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

He ground his teeth together. He’d made a lot of mistakes in the last eight years, but he wasn’t making that one. Not again. He would not kiss Jaz. He would not make love to Jaz. He would not get involved with Jaz.

Never again.

He had to think of Mel. His daughter already adored Jaz more than he thought wise. He didn’t want Mel thinking of Jaz as anything other than a friend.

It would be hard enough for Mel to cope with Jaz leaving in twelve months’ time, let alone…

He ran a finger around the inside of his collar again. Let alone anything more. End of story.

‘I’ll move into the flat on Monday,’ he heard Jaz tell Gwen. ‘I’m hoping business will be brisk in the bookshop tomorrow.’

She was working tomorrow? They’d better not make it a late night then. His jaw tightened. Not that he’d intended on making it a late night.

He tried to get his brain onto business and away from the personal. ‘How are the new staff members working out?’ She’d spent the last four days training staff the recruitment agency in Katoomba had sent her.

‘So well that I’m planning on taking Monday and Tuesday off to unpack and set the flat up properly. I’ll only be a shout away if needed.’

‘Good. It’s about time you stopped working so hard and took a couple of days off. If you’re not careful you’ll make yourself ill.’

Her eyes widened and he thrust his hands in his pockets with a scowl. That comment had been way too personal. He started to spell businesslike out in his mind again.

Speculation fired to life in Gwen’s face. She raised an eyebrow at Jaz. Jaz pressed her lips together and gave one tight shake of her head. Connor adjusted his tie. It seemed a whole lot tighter now than it had when he’d left home.

Gwen laughed. ‘You two give off as much heat as you ever did.’

His collar tightened until he thought he’d choke. Jaz’s eyes all but started from her head.

Jaz swung to him. ‘Speaking of heat…’

He wondered if he’d ever breathe again.

‘…is the town hall still heated? Or should I change into something warmer? Something with longer sleeves?’

‘Don’t change!’ The words burst out of him with revealing rapidity.

He coughed and quickly overrode Gwen’s triumphant ‘Aha!’

He rapped out, ‘It gets uncomfortably warm in the town hall. You’ll be grateful for those short sleeves once the dancing starts.’

‘Okay.’ She gazed at him expectantly for a moment, then finally sighed. ‘I’ll get my handbag and wrap and then we can leave.’

The town hall was festooned with ribbons and pine cones, with fragrant boughs of eucalyptus. Beneath it all, Connor could smell the tantalising scent of wattle. He and Jaz paused as they crossed the threshold, and Connor had to bite back a grin when one section of the hall—Gordon Sears and his set— broke off their conversation around a table of hors d’oeuvres to turn and stare.

Actually…gaped summed it up more accurately.

Beside him, Jaz stiffened and he drew her hand into the crook of his arm, folded his hand over it and tried to convey to her that she wasn’t alone. He hadn’t brought her here to feed her to the lions. Her hand trembled beneath his, but she lifted her chin and planted a smile on her face, held herself tall and erect. That simple act of courage warmed him, made him stand taller and prouder too.

‘I think it’s safe to say that we’ve given them something to talk about for the rest of the night,’ she quipped.

He released her hand to seize two glasses of champagne from the tray of a passing waiter and handed her one. ‘Whereas we won’t spare them another thought for the rest of the evening.’

She touched her glass to his. ‘I’ll drink to that.’

Her hair framed her face in a feathery style that highlighted high cheekbones and long-lashed eyes. He wanted to reach out and touch that hair, to run his fingers through it, cup a hand around the back of her head and draw her in close to—

He snapped upright, glanced around the room.

‘Who should we schmooze with first?’ she asked.

‘This way.’ With his hand in the small of her back, he turned her towards a knot of people on the opposite side of the room and tried to ignore the way the heat from her body branded his fingertips as it seeped through the thin material of her dress. With half a growl, he dragged his gaze from the seductive sway of her hips. That was when he saw Sam Hancock.

