Bachelor Dad on Her Doorstep (6 page)

‘I do.’

Melanie gave a tentative smile. ‘Everyone calls me Melanie or Mel.’ The smile faded. ‘I wish they’d call me Melly. I think that sounds nicer, don’t you?’

Jaz found herself in total agreement. ‘I think Melly is the prettiest name in the world.’

Melanie giggled and Jaz sat herself down on one of the leatherette cubes dotted throughout the bookshop for the relief of foot-weary browsers. ‘Now, Melly, I believe your dad is going to be at least another half an hour.’

Melanie immediately shot to her feet, glanced around with wild eyes. ‘I’m not supposed to be here. You can’t tell him!’

Yikes. ‘Why not?’

‘Because I’m supposed to go to Mrs Benedict’s after school but I hate it there.’

Double yikes. ‘Why?’

‘Because her breath smells funny…and sometimes she smacks me.’

She smacked her! Jaz’s blood instantly went on the boil. ‘Have you told your daddy about this?’

Melly shook her head.

‘But Melly, why not?’

Melly shook her head again, her bottom lip wobbled. ‘Are you going to tell on me?’

Jaz knew she couldn’t let this situation go on, but…‘How about I make a deal with you?’

The child’s face twisted up in suspicion again. ‘What?’

‘If you promise to come here after school each afternoon this
week, then I won’t say anything to anyone.’ At least Melly would be safe here.

Melanie’s shoulders relaxed. ‘Okay.’ She shot another small smile at Jaz. ‘It’s what I always do anyway.’

‘There, that’s settled then.’ Jaz smiled back at her. She figured it would only take her a day or two, till Thursday at the latest, to convince Melanie to confide in Connor.

And she wouldn’t like to be in Mrs Benedict’s shoes once he found out she’d been smacking his little girl.

‘Who picks you up from Mrs Benedict’s? Daddy?’

‘Yes, at five o’clock on the dot at Mrs Benedict’s front gate,’ Melly recited.

Jaz glanced at her watch. ‘That’s nearly an hour away. You know what, Melly? In celebration of making my very first new friend in Clara Falls, I’m going to close the shop early today and walk with you to Mrs Benedict’s.’

Melly’s eyes grew round. ‘I’m your friend?’

‘You bet.’

Then Melly beamed at her, really smiled, and the ache pressed so hard against the walls of Jaz’s chest that she thought it’d split her open then and there.

Jaz found Connor leaning against the shop front when she arrived at eight-fifteen on Tuesday morning. He held out the key she’d given him yesterday. ‘I had a spare one cut. Sorry I didn’t get it back to you yesterday.’

She reached out, closed her fingers around it. It still held warmth from his hand. ‘Thank you.’

He looked exactly as the radio weatherman had described the weather that morning—cold and clear with a chill in the air, blue skies hinting at the warmth to come later in the day. She didn’t know about the warmth to come.

‘You closed the shop early yesterday.’

No judgement, just an observation. He looked tired.
Something inside her softened to the consistency of water or air…marshmallow.

Not marshmallow! She didn’t do marshmallow any more.

But that weariness…it caught at her.

He and Faye had only lasted two years.

Had Connor married Faye on the rebound?

The thought had never occurred to her before. But that marriage…It had happened so fast…

Her knees locked. No! She would not get involved in this man’s life again. She would not give him the power to destroy her a second time.

But that weariness…

She hadn’t noticed it yesterday or on Saturday. All she’d noticed then was his goldenness. The goldenness might’ve dimmed, but that didn’t make him any less appealing. With his hair damp from a recent shower, the scent of his shampoo enhanced rather than masked the scent of autumn that clung to him.

She tried to pinpoint the individual elements that brought that scent to life, hoping to rob it of its power. A hint of eucalyptus, recently tilled earth…and fresh-cut pumpkin. Those things together shouldn’t be alluring. It didn’t stop Jaz from wanting to press her face against his neck and gulp in great, greedy breaths.

Good Lord. Stop it!

‘I closed fifteen minutes early. I had things to do.’

She wondered if she should tell him about Melanie.

She recalled the way Melly’s face had lit up when Jaz had declared them friends and knew she couldn’t. Not yet. If Melly hadn’t confided in Connor by the end of the week, though, she would have to.

‘Have you found new staff yet?’ Connor all but growled the words.

