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

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?’

The words shot out of him like nails from a nail gun, startling him with their ferocity, but he refused to moderate his glare. If she’d so much as harmed one hair on Mel’s head, he’d make sure she regretted it for the rest of her life.

‘Did you hear this from Melanie?’

‘Gordon Sears,’ he growled.

Jaz’s lips twisted at whatever she saw in his face. Lush, full lips. Lips he—

No. He would not fall under her spell again. He wouldn’t expose Mel to another woman who’d run at the first hint of trouble.

‘Still jumping to conclusions, Connor?’

Her words punched the air out of his body.

‘What on earth do you think I’ve been doing with her?’ She planted her hands on her hips—a mirror image of him—and matched his glare. ‘What kind of nasty notions have been running through your mind?’

Nothing specific, he realised. But he remembered the gaping hole Jaz had left in his life when she’d fled Clara Falls eight years ago. He wouldn’t let her hurt Mel like that.

‘One more day,’ she whispered. ‘That’s all I needed with her—one more day.’ She said the words almost to herself, as if she’d forgotten he was even there.

‘One more day to do what?’ he exploded.

She folded her arms, but he saw that her hands shook. ‘You haven’t changed much at all, have you, Connor? It seems you’re still more than willing to believe the worst of me.’

Bile burned his throat.

‘I needed one more day to convince her to confide in you, that’s what.’

To confide in him… Her words left him floundering. ‘To confide what?’

‘If you spent a little more time with your daughter, then perhaps you’d know!’

‘If I…’ His shoulders grew so tight they hurt. ‘What do you know about bringing a child up on your own?’ About how hard it was. About how the doubts crowded in, making him wonder if he was doing a good job or making a hash of things. About how he’d always be a dad and never a mum and that, no matter how nurturing and gentle he tried to be, he knew it wasn’t the same.

‘I…nothing.’ Jaz took a step back. ‘I’m sorry.’

The sadness that stretched across her face had his anger draining away, against his will and against his better judgement. She turned away as if to hide her sadness from him.

‘Are you going to tell me what’s been going on?’ To his relief, his voice had returned to normal.

She started gathering up her pencils and placing them back in their box. ‘I don’t suppose you’d trust me for just one more day?’

‘No, I wouldn’t.’ He tried to make the words gentle. He had to bite back an oath when she flinched. ‘I won’t take any risks where Mel’s concerned. I can’t.’

She smiled then and he saw the same concern she’d shown for Gwen last night reflected in her eyes now. His chest started to burn as if he’d run a marathon. If Jaz had gleaned even the tiniest piece of information that would help him with Mel…Mel, who’d gone from laughing and bright-eyed to sober and withdrawn in what seemed to him a twinkling of an eye.

Mel, who’d once chattered away to him about everything and nothing, and who these days would only shake her head when he asked her if anything was wrong.

‘Mel has been coming to the bookshop after school instead of Mrs Benedict’s.’

‘Do you know why?’

‘I…yes, I do.’ She hesitated. ‘May I ask you a question first?’

His hand clenched. He wanted his bright, bubbly daughter back—the girl whose smile would practically split her face in two whenever she saw him. He’d do anything to achieve that, pay any price. Even if that meant answering Jaz’s questions first. He gave a short, hard nod.

‘Why is Melly going to Mrs Benedict’s after school? Please don’t get angry again, but…if you start work at seven-thirty most mornings, surely you should be able to knock off in time to collect Melly from school at three-thirty? Obviously I don’t know your personal situation, but it looks as if you’re doing well financially. Do you really need to work such long hours?’

No, he didn’t.

She frowned. ‘And who looks after Melly in the mornings before school?’

‘The school provides a care service, before and after school.’

She didn’t ask, but he could see the question in her eyes—why didn’t he use that service instead of sending Mel to Mrs Benedict’s?

‘You don’t want to tell me, do you?’

What the hell…? That mixture of sadness and understanding in her voice tugged at him. It wouldn’t hurt to tell her. It might even go some way to making amends for bursting in here and all but accusing her of hurting Mel.

He raked a hand back through his hair. ‘We had a huge storm on this side of the mountain two and a half months ago. It did a lot of damage—roofs blown off, trees down on houses, that kind of thing. The state emergency services were run off their feet and we jumped in to help. We’re still getting through that work now. At the time it seemed important to secure people’s homes against further damage, to make them safe again…liveable. But it did and does mean working long hours.’ He hated to see people homeless, especially families with small children.

‘And you feel responsible for making things right?’

He didn’t know if that was a statement or a question. He shrugged. ‘I just want to do my bit to help.’

