The Cattleman's Special Delivery. Barbara Hannay
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was so thin, with dark shadows under her eyes, and no sparkle to her smile. She’d claimed she was just tired, but to him she looked ill, or worried. Or both.
You’ve seen me at my worst.
Not so, Reece thought, remembering her flushed cheeks and bright eyes as she greeted her baby for the first time.
Admittedly, becoming a widow and a mother on the very same night would be a terrible strain for any woman, but he couldn’t shake off the feeling that Jess Cassidy was carrying an extra burden.
On top of his worries about his father, it was enough to keep him awake long into the night.
At the first lull in the café’s morning chaos, Jess gave in to her fear. Ducking out of her boss’s line of sight, behind the big commercial refrigerator in the back kitchen, she rang the day-care centre.
‘Alana, it’s Jess Cassidy. I’m just ringing to check if Rosie is still OK?’
‘She seems fine,’ the young attendant assured her.
‘Are you sure there’s no sign of a temperature?’ Rosie had been fretful all night and Jess was terrified she was getting sick.
‘No, Jess. I knew you were worried so I’ve kept an especially close eye on her. She’s had a nice nap and she woke up quite happy.’
‘Well, that’s good to hear. She was so upset last night. All night.’
‘Perhaps she’s teething. I noticed she’s been chewing on her fists.’
‘That’s probably it. I guess it’s about time.’
‘Jess!’ roared a male voice. ‘What the hell are you up to?’
Jess spun around to find Joel Fink, her boss, glaring at her. Last time she’d looked, he’d been at the far end of the café busily chatting up his favourite female customer. ‘I—I had to make a quick phone call.’
‘Not on my time and not on my phone.’
‘It wasn’t a social call,’ Jess told him coldly, refusing to be cowed. ‘I needed to ring the day-care centre.’
‘My customers’ needs come first. And they need you to stop chatting and to feed them.’ Snatching the phone from her, he slapped an order onto the bench. ‘Two serves of strawberry pancakes. Cream, no ice cream. Get cracking.’
Lips tightly compressed, Jess got to work. Pancakes. Again. She was heartily sick of cooking breakfasts and lunches. As a fully qualified chef, she found it a breeze to produce light fluffy pancakes, or perfectly scrambled eggs and crisply fried bacon. But after almost six months of this she was bored. Just the same, this part-time job, working four days a week from six-thirty till two, was keeping a roof over her head and it was keeping Rosie fed. With Cairns’s growing unemployment problems, she knew she’d been lucky to get the work and she should be grateful.
It would help if her boss wasn’t such a cranky tight-fist. Privately, Jess called him The Cell Warder—even the menus he chose were as unimaginative as prison food. But at least this café was in walking distance of her flat, and working on Cairns’s seafront gave her occasional glimpses of palm trees and sparkling water. More importantly, the daytime working hours left her with afternoons and evenings free.
She needed to be with Rosie in the evenings. It was horrendously expensive having to put her into day-care for four days a week, but she couldn’t bear to hand her over to strangers at night.
Flipping pancakes, she promised herself she’d go to extra trouble with her own dinner tonight.
Reece was frowning as he knocked on the door of flat No 4a. The frown was partly because he was unexpectedly nervous about seeing Jess again, but also because he didn’t like the idea of her living in this shabby, almost squalid building with peeling paint and rusted down-pipes and rubbish bins littering the footpath.
His spirits sank lower when no one answered his knock.
A neighbour leaned out of a grimy window to stare at him. He walked over to her. ‘I’m looking for Jess Cassidy.’
The young woman blew cigarette smoke. ‘She’s at work.’
‘Where does she work?’
‘No idea.’ She narrowed her eyes at Reece, showing her distrust of him and making it patently clear that she wouldn’t tell him even if she knew. ‘She’s gone most weekdays, though.’
‘Thank you,’ he said with excessive politeness, but as he walked away his worries about Jess multiplied.
Why was she working nearly every day? And where was Rosie? When Jess had written that she was ‘managing OK’, he’d wondered if perhaps she had to be frugal, but he’d still pictured her at home with her baby, living comfortably, if carefully, on her husband’s insurance money.
Of course, Jess’s living conditions were none of his business. Truth was, he hardly knew Jess Cassidy, and yet he’d been present at an intensely personal, pivotal moment in her life. They’d been through an emotionally charged ordeal together, and when Rosie was born they’d shared an exhilarating triumph. He’d felt connected.
Four months later, he still felt connected. It was a big deal for a man with precious few connections.
When he came back at six-thirty he saw, to his relief, that a light was on in Jess’s flat. He could hear music playing a soothing, bluesy tune, and tempting cooking aromas wafted through an open window.
The tension inside him loosened a notch. Seemed Jess was all right, after all.
When he knocked, the door opened slowly and Jess stood before him with Rosie balanced on her hip. He was conscious of her slim, pale arms wrapped around the baby. She was wearing faded jeans and a soft pink T-shirt, and her dark hair was twisted into a loose knot. She was definitely thinner than before and she looked tired. On the other hand, her daughter looked plump and thriving.
At first, Jess’s expression was guarded, almost defensive, but then she recognised him and her mouth formed an O of surprise.
‘Hello, Jess.’
Rosie cooed at him and Jess smiled cautiously.
‘I was in town,’ Reece explained. ‘I had to bring my father to the hospital for tests. He’s being kept in overnight and I thought I’d drop by, to say hello.’
‘It good to see you.’ Jess hitched the baby a little higher. ‘I hope your dad’s going to be all right.’
‘Thanks. It’s hard to say at this stage.’ Reece was holding a bunch of flowers wrapped in lavender tissue, but he felt suddenly uncertain about the appropriateness of bringing flowers. They had looked so bright and appealing, sitting in a bucket on the footpath, but now he wondered if Jess would think he was trying to be romantic.
‘Rosie looks well,’ he said, proffering, instead, the brightly wrapped gift he’d bought for the baby. ‘I thought she might like this.’
‘Reece, you’ve already been so kind.’ With an embarrassed, almost wincing smile, Jess stepped back. ‘You’d better come in.’
It wasn’t the most welcoming invitation, but he went in, anyway. The flat was small and simply furnished with a tiny, rudimentary kitchen, a small table, two chairs and a single blue sofa. A door led to what he assumed was a bedroom. Everything was very clean.
‘Take a seat.’ Jess pointed to the sofa.
Uncertain what to do with the flowers, Reece set them on the table and sat at one end of the couch while Jess sat at the other end with Rosie, balancing the baby and the gift in her lap.
‘Look what Reece has brought for you,’ she said in a deliberately cheery voice, and the baby’s hands swiped and patted at the wrapping paper as Jess peeled it away.
‘Oh, wow!’ she exclaimed as the brightly coloured toy was revealed.
‘I’m