A Camden's Baby Secret

Livi learned that Maeve and John Sr. were both eighty years old. And while John Sr. didn’t have any disabilities that Livi could discern, she’d seen enough to know that he moved slowly and very stiffly, barely lifting his feet. So even he was nowhere near as agile as seventy-five-year-old GiGi or her seventy-six-year-old new groom, Jonah. In fact, the attentive nurse seemed to be subtly caring for John Sr. almost as much as she was caring for Maeve, so Livi understood why Greta’s parents had not left her guardianship to the elderly couple.

Livi didn’t have any difficulty establishing rapport with the Tellers or with Greta, all of whom she liked instantly. And the more they all visited, the more Livi saw how much the Tellers doted on the little girl. They obviously loved her dearly.

For her part, Greta—an outgoing nine-year-old with long blond hair and big brown eyes—had quickly warmed to Livi and was clearly dazzled by her fashionable clothes and hairstyle. She was so enthralled that Livi had removed the scarf she’d used as a headband today and gifted it to Greta, who was now sitting on the floor at her feet so Livi could tie it around the girl’s wavy locks the way she’d been wearing it herself.

Even while she was pampering Greta, Livi went on chatting with Maeve and Kinsey. John Sr. wasn’t particularly talkative, but threw in a few comments from time to time.

All in all, Livi thought it was going smoothly, that she’d lucked out, that this particular restitution would be easily accomplished.

“You look beautiful, Greta,” Kinsey declared when Livi was finished and the nine-year-old looked to the nurse for approval.

“I wanna see,” Greta announced, running from the room and bounding up the stairs to the second level of the old farmhouse, presumably to a mirror.

With the child out of earshot, it seemed like an opportunity for Livi to say, “I’m not sure what Greta’s needs are, but we want to do whatever we can for her now and from here on.”

“And you would be?” a deep male voice interrupted, coming from behind Livi.

Maeve and John Sr. were sitting across from Livi and they both looked beyond her to the man who had just come in.

Livi noted that John Sr. instantly scowled, while Maeve smiled and said, “This is Ms. Camden—”

“Oh, no, I’m just Livi.”

“Camden,” the man behind her repeated scornfully at the same time.

Undeterred, Maeve smiled at her and said, “Livi,” to confirm that she would use her first name. Then she added, “Callan is an old friend of Mandy and John Jr.’s. He’s Greta’s godfather and now her guardian.”

Livi froze.

Callan?

It wasn’t a common name.

And it was the name of the man she’d spent the night with in Hawaii. The man she’d exchanged only first names with.

The man who had run out on her.

But it had to be a coincidence.

It had to be...

Then he came around into her line of vision.

And everything in her clenched into one big knot.

It was the same name because it was the same man.

Livi didn’t know whether to slap his face or crawl away in shame.

“Livi?” he said when he got a look at her face, his voice full of shock. His expression almost instantly showed embarrassment before confusion sounded, too, as he said, “You’re a Camden?”

“You two know each other?” John Sr. asked.

Neither of them answered immediately.

Then Callan said, “We’ve met.”

“Once,” Livi added, her gaze locked with his.

Actually, they knew hardly anything about each other. They’d talked about why they were in Hawaii—her for a sales convention, him for a business meeting. Beyond that?

They’d talked about the enormous sea turtle on the beach right in front of where Livi was sitting when he’d joined her without an invitation. About the weather. The hotel. The restaurants and food. The sites. About how beautiful the sunset they were watching together was.

But they hadn’t talked about anything of any importance.

And she’d had a completely different impression of him—as the businessman she’d assumed he was. Right now, he looked more like a cowboy, in faded blue jeans and a soiled chambray shirt that still managed to accentuate his broad, broad shoulders.

The hair was the same, though—thick auburn, short on the sides and slightly longer on top, where it was carelessly mussed. Also the same was the model-handsome face, lean and sculpted, with a strong jaw shadowed with stubble around thin but hellishly sexy lips. His slightly longish nose was straight and narrow. His penetrating eyes as dark as black coffee, beneath brooding brows and a square forehead.

And tall—he was so tall. And muscular.

Nothing at all like her Patrick.

Which had been part of the reason for that night...

Livi swallowed with some difficulty, trying to manage so many emotions at once—the shame and humiliation, but also the attraction she wished she could repress. Because she couldn’t help appreciating what an impressive, imposing specimen of a man he was.

“I didn’t know you were a cowboy from Montana,” she said weakly.

“Cowboy?” John Sr. commented, breaking through Livi’s shock. “He isn’t really that.”

