A Camden's Baby Secret
Read A Camden's Baby Secret Online
Authors: Victoria Pade
Love and the reluctant mogul
A tragic accident has left software mogul Callan Tierney guardian to a young girl and caregiver to her elderly grandparents. But “family man” isn't Callan's strong suit and he chafes at his new responsibilities. Until he reluctantly accepts the help of Livi Camdenâa one-night stand who's haunted his dreams ever since...
Two months ago, widow Livi Camden finally let loose with one exotic Hawaiian night that left her breathless...and pregnant. Now, on a mission to make amends to a family her forbears have wronged, Livi finds herself helping her onetime tropical lover. As passion reignites, she hesitates to reveal her pregnancy. Is Callan willing to add “husband” and “daddy” to his list of family duties?
“Anyway,” he repeated, “now here we are...”
“Here we are,” Livi echoed.
“And I thought maybe we should talk about...you know...where we go now.”
He did meet her eyes then, and Livi responded with an acknowledging raise of her chin. But she didn't say anything because she had no idea where they should go nowâespecially factoring in that pregnancy test she had in that bag in the trunk of her cousin's car.
“How about we just put it behind us?” he suggested then. “Forget it happened. Start fresh...”
Easy for him to say.
“You want to help Greta,” he went on, “and now she's kind of my jobâher and the Tellersâso we'll be seeing each other. But Hawaii was...well...”
A one-night stand? A vacation fling? Pure stupidity on her part? Yes, what exactly should they call it?
As bad as the past two months had been for Livi, this was worse. This was excruciating. It felt like a brush-off. As if he was telling her that even though they'd slept together, he didn't want there to be anything more than that.
And while she certainly didn't, either, it was still a rejection. One she hadn't signed on for because she hadn't so much as entertained the idea of Hawaii going anywhere further.
The Camdens of Colorado: They've made a fortune in business. Can they make it in the game of love?
Dear Reader,
After years of grieving the loss of her soul mate, Livi
Camden has done something completely out of character. An attempt to escape the
pain of a lonely wedding anniversary led to a night of abandon in the arms of a
stranger. Filled with regret, now not only is she afraid she's pregnant, that
man has suddenly come back into her life.
Software mogul Callan Tierney already has his hands full when
he reconnects with the beauty he had to run out on. The former bad boy has lost
his two best friends and inherited their nine-year-old daughter and her
grandparents.
There couldn't be a worse time for Livi and Callan's paths to
cross again, let alone for them to sort through what happened in Hawaiiâthe
results of which Livi is keeping secret until she decides if Callan should be
told at all.
Will she or won't she tell him? Can Callan handle any more?
Those are questions that have to be answered amid the memories of their amazing
night together. But it
was
an amazing night...
Hope you enjoy finding out what happens!
Happy Reading,
A Camden's Baby Secret
Victoria Pade
Victoria Pade
is a
USA TODAY
bestselling author. A native of Colorado,
she's lived there her entire life. She studied art before discovering her real
passion was for writing, and even after more than eighty books, she still loves
it. When she isn't writing she's baking and worrying about how to work off the
calories. She has better luck with the baking than with the calories. Readers
can contact her on her Facebook page.
Books by Victoria Pade
Harlequin Special Edition
The Camdens of
Colorado
A Sweetheart for the Single Dad
Montana Mavericks: Rust
Creek Cowboys
The Maverick's Christmas Baby
Northbridge
Nuptials
A Baby for the Bachelor
The Bachelor's Northbridge Bride
Marrying the Northbridge Nanny
The Bachelor, the Baby and the Beauty
The Bachelor's Christmas Bride
Big Sky Bride, Be Mine!
Mommy in the Making
The Camden Cowboy
Montana Mavericks:
Striking It Rich
A Family for the Holidays
Visit the Author Profile page at
Harlequin.com
for more titles.
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Chapter One
M
aybe I shouldn't have come today
, Livi Camden thought as she leaned against the wall in one of the downstairs bathrooms of her grandmother's house.
For over a week now she'd been having slight waves of nauseaâmostly in the mornings. But on this warm, sunshine-filled Sunday afternoonâthe second week of Octoberâit became much worse than a slight wave the minute she'd come in and cooking smells had greeted her.
The bathroom had a window to the backyard and she opened it so she could breathe in the outside air.
Better...
The wave began to pass.
That was good. She hated feeling nauseous and she also didn't want to have to go home. She loved Sunday dinner at her grandmother's house with all her familyâeven if she wasn't sure she was going to be able to eat much today.
Family had been everything to her since she'd lost her parents as a child and, along with her siblings and cousins, had become the responsibility of her grandmother. It was her family that kept Livi going when loss struck four years ago with Patrick's death.
Plus, GiGi had called and said she wanted a few minutes alone with her today, and whatever request her grandmother made of her, Livi did her best to fulfillâespecially if it meant helping with the family project of making amends to those wronged by the Camdens in the past.
The discovery of her great-grandfather H. J. Camden's journals had confirmed all the ugly talk that had haunted the family for decades. It was rumored that the Camdens had regularly practiced underhanded and deceitful tactics to build their highly profitable empire of superstores.
