Michelle Douglas - Road Trip with the Eligible Bachelor

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Aidan would’ve liked to have kept working when they were back in the car, but he suspected Quinn would consider that bad manners.

He dragged a hand through his hair. What was he thinking? Of course it’d be bad manners. Besides, she and the boys had kept quiet so he could sleep and it hardly seemed fair to continue to expect such ongoing consideration. Especially when they were doing him a favour.

The fact his phone battery was running low decided it. He tucked it away and glanced around to the back seat. ‘Do you boys play a sport?’

‘Soccer,’ said Robbie.

‘Robbie is the best runner on his team,’ Chase said.

Quinn glanced at him. ‘He means fastest.’

Robbie’s mouth turned down. ‘I mightn’t be in my new team.’

Quinn tensed. Aidan tried not to wince. He hadn’t meant to tread into sensitive territory. ‘Uh...’ He searched for something to say.

‘Do you play sport?’ Robbie asked.

‘Not any more.’ And all of a sudden his heart felt heavy as a stone again.

‘Why are you on the television?’ Chase demanded to know. ‘Mum said she’d seen you.’

‘Because of my job. I’m a politician so I go on television to tell people how I’d run the country if they vote for me.’

Robbie frowned. ‘Do you like your job?’

A bitter taste lined his mouth. ‘Sure I do.’

‘What do you do?’

‘Well, I go into my office most days and I go to lots of meetings and...’ Endless meetings. It took an effort of will to keep the tiredness out of his voice. ‘I go on the television and talk on the radio and talk to newspaper reporters so they can tell all the people about the things I think would make our country run better. I have people who work for me and we draft up proposals for new policies.’

‘Wouldn’t being a fireman be more fun?’

‘A fireman would be excellent fun,’ he agreed. Lord, his mother would have a fit! He almost laughed.

‘When you’re finished being a politician maybe you could be a fireman,’ Chase said.

‘And then you could play soccer too,’ added Robbie.

He didn’t know how those two things were linked. He glanced at Quinn for direction. She merely smiled at him.

‘Mum, can we play one of our CDs now?’

‘I did promise the boys we’d play one of our CDs on this leg of our journey. We burned a few especially.’

‘I don’t mind.’ It’d save him searching for topics of conversation.

‘We sing pretty loud.’

‘You don’t need to apologise about that.’

For some reason that made her grin. ‘You haven’t heard our singing yet.’

He forced himself to smile.

She slipped a CD into the player. ‘The Purple People-Eater’ immediately blasted from the speakers and his three companions burst into loud accompaniment, the boys laughing throughout most of the song. That was followed by ‘Llama Llama Duck’ and then ‘My Boomerang Won’t Come Back’.

He stared at her. ‘You have to be joking me?’

‘Fun novelty songs are our favourite.’ Her grin was so wide it almost split her face. ‘If there’s a doo-wop or chirpy-chirpy-cheep-cheep to be had then we love it.’

Hell, that was what this was. Absolute hell. He slunk down in his seat and stared straight out in front of him as the songs came at him in a relentless round. ‘This isn’t music!’ He glared at the road. ‘You could’ve warned me about this back in Perth.’ No way would he have got into the car with her then.

Then he thought of his mother.

Quinn merely sang, ‘I’m a yummy, tummy, funny, lucky gummy bear,’ with extra gusto.

He closed his eyes, but this time sleep eluded him.

CHAPTER TWO

THEY REACHED MERREDIN ninety minutes later. It had felt like ninety hours. Aidan had endured forty minutes of the ‘Monster Mash’, ‘Achy Breaky Heart’ and many more novelty songs, which was enough to last him a lifetime. Twenty minutes of I Spy had followed and then a further thirty minutes of the number plate game. There was only one rule to the game, as far as he could tell, and that was who could make up the silliest phrase from the letters of a passing number plate.

PHH. Penguin haircuts here. Purple Hoovering hollyhocks. Pasta hates ham.

LSL. Larks sneeze loudly. Little snooty limpets. Lace scissored loquaciously.

CCC. Cream cake central. Can’t clap cymbals. Cool cooler coolest.

And on and on and on it went, like some kind of slow Chinese water torture. His temples throbbed and an ache stretched behind his eyes. He didn’t join in.

He sat up straighter though when Quinn eased the car down the town’s main street. He glanced up at the sky. There was another four hours of daylight left yet. Another four hours of good driving time.

Manners prevented him from pointing this out. Biting back something less than charitable, he studied the few shops on offer. Maybe he’d be able to hire a car of his own out here?

Quinn parked the car in the main street and turned off the motor. ‘The boys and I are staying at the caravan park, but I figured you’d be more comfortable at the motel.’

A caravan park? He suppressed a shudder. Again, he didn’t say anything. Quinn was obviously on a tight budget.

She and the boys all but bounced out of the car. Aidan found his limbs heavy and lethargic. It took an effort of will to make them move. He wondered where Quinn found all her energy. Maybe she took vitamins. Unbidden, an image of her racing around the soccer oval in her bike shorts and dress rose up through him and for some reason his throat tightened.

He glanced up to find her watching him. He felt worn and weary, but her ponytail still bounced and her cheeks were pink and pretty. She waited, as if expecting him to say something, and then she merely shrugged. ‘The motel is just across the road.’ She pointed. ‘We’ll collect you at nine in the morning.’

He snapped to and retrieved his overnight bag from the back of the wagon. ‘I’ll be ready earlier. Say six or seven if you wanted to get an early start.’

‘Nine o’clock,’ she repeated, and he suddenly had the impression she was laughing at him.

She swung back to the boys. ‘Right!’ She clapped her hands. ‘Chase, I need you to find me a packet of spaghetti and, Robbie, I need you to find me a tin of tomatoes.’

As they walked away he heard Chase ask, ‘What are you looking for?’

‘Minced meat and garlic bread.’ And they all disappeared into the nearby supermarket.

He’d been summarily dismissed. Again.

From a grocery trip? He shook the thought off and headed across the road to the motel.

His room was adequate. Merredin might be the regional centre for Western Australia’s wheat belt, but as far as he was concerned it wasn’t much more than a two-horse town and his early enquiries about hiring a car proved less than encouraging.

He strode back to his motel room, set his phone to charge and then flipped open his laptop and searched Google Maps. He frowned. What the heck...? If they kept travelling at this pace it’d take them two weeks to drive across the country!

His hands clenched for a moment. Counting to three, he unclenched them and pulled a writing pad from his briefcase and started to plot a route across the continent. He spread out a map he’d grabbed from the motel’s reception and marked logical break points where he and Quinn could swap driving duties.

That took all of twenty minutes. He closed his laptop and glanced about his room. There didn’t seem to be much more to do. He wandered about the room, opening the wardrobe doors and the desk drawer. He made a coffee that he didn’t drink. He reached for his cell phone to call his mother, stared at it for a moment and then shoved it back onto its charger.