A Camden's Baby Secret (8 page)

“She's pretty, too,” Livi said, confused by why she had such a need to push this with him. But she did. “Is she single? I've never heard her mention anyone.”

“Maeve says she is—I think it was some kind of hint that I should take a look or something.” More ambiguity.

“But you didn't?”

“Nah,” he said, as if he couldn't give it a second thought.

And yet Livi was still compelled to test. “I was thinking that I might fix her up. I know a few single men she might like...”

“Just don't get her all wrapped up in some new romance until I can spare her around here.”

The fact that he was so focused on Kinsey's work—and nothing else about the pretty nurse—made Livi feel worlds better as she went into the dining room to wipe down the table.

When she returned to the kitchen, Callan had that finished, too, and after rinsing the sponge she'd used and handing it to him to put away, it occurred to her that there was nothing more holding her there.

“I should probably get going, too,” she said.

“There's no rush...”

Because he wanted her to stay or because he was being polite?

It didn't matter, she told herself. She'd come to welcome Greta, she'd pitched in out of good manners and now it was time to go.

Like it or not...

“It's been a long day,” she replied, repeating what she'd said earlier to Kinsey. “For you, too.”

“I'm fine,” he insisted.

So maybe he wasn't just being polite?

It was satisfying to think that he wanted her to stay—and tempting, too—but she thought better of it and didn't give in to the inclination to.

“I really should get going.”

“I'll walk you down to your car then,” he said. “The parking garage is pretty secure, but I'm still not crazy about the idea of a woman down there alone at night.”

Livi didn't point out that he'd just let Kinsey leave alone, because she didn't want to admit to herself that she didn't hate the prospect of him escorting her to her car.

And she also didn't want to encourage him to start being more attentive to Kinsey.

So she just picked up her purse and put on her jacket.

Callan opened the door for her and they stepped across the hall to the elevator that brought them down to the basement level, where she'd been directed to park.

“The dolls and stuffed animals were a big hit. Thanks for doing that for Greta,” Callan said along the way.

“I'm just glad she liked them all. I wasn't sure what she might already have, so I went into the toy department in our store on Colorado Boulevard and asked for the newest arrivals that sales figures indicate are trending for her age group.”

“You had a plan,” he said with a laugh. Livi flushed as she realized after the fact that her explanation was more detailed than it needed to be.

It was just that being alone with him, standing so close in the elevator, made her even more aware of him. How substantially built he was. How much she liked the cologne he wore.

They reached her car, but tonight Callan stopped short of going to her door. Instead he hitched a hip onto her rear fender and crossed his forearms over the thick thigh he raised.

Livi obliged him and came to a stop, too, facing him. And trying to ignore the fact that even dressed in casual navy blue twill slacks and a white polo shirt, he was something to see. Especially with that stubble shadowing his bad-boy good looks.

“So you're taking Greta shopping for things to redecorate her room tomorrow?” he said then.

Ah, so that was what he wanted to talk about. He was probably having misgivings about it again.

“If that's okay,” Livi answered. “I know it was Maeve's suggestion at dinner, and you didn't say much. But I wasn't sure how long I'd be in Northbridge, so I took all this week off and I'm free...”

“I'd like to be there, but I've been gone for twelve days this time, to close up the farm and get everybody ready for this move. I have to go into work.”

“And your favorite thing to do is shop for stuff to redecorate a room, and you don't want it done without you?”

He laughed again. “Actually, to me, that kind of shopping is punishment enough for a capital crime—I
hate
it. But...”

“You want to keep an eye on me when I'm with Greta in case I'm an evil Camden and not on the up-and-up,” Livi said, paraphrasing his warning that first day at the farm and also recalling his reservations when they'd talked about this before.

He grinned sheepishly and confessed, “Something like that.”

“So do you not want us to go tomorrow?”

He took a moment to think about it, not looking at her. Then he drew a deep breath and sighed. “Greta was really excited about it,” he admitted. “She hardly said five words all day long, but when Maeve came up with that...” His eyebrows arched as if in concession.

“She's big enough for you to question when we get back, you know,” Livi suggested. “You can keep tabs on things that way to monitor me.”

She didn't know what about that made him flash a devilish little smile, before he said, “I s'pose. You've kind of got me over a barrel, having Maeve in your corner.”

“I won't do it if you're uncomfortable with it,” Livi said. “I'll even take the blame—I can call Greta in the morning and say something came up and I can't make it.”

“That would make you the bad guy instead of me,” he said, as if there was some appeal in that. But then he shook his head. “No, that would disappoint Greta. And I want her room to be what she wants. But I'm paying this time. Whatever she picks out, have the salesperson call me and I'll give my credit card number for it.”

