Dreaming Of You: Bachelor Dad on Her Doorstep / Outback Bachelor / The Hometown Hero Returns

‘By the way, did you know that Carmen Sears is looking for an after school job?’

He frowned. ‘Why are you telling me this?’

‘She’d make a great babysitter for Melanie.’

‘But she’s—’

He broke off and Jaz couldn’t stop her lips from twisting. ‘Yes, she’s a rebel Goth girl. And she seems like a nice kid. Just thought you might be interested, that’s all.’

He stared at her for a long moment. ‘Why did it take you so long to come back?’

The tone of his voice gave nothing away, and for a brief moment a sense of loss gaped through her. She shrugged and strove for casual. ‘Pride, I guess, and resentment at the way things turned out. I was angry with you and Faye. I was angry with my mother. I wanted to forget.’

She shrugged again. She had a feeling she might be overdoing the shrug thing but she couldn’t seem to help it. ‘In the end it became a habit.’ A habit that had broken her mother’s heart.

She lifted her chin. ‘Goodnight, Connor.’

First thing Thursday morning, Mrs Lavender put Jaz to work changing the book display in the front window. Jaz had a feeling it was a ploy to stop her from fretting about their lack of customers.

‘It hasn’t been changed in nearly two months. Look, we’ve all these lovely new bestsellers…and it’ll be Mother’s Day in a couple of weeks. It needs sprucing up!’

A shaft of pain speared straight into Jaz’s heart at the mention of Mother’s Day. She kept her chin high, but Mrs Lavender must’ve seen the strain in her face because she stilled, then reached out and touched Jaz’s hand. ‘I’m sorry, Jazmin, that was thoughtless of me.’

‘Not at all.’ She gulped. She would not let her chin drop. ‘I’m the one who didn’t come back for the past eight Mother’s Days. I have no right to self-pity now.’ Oh, she’d sent flowers, had phoned, but it wasn’t the same.

‘You have a right to your grief.’

Jaz managed a weak smile, but she didn’t answer. She deserved to spend this coming Mother’s Day burning with guilt.

She made Mrs Lavender a cup of tea, noticed Connor’s truck parked out the back, and the burning in her chest increased ten-fold.

‘Have you looked these over, Jaz?’

Jaz had just climbed out of the window, pleased with her brand new display. She glanced over Mrs Lavender’s shoulder. ‘Oh, those.’ A printout of the sales figures for the last three months. A weight dropped to her shoulders and crashed and banged and did what it could to hammer her through the floor. ‘Appalling, aren’t they?’

‘You have to turn these around, and fast.’ There was no mistaking Mrs Lavender’s concern. ‘Jaz, this is serious.’

‘I…’ She was doing all she could.

Mrs Lavender tapped her pen against the counter, ummed and ahhed under her breath. Then her face suddenly lit up. ‘We’ll have a book fair, that’s what we’ll do! It’ll stir up some interest in this place again.’

‘A book fair?’

‘We’ll get in entertainment for the kiddies, we’ll have readings by local authors… We’ll have a ten per cent sale on all our books. We’ll get people excited. We’ll get people to come. And, by golly, we’ll save this bookshop!’

Jaz clutched her hands together. ‘Do you think it could work?’

‘My dear Jazmin, we’re going to have to make it work. Either that or make the decision to sell up to Mr Sears.’

‘No!’ She cast a glance towards the back wall and the unfinished portrait of Frieda. ‘I’m not selling to him.’ She hitched up her chin. ‘We’ll have a book fair.’

She and Mrs Lavender spent the rest of the morning planning a full-page advertisement in the local newspaper. They discussed children’s entertainment. Jaz started to design posters and flyers. They settled on the day—the Saturday of the Mother’s Day weekend.

If the book fair didn’t work…

Jaz shook her head. She refused to think about that.

At midday Mrs Lavender excused herself to go and sit on her usual park bench to torment Boyd Longbottom.

‘What’s the story with you and Boyd Longbottom, anyway?’ Jaz asked.

‘He was a beau of mine, a long time ago.’

Jaz set her pen down. ‘Really?’

‘But when I chose my Arthur over him, he swore he’d never speak to me again. He’s kept his word to this very day.’

‘But that’s awful.’

‘He never left Clara Falls. He never married. And he’s not spoken to me again, not once.’

‘That’s…sad.’

‘Yes, Jaz, it is.’ Mrs Lavender opened her mouth as if she meant to say more, but she shut it again. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow.’

