Harper and the Single Dad

Auteur·e

Amy Andrews

Lectures

15,2K

Chapitres

Auteur·e

Amy Andrews

Lectures

15,2K

Chapitres

Harlequin🌸 Clean & Wholesome 😌 Second Chances 💓 Friends to Lovers

CHAPTER ONE

HARPER JONES COULDN’T decide if it was a good thing or a bad thing to be thrown straight into a cardiac arrest on her first day as head of the emergency department at Sydney Central hospital. It would have been nice to get through all the introductions, at least. Meet the nurses and doctors, figure out who was who and who knew what and give a little spiel on her background and expectations.

But that wasn’t how it worked in the ER.

When a walk-in collapsed at the front desk that was what you focused on instead of shaking hands and exchanging small talk. That was how it worked. And, an hour later, as the CCU team whisked the gravely ill patient away, Harper had come to know this group of people better than she could have at any polite meet and greet session.

She knew they were efficient and dedicated. She knew they were well-oiled and worked perfectly as a team. She knew their strengths and weaknesses.

Most importantly, she knew she’d fit in here. She’d made the right decision to leave London and finally come home.

‘Dr Jones?’

Harper glanced up from the computer screen where she was completing paperwork for the cardiac arrest patient. ‘Harper, please,’ she corrected the nurse with a smile.

‘Ambulance Control has just notified us of an incoming.’ She glanced down at the paper in her hand. ‘Emma Wilson, twenty six years old. Twenty-four weeks pregnant with twins. Burns from a house fire. Paramedics estimate twenty per cent with a mix of full and partial thickness.’

Something deep and dark twisted inside Harper at the word fire and her thoughts automatically went to the one man she’d been trying not to think about since arriving back in the country five days ago.

Yarran.

He still lived in Sydney. He was still a fireman. She hadn’t deliberately kept tabs on him, but it was difficult not to know stuff in the age of social media and when Yarran was so entwined with her old friendship group. His twin sister, Alinta—older than him by five minutes—had been one of her closest friends, after all.

Before Harper had broken his heart twelve years ago, anyway...

But she couldn’t think about that now. She couldn’t think about how badly she’d screwed everything up and the bridges she had to repair. Because there was a pregnant woman suffering from significant burns who must be scared out of her wits. Harper’s brain raced as she thought about how much more complicated the fluid resuscitation would be with two babies on board.

‘She was trapped under some fallen debris and sustained legs burns,’ the nurse—Taylor, according to her name tag—continued, oblivious to Harper’s internal disquiet. ‘She also has singeing around her nostrils and a soft stridor although she’s sat’ting at one hundred per cent on a rebreather mask. ETA five minutes.’

Harper nodded, chewing on her bottom lip. Stridor. There were probably some inhalation burns with resultant airway swelling. Which meant they might need to tube her. Exactly not what was best for a pregnant woman.

‘She’s Aaron Wilson’s wife,’ Taylor added, and it was obvious from the nurse’s tone the name should mean something. But it didn’t.

‘And he’s someone I should know?’

‘He’s a TV celebrity. Front man for If You Build It—one of the most popular reality shows on television for people who fancy themselves as handy.’

‘Ah, okay. Thanks.’

The premise sounded vaguely familiar given how much Australian TV content took up UK airwaves, but Harper had been a little too busy building her career to keep up with television. One thing she did know was that Aaron Wilson’s celebrity could potentially complicate things for the hospital, as intense media interest often did.

‘Is he accompanying her, did they say?’

There was no doubt a security protocol for this type of thing. At least Harper hoped so because the last thing she wanted was paparazzi in her ER, getting in the way.

‘Apparently he’s out of town but making his way back now.’

‘Okay.’ Hopefully Emma would be out of the ER before Aaron Wilson made an appearance and it would be the intensive care unit’s problem. ‘Where are we putting her?’

‘Resus cube five.’

‘Cool.’ Harper nodded. ‘I’ll be there in one.’

Harper was putting on a plastic gown over her forest-green scrubs—the colour denoting medical staff—when she heard the first wails of the ambulance siren. Both the burns and obstetric team had been notified and were heading to the ER and she was mentally preparing herself to come face to face with Alinta. Her ex-friend was, after all, head of the obs and gynae department so it was natural she would attend such a case.

A man in his thirties wearing smart trousers and a business shirt sans tie strode across the ER towards Harper. ‘Hi,’ he said as he approached. ‘I’m Felix Rothbury, senior reg O & G.’ He held out a hand. ‘You must be Harper. Nothing like being thrown in at the deep end on the first day.’

