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‘Yep.’
His grin widened. It made her miss…everything.
No, it didn’t! She stepped away so he was forced to drop his hands. ‘I’d…er…recommend the carrot cake.’
‘The carrot cake, huh?’
‘That’s right.’ She swallowed. ‘Well… I’ll catch ya.’ Oh, good Lord. Had she just descended into her former teenage vernacular? With as much nonchalance as she could muster, she stalked off.
His laughter and his hearty, ‘Howdy, Mr S,’ as he entered the bakery, followed her up the street, across the road and burrowed a path into her stomach to warm her very toes.
She unlocked the bookshop door, plonked herself down on her stool behind the sales counter and devoured her piece of carrot cake. For the first time in her life, Mr Sears’s baked goods didn’t choke her. The carrot cake didn’t taste like sawdust. It tasted divine.
When she closed her eyes to lick the frosting from her fingers all she saw was Connor’s laughing autumn eyes, making her feel alive again. In the privacy of the bookshop, she let herself grin back.
An hour after she’d last seen him, Connor stormed into the bookshop with a computer tucked under one arm and the diminutive Mrs Lavender tucked under the other.
Jaz blinked. She tried to slow her heart rate, did what she could to moderate the exhilaration pulsing through her veins. Just because she was back in Clara Falls didn’t mean she and Connor were… anything. In fact, it meant the total opposite. They were…nothing. Null and void. History. But…
No man had any right whatsoever to look so darn sexy in jeans and work boots. Thank heavens he wasn’t wearing a tool belt. That would draw the eye to…
No, no, no. Jaz tried to shoo that image right out of her head.
Connor set the computer on the counter. Jaz glanced at it, then back at him. She moistened her lips, realised his gaze had narrowed in on that action and her mouth went even drier. ‘I know the question is obvious, but…what is that?’
‘This is a computer I’m not using at the moment and is yours on loan until you get a chance to upgrade the shop’s computer. This—’ he pulled a computer disk from his pocket ‘—is the information my receptionist—the receptionist that I didn’t fire and who is a whiz at all things computer—managed to save from your old hard drive. Including several recently deleted files.’ He set the disk on top of the computer. ‘She’s hoping it will go some way to making amends for any previous inconvenience she’s caused you.’
Jaz stared at him, speechless.
‘And this—’ he placed his hands on Mrs Lavender’s shoulders ‘—is Mrs Lavender who, if you remember, owned the bookshop before your mother. A veritable fount of information who is finding herself at a bit of a loose end these days, and who would love to help out for a couple of hours a day, if you’re agreeable.’
Agreeable? Jaz wanted to jump over the counter and hug him!
‘Gives me a front row seat for watching all the drama. I’ll enjoy seeing Gordon Sears brought down a peg or two.’ Mrs Lavender’s dark eyes twinkled.
Jaz slid out from behind the counter and wrapped her arms around the older woman. Over the top of Mrs Lavender’s head, she met Connor’s eyes. ‘I don’t know how to—’
‘How’s Gwen?’
She straightened and smiled, smoothed down her hair. ‘Great.’ The word emerged a tad breathy, but Connor was looking at her with such warmth that for a moment she didn’t know which way was up.
‘Gwen is great.’ Gwen had accepted her apology. They’d shared the bottle of wine, they’d eaten the chocolate and they’d forged the beginnings of a new friendship.
He reached out, touched her cheek with the back of one finger. ‘Good.’ Then he stepped back and shoved his hands into his pockets. ‘Time for me to get back to work. I’ll see you ladies later.’
He turned, left the shop and disappeared. Only then did Jaz realise he hadn’t given her time to thank him. He hadn’t given her time to refuse his kindness either. She reached up to touch the spot on her cheek where his finger had lingered for the briefest, loveliest moment.
‘Come along, Jaz. We’ve no time for mooning.’
Mooning? Who was mooning? ‘I’m not mooning!’
She gulped. Mrs Lavender was right. She had no time for mooning. Absolutely no time at all.
But that afternoon, before it was time to close the shop and walk Melly home, Jaz’s painting supplies were delivered to the bookshop. Connor must’ve searched through her boxes until he’d found everything she’d need to paint her portrait of Frieda.
She carried the box through to the stockroom, rested her cheek against it for a moment, before setting it to the floor and walking away. It didn’t mean anything.
* * *
‘Have you thought any more about telling your daddy about Mrs Benedict?’ Jaz asked Melanie as she walked her to Mrs Benedict’s front gate that afternoon.
