He just had to remember not to touch her.
‘Your plans?’ he prompted when she didn’t unstiffen.
‘Oh, yes.’ She relaxed. She waved to Melly on the slippery dip. She didn’t look at him; she stared out at the view—it was a spectacular view. He didn’t know if her nonchalance was feigned or not, but it helped ease the tenseness inside him a little—enough for him to catch his breath.
He made himself stare out at the view too. It was spectacular.
Not as spectacular—
Don’t go there.
‘I mean to open an art gallery.’
He stared at her. Every muscle in his body tensed up again. ‘An art gallery?’ An ache stretched through him. He ignored it. ‘But don’t you run a tattoo parlour?’
‘And a bookshop,’ she reminded him.
She smiled. Not at him but at something she saw in the middle distance. ‘Mac and I financed the tattoo parlour together, but Mac is the one in charge of its day-to-day running. I’m more of a…guest artist.’
The thought made him smile.
‘I’m pretty much a silent partner these days.’
‘Perhaps that’s what you need at the bookshop—a partner?’
She swung around. ‘I hadn’t thought of that.’ Then, ‘No.’ She gave a decisive shake of her head. ‘The bookshop is all I have left of my mother.’
‘And you don’t want to share?’
Her eyes became hooded. ‘It’s my responsibility, that’s all.’ She turned back to the view.
‘So the art gallery, that would be your real baby?’
She lifted one shoulder. ‘I guess.’
‘Where are planning to set it up?’
‘I’d only just started looking for premises when Mum—’
She broke off. His heart burned in sympathy.
‘I found wonderful premises at Bondi Beach.’
Despite the brightness of her voice, her pain slid in beneath his skin like a splinter of polished hardwood. He wanted to reach for her, only he knew she wouldn’t accept his comfort.
He clenched his hands. ‘Bondi?’ He tried to match her brightness.
‘Yes, but I’m afraid the rent went well beyond my budget.’
‘I bet.’ It suddenly occurred to him that the rents in the Blue Mountains weren’t anywhere near as exorbitant as those in the city.
‘An art gallery…’ He couldn’t finish the sentence. All the brightness had drained from his voice. He could see her running this hypothetical gallery, could almost taste her enthusiasm and drive. He could see her paintings hanging on the walls. He could—
‘Which brings me to another point.’ She turned. Her eyes burned in her face as she fixed him with a glare. ‘You!’
He stared back. Somewhere in the background he heard Melly’s laughter, registered that she was safe and happy at the moment. ‘Me?’ What had he done?
She dragged her duffel bag towards her. The bag she’d refused to leave in the car. The one she hadn’t allowed him to carry for her on their walk. She’d treated it as if it contained something precious. He’d thought it must hold her tattooing gear. He blinked when she slapped something down on his knees.
A sketch pad!
Bile rose up through him when she pushed a pencil into his hand. ‘Draw, Connor.’
Panic gripped him.
She opened the sketch pad. ‘Draw,’ she ordered again.
She reached over and shook his hand, the one that held the pencil, and he went cold all over.
‘No!’
He tried to rise, but she grabbed hold of his arm and wouldn’t let it go.
‘I don’t draw any more,’ he ground out, trying to beat back the darkness that threatened him.
‘Nonsense!’
‘For pity’s sake, Jaz, I—’
‘You’re scared.’
It was a taunt, a challenge. It made him grit his teeth together in frustration. His fingers around the pencil felt as fat and useless as sausages. ‘I gave it up,’ he ground out.
‘Then it’s time you took it back up again.’
Anger shot through him. ‘You want to see how bad I’ve become, is that what this is about?’ Did she want some kind of sick triumph over him?
Her eyes travelled across his face. Her chin lifted. ‘If that’s what it takes.’
Then her eyes became gentle and it was like a punch to the gut. ‘Please?’ she whispered.
All he could smell was the sweet scent of wattle.