Harper shook his hand automatically. ‘Oh...hi. Sorry, I was expecting Ali.’

‘Boss is filling in for a colleague who had to pull out of their presentation last moment at a maternal morbidity symposium in Canberra today. She’ll be back tomorrow.’

A rush of relief flooded Harper’s chest, which probably made her a terrible person and an even worse friend, but there it was. She was going to have to face Ali sometime as Ivy, another friend from Harper’s past and Head of General Surgery, had pointed out this morning as they’d left Ivy’s apartment, where Harper was staying temporarily.

Just not today. Not her first day.

‘Fluid resus is going to be tricky,’ he said, launching straight into logistics as the siren, which had grown louder and louder, suddenly stopped. The ambulance had obviously turned into the emergency vehicles entrance.

‘Yeah.’ Harper nodded. ‘If you could assess what the babies are doing—’ she tipped her chin at the ultrasound unit just outside the cubicle ‘—we can work with the burns team to figure out how to go forward.’

Because of the massive fluid shifts within the body in significant burns, it was imperative that fluids were replaced and intensely monitored. But this wasn’t an ordinary burns case—they wouldn’t be treating just one person, they’d be treating three. And if, as the nurse had suggested, the patient had inhalation burns requiring ventilation, then that was a whole other ball game.

If the pregnancy had been more advanced a caesarean would have been the first course of action, but no one was going to deliver twenty-four-week twins unless the mother’s life was in immediate peril.

Hello, rock, meet hard place.

The ambulance-bay doors opened and two paramedics rushed their cargo inside. Harper’s gaze flew to the woman on the stretcher. Emma’s distressed cries could be heard easily from behind the plastic mask covering her nose and mouth even over the loud hiss of high-flow oxygen keeping the attached bag inflated. Her rounded belly was also obvious even below the shiny silver of the space blanket the paramedics had tucked around her to keep her warm.

The patient was wheeled into the cube, and the brakes applied. As the paramedics gave their handover, the team descended, seamlessly transferring the patient from the stretcher to the specially equipped resus bed before moving on to their assigned roles. The tank oxygen was switched over to the wall supply, Emma was hooked up to the cubicle monitor, the fluids currently running into two IVs placed in the crook of each elbow were switched to the hospital pumps, and baseline observations were recorded.

Harper concentrated on the information coming from the paramedic as the nurse in charge of the resus took position at the head of the stretcher and talked soothingly to the distressed patient, who was fretting about the babies. The professional, rapid-fire handover helped Harper mentally triage her priorities. The airway trumped everything. Then a full burns assessment was required and the fluid protocols for acute burns would be enacted. The condition of the babies needed to be ascertained.

And that was just for starters.

The crinkle of the space blanket being removed barely registered as the patient’s legs were exposed. Whatever Emma had been wearing was now a mess of shredded fabric rucked up to her groin. Harper’s gaze moved south inspecting the wet gauze dressings applied from mid thighs to toes, noting there didn’t seem to be any circumferential involvement of the legs.

‘I’m sorry but I need to get in there—’

Harper’s gaze flicked to Felix and then to the fireman he was addressing. Engrossed as she’d been in her mental assessment and the paramedics’ handover, Harper hadn’t taken much notice of him there holding the patient’s hand. Until now. Until he lifted his gaze to meet Harper’s and for a few mad seconds everything stopped. A wild rushing filled her ears.

She knew that head with its thick, dark, wavy hair. And even with soot settling in the fine lines, she knew that face—the taut stretch of skin over that square jaw and those killer cheekbones. She knew that mouth with its two perfectly formed full lips. She knew those black-on-brown eyes, a little bloodshot though, as though it’d been a while since he’d slept. And full of compassion.

Yarran.

The years fell away and it was as if they’d never been apart. As if the last twelve years had never happened. Looking into those two deep, still pools now felt as it always had. There was such wisdom there. Wisdom not born of this time. And an incredible sense of self as well as a...connection to something much bigger.

A completely foreign concept to a girl who had grown up in the foster system.

If he was taken aback by seeing her, Harper couldn’t tell. Unlike her own internal tumult, those eyes remained as calm and knowing as always and for those brief seconds she was twenty again and wanted nothing more than to drown in them.

But she wasn’t twenty. And neither was he.

