By the time Hailey Njeri stepped out of arrivals, Nerua was still suspended in the thin, uncertain hour before dawn.
The airport doors sighed closed behind her, releasing her into air that held the last coolness of night before the day's heat gathered. The sky beyond the terminal canopy was a deep indigo softening faintly along the horizon. Not yet morning. No longer night.
For a moment she simply stood there with her suitcase handle gripped in her palm, absorbing the quiet shock of being home when the city itself had barely woken.
She had told no one she was coming.
Not her parents. Not her brother. Not even the cousin who knew everything else about her life.
After years abroad, she had wanted this return to be hers alone — to appear at their gate mid-morning, luggage in hand, smile already forming, and watch recognition unfold slowly across her mother's face.
A surprise.
A reclaiming.
Something untouched by expectation.
It had seemed simple from a distance.
Now, standing alone outside Nerua International at four in the morning, it felt faintly impractical.
The pickup lane lay nearly empty. A few parked cars idled with dimmed headlights. Two airport workers spoke quietly near a column. Somewhere beyond the kerb, a kettle rattled on a charcoal stove preparing the first tea of the day.
The taxi stand sat dark and unattended.
Hailey checked it anyway, wheeling her suitcase across the pavement. The row of marked bays was vacant — no drivers, no marshals, no movement. Only the hum of distant engines on the highway and the soft whisper of early wind across concrete.
Of course.
She had chosen the one hour the city paused between night and morning.
She suppressed the urge to sigh.
This was precisely why she had not told her parents. Her mother would have insisted on coming herself, regardless of the hour, wrapping shawls over nightclothes and worrying about safety and luggage and whether Hailey had eaten. Her father would have driven half-asleep but determined. The entire house would have been awake before dawn.
No.
She had wanted to arrive composed. Independent. In control.
Not as someone needing to be collected.
She checked her phone. Signal weak. Ride apps unresponsive. No available cars.
A small, contained irritation gathered low in her chest — not panic, never panic — but the exact frustration of self-reliance meeting inconvenient reality.
She would solve it.
She always did.
"You chose the quietest possible hour to arrive."
The voice came from just behind her shoulder.
Male. Low. Calm in a way that seemed to belong naturally to the stillness around them.
Hailey turned.
He stood a step back from her, one hand resting lightly on the handle of a carry-on case. Tall enough that she had to lift her gaze a fraction more than usual. Dark shirt open at the throat, sleeves folded once with unconscious precision. No jacket despite the lingering chill.
He should have looked like any other traveller paused outside arrivals.
He didn't.
There was something in the way he occupied space — unhurried, grounded, entirely at ease in the hour most people moved through in fatigue — that drew attention without effort.
And he was watching her with mild, unmistakable interest.
Hailey felt her spine straighten instinctively.
"I prefer uncrowded airports," she said coolly.
"Practical," he said. "Less practical for transport."
She followed his glance towards the empty taxi bays. "Temporary inconvenience."
His mouth curved slightly. "You sound confident."
"I am."
A pause settled between them — not awkward, simply present in the quiet before dawn.
"You live in Nerua?" he asked.
"I do."
"Then you know taxis appear after five."
"I also know there are always alternatives."
"There are," he agreed easily. "Including one currently parked three rows over."
She frowned faintly. "You're offering a ride."
"I am."
"I don't accept rides from strangers."
"Reasonable."
He shifted back half a pace immediately, opening space between them without protest or persuasion.
"Then consider me an available driver you haven't hired yet," he said. "If something else arrives first, problem solved."
No insistence. No charm deployed as leverage.
Just calm certainty.
It unsettled her more than overt flirtation would have.
Hailey studied him properly now — recalibrating. The stillness in him did not feel predatory. Nor opportunistic. Simply assured.
Attractive, yes.
But more than that — composed in a way that suggested a man accustomed to control.
The exact type she avoided.
Playboy, her mind supplied coolly. Confident. Polished. Used to women saying yes.
"I'm capable of waiting," she said.
"I don't doubt that," he replied. "But you've just landed after a long flight, you're carrying two cases, and you're evaluating exit options every twelve seconds."
She stilled.
"You're observant."
