A Camden's Baby Secret

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.

She hadn’t had a haircut since Patrick’s death. Four years without so much as a trim.

Patrick had liked her hair long and she just hadn’t been able to have any of it cut.

But that day she’d actually felt like it. Nothing short, no huge change, nothing Patrick would have even noticed, just a little something...

Which was what she’d done—had a scant two inches cut off the length. But she’d also had the sides feathered, and then agreed to the highlights the stylist suggested.

It was funny how a small change could catapult her even further into feeling like a whole new woman.

And while she was at it, why not go all the way? The makeup artist had had a cancelation and offered Livi his services. Why not have her face done, too?

For Lindie’s wedding, Livi had declined the opportunity for that and stuck with her usual subdued blush and mascara. But on that day in Hawaii she’d let the makeup artist go ahead with whatever he wanted to do—nothing dramatic, but different shades of the colors she liked, and slightly more of everything.

And while he’d worked, she’d also let the manicurist do a skin-softening waxing—feet and hands—for which she’d taken off her wedding rings.

By then she’d been all in with the idea of a New Livi for just one day, so she’d had her nails painted bright red and stenciled with white flowery designs—something more showy than she’d ever done before.

She honestly had felt like someone different when she’d left the salon, and she’d decided that maybe doing things she never did was the answer to getting through the anniversary. Certainly it had been helping to keep the sadness away more than anything had before.

And she’d definitely wanted to keep that going.

So she’d left her rings in her purse and splurged in the hotel’s dress shop, changing into a halter sundress that exposed so much shoulder that it forced her to include her bra with the bag of clothes she’d had sent to her room.

She’d never been to a bar alone and she had chosen the table farthest out on the beach, away from the bar itself and the guests mingling around it, but it was still something the Old Livi would never have done.

And the New Livi had ordered a drink. And then a second one. Because, after all, the sun was low in the sky by then and she’d felt floaty and really, really nice. Really, really as if she were someone else. And that someone else wanted another drink...

It was that someone else who had looked up to find the oh-so-good-looking guy saying hello to her halfway through her second drink. That someone else who had said yes when he’d asked if he could sit with her. That someone else from then on.

Maybe it had been the liquor, but she’d found Callan as easy to talk to as Patrick had always been, and after a while she’d realized that she was having a good time with him. That she was feeling a connection—in the most superficial way, of course—with Callan. A connection she hadn’t felt with any man she wasn’t related to since Patrick.

And it helped that the only similarity between Callan and her Patrick was that she’d found them both easy to talk to. In every other way, Callan was very different.

Patrick hadn’t been too tall—only five-eight. Patrick had not had an athlete’s body—he’d been slight, weighing only twenty pounds more than she did.

Patrick’s fair hair had been thin, his hairline receding, and he’d had unremarkable, boy-next-door good looks, with his ruddy cheeks and nondescript hazel eyes hidden behind the glasses he’d needed to wear.

It had been Patrick’s winning personality that had gained him friends and jobs. And her.

So sitting at that beachside table—and, yes, hitting it off—with a tall, imposing guy with great hair and great eyes and great features, and a body that was not only athletic and hard, but also muscular and broad-shouldered and so, so masculine, had not been something Livi Camden-Walsh was experienced at.

And she most definitely wasn’t experienced at not only chatting and laughing with the stranger, but flirting with him, too...

Yes, she’d been flirting with him.

And she’d never flirted with anyone but Patrick in her life.

But her Hawaiian alter ego had actually been good at it. Again, maybe because of the booze.

They’d sat there until late. Until the hula dancing was done. Until the live music ended. Until there were no more than a few people at the bar. She and Callan had sat there drinking and talking about nothing that meant anything.

Finally, Livi noticed that the moon was high, and decided it must be late and she should call it a night.

No, not yet—how about a walk on the beach? he’d said.

Any other time, any other man and she wouldn’t have let him postpone her exit.

