back to save your mother’s shop? Or to damn it?
She wanted to save it. She had to save it.
She shot out her hand. ‘I’ll take you up on that dare.’
He clasped her hand in warm work-roughened fingers. Then he bent down and kissed her cheek, drenched her in his scent and his heat. ‘Good,’ he said softly. ‘I’ll pick you up at seven next Saturday evening.’
‘Well—’ she reclaimed her hand, smoothed down the front of her trousers ‘—I guess that’s settled, then. Oh! Except I’m going to need more of my things.’ Something formal to wear for a start and her strappy heels.
‘Why don’t I run you around to my place after work this afternoon and you can pick out what you need?’
‘Are you sure?’ She wasn’t a hundred per cent certain what she meant by that only…she remembered the way he hadn’t wanted her at his home last week. She added a quick, ‘You’re not busy?’
‘No. And I’ve arranged for Carmen to mind Mel for a couple of hours this afternoon.’
Had he been so certain she’d say yes?
You did say yes.
She moistened her lips again. ‘Thank you, I’d appreciate that.’
She didn’t bother trying to stifle the curiosity that balled inside her. She just hoped it didn’t show. It didn’t make any sense, but she was dying to know where Connor lived now. Not that it had anything to do with her, of course.
Of course it didn’t.
‘I’ll pick you up about five-fifteen this afternoon.’
Then he was gone.
Jaz reached up and touched her cheek. The imprint of his lips still burned there. A business arrangement, she told herself. That was all this was— a business arrangement.
Jaz slipped into the car the moment Connor pulled it to a halt outside the bookshop. At precisely five-fifteen.
‘Hi.’
‘Hi.’
That was the sum total of their conversation.
Until he swung the car into the drive of Rose Cottage approximately three minutes later and turned off the ignition. ‘Here we are,’ he finally said.
She gaped at him. She turned back to stare at the house. ‘You bought Rose Cottage?’
Most old towns had a Rose Cottage, and as a teenager Jaz had coveted this one. Single-storey sandstone, wide verandas, established gardens, roses lining the drive, picket fence—it had been her ideal of the perfect family home.
It still was.
And now it belonged to Connor? A low whistle left her. Business must be booming if he could afford this. ‘You bought Rose Cottage,’ she repeated. He’d known how she’d felt about it.
‘That’s right.’ His face had shuttered, closed.
Had he bought it because of her or in spite of her?
‘Your things are in there.’
She dragged her gaze from the house to follow the line of his finger to an enormous garage.
He wasn’t going to invite her inside the house?
She glanced into his face and her anticipation faded. He had no intention of inviting her inside, of giving her the grand tour. She swallowed back a lump of disappointment…and a bigger lump of hurt. The disappointment she could explain. She did what she could to ignore the hurt.
‘Shall we go find what you need?’
‘Yes, thank you, that would be lovely.’
She followed him into the garage, blinked when he flicked a switch and flooded the cavernous space with stark white light. Her things stood on the left and hardly took up any space at all. ‘All I need is—’
She stopped short. Then veered off in the opposite direction.
‘Jaz, your stuff is over here!’
She heard him, but she couldn’t heed his unspoken command. She couldn’t stop.
Her feet did slow, though, as she moved along the aisle of handmade wood-turned furniture that stood there—writing desks, coffee tables, chests. She marvelled at their craftsmanship, at the attention paid to detail, at the absolute perfection of each piece.
‘You made these?’
‘Yes.’
The word left him, clipped and short.
He didn’t need to explain. Jaz understood immediately. This was what he’d thrown himself into when he’d given up his drawing and painting.
‘Connor, you didn’t give up your art. You just… redirected it.’
He didn’t say anything.
‘These pieces are amazing, beautiful.’ She knelt down in front of a wine rack, reached out and trailed her fingers across the wood. ‘You’ve been selling some of these pieces to boutiques in Sydney, haven’t you?’
‘Yes.’
‘I came across a piece similar to this a couple of years back.’ She forced herself upright. If she’d known then that Connor had made it she’d have moved heaven and earth to buy it.
‘I went into that shop in my lunch hour every day for a week just to look at it.’
His face lost some of its hardness. ‘Did you buy it?’
‘No.’ It had been beyond her budget. ‘I couldn’t justify the expense at the time.’
She sensed his disappointment, though she couldn’t say how—the set of his shoulders or his lips, perhaps?
‘Mind you,’ she started conversationally, ‘it did take a whole week of lecturing myself to be sensible…and if it had been that gorgeous bookcase—’ she motioned across to the next piece ‘—I’d have been lost…and horrendously in debt. Which is why I’m going to back away from it now, nice and slow.’
Finally he smiled back at her.
‘My things!’ She suddenly remembered why they were here. ‘I’ll just grab them and get out of your hair.’
He didn’t urge her to take her time. He didn’t offer to show her any of the other marvels lined up in the garage. She told herself she was a fool for hoping that he would.
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