He gripped the pencil so hard it should’ve snapped. If she wanted him to draw, then he’d draw. Maybe when she saw how ham-fisted he’d become she’d finally leave him in peace. ‘What do you want me to draw?’
‘That tree.’ She pointed.
Connor studied it for a moment—its scale, the dimensions. They settled automatically into his mind. That quick summing up, it was one of the things that made him such a good builder. But he didn’t deceive himself. He had no hope of being a halfway decent artist any more.
It didn’t mean he wanted Jaz forcing that evidence in front of him. She sat beside him, arms folded, and an air of expectation hung about her. He knew he could shake her off with ease and simply walk away, but such an action would betray the importance he placed on this simple act of drawing.
He dragged a hand down his face. Failure now meant the death of something good deep down inside him. If Jaz sensed how much it meant—and he had the distinct impression she knew exactly what it meant—he had no intention of revealing it by storming away from her. He’d face failure with grace.
Maybe, when this vain attempt was over, the restlessness that plagued him on bright, still days would disappear. His lips twisted. They said there was a silver lining in every cloud, didn’t they?
Just when he sensed Jaz’s impatience had become too much for her, he set pencil to paper.
And failed.
He couldn’t draw any more. The lines he made were too heavy, the sense of balance and perspective all wrong…no flow. He tried to tell himself he’d expected it, but darkness pressed against the backs of his eyes. Jaz peered across at what he’d done and he had to fight the urge to hunch over it and hide it from her sight.
She tore the page from the sketch pad, screwed it into a ball and set it on the ground beside her. Sourness filled his mouth. He’d tried to tell her.
‘Draw the playground.’
He gaped at her.
She shrugged. ‘Well…what are you waiting for?’ She waved to Melly again.
Was she being deliberately obtuse? He stared at the playground, with all its primary colours. The shriek of Melly’s laughter filled the air, and that ache pressed against him harder. In a former life he’d have painted that in such brilliant colours it would steal one’s breath.
But that was then.
He set pencil to paper again but his fingers refused to follow the dictates of his brain. He’d turned his back on art to become a carpenter. It only seemed right that his fingers had turned into blocks of wood. Nevertheless, he kept trying because he knew Jaz didn’t want to triumph over him. She wanted him to draw again—to know its joys, its freedoms once more…to bow to its demands and feel whole.
When she discovered he could no longer draw, she would mourn that loss as deeply as he did.
When he finally put the pencil down, she peeled the page from the sketch pad…and that drawing followed the same fate as its predecessor—screwed up and set down beside her.
‘Draw that rock with the clump of grass growing around it.’
He had to turn ninety degrees but it didn’t matter. A different position did not bring any latent talent to the fore.
She screwed that picture up too when he was finished with it. Frustration started to oust his sense of defeat. ‘Look, Jaz, I—’
‘Draw the skyway.’
It meant turning another ninety degrees. ‘What’s the point?’ he burst out. ‘I—’
She pushed him—physically. Anger balled in the pit of his stoma
ch.
‘Stop your whining,’ she snapped.
His hands clenched. ‘You push me again…’
‘And you’ll what?’ she taunted.
He flung the sketch pad aside. ‘I’ve had enough!’
‘Well, I haven’t!’ She retrieved the sketch pad and slapped it back on his knees. ‘Draw the skyway, Connor!’
Draw the skyway? He wished he were out on that darn skyway right now!
His fingers flew across the page. The sooner this was over, the better. He didn’t glance at the drawing when he’d finished. He just tossed the sketch pad at Jaz, not caring if she caught it or not.
She did catch it. And she stared at it for a long, long time. Bile rose from his stomach to burn his throat.
‘Better,’ she finally said. She didn’t tear it from the sketch pad. She didn’t screw it up into a ball.
‘Don’t humour me, Jaz.’ The words scraped out of his throat, raw with emotion, but he didn’t care. He could deal with defeat but he would not stand for her pity.
In answer, she gave him one of the balled rejects. ‘Look at it.’
