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“Chocolate every time?”
Her shrug confirmed it.
He laughed. “You are a chocoholic.”
Gia didn’t deny it.
“What do you do around the corner?”
“I’m a botanist. I work for a company that makes herbal supplements and medicines.”
The eyebrows went up again. “Really?”
“My ex said I’m just a glorified gardener.”
“Well, I’m just an accountant, so it sounds more impressive than that.”
He was being humble. Gia knew he was the chief financial officer of Camden Incorporated. But she preferred humility to arrogance. Elliot had been all arrogance.
Not that she preferred Derek Camden, she amended in her thoughts. The only way she wanted to compare him with her ex was in terms of their similarities—like the fact that they both came from big, powerful, rich families willing to do dishonest, shifty, devious and deceitful things.
“How did you get my cell phone number?” she asked then, continuing the vein of small talk while they waited for their desserts.
“My grandmother is friends with Jean Paulie—I believe she was one of the church members at your meeting last night—”
“She was.”
“Jean is one of the people who brought the Bronsons to our attention—her and the guy who cuts my hair because he had a donation jar in his shop. Anyway, I asked my grandmother if Jean had your number and she did.”
Gia nodded.
“My turn—how did you know who I was last night?” he asked.
“My best friend is Tyson Biggs. You dated his cousin and I saw a picture of you with her.” Gia didn’t add that the image had stuck with her because he was so terrific looking. Or that now that she’d seen him in person she couldn’t shake his image from her mind at all....
He grinned. “Sharon. Dragon nails, always in stilettos, carried a purse that was also a fish tank—complete with her goldfish in it—claimed to be psychic...”
“That would be Sharon,” Gia confirmed.
He smiled conspiratorially, in a way that was much too engaging. “Did she ever get a reading for you right?”
“I’ve never had her do one of her actual readings. She’s offered, but on the two times I’ve met her she told me out of the blue—”
“To prove her powers—she likes to do that,” he said as if it amused him.
“Well, the first time she told me I was pregnant and I wasn’t. The second time she said to watch out because I was going to lose my job. Luckily, that didn’t happen, either.”
“Yeah, she’s never gotten anything right that I know of. She isn’t even good at guessing,” he concluded with a laugh that wasn’t at all disparaging or unkind. “I haven’t seen Sharon in...I’m not even sure how long.”
“So long that you’ve had time to get married and settle down?” she asked because she was curious. She’d heard about Sharon and about her friends that he’d dated later—also all wackjobs, according to Tyson. But Gia didn’t know anything about Derek Camden beyond that, and she reasoned that if he’d married and settled down he might be more trustworthy in the Bronsons’ eyes.
But the question that shouldn’t have been difficult to answer instead seemed to puzzle him.
“Huh...” he said, rubbing the back of his neck and suddenly making a face that conveyed discomfort and confusion. “I was going to jump in and say no, never married. But then I remembered that that isn’t exactly true anymore. Is annulled a marital status?”
“Annulled... I don’t know, I’ve never met anyone who was annulled.”
“Yeah, me, neither...” he said with a frown.
Their desserts arrived and when the shop owner left them to eat he didn’t explain further, leaving Gia curious but not feeling free to ask more than she already had.
Then he changed the subject and she really couldn’t indulge her curiosity.
“So did you talk to the Bronsons about accepting some help from us?”
“I did.”
He smiled at her tone. “It didn’t go well?”
“It went the way I thought it would. But they did come around. They said they would let you help me help them.”
He nodded slowly as he ate a bite of his pie. “Okay. A little convoluted but still something. And I’ll take what I can get at this point. So what do you have planned?”
Gia had taken a bite of her own dessert as he said that. And when it came to chocolate, there was no rushing her. So she held up a finger in front of her mouth to signify a pause as she savored the warm, rich, dark chocolate of her lava cake.
He smiled. “No hurry, enjoy yourself.”
“The lemon pie is good, but next time try one of these,” she advised when her mouth wasn’t full. “It’s just the right blend of chocolates and just melty enough and just...amazing.”
