Читать книгу It Started With... Collection - Miranda Lee - Страница 26

‘SO WHAT would you like in your Christmas stocking, Jessie? I’m going present shopping tomorrow. There’s only just over two weeks till Christmas and I hate leaving things to the last moment.’

Jessie stopped applying her mascara for a second to smile wryly across the kitchen table at her elderly friend—and landlady.

‘Do you know a shop which sells men?’ she asked with a mischievous sparkle in her dark brown eyes.

Dora’s own eyes widened. ‘Men? You told me just ten minutes ago that you thought most men were sleazebags and you were better off without one in your life.’

Jessie shrugged. ‘That was ten minutes ago. Getting myself dolled up like this tonight reminded me of when I was young and carefree and didn’t know the truth about the opposite sex. What I wouldn’t give to be that girl again, just for one night, going out with some gorgeous guy on a hot date.’

‘And if that fantasy came true,’ Dora asked, still with a sceptical expression on her face, ‘where would this gorgeous guy be taking you?’

‘Oh, somewhere really swish for drinks and dinner, then on to a nightclub for some dirty dancing.’ After which he’d whip me back to his bachelor pad and…

This last thought startled Jessie. In all honesty, ever since she’d had Emily, she hadn’t missed men one bit. Hadn’t felt like being with one at all.

Now, suddenly, the thought of having some gorgeous guy’s arms around her again was quite pleasurable. More than pleasurable, actually. Almost a necessity.

Her female hormones, it seemed, had finally been jump-started again.

Her sigh carried a measure of frustration. And irritation. It was something she could do without. Men complicated things. They always did.

Useless creatures, all of them.

Except in that one department!

Now that her hormones were hopping again, she had to admit there was nothing to compare with the pleasure of being with a man who was a good lover.

Emily’s father had been pretty good in bed. But he’d also been a feckless, reckless fool whose wildly adventurous spirit had finally been the death of him, snowboarding his stupid way off a mountain and into a crevasse even before Jessie had discovered she was having his baby.

Jessie had finally come to realise at the wise old age of twenty-eight that the members of the opposite sex who were good in bed were rarely good at commitment. Usually, they were charming scoundrels. She suspected that even if Lyall had lived, he would not have stuck by her and his baby.

No, she was better off without men in her life, in any capacity. For now, anyway. Emily was still only four and very impressionable. The last thing she needed was for her mummy to start dating guys who were only interested in one thing. There was no future in that. And no happiness.

Men could indulge in no-strings sex without suffering any lasting emotional damage. Women, not so easily.

Jessie had taken a long time to get over Lyall, both his death and the discovery she’d made afterwards that she hadn’t been the only girl in his life.

‘What I really want for Christmas more than anything,’ she said firmly as she packed her make-up essentials into her black evening bag, ‘is a decent job in an advertising agency.’

Jessie had worked as a graphic artist before she’d fallen pregnant, with an eye to eventually being promoted to the position of creative designer. She hadn’t wanted to spend the rest of her life bringing other people’s ideas to life; or having them take the credit when she improved on their designs. Jessie knew she had considerable creative talent and dreamt of heading her own advertising team one day; being up close and personal when the presentations were made; getting the accolades herself—plus the bonuses—when she secured a prestigious account for Jackson & Phelps.

That was the advertising agency she’d worked for back then. One of Sydney’s biggest and best.

Having Emily, however, had rearranged her priorities in life. She had planned on going back to Jackson & Phelps after her maternity leave was up. But when the time came, she’d found she didn’t want to put her baby daughter into day-care. She wanted to stay home and take care of Emily herself.

She’d thought she could work from home, freelance. She had her own computer and all the right software. But a downturn in the economy had meant that advertising budgets were cut and lots of graphic artists were out of work. Freelance work became a pipedream.

Jessie had been forced to temporarily receive state benefits, and to move from the trendy little flat she’d been renting. Luckily, she found accommodation with Dora, a very nice lady with a very nice home in Roseville, a leafy northern Sydney suburb on the train line.

Dora had had a granny flat built on the back when her mother—now deceased—had come to live with her. It was only one-bedroomed, but it had its own bathroom and a spacious kitchen-cum-living room which opened out into the large and secure back yard. Just the thing for a single mum with an active toddler. Emily had turned one by then and was already walking.

The rent Dora charged Jessie was also very reasonable, in exchange for which Jessie helped Dora with the heavy housework and the garden.

But money was still tight. There was never much left over each fortnight. Treats were a rarity. Presents were always cheap little things, both on birthdays and at Christmas. Last Christmas hadn’t been a big problem. Emily hadn’t been old enough at three to understand that all her gifts had come from a bargain-basement store.

But Jessie had realised at the time that by this coming Christmas, Emily would be far more knowing.

