Mending the Single Dad's Heart

by Susanne Hampton

  Jessica reminded herself there were still barriers to overcome. Did the country doctor need his heart mended just as much as she did or was his intact? Perhaps she didn’t need to know it all. Not at first, at least, but she felt sure this time she wasn’t falling for a man who would break her heart the way it had been broken before.

  It had been the most amazing night. Ever. Harrison was the most wonderful lover. Giving and tender, yet demanding and strong. He was as complex in bed as he was out of it and that excited her. The night had been so special, so wonderful and she didn’t want to allow anything to spoil it. Not the sadness of her past or question marks hanging over the future. She wanted to enjoy whatever it was they had right now and not block out what also might be.

  Harrison had slipped from the bed before Jessica had woken. She could hear the shower running and suddenly felt a little disappointed that he hadn’t remained in bed. Waking in his arms and making love again would have made the morning as perfect as the night had been, but she knew he was rostered on at the hospital so it was understandable. She hoped she would wake up the next morning in his bed and that he would stay in it with her for many hours.

  Quickly but reluctantly, Jessica climbed from the warm, delightfully crumpled bed and gathered her underwear, hosiery and her dress, strewn over the highly polished floors. One by one she picked up the pieces. She would shower at home as she liked the scent of his skin on hers and wasn’t in a hurry to wash him away.

  ‘I’m sorry I had to get up but I need to get to work...and I have a stop to make before that.’

  Jessica turned to find Harrison standing in the doorway, a plush grey towel hanging low on his hips. Dangerously low. In the soft hue of the morning light his chiselled chest made him look larger than life. Like a Greek statue. Carved and bronze and perfect. It took all of her self-control not to remove her clothes and suggest he call in sick so they could remain under the covers for another few hours.

  ‘I understand completely,’ she told him as she averted her eyes and, showing a great deal of restraint, stepped into her dress, the last piece of her clothing that had been thrown across the room the night before. She wasn’t sure what he’d meant by a stop to make before that. Perhaps he had a patient home visit.

  All things considered, she thought as she looked down at her outfit from the night before, she wasn’t as dishevelled as she could and should have been. With any luck, her walk of shame might not be noticed by the neighbours after all.

  ‘I wish I could ask you to stay but I have to...’

  ‘Work, I know,’ she said, cutting in nervously. Suddenly what they had shared seemed a lifetime ago. In a perfect world he would scoop her up and lay her on the bed and kiss her and tell her that he was falling madly in love with her. But they didn’t live in a perfect world. ‘It’s all good. I have a million things to do today so I need to leave anyway.’

  ‘Last night was great.’

  ‘Yes, it was,’ Jessica agreed, suddenly feeling uneasy about the tone of his voice. In the light of day, she sensed that Harrison wanted to put some distance between them. Both emotionally and physically. Perhaps the early morning shower was his way of breaking their intimacy. Waking in each other’s arms would have put a very different slant on the situation. He looked ill-at-ease and she sensed it had nothing to do with his nakedness.

  His behaviour confused her. He’d been so very certain about everything the night before. He’d been in command and now he looked unsure. She felt a little sick in the stomach by his sudden need to detach.

  ‘I think you’re amazing, Jessica,’ he began, breaking the strained moment of silence but not bridging the gap she now felt between them.

  Jessica felt her heart sink. Only moments before, she had believed she was teetering on something close to falling in love with him but she feared that was not how he saw the situation. She had wanted him so badly that it frightened her and she had let down her guard, only to have him almost disregard it.

  ‘Would you like breakfast or coffee?’ he asked as he crossed to his wardrobe. ‘I can make you some scrambled eggs once I’m dressed.’

  Jessica drew a breath, trying to calm her emotions. She felt a stab of painful awareness. Was she the only one thinking past one night together?

  ‘I think I might leave now,’ she said hastily as she felt a tightness in her chest.

  ‘Okay,’ he agreed as he laid his clothes on the bed and began dressing. Within moments he donned dark blue jeans, a warm checked shirt and bulky camel sweater.

  Jessica had never seen a man dress so quickly. Not that she had seen a man get dressed after a one-night stand as it wasn’t something she had done before, but the process did seem hurried. And extremely awkward, considering only hours before that she’d been naked in his bed.

  ‘I’ll see you at the hospital on Monday then?’ she asked, hoping that he would ask to see her that night. If he did then she would know that she was reading the situation incorrectly. She wanted with all her heart to be proved wrong. So she gave him the opportunity to invite her over again.

  ‘Yes, of course,’ he replied. ‘I’ll see you Monday.’

  She was mortified. Her reading was correct.

  She’d hoped he might try to convince her to stay but he didn’t. He was letting her walk away. She suddenly felt very empty. Even more empty than before she’d slept with him. Before she’d met him. And, unfortunately, those feelings told her that she had given at least a small piece of her heart to him. She’d hoped he deserved it but she was beginning to think perhaps he didn’t. She wished it didn’t cause an ache inside her, to be walking away from the night they’d shared with no promise of another.