But that night, her Hawaiian alter ego had taken Callan’s hand when he’d held it out to her to help her from her chair.

Then they’d walked on the beach side by side in the moonlight, laughing and flirting. And the farther up the beach they’d gone, the more removed she’d felt from everything but the beauty of that tropical paradise and that man who continued to bring her out of herself.

She was so much out-of-herself and so completely inhabiting her Hawaiian alter ego that when she stumbled and Callan caught her arm to keep her from falling, she hadn’t minded.

And when that hand had stayed on her arm, when she’d looked up into that handsome face to make a joke about her clumsiness, she remembered well that he’d been looking down at her with a thoughtful smile and eyes that seemed too gentle for someone so big and manly.

She’d been lost in what she’d seen in those eyes, and when he’d kissed her, it wasn’t as if he was kissing Livi Camden-Walsh, it was as if he was kissing someone else. And she was just getting to enjoy it.

And she had enjoyed it. He had a way about him, a technique, that was so...well, just so good that it drew her even further out of herself, forgetting about everything but that kissing that washed her mind of all other thoughts and carried her away.

She wasn’t even surprised when she found herself kissing him back with just as much heat.

And from that moment on—until she woke up alone in his bed hours and hours later—she really, truly didn’t feel that she was Livi Camden-Walsh. She was totally that someone else she’d set out to be after the sauna. That someone who got to forget herself and escape how much it hurt every time she thought about Patrick being gone.

That someone who had been sinking into a sated slumber when Callan had told her that the condom had broken just a little, so she hadn’t worried about it...

She wished that that had woken her fully, bringing her back to herself...but it hadn’t. She’d fallen asleep as that new person who didn’t worry, didn’t fuss, didn’t grieve.

But she’d woken up as herself at four in the morning, horrified and ashamed.

At first she’d worried about how she was going to face Callan. Wherever he was—the bathroom maybe? As she’d dressed, she’d thought about the conversation she needed to have with him. She would explain that she hadn’t been herself, that normally she was the last person to ever even consider having a vacation fling. And then she’d say that it would be best if they just went their separate ways. When she’d finished perfecting the words in her head, she’d walked over to tap on the bathroom door...but it had swung open under her touch, revealing that there was no one inside.

It was then that she’d started to realize that the whole place was too silent for anyone else to be in it.

She’d paused to actually look around, and discovered that Callan was gone.

It was four in the morning and he was gone. There was no note, no explanation. She tried to come up with excuses for him. Maybe he’d gone out for a cigarette, or to get some ice. But his teeth were too white for him to be a smoker, and the ice bucket was still on the bar. Nothing was open in the hotel at that hour, so he couldn’t have gone to one of the restaurants or bars.

Still, she’d waited five minutes for him to get back from wherever he’d gone. Then ten. Then half an hour. By the time an hour had ticked by, she couldn’t bear to wait any longer.

Livi had no experience with any of this, but she had friends who had talked about guys sneaking out once the deed was done, and she’d suddenly felt certain that that had to be what had gone on with Callan. She’d pictured him slinking out so as not to wake her and hiding somewhere. In the room of a friend, maybe? They hadn’t talked about anything personal, so she had no idea if he was at the hotel alone or with other people. People he could take refuge with until she was gone.

All she’d wanted to do was get out of there, get to her own room, shower and call the airline to change her ticket so she could go home a day early.

Home, where she could write off that night to pure and utter insanity, and resolve never to think about it again.

As she’d left his suite she’d dug in her tiny purse for her wedding rings and put them back on with a vengeance. She’d just been grateful that what she’d done had happened far away from her loved ones, who would never need to know.

She’d also been grateful that she’d never have to see that guy again or be reminded of him in any way.

And she’d sworn to herself that she would never, ever, ever even wish to forget herself like that again.

Sitting in the big leather chair in the ranch’s living room now, she groaned.

It had been such a good plan...

Until she’d missed her first period.

And now her second.