It was Livi's turn to laugh, because he'd said that as if it somehow justified him agreeing to let Greta be alone with her. “If that makes you feel better. And I swear I'll try not to corrupt her while we're picking out dust ruffles.”

“I don't know what a dust ruffle is, but thanks,” he said facetiously. He shook his head again. “I told you, this is all pretty mixed up for me.”

Livi nodded. “I get it—it'll just take some time for you to see that I really only want to make up for what was done years ago.”

“So you aren't a Camden Trojan horse.”

“What exactly would I be infiltrating?” she challenged, a part of her realizing how much she liked these teasing exchanges.

“I don't know. I only know how Mandy felt about Camdens, and I'm trying to do right by her.”

“I respect that,” Livi admitted. “You're just being a good friend and looking out for her daughter.”

And it was something about him and his character that she noted herself. Admiring it in him even if it did make him suspicious of her.

He was studying her face as if to reassure himself. Or maybe to resolve those two elements that he found at odds—her being whatever it was he'd thought of her in Hawaii with the fact that she was a Camden.

Then he pushed off her fender and stood in front of her. “It's also tough,” he confided, “because Camden or not, you're a big help to me. And I need it all the way around. At least, while I'm trying to figure this whole thing out, Greta doesn't have to suffer for my incompetence as her guardian.”

“So think of it as that—help to you that Greta benefits from.”

“That sounded a little Trojan horsey—like you're trying to suck me in so I lower my guard,” he said with one eyebrow arched.

But his voice was more playful than venomous. And the expression on his handsome face changed to something more intimate.

Then he reached a hand to her upper arm, squeezing it affectionately, as if that was a perfectly natural thing between them. “Anyway, thanks for what you did today and for sticking around tonight. Like I said, it put Greta in a better mood, and I think the Tellers were happy to see you, too.” He paused a beat, squeezed her arm a second time, and added, “And I can't say I was
un
happy to see you...”

She liked hearing that more than she wanted to.

Then, when she wasn't expecting it at all, he leaned forward and kissed her forehead.

Livi froze, taken by surprise and knocked off balance by that contact.

But it was over the next moment when he let go of her arm to step back.

Nodding toward the driver's side of her car, he said, “Go on home and get some sleep.”

Livi swallowed with some difficulty and could barely find her voice to say good-night before she did as he'd instructed.

But after an entire day of muddled emotions, as she drove home she felt even more confusion.

In her entire life she had never seen herself with anyone but Patrick.

In Hawaii she'd been outside of herself. But here she was now, with her feet firmly planted on home turf.

And while she wasn't actually seeing herself with Callan, something did seem to be happening.

Something she didn't understand, that had never happened before.

Something that left her arm still tingling where Callan had touched her.

Something that left her hungering for more than that platonic forehead kiss.

And thinking—for the first time, here and now, on home turf—that maybe Patrick
wasn't
the only man she could be with...

Chapter Six

“G
ood, you're still here! But everybody else—”

“Sound asleep. Kinsey left a few minutes ago, and I was just about to,” Livi told Callan when he came in on Friday night. He'd caught her in the middle of putting on her short, black leather jacket over the white mock-turtleneck T-shirt topping her jeans and boots.

“Damn, I did it again?” he said.

Livi assumed he meant that he'd come home from work for the second day in a row too late for any of his charges to so much as set eyes on him. And according to Greta, he left for work before they woke in the morning, so none of them had seen him since Wednesday night.

Neither had Livi—something she was more aware of than she wanted to be.

On Thursday she'd taken Greta shopping, making sporadic contact with Callan along the way through texts, and thinking that she would see him that evening. Looking forward to seeing him, in spite of herself.

But a little before six he'd texted that he was held up and wouldn't be home for dinner. He'd asked if she could pick something up. So Livi and Greta had ordered takeout from an Italian bistro next to the mall and brought it home for everyone. Callan still hadn't shown up when Livi had put Greta to bed and Kinsey had done the same with Maeve.

This morning, Livi, Greta, Kinsey and John Sr., supervised by Maeve in her wheelchair, had started turning Greta's room into a nine-year-old girl's dream, a project that took them into the evening.

Still no sign of Callan.

And because during the last two days Greta's highs had been sprinkled with some very low lows, Livi hadn't wanted to just leave her. So she'd suggested the five of them have a pizza-and-movie night.

Which was what they'd done.

But even though Greta had stayed up past her bedtime, eager to show Callan all they'd done to her room, by ten o'clock Maeve insisted that her granddaughter get to bed, and the elder Tellers had followed suit.

Since the pizza and movie had been Livi's idea, along with popcorn, she'd stayed to clean up, sending Kinsey home once the nurse had finished getting Maeve situated for the night.

