Emily had said, and promptly went off, frowning.
Jessie had found her in a corner of the back yard, having a serious conversation with her life-sized baby doll—the one Dora had given her for her fourth birthday in August. Emily had fallen ominously silent when her mother approached. Jessie had been very relieved when her daughter had finally looked up, smiled brightly and asked her if they could go and see Santa at K-Mart that afternoon, because she had to tell him what she wanted for Christmas before it was too late.
Clearly, Emily was too young at four to be devastated by the discovery that the father she had never known was in heaven.
But Emily’s reminder that Christmas was coming up fast—along with the fact that Jessie already knew the main present Emily wanted for Christmas—was what had brought Jessie to make the decision to do one more wretched job for Jack Keegan. The PI had said to give him a call if she ever needed some extra cash. Which she surely did, because a Felicity Fairy doll was the most expensive doll to hit the toy market in ages. Jessie would need all of the four-hundred-dollar fee she would earn tonight to buy the darned doll, along with all its accompaniments. There was a fairy palace, a magic horse and a sparkling wardrobe full of clothes.
Speaking of clothes…
Jessie stood up and smoothed down the short skirt of the black crêpe halter-necked dress she’d dragged out of her depleted wardrobe for tonight’s job. It was the classiest, sexiest dress she owned, but it was six years old and Jessie feared it was beginning to look it.
‘Are you sure this dress is OK?’ she asked Dora in a fretful tone. ‘It’s getting awfully old.’
‘It’s fine,’ Dora reassured. ‘And not out of fashion at all. That style is timeless. You look gorgeous, Jessie. Very sexy. Like a model.’
‘Who, me? Don’t be ridiculous, Dora. I know I’ve got a good figure, but the rest of me is pretty ordinary. Without my make-up on, no man would give me a second glance. And my hair is an uncontrollable disaster if I don’t drag it back or put it up.’
‘You underestimate your attractiveness, Jessie.’
In every way, Dora thought to herself.
Jessie’s figure wasn’t just good, it was spectacular, the kind of body you often saw in underwear advertisements these days. Full breasts. Tiny waist. Slender hips and long legs. They looked even longer in the high, strappy shoes Jessie was wearing tonight.
It was true that her face wasn’t traditionally pretty. Her mouth was too wide, her jaw too square and her nose slightly too long. But anchored on either side of that nose were widely set, exotically shaped dark brown eyes which flashed and smouldered with sensual promise, the kind of eyes that drew men like magnets.
As for her hair…Dora would have killed for hair like Jessie’s when she’d been younger.
Blue-black, thick and naturally curly, when left down it cascaded around her face and shoulders in glorious disarray. Up, it defied restraint, with bits and pieces escaping, making her look even sexier, if that was possible.
Dora hadn’t been surprised when that private detective had snapped Jessie up to do decoy work for him. She was the perfect weapon to entrap cheating husbands. And possibly non-cheating ones as well.
‘Is this the guy?’ Dora asked, picking up the photo that was resting in the middle of the table.
‘Yep. That’s him.’
‘He’s handsome.’
Jessie had thought so too. Far better looking than the other creeps she’d had to flirt with. And younger. In his thirties instead of forties or fifties. But she had no doubts about the type of man he was.
‘Handsome is as handsome does, Dora. He’s married with two little kids, yet he spends every Friday night at a bar in town, drinking till all hours of the night.’
‘But lots of men drink on a Friday night.’
‘I doubt he’s just drinking. The particular city bar he frequents is a well-known pick-up joint,’ Jessie pointed out drily.
‘You could say that about any bar.’
‘Look, the wife says this behaviour is out of character with her husband. She says he’s changed towards her. She’s convinced he’s being unfaithful to her and wants to know the truth.’
‘Doesn’t sound like compelling evidence of adultery to me. She might wish she hadn’t started this.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You know, Jessie, I’ve never thought it was very fair on the men in question, sending a girl like you to flirt with them. This man might not have been unfaithful at all. Maybe he’s just working very hard and having an extra drink or two at the end of the week to relax. Then you come along tonight and give him the eye, and he might do something he wouldn’t normally do, something he might regret.’
Jessie had to laugh. Dora made her sound like some kind of siren. Irresistible she was not! Just ask all the male bosses who hadn’t given her a job this past year.
No, poor Dora didn’t know what she was talking about, especially regarding tonight’s target. Still, Dora was sixty-six years old. In her day, maybe more men had more honour.
‘Trust me, Dora. By the time wives go to see Jack Keegan and spend the kind of money he asks for, then there really isn’t any doubt over their husbands’ philandering. All they’re looking for is proof to show the lawyers. Our Mr Curtis Marshall here,’ she said, taking his photo out of Dora’s hand and looking down into his baby-blue eyes, ‘is not some poor, hard-working, misunderstood hubby. He’s been playing out of his patch and he’s about to get caught! Now I really must get going,’ she said as she slid the photo in a zippered side-section of her bag. ‘I’ll just go check on Emily before I leave.’
Jessie tiptoed into the bedroom, where a sound-asleep Emily had kicked off her bedclothes. The evening was quite warm, so Jessie switched the overhead ceiling fan on to the slow setting, then pulled the top sheet up around Emily and tucked her in. Emily had not long given up her cot for a single bed and looked such a dot in the larger bed.
Pressing a kiss to her temple, Jessie straightened before just standing there and staring down at her daughter.
Her heart filled with love as it always did when she looked down upon her child.
That was what had surprised Jessie the most when she’d become a mother. The instant and totally unconditional love which had consumed her from the moment she’d held her baby in her arms.
Had her own mother felt like that when she’d had her?
Jessie didn’t think so. She suspected that any love her mother had had for her had been overshadowed by shame.
Jessie pushed this distressing thought aside and bent to stroke Emily’s dark curls back from her forehead before planting another gentle kiss on her daughter’s cheek.
‘Sleep tight, sweetie,’ she whispered. ‘Mummy won’t be long.
‘Thank you so much for staying here and minding her, Dora,’ Jessie said on returning to the combined