The current Camdens were determined to do whatever they could to make up for the past. Quietly, so as not to invite false claims on them, they were finding ways to help or compensate those who had genuinely been harmed.
It was a cause Livi believed in and she was ready, willing and able to do her part.
Actually, she
hoped
that was why her grandmother wanted to talk to her.
Maybe doing something good and positive for someone else might make her feel better about herself these days. And it might also give her something to think about other than the biggest mistake she'd ever made in her life, for which she couldn't seem to stop chastising herself.
Another wave of nausea hit her and again she took some deep breaths of cool backyard air, trying to relax. She was sure that stress over her horrible choice two months ago was causing the nausea.
“Hey, Liv, are you okay? You've been in there a long time.”
It was her sister Lindie's voice coming from the other side of the door.
“I'm good. I'll be right out,” she answered, glancing at herself in the mirror.
Her color was fineâher usually fair skin wasn't sallow, the blue eyes that people called “those Camden blue eyes” were clear and not dull the way they got when she was genuinely under the weather. She looked tired, but not ill.
So it probably
was
stress, she told herself. That's all. She was upset about what she'd done and that was making her stomach upset. When she calmed down and managed to put Hawaii behind her, her stomach would settle.
Leaving the bathroom, she tried not to breathe in too deeply the cooking smells as she went to the kitchen. But even shallow breaths caused the queasiness again. So she opened the door to the patio, angling a shoulder through the gap so she was once again breathing outdoor air without being completely outside.
Her sister and her cousin Jani were in the kitchen, gathering dishes, napkins and silverware. They both paused to watch her.
“Are you still sick with that weird flu?” Lindie asked her.
A touch of the fluâthat was the excuse she'd given the first few days that she'd been late getting to work while she'd waited out the nausea at home.
“It can't be the fluâthat doesn't last as long as this has,” Jani contributed.
The downside of being so close to her familyâthey sometimes knew too much.
“Okay, so it's not the flu,” Lindie said. “But what is it? You've been all wound up ever since you got back from Hawaii.”
“Travel can make a mess of my stomach,” Livi hedged.
“But you've been back for weeksâplenty of time for your stomach to readjust.”
“Her wedding anniversary was while she was there,” Lindie pointed out to their cousin, as if she'd just hit on a clue. Then to Livi she said, “Was it bad this year? Did it set off something and put you back in a funk, stressing you out?”
Oh, the anniversary set off something, all right
, Livi thought. But she couldn't say
that
.
“My anniversary is never a good day.” And this year her response had been completely over-the-top and stupid. But again, she couldn't tell anyone, so instead she said, “I don't know. Maybe I've been a little tense since then. And that always gets to my stomach. I'm sure it'll pass, the way it always does,” she added with confidence.
But those smells were getting to her again, so she opened the door a little farther and moved a few more inches over the threshold.
Her left hand hung on to the edge of the door. Her left
ringless
hand.
And just the way Lindie had before Livi went into the bathroom, Jani noticed.
“Am I seeing what I'm seeing?” she exclaimed. “You took off your wedding rings? That's probably it!”
“Oh, sure, I should have thought of that,” Lindie concurred.
“Did you decide in Hawaii?” Jani asked. “That's a big deal, taking off your rings. No wonder you're all tied up in knots! Was it the anniversary that finally got you there? That
had
to be agonizing for you. And now you've done it... But that's good,” her cousin added quickly. “That's great! Of course, it couldn't have been easy for you, and it's bothering you and causing the tummy trouble. But don't put them back on! This is the first step for you to really heal.”
Livi felt like such a fraud. Along with the intermittent nausea, for some reason her fingers had swollen and she
couldn't
get her rings on. She had every intention of wearing them again when the swelling went down.
But since this assumption provided such a ready excuse to appease her sister and cousin, she let them think what they wanted.
Which might not have been the best course, because then Lindie said, “Maybe when she feels better we can even get her to go on a date.”
“No,” Livi interjected firmly, thinking that she couldn't let this go too far.
“You
need
to, Livi,” her cousin added. “Usually people have their first love, get their heart brokenâ”
“Or break someone else's heart,” Lindie interjected.
“Then do a lot of testing the waters with other people before they find Mr. Right,” Jani finished. “But youâ”
“Married my first love.”
“And missed getting the experience of casual dating. And now you're just stuck in this limboâPatrick is gone and you don't know how to do what the rest of us learned a long time ago. You need to get comfortable with the whole dating thing. Then maybe you'll be able toâ”
Don't say move on again!
Livi wanted to shout.
Instead she said, for what felt like the millionth time, “Patrick wasn't just my first love, he was also my
only
love, and you guys need to accept that. I have.”
“People can have more than one love in a lifetime, Livi,” Lindie persisted. “Look at GiGiâshe has Jonah now.”
“And I'm happy for her,” Livi said. “But Patrick was
it
for me.”
“So maybe you won't find another love-of-your-life,” Jani reasoned. “Maybe you'll just find a close second. But that's still something. Don't you want companionship at least? Someone to have dinner with? Someone to go to the movies with? Someone toâ”
“Have sex with?” Lindie said bluntly.