The child drew herself up as if reciting a lesson. ‘I’m not to worry Daddy about domestic matters. He has enough to worry about.’
‘Domestic matters?’
‘It means household stuff, money and babysitters,’ Melly said, rattling each item off as if she’d learned them by heart. ‘I checked,’ she confided. ‘So I’d get it right.’
‘Did Daddy tell you not to worry him about domestic matters?’ No matter how hard she tried, Jaz could not hear those words emerging from Connor’s mouth.
‘Grandma did.’
Jaz wondered if she’d go to hell for pumping a child so shamelessly for information. It wasn’t for her own benefit, she reminded herself. It was for Melanie’s. She wanted the child safe and happy. She couldn’t even explain why, except she saw her younger self in Melanie.
That and the fact that Melanie was Connor’s child. The kind of child she’d once dreamed of having with Connor.
Which made her sound like some kind of sick stalker! She wasn’t. She just wanted to do something …good.
‘I think your daddy would be very sad to hear you say that.’
‘Why?’
‘I think he’d be very interested in everything you do and think, even the domestic ones.’
‘Nuh-uh.’ The child stuck her chin out and glared at the footpath. ‘He was supposed to take me out on the skyway on Saturday, but he didn’t coz he had to work.’
Connor had broken a date with his daughter to work on the sign for Jaz’s shop!
‘Grandma made me promise not to nag him to take me Sunday because she said he’d be tired from working so hard and would need to rest.’
‘That was very thoughtful of you.’
Melly glanced up, spearing Jaz with a gaze that touched her to the quick. ‘I don’t think he needs to work so hard, do you?’
Jaz thought it wiser not to answer that question. ‘Perhaps you should tell him you think he’s working too hard.’
Melanie shook her head and glanced away. Jaz wondered what else Grandma had made Melanie promise.
‘Order, everyone. Order!’
Connor winced. Gordon Sears had a voice that could cut through rock when he was calling a meeting to order. Connor shifted on his seat. Beside him, Richard half-grinned, half-grimaced in sympathy.
‘Now, are we all agreed on the winter plantings for the nature strip?’
There were some mutterings, but a show of hands decided the matter. Connor marvelled that it could take so long to decide in favour of hyacinths over daffodils. Personally, he’d have chosen the daffodils, but he didn’t much care. It certainly hadn’t warranted half an hour’s heated debate.
He glanced at his watch. It was almost Mel’s bedtime. He hoped his father was coping okay. He tapped his foot against the floor. He didn’t like leaving Mel with his parents two nights running. With his mother mostly confined to a wheelchair these days, he considered it too much work for his father. But Russell Reed adored his granddaughter. Mel put a bounce in the older man’s step. Connor couldn’t deny him that.
When they’d heard Connor was thinking of attending this evening’s town meeting, they’d insisted Mel spend the night with them. He bit back a sigh. It was probably for the best. He’d miss reading Mel her bedtime story, but it had started to become all too apparent that Mel hungered for a female influence in her life—a female role model. He’d seen the way she watched the girls at school with their mothers and his heart ached for her.
He was hoping his own mother’s presence would help plug that particular hole. At least it gave Mel a woman to confide in.
She needs a younger woman. He pushed that thought away. Two women had left him without backwards glances. He wasn’t going through that again, and he sure as hell wasn’t risking his daughter’s heart and happiness to some fly-by-night. He and Mel, they’d keep muddling along.
‘Now, to the last item on the agenda.’
That rock-cracking voice had Connor wincing again. Richard rolled his eyes at Mr Sears’s self-importance. Connor nodded in silent agreement.
‘Now, I believe most of you will agree with me when I say we most certainly do not want a tattoo parlour polluting the streets of Clara Falls. Those of you who are in favour of such an abomination, please put forward your arguments now.’
Mr Sears glared around the room. Connor shifted forward on his seat, rested his arms on his knees. This was the reason he’d come tonight.
Nobody put forward an argument for a tattoo parlour in Clara Falls, and Connor listened with growing anger to the plan outlined by Gordon Sears to halt the likelihood of any such development occurring in the future.
Finally, he could stand it no longer. ‘I don’t know if this has escaped everyone’s notice or not,’ he said, climbing to his feet, ‘but you can’t block a nonexistent development.’
Mr Sears puffed up. ‘That’s just semantics!’
‘No,’ Connor drawled. ‘It’s law.’
‘This town has every right to make its feelings known on the subject.’
Connor planted his feet. ‘If you approach Jaz Harper with this viciousness—’
‘No names have been mentioned!’ Mr Sears bluffed.