Jaz unlocked the door, proud that her hand didn’t shake, not even a little. ‘I’m working on it.’

‘Will someone be in to help today?’

‘Perhaps.’

He followed her into the bookshop. ‘Perhaps! Do you think that’s good enough?’

‘I don’t think it’s any of your concern.’

He followed her all the way through to the kitchenette.

‘Coffee?’

Idiot.
Mentally she kicked herself. Coffee was way too chummy.

Relief didn’t flood her, though, when he shook his head. Work boots thumped overhead and an electric saw rent the air. ‘Sorry. I hope we’re not disturbing you too much.’

‘Not at all.’ That didn’t bother her in the slightest. Seeing Connor every day…now that was tougher.

Don’t go there.

‘What time do you start work?’ she asked, because it suddenly seemed wise to say something, and fast.

‘Seven-thirty.’

She swung around from making coffee. ‘Yet you didn’t knock off yesterday till just before five?’

One corner of his mouth kinked up as if he’d read the word
slave-driver
in big letters across her forehead. ‘My apprentices knocked off at three-thirty.’

But he’d hung around at least an hour longer?

‘Look, Connor, you don’t need to bust a gut getting the work done in double-quick time, you know. If it takes an extra week or two…’ She trailed off with a shrug, hoping she looked as nonchalant as she sounded. He really should be at home spending time with Melly.

His jaw tightened. ‘I said it would be completed asap and I meant it. I at least have employees to help me.’

He planted his legs, hands on hips, and Jaz’s saliva glands suddenly remembered how to work. Heavens, Connor Reed was still seriously drool-worthy.

‘What do you mean to do about it?’ he demanded.

She stepped back. Stared. Then she shook herself. He meant her staffing problem.

Of course that was what he meant.

‘Get straight to work. That’s what I mean to do. I have oodles to get through today.’ She wanted to spend between now and nine o’clock trying to coax the secrets out of that ancient computer, particularly the ones that would point her in the direction of her suppliers.

After she’d walked Melly to Mrs Benedict’s front gate this afternoon, she’d return and see what else she could coax from it.

Just for a moment, gold sparked from the brown depths of Connor’s eyes. ‘Have you settled in at Gwen’s? Are you comfortable there?’

‘Very comfortable, thank you.’

Not true. Oh, her room and en-suite bathroom, the feather bed, were all remarkably comfortable. Gwen’s reception, though, hadn’t been all Jaz had hoped for.

She made herself smile, saluted Connor with her mug of coffee. ‘Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have work to do.’ Then she fled to the stockroom before those autumn-tinted eyes saw the lies in her own.

The computer did not divulge her suppliers’ identities. It didn’t divulge much of anything at all. Who on earth was she supposed to phone, fax or email to order in new books? She started clicking indiscriminately on word documents but none of them seemed to hold a clue. Before she had a chance to start rifling through the filing cabinet, it was time to open the shop.

Business wasn’t as brisk as it had been the previous day, but she still had a steady stream of customers—all tourists. As she’d had to do the previous day, whenever she went to the bathroom she hung a ‘Back in five minutes’ sign on the door.

She breathed a sigh when it was time to close the shop and walk Melly the five blocks to Mrs Benedict’s front gate.

‘Melly, why don’t you want to tell your dad that you’re unhappy at Mrs Benedict’s?’

Melly stopped skipping to survey Jaz soberly. ‘Because Daddy has lots of worries and Mrs Benedict is his last hope.’ She leaned in close to confide, ‘I know because I heard him say so to Grandma. There’s no one else who can look after me and I’m too little to stay at home alone.’

‘I think your happiness is more important than anything else in the world to your Daddy.’ She waited and watched while Melly digested that piece of information. ‘Besides,’ she added cheerfully, ‘there’s always me. You’re more than welcome to hang out at the bookshop.’

Melly didn’t smile. ‘Grandad’s picking me up today. I stay with him and Grandma on Tuesday nights.’

‘That’ll be nice.’

Melly didn’t say anything for a moment, then, ‘Grandma thinks little girls should wear dresses and skirts and not jeans. I don’t have any jeans that fit me any more. Yvonne Walker thinks skirts are prissy.’

‘Yvonne is in your class at school?’ Jaz hazarded.