Sam Hancock without a date!

Sam and his sister hadn’t sold the family home when their father had died, although neither one of them lived in Clara Falls now. They used the house as a weekender. Obviously Sam had decided to grace Clara Falls with his presence this particular weekend.

‘Connor?’

Jaz’s soft query drew him back, her blue-green eyes fathomless.

‘I just saw your old friend Sam Hancock.’ The observation didn’t come out anywhere near as casual as he meant it to.

She stared at him. ‘Did you want to go over and say hello?’

She’d promised to leave with him at the end of the night. He held fast to that. He tried to relax his hold on his champagne flute. She didn’t crane her neck over his shoulder to catch a glimpse of Sam. She didn’t push her glass of champagne into his hand and rush off to embrace her former lover. The tightness in his chest eased a fraction.

Which sent warning bells clanging through him. He didn’t want Jaz for himself, but he didn’t want other men having her either?

Or was it just Sam Hancock?

He tested the theory, tried to imagine Jaz with some other man in the room—any man. His teeth ground together. No, it wasn’t just Sam Hancock.

Charming. He was a dog in the manger.

Only…he did want her for himself, didn’t he?

‘Connor!’

He snapped to.

‘I thought we were supposed to be schmoozing. Stop glaring around the room like that. You won’t win any votes with that look on your face.’

He laughed. He didn’t mean to, but her words— the scolding—the warmth deep down in her eyes eased his tension. ‘Come and meet the Barries.’ He’d enjoy the night for what it was and nothing more.

Connor found that he did enjoy the evening. Jaz conversed easily with everyone he introduced her to. The Jaz of old hadn’t had that kind of confidence or social poise. The Jaz of old would’ve held back and spent most of the night hiding behind him. The Jaz of old had been nothing more than a girl. This Jaz—the here and now version—was a strong, confident woman. Something told him she’d earned that self-possession.

It made her ten times more potent.

She ate dinner at the table beside him. They danced the first dance…and the second…and Connor almost breathed a sigh of relief when she excused herself to go and powder her nose. He needed oxygen—big time.

It didn’t stop him from watching her as she made a circuit around the room, though. Along the way, people stopped her. Here and there, she stopped of her own accord. Then she stopped by Sam Hancock, who was sitting on his own, and Connor gripped a handful of linen tablecloth. Sam leapt to his feet and said something that made her laugh. She said something back that made him laugh. Then she kept walking.

She kept walking.

He released the tablecloth. If he hadn’t been sitting he’d have fallen.

It hit him then—Jaz hadn’t flirted with a single man here tonight. Frieda would’ve flirted with every man in the room. He saw the defence behind that tactic now too—by flirting with every man present, Frieda had managed to keep them all at arm’s length. About the only man she hadn’t flirted with was Gordon Sears.

His heart started to burn. Jaz was not made in the same mould as her mother. Had he got it wrong eight years ago?

He remembered the sight of her in Sam Hancock’s arms, the words she’d uttered that had damned her. They still proved her guilt, her infidelity.

But, suddenly, he found he wasn’t quite so sure of anything.

Jaz returned from the powder room to take her seat at the table beside Connor again. All the other couples from their table were dancing. She gulped. She prayed Connor wouldn’t ask her to dance again. She wasn’t sure how much more of that she could take, especially now they’d dimmed the lights.

‘Enjoying yourself?’

‘Yes.’ And she meant it. ‘It’s been lovely meeting up with people again.’

He set a glass of punch down in front of her. ‘Nonalcoholic,’ he said before she could ask. ‘I know you’re working tomorrow.’

‘Thank you.’

She didn’t reach out for the drink because her fingers had gone suddenly boneless. He looked so sure and…male in his dinner suit. His body had grown harder in the eight years she’d been away. His shoulders had become broader, his thighs more powerful. And he still created an ache of need deep down inside her like he’d always done.

She hoped he wouldn’t push the stay-in-Clara-Falls-for-ever-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.’

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