‘Yes, but don’t you think you need to draw the line somewhere? There are more important things in life than work, you know.’

A scowl built up inside him. Did she think work counted two hoots when it came to Mel? Mel was his life.

Jaz thrust her chin out. ‘You worked on my sign last Saturday instead of taking Melanie on the skyway. You broke a date with your daughter to work on my stupid sign.’

‘You didn’t think that sign so unimportant at the time!’

Guilt inched through him. He had cancelled that outing with Mel, but he’d promised to take her to the skyway the next day instead. She’d seemed happy enough with that, as happy as she seemed with anything these days. Except…

He frowned. When Sunday had rolled around Mel had said she didn’t want to go anywhere. She’d spent the day colouring in on the living room floor instead.

He should’ve taken her on the Saturday—he should’ve kept his promise—but when he’d found out Jaz was expected to arrive in Clara Falls that day, he hadn’t been able to stay away. At the time he’d told himself it was to get their initial meeting out of the way, and any associated unpleasantness. As he stared down into Jaz’s face now, though, he wondered if he’d lied.

He pulled his mind back. ‘It’s not just the work. Mel needs a woman in her life. She’s—’

He broke off to drag a hand down his face. ‘I see the way she watches the girls at school with their mothers.’ It broke his heart that he couldn’t fill that gap for her. ‘She hungers for that…maternal touch.’

Jaz frowned. Then her face suddenly cleared. ‘That’s what Mrs Benedict’s about. She’s your maternal touch!’

He nodded. ‘She came highly recommended. She’s raised five children of her own. She’s a big, buxom lady with a booming laugh. A sort of…earth mother figure.’

‘I see.’

‘I thought that, between her and my mother, they might help fill that need in Mel.’

Scepticism rippled across Jaz’s face before she could school it. ‘What?’ he demanded. From memory, Jaz had never liked his mother.

‘Melanie doesn’t like going to Mrs Benedict’s.’

‘She hasn’t said anything to me!’

Jaz twisted her hands together again. ‘Apparently Mrs Benedict has been smacking her.’

CHAPTER FIVE

‘SHE’S what?’ Connor reached out and gripped Jaz’s shoulders. ‘Did you say smacking her? Are you telling me Mrs Benedict is hitting my daughter?’

‘You’re hurting me, Connor.’

He released her immediately. And started to pace.

‘Relax, Connor, Melly is—’

‘Relax? Relax!’ How the hell could she say that when—

‘Melanie is safe. That’s all that matters, right? You can tackle Mrs Benedict tomorrow. Flying off the handle now won’t solve anything.’

She had a point. He dragged in a breath. But when he got hold of Mrs Benedict he’d—

‘Working out what’s best for Melanie is what’s important now, isn’t it?’

‘She’s not going back to that woman’s place!’

‘Good.’

He dragged in another breath. ‘So that’s why she’s been coming here?’

‘Yes.’

‘And you’ve been walking her to Mrs Benedict’s front gate each afternoon?’

‘Yes.’

‘And trying to talk her into confiding in me?’

‘Yes.’

He ground his teeth together. ‘Thank you.’

‘It was nothing.’

She tried to shrug his words off, but her eyes were wide and blue. It wasn’t nothing and they both knew it.

He unclenched his jaw. ‘Do you have any idea why Mel didn’t want to confide in me?’

Jaz hesitated again. ‘I…’

She did! She knew more about what was going through his daughter’s head than he did.

She eyed him warily. ‘Will you promise not to shout any more?’

Did she think he’d lash out at her in his anger? He recalled the way he’d stormed in here, and dragged a hand down his face. ‘I’ll do my best,’ he ground out.

‘It seems that because you’re working so hard, your mother is concerned about your…welfare.’

He frowned. ‘I don’t get what you’re driving at.’

She moistened her lips. He tried to ignore their shine, their fullness…and the hunger that suddenly seized him.

‘It seems your mother has been lecturing Melly not to bother you with her troubles when you’re so obviously busy with work.’

He gaped at her. No! He snapped his jaw shut. ‘You never did like my mother, did you?’

‘No, Connor, that’s not true, but she never liked me. And in hindsight I can’t really blame her. She could hardly have been thrilled that the rebellious Goth girl was going out with her son now, could she?’

His mother had always been…overprotective.

‘Look, I’m not making this up.’

He didn’t want to believe her…but he did.

She grimaced. ‘And, for what it’s worth, I think your mother is well-intentioned. She is your mother, after all. It’s natural for her to have your best interests at heart.’

‘She should have Mel’s best interests at heart.’ He collapsed onto one of the leatherette cubes. Mel needed a woman in her life, but the two he’d chosen had let her down badly.