And even though Livi told herself she wasn't consciously stalling in hopes of seeing Callan, she knew she sort of was. But she'd run out of excuses to stay, and so she was about to leave when he came in.

“What time is it?” he asked, keeping his voice low as he took off his tan suit coat and striped tie.

“Not quite eleven,” she informed him, going on to explain about the movie and cleanup and Greta trying to wait for him, certainly not letting him know that she had been, too. And trying hard not to feast on the sight of him as if she were starving for it.

“I brought doughnuts...” he said, as if they were consolation, raising the bakery box he was carrying.

“They can eat them for breakfast?” Livi proposed.

He nodded, but said, “I blew it, huh?”

She merely raised her eyebrows at him to confirm it.

“Can you hang around a little bit and bring me up to date? I know it's late, but...” He raised the box again and repeated temptingly, “I have doughnuts. And tonight is the first night the fire pits were lit in the courtyard downstairs. It's still a nice night. We could take the doughnuts down there and talk...”

It was late and pregnancy was sapping Livi's energy.

But it
was
Friday night, and there was nowhere she needed to be in the morning. Plus there were a few things she thought he should be updated on. Besides, there was nothing and no one waiting for her at home—just an empty house.

“I'm weak when it comes to doughnuts,” she said.

He grinned as if she'd granted him something deeply important. “Give me five minutes to change clothes and I'll be right back,” he said, handing her the pastry box.

This isn't because I feel any kind of attraction to him
, she told herself while he was gone.

It couldn't be.

If she was genuinely attracted to him it would be another complication in an already overly complex situation. She needed to be able to think clearly in order to make sure she made the right choices now. Much, much better choices than she'd made in Hawaii.

So while she knew she needed to get to know Callan, what she didn't need was any kind of emotions clouding the situation.

Yet when he walked back into the entry a few minutes later, dressed in jeans that fitted him like an old friend and a gray hoodie that had somehow mussed his hair into looking even better than it had, coupled with that sexy stubble on his jaw Livi couldn't help appreciating the whole picture. Which made it difficult to go on believing that she wasn't attracted to him.

But still, she tried.

“Okay, let's go,” he said, taking the doughnut box back and opening the door for her to step out ahead of him.

“You've been at work all this time?” she asked as they rode the elevator to the first floor.

“Before dawn yesterday until after midnight last night, and then in again before dawn today. We're launching new operating system software in another month and I've been gone to Northbridge so much that we're behind schedule. My people have been working overtime to make up for me not being there. Tempers are short and disputes had to be dealt with. And there were meetings I've been putting off, on top of work I'm behind on...” He stopped short. “You run a big business—you know how it is.”

“I share responsibilities with nine other people, so the weight of everything doesn't fall on any one of us... So, no, we don't get as swamped as that.”

“Lucky you,” he said, as he guided her through the lobby and out a back door into a courtyard that made Livi feel as if she'd stepped into a forest retreat.

A flat, grassy meadow-like area was enclosed in moss-covered rocks and evergreen trees that blocked out any view or sounds of the city, and instead made it seem as if they were in the mountains.

But the setting was luxurious, too, with lushly cushioned outdoor furniture surrounding several fire pits. They were all lit, giving off enough heat to chase away any chill.

“Great—we have it all to ourselves,” Callan said, motioning to the grouping not far from the door.

Each fire pit was centered amid four seats larger than easy chairs, providing more than enough room for one. Livi sat where he directed and he joined her, keeping it cozy. Especially when he rested his arm on top of the wrought-iron frame behind her. He wasn't touching her in any way, but it
was
cozy.

And nice.

Though again, she tried not to register that.

He opened the doughnut box and held it out to her.

There was a chocolate-glazed chocolate one with chocolate sprinkles; Livi didn't have to think twice.

“You're a chocolate girl,” he observed.

“Through and through,” she confessed, as he picked a plain glazed and set the box on the small table beside their chair.

“These will be even better dunked in coffee tomorrow morning,” he said, just before they both took a bite.

Her mornings hadn't included coffee for a few weeks because the smell of it made her sicker. And anyway, she was watching her caffeine intake now that she knew she was pregnant.

But that wasn't a comment she was going to make, so she just took another bite of her doughnut, enjoying it tonight while she could.

“So what's been going on?” he asked.

Livi filled him in on the time since he'd last been with her or anyone else in his household, then said, “Greta has had a few rough patches. When we were shopping there were a couple of times when she mentioned her mom—like she forgot for a minute that Mandy was gone. Twice she said she liked something but didn't know if her mom would, then she caught herself and got really quiet. At home she kept asking Maeve if her parents would have liked her choices—as if she was hoping Maeve could channel some approval. And she kind of disappeared into her room last night, and when I found her she was crying.”

Callan sobered and frowned. “Is that normal?”