Until the nausea had started.

And her fingers had swelled too much to wear her rings.

It had been such a good plan, until she’d seen Callan again today...

The front door opened just then and her cousin Seth came in, calling her name.

“I’m right here,” Livi answered, her voice weak as she opened her eyes once more.

But she couldn’t let Seth think anything was wrong, so she got up from the chair and pasted on a smile.

“Hey there!” Seth greeted her, coming with open arms to hug her. “Sorry I had to be gone when you got here.”

“You’re here now,” she said feebly, wishing he wasn’t, that he had stayed in Texas, where she knew he’d left his wife and baby to visit longer with his father-in-law.

“I’m here, but kicking myself because I just remembered that I have a Cattlemen’s Association dinner tonight and I’m gonna have to turn around and leave again.”

There was some relief in hearing that. She had too much on her mind to socialize even with her cousin, who was like a brother to her.

“Don’t worry about it. Do whatever you need to do. I’m fine on my own.”

“There’s plenty of food in the fridge, or if you want to wait until I get back around eight I can bring you a pizza or something.”

“I’ll find something in the fridge. I was going to go to bed early, anyway.”

“Tomorrow, then...”

Livi nodded, again not altogether tuned in to what was going on. “I promised to pick up my new charge, Greta Teller, after school tomorrow, and I was going to go to the store in town before that for a few things I didn’t pack. But I’m free until about two or so.”

“I meet with my ranch hands on Monday mornings to schedule out the week, but how about lunch?”

Which would give her time to stop being sick.

Unless she woke up tomorrow with her period and without the nausea, and everything was okay...

Apparently she still had a little denial left.

“Lunch would be good,” she said.

With that settled, Seth dragged his suitcase in from the foyer and began to rummage in the side pockets. “So you must have found the Tellers’ farm without me,” he said.

“Yeah, I did. I just got back from there a few minutes ago.”

“You met everyone? The Tellers and their granddaughter? The guardian?”

“Callan Tierney,” she informed him.

That halted the search and Seth glanced up at her with arched eyebrows. “Callan Tierney is the girl’s guardian? You know who he is, don’t you?”

“Why would I know who he is?”

Seth went back to searching through his bag, but said, “I’ve never met him, but Callan Tierney is CT Software. We use his software and so do a slew of other businesses around the world. He’s worth more than we are. I wonder how someone like him ended up the guardian of a kid in Northbridge?”

“I don’t know,” Livi said honestly.

“Ah, that’s what I need for tonight!” Seth exclaimed, pulling a tablet out of the suitcase. Then, turning back to her, he said, “You’ll have to fill me in when you find out.”

“Sure. When I find out,” she parroted.

Seth continued chatting with her, telling her about his time away. Livi did her best to keep up with that conversation. But she was still reeling inside and thinking more about the next day than anything he was saying.

The next day, when she would go into town before picking up Greta Teller.

When she would take the first step to putting denial to rest once and for all.

And buy a home pregnancy test.

* * *

After lunch with Seth on Monday, and a solo trip to the personal care section of Northbridge’s general store that made Livi cringe inside, she picked up Greta from the local school.

The little girl was wearing the scarf Livi had given her the day before, and immediately asked her to tie it “better” because on the playground Jake Linman had pulled on it.

Livi obliged her as Greta launched into another outpouring of admiration for the ballet flats Livi was wearing today, the small leather cross-body purse she was using and the pin-tucked white blouse she had on over a pale blue tank top with navy blue slacks.

But Livi was only partially listening. Her mind was still on that pregnancy test and the results it might show when she took it.

“There you go,” she said when the scarf was retied.

“Dumb Jake Linman,” Greta grumbled. “He’s always bothering me.”

“Maybe he likes you. Sometimes that’s how boys show it,” Livi responded without much thought.

“That’s what my gramma says,” Greta said, as if she was hoping for something else from Livi. Then she added under her breath, “Doesn’t matter. Tomorrow is my last day.”