“He is when he’s getting his hands dirty doing our work around here,” Maeve retorted. “And, yes, Livi is a Camden,” the older woman confirmed to Callan. “She’s Seth Camden’s cousin, Georgianna Camden’s granddaughter, and she came to offer sympathies and help with Greta.”

Livi watched Callan’s thick eyebrows dip together in a frown. “Help with Greta,” he repeated without inflection. But the frown was enough to let her know that he wasn’t as receptive to the idea as the Tellers had already seemed to be. “Why would a Camden want to do that?”

Suspicion. It was clear as day in his voice then.

So much for this going smoothly...

And despite what had happened in Hawaii and how monumental it was to her, Livi realized that their personal history was now on the back burner for him. That they’d veered into anti-Camden territory. John Sr. and Maeve hadn’t seemed to know the details of the bad blood between the Camdens and Randall Walcott, but Livi was willing to bet Callan knew the whole story—and held a grudge.

“I know that once upon a time there was a falling out with the Camdens and Randall Walcott—”

“A falling out?” Callan repeated with an unpleasant huff. “You people played that guy for a sucker. You lured him in and then pulled the rug out from under him.”

Livi took a deep breath, wishing she could deny any part of what he’d just laid at her family’s doorstep, but knowing she couldn’t. The harsh, often unethical behavior of the senior Camdens was the very reason she and her siblings and cousins were working so hard to make restitution.

“Until very recently none of the Camdens who are around today—me, my brothers and sister, my cousins and our grandmother—knew what went on all that time ago,” she said. “My grandmother knew Randall Walcott as a boy her sons grew up with, worked with—”

“They worked him, all right,” Callan continued with a sneer. “They had their old man give him advice on how to start his shoe business. Even gave him a loan so he could expand it. But about the time he had everything up and running they called in the loan, knowing he couldn’t pay. Then they took over his company, stealing what he’d started and built up. You people still sell Walcott Shoes, if I’m not mistaken.”

“You people” again...

“I was only two years old when it went down,” Livi felt compelled to point out. “And no one alive today had anything to do with it. None of us would let something like that go on now and—”

But Callan seemed determined that the entire story be told, because he interrupted her to go on. “Mandy’s dad ended up with nothing! That poor bastard had to come here with his tail between his legs and move his family in with his in-laws. Mandy told me all about it. She was just a kid, but when you see your dad as upset and beaten down as he was, you remember it. She hated what had happened to him...especially with what happened next, when after two years of more failure here he ended up putting a gun to his own head—”

“Shh, shh, shh...” Maeve whispered suddenly, apparently spotting Greta just before she returned to the room, having changed clothes.

“I wanted to put on my dress that goes with the scarf,” the little girl announced. Then, spotting Callan, she laid a small hand to the hair adornment and said, “Look, Uncle Callan—Livi gave me this and tied it like she had it. Isn’t it pretty?”

“It is,” he confirmed, but his voice was tight.

“Come on, Greta,” Kinsey said in a hurry, as if she was looking for any reason to escape this scene herself. “Let’s go see how many other things will match the scarf.”

The nurse held out her hand to the little girl and Greta took it eagerly, chattering as if Kinsey was a girlfriend as they both left the room.

Not until they heard a door closing upstairs did anyone speak.

Then Callan broke the silence. “Any Camden is the last person on earth Mandy would want near her kid,” he said flatly, as if that put an end to the discussion.

“But this girl didn’t have nothin’ to do with anything that happened all those years ago,” John Sr. argued. “It’s nothin’ to do with Greta, neither, and far as I can see, it’s nothin’ to do with you no way, Tierney—”

His last name is Tierney?

The name meant nothing to Livi, but she tucked it away as information she might need.

“Least you could do,” the elderly man went on, “is hear out Livi here. We hardly know Seth Camden, her—” he looked to Livi “—cousin, is it?”

“Yes,” she said.

“We don’t barely know him, but when word got around town about our troubles, he sent his crew over here to help out. Come pickin’ time, they did our whole harvest. And when I asked what we owed them they said that they were on the Camden clock, that Seth Camden was just bein’ neighborly and wantin’ to help us out, and not to even mention it. Seems to me that’s a sign of what this young lady is sayin’—the new breed isn’t like the old one.”

Livi took that endorsement as her cue. “We want to make up for what was done all those years ago. Greta is Randall Walcott’s only living descendent and the only person we can compensate. We want to make sure she’s looked after and has anything she needs. Anything—care and attention, a trust fund. A college fund, maybe—”

“She doesn’t need your money,” Callan said, as if financial matters were of no importance.