They were both forty and he had been married and widowed and had an almost-four-year-old since last she’d seen him. And she hadn’t come home to rekindle anything. She hadn’t come home for him, full stop. This was just the next step in her career.

And right now she had a patient who deserved her entire attention.

Dragging her eyes off him, Harper planted a trembling hand at the foot of the mattress as she mentally quashed the wash of emotion flooding every cell with a yawning kind of ache. She tamped it right down where everything else she’d ever dared feel had been hidden away, and tuned back into the handover.

‘Sorry,’ he said to Felix, his voice piercing her concentration more effectively than a bullet. ‘I’ll get out of your way.’

Given there were now seven medical personnel in the cubicle along with the bulky machine that was a no-brainer. Sure, everyone was gliding around each other in some bizarre medical ballet bringing a strange kind of fluidity to the chaos, but less, right now, was more.

The paramedics were still speaking but Harper found her eye drawn to Yarran as he leaned over and smiled at the woman on the stretcher, dwarfed in people and plastic and clearly scared out of her brain. ‘I’m going to move out of the way now, Emma, so they can do their job.’

‘No!’ Emma’s knuckles whitened as she gripped Yarran’s hand tighter.

‘Hey, it’s okay,’ he soothed. ‘You’re in good hands.’

‘But you said—’ Her voice broke on a sob as she pulled the mask away from her face. ‘You said you wouldn’t leave me.’

‘I’m not leaving.’ He patted her hand with a gentle patience so familiar to Harper it caused an almost violent gut clench. ‘I’m just going to step outside so they can work but I’m not leaving. I’ll come back in as soon as they tell me I can, and I won’t leave until Aaron gets here.’

‘You promise?’ she demanded through more tears.

‘I promise.’

Harper knew better than anyone that Emma could take that promise to the bank.

He left then, but not without a brief yet cataclysmic glance at Harper. One that seemed to say, I’ve done my bit...now it’s up to you.

So...no pressure.

Harper mentally regrouped, pushing Yarran freaking Edwards from her mind. She had to, because Emma Wilson deserved a doctor on top of her game, not one dwelling on the past.

‘How are the babies, Felix?’ she asked, squeezing past to the head of the stretcher.

‘Neither appear to be in distress,’ he murmured, not lifting his gaze from the screen as he manipulated the probe with one hand and fiddled with buttons on the machine with the other. ‘Both membranes are intact. Twin one’s heart rate is slightly less than twin two’s, but both are in healthy range. Good foetal movements.’

Okay. Good. For now, anyway. But Emma’s stridor was a worry. ‘Hi, Emma, I’m Harper Jones, the doctor in charge here today.’

Harper smiled confidently at her patient, who was looking flushed and wild-eyed. The paramedics had reported she’d refused anything for pain because she was worried about the effect on the babies, something that Emma reiterated as she pulled her mask aside again. ‘Promise me you’ll do everything you can to keep my babies safe?’ she demanded in a husky voice.

Nodding, Harper gently returned the mask to Emma’s face. ‘Of course.’

But Harper knew the next couple of hours would be a tricky tightrope between doing what was best for Emma while trying to be as protective of her pregnancy as possible.

‘You in pain?’

Emma shook her head. ‘It’s bearable,’ she dismissed.

But Harper could see from the rigidity of her frame and the elevation of her blood pressure, she clearly was in pain. Which was, in a lot of ways, encouraging. Full thickness burns often weren’t painful due to the depth of the injury, which hopefully meant that the majority of the burns were partial thickness. Emma would still need grafting, but they might be able to get away with doing less, which, given the pregnancy, would be preferable.

Just then a tall, lean guy with dark brown hair greying at the temples entered the cubicle followed by two women with stethoscopes slung around their necks. ‘Hi,’ he said. ‘I’m Lucas Matthews. Head of Reconstructive Surgery.’

He appeared to be about forty and quite the looker, Harper supposed. The kind who naturally drew the female gaze and yet, she felt nothing. Not with the visceral pull of Yarran Edwards so fresh in her brain. But it was good to meet the surgeon who would be tasked with Emma’s grafting.

‘Harper Jones,’ she replied. ‘Are you happy to assess the thermal injuries while I keep on here?’

He plucked a pair of gloves out of the wall-mounted box. ‘Sure thing.’

Harper returned her attention to her patient. ‘Emma, I’m very worried about how noisy your breathing is. Sometimes when you’re really close to a fire like you were, just breathing in the heat from it—as well as the smoke and sometimes the chemicals from whatever’s burning around you—can cause damage to the mucous membranes lining the lungs and respiratory tract, which can cause them to swell. I think that noise I can hear when you breathe may be an indication of some swelling so I’m going to have a look and assess it.’

