1
Clayton
With the top of my Aston Martin down, the warm, salt-tinged air is already breathing new life into me as I gun it down a deserted stretch of the Captain Cook Highway, flanked by golden cane sugar eight feet high on both sides.
I know in my heart—what's left of it, anyway—that I've made the right decision, leaving home to come up north for however long it takes to get over losing something I thought would last a lifetime.
Breakups are never easy, but it was a double whammy of devastation when Melinda and River sat me down one evening about six months ago and told me they thought we weren't connecting and that it would be better if they moved on.Without me.
To say I was completely blindsided would be putting it mildly. I'd been secretly planning a double proposal, which, practicalities and legal issues aside, was my way of signaling my commitment to being with both of them for the rest of my life. The distance Melinda spoke of, being on different wavelengthslike River mentioned, fuck, they might as well have been talking in another language. It was all news to me. I must've been living not just on another planet but in an entirely different cosmos.
Devastated, confused, and hurt like I've never been hurt in all my thirty-four years, I turned to my brothers (and their partners) for support. As always, they came through. My older brother, Bremmer, organized weekend hangs on my yacht so I wasn't alone and moping. His husband, Kelsey, is who I have to thank for my blond highlights. My younger brother, Dunlop, initiated a twice-a-week lunchtime hang to get out of the office, and his husband, Robbie, and I would catch up every Wednesday evening for a badminton session where the pint-sized dude did not take it easy on the broken-hearted loserat all.
I appreciated everything they were doing; there was just one problem.
None of it was working.
Weeks rolled into months, and I was still the same level of how-do-I-go-on heartbroken.
Our family business is property development. I'm the CFO, and we have an office in Cairns, the unofficial capital of tropical North Queensland. There's a marina Dunlop told me about that had some spare berths, and when I heard what the locals nicknamed the place, I took it as a sign it was where I needed to be.
Second Chance Bay.
Some people drunk shop late at night on Amazon or Temu. I bought a berth at the marina and ordered a new yacht from Europe, which was delivered last week. So here I am, currently nearing the end of my 1,700 kilometer road trip, hoping the heat or the change in environment or living in a marina,something, will finally drag me out of the darkness that's engulfed me these past six months.
I approach a dusty old petrol station on the outskirts of the last tiny dot of a town before my turnoff when I hear what sounds like… A gunshot? That can't be right. I pause the music, ease off the gas, and dart my head left, right, behind me, trying to locate the source of the sudden noise.
"Stop! Please, stop! I need help!"
I slam the brakes on just in time to avoid hitting a deranged lunatic who's jumped out in front of my car holding a…a baby?
What the hell?
He bolts over to the driver's side, clutching a blush-pink hand-crocheted granny square blanket covered in stitched moons close to his chest.
Strands of dark hair fall messily over his forehead, and his cerulean-blue eyes are fraught with panic.
No, not panic.
Terror.
"There's no time to explain," he pants. "But you have to help me." He kisses the top of the baby's head, inhales for a moment, then grimaces as he thrusts the baby into my lap. "There's a marina not far from here."
"Second Chance Bay?" I hedge.
He nods in a rush. "Yes. That's right. You'll find Leo and Rove there. They'll know what to do." Another gunshot rings out. "You have to leave. Right now. Please. Go! Just…" His eyes fill with tears as he glances at the baby. "Protect her. I beg you."
It's only now that I pick up on a slight trace of an accent. But before I can ask him anything to clarify what on earth is going on, he bolts, his athletic form disappearing into the sugar cane.
With no baby seat in my car and a trigger-happy psycho on the loose somewhere way too close, I wrap my seat belt around the baby, secure my arm around her, then with one hand on the steering wheel, get the fuck out of there.
I check the rearview.
No trace of the guy. No more gunshots, either. Just me and a stranger's baby in my arms.
Nothow I expected my healing journey to begin.
2