His smile stretched into a grin. “Not a big chocolate guy so I’ll take your word for it.”
If anything could turn her off, it should be that!
But somehow it didn’t make him look any less appealing to her, so she just filed the information away and answered his inquiry into what she had planned to help the Bronsons.
“There’s a day of yard work and a day of home repairs to get their place in better shape,” she said. “And I’m cleaning out their stuff and collecting things to sell at a yard sale that I’m hoping will also raise some money—if you want to bring anything for that, do it. This coming Saturday is the yard work, the Saturday after that will be the home repair day and the Saturday after that is the yard sale.”
“So yard work and home repairs—they haven’t been able to keep their place up,” he deduced.
“They haven’t had the money, and they’re just getting too old to do most things—”
“Should they be moved into a retirement home or assisted living?”
It was a perfectly reasonably suggestion, one she and Tyson had swatted back and forth, one she’d thrown out to the Bronsons.
And yet hearing it from Derek Camden made her recall Larry and Marion’s concern that the Camdens were after their house.
Which still didn’t seem at all likely to Gia.
But even though there wasn’t anything intimidating about Derek Camden—in fact, he seemed down-to-earth, open and friendly—she’d also heard so much from the Bronsons about the evil Camdens that she felt some concern herself.
“Retirement homes and assisted living are expensive, too, and the Bronsons are really against going somewhere with old people—”
He laughed again. “They’re how old themselves?”
“Eighty-nine and eighty-seven,” Gia said with a hint of humor at the irony of that. “But staying together in their house is a big deal to them.”
“Okay. So beyond their home needing some work inside and out, what else is going on with them?”
He’d said the night before that he wanted to get the full picture, not to merely give money but to make sure the Bronsons had what they needed all the way around. So logically, what he was asking was just a way to get that full picture.
But still, Gia was a little uncomfortable giving this man too many details that would let him know exactly how vulnerable the couple was.
“A lot of things are going on with them,” she said ambiguously, opting only to give him an overview. “They live on a very limited budget. Costs for everything are always rising. They aren’t in bad health for their ages but there are some issues—they both have high blood pressure and some heart things, some arthritis, Marion has osteoporosis. And every time they go to a doctor there’s another medication added—”
“Not your herbal supplements and medicines?”
“I can’t really recommend any of those because they take so many prescription meds I’m afraid of interfering with something or giving them a supplement that reacts badly with a prescription drug—so no. But I help them pay their bills and balance their checkbook—because they both have trouble holding a pen and seeing small print—and there are months when I can’t believe the cost of their prescriptions.”
“Do they need better insurance? A cheaper place to get their prescriptions filled?”
“I’ve looked into both of those things and done the best I can for them, but the bottom line is that some things fall outside of their coverage and there’s nothing that can be done about it.”
“Except to get them more money to pay the expenses they have.”
Gia conceded with a shrug and hoped she hadn’t said too much.
“So where do I start to help you help them?” he asked as he finished his pie.
Gia couldn’t risk telling him too much about the Bronsons’ predicament until she was sure his motives really were pure. But the only way she could think to get a better feel for him was to get to know him a little and see if he seemed trustworthy. And she didn’t know how else to do that except to enlist him in the manual-labor portions of what was going on and spend some time with him. Talking to him. Watching him.
Even if it meant tempting Larry to turn the hose on him or Marion to lace lemonade with laxatives....
So, in response to his query about where he should start to help, she said, “Like I said, Saturday we’re starting with the yard and we can always use two more hands....”
“Okay,” he said without skipping a beat. “Are the Bronsons going to throw rocks at me if I show up on their doorstep, though?”
Maybe he was psychic....
“I hope not,” was the best Gia could promise. “Their bark tends to be worse than their bite—”
“At eighty-seven and eighty-nine their teeth probably aren’t their own.”
“Every one of Marion’s is and she’s very proud of them,” Gia corrected his joke. “But I’ll run with the you-helping-me-to-help-them angle and I think you’ll be safe.” She didn’t add that the Bronsons liked the idea of a Camden working for them, so they were apt to gloat about it—whether to his face or not she couldn’t be sure.