‘Okay.’ Emma nodded, her voice sounding husky now. ‘What happens if there’s swelling?’

Then they’d probably have to tube her before it got worse. Between the thermal injury and the significant amount of fluid she was about to receive, the tissues of her respiratory tract were going to take a hammering.

‘It depends on the degree.’ Harper wasn’t trying to be evasive but there was no point distressing Emma or getting too far ahead of themselves. ‘Let me just have a look down your throat and we’ll go from there.’

Two hours later they had stabilised Emma enough to get her transferred to the intensive care unit. There had been only slight redness of the upper airway so Harper hadn’t needed to intubate but she suspected it would probably be required in the coming hours. Lucas had assessed the burns at twenty-five per cent—fifteen per cent of which were full thickness. Which meant extensive grafting.

Emma Wilson was here for the long haul.

Harper sent a swift prayer into the universe as the ICU team whisked a lightly sedated Emma away. After assurances from Felix that the babies were doing well and a small amount of pain relief would be fine, Emma had acquiesced. With it, her distress had settled, which had, in turn, settled her breathing and improved her stridor.

For now.

The Sydney Central was a top-notch hospital and Emma was in the best place possible but her pregnant body had also suffered a severe insult, which had the potential to get worse, jeopardising both her life and the babies’ lives. Babies who were far too premature to be delivered and expected to survive. So, she was by no means out of the woods just yet. But she was at least settled for now, sleeping a little, giving her stress levels a much-needed break.

Stripping off her gloves, Harper tore the ties of her plastic gown and removed it, tossing it in a bin and heading for her office. She stopped dead in her tracks when she spotted Yarran sitting by himself in a row of four chairs in the corridor just outside the resus area, his head lolling back at an awkward angle against the wall.

Asleep.

A fascinating section of whiskery throat was exposed to her view and Harper felt a repeat of that moment back in the cubicle. That visceral gut clench. How was it possible he could affect her like this after twelve years apart?

Sighing, she approached—he’d get a crick in his neck if he stayed like that. Plus, she’d promised Emma she’d let Yarran know she was being transferred to ICU. Apparently, he’d been the one to pull her out from under the collapsed section of roof.

She’d called him her hero and looking at him now, oozing sheer masculinity even in his sleep, Harper agreed. Everything about him screamed big and capable. The guy who strode in when everything was burning down.

The guy who got it done.

From the tips of his soot-blackened, heavy work boots to the way his navy polo shirt stretched across his shoulders and abs, to the bands of reflective material encircling thighs and calves encased in thick navy trousers. Everything about him screamed ‘hero’.

‘Yarran.’

He didn’t stir and Harper’s heart did a little flip-flop behind her ribcage. Half of her wanted to let him sleep and the other half wanted to stroke her finger along the darkened shadow on his jawline and whisper his name as she used to.

As if they’d never been apart.

She wanted it so bad, her finger tingled in anticipation. But that wasn’t going to happen. It could never happen.

They were so last decade.

Taking the safer route, Harper shook his arm, watching him as he stirred. He winced as he righted his head and cracked open an eye, looking at her in confusion for a moment or two before clarity returned. He stood abruptly, suddenly alert despite the overwhelming exhaustion stamped across his features.

‘Emma?’

He was now significantly closer, looming in front of her and she could smell smoke but also something familiar, something that struck a chord deep in her reptilian brain. ‘Just gone to ICU.’

He checked his watch. ‘Has Aaron arrived?’

‘He’s apparently a few hours away.’ It was then Harper noticed the congealed blood on the inner side of Yarran’s forearm. She frowned. ‘You’re hurt.’

‘Hmm? Oh—’ He glanced at the injury, clearly annoyed it had the audacity to exist. ‘It’s nothing.’

‘Why don’t you let me be the judge of that?’

‘It’s fine,’ he repeated, his tone testy. ‘I need to get to ICU.’

Harper shook her head. ‘Emma’s sleeping at the moment and they won’t let you in until they’ve got her settled anyway.’

‘Is she going to be okay? Are the babies okay?’

Folding her arms, Harper raised an eyebrow. ‘Let me look at that and I can fill you in on where she’s at.’

He regarded her for a few moments. ‘Fine.’

