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 Camden—a 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 now—especially 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 job—her and the Tellers—so 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 Hawaii—the 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

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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.

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Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

Dear Reader

Title Page

About the Author

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Epilogue

Extract

Copyright

Chapter One

Maybe 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 nausea—mostly in the mornings. But on this warm, sunshine-filled Sunday afternoon—the second week of October—it 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 family—even 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 fulfill—especially 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 fine—her 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 flu—that 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 flu—that doesn’t last as long as this has,” Jani contributed.

The downside of being so close to her family—they 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 weeks—plenty 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 broken—”

“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 you—”

“Married my first love.”

“And missed getting the experience of casual dating. And now you’re just stuck in this limbo—Patrick 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 to—”

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 GiGi—she 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 to—”

“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 nephews—more of them coming all the time these days—and 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 Camden—the matriarch of the Camden family—asked 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 dinner—that 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 queasiness—the fact that she was so upset over what had happened in Hawaii—had 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 herself—Howard and Mitchum’s mother—had 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 restitution—I 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 Tellers—the 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 man—”

“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...”

“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

“We 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.

“Greta, where did you go?” the nurse called from upstairs. “Come back and see—I found something we can tie in your doll’s hair like you wanted.”

“I’ll be right back!” Greta promised Livi, before charging out of the room again.

As she did, Maeve said, “She’s attached to Kinsey. Follows her like a shadow. But what will happen when I’m better and don’t need a nurse anymore? Then an old lady will be the only woman Greta has paying any kind of close attention to her. What she needs is a younger one, somebody who can give her what Mandy would have. And she seems to have taken to you, Livi...”

GiGi had suggested something similar—that Greta would need a woman in her life. And that had been something Livi had thought she might be able to do, even if it was long distance. She could make frequent trips to Northbridge, she’d decided. And maybe Greta could occasionally come to Denver on long weekends or vacations from school, to give her guardian a break.

Only, now that Livi knew who Greta’s guardian was, she couldn’t say she was eager for any contact that might put her in the position she was in right now.

So she said, “I’d be happy to spend time with her, to act as a big sister. But I live in Denver. Seth might know of a woman here—between the two of us I’m sure we could find someone for her.”

“Denver is where we’re all headin’,” John Sr. said under his breath, not sounding happy about it.

“That’s where Callan lives,” Maeve explained. “And he wants to look after us now that our John Jr. can’t. We aren’t doing so well on our own anymore.”

Then I don’t have an out? Livi was near panic at the idea of having to face Callan on a regular basis.

“I don’t know about having her around Greta,” Callan said, sounding frustrated at having his stance ignored. “She’s come at us out of the blue. How do we know she doesn’t have something up her sleeve, the way her family did with Greta’s grandfather?”

“It isn’t like you don’t have some things to answer for in your own past,” John Sr. grumbled to Callan. “And that was all you, not some long-gone relatives. Didn’t keep Mandy and our John from lettin’ you be around Greta.”

Callan looked thunderous, which Maeve must have noticed, because she rushed to speak next. “I have good instincts about people and Livi seems like a nice person who’s just wanting to make things right. Everybody makes mistakes. It’s what they do to correct them that matters.”

There was an underlying message in that, aimed at both John Sr. and Callan, but Livi had no idea what that message was. It kept both men quiet, though, while Maeve seemed to take the reins.

“I think it could be really good for Greta to have you be her big sister, Livi,” the elderly lady said then. “To have a young woman’s guidance so I don’t have to worry that I’m not up-to-date enough for her. Today, meeting you, is the happiest I’ve seen her since we lost her momma and daddy. So if you’re willing to take that little girl under your wing to atone for the past, I think we’d be lucky to have you.”

It appeared that both men knew better than to argue with her.

But with resignation in his almost-black eyes, Callan said to Livi, “Greta is my responsibility now and I’ll be watching to make sure you’re on the up-and-up with this.”

He’d be watching? Did that mean that he was going to make sure he was around whenever she was with Greta?

Oh, great, that’s all I need.

But what could Livi say? That he was the glaring reminder of her worst mistake and she didn’t want to face him over and over again?

