‘It means household stuff, money and babysitters,’ Melly said, rattling each item off as if she’d learned them by heart. ‘I checked,’ she confided. ‘So I’d get it right.’
‘Did Daddy tell you not to worry him about domestic matters?’ No matter how hard she tried, Jaz could not hear those words emerging from Connor’s mouth.
‘Grandma did.’
Jaz wondered if she’d go to hell for pumping a child so shamelessly for information. It wasn’t for her own benefit, she reminded herself. It was for Melanie’s. She wanted the child safe and happy. She couldn’t even explain why, except she saw her younger self in Melanie.
That and the fact that Melanie was Connor’s child. The kind of child she’d once dreamed of having with Connor.
Which made her sound like some kind of sick stalker! She wasn’t. She just wanted to do something …good.
‘I think your daddy would be very sad to hear you say that.’
‘Why?’
‘I think he’d be very interested in everything you do and think, even the domestic ones.’
‘Nuh-uh.’ The child stuck her chin out and glared at the footpath. ‘He was supposed to take me out on the skyway on Saturday, but he didn’t coz he had to work.’
Connor had broken a date with his daughter to work on the sign for Jaz’s shop!
‘Grandma made me promise not to nag him to take me Sunday because she said he’d be tired from working so hard and would need to rest.’
‘That was very thoughtful of you.’
Melly glanced up, spearing Jaz with a gaze that touched her to the quick. ‘I don’t think he needs to work so hard, do you?’
Jaz thought it wiser not to answer that question. ‘Perhaps you should tell him you think he’s working too hard.’
Melanie shook her head and glanced away. Jaz wondered what else Grandma had made Melanie promise.
‘Order, everyone. Order!’
Connor winced. Gordon Sears had a voice that could cut through rock when he was calling a meeting to order. Connor shifted on his seat. Beside him, Richard half-grinned, half-grimaced in sympathy.
‘Now, are we all agreed on the winter plantings for the nature strip?’
There were some mutterings, but a show of hands decided the matter. Connor marvelled that it could take so long to decide in favour of hyacinths over daffodils. Personally, he’d have chosen the daffodils, but he didn’t much care. It certainly hadn’t warranted half an hour’s heated debate.
He glanced at his watch. It was almost Mel’s bedtime. He hoped his father was coping okay. He tapped his foot against the floor. He didn’t like leaving Mel with his parents two nights running. With his mother mostly confined to a wheelchair these days, he considered it too much work for his father. But Russell Reed adored his granddaughter. Mel put a bounce in the older man’s step. Connor couldn’t deny him that.
When they’d heard Connor was thinking of attending this evening’s town meeting, they’d insisted Mel spend the night with them. He bit back a sigh. It was probably for the best. He’d miss reading Mel her bedtime story, but it had started to become all too apparent that Mel hungered for a female influence in her life—a female role model. He’d seen the way she watched the girls at school with their mothers and his heart ached for her.
He was hoping his own mother’s presence would help plug that particular hole. At least it gave Mel a woman to confide in.
She needs a younger woman. He pushed that thought away. Two women had left him without backwards glances. He wasn’t going through that again, and he sure as hell wasn’t risking his daughter’s heart and happiness to some fly-by-night. He and Mel, they’d keep muddling along.
‘Now, to the last item on the agenda.’
That rock-cracking voice had Connor wincing again. Richard rolled his eyes at Mr Sears’s self-importance. Connor nodded in silent agreement.
‘Now, I believe most of you will agree with me when I say we most certainly do not want a tattoo parlour polluting the streets of Clara Falls. Those of you who are in favour of such an abomination, please put forward your arguments now.’
Mr Sears glared around the room. Connor shifted forward on his seat, rested his arms on his knees. This was the reason he’d come tonight.
Nobody put forward an argument for a tattoo parlour in Clara Falls, and Connor listened with growing anger to the plan outlined by Gordon Sears to halt the likelihood of any such development occurring in the future.
Finally, he could stand it no longer. ‘I don’t know if this has escaped everyone’s notice or not,’ he said, climbing to his feet, ‘but you can’t block a nonexistent development.’
Mr Sears puffed up. ‘That’s just semantics!’
‘No,’ Connor drawled. ‘It’s law.’
‘This town has every right to make its feelings known on the subject.’
Connor planted his feet. ‘If you approach Jaz Harper with this viciousness—’
‘No names have been mentioned!’ Mr Sears bluffed.
‘No names have been mentioned, but everyone in this room knows exactly who you’re talking about. Jaz Harper has made no move whatsoever to set up a tattoo parlour in Clara Falls. She’s come back to run her mother’s bookshop. End of story.’
He glanced around the room. Some people nodded their encouragement. Others shifted uneasily on their seats as their gazes slid away. Bloody hell! If Jaz were susceptible to the same kind of depression that had afflicted Frieda then… then she wouldn’t need the likes of Gordon Sears banging on her door and shoving a petition under her nose.
‘Connor is right.’ Richard stood too. ‘Last time I checked, this country was still a democracy. If you approach my client,’ he stressed those two words, ‘with a petition or with any other kind of associated viciousness—’ he borrowed the term from Connor, but Connor didn’t mind ‘—I will take out a harassment suit on her behalf. And, what’s more, I’ll enjoy doing it. She’s a local businesswoman who is contributing to the economy of this town and we should all be supporting her.’
‘I’ll second that!’ Connor clapped Richard on the back. Richard clapped him back. They both sat down. He watched with grim satisfaction as Gordon Sears brought the meeting to a close in double-quick time.
Mr Sears approached him as he and Richard stood talking by their cars. Connor could sense the anger in the older man, even though he hid it well. ‘If any such proposal does go forward to the local council, I want you both to know that I will use every means in my power to block it.’
‘I hope you’re talking about legal means,’ Richard said smoothly.
‘Naturally.’ Mr Sears lifted his chin and glared at Connor. ‘I should’ve known you’d take her side.’
Connor planted his feet. ‘This isn’t about sides. It’s about keeping Clara Falls as the kind of place where I’m happy to raise my daughter. A place not blinded by small-minded bigotry.’
‘Ah, your daughter…yes.’
His smirk made the muscles of Connor’s stomach contract.
‘I take it that you are aware Melanie has been seen leaving the bookshop with Jaz Harper every afternoon this week?’
She what?
Mr Sears laughed at whatever he saw in Connor’s face. ‘But, then again, perhaps not.’ He strolled off, evidently pleased with the bombshell he’d landed.
‘There’ll