“But we want to take care of whatever she does need,” Livi persisted.

Just then Greta came bounding back into the living room, running straight to Livi. “Look at this other scarf I found!”

“That’s the sash to your Christmas dress, sweetheart,” Maeve said.

“But it’s like a scarf!” Greta insisted to her grandmother, before honing in on Livi again. “Can you teach me how to tie it like you did? And could you paint my fingernails like yours, too? I think that would look nice with my outfit. Oh! You have pierced ears!” she exclaimed, apparently just noticing. “My mom’s ears were pierced and she said I could have mine done, too. My friend Raina’s mom pierced hers—can you do that?” the little girl asked eagerly.

“Greta, where did you go?” the nurse called from upstairs. “Come back and see—I found something we can tie in your doll’s hair like you wanted.”

“I’ll be right back!” Greta promised Livi, before charging out of the room again.

As she did, Maeve said, “She’s attached to Kinsey. Follows her like a shadow. But what will happen when I’m better and don’t need a nurse anymore? Then an old lady will be the only woman Greta has paying any kind of close attention to her. What she needs is a younger one, somebody who can give her what Mandy would have. And she seems to have taken to you, Livi...”

GiGi had suggested something similar—that Greta would need a woman in her life. And that had been something Livi had thought she might be able to do, even if it was long distance. She could make frequent trips to Northbridge, she’d decided. And maybe Greta could occasionally come to Denver on long weekends or vacations from school, to give her guardian a break.

Only, now that Livi knew who Greta’s guardian was, she couldn’t say she was eager for any contact that might put her in the position she was in right now.

So she said, “I’d be happy to spend time with her, to act as a big sister. But I live in Denver. Seth might know of a woman here—between the two of us I’m sure we could find someone for her.”

“Denver is where we’re all headin’,” John Sr. said under his breath, not sounding happy about it.

“That’s where Callan lives,” Maeve explained. “And he wants to look after us now that our John Jr. can’t. We aren’t doing so well on our own anymore.”

Then I don’t have an out? Livi was near panic at the idea of having to face Callan on a regular basis.

“I don’t know about having her around Greta,” Callan said, sounding frustrated at having his stance ignored. “She’s come at us out of the blue. How do we know she doesn’t have something up her sleeve, the way her family did with Greta’s grandfather?”

“It isn’t like you don’t have some things to answer for in your own past,” John Sr. grumbled to Callan. “And that was all you, not some long-gone relatives. Didn’t keep Mandy and our John from lettin’ you be around Greta.”

Callan looked thunderous, which Maeve must have noticed, because she rushed to speak next. “I have good instincts about people and Livi seems like a nice person who’s just wanting to make things right. Everybody makes mistakes. It’s what they do to correct them that matters.”

There was an underlying message in that, aimed at both John Sr. and Callan, but Livi had no idea what that message was. It kept both men quiet, though, while Maeve seemed to take the reins.

“I think it could be really good for Greta to have you be her big sister, Livi,” the elderly lady said then. “To have a young woman’s guidance so I don’t have to worry that I’m not up-to-date enough for her. Today, meeting you, is the happiest I’ve seen her since we lost her momma and daddy. So if you’re willing to take that little girl under your wing to atone for the past, I think we’d be lucky to have you.”

It appeared that both men knew better than to argue with her.

But with resignation in his almost-black eyes, Callan said to Livi, “Greta is my responsibility now and I’ll be watching to make sure you’re on the up-and-up with this.”

He’d be watching? Did that mean that he was going to make sure he was around whenever she was with Greta?

Oh, great, that’s all I need.

But what could Livi say? That he was the glaring reminder of her worst mistake and she didn’t want to face him over and over again?

GiGi had given her the task of performing restitution to Greta. It was her job to make sure Greta was well taken care of, that the little girl’s needs were met—no matter what. Livi had to see it through. She didn’t have a choice.

Maybe this is my punishment for Hawaii, she thought.

But without any way to back out now, she took a deep, bracing breath, plastered a smile on her face and said, “We just want to do something for Greta’s good.”

Regardless how difficult it might prove to be for Livi.

Because despite the way this had started out today, she was now afraid it was going to be very, very difficult...

* * *

“I’ll go in and say hello to John, pay him directly.”

“Yeah, sure,” Callan said to the man whose truck he’d just loaded with hay bales.

There had been an edge of distrust in Gordon Bassett’s voice, but Callan ignored it. Disdain and distrust for him in Northbridge was an old song Callan knew well. And apparently that was never going to change. It was the price he paid for being the kid from the other side of the tracks. A kid who had earned the reputation as a troublemaker.