At quarter past twelve Connor jogged across the street to Mr Sears’s bakery. On his way back he stopped right outside the bookshop window to survey the new display.

Jaz stood behind one of the bookcases she was tidying and watched him. Her heart squeezed so tight the blood rushed in her ears.

Turn your back. Walk away.

Her body refused to obey the dictates of her brain.

At least close your eyes.

She didn’t obey that order either. She remembered how she and Connor had once shared their drawings with each other, offering praise or criticism, suggestions for improvements. She searched his face. Did he like her display?

She couldn’t tell.

He didn’t lift his eyes and search for her inside the shop.

Eventually he turned and strode away. The tightness around Jaz’s heart eased, but nothing could expand to fill the gap that yawned through her.

At a touch after three-thirty the phone rang. Jaz pounced on it, eager to take her mind off the fact that Melly wasn’t here. She’d known Melly wouldn’t show up here today. Just as she knew Melly wouldn’t show up here tomorrow…or any other day from now on.

She didn’t know why it should make her feel lonely, only that it did.

‘Hey, mate!’ Her business partner’s voice boomed down the line at her. ‘How’re you doing?’

‘Mac!’ She grinned. ‘Better now that I’m talking to you. How are Bonnie and the kids?’

‘They send their love. Now, tell me, has the town welcomed you back with open arms?’

‘Yes and no. Business could be a lot better, though. I’m not getting any local trade.’

‘Are they giving you a hard time?’

‘Well, there is a rumour that I’m the local drug baron.’

His laughter roared down the line, lifting her spirits. ‘What? Little Ms Clean-as-a-Whistle Jaz Harper?’ He sobered. ‘I bet that’s doing wonders for business.’

‘Ooh, yeah.’

‘Listen, mate, I have a job for you, and I have a plan.’

Her smile widened as she listened to his plan.

CHAPTER SIX

‘OKAY, Princess Melly—’ Connor held the door to Mr Sears’s bakery open ‘—what is your pleasure?’

Mel’s eyes danced. It gladdened Connor’s heart.

‘Princess Melly wants a picnic!’

‘Where…at the park? Or perhaps at one of the lookouts?’ He cocked his head to one side. ‘On the skyway?’ They’d already been back and across on the skyway twice this morning.

Over the course of the morning Mel had laughed with her whole self, and it made things inside him grateful and light. She’d retreated into her shell a couple of times, but so far she’d come peeping back out again.

Jaz had been right. The Princess Melly thing was working a treat. It had disarmed his daughter almost immediately—that and the skyway rides. Not to mention the jeans-buying expedition. Mel had only requested one pair of jeans, but it had suddenly occurred to Connor that she didn’t have any—at least, none that fitted her any more. They’d bought three pairs. Mel had near burst with excitement over that one. She wore a pair now.

‘A picnic in the botanic gardens,’ Princess Melly announced.

‘Excellent.’ Connor rubbed his hands together, walked her up and down the length of the counter to eye all of Mr Sears’s goodies. It was only a touch after eleven o’clock but, given the amount of energy they’d expended already, coupled with the plans he could see racing through Mel’s mind, he figured she might need refuelling. ‘What should we take on our picnic?’

She stared up at him with big liquid eyes—identical to his, so he was told. He didn’t believe it. His eyes couldn’t melt a body like that.

‘Princess Melly would like a sausage roll now—’ she slipped her hand inside his, as if he might need some extra persuasion ‘—which will spoil her lunch, you know?’

‘It will?’ He tried to figure out where she was going with this.

‘Which means we can just have apple turnovers and lemonade for lunch.’

Connor grinned. Mel’s smile slipped. ‘Excellent idea,’ he assured her. ‘Apple turnovers for lunch it is.’

Once in the proverbial blue moon wouldn’t hurt, would it?

Her smile beamed out at him again.

Heck, no, it couldn’t hurt anything. Still…responsible adult instincts kicked in. ‘I am afraid, though, that your humble servant—’ he touched his chest ‘—has a voracious appetite. Would it be permissible for him to order egg-and-lettuce sandwiches to take on the picnic, do you think?’

She nodded solemnly, but her eyes danced. Connor placed their order and they sat at a table in the front window to munch their sausage rolls and sip hot chocolates.