Yarran followed Harper into a treatment room still not quite able to believe she was here. He’d known she was back in the country. Known she’d taken the job at the Central. But he hadn’t expected to run into her ever really, or not so soon, anyway. And certainly not on what was, according to the recent conversation he’d had with his twin, Ali, her first day.

He had given seeing Harper a brief thought sitting beside Emma in the ambulance but had dismissed it as fanciful. Surely her first day as department chief would involve a lot of meetings and HR stuff. Not being in the thick of an emergency right off the bat.

And certainly not attending to a lowly superficial scratch on his arm.

She flicked the lights on as she entered what was a typical hospital treatment room—cold, the bright white light making it seem even more so. The clinical aroma of antiseptic was pervasive yet comforting. Without a word, Harper pointed at the high, narrow bed pushed against the far wall and Yarran mentally apologised to the pristine white sheet as he levered his soot-covered ass onto the middle, his legs dangling over the edge.

They didn’t speak. He just watched her gather the things she needed, in that quiet, efficient way of hers, as if they didn’t have a whole truck full of baggage dominating the space between them. Her economy of movement hadn’t changed in a decade. Nor had the shape of her body. Beneath those scrubs—she still looked good in scrubs—he could make out the leanness of her legs, the trimness of her frame, the high, tight thrust of her breasts.

His palms tingled as he remembered the feel of her under him and he pressed them to the bed. God...he must be tired to be thinking like this.

And he was tired. Actually, exhausted was probably a better word. Fatigue invaded every muscle cell he owned. His team had taken over at a factory fire when they’d come on shift last night and had spent seven hours getting it under control. Fighting a fire over a prolonged period was hot, sweaty work and manning a hose required extraordinary strength. Doing so for hours, even more so.

Then, two hours before the shift was due to end, they’d been called to the Wilsons’ house fire. It hadn’t taken long to get under control but the adrenaline that came with a suburban fire took its own kind of toll. Unlike the abandoned warehouse, the potential for people being trapped and the fire spreading to neighbouring properties was ever present.

So yeah, he felt weary to his bones. He stunk of smoke and was streaked with soot. His eyes were gritty from ash and fumes and weariness. He wanted a shower and he wanted his bed. He did not want to be here with Harper Jones staring back into a past he suddenly wasn’t sure now he was as over as he’d thought.

Turning, she pushed a metallic trolley laden with dressing equipment towards him. She halted close enough that the outside of her thigh brushed the outside of his knee as she snapped on a pair of gloves. A flare of heat flashed up his quad and the fatigued muscle protested the involuntary tightening. Harper didn’t look similarly affected as she held out her hand, clearly expecting him to present his arm.

Yarran sighed. ‘It really is fine.’ But she just stood there, implacable as ever. Implacable as that night she’d turned his proposal down.

Sliding her hand onto his forearm, she flipped it over so she could examine the underside then lifted it slightly to examine it closer. Yarran didn’t resist—he didn’t have the energy. Although clearly his body wasn’t that tired as a warm buzz flushed through his system at her touch.

‘What happened?’ she asked with such brisk efficiency Yarran was left in no doubt he was the only one feeling the buzz.

‘I don’t really remember. I think it might have been when my shirt caught on something as I pulled Emma out from the debris.’

She lifted her gaze and their eyes met and locked and Yarran was conscious of how close they were, of how easy it would be to slide a hand onto her hip, to tug her near and bury his face in her neck. She smelled so good and looked so fresh and so...here. After all this time. It had been over a decade and yet it felt like yesterday.

‘You didn’t feel anything? It must have hurt.’

Yarran shrugged. ‘Nope.’ It wasn’t unusual in the midst of a fire or a rescue, with adrenaline surging, to sustain a minor injury or burn and not even know it.

Their gazes held for a beat or two, her hazel eyes familiar to him on such an intimate level. How many times had he stared into those eyes as they’d chatted about their days, their plans, their future?

How many times had he stared into them as they’d made love?

She quirked an eyebrow at his brief response. ‘People come into emergency departments demanding morphine for papercuts.’

He shrugged again. ‘I didn’t feel it.’

Shaking her head, she dropped her gaze back to his wound and set about thoroughly cleaning the area. As promised, she filled him in on Emma’s injuries and condition with a brisk, businesslike demeanour that helped keep this moment in perspective.

Once all the soot and dried blood had been removed it was, as he suspected, a superficial cut not requiring any medical intervention. Still, he had to grit his teeth a little as she scrubbed directly at the ten-centimetre laceration with an anti-bacterial solution. He grunted as she swabbed it again.

