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CHAPTER 28
It was the end of a long day. And though she loved her class of kids, Felicity always gave a sigh of relief on a Friday as mums and dads picked up their little charges at the gate.
When she walked into the staffroom to gather her things, Miriam, who taught year 5, came bounding up. “There’s been a parcel delivered for you.”
“Oh.”
“Is it your birthday? If so, you’re supposed to bring a cake.” Miriam looked a bit indignant.
Felicity shook her head. “No, and I can’t think what—”
A few other staff members had gathered around the big box in the middle of the staffroom table. Miriam handed her a pair of scissors. Felicity slit open the box and looked inside. A lot of foam packaging.
And…
A pink hat.
Her blood pounded in her ears as she read the card that accompanied it:
All care has been taken to deliver this item in mint condition.
If any damage has occurred in transit, due to possible trampling, crushing or evenstuffing, please return to sender.
A searing disappointmentcoursed through her. Was this it? He’d just been having some fun with her and her lack of packing skills? She swallowed the lump in her throat.
“What’s in the box?” Miriam peered over her shoulder.
Felicity shrugged. “Just something I left behind in Australia. I’m not sure how it got delivered here, but I guess…” She’d told him the name of the school she taught at, but she hadn’t yet sent him her home address. She’d written it on the top of her letter, in the right-hand corner. The old-fashioned way. She covered the hat with the little polystyrene bubbles and closed the box up.
At the end of the day as she left, carrying the box in front of her, there was a wind blowing, scattering sweet wrappers around the car park, rolling an empty coca cola can down the street. As her eyes followed it, a figure crossing the road further up caught her eye. There was something about his height, and the way he walked…
Her pulse sped up.
She narrowed her eyes.
Blinked. Once. Twice.
Oliver?
Her heart stopped dead, then started up again at double speed. Scarlet did an excited tingle all the way up her thigh.
“Oh… Oliver…” she breathed as he got closer, the stubble on his jaw a full beard now, hiding the brackets in his cheeks when his lips hitched. But it couldn’t hide, as he got closer still, the way that when he smiled, his mouth always lifted a little more on one side, the way his dark eyes shone, the whiteness of his teeth as that smile spread across his beloved face.
“Oliver.” She sighed, then stated the bleeding obvious. “You’re here.”
“I see you’ve got the parcel.” He was right in front of her now. “I couldn’t risk it getting damaged, because it’s very precious.”
The small rucksack dropped off his shoulder and fell to the ground. And there they stood, just gazing at each other in the middle of the street, her still holding the box with her hat in it.
Oliver took a step closer, his gaze never leaving her face. They would be touching if it wasn’t for the box. He took it gently from her. “Precious,” he said huskily. “Just like its owner.”
She couldn’t speak, couldn’t take her eyes off him. Finally, she managed, “I’ve been writing you a letter.”
He took the box from her and put it down next to his rucksack. Then he kissed her, whisper soft, on the left side of her mouth. “What does it say…?”
She tried to answer, but then the enormity of it—that he was here, and she wanted him so much, but there was still this insurmountable barrier—made her legs almost buckle from under her, and as if he knew, he reached down and took her hands firmly in his.
“I—oh—why are you really here? Apart from being a bionic hat-delivering postman from the other side of the world?”
