A Camden's Baby Secret (2 page)

“Hopefully, finding himself guardian of a nine-year-old girl didn't come as an unpleasant surprise,” Livi muttered.

“Hopefully,” GiGi agreed. “But let's make sure that he's capable of taking care of her, that he'll give her a good home. And maybe we can set up a trust fund for her, money for her college, whatever it takes to make sure she has the kind of life she would have had if...” GiGi's voice trailed off as if she was too disgusted, too disappointed, too ashamed of what her own husband and sons had done to repeat it.

“So I'll sort of be her GiGi,” Livi said affectionately, not wanting her grandmother to go on feeling bad.

She was pleased when GiGi smiled in response. “Not necessarily a GiGi, but maybe the little girl could use a sort of big sister or a mentor—a woman in her life, too, even if everything is going well with the guardian. Or maybe she won't need anything but to be provided for financially. However, we won't know that until you check things out.”

Livi nodded.

“Are you well enough?” the gray-haired woman asked.

“I'm fine. I feel better when I have a lot to do and don't think about...things. Like I said, I need a distraction.”

“If you get tempted to put the rings back on, maybe consider wearing them on your right hand. I still do that sometimes.”

“I know,” Livi said, fighting another surge of guilt at what she'd allowed her family to believe.

Once more wanting to skirt around it, she went back to what they'd been talking about. “I have some things I have to take care of this week that can't be put off. How about I go to Northbridge next Saturday and look up Greta and her grandparents and this guardian on Sunday?”

“The sooner the better, but I suppose another week won't make any difference,” GiGi said. Then she stood. “Now let's go get you some dry toast for that stomach of yours.”

Livi dreaded going back into the house and the smells that brought on the queasiness, so she said, “I'll be right there. I just want to sit here a minute.”

And think about how nice it would be if her stomach stayed as settled as it was right then.

If her fingers returned to their normal size.

And if her period would start this month even though it never had last month.

Because if only it would, then she really could forget all about Hawaii.

And the man who had—for just one night—made her forget too many other things...

Chapter Two

“W
e knew there was some bad blood between Mandy's father and your family from a long time ago, but she never talked about it and, well...”

“Considering the way her father went out we never brought up anything about him, so all we know is that there
was
bad blood.”

What sweet Maeve Teller had tried to say diplomatically, her blunt husband, John Sr., finished.

Livi had arrived in Montana on Saturday evening, to discover Seth had taken his wife and new baby to visit Lacey's father in Texas. He'd left the keys to his cars and trucks for Livi to use—as well as the directions to the Teller farm—and promised to be back Sunday night. Tonight.

Livi had actually been glad to have the Northbridge house to herself for a while. Along with the continuing bouts of nausea and the swollen fingers, she was so easily tired out these days that she'd been happy to go straight to bed.

Unsure what kind of reception she might receive, and not wanting to risk an outright refusal to be seen, she'd arrived at the Tellers' farm without warning at two o'clock. The door had been opened by a woman who looked to be her own age—Maeve's nurse. She hadn't even asked who Livi was. She'd merely said hi, and when Livi told her that she was there to see the Tellers, the woman had invited her in without any questions.

Small-town warmth and friendliness—it had made it easy for Livi to get to the living room, where an elderly couple was playing a board game with a little girl.

Livi had introduced herself and offered the condolences of the entire Camden family for the loss of Mandy and John Teller Jr. The Tellers had asked how her grandmother was—GiGi was a well-known native of Northbridge—and after briefly updating them about her, Livi had explained that Randall had grown up as the best friend of Livi's father and uncle, and that GiGi had thought of Randall as her third son. That having just heard about the accident that had cost Randall's daughter her life and orphaned his granddaughter, GiGi had requested that Livi make this visit on her behalf.

Though the Tellers admitted that they knew there was more to the story—that there had been, eventually, a very bitter parting of the ways between Randall and the Camdens—Livi's sympathies had been accepted with grace. What followed was an hour with the Tellers and Greta. And also with the home health care nurse, Kinsey Madison, who was looking after Maeve, who had broken her arm, shoulder and leg in a fall, leaving her in plaster casts and a wheelchair.

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.