He was too tired to argue. He smoothed it out and grimaced. It was the picture of the playground. It was dreadful, horrible…a travesty.
‘No,’ she said when he went to ball it up again. ‘Look at it.’
He looked at it.
‘Now look at this.’ She stood up and held his drawing of the skyway in front of her.
Everything inside him stilled. It was flawed, vitally flawed in a lot of respects, and yet…He’d captured something there—a sense of freedom and escape. Jaz was right. It was better.
Was it enough of an improvement to count, though?
He glanced up into her face. She pursed her lips and surveyed where he sat. ‘This is all wrong.’ She tapped a finger against her chin for a moment, then her face cleared. She seized her duffel bag. ‘Come with me.’
She led him to a nearby stand of trees. He followed her. His heart thudded in his chest, part of him wanted to turn tail and run, but he followed.
‘Sit there.’
She pointed to the base of a tree. Its position would still give him a good, clear view of Melly playing. Melly waved. He waved back.
He settled himself against the tree.
‘Good.’ She handed him the sketch pad and pencil again. She pulled a second sketch pad and more pencils from her bag and settled herself on the ground to his left, legs crossed. She looked so familiar, hunched over like that, Connor thought he’d been transported back eight years in time.
She glanced across at him. ‘Bend your knees like you used to do…as if you’re sitting against that old tree at our lookout.’
Our lookout. Richardson’s Peak—out of the way and rarely visited. They’d always called it their lookout. He tried to hold back the memories.
Jaz touched a hand to the ground. ‘See, I’m sitting on the nearby rock.’
It wasn’t rock. It was grass, but Connor gave in, adjusted his back and legs, and let the memories flood through him. ‘What do you want me to draw?’
‘The view.’
Panoramas had always been his speciality, but he wasn’t quite sure where to start now.
He wasn’t convinced that this wasn’t a waste of time.
‘Close your eyes.’
She whispered the command. She closed her eyes so he closed his eyes too. It might shut out the ache that gripped him whenever he looked at her.
It didn’t, but her voice washed over him, soft and low, soothing him. ‘Remember what it was like at the lookout?’ she murmured. ‘The grand vista spread out in front of us and the calls of the birds…the scent of eucalyptus in the air…’
All Connor could smell was wattle, and he loved it, dragged it into his lungs greedily.
‘Remember how the sun glinted off the leaves, how it warmed us in our sheltered little spot, even when the wind played havoc with everything else around us?’
His skin grew warm, his fingers relaxed around the pencil.
‘Now draw,’ she whispered.
He opened his eyes and drew.
On the few occasions he glanced across at her, he found her hunched over her sketch pad, her fingers moving with the same slow deliberation he remembered from his dreams.
Time passed. Connor had no idea how long they drew but, when he finally set aside his pencil, he glanced up to find the shadows had lengthened and Jaz waiting for him. He searched the picnic ground for Melly.
‘Just over there.’ Jaz nodded and he found Melly sitting on the grass with her new friends.
‘Finished?’ she asked.
He nodded.
‘May I see?’
She asked in the same shy way she’d have asked eight years ago. He smiled. He felt tired and alive and…free. ‘If you want.’
She was by his side in a second. She turned back to the first page in the sketch pad. He’d lost count of how many pictures he’d drawn. His fingers had flown as if they’d had to make up for the past eight years of shackled inactivity.
Jaz sighed and chuckled and teased him, just like she used to do. She pointed to one of the drawings and laughed. ‘Is that supposed to be a bird?’
‘I was trying to give the impression of time flying.’
‘It needs work,’ she said with a grin.
He returned her grin. ‘So do my slippery dips.’
‘Yep, they do.’
The laughter in her voice lifted him.
‘But look at how you’ve captured the way the light shines through the trees here. It’s beautiful.’
She turned her face to meet his gaze fully and light trembled in her eyes. ‘You can draw again, Connor.’
Her exultation reached out and wrapped around him. He could draw again.