“Then just tell me when and where to show up and I’ll be there,” he said.
Gia gave him the details and finished her lava cake. There didn’t seem to be any more to discuss at this juncture, so she offered to pay for her own dessert as a signal that the meeting had come to a conclusion.
“It’s going on the tab,” he reminded her, refusing to even allow her to leave a tip.
He stood up when she did, and Gia tried not to be bowled over by the pure magnitude of the man as she slipped the strap of her purse over her shoulder, thinking that talking to him so far had not been a hardship, and watching him work on Saturday likely wouldn’t be, either....
“Thank you for playing go-between,” he said then.
“I’m just looking out for Larry and Marion,” she countered.
“They’re lucky to have you.”
“I’m the lucky one—I don’t have any family and they’ve become that for me.”
He nodded as if he understood something about that, although she had no idea what and he didn’t offer an explanation.
Instead he said, “I guess I’ll see you Saturday, then.”
“I’ll supply the gloves,” she added as they said goodbye and she left him to deal with the bill for their desserts and his office cake.
Then she returned to her car, studying him through the plate-glass windows again as she did and counting how many days would have to pass before Saturday came.
So many...
Oh, no—I don’t have any reason to think that! she silently shouted at herself when she realized that was what had actually gone through her mind.
And to punish herself, she spent the short drive home recalling what it had been like to be married to a man who could well be Derek Camden’s counterpart.
Chapter Three
“So you don’t think there’s any way he’s going to show up,” Gia said to Tyson Biggs on Saturday morning as they had a cup of coffee before going next door to begin the yard work on the Bronsons’ property.
Gia’s tall, lanky blond friend repeated his prediction, a frown on his hawkish face. “Derek Camden? No way.”
Gia and Tyson had been best friends since childhood. His family had lived in the house directly behind her grandparents’ house, where she’d grown up.
Gia had received the two-story house where she now lived in the divorce settlement—it was formerly one of her ex-husband’s rental properties. Gia lived on the ground floor, but the second floor had been turned into an apartment, where Tyson was living while his own house was being built, and the basement apartment was vacant, so she could potentially use it for Larry and Marion.
“You don’t really think Derek Camden is coming here to do yard work, do you?” Tyson asked.
The answer to that was yes, she had thought that. Until now. In fact, Derek Camden was pretty much all she’d thought about since Tuesday night, with the prospect of him coming today the light at the end of the tunnel.
Not that she’d wanted to admit that. But denying it didn’t keep Tyson’s skepticism from knocking the wind out of her sails just the same.
“What was it your ex liked to say? He could say anything, that didn’t mean he had to do it,” Tyson reminded her.
Gia nodded. “He did like to say that. With that smug smile he had when he felt like he was outsmarting someone by telling them what they wanted to hear when he didn’t have any intention of making good on it. But Derek Camden claims he really wants to help.”
“People like the Camdens pay people to do their yard work, G, they don’t turn around and do other people’s yard work themselves.”
That did make sense.
“You met him, right?” she asked then, wondering if she had been completely mistaken in believing that he truly was determined to help the Bronsons. After all, she’d been totally misled by her ex-husband, so her track record was hardly reliable.
“I only met him that once when he was dating Sharon. But it was in a loud, crowded club—I just ran into them, had one drink and left.”
“But you said he was nice to you and you didn’t know what a guy like him was doing with Sharon.”
“Right, I remember. And it’s true—he wasn’t her usual type. He seemed normal. But he was with her—so how normal could he be? Plus, Elliot was always nice, too—I’m not sure that means much with these guys. I think they just learn good social graces early to help cover up their darker side. Or maybe as a distraction so you don’t see the knife in the back coming.”
That had been true of Elliot.
“Well, if Derek Camden only gives a check, that’ll still be something,” Gia said. “The work is getting done with or without him.”
“But why do you sound disappointed—were you really counting on him for some reason today?”
