Bachelor Dad on Her Doorstep (14 page)

She hoped he wouldn’t push the stay-in-Clara-Falls-forever-and-make-it-your-home thing again. She couldn’t stay for ever in the same town as Connor Reed. It just wouldn’t work.

One corner of his mouth kinked up but it didn’t warm his eyes. ‘You’ve schmoozed beautifully.’

She raised her eyes at the edge in his voice. ‘Is that supposed to be a compliment?’ she asked warily.

He frowned. ‘Yes.’

‘Sorry.’ She hadn’t meant to misinterpret his mood. ‘I am having fun, but this really isn’t my favourite kind of do.’

‘What is?’

‘Beer and pizza nights.’ She sighed in longing. A beer and pizza night with a bunch of her friends would go down a treat at the moment.

Connor grinned and this time the gold flecks in his eyes came out to play. ‘Well, there’s not a soul in this room who’d sense you’d rather be anywhere else this evening. You’ve charmed everyone you’ve met.’

She smiled at that. ‘Wonders will never cease, huh? The rebel Goth girl developing a few social graces after all.’

‘It’s quite a change, Jaz, even you have to admit that. Where did you go when you decided not to come back to Clara Falls? What did you do? How did you manage the…transformation?’

Jaz realised she’d been waiting for him to ask that question all night. ‘After I left my aunt’s I went to the airport, directly to the airport, I didn’t pass go and I didn’t collect two hundred dollars.’

He stared at her. Jaz shrugged. ‘I went to America.’

He leant forward. ‘Why America?’

She’d wanted to run as far away as possible. She’d wanted to start over in a place that didn’t know her. And she’d needed to make a grand gesture. ‘Would you believe me if I said—because I was young and stupid?’

He smiled. ‘Young, yes, but never stupid.’

He was wrong about that. ‘I strode into the airport and
decided I was going to Europe or America. The travel agent must’ve thought me mad…or a criminal. I just asked for the first flight out. And that’s how I ended up in LA with next to no money, no job and nowhere to stay. Believe me, that makes a girl start thinking on her feet pretty fast.’

‘What did you do?’

‘Rented a dingy hotel room for a week, bought a sketch pad and charcoals and spent the week drawing portraits of tourists on the beach and charging them five dollars a pop. That’s where Carroll Carson found me. He’s
the
big-name tattoo artist on the west coast.’ She shrugged. ‘He took me under his wing, offered me an apprenticeship. I was lucky.’

She glanced across at him and something inside her shifted. Perhaps Mrs Lavender had been right and Jaz had done the right thing leaving Clara Falls all those years ago. If she hadn’t left, she’d have spent her life living in Connor’s shadow, grateful to him for loving a misfit like her.

She wasn’t a misfit. She’d earned her place in the world. She didn’t need any man to make that right.

‘Faye was a one-night stand.’

The admission shot out of Connor like bullets from a gun, and with as much impact. All Jaz could do was stare. She wanted to tell him it wasn’t any of her business.

‘A one-night stand?’ Her voice came out hoarse and raspy.

He scratched a hand back through his hair. ‘Faye was the one who told me about you and Sam Hancock.’

Her jaw dropped. Surely Faye hadn’t thought—

‘You’d left. We both missed you like the blazes. We drank too much and…’

He trailed off with a shrug. She was glad he didn’t go into details.

‘The next day I told her that it had been a mistake. That it couldn’t happen again.’

Jaz stared at him, shook her head, tried to comprehend what he was telling her. ‘How did she take that?’

‘Not well.’

Had Faye been in love with Connor all along? The thought made her feel suddenly ill. ‘Why are you telling me this?’ She found herself on her feet, shaking with…she wasn’t sure what—more regrets? She didn’t have room for any more of those.

Connor stood too. ‘I just wanted you to know the truth, that’s all.’

The gold sparks in Connor’s eyes, their concern, reached out and wrapped her in their warmth. The same way his arms had wrapped around her when they’d danced. It had near sent her pulse sky-rocketing off the charts.

She pulled back. There was no future for her and Connor. There was no point wondering what it would be like to rest her head against his shoulder or to nuzzle her face against his neck, to slip her hand beneath his shirt and trace the contours of muscle and sinew honed by hard physical labour.

There might not be any point to it, but she couldn’t seem to stop imagining it.

‘Hey, guys, having fun?’

Gwen, cheeks flushed from dancing, bore down on them.

‘Absolutely,’ Jaz managed.

‘You bet,’ Connor said. ‘You look as if you’re slaying them in the aisles.’

Jaz ground her teeth together.