The roar of motorbikes interrupted them mid-bite. They both swung to stare out of the window. Motorbikes—big, black, gleaming Harley-Davidsons— trawled up the street, chrome and leather gleaming in the sun. There had to be at least a dozen bikes, most with pillion passengers…and all the riders wore black leather. Connor blinked, and then he started to laugh, deep and low, and with undeniable satisfaction. The roar and thunder abated as the bikes found parking spaces down either side of the street. All of the leather-clad visitors made a beeline for Jaz’s bookshop.

His gut clenched when Jaz danced out to meet them. He thought a blood vessel in his brain might burst when the biggest and burliest of the visitors swung her around as if she didn’t weigh any more than a kitten, rather than five feet ten inches of warm, curvaceous woman. When the burly visitor placed her back on the ground, he kissed her on the cheek.

Kissed her! Something dark and ugly pulsed through him.

Jaz hadn’t mentioned being involved with anyone in Sydney, but then they hadn’t really discussed what she’d been doing since she’d left.

‘Daddy?’

He glanced down to find Mel staring at his mangled sausage roll.

He tried to loosen his grip around it, tried to grin. ‘Oops, I obviously don’t know my own strength.’

Melly giggled.

Connor wiped his hand on a paper serviette and glanced back out of the window. He couldn’t stop a replay of all the kisses he and Jaz had shared eight years ago from playing through his mind now—all of them, in all of their endless variety.

He couldn’t remember kissing her on the cheek too often.

On the cheek!

That hadn’t been the kiss of some lover impatient to see his girlfriend after a week of enforced separation. Connor couldn’t explain the rush of relief that poured into him. Actually, he could explain it, but he wouldn’t. Not to himself. Not to anyone.

Some of Jaz’s friends followed her into the bookshop. Others broke into groups of twos and threes to stroll down whichever side of the street seemed to take their fancy, for all the world like idle tourists. Which was probably what they were. They didn’t wear bike gang insignias on their leather jackets. They were probably a bunch of people who shared a passion for bikes. He’d bet they were carpenters and bookshop owners and bakers like him and Jaz and Mr Sears.

He cast a glance around the bakery. He wasn’t the only one transfixed. The arrival of over a dozen bikes in town had brought the conversation in the bakery to a screaming halt. Mr Sears’s face had turned the same colour as the icing on his Chelsea buns—pink. Bright pink.

Connor grinned. After the way Mr Sears had treated her this past week, Jaz deserved her revenge. He enjoyed the beauty of her payback. Not that it would boost her popularity rating as far as the rest of the town was concerned. Already an assortment of tourists and locals were surreptitiously returning to their cars and driving away—intimidated by the combination of loud motorbikes and leather.

Then suddenly Jaz was standing outside the Sears’s bakery without any of her friends in tow and Connor cursed himself for the distraction that had cost him the treat of watching her stride across the road, head held high and shoulders thrown back. Her eyes met his through the plate glass and that thing arced between them—a combination of heat and history.

The bell above the door tinkled as she entered. ‘Hello, Connor.’

‘Hello, Jaz.’

She swung away from him abruptly to smile at Mel—an uncomplicated display of pleasure that kicked him in the guts. ‘Melly! How are you?’

Melly leaned towards her. ‘I’m Princess Melly today.’

Jaz let loose a low whistle. ‘Hardly surprising. You do look as pretty as a princess today, you know?’

‘Daddy says I look as pretty as a princess every day.’ But she said the words uncertainly.

Jaz bent down. ‘Princess Melly, I think your daddy is right.’ Then she winked. ‘By the way, I love the jeans.’

Mel beamed. Connor’s gut clenched in consternation. As if she sensed that, Jaz straightened. ‘I’d love to stay and chat, but I have visitors to get back to. You have fun today, okay?’

Mel nodded vigorously. ‘We will.’

‘Hey, Carmen. Howdy, Mr S.’ Jaz boomed this last.

Mr Sears raced down to the end of the counter where Jaz stood, the end nearest Connor and Mel. ‘What are you doing?’ he demanded in an undertone. ‘Trying to chase all of Clara Falls’ business out of town?’

‘I have nearly twenty people for morning tea.’ She didn’t lower her voice. ‘Which, at least for your bakery, Mr S, is going to be very good business. I’ll take one of your large carrot cakes, a strawberry sponge and…what would you suggest? A chocolate mud cake or a bee sting?’

Connor couldn’t resist. ‘Go with the orange and poppy seed, Jaz. It can’t be beat.’

