She turned it on and stroked the top of the monitor, murmured ‘Pretty please,’ under her breath.
Above her a set of work boots sounded against bare floorboards, the scrape and squeal of some tool against wood. She glanced up at the ceiling. Why wasn’t Connor at home with Melly? Why was he here, working on her flat, when he could be at home with his daughter?
She glanced back at the computer screen and shot forward in her seat when she realised the text on the screen was starting to break up. ‘No, no,’ she pleaded, placing a hand on either side of the monitor, as if that could help steady it.
Bang! She jumped as a sound like a cap gun rent the air. Smoke belched out of the computer. The screen went black.
‘No!’
No staff and now no computer?
She shook the monitor, slapped a fist down hard on top.
Nothing.
She sagged in her chair. This couldn’t be happening. Not now. Not now.
Don’t panic.
She leapt to her feet and started to pace. I won’t let you down, Mum.
The filing cabinet!
With a cry, she dropped to her knees and tried to open the top drawer. Locked. She fumbled in her pockets for the keys. Tried one—didn’t fit. Tried a second—wouldn’t turn. Tried a third…
The drawer shot open so fast it almost knocked her flat on her back. She rifled through the files avidly. She stopped. She rifled through them again…slowly…and her exultation died. Oh, there were files all right, lots of files. But they were all empty.
She yanked open the second drawer. More files, very neatly arranged, but they didn’t contain a damn thing, not even scrap paper. Jaz pulled out each and every one of them anyway, just to check, throwing them with growing ferocity to the floor.
Finally, there were no more to throw. She sat back and stared at the rack and ruin that surrounded her. Maybe Richard had taken the files for safekeeping?
She smoothed down her hair, pulled in a breath and tried to beat back her tiredness.
No, Richard wouldn’t have the files. He’d have given them back to her by now if he had.
Maybe her mother hadn’t kept any files?
That hardly seemed likely. Frieda Harper had kept meticulous records even for the weekend stall she’d kept at the markets when Jaz was a teenager.
Jaz rested her head on her arm. Which meant Dianne or Anita—or both of them together—had sabotaged the existing files.
‘What the bloody hell is going on in here?’
Jaz jumped so high she swore her head almost hit the ceiling. She swung around to find Connor’s lean, rangy bulk blocking the doorway to the kitchenette. Her heart rate didn’t slow. In fact, her pulse gave a funny little jump.
‘Don’t sneak up on a person like that!’ Hollering helped ease the pulse-jumping. ‘You nearly gave me a heart attack!’
‘Sorry.’ He shoved his hands in his pockets. ‘I thought I was making plenty of noise.’ His gaze narrowed as it travelled around the room, took in the untidy stack of files on the floor. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Having a clean out.’ She thrust her chin up, practically daring him to contradict her.
For a moment she thought the lines around his mouth softened, but then she realised the light was dim in here and she was tired. She was probably only seeing what she wanted to see.
His nose wrinkled. ‘What’s that smell?’
‘I was burning some incense in here earlier,’ she lied.
He stared at her. She resisted the urge to moisten her lips. ‘I have a question about a wall,’ she said abruptly, gesturing for him to follow her through to the bookshop and away from eau de burning computer.
She was lying through her teeth.
Man, he had to give her ten out of ten for grit.
Keeping one eye on her retreating back, Connor bent to retrieve a file. Empty. Like its counterparts, he guessed, air whistling between his teeth as he flung the file back on the top of the pile.
He glanced at the computer. He knew the smell of a burning motherboard. He’d told Frieda months ago she needed to upgrade that computer. He dragged a hand through his hair, then followed Jaz out into the bookshop.
‘This wall here…’ She pointed to the wall that divided the kitchenette from the bookshop.
He had to admire her pluck. But that was all he’d admire. He refused to notice the way her hair gleamed rich and dark in the overhead light—the exact same colour as the icing on Gordon Sears’s chocolate éclairs. He refused to notice how thick and full it was either or how the style she’d gathered it up into left the back of her neck vulnerable and exposed.
He realised she was staring at him, waiting. He cleared his throat. ‘I wouldn’t advise building bookshelves on that wall, Jaz.’ He rapped his knuckles against it. ‘Hear how flimsy it is?’
She stared at him as if she had no idea what he was talking about. ‘I can strengthen the wall if you like.’ But it’d cost and it’d take time…time she wouldn’t want to waste waiting for work to be done if he had her pegged right. ‘I could write you up a quote if you want.’ What the hell. He’d do the job for cost.
‘I don’t want bookshelves there. I just want to know if you’re doing anything to this wall when you start work down here?’
‘No.’ One section of floorboards needed replacing and a couple of bookcases needed strengthening, but not the walls.
‘So I’m free to paint it?’
‘Sure.’ He frowned. ‘But surely it’d be wiser to wait until all the work is finished, then paint it as a job lot.’
She stared at him. Her eyes were pools of navy a man could drown in if he forgot himself. She moistened her lips—lush, soft lips—and Connor tried not to forget himself.
‘I don’t mean that kind of painting, Connor.’
It took a moment for her words to make sense. His head snapped back when they did.
She stared at the wall and he knew it wasn’t pale green paint she saw.
‘I mean to paint a portrait of my mother here.’ She turned, a hint of defiance in her eyes, but her whole face had come alive. So alive it made him ache.
A memorial to Frieda? He wanted to applaud her. He wanted to kiss her. He needed his head read. ‘Do you mean to start it tonight?’
‘No, but I might prime the wall tomorrow.’
For Pete’s sake, did she mean to work herself into the ground? ‘I thought you’d be back at Gwen’s by now.’
‘Hmm, no.’
Something in her tone made his eyes narrow. ‘Why not?’ Jaz and Gwen had been great pals.
She didn’t look at him. She cocked her head and continued to survey the wall.
He resisted the urge to shake her. ‘Jaz?’
‘I think the less Gwen has to see of me, the happier she will be.’
He’d considered Richard’s suggestion that Jaz stay at Gwen’s an excellent one at the time. He’d thought it’d give Jaz a friend, an ally. He’d obviously got that wrong…and he should’ve known better. ‘Sorry.’ The apology dropped stiff from his