‘Are you drinking that?’ Gwen pointed to the glass of punch.

Jaz handed it to her. ‘Help yourself.’

‘Thanks.’ She drained it dry. ‘Ooh, look, there’s Tim Wilder. I’ll catch you both later.’

‘You bet. Go knock him dead.’

That was Connor again.

‘Are you okay?’ he asked when he turned back to Jaz.

She slammed her hands to her hips. Connor backed up a step. ‘You have that itching for a fight look plastered all over your face. What have I done this time?’

‘It’s what you haven’t done. Or, more precisely, what you
haven’t said. Is there something wrong with my appearance?’ she demanded.

He shoved his hands in his pockets. ‘No.’ He shifted his feet. ‘Why?’

‘Because you’ve told every woman you’ve met this evening how lovely or stunning or wonderful she looks. Every woman, that is, except me!’

A grin spread across his face, slow and sure. His shoulders lost their tightness. He moved in closer, crowding her with his heat, his scent…their history. He angled his body towards hers in a blatant invitation she wanted to accept.

‘Does my opinion matter so much to you, Jaz?’

‘No, of course not,’ she snapped, angry with herself. ‘Put it down to a moment of feminine insecurity.’

She tried to move past him but his arm snaked out and caught her around the waist, drew her back against his heat and his hardness. With agonising slowness and thoroughness, he splayed his hand across her stomach. Low down across her stomach. She bit back a whimper. If he moved that hand, if he moved so much as his little finger, she’d melt in his arms where she stood.

‘You don’t have any reason whatsoever for insecurity, Jazmin.’

His breath touched her ear. She closed her eyes. He’d only ever called her Jazmin when they’d made love. And in the eight long years since she’d left here, she’d never had another lover. Not one. Trembling shivers that started at her knees and moved upwards shook her body, betraying her need.

‘But if I start telling you how sexy you look in that dress, how wearing your hair like that highlights your eyes and how the gloss on your lips makes my mouth water…then that might lead to me telling you how I want to tear that dress from your body and make love to you all night long—fast and frantic the first time, slow and sensual the second time, watching every nuance in your face the third time.’

She couldn’t find her voice. Her breath came in short shallow gulps.

‘But, given the circumstances, that might not be wise.’

No, not wise at all.

He pulled her more firmly against him until she couldn’t mistake the hardness pressing against the small of her back. ‘I burn for you as much as I ever did, Jazmin.’

His teeth grazed her ear. She moaned.

‘I can feel that same need burning in you. I can feel your body trembling for me. I want to take you home and make love to you. Now. Just say the word,’ he murmured against her ear, ‘and we’re out of here. Say it!’ he ordered.

Yes! To spend a glorious night of pleasure and freedom in Connor’s arms. Yes! To touch him as her fingers and lips burned to do, to scale the heights with him and…

No.

Her heart dropped. She gulped. She peeled his fingers from her stomach, one by one, and stepped away. ‘And what happens tomorrow, Connor?’ She turned to face him. ‘And the day after that?’ Did he think they could just pick up where they’d left off?

The flush of desire in his eyes didn’t abate. ‘We—’

‘What happens the next time you find me with another man in a situation you can’t account for? Are you going to fly off the handle and accuse me of cheating on you again?’

His head snapped back.

‘You didn’t trust me then and you don’t trust me now.’ More importantly, she didn’t trust herself. Who would she hurt the next time he broke her heart?

There wouldn’t be a next time!

She had no intention of losing her heart to him ever again. No man was worth that kind of pain. ‘If you’ll excuse me, I’m in serious need of a glass of punch.’

She turned and stalked off in the direction of the refreshments table and she didn’t wait to see if he followed. From the evidence she’d seen, he’d need a moment to himself.

She helped herself to punch, started to raise the glass to her lips, when Gordon Sears bore down on her.

‘I’ve been looking for you everywhere, Jaz.’

She loathed his fake jovial tone, the smirk on his face. She ignored the headache pounding at her temples to inject a false brightness of her own. ‘Why’s that, Mr S? Did you want to ask me to dance?’

‘No, just wanted to give you advance warning that I’ll be serving papers on your solicitor come Monday morning.’

Her stomach started to churn. ‘What kind of papers?’

‘No doubt you’re aware that I lent your mother fifty thousand dollars?’

Punch sloshed over the side of her glass.

Satisfaction settled over his face. ‘No?’ he said. ‘That was remiss of her.’

‘I don’t believe you,’ she whispered. Why would Frieda borrow money from this man?