The last day for what? Livi wondered, before remembering that Greta was being made to move to Denver. That meant leaving her school, her friends, the town that was home to her.

And Livi had been thinking so much about her own problems that she hadn’t recognized Greta’s.

But that’s the reason I’m here! she chastised herself.

She genuinely liked this little girl now that she’d met her, and not only had GiGi assigned her this make-amends project, Livi honestly wanted to help.

So regardless of what was going on in her own life, when she was with Greta, it had to be all about the girl, she realized. She had to take her own problems out of the picture. Greta had to be the center of things.

Which was exactly what Livi did for the remainder of the afternoon as she bought her ice cream and then a pair of new shoes and a matching purse that Greta admired in a shop window.

Apparently new shoes and a new purse had the same effect on little girls as big ones, because by the end of the afternoon Greta was in better spirits, and Livi felt as if she’d done some good.

It was after five when she drove up the dirt lane to the Tellers’ house, passing a truck loaded with bales of hay going in the opposite direction.

She could see Callan in the barn behind the house and that was when her vow to focus only on Greta hit a snag. One look at him and Livi stopped hearing what her young charge was saying.

He was rearranging hay bales, pivoting back and forth, facing her, then facing away.

She wasn’t sure if Callan hadn’t noticed her arrival or if he was merely ignoring it, but he didn’t so much as look in her direction.

And that gave her the opportunity to watch him freely for a moment.

Like the day before, he was dressed in boots, jeans and a work shirt—this one plaid flannel. He looked every inch the cowboy, all rugged and strong. And watching him, she found it hard to think he was anything but a cowboy.

The weather was warm and he had the sleeves of his shirt rolled above his elbows, leaving a hint of biceps and impressive forearms bare to where suede gloves encased big hands. She could see the shift of muscles as he hoisted the bales. Muscles like nothing she’d ever seen in any other computer whiz.

Long legs braced the weight, with thick thighs testing the denim of his jeans. His shoulders were broad and straight and seemed more likely forged by backbreaking farm work than sitting behind a desk.

And that face that had so impressed her alter ego in Hawaii—clean-shaven that evening—was made only sexier with a scruff of day’s beard shadowing his sharp jawline, making him look just gritty enough to be a turn-on.

Not that she was turned on. Livi was clear about that.

But still, there was no looking at Callan, watching him do what he was doing, without appreciating the undeniable appeal of a fit man’s physique.

In a purely analytical way.

Until her traitorous brain zoomed somewhere else.

Back to Hawaii. To that night. She’d insisted on complete darkness, so she hadn’t really seen him naked.

Something she suddenly regretted...

She realized belatedly that she’d completely missed whatever it was that Greta was talking about. She tuned back in as the child unfastened her seat belt and opened the car door, saying, “Let’s go show Uncle Callan my new stuff!”

Oh.

Livi swallowed and got a grip on herself, coming totally into the present again.

What do I do now? she thought.

What was the protocol for two people in this situation? Was there a protocol?

Yesterday had been awkward, but there had been the Tellers and the nurse and Greta to serve as a buffer between her and Callan, plus so much going on that they’d both addressed only what was happening.

But now? If she followed Greta to the barn—as it seemed she should—then what?

Did they just go on acting like strangers?

Or did they, at some point, talk about Hawaii?

Did she tell him what a jerk she thought he was for ditching her in the middle of the night after sleeping with her?

Or was she supposed to act as if it hadn’t fazed her? As if it was par for the course—sleep together, go your separate ways, it happened all the time...

Was that what he thought of her? That she slept around so much that it wouldn’t be any big deal for a guy to slip out after the fact, without a word? That that was a common occurrence to her?

What an awful thought.

It made her want to shout that until him she’d slept with only one man in her life: Patrick. The man she’d loved and been devoted to. The man who had loved and been devoted to her. Her soul mate and the person she’d expected to spend her entire life with.