But Callan had too many other things to think about at the moment to care about that. Actually, he wasn’t even looking at the man he’d known all his life. He was watching the woman he now knew as Livi Camden drive away. And wondering what the hell was going on lately. Life was throwing him one curve ball after another.

Beginning in the middle of the night he’d spent with her.

If she’d told him her last name when they’d met at that beach bar in Hawaii, he might have left her sitting alone to watch the sea turtles and the sunset by herself.

Oh, who was he kidding? Even knowing what kind of people she came from, he probably would have stuck around.

She’d been too damn gorgeous sitting there in the fading sunlight with her long, bittersweet-chocolate-colored hair draping over her sexy bare shoulders. When she’d looked up at him with eyes that were a darker and more beautiful cobalt blue than the clear sky in the distance, eyes set in the face of an angel, he wouldn’t have pulled away no matter what. Not with the mood he’d been in, having just accomplished a buyout he’d been working on for a year. He’d wanted to kick back and celebrate a little at day’s end—so yeah, he’d have probably stuck around even if he had known she was a Camden.

He just wouldn’t have ever told Mandy about it.

But the Livi of Hawaii was a Camden.

And now their paths had crossed again.

Two curve balls for the price of one...

He watched Livi’s car get farther and farther away. He’d had every intention of going out to that car with her when she left so he could talk to her alone about Hawaii.

But then Bassett had showed up for his hay and Callan had had no choice but to head out to load the truck.

Now she was gone and he felt like an even bigger heel than he’d felt in the last two months whenever the thought of Hawaii came to mind.

As big a heel as she no doubt thought he was.

Not that they’d made any plans. Any promises. It had even been Livi who had dodged talk of what she’d called their “real lives.”

But still, to take off without a word, without even thinking about her...

To be honest, in that moment he hadn’t been thinking about anything but that middle-of-the-night phone call.

That lousy, freaking call that had caused his phone to vibrate enough to wake him without waking Livi, so he could take it into the living room of his suite and not disturb her.

That lousy, freaking call that had literally knocked the breath out of him, leaving him dazed and operating on autopilot, struggling to deal with the news that his two closest friends—Mandy and John Jr.—had been involved in a horrible car accident. That J.J. was barely holding on to life. That Mandy was already dead.

Callan had thrown on the clothes Livi had helped him discard hours before. Once he was dressed—taking nothing with him other than his wallet and cell phone—he’d rushed out of that suite, calling his pilot to arrange an emergency flight for his private jet, to get him to Montana immediately.

Calling the concierge to explain the situation and get the man to see to packing his bags, checking him out and sending the bags to him later.

Calling his assistant to get to Montana ahead of him and begin dealing with the nightmare.

By the time Callan was on his way to the airport, and finally remembered the woman he’d left in his bed, it was already too late.

He’d called his hotel room from the plane—no answer. He’d talked again to the concierge, who had gone to the suite while he was still on the line.

But Livi was gone, and there was no way for Callan to contact her when all he knew was her first name.

They’d gone from the beach to his suite, so he had no idea what room had been hers, no way of trying to get a belated message to her. No way of ever letting her know what had happened, and that he’d hoped and expected their time together to end much differently.

At the very least, it wouldn’t have ended with him disappearing into thin air.

He felt rotten for how he’d treated Livi, even if he did have a reason for it. Under other circumstances, if they’d met again, he would have apologized, explained, maybe tried to make it up to her somehow.

But under these circumstances?

Nothing about these circumstances was normal.

She was a Camden. He knew how Mandy had felt about the Camdens—any generation of them. She would never have trusted them. And she would never have let any one of them near Greta.

And why had Livi come around?

Callan couldn’t say that he trusted a Camden’s motives, either. Not after what he knew they’d done to Mandy’s dad.

Did Livi Camden have something up her sleeve?

She was the first Camden to make any contact since they’d got what they wanted all those years ago. It was something Mandy had always added when she’d told the story—that they’d never so much as said they were sorry, not even when her dad died...

And that was what they did to supposed friends.

Now Callan was being pressured to let one of them near Greta?

But just how hard-line could he be with her, after the way he’d abandoned her in Hawaii, even if there had been a good reason? Not to mention just how hard-line could he be going up against the Tellers, who had taken an instant liking to Livi and seemed willing and eager to have her mentor their granddaughter?

The Tellers, who he owed.

The Tellers, who he’d promised John Jr. on his deathbed he would take care of.

That promise was already hard enough to keep, given the way John Sr. refused to trust him. If Callan went against the man in this, it would just make the tensions between them that much worse.

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.