And so she’d latched onto Jaz?

What a mess.

This wasn’t his mother’s fault. It wasn’t even Mrs Benedict’s fault, though he’d still have some choice words for her when he saw her tomorrow. This was his fault. He hadn’t wanted to acknowledge it before and he didn’t want to acknowledge it now, but Mel needed a younger woman in her life. Not two women who were at least fifty years older than her.

But Jaz?

‘Don’t look like that,’ Jaz chided. ‘This isn’t the end of the world. So you knock off from here in time to collect Melly from school for the rest of the week. That’s no big deal.’

‘It’ll put work on the flat back by a day.’

She shrugged again. ‘Like I said—no big deal.’

‘She didn’t confide in me!’ The words burst from him, but he couldn’t hold them back. Mel had refused to confide in him, but she’d confided in Jaz?

Jaz!

‘So you work on winning back her trust. On Saturday you take her out on the skyway. Tell her she looks so pretty you’re going to call her Princess Melly for the day and that her every wish is your command.’

He stared at her and he couldn’t help it—a grin built up inside him at the image she’d planted in his mind…and at how alive her face had become as she described it. Who called Jaz Princess Jaz? Who tried to make her dreams come true?

He wondered if she’d like to come out on the skyway with him and Mel on Saturday? He wondered if—

Whoa! He pulled back. No way. He was grateful for the insights she’d given him, but not that grateful. Mel might need a younger woman in her life, but Jaz Harper wasn’t that woman.

Jaz’s smile faltered. ‘You want me to butt out now, don’t you?’

‘Yes.’ There was no sense in trying to soften his intentions.

‘I see.’

He felt like a heel. He didn’t want to hurt her feelings, but he would not—could not—let her hurt Mel. He hardened his heart. ‘I don’t want you involved in my daughter’s life.’

‘Good!’ Her eyes flashed. ‘Because I don’t want to be involved in any part of your life either.’

He didn’t want what had happened to Frieda happening to Jaz either, though. The thought had him breaking out in a cold sweat. ‘I didn’t mean that to sound as rotten as it did. It’s just…you tell me you’re only here for twelve months.’

She folded her arms. ‘That’s right.’

He swore he glimpsed tears in her eyes. ‘Bloody hell, Jaz. If you’re only here for twelve months, I don’t want Mel getting attached to you. She’ll only be hurt when you leave. She won’t understand.’

‘I hear you, all right!’

Yep, definitely tears. ‘Look, I didn’t understand when you left eight years ago and I was eighteen. What hope does a seven-year-old have?’

Her jaw dropped and that old anger, the old pain, reared up through him. ‘Hell, Jaz! You left and you didn’t even tell me why!’

She’d hurt him. Eight years ago, she’d hurt him. She could tell by his pallor, in the way his eyes glittered. In the way the tiredness had invaded the skin around his mouth.

But he’d married Faye so quickly that she’d thought…

She gulped. ‘Darn it all, Connor, I was only going to be gone for three months.’

‘Three months!’ His jaw went slack. His Adam’s apple worked. ‘Three months?’ he repeated before he tensed up again. ‘Where the hell did you go? And why didn’t you tell me?’

His pain wrapped around her with tentacles that tried to squeeze the air out of her body. She had to drag in a breath before she could speak. ‘You have to understand, I was seriously cut up that you thought I could ever cheat on you.’

He hadn’t given her a chance to explain at the time. He’d hurled his accusations with all the ferocity of a cornered, injured animal—even then she’d known it was his shock and pain talking, the unexpectedness of finding her at the Hancocks’ house, because she had lied about that.

‘Stop playing games, Jaz.’ He spoke quietly. ‘I know you were cheating on me with Sam Hancock.’

A spurt of anger rippled through her, followed closely by grim satisfaction. She wanted—no, needed—him to keep his distance. If he thought she was the kind of woman who’d cheat on him and still lie about it eight years later, he’d definitely keep his distance.

She was not travelling to hell again with Connor Reed. It had taken too long to get over the last time. He hadn’t trusted her then and he didn’t trust her now. He’d jumped to conclusions back then and, on this evening’s evidence, he still jumped to conclusions now. So much for older and wiser!

‘Does it even matter now?’ she managed in as frigid a tone as she could muster.

‘Not in the slightest. I understand why people cheat. That’s not the issue.’

She didn’t bother calling him a liar. There didn’t seem to be any point. Perhaps it didn’t make an ounce of difference to him now anyway.

‘What I don’t understand is why people run.’ He stabbed a finger at her. ‘What I don’t get is why you left the way you did.’