‘She needed it to buy the bookshop.’ He rubbed his hands together, his smile widening. ‘And now I’m calling in that debt. Pay up within seven days or the bookshop is mine.’

Fifty thousand dollars! She didn’t have that kind of money. He had to be bluffing.

He had to be bluffing!

Oh, Mum. Why? To lure me back to Clara Falls? I wasn’t worth it.

‘Is there a problem?’ Connor demanded, striding up and placing himself between Jaz and Mr Sears.

Mr Sears threw his head back and laughed. ‘Not for much longer.’ With that, he swaggered off.

Connor’s brows drew down low over his eyes. ‘What was that all about?’

‘Just Mr Sears trying to cause trouble as usual.’ But her voice shook.

His eyes narrowed. ‘Has he succeeded?’

She lifted her chin, forced her shoulders back. ‘Of course not.’ She glared at him. ‘But why couldn’t this have just been a beer and pizza night, huh?’ She could do with a fat-laden pep
peroni pizza right now, washed down with an ice-cold beer. It might help her think.

It might help her sleep.

Connor frowned. ‘Are you feeling okay, Jaz?’

‘I’m perfect,’ she snapped.

He stared down at her for a long moment. ‘You look beat. Are you ready to leave?’

She gave a fervent nod. ‘Yes, please.’

J
AZ
stood outside the door of her upstairs flat and turned the key over and over in her hand. She tried to regulate her breathing, her heart rate.

With an impatient movement, she shoved the key in the lock, but she didn’t turn it. She drew back again to twist her hands together.
Jeez Louise!

She’d made excuses whenever Connor had asked her if she wanted to inspect the flat. Same with the carpet-layers. And the men who’d fitted the blinds and light-fittings. She couldn’t make any more excuses. What on earth would she say to Gwen if she delayed moving into the flat any longer—
I don’t want to enter the place where my mother lost all of her hope?

It wouldn’t do.

But she still didn’t move forward to open the door.

‘Hello, Jaz.’

She jumped and swung around, clutching her heart. ‘Connor!’ She gulped. ‘I…um…didn’t hear you.’

He stood two steps below the landing. Wooden steps.
Rickety
wooden steps. She had a feeling that she really ought to have heard him.

He didn’t point out that his work boots must’ve made plenty of noise. He stared at the closed door and then at her. ‘Are you okay?’

‘Of course I am.’

‘Then what are you doing?’

‘I was just about to go into the flat, that’s all.’

In one hand he held a large parcel wrapped in brown paper. She wondered what it was. She wondered what he could be doing here with it. She brightened. Perhaps he hadn’t finished work on the flat after all and still had one or two things to install? It’d give her a legitimate excuse to race back to Gwen’s B&B.

‘Housewarming gift,’ he explained, gesturing to it.

Darn!

Then she remembered her manners. ‘That’s nice of you, Connor. But you certainly didn’t have to go to any trouble.’

‘No trouble.’

He glanced at the door again, then back at her. ‘Besides, I wanted to.’

For a moment his eyes burned and she recalled with more clarity than she could’ve thought possible the feel of his hand on her abdomen when it had rested there on Saturday night, his breath against her neck.

‘Are you going to open the door?’

She gulped and swung back to the door. ‘Yes, of course I am.’ But she didn’t reach out and unlock it.

Connor moved up the final two steps with a grace she’d have appreciated all the more if her heart hadn’t tried to dash itself against her ribs.

‘I knew there was a problem when you kept making excuses not to inspect the flat.’

‘No problem. I just trusted your workmanship. That’s all.’

‘Your mother didn’t die inside there, you know, Jaz.’

‘I know that!’ Her mother had died later at the hospital. ‘Like I said, there’s no problem.’

He ignored that. ‘Okay, the way I see it, I can either pick you up and physically carry you inside…’

Good Lord, no. Bad, bad idea. She didn’t want him touching her.

Yes, you do, a little voice whispered through her.

Fine, then. She didn’t want what it might lead to.

Are you so sure?

She ignored that. ‘Or?’

‘Or I can watch your back while you go first.’

That didn’t fill her with a great deal of enthusiasm either.

‘Or I can go first.’

She met the amber and gold flecks in his eyes. He hadn’t stated the obvious—that he could leave. She should tell him to go.

‘If I go first I can give you the grand tour. I can point out the work the guys and I have done. You can ooh and ahh over all the improvements.’

She moistened her lips, then nodded. ‘I’d…um…appreciate that.’

‘I want you to be the one to unlock the door, Jaz.’