GiGi had given her the task of performing restitution to Greta. It was her job to make sure Greta was well taken care of, that the little girl’s needs were met—no matter what. Livi had to see it through. She didn’t have a choice.

Maybe this is my punishment for Hawaii, she thought.

But without any way to back out now, she took a deep, bracing breath, plastered a smile on her face and said, “We just want to do something for Greta’s good.”

Regardless how difficult it might prove to be for Livi.

Because despite the way this had started out today, she was now afraid it was going to be very, very difficult...

* * *

“I’ll go in and say hello to John, pay him directly.”

“Yeah, sure,” Callan said to the man whose truck he’d just loaded with hay bales.

There had been an edge of distrust in Gordon Bassett’s voice, but Callan ignored it. Disdain and distrust for him in Northbridge was an old song Callan knew well. And apparently that was never going to change. It was the price he paid for being the kid from the other side of the tracks. A kid who had earned the reputation as a troublemaker.

But Callan had too many other things to think about at the moment to care about that. Actually, he wasn’t even looking at the man he’d known all his life. He was watching the woman he now knew as Livi Camden drive away. And wondering what the hell was going on lately. Life was throwing him one curve ball after another.

Beginning in the middle of the night he’d spent with her.

If she’d told him her last name when they’d met at that beach bar in Hawaii, he might have left her sitting alone to watch the sea turtles and the sunset by herself.

Oh, who was he kidding? Even knowing what kind of people she came from, he probably would have stuck around.

She’d been too damn gorgeous sitting there in the fading sunlight with her long, bittersweet-chocolate-colored hair draping over her sexy bare shoulders. When she’d looked up at him with eyes that were a darker and more beautiful cobalt blue than the clear sky in the distance, eyes set in the face of an angel, he wouldn’t have pulled away no matter what. Not with the mood he’d been in, having just accomplished a buyout he’d been working on for a year. He’d wanted to kick back and celebrate a little at day’s end—so yeah, he’d have probably stuck around even if he had known she was a Camden.

He just wouldn’t have ever told Mandy about it.

But the Livi of Hawaii was a Camden.

And now their paths had crossed again.

Two curve balls for the price of one...

He watched Livi’s car get farther and farther away. He’d had every intention of going out to that car with her when she left so he could talk to her alone about Hawaii.

But then Bassett had showed up for his hay and Callan had had no choice but to head out to load the truck.

Now she was gone and he felt like an even bigger heel than he’d felt in the last two months whenever the thought of Hawaii came to mind.

As big a heel as she no doubt thought he was.

Not that they’d made any plans. Any promises. It had even been Livi who had dodged talk of what she’d called their “real lives.”

But still, to take off without a word, without even thinking about her...

To be honest, in that moment he hadn’t been thinking about anything but that middle-of-the-night phone call.

That lousy, freaking call that had caused his phone to vibrate enough to wake him without waking Livi, so he could take it into the living room of his suite and not disturb her.

That lousy, freaking call that had literally knocked the breath out of him, leaving him dazed and operating on autopilot, struggling to deal with the news that his two closest friends—Mandy and John Jr.—had been involved in a horrible car accident. That J.J. was barely holding on to life. That Mandy was already dead.

Callan had thrown on the clothes Livi had helped him discard hours before. Once he was dressed—taking nothing with him other than his wallet and cell phone—he’d rushed out of that suite, calling his pilot to arrange an emergency flight for his private jet, to get him to Montana immediately.

Calling the concierge to explain the situation and get the man to see to packing his bags, checking him out and sending the bags to him later.

Calling his assistant to get to Montana ahead of him and begin dealing with the nightmare.

By the time Callan was on his way to the airport, and finally remembered the woman he’d left in his bed, it was already too late.

He’d called his hotel room from the plane—no answer. He’d talked again to the concierge, who had gone to the suite while he was still on the line.

But Livi was gone, and there was no way for Callan to contact her when all he knew was her first name.

They’d gone from the beach to his suite, so he had no idea what room had been hers, no way of trying to get a belated message to her. No way of ever letting her know what had happened, and that he’d hoped and expected their time together to end much differently.