‘Sorry.’ She glanced at him quickly. ‘Don’t want it to get infected.’

‘Not much danger of that,’ Yarran grouched. ‘My arm’s never been cleaner.’

Ignoring his grumpiness, she returned her attention to his arm, inspecting it carefully. ‘Okay, it’s just a superficial cut.’

Yarran rolled his eyes as he stared at the curve of her cheekbone and the half-moon shadow created by her eyelashes. ‘Yeah.’

She released his arm, reaching for a wound dressing. ‘I’ll just pop a dressing over it.’

Yarran sat passively as she applied it, taking her time adhering the sticky edges to his skin, working out a wrinkle from a section daring to not sit perfectly. It was torturous, cool her fingertips trailing against the flesh of his inner arm, light and cool, sensation curling upwards his arm, light as smoke.

A slice of her hair fell forward. It was still the same vibrant red as always, no sign of any greys to dull its glory. She wore it shorter, though, the tips brushing her shoulders rather than her waist, but it looked as lush and soft as always and he was shocked by the sudden urge to sink his hands into it, to feel the glide of it as it sifted through his fingers, to bury his face in it.

To see it fanned over the pillow beside his.

Something deep and hard kicked him in the chest and he started. Fifteen minutes ago, all he’d wanted was a shower and his bed and now he wanted...what? To...rekindle something with the woman who had smashed his heart into a thousand tiny pieces?

He hadn’t wanted anybody for a long time. And now this? With Harper?

‘There now,’ she said, oblivious to his inner turmoil, her eyes meeting his. ‘You want a lollipop?’

A smile played on her mouth and lit those hazel eyes. The same hazel eyes that had clouded over when he’d dropped to his knee and proposed all those years ago.

What are you doing, Yarran? Get up, please, just get up.

He still remembered that moment. The look of horror on her face, the icy cold fingers wrapping around his heart and squeezing. He’d been so sure. So sure of her and how she felt. That she wanted the same thing he did—a life together. He remembered the heavy pain in his chest as his heart had cleaved right down the centre.

And then she’d bolted—to the other side of the planet—leaving Yarran dead inside. So dead he’d never thought he’d feel anything again. And he hadn’t—for a long time. Then Marnie had come along six years ago and breathed life back into him. He’d loved again and when they’d had their son—Jarrah—Yarran had felt complete.

But then Marnie had been so cruelly taken from him in a car accident just after Jarrah’s first birthday and his world had turned bleak. So bleak. Thank goodness for Jarrah. His son had given him reason to keep going.

Reason to laugh and feel joy again and he’d clung to that.

It had been a long process, but he was finally in a good place. He had a kid he adored, a job he loved and a supportive family. He didn’t need anything else.

Hell, he didn’t want anything else.

He certainly didn’t want to go backwards. And Harper was the very definition of backwards. Yarran was a different person today. Not the same guy who fell so quickly and trusted so easily. And he had responsibilities now. He had Jarrah. And Jarrah came first.

‘Yarran?’

Her husky voice brought him back to this moment. This woman so familiar yet so not. So close. Too close. Frowning at him, her brow crinkled, those eyes searching his, everything around them coming to a stop. The busy emergency ward noises in the corridor fading. The breath in his lungs stuttering to a halt. The trip of his heart pausing.

He was conscious only of her—of her breathing and the aroma of her hair. Of the hot lick of desire throbbing to life inside him. His gaze dropped to Harper’s mouth and the urge to kiss the hell out of her rode him like the devil.

She swallowed. ‘Yarran.’

Her voice was low and rough, husky with warning. One he would do well to heed but now he was caught up by the fascinating bob of her throat, the flutter of her pulse at the base, the memory of kissing her there so many times. How good it had been.

Until it wasn’t.

Panic flooded in then, riding shotgun with his desire. Hell. What was he thinking? This was Harper. Harper. He wasn’t thinking. At all. He was tired—so tired—and seeing her again after all this time was a shock.

Yarran stood abruptly, forcing Harper to take a step back. ‘I’ve got to go,’ he said gruffly, manoeuvring around her stationary body. ‘I promised Emma I wouldn’t leave her.’

He wasn’t asking for her permission and he didn’t wait for it, he just walked out of the room, not looking back, refusing to think about how close he’d come to doing something so incredibly stupid. His body might be caught up in a time warp, but his head was not.

There could be no do-overs with Harper Jones.