Free Bachelor Dad on Her Doorstep by Michelle Douglas

face. ‘If I worked here, how many hours would it take me to earn this book?’
    Jaz told her.
    ‘Will you hire me? My name is Carmen, by the way. And I’m still at school so I could only work weekends, but…I’ll work hard.’
    Jaz wanted to reach out and hug her. ‘I’m Jaz,’ she said instead. They probably knew that already but it seemed churlish not to introduce herself too. ‘And yes, I am looking for staff—permanent, part-time and casual.’ At the moment she’d take what she could get. ‘How old are you, Carmen?’
    ‘Sixteen.’
    ‘I would love to hire you, but before I could do that I would need either your mum or dad’s permission.’ No way was she going to cause that kind of trouble.
    Five sets of shoulders slumped. Jaz’s grew heavy in sympathy.
    ‘I hate this town,’ one of them muttered.
    ‘There’s never anything to do!’
    ‘If you look the least bit different you’re labelled a troublemaker.’
    Jaz remembered resenting this town at their age too for pretty much the same reasons. ‘You’re always welcome to come and browse in here.’ She motioned to the book on urban art.
    ‘Thanks,’ Carmen murmured, but the brightness had left her eyes. She glanced up from placing the book back on its shelf. ‘Is it true you’re a tattoo artist?’
    ‘Yes, I am.’ And she wasn’t ashamed of it.
    ‘And are you running drugs through here?’
    What? Jaz blinked. ‘I could probably rustle you up an aspirin if you needed one, but anything stronger is beyond me, I’m afraid.’
    ‘I told you that was a lie!’ Carmen hissed to the others.
    ‘Yeah, well, fat chance that my mum’ll let me work here once she catches wind of that rumour,’ one of the others grumbled.
    The teenagers drifted back outside.
    Drugs? Drugs! Jaz started to shake. Her hands curved into claws. Just because she was a tattoo artist that made her a junkie, or a drug baron?
    She wished Mac could hear this.
    The whole town would boycott her shop if those kinds of rumours took hold. Very carefully, she unclenched her hands. She drummed her fingers against the countertop for a moment, a grim smile touching her lips. Very carefully, she smoothed down her hair. Her smile grew. So did the grimness.
    She hooked the ‘Back in five minutes’ sign to the window, locked the door and set off across the street. ‘You’ll enjoy this,’ she said, without stopping, to Mrs Lavender, who sat on her usual park bench on the traffic island. She reminded herself to walk tall. She reminded herself she was as good as anyone else in this town. Without pausing, she breezed into Mr Sears’s shop with her largest smile in place and called out, ‘Howdy, Mr Sears! How are you today? Aren’t we having the most glorious weather? Good for business, isn’t it?’
    Mr Sears jerked around from the far end of the shop and his eyes darkened with fury, lines bracketing his mouth, distorting it.
    ‘I’ll take a piece of your scrumptious carrot cake to go, thanks.’
    The rest of the bakery went deathly quiet. Jaz pretended to peruse the baked goodies on display in their glass-fronted counters until she was level with Mr Sears. ‘If you refuse to serve me,’ she told him, quietly so no one else heard her, ‘I will create the biggest scene Clara Falls has ever seen. And, believe me, you will regret it.’ Her smile didn’t slip an inch.
    Mr Sears seized a paper bag. He continued to glare, but he very carefully placed a piece of carrot cake inside it. It was a trait Jaz remembered, and it brought previous visits rushing back. He’d always treated his goods as if they were fine porcelain. For some reason that made her throat thicken.
    She swallowed the thickness away. ‘Best bread for twenty miles, my mother always used to say,’ she continued in her bright, breezy, you’re-my-long-lost-best-friend voice. A voice that probably carried all the way outside and across to where Mrs Lavender sat grinning on her park bench.
    Carmen emerged from the back