He couldn’t help himself. He cupped one hand around the back of her head, threaded his fingers through her hair and drew her lips down to his and kissed her—warm, firm…brief. Then he released her because he knew he couldn’t take too much of that. ‘Thank you. If you hadn’t badgered me…’He gestured to the sketch pad.
She drew back, her eyes wide and dazed. ‘You’re welcome, but—’ she moistened her lips ‘—I didn’t do much.’
Didn’t do much.
‘You had it in you all the time. You just had to let it out, that’s all.’ She reached up, touched her fingers to her lips. She pulled them away again when she realised he watched her. Her breathing had quickened, grown shallow. She lifted her chin and glared at him. ‘If you ever turn your back on your gift again, it will desert you. For ever!’
He knew she was right.
He knew he wanted to kiss her again.
As if she’d read that thought in his face, Jaz drew back. ‘It’s getting late. We’d better start thinking about making tracks.’
She didn’t want him to kiss her.
He remembered all the reasons why he shouldn’t kiss her.
‘You’re right.’
He tried to tell himself it was for the best.
Jaz found Connor sitting on the sales counter munching what looked like a Danish pastry when she let herself into the bookshop at eight o’clock on Monday morning.
‘Hey, Jaz.’
She blinked. ‘Hello.’
What was he doing here? Shouldn’t he be upstairs working on her flat? The absence of hammering and sawing suddenly registered. Her heart gave a funny little leap. ‘Is my flat ready?’
‘We’re completing the final touches today and tomorrow, and then it’ll be ready for the painters and carpet layers.’
She’d already decided to paint it herself. It’d give her something to do. Funnily enough, though, considering how she’d expected her time in Clara Falls to drag, this last week had flown.
She’d have the carpet laid in double-quick time. She wasn’t spending winter in the mountains on bare floorboards. Once her furniture was delivered from Connor’s, she could paint and decorate the flat in her own good time.
She edge
d around behind the counter to place her handbag in one of the drawers and tried to keep Connor’s scent from addling her brain. Handbag taken care of, she edged back out again—his scent too evocative, too tempting. It reminded her of that kiss. That brief thank you of a kiss that had seared her senses.
Forget about the kiss.
‘Did you want me for something?’
His eyes darkened at her words and her mouth went dry. He slid off the counter and moved towards her—a hunter stalking its prey. He wore such a look of naked intensity that…Good Lord! He didn’t mean to kiss her again, did he? She wanted to turn and flee but her legs wouldn’t work. He reached out…took her hand…and…
And plonked a paper bag into it.
‘I thought you might like one.’
Like one…? She glanced into the bag. A pastry—he’d given her a pastry. In fact, he’d handed her a whole bag full of them. ‘There’s at least a dozen pastries in here.’
‘Couldn’t remember what filling you preferred.’
She almost called him a liar. Then remembered her manners. And her common sense. Who knew how much he’d forgotten in eight years?
But once upon a time he’d teased her about her apple pie tastes.
She wished she could forget.
Her hand inched into the bag for an apple Danish. She pulled it back at the last moment. ‘I don’t want a pastry!’
She wanted Connor and his disturbing presence and soul-aching scent out of her shop. She tossed the bag of Danishes onto the counter with an insouciance that would’ve made Mr Sears blanch. ‘Why are you here, Connor? What do you want?’
‘I want to thank you.’
‘For?’
‘For your advice to me about Melly. For making me draw again.’
He’d already thanked her for that—with a kiss!
She didn’t want that kind of thanks, thank you very much. Her heart thud-thudded at the thought of a repeat performance, calling her a liar.
‘I think I’ve made a start on winning back Mel’s trust.’
‘If Saturday’s evidence is anything to go by, I think you’re right.’ And she was glad for him.
Glad for Melly, she amended.
Okay—she shifted her weight from one foot to the other, slid her hands into the pockets of her trousers—she was glad for both of them, but she was gladder for Melly.
Bachelor Dad on Her Doorstep Page 11