  The pain was growing by the minute and heightened as he walked her to the front door. The very place he had first kissed her the night before. The passion in his first kiss, the way he’d carried her into his bedroom and the love they made... It was all gone. He was letting her walk away as if it meant nothing.

  What they’d shared was just a one-night stand after all. She hadn’t thought that was all it would be as she had lain in his arms but perhaps that was just what he did—made a woman feel there was more without saying it—and perhaps it was unintentional. She was confused and felt let down. She knew she had no right to expect more, Harrison had not promised more, but it still felt wrong to be almost asked to leave.

  Was she missing something? Was there something about Harrison she didn’t know? She wasn’t sure but she was teetering on something close to heartbreak and she didn’t need another heartbreak. It didn’t take long for Jessica to realise that spending the night with him was quite possibly the biggest mistake she had made in a very long time.

  Harrison turned to her as he unlocked the front door. His eyes were filled with emotion that Jessica couldn’t define.

  ‘I’ll always think of last night as special.’

  Jessica couldn’t find any words to say. She was just trying to hold back tears that were welling deep inside and threatening to spill onto her cheeks.

  ‘I know you’re not planning on staying in town and, believe me, I wouldn’t expect or ask you to change your plans, based on one night together. I just want you to know that I think you’re an amazing woman, Jessica. Any man would be fortunate to have you in his life. I’m truly sorry the way our lives are destined to be, and that it can’t be me.’

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  JESSICA DROVE HOME in shock. Afterwards, she couldn’t remember leaving Harrison’s house or driving the short distance to her own rental home. She shouldn’t have been on the road, she realised, when she arrived at her door. Her mind was a fog and she had driven in a complete daze. There had been no one on the road and perhaps that was why the drive was so forgettable or perhaps it was because she was so preoccupied with thoughts of the man who had just ended something between them before it had a chance.

  She was angry, and sad,
and confused and blindsided and...a dozen different emotions she didn’t know she could feel. All of them caused by Harrison Wainwright. Why the hell had he invited her home? Was it just to spend one night together? Had he planned all along to kiss her goodbye in the morning for no good reason? Walk her to the door and not want to see her again?

  And then to give her a line if translated into Italian would be worthy of a place in an opera. Or at the very least a soap opera. Any man would be fortunate to have you in his life... I’m truly sorry...it can’t be me. Who said that? And why? And what did he mean by the way our lives are destined to be?

  His parting words were coming back to her in a jumbled mess. Her mind was racing at a million miles an hour as she threw her overcoat on the sofa and unzipped her dress and stepped out of it and tossed it on top of her discarded coat before she made her way to the bathroom.

  The house was as cold as ice but her blood was boiling as she thought back over their conversations. She wanted to wash any trace of the man from her skin—the scent of his cologne, the scent of his body, she wanted none of it. She turned on the shower and stepped into the steaming water and scrubbed her body with a loofah. All the while she pushed visions of Harrison from her mind and tried to erase the feeling of his arms around her. She couldn’t trust that, but the ache in her heart was more real than she cared to admit.

  What had gone wrong? Was he really just another bad man? And was she a magnet for men who thought nothing further than how she could meet their own desires?

  Or was it her? Was it the barriers she had up when they’d first met? Surely when she was lying in Harrison’s bed he would have known the barriers were down. All of them. She reached for the shampoo and, putting her head under the running water, began to wash her hair. His cologne was in her hair and she wanted nothing to remind her of him, nothing to unexpectedly take her back to the hours they’d spent together. Her life felt as if it was unravelling again. The very reason why she’d promised herself not to get involved. She had sworn off men for a very good reason.

  Suddenly she thought back to when she’d mentioned she wasn’t the marrying kind to Harrison that first day at the hospital. Perhaps she’d made him think she was the one-night stand type with the whole, I’m not a picket fence kind of woman statement? But then, the way Rachel Naughton spoke about him, as the doting godfather of her daughter, he was a man who needed a good woman to share his life with. That was not close to a description of the man who’d as good as told her to leave his house the morning after seducing her.

  Jessica was close to going mad. She had woken a happy woman, luxuriating in the feeling of what she and Harrison had shared the night before, and now, in the light of day, she was berating herself for going home with him. Maybe she should have taken it more slowly. Maybe she should have said no. Maybe they’d rushed into something that just as quickly had turned into nothing.

  As she turned off the shower she told herself that the maybes had to stop—she was grasping at straws.

  She had to accept they had shared a night. That was where it had started and that was where it would end.

  She just had to find a way to erase it from her mind.

  * * *

  Her weekend was filled with thoughts that bounced from regret to acceptance and then back again. It involved a lot of ice cream and more than one call to Cassey, who consoled her and thankfully did not mention online dating as a solution. They made plans to catch up when Jessica was back in Sydney or Cassey made it over to Adelaide.

  It was about ten o’clock on Sunday night when she received an email that she wasn’t expecting, but one that inadvertently changed the course of her life, even before she received it. It was regarding the role at the Eastern Memorial Hospital in Adelaide. Not as the locum Paediatric Consultant as she had planned in a few weeks but, due to an unexpected resignation, offering the position of Acting Head of Paediatrics if Jessica was interested. There was an opportunity to trial the role for three months and then, if she was successful, the potential to be transitioned into the ongoing position. But the conditions were non-negotiable. She needed to be in Adelaide by Monday of the following week. There was no shifting the time line if she was to accept the position.

