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CHAPTER ONE
HAILEY WINTERS had never felt so isolated in her life. Which was no mean feat considering that the ballroom held about four hundred people. Music from an eighties retro band blared out from the stage and party-goers danced amidst the strobe lighting while others milled around, conversing in small groups. Her table companion chatted away, unaware of her total distraction.
She sighed. She’d been keeping herself together so well these last few months. Moving on. But surrounded by couples while single on New Year’s Eve was not her idea of fun. Her sisters, Beth and Rilla, had insisted she attend the hospital ball, insisted it was time she got out, insisted she stopped telling them she was fine and demonstrate it. So she had agreed—reluctantly—because she wanted to prove to them she was fine and, of course, she’d also never been able to say no to them.
And they meant well, but she just wasn’t the party type. Any more. She watched Beth and her husband Gabe across the table. He was saying something to her, his mouth pressed against her ear, and her sister laughed, looking adoringly up at him. Gabe’s lips moved again and Beth opened her mouth, giving him, a faux scandalised look.
Oh, please, get a room!
She turned her attention to Rilla and Luca. Her Italian brother-in-law and her middle sister with matching olive complexions looked like two peas in a pod. She saw Rilla’s eyes widen as Luca’s hand suspiciously disappeared from view and Hailey rolled her eyes. Make it two rooms. If anything, newly reconciled and expecting their first baby, they were even more lovey-dovey than Beth and Gabe.
New Year’s Eve was for lovers and unfortunately she just didn’t fit the bill. Not that she wanted to. Not that she was looking. She’d moved on. And being alone for the rest of her life was infinitely more appealing than having her heart stomped all over again. Yet, still, she felt…restless tonight. Out of place.
Hailey realised Ronald Archer, an acquaintance of her father’s, had stopped droning on and was looking at her expectantly for a reply. She brought her wandering thoughts back into order and re-entered the conversation.
A minute later, still listening to Ronald, Hailey froze as something brushed against her stockinged leg beneath the table. She almost stopped breathing as the tiny interloper scratched its way up further under her floor-length ballgown.
Hailey shuddered. Please, don’t let it be a spider.
‘Excuse me for a moment,’ she said politely to Ronald, before scraping her chair back, knocking it to the floor and leaping away from the table. She stamped her feet on the floor like a horse, trying to shake the unfortunate creature loose.
Thankfully, with the Brisbane General’s annual New Year’s Eve Ball in full swing, there were few witnesses to her wild jig.
‘Goodness, dear, whatever is it?’ Hailey’s table partner enquired.
‘Something just crawled up my leg, Mr Archer,’ Hailey said, inspecting the floor for the insect that had dared defile her expensive French stockings. It was difficult to see anything in the muted lighting of the ballroom. ‘Some kind of bug or insect.’ She shuddered.
‘Or maybe something even more dangerous? Like a small child, perhaps?’
Hailey looked up from the floor as she heard her companion’s laughter. A boy sat on his haunches just under the table, his mouth and eyes wide open in his pale face, a small torch in one hand, a toy truck in the other. He was wearing a white shirt with a fat bow-tie and had remorse stamped on every adorable feature. He may as well have had the word ‘Guilty’ tattooed on his forehead.
‘Oh,’ Hailey said, the screaming bug-phobic girlie inside instantly retreating now the danger was apparently nonexistent. ‘Hello, there.’ She smiled.
The little boy smiled back at her and Hailey could almost hear his audible expiration as it slowly dawned on him from the grins on everyone’s faces that he wasn’t going to be in trouble. He opened his mouth to say something but didn’t get the chance.
‘Tom!’
Hailey saw uncertainty twist his small brow into a deep furrow as she turned to face the exasperated-looking man striding towards them. He was tall with hair so short he looked like he’d lost a battle with a lawnmower and after only two seconds’ perusal Hailey could see he filled a tuxedo better than any other man there.
Better than Gabe. Better than Luca. And her brother-in-laws were bona fide hotties.
Callum Craig took one look at the scene—an upturned chair, his son under a table, several adults looking down at him—and groaned inwardly. What had Tom been up to now? He’d only lost sight of him for a minute. How had he managed to create such havoc so quickly?