“Me? No! I have you and people from work and a couple of friends from the Botanical Gardens and some neighbors and the pastor and a whole group from the Bronsons’ church coming. We’ll be able to get it all done.”
“Yeah, I can’t imagine that a Camden used to living in the lap of luxury would be much help anyway.” But then Tyson narrowed his hazel eyes at her. “You don’t like this guy, do you?”
“I haven’t found anything to dislike,” Gia said with a negligent shrug. “At least not about him personally, if you take away what his family did to Larry and Marion. But no, I don’t like him, either. I don’t even know him.”
She really only knew the way he looked. Her ex-husband had been good-looking, too—not as good-looking as Derek Camden, but still, no slouch. As time had gone on and she’d looked deeper, though, she’d begun to think “handsome is as handsome does,” and those good looks had meant less and less to her.
“But it’s enough to know what Derek Camden comes from,” Tyson said, as if he needed to open her eyes. “The Camdens could buy and sell the Grants a thousand times over, and their reputation is even worse—sneakier, but worse. Getting involved with a Camden after just getting away from the Grants would be like going from the frying pan into the fire.”
“Oh, I know,” Gia agreed wholeheartedly. “Even the hint of shadiness means I don’t want anything to do with them.”
“Plus, what Sharon didn’t like about him was the whole family connection. There’s a ton of them and they’re all joined at the hip—they work together, they hang out together, there’s a family dinner at the grandmother’s house every Sunday that none of them ever miss—”
“And believe me, no one knows better than I do that in a family that tight there’s no real room for other people. Even spouses are always outsiders.” Gia knew that from her own experience; it was something she and Tyson had talked about numerous times before.
“But none of this matters,” she said to her friend when she realized they were just rehashing. “I’m not ready to even date right now—I told you I just turned down dinner with the church pastor, and who’s more upstanding than him? And even if I was back on the market, people like the Camdens are everything I spent three years fighting tooth and nail to get away from—I would never get into anything like that again.”
“And let’s also not forget that Derek Camden dated my crazy cousin Sharon,” Tyson added in support of Gia. “Plus, she must be the type he goes for because he dated two of her whacko friends after the breakup. I doubt that you’re off-the-wall enough for that guy—unless you want to cut your hair into a spiky Mohawk and dye it blue....”
“This hair in a Mohawk?” Gia said with a laugh, pulling a springy curl from her ponytail.
“And I’m good, but I don’t think I could face another divorce from one of those people,” Tyson added as if to seal the anti–Derek Camden deal.
Tyson was rated one of Denver’s top-five divorce attorneys and had represented Gia when she’d divorced Elliot Grant. But the Grants’ dirty fighting and false accusations against Tyson himself had prompted an inquiry from the Bar Association. It had all taken its toll on him and his practice, and wasn’t something Gia wanted to put him through again.
“Don’t worry, never again, Ty,” Gia assured him. “When I’m ready to get back out there, it will only be with nice, average guys from nice, average families.”
Gia poured what remained of her coffee down the sink and rinsed her cup, then took Tyson’s to do the same so they could get next door to work.
Where Derek Camden probably would not show up because Tyson was right.
And where she would throw herself into the job and try not to feel as if she’d wasted almost an entire week fantasizing about Derek Camden flexing muscles to hoist fertilizer bags and paving stones....
* * *
Tyson was wrong.
Derek Camden arrived at the Bronsons’ small redbrick two-bedroom house along with everyone else enlisted to work on Saturday. He wasn’t even a minute late.
His outfit for the occasion—tennis shoes, old jeans and a plain green crewneck T-shirt—let Gia know she hadn’t imagined the muscles behind those dress shirts the two times she’d seen him before. The well-worn, unflashy clothes also caused him to fit in seamlessly with the other volunteers.
And when she introduced him to the group, he cut her off before she said his last name and was simply Derek to everyone except her and Tyson.
Derek mentioned how he and Tyson had met the one time, even remembering that Tyson was an attorney and a diehard Miami Hurricanes football fan. He also asked about Tyson’s cousin Sharon, wishing her well without any sign of bitterness in regards to their relationship that hadn’t panned out.
