Gwen’s jaw dropped. ‘Are you serious? But you’re not some power-hungry nob.’
‘No, he’s not.’ Satisfaction threaded through Jaz’s voice. ‘Which should make him the perfect candidate, don’t you think?’
He stood a little straighter at her praise, pushed his shoulders back.
‘It at least makes him better than Gordon Sears, but enough of that.’ Gwen dismissed the subject with a wave of her hand. ‘Make Jaz’s day and tell her the move is complete.’
‘It’s all done.’ His men had moved Jaz’s things out of his garage and into her flat today. He hadn’t helped move those things. Whenever he’d driven into the garage, walked through the garage, walked past the garage, and saw her things there, he’d had an insane urge to go through them to try and discover a clue as to how she’d spent the last eight years. He hadn’t. He wouldn’t. But he’d put himself out of temptation’s way today and had taken Mel for a hot chocolate and another skyway ride instead. ‘You can move in and start unpacking as early as tomorrow if you want.’
When he’d driven the van into the garage this afternoon and found all her things gone, it had left a hole inside him as big as the Jamison Valley. Why?
Because you’re an idiot, that’s why. Because you still want her.
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. Th
ey 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. ‘Non-alcoholic,’ 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-forever-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.’
‘What is?’
‘Beer and pizza nights.’ She sighed in longing. A beer and pizza night with a bunch of her friends would go down a treat at the moment.
Connor grinned and this time the gold flecks in his eyes came out to play. ‘Well, there’s not a soul in this room who’d sense you’d rather be anywhere else this evening. You’ve charmed everyone you’ve met.’
She smiled at that. ‘Wonders will never cease, huh? The rebel Goth girl developing a few social graces after all.’
‘It’s quite a change, Jaz, even you have to admit that. Where did you go when you decided not to come back to Clara Falls? What did you do? How did you manage the…transformation?’
Jaz realised she’d been waiting for him to ask that question all night. ‘After I left my aunt’s I went to the airport, directly to the airport, I didn’t pass go and I didn’t collect two hundred dollars.’
He stared at her. Jaz shrugged. ‘I went to America.’
He leant forward. ‘Why America?’
She’d wanted to run as far away as possible. She’d wanted to start over in a place that didn’t know her. And she’d needed to make a grand gesture. ‘Would you believe me if I said—because I was young and stupid?’
He smiled. ‘Young, yes, but never stupid.’
He was wrong about that. ‘I strode into the airport and decided I was going to Europe or America. The travel agent must’ve thought me mad…or a criminal. I just asked for the first flight out. And that’s how I ended up in LA with next to no money, no job and nowhere to stay. Believe me, that makes a girl start thinking on her feet pretty fast.’
‘What did you do?’
‘Rented a dingy hotel room for a week, bought a sketch pad and charcoals and spent the week drawing portraits of tourists on the beach and charging them five dollars a pop. That’s where Carroll Carson found me. He’s the big-name tattoo artist on the west coast.’ She shrugged. ‘He took me under his wing, offered me an apprenticeship. I was lucky.’
She glanced across at him and something inside her shifted. Perhaps Mrs Lavender had been right and Jaz had done the right thing leaving Clara Falls all those years ago. If she hadn’t left, she’d have spent her life living in Connor’s shadow, grateful to him for loving a misfit like her.
She wasn’t a misfit. She’d earned her place in the world. She didn’t need any man to make that right.
‘Faye was a one-night stand.’
The admission shot out of Connor like bullets from a gun, and with as much impact. All Jaz could do was stare. She wanted to tell him it wasn’t any of her business.
‘A one-night stand?’ Her voice came out hoarse and raspy.
He scratched a hand back through his hair. ‘Faye was the one who told me about you and Sam Hancock.’
Her jaw dropped. Surely Faye hadn’t thought—
‘You’d left. We both missed you like the blazes. We drank too much and…’
He trailed off with a shrug. She was glad he didn’t go into details.