  It was a role she had dreamed of for so many years and an offer she hadn’t expected in her wildest dreams. While she should have been excited by the prospect of achieving a lifelong goal and the opportunities it brought, instead she read and reread the email and thought of it purely as an escape route. There was no elation. Her emotions were flatlined.

  Ordinarily she would ask for more time so she could complete her current contract or at least give two weeks’ notice, but now those terms more than suited her. Leaving a position with little warning was not what she liked to do and she hoped that Professor Langridge and the hospital Board would understand. What the Head of ER thought didn’t matter in the slightest to her. He had not reached out for two days. There had been nothing from him. It was as if nothing had happened between them.

  As much as she wanted to accept the new position immediately, Jessica decided to give Errol the courtesy of advising him of her plans in person the next day.

  * * *

  It was two in the afternoon before she could get in to see the Professor.

  ‘I’m not going to lie; I’m very sad to see you go. We’ve been trying to secure funding to keep you on here, as everyone working with you is so thrilled to have had you on board and they’ve told me in person. You’ve made quite an impression with everyone in the space of a week. Particularly with Harrison Wainwright. He’s got to be your biggest fan and the keenest that you should be kept on board.’

  Jessica shot the Professor a rueful look but said nothing. The irony of it all. The man who was her supposed biggest advocate was the one who’d hastened her decision to leave.

  ‘In saying that, Harrison was quite adamant that we didn’t force your hand or coerce you in any way. From day one, he wanted it to be your choice or not at all.’

  Jessica was not buying into anything said by or about Harrison Wainwright. None of it held water in her mind any more and she put it out to the universe that if it could arrange for her to avoid seeing him or hearing his voice for the rest of the week, she would be very grateful.

  ‘Well, again, I’m also sad in many ways but I have to think about my career at this stage in my life and the opportunity to be Head of Paediatrics in Adelaide is just too good to refuse.’ And a damn good exit strategy from Harrison, she thought.

  ‘It is an amazing opportunity,’ came a voice from the doorway. A voice that Jessica recognised only too well. It was the voice of someone who had only a few nights before shared pillow talk with her. ‘Too good to refuse, I agree.’

  Jessica felt her heart sink, hearing his voice again.

  ‘With your skills and mindset, Jessica, you were never destined to stay long in this town.’ With that Harrison exited as quickly as he had appeared.

  ‘A man of few words, our Harrison.’

  Jessica didn’t respond. In her opinion, Harrison could certainly say all the right words when it suited him.

  ‘We have you on board until Friday then?’ Errol asked with a hopeful lilt to his voice.

  ‘I could make it six and work through until late Saturday if that would help? I can arrange flights and accommodation in Adelaide and fly to Sydney and then directly on to Adelaide on Sunday. I’m not starting there until Monday.’

  ‘That’s very good of you but certainly cutting it close.’

  ‘Not at all. I’m truly sorry to be leaving early but, all things considered, it’s for the best.’

  * * *

  Jessica left Errol’s office feeling torn. Letting down the Board and Errol had never been in her plans but then neither was falling for the Head of ER and having her heart broken. All things taken into account, she was doing as well as she could to remain on for another si
x days. She hoped that Harrison would give her the space to do her job and leave with her dignity intact. She didn’t want to tell him what she thought of him or ask for an explanation beyond the empty excuse he’d provided before she’d left his home because that would be letting him know how much he had come to mean to her in a very short space of time. And how she’d mistakenly thought she had come to mean something to him too.

  The week passed by quickly. She sent her signed acceptance letter to Eastern Memorial and then organised her flights for the following Sunday morning. It was a nine o’clock flight from Armidale to Sydney with a two-hour layover and an eleven o’clock flight from Sydney to Adelaide. It wasn’t difficult to secure an apartment close to the hospital, which meant she wouldn’t need to organise a car as she could use public transport and cabs and look into purchasing a car later if needed.

  Being organised felt good. Being in control of her destiny felt even better. While the idea of staying in one place was a little daunting after a year of moving around, there was the three-month trial period in the terms of the contract and that was reassuring to her. She might like being in one place, as long as that place was not near Harrison. And if she didn’t like being settled, then she would decline the ongoing role and return to her nomadic existence.

  It was her second to last day and she had visited all the staff to thank them, as many would not be on duty over the weekend. They had wanted to host a farewell afternoon tea but Jessica declined. While the sentiment was lovely, having to see Harrison at the event and receive his best wishes, or knowing that he might have chosen not to attend, would be far too awkward. And more than a little sad. She found a lovely scarf and beautiful card signed by many of the staff in her office on the Friday night, which she considered was too much for having only been there such a short time. She intended on sending a thank you note from Adelaide. Harrison’s name was on the card but his message was brief and nothing could be read into it by anyone, including Jessica.