would’ve backhanded the fool upside the head. Carly didn’t give a roasted rat’s chestnuts about losing a little bit of money, but she would care about her favorite time of year being ruined.

Carly was all about the Yule.

But her friend kissed Tāne again then passed him over to his daddy. She looped her arm through Kip’s and laid her head on his shoulder. “Looks as if we’ll be having another Stewart Island Christmas after all.”

Looked as if they all would be. Bah, humbug.