As much as Jessie had enjoyed being a full-time mother at home, the necessities of life demanded that she get off welfare and go back to work. So last January, Jessie had enrolled Emily in a nearby day-care centre and started looking for a job.

Unfortunately, not with great success in her chosen field.

Despite her having her name down at several employment agencies and going for countless interviews, no one in advertising, it seemed, wanted to hire a graphic artist who was a single mum and who had been out of the workforce for over three years.

For a while, earlier this year, she’d done a simply awful—though lucrative—job, working for a private investigator. The ad in the paper had said it was for the position of receptionist. No experience required, just good presentation and a nice phone voice. When she’d got there, she was told the receptionist job had been taken, and she was offered investigative work instead.

Basically, she was sent out as a decoy to entrap men who were suspected by their partners of being unfaithful. She’d be given the time and place—always a pub or a bar—plus a short biography and photo of the target. Her job had required her to dress sexily, make contact, then flirt enough for the target to show his true colours. Once she’d gathered sufficient evidence via the sleek, hi-tech mobile phone which the PI supplied—its video recording was excellent—Jessie would use the excuse of going to the powder room, then disappear.

It had only taken Jessie half a dozen such encounters before she quit. Maybe if, just once, one target had resisted her charms and shown himself to be an honourable man, she might have continued. But no! Each time, the sleazebag—and brother, they were all sleazebags!—wasted no time in not only chatting her up but also propositioning her in no uncertain terms. Each time she’d dashed for the ladies’, feeling decidedly dirty.

After that low-life experience, she’d happily taken a waitressing job at a local restaurant. Because of Emily, however, Jessie refused to work at night or at the weekends, when the tips might have been better, so her take-home pay wasn’t great. On top of that, her expenses had gone up. Even with her government subsidy for being a single parent, having Emily in day-care five days a week was not cheap.

The only bonus was that Emily adored going to her pre-school. Jessie sometimes felt jealous over how much her daughter loved the teachers there, and the other kids. She’d grown up so much during this past year.

Too much.

She was now four, going on fourteen.

Last weekend, she’d begun asking questions about her father. And had not been impressed when her mother tried to skirt around the subject. A flustered Jessie had been pinned down and forced to tell Emily the truth. That her daddy had died in a tragic accident before she was born. And no, her mummy and her daddy had not been married at the time.

‘So you and Daddy aren’t divorced,’ she’d stunned Jessie by saying. ‘He’s not ever coming back, like Joel’s daddy came back.’

Joel was Emily’s best friend at pre-school.

‘No, Emily,’ Jessie had told her daughter in what she’d hoped was the right sombre and sympathetic tone. ‘Your daddy is never coming back. He’s in heaven.’

‘Oh,’ Emily had said, and promptly went off, frowning.

Jessie had found her in a corner of the back yard, having a serious conversation with her life-sized baby doll—the one Dora had given her for her fourth birthday in August. Emily had fallen ominously silent when her mother approached. Jessie had been very relieved when her daughter had finally looked up, smiled brightly and asked her if they could go and see Santa at K-Mart that afternoon, because she had to tell him what she wanted for Christmas before it was too late.

Clearly, Emily was too young at four to be devastated by the discovery that the father she had never known was in heaven.

But Emily’s reminder that Christmas was coming up fast—along with the fact that Jessie already knew the main present Emily wanted for Christmas—was what had brought Jessie to make the decision to do one more wretched job for Jack Keegan. The PI had said to give him a call if she ever needed some extra cash. Which she surely did, because a Felicity Fairy doll was the most expensive doll to hit the toy market in ages. Jessie would need all of the four-hundred-dollar fee she would earn tonight to buy the darned doll, along with all its accompaniments. There was a fairy palace, a magic horse and a sparkling wardrobe full of clothes.

Speaking of clothes…

Jessie stood up and smoothed down the short skirt of the black crêpe halter-necked dress she’d dragged out of her depleted wardrobe for tonight’s job. It was the classiest, sexiest dress she owned, but it was six years old and Jessie feared it was beginning to look it.

‘Are you sure this dress is OK?’ she asked Dora in a fretful tone. ‘It’s getting awfully old.’

‘It’s fine,’ Dora reassured. ‘And not out of fashion at all. That style is timeless. You look gorgeous, Jessie. Very sexy. Like a model.’

‘Who, me? Don’t be ridiculous, Dora. I know I’ve got a good figure, but the rest of me is pretty ordinary. Without my make-up on, no man would give me a second glance. And my hair is an uncontrollable disaster if I don’t drag it back or put it up.’

‘You underestimate your attractiveness, Jessie.’

In every way, Dora thought to herself.

Jessie’s figure wasn’t just good, it was spectacular, the kind of body you often saw in underwear advertisements these days. Full breasts. Tiny waist. Slender hips and long legs. They looked even longer in the high, strappy shoes Jessie was wearing tonight.

