Bachelor Dad on Her Doorstep Read Online Free PDF Page A

right.’
    She pushed away from the bookcase, glanced around. ‘Considering the amount of work Richard told me needed doing, the place looks exactly as I remember it.’
    Her eyes narrowed. He watched her gaze travel over everyfixture and furnishing within her line of sight. ‘ Exactly the same.’ She turned accusing eyes on him.
    ‘That’s because I’ve barely started work in here yet.’
    Her jaw dropped. ‘But…but your receptionist assured me all the work would be finished by Thursday last week.’
    The muscles in his jaw bunched. ‘You’re sure about that?’
    ‘Positive.’
    He didn’t blame her for her gritted teeth response. ‘I’m sorry, Jaz, but you were given the wrong information.’ And he’d be getting himself a new receptionist—this afternoon, if he could arrange it.
    She pressed her lips so tightly together it made his jaw ache in sympathy. Then she stiffened. ‘What about the OH and S stuff? Hell, if that hasn’t been sorted, then—’
    ‘That’s the part I’ve taken care of.’
    Several weeks ago, someone had filed an Occupation Health and Safety complaint. It had resulted in an OH and S officer coming out to inspect the premises…and to close the shop down when it had been discovered that two floor to ceiling bookcases, which should’ve been screwed fast to battens on the wall behind, had started to come away, threatening to topple and crush anyone who might happen to be below. Connor had put all his other jobs on hold to take care of that. The bookshop had only been closed for a day and a half.
    ‘Why?’
    ‘Why?’ What the hell…‘Because it was dangerous, that’s why.’
    ‘Not that.’ She waved an imperious hand in the air. ‘Why is it your company that is doing the work?’
    Because Richard had asked him to.
    Because he’d wanted to prove that the past had no hold over him any more.
    She folded her arms. ‘I should imagine the last thing you wanted was to clap eyes on me again.’
    She was right about that.
    She stuck out a defiant hip. ‘In fact, I’d guess that the last thing you want is me living in Clara Falls again.’
    It took a moment for the import of her words to hit him. When they did, he clenched a fist so tight it started to shake. She glanced at his fist, then back into his face. She cocked an eyebrow. She didn’t unsay her words.
    ‘Are you insinuating that I’d use my position as a builder to sabotage your shop?’ He tried to remember the last time he’d wanted to throttle someone.
    ‘Would you? Have you? I mean…There’s that travesty of a sign, for a start. Now the delay. What would you think? You and Gordon Sears could be like that—’ she waved two crossed fingers under his nose ‘—for all I know.’
    ‘God, Jaz! I know it’s been eight years, but can you seriously think I would stoop to that?’
    She raked him from the top of his head to his boot laces with her hot gaze—blue on the way down, green when she met his eyes again on the way up—and it felt as if she actually placed her hands on his body and stroked him. His heart started to thump. She moistened her lips. It wasn’t a nervous gesture, more…an assessing one. But it left a shine on her lips that had him clenching back a groan.
    ‘Business is business,’ he ground out. ‘I don’t have to like who I’m working for.’
    Was it his imagination or did she pale at his words?
    Her chin didn’t drop. ‘So you’re saying this is just another job to you?’
    He hesitated a moment too long.
    Jaz snorted and pushed past him, charged back down to the sales counter and stood squarely behind it, as if she wanted to place herself out of his reach. ‘Thank you for the work you’ve done so far, Connor, but your services are no longer required.’
    He stalked down to the counter, reached across and gripped her chin in his fingers, forced her gaze to his. ‘Fine! You want the truth? This isn’t just another job. What happened to your mother…It made me sick to my stomach.