She gulped again. His eyes held hers—steady…patient. She didn’t glance at the door again. She kept her gaze on his face and soaked up all his warmth and strength. With fingers that shook, she reached out and unlocked the door.

Connor smiled. She wished she could smile back, but she couldn’t. He moved past her, gathered her hand inside his and led her into the flat.

‘As you can see, the flat is a gun-barrel affair.’

His matter-of-fact tone soothed her.

‘This door is the only entrance and exit to the flat. So if a fire ever starts down this end and you’re at the other end, you’ll need to climb out the front windows onto the shop awning and swing down to the street from there.’

‘Just call me Tarzan,’ she muttered.

He grinned and, although she couldn’t grin back, it eased some of the tightness in her chest.

He gestured to the left. ‘We ripped the old bathroom out and replaced it.’

She stuck her head around the door—black and white tiles. ‘Nice.’

‘This is the kitchen. Another rip-out-and-replace job.’

The hallway opened out into a neat kitchen. Connor and his men had done a nice job. She ran her free hand across a kitchen cupboard, a countertop. Her other hand felt warm and secure in Connor’s.

‘Very nice,’ she managed.

They didn’t stop to study it any further. Connor tugged her up the three steps that led into the enormous combined dining and living area, towed her into the centre of the room and then dropped her hand. Jaz turned on the spot. Even with all her boxes piled up in here, she could make out that the proportions of the room were generous.

Perfect for dinner parties.

And beer and pizza evenings.

Some more of that soul-sickening tension eased out of her.

‘Why don’t you go explore further?’

He smiled that steady, patient smile and his strength arced across the space between them to flood her. With a nod, she followed a short passageway to the two bedrooms—a small one on the left and a large bright one at the front that held her bed, wardrobe and dressing table. Light poured in at two large windows. She leant on the nearest windowsill and stared out at the vista spread before her—a glorious view of Clara Falls’ main street, framed by the mountains in the background.

Her mother had lived in this flat without proper heating, without a working gas stove and with rotting floorboards in one section of the living room because of a leak in the roof, not to mention the wood rot in the kitchen and bathroom. Yet…

Jaz’s lips curved up. Her mother would’ve thought that a small price to pay for this view.

Frieda would also have loved the wood-panelled walls and pressed tin ceilings. She’d have been happy here.

Relief hit Jaz then—lovely, glorious relief. She dropped to her knees by the window, lifted her face to the sun and murmured a prayer of thanks. She hadn’t come upstairs once
in the last two weeks, afraid that the despair that must’ve enveloped her mother would still hang heavy and grim in these rooms. She’d expected it to taunt her, berate her…sap her of her energy and her determination.

She’d welcomed every delay—first by the carpet layers, then by the firm who’d measured the flat for blinds and curtains, and then the gas board. Even this morning—after she’d rung Richard to warn him of Mr Sears’s threats—she’d hung around and dithered in the shop until her staff had shooed her out with promises to call her if she was needed.

But the air didn’t press down on her with suffocating heaviness, punishing her for not coming home sooner. It didn’t silently and darkly berate her for abandoning her mother. She opened her eyes. The mid-morning sunlight twinkled in at the windows and the flat smelt fresh and clean and full of promise.

She pushed herself to her feet and glanced out of the window at Mr Sears’s ‘baked-fresh-daily’ country bakery and resolve settled over her shoulders.

She had boxes to unpack.

‘Connor?’

He hadn’t followed her into the bedroom, and the click of the front door told her he’d just left.

She stared down the empty corridor and her heart burned. He’d sensed the demons that had overtaken her. He’d helped her face them…and then he’d left? Just like that? He hadn’t let her thank him.

The housewarming gift!

She raced back out to the living room and tugged off the brown paper wrapping. She sat back on her heels and stared. Her throat thickened and she had to swallow.

He’d given her the handmade wine rack she’d admired so much that day in his garage.

With a hand that shook, she reached out and ran a finger across the smooth wood. ‘Thank you,’ she whispered into the silence.

Jaz hadn’t thought to check if the electricity had been connected to the flat until shadows started to lengthen around her. She glared at the light switch on the wall, but she didn’t reach out to switch it on and see. She glared around the kitchen. She’d made progress today—good progress.

For all the good it would do her.

Richard had called her an hour ago—Mr Sears’s claim was legitimate. Jaz had to find fifty thousand dollars in the next seven days or lose the bookshop.

A knock sounded on the door and Jaz raced to answer it, welcoming the interruption. ‘Mrs Lavender! What are you doing here? Come in.’