“I talked to her about what it was like for me when I lost my parents, when I had to move away from my house to live somewhere else. That brought up a lot of questions about if I thought or felt this or that, as if she's been worrying that she might be doing it wrong. I told her I'd thought and felt the same things, and it seemed like she got a little happier.”

“So she's going through what you went through and it
is
normal?”

“I think so.”

“But it was a tough couple of days that I wasn't around for.”

“It has been tough,” Livi confirmed, without condemning him. “This is even more upheaval for her than I went through. I went from my home to my grandmother's house, somewhere I was familiar with. It doesn't seem as if you and Greta are as close as I was to GiGi...”

“I'm pretty busy all the time,” he admitted.

“For Greta, this is all new and unfamiliar,” Livi continued. “Your place is beautiful, but it isn't what she's used to and she's worrying about what she should use, what she can and can't touch, where she can and can't go in the condo. And the same goes for the Tellers, I think. Maeve keeps fretting about things being too nice to use, not wanting to risk damaging this or that. She tells John Sr. to be careful constantly. Plus, for John Sr.—”

“I'm in trouble all the way around, huh?”

Livi didn't want to scold Callan, but he needed to know what was going on. “You have to take into consideration how big a change this is for all of them. I think they need you around reassuring them that it's their home now, too. Or setting some sort of parameters if there are things you
don't
want them to do.”

“They can do whatever they want,” he said, as if he genuinely wasn't concerned.

“But they need to be made to feel welcome and at home. By you—because, after all, it's your place. But you've kind of disappeared on them. Maeve keeps worrying, and John Sr. is chafing at things—”

“The old man
chafes
at everything. Especially when it comes to me.”

Any mention of the elder male Teller always seemed to rub Callan the wrong way, and vice versa. Livi ignored his comment. “But I think he's feeling kind of stranded. Maeve is incapacitated and not up to anything but resting, but John Sr. isn't. I mean, I can see where he couldn't handle all the farm work on his own anymore, or provide all the nursing of Maeve needs, but he's said more than once in these last two days that if he was home he could get in his truck and go into town to get—”

“His sunflower seeds and jerky and beer!” Callan said with a grimace. “I forgot. He was going to bring his own supply and I told him I'd stock them as soon as we got here, and I didn't.”

Livi didn't mention that she knew that because the elderly man had complained about it. “I did a grocery run this morning and got what he wanted. But I think it's more than that. I think he needs a car—or truck—so whenever he feels like it he can get out for a while on his own. He's feeling kind of penned in...”

“Sure, but he was in Northbridge before, not Cherry Creek, where there's traffic. You know driving around here is a lot different than the open country roads he's used to.”

“You could take him out, show him some back ways to get around and how to avoid traffic so he could at least go to the grocery store or the mall or whatever. Enough so he has some independence left. He's a proud old guy and—”

“And you're saying that I've cut him off at the knees. But you know, the Tellers aren't as young as your parents or mine would have been if they were still alive,” he argued.

“I know. Maeve told me how John Jr. was a surprise late-in-life
baby, that she was forty-five when she had him. But their age is all the more reason why they need some independence. I can tell you from the way things are with my grandmother that even basically healthy people that age end up with a lot of back and forth to doctors and pharmacies just for maintenance. Right now Kinsey is taking care of all the meds and monitoring for both Maeve and John Sr., but when she's gone, they'll need to get in to a doctor's office and a pharmacy more than you can imagine. John Sr. can take them around for a few more years if you just get him comfortable driving in the city. In the long run that's to your benefit, too.”

“True...” Callan said thoughtfully.

“Kinsey examined him, gave him reflex and vision tests. She said he's fine on that count,” Livi added, to convince him.

“Maybe he could even take Greta back and forth to school,” Callan mused.

It was something else Livi had planned to use to build her case. But now that it had occurred to him on his own she was a little afraid he might go too far. Yes, the Tellers could help out shuttling Greta back and forth, but as her guardian, Callan should really take on some of those responsibilities himself.

So she said, “But even though John Sr. can pitch in a little, it would still be good if you kept to some kind of schedule where they all could expect to see you every day. Just leaving them wondering if you'll be around or not—”

“Is bad,” he said, as if it was a complaint he'd heard before. “I know I have to pay more attention to what's going on at home. I'm just used to staying at work until the work is done, no matter how long that takes. I grab something to eat when I get hungry, not because it's any particular time of day. And—” his tone turned guilty “—I barely remember there's anyone at home, waiting. And I know that's lousy for whoever
is
at home. But at least I haven't had my assistant filling in.” Callan sounded proud of himself for a moment, then frowned and added, “Although I guess that's pretty much what you and Kinsey have been doing...”

He released a sigh of self-disgust and said, “I really haven't learned my lesson.”