‘She’s the prettiest girl in the whole school! And she has the best parties.’ Melly’s mouth turned down. ‘She didn’t invite me to her last party.’

Jaz’s heart throbbed in sympathy.

‘But if she could see my hair like this!’

Melly touched a hand to her hair. Jaz had pulled it up into a ponytail bun. It made Melly look sweet and winsome. ‘I’ll do it like that for you any time you like,’ she promised.

Melly’s eyes grew wide.

‘And you know what else? I think if you asked your daddy to take you shopping for jeans, he would.’

Jaz waited on the next corner, out of sight, until Melly’s grandfather had collected her, then walked back to the shop and installed herself in front of the computer.

She turned it on and stroked the top of the monitor, murmured ‘Pretty please,’ under her breath.

Above her a set of work boots sounded against bare floor
boards, the scrape and squeal of some tool against wood. She glanced up at the ceiling. Why wasn’t Connor at home with Melly? Why was he here, working on her flat, when he could be at home with his daughter?

She glanced back at the computer screen and shot forward in her seat when she realised the text on the screen was starting to break up. ‘No, no,’ she pleaded, placing a hand on either side of the monitor, as if that could help steady it.

Bang!
She jumped as a sound like a cap gun rent the air. Smoke belched out of the computer. The screen went black.

‘No!’

No staff and now no computer?

She shook the monitor, slapped a fist down hard on top.

Nothing.

She sagged in her chair. This couldn’t be happening. Not now.
Not now.

Don’t panic.

She leapt to her feet and started to pace.
I won’t let you down, Mum.

The filing cabinet!

With a cry, she dropped to her knees and tried to open the top drawer. Locked. She fumbled in her pockets for the keys. Tried one—didn’t fit. Tried a second—wouldn’t turn. Tried a third…

The drawer shot open so fast it almost knocked her flat on her back. She rifled through the files avidly. She stopped. She rifled through them again…slowly…and her exultation died. Oh, there were files all right, lots of files. But they were all empty.

She yanked open the second drawer. More files, very neatly arranged, but they didn’t contain a damn thing, not even scrap paper. Jaz pulled out each and every one of them anyway, just to check, throwing them with growing ferocity to the floor.

Finally, there were no more to throw. She sat back and stared at the rack and ruin that surrounded her. Maybe Richard had taken the files for safekeeping?

She smoothed down her hair, pulled in a breath and tried to beat back her tiredness.

No, Richard wouldn’t have the files. He’d have given them back to her by now if he had.

Maybe her mother hadn’t kept any files?

That hardly seemed likely. Frieda Harper had kept meticulous records even for the weekend stall she’d kept at the markets when Jaz was a teenager.

Jaz rested her head on her arm. Which meant Dianne or Anita—or both of them together—had sabotaged the existing files.

‘What the bloody hell is going on in here?’

Jaz jumped so high she swore her head almost hit the ceiling. She swung around to find Connor’s lean, rangy bulk blocking the doorway to the kitchenette. Her heart rate didn’t slow. In fact, her pulse gave a funny little jump.

‘Don’t sneak up on a person like that!’ Hollering helped ease the pulse-jumping. ‘You nearly gave me a heart attack!’

‘Sorry.’ He shoved his hands in his pockets. ‘I thought I was making plenty of noise.’ His gaze narrowed as it travelled around the room, took in the untidy stack of files on the floor. ‘What are you doing?’

‘Having a clean out.’ She thrust her chin up, practically daring him to contradict her.

For a moment she thought the lines around his mouth softened, but then she realised the light was dim in here and she was tired. She was probably only seeing what she wanted to see.

His nose wrinkled. ‘What’s that smell?’

‘I was burning some incense in here earlier,’ she lied.

He stared at her. She resisted the urge to moisten her lips. ‘I have a question about a wall,’ she said abruptly, gesturing for him to follow her through to the bookshop and away from eau de burning computer.

She was lying through her teeth.

Man, he had to give her ten out of ten for grit.

Keeping one eye on her retreating back, Connor bent to retrieve a file. Empty. Like its counterparts, he guessed, air whistling between his teeth as he flung the file back on the top of the pile.

He glanced at the computer. He knew the smell of a burning motherboard. He’d told Frieda months ago she needed to upgrade that computer. He dragged a hand through his hair, then followed Jaz out into the bookshop.