She swung around to stare at him. That warmth arced between them again. The colour in her cheeks deepened. Connor’s groin kicked to life. She swung back to Mr Sears. ‘The orange poppy seed it is.’

Every single one of Mr Sears’s muscles—at least those from the waist up that Connor could see— bunched. If steam could’ve come out of his ears, Connor was guessing it would’ve. And yet he placed each of the three cakes in a separate cardboard box with the same care and reverence mothers showed to newborn babies.

But when he placed them on the counter for Jaz to collect, he leaned across and grabbed her wrist. Connor pushed his chair back and started to rise.

‘If the tone of this town is brought down any further,’ Mr Sears hissed, ‘you’ll ruin the lot of us. And it’ll be all your doing.’

‘No, it’ll be yours,’ she returned, as cool as the water in the Clara Falls themselves.

With one twist, she freed her wrist. Connor sat back down. She didn’t need his help.

‘I run a bookshop, Mr S, and I need to attract customers from somewhere. Until my bookshop starts securing its usual level of trade, and the rumours about drugs trafficking start dying down, I’m afraid you’ll have to get used to my weekend visitors. They have bikes and will travel. They believe supporting independent bookshops is a good cause.’ She hitched her head in the direction of the door. ‘Believe me, this lot is only the tip of the iceberg.’

Mr Sears drew back as if stung.

She sent him what Connor could only call a salacious wink. ‘Your call, Mr S.’ She lifted the cakes and all but saluted him with them. ‘Mighty grateful to you. Have a great day now, you hear? I’ll be back later to grab afternoon tea for the hordes. Who knows how many extra bodies could show up between now and then? And those Danish pastries look too good to resist.’ With that she swept out of the shop.

A buzz of conversation broke out around the tables the moment the door closed behind her. Connor watched every step of her progress with greedy delight as she returned to the bookshop. She walked as if she owned the whole world. It was sexy as hell. You had to hand itto her. The lady had style.

‘Jaz is my friend,’ Mel said, hauling his attention back.

He sobered at that. He didn’t want his daughter getting too attached to Jaz Harper. It wouldn’t do her any good. Just like it hadn’t done him any good.

‘Stop!’

Luckily Connor had already slowed the car to a crawl in expectation of the approaching pedestrian crossing when Mel shouted, because he planted his foot on the brake immediately.

‘What?’ He glanced from the left to the right to try and discover what it was that had made Melly shout. Katoomba’s main street was crowded with shoppers and tourists alike—a typical Saturday. He couldn’t see anything amiss. She couldn’t want more food, surely? They’d not long finished their sausage rolls and hot chocolates.

‘Jaz just went in there with two of her friends.’

He followed the direction of Mel’s finger to Katoomba’s one and only tattoo parlour.

Mel lifted her chin. ‘I want to go in there too.’

He hesitated. He played for time. He edged the car up to the pedestrian crossing, where he had to wait for pedestrians…and more pedestrians. ‘What about the botanic gardens and our picnic?’

‘Something is wrong.’ Melly’s bottom lip wobbled and his gut twisted. ‘She looked sad and she’s my friend and she made me feel better when I was sad.’

Her bottom lip wobbled some more. He gulped. ‘When were you sad?’

‘Last week.’

‘Why were you sad?’

Would she tell him? He held his breath. The pedestrian crossing cleared and he pushed the car into gear and started moving again.

‘Because Mrs Benedict smacked me.’

Connor slid the van into a free parking space and tried to unclench his hands from around the steering wheel. That still had the power to make his blood boil…

But Mel had confided in him!

‘You won’t ever have to go back to Mrs Benedict’s again, okay, sweetheart?’

Mel’s eyes went wide, then opaque. Connor couldn’t read her face at all. He didn’t know if she was about to throw a temper tantrum or burst into tears. ‘You said I was Princess Melly today.’

The whispered words speared straight into him. ‘You are, sweetheart.’

‘And that my every wish was your command.’

‘Yep, that’s right.’ If she didn’t want to talk about this, then he wouldn’t force her.

‘Then I want to see Jaz!’

He was hers to command. But how could he explain that neither one of them had the right to command Jaz?

Why was Jaz sad?

The thought distracted him. Perhaps that was why Mel’s escape plan succeeded because, before he realised what she meant to do, she’d slipped off her seat belt, slid out of the car and raced back down the street towards the tattoo parlour.

‘Bloody hell!’

Connor shot out of the car after her. He fell through the front door of the tattoo parlour in time to see Mel throw her arms around Jaz’s waist as Jaz emerged from the back of the shop.