It was true that her face wasn’t traditionally pretty. Her mouth was too wide, her jaw too square and her nose slightly too long. But anchored on either side of that nose were widely set, exotically shaped dark brown eyes which flashed and smouldered with sensual promise, the kind of eyes that drew men like magnets.

As for her hair…Dora would have killed for hair like Jessie’s when she’d been younger.

Blue-black, thick and naturally curly, when left down it cascaded around her face and shoulders in glorious disarray. Up, it defied restraint, with bits and pieces escaping, making her look even sexier, if that was possible.

Dora hadn’t been surprised when that private detective had snapped Jessie up to do decoy work for him. She was the perfect weapon to entrap cheating husbands. And possibly non-cheating ones as well.

‘Is this the guy?’ Dora asked, picking up the photo that was resting in the middle of the table.

‘Yep. That’s him.’

‘He’s handsome.’

Jessie had thought so too. Far better looking than the other creeps she’d had to flirt with. And younger. In his thirties instead of forties or fifties. But she had no doubts about the type of man he was.

‘Handsome is as handsome does, Dora. He’s married with two little kids, yet he spends every Friday night at a bar in town, drinking till all hours of the night.’

‘But lots of men drink on a Friday night.’

‘I doubt he’s just drinking. The particular city bar he frequents is a well-known pick-up joint,’ Jessie pointed out drily.

‘You could say that about any bar.’

‘Look, the wife says this behaviour is out of character with her husband. She says he’s changed towards her. She’s convinced he’s being unfaithful to her and wants to know the truth.’

‘Doesn’t sound like compelling evidence of adultery to me. She might wish she hadn’t started this.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘You know, Jessie, I’ve never thought it was very fair on the men in question, sending a girl like you to flirt with them. This man might not have been unfaithful at all. Maybe he’s just working very hard and having an extra drink or two at the end of the week to relax. Then you come along tonight and give him the eye, and he might do something he wouldn’t normally do, something he might regret.’

Jessie had to laugh. Dora made her sound like some kind of siren. Irresistible she was not! Just ask all the male bosses who hadn’t given her a job this past year.

No, poor Dora didn’t know what she was talking about, especially regarding tonight’s target. Still, Dora was sixty-six years old. In her day, maybe more men had more honour.

‘Trust me, Dora. By the time wives go to see Jack Keegan and spend the kind of money he asks for, then there really isn’t any doubt over their husbands’ philandering. All they’re looking for is proof to show the lawyers. Our Mr Curtis Marshall here,’ she said, taking his photo out of Dora’s hand and looking down into his baby-blue eyes, ‘is not some poor, hard-working, misunderstood hubby. He’s been playing out of his patch and he’s about to get caught! Now I really must get going,’ she said as she slid the photo in a zippered side-section of her bag. ‘I’ll just go check on Emily before I leave.’

Jessie tiptoed into the bedroom, where a sound-asleep Emily had kicked off her bedclothes. The evening was quite warm, so Jessie switched the overhead ceiling fan on to the slow setting, then pulled the top sheet up around Emily and tucked her in. Emily had not long given up her cot for a single bed and looked such a dot in the larger bed.

Pressing a kiss to her temple, Jessie straightened before just standing there and staring down at her daughter.

Her heart filled with love as it always did when she looked down upon her child.

That was what had surprised Jessie the most when she’d become a mother. The instant and totally unconditional love which had consumed her from the moment she’d held her baby in her arms.

Had her own mother felt like that when she’d had her?

Jessie didn’t think so. She suspected that any love her mother had had for her had been overshadowed by shame.

Jessie pushed this distressing thought aside and bent to stroke Emily’s dark curls back from her forehead before planting another gentle kiss on her daughter’s cheek.

‘Sleep tight, sweetie,’ she whispered. ‘Mummy won’t be long.

‘Thank you so much for staying here and minding her, Dora,’ Jessie said on returning to the combined kitchen and living room.

‘My pleasure,’ Dora said, already settled on the sofa in front of the television.

‘You know where the tea and biscuits are.’

‘I’ll be fine. There’s a good movie on tonight at eight-thirty. That’s only ten minutes off. You’d better get going. And for Pete’s sake, take a taxi home after you’re finished. It’s too dangerous on the train late at night, especially on a Friday night.’

‘Hopefully, I won’t be too late.’

Jessie didn’t want to waste any of the travel expenses Jack had given her. She wanted to make as much profit out of this rotten evening as she could. Why waste thirty dollars on a cab?

‘Jessie Denton,’ Dora said sternly. ‘You promise me you’ll take a taxi home.’

Jessie gave her a narrow-eyed look from under her long lashes. ‘I will if I need to, Dora.’

‘You can be very stubborn, do you know that?’

Jessie grinned. ‘Yep. But you love me just the same. Take care.’ And, giving Dora a peck on the cheek, she swept up her bag and headed for the door.