sparks in his eyes flashed and burned. As if he couldn’t help it, his gaze lowered and travelled down the length of her body with excruciating slowness. When his gaze returned to hers, his eyes had darkened to a smoky, molten lava that she remembered too well.
Her pulse gave a funny little leap. Blood pounded in her ears. She had to grip her hands together. After all these years and everything that had passed between them, how could there be anything but bitterness?
Her heart burned acid. No way! She had no intention of travelling down that particular path to hell ever again.
Eight years ago she’d believed in him—in them—completely, but Connor had accused her of cheating on him. His lack of faith in her had broken her heart…destroyed her.
She hadn’t broken his heart, though, because nine months after Jaz had fled town he’d had a child with Faye. A daughter. A little girl.
She 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