‘What’s this?’ Jaz hugged Mel back but she glanced up at Connor with a question in her eyes.

‘I’m sorry.’ He shrugged and grimaced. Mel clung to Jaz like a limpet and an ache burned deep down inside him. ‘She got away from me. She saw you and thought you looked sad.’ He didn’t know what else to say because it suddenly hit him that Mel was right—something was wrong. Jaz was sad. He didn’t know how he could tell. Nothing in her bearing gave it away.

Two men emerged from the back of the shop—one of them the man who’d kissed Jaz on the cheek earlier. She smiled at them weakly and shrugged, much the same way he just had to her. ‘This is my friend, Melly…and her father Connor. This is Mac and Jeff.’

They all nodded to each other, murmured hellos.

‘Melly saw me and wanted to say hello.’ She knelt down to Mel’s level. ‘I am a bit sad, but I promise I’m going to be all right, okay?’

Mel nodded. ‘Okay.’

‘Now, if you’ll excuse me—’ Jaz rose ‘—I have some work to do.’

Connor saw the question forming in Mel’s eyes and wanted to clamp a hand over her mouth before she could ask it.

‘Are you going to tattoo someone?’

Jaz glanced briefly at him, then back to Mel. ‘Yes.’

He wondered why she sounded so reluctant to admit it. One thing was clear—she did not want them here.

Her sadness beat at him like a living thing. He remembered what had happened to Frieda. She has her friends.

‘Can I watch?’

Jaz crouched back down to Mel’s level. ‘I don’t think that’s a good idea, Melly, and—’

‘I don’t mind.’ The man called Jeff spoke quietly, but somehow his words filled the entire room.

‘Are you getting the tattoo?’ Mel breathed, awe audible in every word.

‘I’m getting a picture of my little girl tattooed here.’ Jeff touched a hand to the top of his left arm.

‘Where is she? Can we play?’

He shook his head. ‘She’s a long way away.’

Melly bit her lip. ‘Is it going to hurt?’

‘Yes.’

‘Will it help if I hold your hand?’

‘Yes, it will.’ With a glance at Connor, Jeff picked Melly up in his great burly arms. Connor sensed that with just one word or look from him, Jeff would release Mel in an instant, but something in the man’s face and manner, something in the way Jaz regarded him, held Connor still.

Then they all moved to the back of the shop.

The tattoo took nearly two hours. Connor had never seen anything like it in his life. Beneath Jaz’s fingers, a young girl’s face came alive.

This wasn’t just any simple tattoo. It was an indelible photograph captured on this man’s arm for ever.

It was a work of art.

Mel watched Jaz’s movements quietly, solemnly. She held Jeff’s hand, stroked it every now and again. Finally she moved to where Connor sat, slid onto his lap and rested her head against his shoulder. He held her tight, though for the life of him he couldn’t explain why. Her relaxed posture and even breathing eventually told him she’d fallen asleep.

At last, Jaz set aside her tools and stretched her arms back above her head. She held up a mirror for Jeff to view the finished tattoo. ‘Thank you,’ he said simply.

Jaz leant across then and placed a kiss in the centre of Jeff’s forehead. ‘May she live in your heart for ever,’ she whispered.

That was when Connor realised why he held Melly so tight.

That tattoo wasn’t a work of art. It was a memorial.

‘Cherish her,’ Jeff said with a nod at the sleeping child.

‘I will,’ he promised.

Then Jeff left the room, closely followed by Mac, and Connor expelled one long breath. He reached out and touched Jaz’s hand. ‘That was the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen.’ He didn’t smile. He couldn’t. But he wanted her to know how much he admired her skill and generosity.

When she turned, he could see the strain the last two hours had put on her—the overwhelming responsibility to do her absolute best work, not to make a mistake. It showed in her pallor, the lines around her eyes and mouth.

He adjusted the child in his arms, rose and put one arm around Jaz’s shoulders. ‘Let me take you home.’

For a moment he thought she would lean into him, but then she stiffened and edged away. ‘Mac will take me home, thanks all the same. Enjoy the rest of your day, Connor.’

Before she could move fully away, Melly stirred, unwrapped an arm from around her father’s neck and wound it around Jaz’s. It brought Jaz in close to Connor again—her arm touching his arm, his scent clogging her senses. The more of him she breathed in, the more it chased her weariness away.

‘That was way wicked!’ Melly said.