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

She stepped back. Stared. Then she shook herself. He meant her staffing problem.

Of course that was what he meant.

‘Get straight to work. That’s what I mean to do. I have oodles to get through today.’ She wanted to spend between now and nine o’clock trying to coax the secrets out of that ancient computer, particularly the ones that would point her in the direction of her suppliers.

After she’d walked Melly to Mrs Benedict’s front gate this afternoon, she’d return and see what else she could coax from it.

Just for a moment, gold sparked from the brown depths of Connor’s eyes. ‘Have you settled in at Gwen’s? Are you comfortable there?’

‘Very comfortable, thank you.’

Not true. Oh, her room and en-suite bathroom, the feather bed, were all remarkably comfortable. Gwen’s reception, though, hadn’t been all Jaz had hoped for.

She made herself smile, saluted Connor with her mug of coffee. ‘Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have work to do.’ Then she fled to the stockroom before those autumn-tinted eyes saw the lies in her own.

The computer did not divulge her suppliers’ identities. It didn’t divulge much of anything at all. Who on earth was she supposed to phone, fax or email to order in new books? She started clicking indiscriminately on word documents but none of them seemed to hold a clue. Before she had a chance to start rifling through the filing cabinet, it was time to open the shop.

Business wasn’t as brisk as it had been the previous day, but she still had a steady stream of customers—all tourists. As she’d had to do the previous day, whenever she went to the bathroom she hung a ‘Back in five minutes’ sign on the door.

She breathed a sigh when it was time to close the shop and walk Melly the five blocks to Mrs Benedict’s front gate.

‘Melly, why don’t you want to tell your dad that you’re unhappy at Mrs Benedict’s?’

Melly stopped skipping to survey Jaz soberly. ‘Because Daddy has lots of worries and Mrs Benedict is his last hope.’ She leaned in close to confide, ‘I know because I heard him say so to Grandma. There’s no one else who can look after me and I’m too little to stay at home alone.’

‘I think your happiness is more important than anything else in the world to your Daddy.’ She waited and watched while Melly digested that piece of information. ‘Besides,’ she added cheerfully, ‘there’s always me. You’re more than welcome to hang out at the bookshop.’

Melly didn’t smile. ‘Grandad’s picking me up today. I stay with him and Grandma on Tuesday nights.’

‘That’ll be nice.’

Melly didn’t say anything for a moment, then, ‘Grandma thinks little girls should wear dresses and skirts and not jeans. I don’t have any jeans that fit me any more. Yvonne Walker thinks skirts are prissy.’

‘Yvonne is in your class at school?’ Jaz hazarded.

‘She’s the prettiest girl in the whole school! And she has the best parties.’ Melly’s mouth turned down. ‘She didn’t invite me to her last party.’

Jaz’s heart throbbed in sympathy.

‘But if she could see my hair like this!’

Melly touched a hand to her hair. Jaz had pulled it up into a ponytail bun. It made Melly look sweet and winsome. ‘I’ll do it like that for you any time you like,’ she promised.

Melly’s eyes grew wide.

‘And you know what else? I think if you asked your daddy to take you shopping for jeans, he would.’

Jaz waited on the next corner, out of sight, until Melly’s grandfather had collected her, then walked back to the shop and installed herself in front of the computer.

She turned it on and stroked the top of the monitor, murmured ‘Pretty please,’ under her breath.

Above her a set of work boots sounded against bare floorboards, the scrape and squeal of some tool against wood. She glanced up at the ceiling. Why wasn’t Connor at home with Melly? Why was he here, working on her flat, when he could be at home with his daughter?

She glanced back at the computer screen and shot forward in her seat when she realised the text on the screen was starting to break up. ‘No, no,’ she pleaded, placing a hand on either side of the monitor, as if that could help steady it.

Bang! She jumped as a sound like a cap gun rent the air. Smoke belched out of the computer. The screen went black.

‘No!’

No staff and now no computer?

She shook the monitor, slapped a fist down hard on top.

Nothing.

She sagged in her chair. This couldn’t be happening. Not now. Not now.

Don’t panic.

She leapt to her feet and started to pace. I won’tlet you down, Mum.

The filing cabinet!

With a cry, she dropped to her knees and tried to open the top drawer. Locked. She fumbled in her pockets for the keys. Tried one—didn’t fit. Tried a second—wouldn’t turn. Tried a third…

The drawer shot open so fast it almost knocked her flat on her back. She rifled through the files avidly. She stopped. She rifled through them again…slowly…and her exultation died. Oh, there were files all right, lots of files. But they were all empty.

She yanked open the second drawer. More files, very neatly arranged, but they didn’t contain a damn thing, not even scrap paper. Jaz pulled out each and every one of them anyway, just to check, throwing them with growing ferocity to the floor.

Finally, there were no more to throw. She sat back and stared at the rack and ruin that surrounded her. Maybe Richard had taken the files for safekeeping?

She smoothed down her hair, pulled in a breath and tried to beat back her tiredness.

No, Richard wouldn’t have the files. He’d have given them back to her by now if he had.

Maybe her mother hadn’t kept any files?

That hardly seemed likely. Frieda Harper had kept meticulous records even for the weekend stall she’d kept at the markets when Jaz was a teenager.

Jaz rested her head on her arm. Which meant Dianne or Anita—or both of them together—had sabotaged the existing files.

‘What the bloody hell is going on in here?’

Jaz jumped so high she swore her head almost hit the ceiling. She swung around to find Connor’s lean, rangy bulk blocking the doorway to the kitchenette. Her heart rate didn’t slow. In fact, her pulse gave a funny little jump.

‘Don’t sneak up on a person like that!’ Hollering helped ease the pulse-jumping. ‘You nearly gave me a heart attack!’

‘Sorry.’ He shoved his hands in his pockets. ‘I thought I was making plenty of noise.’ His gaze narrowed as it travelled around the room, took in the untidy stack of files on the floor. ‘What are you doing?’