‘The next day I told her that it had been a mistake. That it couldn’t happen again.’
Jaz stared at him, shook her head, tried to comprehend what he was telling her. ‘How did she take that?’
‘Not well.’
Had Faye been in love with Connor all along? The thought made her feel suddenly ill. ‘Why are you telling me this?’ She found herself on her feet, shaking with…she wasn’t sure what—more regrets? She didn’t have room for any more of those.
Connor stood too. ‘I just wanted you to know the truth, that’s all.’
The gold sparks in Connor’s eyes, their concern, reached out and wrapped her in their warmth. The same way his arms had wrapped around her when they’d danced. It had near sent her pulse sky-rocketing off the charts.
She pulled back. There was no future for her and Connor. There was no point wondering what it would be like to rest her head against his shoulder or to nuzzle her face against his neck, to slip her hand beneath his shirt and trace the contours of muscle and sinew honed by hard physical labour.
There might not be any point to it, but she couldn’t seem to stop imagining it.
‘Hey, guys, having fun?’
Gwen, cheeks flushed from dancing, bore down on them.
‘Absolutely,’ Jaz managed.
‘You bet,’ Connor said. ‘You look as if you’re slaying them in the aisles.’
Jaz ground her teeth together.
‘Are you drinking that?’ Gwen pointed to the glass of punch.
Jaz handed it to her. ‘Help yourself.’
‘Thanks.’ She drained it dry. ‘Ooh, look, there’s Tim Wilder. I’ll catch you both later.’
‘You bet. Go knock him dead.’
That was Connor again.
‘Are you okay?’ he asked when he turned back to Jaz.
She slammed her hands to her hips. Connor backed up a step. ‘You have that itching for a fight look plastered all over your face. What have I done this time?’
‘It’s what you haven’t done. Or, more precisely, what you haven’t said. Is there something wrong with my appearance?’ she demanded.
He shoved his hands in his pockets. ‘No.’ He shifted his feet. �
��Why?’
‘Because you’ve told every woman you’ve met this evening how lovely or stunning or wonderful she looks. Every woman, that is, except me!’
A grin spread across his face, slow and sure. His shoulders lost their tightness. He moved in closer, crowding her with his heat, his scent…their history. He angled his body towards hers in a blatant invitation she wanted to accept.
‘Does my opinion matter so much to you, Jaz?’
‘No, of course not,’ she snapped, angry with herself. ‘Put it down to a moment of feminine insecurity.’
She tried to move past him but his arm snaked out and caught her around the waist, drew her back against his heat and his hardness. With agonising slowness and thoroughness, he splayed his hand across her stomach. Low down across her stomach. She bit back a whimper. If he moved that hand, if he moved so much as his little finger, she’d melt in his arms where she stood.
‘You don’t have any reason whatsoever for insecurity, Jazmin.’
His breath touched her ear. She closed her eyes. He’d only ever called her Jazmin when they’d made love. And in the eight long years since she’d left here, she’d never had another lover. Not one. Trembling shivers that started at her knees and moved upwards shook her body, betraying her need.
‘But if I start telling you how sexy you look in that dress, how wearing your hair like that highlights your eyes and how the gloss on your lips makes my mouth water…then that might lead to me telling you how I want to tear that dress from your body and make love to you all night long—fast and frantic the first time, slow and sensual the second time, watching every nuance in your face the third time.’
She couldn’t find her voice. Her breath came in short shallow gulps.
‘But, given the circumstances, that might not be wise.’
No, not wise at all.
He pulled her more firmly against him until she couldn’t mistake the hardness pressing against the small of her back. ‘I burn for you as much as I ever did, Jazmin.’
His teeth grazed her ear. She moaned.
‘I can feel that same need burning in you. I can feel your body trembling for me. I want to take you home and make love to you. Now. Just say the word,’ he murmured against her ear, ‘and we’re out of here. Say it!’ he ordered.
Bachelor Dad on Her Doorstep Page 13