Michelle Douglas - Bachelor Dad on Her Doorstep

‘Every single day. But I’m afraid the old bones aren’t what they used to be. Doctor’s orders and whatnot. I’m glad you’ve come back, Jaz.’

This all uttered in a rush. It made Jaz’s smile widen. ‘Thank you.’

A short pause, then, ‘I was sorry about what happened to your mother.’

Jaz’s smile evaporated. ‘Thank you.’

‘I heard you held a memorial service in Sydney.’

‘I did.’

‘I was sick in hospital at the time or I would have been there.’

Jaz shook her head. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘Of course it does! Frieda and I were friends.’

Jaz found she could smile again, after a fashion. According to the more uptight members of the town, Frieda might’ve lacked a certain respectability, but she certainly hadn’t lacked friends. The memorial had been well attended.

‘This place was never the same after you left.’

Mrs Lavender’s voice hauled Jaz back. She gave a short laugh. ‘I can believe that.’

Those dark eyes, shrewd with age, surveyed her closely. ‘You did the right thing, you know. Leaving.’

No, she hadn’t. What she’d done had led directly to her mother’s death. She’d left and she’d sworn to never come back. It had broken her mother’s heart. She’d hold herself responsible for that till the day she died. And she’d hold Connor responsible too. If he’d believed in Jaz, like he’d always sworn he would, Jaz would never have had to leave.

She would never have had to stay away.

Stop it!

She shook herself. She hadn’t returned to Clara Falls for vengeance. Do unto others…that had been Frieda’s creed. She would do Frieda Harper proud. She’d save the bookshop, then she’d sell it to someone other than Gordon Sears, then she’d leave, and this time she would never come back.

‘You always were a good girl, Jaz. And smart.’

It hadn’t been smart to believe Connor’s promises.

She shook off the thought and pulled her mind back, to find Mrs Lavender smiling at her broadly. ‘How long are you staying?’

‘Twelve months.’ She’d had to give herself a time limit—it was the only thing that would keep her sane. She figured it’d take a full twelve months to see the bookshop safe again.

‘Well, I think it’s time you took yourself off and got to work, dear.’ Mrs Lavender pointed across the road. ‘I think you’ll find there’s a lot to do.’

Jaz followed the direction of Mrs Lavender’s hand, and that was when she saw and understood the reason behind the tradesman’s van parked out the front of the bookshop. The muscles in her shoulders, her back, her stomach, all tightened. The minor repairs on the building were supposed to have been finished last week. The receptionist for the building firm Richard had hired had promised faithfully.

A pulse pounded behind her eyes. ‘Frieda’s Fiction Fair’—the sign on the bookshop’s awning—was being replaced. With…

‘Jaz’s Joint’!

She shot to her feet. Her lip curled. Her nose curled. Inside her boots, even her toes curled. She’d requested that the sign be freshened up. Not… Not… She fought the instinct to bolt across the road and topple the sign-writer and his ladder to the ground.

‘I’ll be seeing you then, shall I, Jazmin?’

With an effort, she unclenched her teeth. ‘Absolutely, Mrs Lavender.’

She forced herself to take three deep breaths, and only then did she step off the kerb of the island. She would sort this out like the adult she was, not the teenager she had been.

She made her way across the road and tried not to notice how firm her offending tradesman’s butt looked in form-fitting jeans or how the power of those long, long legs were barely disguised by soft worn denim. In fact, in some places the denim was so worn…

The teenager she’d once been wouldn’t have noticed. That girl had only had eyes for Connor. But the woman she was now…

Stop ogling!

She stopped by the ladder and glanced up. Then took an involuntary step backwards at the sudden clench of familiarity. The sign-writer’s blond-tipped hair…

It fell in the exact same waves as—

Her heart lodged in her throat, leaving an abyss in her chest. Get a grip. Don’t lose it now . The familiarity had to be a trick of the light.

Ha! More like a trick of the mind. Planted there by memories she’d done her best to bury.

She swallowed and her heart settled—sort of—in her chest again. ‘Excuse me,’ she managed to force out of an uncooperative throat, ‘but I’d like to know who gave you the authority to change that sign.’

The sign-writer stilled, laid his brush down on the top of the ladder and wiped his hands across that denim-encased butt with agonising slowness. Jaz couldn’t help wondering how it would feel to follow that action with her own hands. Gooseflesh broke out on her arms.

Slowly, oh-so-slowly, the sign-writer turned around…and Jaz froze.

‘Hello, Jaz.’

The familiarity, the sudden sense of rightness at seeing him here like this, reached right inside her chest to twist her heart until she couldn’t breathe.

No!

He took one step down the ladder. ‘You’re looking…well.’

He didn’t smile. His gaze travelled over her face, down the long line of her body and back again and, although half of his face was in shadow, she could see that she left him unmoved.

Connor Reed!

She sucked in a breath, took another involuntary step back. It took every ounce of strength she could marshal to not turn around and run.

Do something. Say something , she ordered.

Her heart pounded in her throat. Sharp breaths stung her lungs. Connor Reed. She’d known they’d run into each other eventually, but not here. Not at the bookshop.

Not on her first da y .

Stop staring. Don’t you dare run!

‘I…um…’ She had to clear her throat. She didn’t run. ‘I’d appreciate it if you’d stop working on that.’ She pointed to the sign and, by some freak or miracle or because some deity was smiling down on her, her hand didn’t shake. It gave her the confidence to lift her chin and throw her shoulders back again.

He glanced at the sign, then back at her, a frown in his eyes. ‘You don’t like it?’

‘I loathe it. But I’d prefer not to discuss it on the street.’

Oh, dear Lord. She had to set some ground rules. Fast. Ground rule number one was that Connor Reed stay as far away from her as humanly possible.

Ground rule number two—don’t look him directly in the eye.

She swung away, meaning to find refuge in the one place in this town she could safely call home… and found the bookshop closed.

The sign on the door read ‘Closed’ in big black letters. The darkened interior mocked her. She reached out and tested the door. It didn’t budge.

Somebody nearby sniggered. ‘That’s taken the wind out of your sails, nicely. Good!’

Jaz glanced around to find a middle-aged woman glaring at her. She kept her voice cool. ‘Excuse me, but do I know you?’

The woman ignored Jaz’s words and pushed her face in close. ‘We don’t need your kind in a nice place like this.’

A disturbance in the air, some super-sense on her personal radar, told her Connor had descended the ladder to stand directly behind her. He still smelt like the mountains in autumn.

She pulled a packet of gum from her pocket and shoved a long spearmint-flavoured stick into her mouth. It immediately overpowered all other scents in her near vicinity.

‘My kind?’ she enquired as pleasantly as she could.

If these people couldn’t get past the memory of her as a teenage Goth with attitude, if they couldn’t see that she’d grown up, then…then they needed to open their eyes wider.