‘No names have been mentioned, but everyone in this room knows exactly who you’re talking about. Jaz Harper has made no move whatsoever to set up a tattoo parlour in Clara Falls. She’s come back to run her mother’s bookshop. End of story.’
He glanced around the room. Some people nodded their encouragement. Others shifted uneasily on their seats as their gazes slid away. Bloody hell! If Jaz were susceptible to the same kind of depression that had afflicted Frieda then… then she wouldn’t need the likes of Gordon Sears banging on her door and shoving a petition under her nose.
‘Connor is right.’ Richard stood too. ‘Last time I checked, this country was still a democracy. If you approach my client,’ he stressed those two words, ‘with a petition or with any other kind of associated viciousness—’ he borrowed the term from Connor, but Connor didn’t mind ‘—I will take out a harassment suit on her behalf. And, what’s more, I’ll enjoy doing it. She’s a local businesswoman who is contributing to the economy of this town and we should all be supporting her.’
‘I’ll second that!’ Connor clapped Richard on the back. Richard clapped him back. They both sat down. He watched with grim satisfaction as Gordon Sears brought the meeting to a close in double-quick time.
Mr Sears approached him as he and Richard stood talking by their cars. Connor could sense the anger in the older man, even though he hid it well. ‘If any such proposal does go forward to the local council, I want you both to know that I will use every means in my power to block it.’
‘I hope you’re talking about legal means,’ Richard said smoothly.
‘Naturally.’ Mr Sears lifted his chin and glared at Connor. ‘I should’ve known you’d take her side.’
Connor planted his feet. ‘This isn’t about sides. It’s about keeping Clara Falls as the kind of place where I’m happy to raise my daughter. A place not blinded by small-minded bigotry.’
‘Ah, your daughter…yes.’
His smirk made the muscles of Connor’s stomach contract.
‘I take it that you are aware Melanie has been seen leaving the bookshop with Jaz Harper every afternoon this week?’
She what?
Mr Sears laughed at whatever he saw in Connor’s face. ‘But, then again, perhaps not.’ He strolled off, evidently pleased with the bombshell he’d landed.
‘There’ll be a perfectly reasonable explanation,’ Richard said quietly.
‘There’d better be. And I mean to find out what it is.’ Now. ‘Night, Richard.’
‘Night, Connor.’
Connor climbed into his car and turned it in the direction of Frieda’s Fiction Fair.
He eased the car past the bookshop at a crawl. A light burned inside, towards the rear of the shop. His lips tightened. She was there. He swung his car left at the roundabout and headed for the parking space behind her shop.
He let himself in with the key Jaz had given him. ‘Hello?’ He made his voice loud, made sure it’d carry all the way through to the front of the shop. He rattled the door and made plenty of noise. He had no intention of startling her like he had last night.
‘Through here,’ Jaz called.
He followed the sound of her voice. Then came to a dead halt.
She’d started her picture of Frieda.
She was drawing!
He reached out and clamped a hand around the hard shelf of a bookcase as the breath punched out of him. She looked so familiar. A thousand different memories pounded at him.
She’d sketched in the top half of Frieda’s face with a fine pencil and the detail stole his breath. He inched forward to get a better view. Beneath her fingers, her mother’s eyes and brow came alive— so familiar and so…vibrant.
Jaz had honed her skill, her talent, until it sang. The potential he’d recognised in her work eight years ago—the potential anyone who’d seen her work couldn’t have failed to recognise—had come of age. An ache started up deep down inside him, settled beneath his ribcage like a stitch.
He wanted to drag his gaze away, but he couldn’t.
He found his anger again instead. What the hell was Jaz doing with his little girl? Why had Mel been seen with her every afternoon this week? And why hadn’t Mrs Benedict informed him about it?
His hands clenched. He’d protect Mel with every breath in his body. Mel was seven—just a little girl—and vulnerable… And in need of a mother.
He ignored that last thought. Jaz Harper sure as hell didn’t fit that bill.
Jaz exhaled, stepped back to survey her work more fully, then she growled. She threw her pencil down on a card table she’d set up nearby—it held a photograph of Frieda—then swung around to him, her eyes blazing. ‘I’m grateful for what you did earlier in the day—the loan of the computer, Mrs Lavender et cetera. You left before I could thank you. So…thank you. But you obviously have something on your mind now and you might as well spit it out.’
‘I mean to.’ He planted his feet, hands on hips. ‘I want to know what the hell you’ve been doing with my daughter every afternoon this week?’