Oh, that made her
really
queasy!
“No,” Livi said forcefully, meaning it. And unwilling to tell either her sister or her cousin just how clearly she now knew it was a mistake to veer off the course she'd set for herself since Patrick.
“I'm fine,” she went on. “Honestly. I'm happy. I'm content. Sure, I wish things had turned out differently and Patrick and I had gotten to grow old together. But that wasn't in the cards and I've accepted it.”
“What about kids?” Jani asked, resting a hand on her pregnant belly, round and solid now that she was entering her third trimester.
Livi shook her head. “I get to have all the fun with my nieces and nephewsâmore of them coming all the time these daysâand none of the work. I'll spoil every one of them and be their favorite aunt and they'll like me better than their mean parents who have to discipline them. Then, when I'm old and gray in the nursing home, they'll all come to visit me just the way they do you guys.”
Jani rolled her eyes. “It won't be the same.”
“It'll be close enough.”
“Close enough to what?” Georgianna Camdenâthe matriarch of the Camden familyâasked as she came into the kitchen.
“Livi thinks that being an aunt is better than having kids of her own,” Lindie answered.
The seventy-five-year-old grandmother they all called GiGi raised her chin in understanding but didn't comment.
“She took off her wedding rings, though,” Jani said, her tone full of optimism.
“Oh, honey, I know how hard that is,” GiGi commiserated. “Good for you!”
“Her stomach is bothering her because of it,” Lindie explained.
“Well, sure. I'll make you dry toast for dinnerâthat always helps. But still, good for you,” the elderly woman repeated like a cheering squad.
Livi was feeling guiltier by the minute. When this whole queasiness-swollen-fingers thing passed and she put her rings back on, she knew everyone would worry about her all over again.
But there was no way she could explain what was really going on. The true reason for her queasinessâthe fact that she was so upset over what had happened in Hawaiiâhad to be her secret.
So she changed the subject and said to her grandmother, “I could use something to take my mind off everything, GiGi. I was hoping you wanted to talk to me today to tell me you have one of our projects for me.”
“As a matter of fact, that
is
why I wanted to talk to you,” she said, her tone more solemn. “Why don't we go sit outside and talk?”
Thinking that that was a fabulous idea, Livi wasted no time slipping out onto the back patio. Luckily, the beautiful Indian summer that Denver was enjoying made the weather warm yet.
Livi went as far from the house as she could to escape the cooking odors, and sat on the brick bench seat beside the outdoor kitchen they used for barbecues.
GiGi followed her, pulling one of the chairs away from a glass table nearby to sit and face her.
“This one makes
me
sick,” her grandmother announced as a prelude. She then told the story of the Camden sons and Randall Walcott, who had been Howard and Mitchum Camden's best friend and so close to the entire family that GiGi herselfâHoward and Mitchum's motherâhad known him well.
As Livi listened her stomach finally did settle, allowing her to concentrate on what GiGi was telling her.
“Which brings us to today,” GiGi said, when she'd given her the background. “I only read about what your grandfather and H.J. and my sons did a few weeks ago. I've been looking into it ever since to see how we could make some kind of restitutionâI thought it would be to Randall's daughter. She and her husband and little girl live in Northbridge...”
“So you called Seth,” Livi guessed. It was a reasonable conclusion given that her cousin and his family lived in the small Montana town on the family ranch, overseeing the Camden agriculture interests.
“I did,” GiGi confirmed. “And he told me that two months ago, Randall's daughter and her husband were killed in a car accident. Thankfully, their little girl, Greta, wasn't with them.”
“How old is she?” Livi's voice was full of the sympathy she felt, because she could identify with the childhood loss of parents.
“She's only nine.”
“And does she have a GiGi?” Livi asked. It was her grandmother who had been the salvation of her and her siblings and cousins when their parents and grandfather had all died in that plane crash. If anyone had to suffer through what they all had, the best thing that could happen to them was to have a grandmother like they had.
“She only has the Tellersâthe grandparents on the husband's side. But Seth said that Maeve Teller has health issues of some kind and apparently neither Maeve or her husband, John, are in a position to raise the little girl. There's some situation with a family friend who was granted guardianship of her in the parents' will. A single manâ”
“They left a little girl with a single man? How is he handling that? Does Seth know him?”
“Seth wasn't able to get a name, though he heard that there's something about him that doesn't sit well with folks around there for some reason. But the parents must have trusted whoever this man is or they wouldn't have left him their child.”
Livi hoped that was true.
“At any rate,” GiGi went on, “I don't know what the financial situation is. The Tellers only have a small farm and Seth says it isn't doing well, so he doubts there's much money there, especially if Maeve has medical bills. And regardless, the little girl can't be inheriting anything like what she would have if we'd treated her grandfather fairly.”
“That's the ugly truth,” Livi agreed.
“So what I want you to do is go to Northbridge and make sure this child has the care she needs now and anything she might need in the future. Let's make sure that whoever this family friend is wants her...”