Victoria Pade – A Camden's Baby Secret (страница 6)

It didn’t seem like this was where to draw a line at all, except for Mandy’s feelings about the Camdens...

Could he really let Livi into her daughter’s life?

It felt wrong.

But apparently only to him.

By now, Livi Camden’s car was out of sight. And with the weight of everything bearing down on him, Callan bent over, hands to knees, and stared at the dirt under his feet.

He’d had one hell of a lot to figure out even before he’d walked into the Tellers’ farmhouse and found Livi-from-Hawaii sitting there.

Shortly, he’d be handing the farm over to the people he’d hired to look after it and taking the Tellers and Greta to Denver with him, and he had no idea what was going to happen then. Especially when it came to Greta. Raising a kid was so much more involved than anything he’d ever done before. He had to be her father. Her family along with the Tellers.

But what did he know about being part of a family? About having a family?

Nothing. Flat-out nothing.

At least nothing good, nothing he wanted to repeat.

And now it was on him to be that, to provide that for Greta.

“I need some help here, guys,” he muttered to the memory of Mandy and John Jr.

More help than what his geriatric charges could give, he thought.

And the Tellers liked Livi.

Greta liked Livi.

Plus Maeve was probably right—Greta was going to need the influence and advice of a woman younger than eighty.

He didn’t have a wife anymore—he’d already blown that. There was no one else on the docket to fill that bill and take over that duty.

And Livi Camden was applying for the job.

So he guessed that rather than buck the Tellers, rather than deny Greta something she should have and clearly wanted, he supposed he had to give in on this.

Sorry, Mandy, he said mentally to his lost friend. But I swear I’ll stick as close as I can every minute she’s with Greta, to keep an eagle eye on her. No matter what, I won’t let another Camden hurt somebody you care about.

Even if it meant he had to take a hard line with Livi down the road, if he discovered she did have some kind of Camden ulterior motive.

Even if it meant he had to be a son of a bitch to her a second time.

He really hoped it didn’t come to that. Not with the first woman he’d had the slightest inclination to approach since his divorce.

The woman he’d had on his mind a surprising amount during the last two months.

The woman who had—at first sight this afternoon—made his pulse kick up a notch. And not just out of guilt for how things had been left in Hawaii, but simply from setting eyes on her again.

He had to keep in perspective that that one night in Hawaii was nothing but one night. In Hawaii.

Because incredible blue eyes that made his pulse race or not, he couldn’t deal with any more than he already was.

Chapter Three

The Camden ranch house was still empty when Livi got back after meeting Greta and the Tellers.

And Callan.

Callan from Hawaii.

She’d driven home in the same dull sense of disbelief that she’d been in since setting eyes on him again. She was glad her cousin Seth wasn’t back yet because she needed some time for what had happened to sink in.

She dropped her purse in the foyer, took a sharp right to the living room and sank into one of the oversize leather easy chairs, slumping so low her head rested on the back cushion.

Her mind was spinning.

Callan.

The stranger on the beach in Hawaii was from Denver.

With connections in Northbridge. Just like her.

And now they’d met again...

Was the universe toying with her or was she going to wake up and realize she was dreaming this whole thing?

She knew it was just wishful thinking that this was all some kind of nightmare that would fade away as soon as she woke up.

But still she pinched her eyes closed for a minute and then opened them wide.

No, she definitely wasn’t dreaming.

And she wasn’t nauseous.

That thought almost made her cry.

Because if the nausea was coming from stress, this was the time for it. She should have been miserably sick to her stomach, since the tension she was feeling was through the roof.

But she wasn’t feeling queasy.

With the exception of the cooking smells at last week’s Sunday dinner at GiGi’s house, she was sick only in the mornings.

Morning sickness.

Her mind wasn’t even letting her skirt around it now, as if seeing Callan again made everything more real. Even her memories of Hawaii...

That day had been the ninth anniversary of her wedding to Patrick. The fourth without him. It was still a bad day every year. A day she had to struggle through.

The first year she’d immersed herself in everything she’d had of Patrick’s, everything that kept him alive for her. She’d set out every picture she had of him, worn one of his shirts, padded around in his bedroom slippers. She’d gone through everything and anything that reminded her of him. She’d wallowed in all she’d lost and her own misery.

That had been a terrible day.

So the next year she’d tried plunging herself into work, going into the office at six that morning, staying until the cleaning crew showed up that night, pretending it was just business as usual.

But the cleaners had found her sobbing at her desk, because work hadn’t made anything better, either.

Last year she’d tried enlisting her family to distract her. And they had. They’d whisked her off to the mountains to go boating and water-skiing on Dillon Lake.

But all she’d been able to think about, to talk about, had been Patrick—how much Patrick had loved days like that with her family, how much he’d loved the water and how often he’d talked about retiring seaside somewhere, how much he’d loved barbecuing...

And by the end of the boating and barbecuing and s’mores, she’d still been a mess.

So this year, in Hawaii, she’d decided to deal with her anniversary by disengaging. By skipping the conference, not scheduling any meetings, any breakfasts, lunches or dinners. By not doing anything.

“Pamper yourself,” her sister and Jani had urged, worried about her being so far away and alone on that day.

Taking their recommendation, Livi had slept until she couldn’t sleep any more—until after noon, something she never did.

Then she’d gone to the hotel’s luxury spa, where she’d had a massage in near silence, not inviting or welcoming any conversation from the masseuse, trying to keep her mind blank.

Afterward the massage therapist had advised her to sit in the sauna, to sweat out the toxins. You’ll feel like a new woman, she had said.

Livi rarely used the sauna because she wasn’t fond of heat like that, but on that day of all days she wanted to feel like a new woman, because feeling like the old one wasn’t good. So she’d sat in the sauna, thinking only about how hot it was, about sweating away the old Livi and emerging a new one.

Which she’d actually sort of felt she’d accomplished by the time she’d finished. She’d been so calm and relaxed and...well, just different than she usually felt. Especially on her anniversary.

Different enough to decide to go with the flow of that feeling by moving on to the hotel’s salon.