Then he pitched in. Not only did he have a can-do attitude, he had a surprising amount of knowledge and experience to back it up, especially when he offered to mow the lawn and actually repaired the lawnmower to do it.
But Gia’s conversation with Tyson before leaving home served as a warning to her not to be too impressed.
Sure, Derek Camden could fix a lawnmower and mow the lawn.
Sure, he could hoist fertilizer bags and paving stones with the best of them—flexing muscles that made Gia’s mouth water in a way that didn’t happen at the sight of anyone else’s flexing muscles.
Sure, he couldn’t have been more pleasant or agreeable or uncomplaining.
Sure, he made friends with everyone there and she even watched Tyson accept more and more of his overtures as the day went on.
But she continued to remind herself that appearances could be deceiving, and that she would not—could not—let herself be deceived by them.
Which wasn’t always easy to remember as the day went on and she got an eyeful of broad shoulders, thick thighs and a tight, perfectly shaped derriere she knew she had no business looking at.
And yet somehow couldn’t help stealing a glimpse of over and over again....
* * *
By six o’clock the Bronsons’ front and back yards were in better shape than they’d been in since Gia had known the elderly couple. Weeds were gone, bushes and trees were trimmed and the lawn was a well-manicured green carpet.
The volunteers had added a sandstone path from the front to the back and a second path from the back patio out to the toolshed. Landscapers had built a multitiered rock garden with room for flowers to be planted in the spring, and two of the horticulturists had planted shrubbery to line the fence in back. Gia and another botanist had formed a perennial garden just below the front porch on each side of the steps leading to the house.
The final effect was a vast improvement and upgrade that would require only minimal, easy maintenance either for Gia or for any new owner should the house have to be sold.
Throughout the day Larry had been in the center of things, unable to work but chatting with the people who were, while Marion went in and out of the house with beverages and cookies.
Gia had kept an eye on them both and had seen no indication that they were going to turn the hose on Derek or secretly dose him with laxatives, and she was glad that really had only been a joke.
But after both Larry and Marion had had Gia confirm on the sly that Derek was who they thought he was, neither of the Bronsons ventured too near to him, either. Or made any effort to talk to him the way they did everyone else.
For Derek’s part, he gave them the space they so obviously wanted, and the one time there was unavoidable contact he was polite and respectfully pleasant without pushing anything or going overboard trying to win their favor.
It was the best way he could have handled it, but still Gia wasn’t exactly sure what was going to happen when the work was finished and everyone—including Tyson—left, and only Derek and Gia remained to roll up hoses and put away tools.
As the elderly couple took a stroll around their newly enhanced yard to see the end results, it was impossible for them not to acknowledge Derek.
Gia was relieved when they spoke to him with guarded courtesy. But it was noticeable how all of their gratitude and praise went to her alone.
Even then, Derek handled the situation with aplomb. He agreed with them that Gia had done a remarkable job and didn’t seem in the least offended by their lack of gratitude for the backbreaking work he’d done all day.
When the older couple went inside, Gia said, “Thanks for everything you did today.”
“You’re welcome.” He grinned as if her gratitude was payment enough.
“I’m surprised that you knew your way around this stuff.”
“My grandmother raised my brothers, sisters, cousins and me—there are ten of us—and she was originally a farm girl, so she believed in chores for everybody. As a kid, I did yard work—among other things. All the boys in the family did—sexist, I know, but the girls had to do more dusting so I guess it evened out.”
“The Bronsons told me that H. J. Camden’s son, grandsons and granddaughters-in-law were killed in a plane crash—you were one of the ten great-grandchildren left....”
“I was. Left to GiGi—that’s what we call our grandmother—and H.J. and Margaret and Louie Haliburton, who work for GiGi but who are really more like family than anything.”
It wasn’t how Gia—or the Bronsons—had pictured things. They had imagined the Camdens as growing up like royalty, not as having to do their chores like any other family.
“But even with ten kids around, the Camdens didn’t have a troop of gardeners?” she asked.