Bachelor Dad on Her Doorstep. Michelle Douglas

folded her arms. Belatedly, she realised, it made even more of her…assets. She couldn’t unfold them again without revealing to him that his continued assessment bothered her. She kept said arms stoically folded, but her heart twisted and turned and ached.

      ‘I don’t need you to fight my battles for me, Connor.’ She needed him to stay away.

      ‘I—’ he stressed the word ‘—always do what I consider is right. You needn’t think your coming back to town is going to change that.’

      ‘Do what’s right?’ She snorted. ‘Like jumping to conclusions? Do you still do that, Connor?’

      The words shot out of her—a challenge—and she couldn’t believe she’d uttered them. The air suddenly grew so thick with their history she wondered how on earth either one of them could breathe through it.

      She’d always known things between them could never be normal. Not after the intensity of what they’d shared. It was why she’d stayed away. It was why she needed him to stay away from her now.

      ‘Do what’s right?’ She snorted a second time. She’d keep up this front if it killed her. ‘Like that sign?’ She pointed to the shop awning. ‘What is that…your idea of a sick joke?’

      That frown returned to his eyes again. ‘Look, Jaz, I—’

      Richard chose that moment to come bustling up between them, his breathing loud and laboured. ‘Sorry, Jaz. I saw you cruising up the street, but I couldn’t get away immediately. I had a client with me.’

      Connor clapped him on the back. ‘You need to exercise more, my man, if a sprint up the street makes you breathe this hard.’

      Richard grinned. ‘It is uphill.’

      His grin faded. He hitched his head in the direction of the bookshop. ‘Sorry, Jaz. It’s a bit of a farce, isn’t it?’

      ‘It’s not what I was expecting,’ she allowed.

      Connor and Richard said nothing. She cleared her throat. ‘Where are my staff?’

      Richard glanced at Connor as if for help. Connor shoved his hands in his pockets and glowered at the pavement.

      ‘Richard?’

      ‘That’s just the thing, you see, Jaz. The last of your staff resigned yesterday.’

      Resigned? Her staff? So… ‘I have no staff?’ She stared at Richard. For some reason she turned to stare at Connor too.

      Both men nodded.

      ‘But…’ She would not lie down on the ground and admit defeat. She wouldn’t. ‘Why?’

      ‘How about we go inside?’ Connor suggested with a glance over his shoulder.

      That was when Jaz became aware of the faces pressed against the inside of the plate glass of Mr Sears’s ‘baked-fresh-daily’ country bakery, watching her avidly. In an act of pure bravado, she lifted her hand and sent the shop across the road a cheery wave. Then she turned and stalked through the door Richard had just unlocked.

      Connor caught the door before it closed but he didn’t step inside. ‘I’ll get back to work.’

      On that sign? ‘No, you won’t,’ she snapped out tartly. ‘I want to talk to you.’

      Richard stared at her as if…as if…

      She reached up to smooth her hair. ‘What?’

      ‘Gee, Jaz. You used to dress mean but you always talked sweet.’

      ‘Yeah, well…’ She shrugged. ‘I found out that I achieved a whole lot more if I did things the other way around.’

      Nobody said anything for a moment. Richard rubbed the back of his neck. Connor stared morosely at some point in the middle distance.

      ‘Okay, tell me what happened to my staff.’

      ‘You could probably tell from the sales figures I sent you that the bookshop isn’t doing particularly well.’

      He could say that again.

      ‘So, over the last few months, your mother let most of the staff go.’

      ‘Most,’ she pointed out, ‘not all.’

      ‘There was only Anita and Dianne left. Mr Sears poached Anita for the bakery…’

      ‘Which left Dianne.’ She swung back to Connor. ‘Not the same Dianne who…?’

      ‘The one and the same.’

      Oh, that was just great. ‘She made her feelings… clear,’ she said to Richard.

      Richard gave his watch an agonised glance.

      ‘You don’t have time for this at the moment, do you?’ she said.

      ‘I’m sorry, but I have appointments booked for the next couple of hours and—’

      ‘Then go before you’re late.’ She shooed him to the door. ‘I’ll be fine.’ She would be.

      ‘I’ll be back later,’ he promised.

      Then he left. Which left her and Connor alone in the dim space of the bookshop.

      ‘So…’ Connor said, breaking the silence that had wrapped around them. His voice wasn’t so much a cooling autumn breeze as a winter chill. ‘You’re still not interested in selling the bookshop to Mr Sears?’

      Sell? Not in this lifetime.

      ‘I’m not selling the bookshop. At least not yet.’

      Connor rested his hands on his hips and continued to survey her. She couldn’t read his face or his body language, but she wished he didn’t look so darn…male!

      ‘So you’re staying here in Clara Falls, then?’

      ‘No.’ She poured as much incredulity and disdain into her voice as she could. ‘Not long-term. I have a life in the city. This is just a…’

      ‘Just a…’ he prompted when she faltered.

      ‘A momentary glitch,’ she snapped. ‘I’ll get the bookshop back on its feet and running at a profit— which I figure will take twelve months tops—and then I mean to return to my real life.’

      ‘I see.’

      Perhaps he did. But she doubted it.

      CHAPTER TWO

      CONNOR met the steeliness in Jaz’s eyes and wished he could just turn around and walk away. His overriding instinct was to reach out and offer her comfort. Despite that veneer of toughness she’d cultivated, he knew this return couldn’t be easy for her.

      Her mother had committed suicide only four weeks ago!

      That had to be eating her up alive.

      She didn’t look as if she’d welcome his comfort. She kept eyeing him as if he were something slimy and wet that had just oozed from the drain.

      The muscles in his neck, his jaw, bunched. What was her problem? She’d been the one to lay waste to all his plans, all his dreams, eight years ago. Not the other way around. She could at least have the grace to…

      To what? an inner voice mocked. Spare you a smile? Get over yourself, Reed. You don’t want her smiles.

      But, as he gazed down into her face, noted the fragile luminosity of her skin, the long dark lashes framing her eyes and the sweet peach lipstick staining her lips, something primitive fired his blood. He wanted to haul her into his arms, slant his mouth over hers and taste her, brand himself on her senses.

      Every cell in his body tightened and burned at the thought. The intensity of it took him off guard. Had his heart thudding