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

And what was he doing now? Painting shop signs? His work should hang in galleries!

He turned and his gaze met hers. Just like that. With no fuss. No hesitation. She didn’t step back into the shadows of the shop or drop her gaze and pretend she hadn’t been watching. He would know. He pointed to the sign, then sent her a thumbs up.

All that potential wasted.

Jaz couldn’t lift her arm in an answering wave. She couldn’t even twitch the corners of her mouth upwards in acknowledgement of his silent communication. She had to turn away.

When she’d challenged him—thrown out there in the silences that throbbed between them that she must be the last person he’d ever want to see, he hadn’t denied it.

Her stomach burned acid. Coming back to Clara Falls, she’d expected to experience loss and grief. But for her mother. Not Connor. She’d spent the last eight years doing all she could to get over him. These feelings should not be resurfacing now.

If you’d got over him you’d have come home likeyour mother begged you to.

The accusation rang through her mind. Her hands shook. She hugged herself tightly. She’d refused to come home, still too full of pride and anger and bitterness. It had distorted everything. It had closed her mind to her mother’s despair.

If she’d come home…but she hadn’t.

For the second time that day, she ground back the tears. She didn’t deserve the relief they would bring. She would make a success of the bookshop. She would make this final dream of her mother’s a reality. She would leave a lasting memorial of Frieda Harper in Clara Falls. Once she’d done that, perhaps she might find a little peace… Perhaps she’d have earned it.

She glanced back out of the window. Connor hadn’t left yet. He stood in a shaft of sunlight, haloed in gold, leaning against his van, talking to Richard. For one glorious moment the years fell away. How many times had she seen Connor and Richard talking like that—at school, on the cricket field, while they’d waited for her outside this very bookshop? Things should’ve been different. Things should’ve been very different.

He’d given up his art. It was too high a price to pay. Grief for the boy he’d once been welled up inside her.

It would take her a long, long time to find peace.

She hadn’t cheated on him with Sam Hancock. She hadn’t cheated on him with anyone, but Connor no longer deserved her bitterness. He had a little daughter now, responsibilities. He’d paid for his mistakes, just like she’d paid for hers. If what her mother had told her was true, Faye had left Connor literally holding the baby six years ago. Jaz would not make his life more difficult.

Something inside her lifted. It eased the tightness in her chest and allowed her to breathe more freely for a moment.

Connor turned and his eyes met hers through the plate glass of the shop window. The weight crashed back down on her with renewed force. She gripped the edges of the stool to keep herself upright. Connor might not deserve her bitterness, but she still had to find a way of making him keep his distance, because something in him still sang to something in her—a siren song that had the power to destroy her all over again if she let it.

Richard turned then too, saw her and waved. She lifted a numb arm in response. He said something to Connor and both men frowned. As one, they pushed away from Connor’s van and headed for the bookshop door.

A shiver rippled through her. She shot to her feet. She had to deal with more Connor on her first day? Heaven, give her strength.

The moment he walked through the door all strength seeped from her limbs, leaving them boneless, useless, and plonking her back down on the stool.

‘Hello, again,’ Richard said.

‘Hi.’ From somewhere she found a smile.

She glanced sideways at Connor. He pursed his lips and frowned at the ornate pressed-tin work on the ceiling. She found her gaze drawn upwards, searching for signs of damp and peeling paint, searching for what made him frown. She didn’t find anything. It all looked fine to her.

Richard cleared his throat and she turned her attention back to him with an apologetic shrug.

‘These are the keys for the shop.’ He placed a set of keys onto the counter in front of her. ‘And this is the key to the flat upstairs.’ He held it up for her to see, but he didn’t place it on the counter with the other keys.

Connor reached over and plucked the key from Richard’s fingers. ‘What did my receptionist tell you about the upstairs flat?’

Her stomach started to churn. ‘That you’d given it a final coat of paint last week and that it was ready to move into.’

Connor and Richard exchanged glances.

‘Um…but then you’re a builder, not a painter, right?’

He’d painted the sign for the shop, so maybe…

She shook her head. ‘Painting the flat isn’t your department, is it?’

‘No, but I can organise that for you, if you want.’

‘You didn’t think to check with me?’ Richard asked.

The thought hadn’t occurred to her. Though, in hindsight… ‘She said she was contacting me on your behalf. I didn’t think to question that. When she asked me if there was anything else I needed done, I mentioned the sign.’ She’d wanted it bright and sparkling. She wanted her mother’s name loud and proud above the shop.

‘I’m sorry, Jaz,’ Connor started heavily, ‘but—’

‘But I’ve been given the wrong information,’ she finished for him. Again. From the expression on his face, though, she wouldn’t want to be his receptionist when he finally made it back to the office. Shame pierced her. She should’ve known better than to lump Connor with the meaner elements in the town.

She swallowed. ‘That’s okay, I can take care of the painting myself.’ She wanted to drop her head onto her folded arms and rest for a moment. ‘What kind of state is the flat in?’

‘We only started tearing out the kitchen cupboards and the rotting floorboards yesterday. It’s a mess.’

Once upon a time he’d have couched that more tactfully, but she appreciated his candour now. ‘Habitable?’

He grimaced.

‘Okay then…’ She thought hard for a moment. ‘All my stuff is arriving tomorrow.’

‘What stuff?’ Connor asked.

‘Everything. Necessary white goods, for a start— refrigerator, washing machine, microwave. Then there’s the furniture—dining table, bed, bookcase. Not to mention the—’

‘You brought a bookcase?’ Connor glanced around the shop. ‘When you have all these?’

For a brief moment his eyes sparkled. Her breathing went all silly. ‘I’ll need a bookcase in the flat too.’

‘Why?’

The teasing glint in his eyes chased her weariness away. ‘For the books that happen to be arriving tomorrow too.’

Connor and Richard groaned in unison. ‘Has your book addiction lessened as the years have gone by?’ Richard demanded.

They used to tease her about this eight years ago. It made her feel younger for a moment, freer. ‘Oh, no.’ She rubbed her hands together with relish. ‘If anything, it’s grown.’

The two men groaned again and she laughed. She’d actually laughed on her first day back in Clara Falls? Perhaps miracles could happen.

She glanced at Connor and pulled herself up. Not those kinds of miracles.