sorely missed the clean fresh country air. It was still damp from a light shower before they’d arrived and that made it even better in his mind as it more readily carried his favourite scents of hay and eucalyptus. He paused for a moment to fill his lungs like a man who had been starved of oxygen. Winter in Armidale was his favourite time of year and he didn’t try and mask his happiness. Los Angeles was not his type of town at any time of the year and six days breathing air heavy with smog was six days too many.
With the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper he had picked up at the airport that morning tucked under one arm, he steered his suitcase to the cab rank. Harrison was conscious of the lightness of his steps, despite having just had his foot run over by the pretty stranger inside the terminal. Perhaps more than merely pretty, he mused. Beautiful was closer to the mark, he decided as he allowed his mind to slip back momentarily to when he’d noticed the emerald hue of her eyes, the softness of alabaster skin and ash blonde hair that skimmed her shoulders. The windswept curls that framed her heart-shaped face.
But there was something behind her eyes that struck him and played on his mind as he waited for the cab. She was stunning in an almost hauntingly sad way. A little lost. She was not from around the town he called home. She must be travelling through or visiting.
He pushed the image of her face and the questions he had about the purpose of her travelling to Armidale from his mind. He was not going there again. Curiosity about a beautiful stranger in his town had completely changed the course of his life once before. And almost ruined it. Not to mention threatened his sanity over the years. He would never let himself travel that path again. He was finally closing that horrendous chapter and was ready to move on. It had been five years of something close to hell but he had emerged and would never let his heart rule his head again. He was finally happy... Well, his new version of happy.
With his chin jutted in defiance he waved down the cab that was approaching and banished the stunning stranger’s face from his mind. Finally, he was back home with the outcome he had so desperately wanted. And nothing and no one was going to steer him off course again.
With the custody papers in hand and the signed divorce papers on their way to him in the coming days, he would soon be officially a free man. It was as if a burden he had carried for so very long had disappeared overnight. Nothing could make him happier than the knowledge that now he could move on without the possibility of one day losing his son in a custody battle. No threat of his son living across two continents. No arranging proposed maternal visits that never eventuated. No more explaining to the five-year-old boy why his mother promised to visit and never did. He could finally look into his son’s innocent blue eyes and know Armidale would be their forever home. And Harrison Wainwright was determined to be the best single dad possible.
He pushed away the surge of anger that threatened to ruin his victory. He had what he wanted and he had to let the hurt and broken promises go. He was determined to release the sadness and disappointment that had consumed his waking moments for years. But Harrison was a realist and he knew it would take time.
Being in a relationship would never again be an option for him. From that day forward, it would just be Harrison and Bryce. There was no need and no room to invite anyone else in their lives. His house and his heart were full.
And he would never risk his son being hurt again.
‘EXCUSE ME, MISS. Can I help you?’
Jessica was so preoccupied she didn’t hear the male voice behind her. The empty luggage carousel mirrored her life more than she cared to acknowledge. The fact there was nothing to see consumed her attention. The sound of the aircraft engine starting finally forced her to glance over to the thirty-six-seat plane taxiing down the runway in preparation for take-off into the stormy early evening sky. Her missing bags meant she would not be sleeping in her favourite pyjamas that night. And that was assuming she was able to collect the keys to her rental property and actually had a bed for the night.
It was all a little overwhelming and she wasn’t entirely sure what she was going to do. That had been a regular state of mind for a while and completely out of character from the old Jessica. She had always known what to do, even as a teenager. Forget having a social life, she had her head in her textbooks, even on weekends. She’d excelled at school every year until the final year. Then she’d graduated top of the class with perfect end-of-year examination results that saw her in the top twenty students across the entire state of South Australia, which meant her higher education study preference of a medical degree was guaranteed along with being presented to the Premier at Government House. Straight out of school, Jessica Ayers had been on her trajectory to becoming Dr Jessica Ayers, Paediatric Consultant. She’d considered specialising in paediatric surgery and did head down that path and gained the skills but, after a year of surgical study, she’d decided that it was the interaction with children offered by the Consultant’s position that made her the happiest.
Over the years there had been few boyfriends to distract her. No jam-packed social calendar to compete with her study schedule. Nothing to prevent her from achieving her lifetime goal. Including her vision, from her very first day in medical school, of one day being Head of Paediatrics at a large teaching hospital. Jessica Ayers had been an unashamed planner.
But there were some things in life she couldn’t plan. Some things had just occurred without any decision-making by Jessica. Some of them were very sad, such as losing her father while she was still in high school so he never saw her graduate from medical school, and then losing her mother when she was thirty. At least she was grateful that neither had witnessed her fall from grace in dating a married man.
Now she was flying by the seat of her pants in regard to everything and anything...and she wasn’t very good at it.
‘Miss, I asked if I can help you.’
Jessica turned her attention to the uniformed older man standing behind her; his bomber-style jacket was emblazoned with the Armidale Airport logo.
‘My name is Garry; I’m with the airport. I’m assuming you’re still waiting here because your bag, or bags, didn’t arrive?’
She feared her distracted state might have given the appearance of being dismissive. She felt sure she was on a roll in managing to offend her adopted new town’s population one person at a time. Damaging one man’s foot and being plain rude to another.
‘Bags—there’s two of them—and I’m sorry, Garry, I didn’t mean to be impolite.’
‘Think nothing of it. You seem a little frazzled. Have you been on a long haul flight and then a connection to get you here? A handful of our passengers came in today from Los Angeles. The Armidale Romance Writers group attended a conference in the US and four of them just came back. My sister-in-law is one of them, that’s why I know, and one of our doctors was over in America as well, not that he attended the romance conference,’ he said with a wry smile. He added, ‘It’s a country airport, what can I say, there’s not much gossip that gets past the ground staff here.’
‘Well, I haven’t flown too far at all. I’ve just done fifty minutes from Sydney so I definitely can’t blame my poor manners or distracted state on jet lag...’
‘You might not have done a long-haul trip but missing bags is a stress all of its own, so let’s see if I can help.’
Jessica wondered for a moment if she had entered some parallel universe. Was this town in country New South Wales the friendliest place on earth? This man was being so kind