"I'm interested," he said simply.
The words hung between them, quiet in the pre-dawn air.
Hailey felt the old reflex tighten inside her: distance, caution, refusal.
He was precisely the kind of man she did not allow into her life.
Which made it all the more irritating that, in the nearly empty airport lane at four in the morning, he was also the only practical solution in sight.
She glanced once more at the vacant taxi stand, the empty road beyond, the silent app screen in her hand.
Then back at him.
"You're certain you're going towards the western districts," she said.
"I am."
"And you expect nothing in return."
"Nothing," he said.
She hesitated — one final, instinctive resistance — then inclined her head slightly.
"Very well."
Satisfaction did not flash across his face. He simply nodded once, as though this outcome had always been inevitable.
"My car's this way."
He took her larger suitcase without asking.
The gesture was efficient, unshowy, entirely practical — and somehow more disarming than gallantry would have been.
Hailey fell into step beside him.
The car park lay in shadowed rows of concrete and dim lights. Their footsteps echoed faintly. Somewhere an engine turned over, then faded into distance.
He stopped beside a dark vehicle — understated, expensive without display — and loaded her luggage smoothly into the boot.
When he opened the passenger door, she paused only a fraction before getting in.
The interior held the faint scent of leather and something clean, understated. Not cologne. Not artificial fragrance. Simply him.
He slid into the driver's seat, started the engine, and guided the car out of the airport with quiet competence.
For the first few minutes, neither spoke.
The road stretched ahead in near-empty darkness, streetlamps passing in slow rhythm across the windscreen. Nerua lay hushed, its usual pulse not yet begun.
"You've been away long," he said eventually.
It was not quite a question.
"Several years."
"London?"
She glanced at him. "Yes."
"I thought so."
"What gave it away?"
"Posture," he said. "And the way you scan exits before settling."
She turned slightly in her seat. "You analyse everyone you drive?"
"Only the interesting ones."
There it was again — that direct, unembarrassed attention.
Heat flickered briefly along her awareness, unwelcome and immediate.
She looked back to the road. "You've decided I'm interesting."
"I decided that when you assessed the taxi stand like a strategic problem."
Despite herself, the corner of her mouth almost moved.
Almost.
"And you?" she said. "You collect stranded travellers often?"
"No."
"Then this is unusual behaviour."
"Yes."
"Why?"
A small pause.
Then, quietly, "Because you looked like someone who never asks for help."
The words landed with uncomfortable precision.
Hailey did not answer.
The city gradually gathered around them — shuttered shops, sleeping pavements, the first faint greying of sky beyond buildings. Dawn beginning to consider arrival.
"Where shall I drop you?" he asked.
She gave the neighbourhood name. Not her street.
He did not question it.
When the car slowed several minutes later near the entrance to her parents' estate, he pulled over without comment.
Engine idling. Dawn light just touching rooftops.
For a moment neither moved.
Then he stepped out, retrieved her luggage, and set it on the pavement beside her.
Hailey turned to him.
"Thank you," she said.
"You're welcome."
Still no names.
Still strangers.
The air between them held that same quiet charge as the airport — something unfinished, suspended.
"You've returned at the quietest hour," he said.
"I prefer uncrowded arrivals," she replied.
His mouth curved faintly. "I noticed."
She hesitated — some unexpected instinct urging continuation — then dismissed it.
This was a brief intersection. Nothing more.
She lifted her suitcase handle. "Good morning."
"Good morning," he said.
She turned and walked towards the gated entrance, the gravel faint beneath her wheels.
At the security light, she glanced back once.
The car still waited at the kerb. He stood beside it, watching — not possessively, not expectantly — simply as though committing the moment to memory.
Then he inclined his head slightly.
And got back into the car.
By the time Hailey reached the gate and turned again, the vehicle was already moving away into the thinning darkness of Nerua dawn.
She stood a moment longer than necessary before entering.
She did not know his name.
She did not expect to see him again.
But something in the still, private hour of four a.m., in the empty taxi stand and the quiet certainty of a stranger who had appeared exactly when needed, settled into her awareness with unsettling clarity.
Some meetings did not end when people parted.
They waited.