Mrs Lavender tsk-tsked. ‘You’ll ruin your eyesight, Jazmin Harper!’ She moved past Jaz, flicked on the light and bathed the kitchen in a warm glow. ‘That’s better. Now, I can’t stay. I just wanted to bring you up some supplies.’

The older woman’s thoughtfulness touched her. ‘You didn’t need to go to any trouble.’

‘No trouble, dear. It’s just some coffee, a carton of milk and a loaf of bread. Oh, and some eggs,’ she said, pulling the items out of a muslin bag. ‘Now, don’t work too late and don’t forget to eat.’

‘I won’t,’ Jaz promised. On impulse, she reached out and hugged the older woman. ‘Thank you.’

She saw Mrs Lavender out, then came back in and stared up at the kitchen light sending out its golden glow.

‘It’s a good sign,’ she announced to a pile of empty boxes in the corner. ‘It’s a good sign,’ she said to the jug, filling it. She needed all the good signs she could get.

‘Oh, stop talking to yourself and go make your bed!’

She flicked on every light as she went. She made her bed, straightened the bedside tables. She hunted out her bedside clock, a couple of paperbacks and a framed photograph of Frieda.

Now it looked as if someone lived here.

Hands on hips, she surveyed the room and decided the dressing table would look better on the opposite wall. She set
her shoulder against it, out-of-all-proportion grateful for castor wheels. The dressing table moved an inch, then stuck fast. She tried hauling it towards her instead. Same result. With a grunt she managed to pull it out from the wall, and reached behind to investigate.

‘Darn.’ A panel of wood was wedged between wall and dressing table. It must’ve fallen off the wall. Biting back a very rude word, she pulled it out and set it aside, shoved her dressing table into its new location with more speed than grace, then turned to assess the damage.

Connor had said the bedrooms in the flat were structurally sound. That all they’d need was a coat of paint…and new carpet…and new blinds and curtains. ‘What do you call this?’ she grumbled. Then remembered she wasn’t supposed to be talking to herself.

She tried to fit the panel back to the wall.

She didn’t try biting back that very rude word when the panel fell off the wall again.

She seized it in both hands and held it like a club. She could tattoo big, burly men without batting an eyelash. She could do a pretty good Carly Simon rendition on karaoke nights, but home maintenance?

Very carefully she set the panel of wood on the floor, hauled in a deep breath and massaged her temples. For reasons of personal pride, it had become important to fix this slim panel of wood back to the wall. She needed to work out how piece A fitted into piece B. It took her all of five seconds to realise she’d need a torch.

‘At least I have one of those.’

She rushed out to the living room to rifle through boxes, and forgot to berate herself for talking out loud. ‘Aha!’ She held the torch aloft in triumph. ‘Yes!’ The battery even worked.

She raced back to the bedroom and studied the piece of wood panelling thoroughly, and then the wall. What she needed to do was—

Something glittered in the gap in the wall. Jaz squinted, adjusted the torch. An old Christmas shortbread tin?

She hesitated for only a moment before pushing her hand through the hole. ‘But if anything black and hairy so much as touches me…’

Her fingers closed around the tin and she drew it out. She set it on the floor and stared at it. ‘Wouldn’t I love to find fifty thousand dollars inside you,’ she murmured.

She reached out, ran her fingers across the tin’s lid—remarkably dust-free. She shone her torch into the wall cavity—
not
remarkably dust-free.

She clambered to her feet, tucked the tin under her arm and went to make herself a cup of coffee.

She sipped her coffee on the steps between the kitchen and living room and surveyed the tin. ‘If this were a novel, I really would find fifty thousand dollars in you, you know? And, as we are sitting above a bookshop…’ She lifted a hand, then let it fall. ‘All I’m trying to say is, if you’d like to come to the party I don’t have any complaints.’

She set her mug down and pulled the tin towards her. ‘With my luck it’ll be a bomb,’ she grumbled.

She hauled the lid off.

She stared.

And then she smiled.

Letters. Letters addressed to Frieda Harper, tied in pink ribbon and scented with rose petals. ‘Oh, Mum—’ she sighed ‘—who’d have guessed you had such a romantic streak?’

She untied the ribbon, lifted the first letter from the pile, eased it out of its envelope and unfolded it.

My beloved Frieda.

Oh, how beautiful. Jaz’s hand went to her chest. She turned the letter over, searching for the signature, the name of her mother’s admirer, and—

No!

She abandoned the letter to tear open the next one…and the
one after that…until she’d checked them all. They all bore the same signature.

She pinched herself. She started to laugh. She leapt to her feet and danced around the room. ‘We’ve saved the bookshop, Mum!’