The flesh on her arms grew cold. If Faye had deserted him too without an explanation…

Was an overdue explanation better than no explanation at all? One glance into his face told her the answer. She pulled in a breath and did what she could to ignore the sudden tiredness that made her limbs heavy. ‘Let’s just take it as a given that I was in a right state by the time I got home that night, okay?’ It made her sick to the stomach just remembering it.

‘Fine.’ The word emerged clipped and short.

‘My mother calmed me down.’ Eventually. ‘And, bit by bit, got the story out of me.’

‘And?’ he said when she stopped.

‘Did you know that my mother didn’t approve of our relationship?’

He blinked and she laughed. Not a mirthful laugh. Definitely not a joyful one. ‘I know—funny, isn’t it? The rest of the town thought it was me—the rebel Goth girl—leading clean-cut Connor Reed astray.’

‘I thought she liked me!’

‘She did. But she thought we were too young for such an intense relationship. She was worried I’d put all my dreams on hold for you.’

She could see now that Frieda Harper had had every reason to be concerned. Jaz had been awed by Connor’s love—grateful to him for it, unable to believe he could truly love a girl like her. And she’d hidden behind his popularity, his ease with people, instead of standing on her own two feet. Frieda had understood that.

‘She asked me to go away from Clara Falls for three months. She begged me to.’

Connor’s face had gone white. Jaz swallowed. ‘She told me that you and I needed time out from each other, to gain perspective.’ And Jaz had been so hurt and so…angry. She’d wanted Connor to pay for the things he’d said. ‘She told me that if you really loved me, you’d wait for me.’ And Jaz had believed her. ‘I went to my aunt’s house in Newcastle for three months.’ And she’d counted down every single day.

She lifted her head and met his gaze. ‘But you didn’t wait for me.’

His eyes flashed dark in the pallor of his face. ‘Are you trying to put the blame back on me?’

‘No.’ She shook her head, a black heaviness pressing down on her. ‘I’m simply saying you didn’t wait.’

He flung an arm in the air. ‘I thought you were gone for ever! I didn’t think you were ever coming back.’

He’d jumped to conclusions. Again. ‘You didn’t bother looking for me!’

He took several paces away from her, then swung back. ‘Three months?’ He stabbed an accusing finger at her. ‘You didn’t come back!’

The space between them sparked with unspoken resentments and hurts.

Jaz moistened her lips and got her voice back under control. ‘The day before I was due to come home, my mother rang. She told me Faye was pregnant and that you were the father. And that you were engaged.’

Connor dragged both hands back through his hair. He collapsed to the leatherette cube as if he’d lost all strength in his legs. Jaz leant heavily against the wall by the unfinished portrait of her mother.

She reached up to touch it, then pulled her hand away at the last moment. She glanced back at Connor. ‘You have to see that I couldn’t come back once I’d heard that.’

‘Why not?’

‘There’d be no chance for you and Faye to sort things out if I’d done that.’

She didn’t mean to sound arrogant, but it was the truth. For good or ill, she and Connor would’ve picked straight up where they’d left off—in each other’s arms.

He shot to his feet. ‘Am I supposed to take that as some kind of noble gesture on your part?’

That tone would’ve shrivelled her eight years ago. It didn’t shrivel her now.

‘Noble? Ha!’ She glared at him. ‘I can’t see there’s much of anything noble in this entire situation.’ She pushed away from the wall. ‘But a baby was going to be involved and…and I wasn’t going to interfere with that.’

His glare subsided. He bent at the waist, rested his hands on his knees and didn’t say anything.

‘But how could you?’ Her voice shook. ‘How could you sleep with my best friend? Faye, of all people!’ The pain of that still ran deep. ‘Why Faye?’

Very slowly, he straightened. The emptiness in his eyes shocked her. ‘Because she reminded me of you. I was searching for a substitute and she was the nearest I could find.’

The breath left her body. She fell back against the wall. She couldn’t think of a single thing to say.

What was there to say? It was all history now. It was too late for her and Connor.

The silence stretched—eloquent of the rift that had grown between them in the intervening years. Connor finally nodded. ‘Goodnight, Jaz.’ And he made for the door.

For a moment she still couldn’t speak. Then, ‘If you tell Melly I broke her confidence…it will hurt her.’

He stopped, but he didn’t turn around.

‘I don’t think she deserves that.’

He seemed to think about that and then he nodded. ‘You’re right.’ He took one further step away, stopped again…and then he turned. ‘Do you seriously think that, given more time, she would’ve confided in me?’

‘I’m convinced of it.’ She tried to find a smile. ‘Wait and see. She still might yet.’

She thought he might say something more, but he didn’t.