At the very least, it wouldn’t have ended with him disappearing into thin air.

He felt rotten for how he’d treated Livi, even if he did have a reason for it. Under other circumstances, if they’d met again, he would have apologized, explained, maybe tried to make it up to her somehow.

But under these circumstances?

Nothing about these circumstances was normal.

She was a Camden. He knew how Mandy had felt about the Camdens—any generation of them. She would never have trusted them. And she would never have let any one of them near Greta.

And why had Livi come around?

Callan couldn’t say that he trusted a Camden’s motives, either. Not after what he knew they’d done to Mandy’s dad.

Did Livi Camden have something up her sleeve?

She was the first Camden to make any contact since they’d got what they wanted all those years ago. It was something Mandy had always added when she’d told the story—that they’d never so much as said they were sorry, not even when her dad died...

And that was what they did to supposed friends.

Now Callan was being pressured to let one of them near Greta?

But just how hard-line could he be with her, after the way he’d abandoned her in Hawaii, even if there had been a good reason? Not to mention just how hard-line could he be going up against the Tellers, who had taken an instant liking to Livi and seemed willing and eager to have her mentor their granddaughter?

The Tellers, who he owed.

The Tellers, who he’d promised John Jr. on his deathbed he would take care of.

That promise was already hard enough to keep, given the way John Sr. refused to trust him. If Callan went against the man in this, it would just make the tensions between them that much worse.

It didn’t seem like this was where to draw a line at all, except for Mandy’s feelings about the Camdens...

Could he really let Livi into her daughter’s life?

It felt wrong.

But apparently only to him.

By now, Livi Camden’s car was out of sight. And with the weight of everything bearing down on him, Callan bent over, hands to knees, and stared at the dirt under his feet.

He’d had one hell of a lot to figure out even before he’d walked into the Tellers’ farmhouse and found Livi-from-Hawaii sitting there.

Shortly, he’d be handing the farm over to the people he’d hired to look after it and taking the Tellers and Greta to Denver with him, and he had no idea what was going to happen then. Especially when it came to Greta. Raising a kid was so much more involved than anything he’d ever done before. He had to be her father. Her family along with the Tellers.

But what did he know about being part of a family? About having a family?

Nothing. Flat-out nothing.

At least nothing good, nothing he wanted to repeat.

And now it was on him to be that, to provide that for Greta.

“I need some help here, guys,” he muttered to the memory of Mandy and John Jr.

More help than what his geriatric charges could give, he thought.

And the Tellers liked Livi.

Greta liked Livi.

Plus Maeve was probably right—Greta was going to need the influence and advice of a woman younger than eighty.

He didn’t have a wife anymore—he’d already blown that. There was no one else on the docket to fill that bill and take over that duty.

And Livi Camden was applying for the job.

So he guessed that rather than buck the Tellers, rather than deny Greta something she should have and clearly wanted, he supposed he had to give in on this.

Sorry, Mandy, he said mentally to his lost friend. But I swear I’ll stick as close as I can every minute she’s with Greta, to keep an eagle eye on her. No matter what, I won’t let another Camden hurt somebody you care about.

Even if it meant he had to take a hard line with Livi down the road, if he discovered she did have some kind of Camden ulterior motive.

Even if it meant he had to be a son of a bitch to her a second time.

He really hoped it didn’t come to that. Not with the first woman he’d had the slightest inclination to approach since his divorce.

The woman he’d had on his mind a surprising amount during the last two months.

The woman who had—at first sight this afternoon—made his pulse kick up a notch. And not just out of guilt for how things had been left in Hawaii, but simply from setting eyes on her again.

He had to keep in perspective that that one night in Hawaii was nothing but one night. In Hawaii.

Because incredible blue eyes that made his pulse race or not, he couldn’t deal with any more than he already was.

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.

But if she did shout that she would just sound defensive, and Callan probably wouldn’t even believe it.

What did people do in a situation like this?

For the second time in two days Livi just wanted to hide or run the other way.

But by then Greta had reached the barn and alerted Callan to the fact that they were there, and he was looking straight at Livi across the distance.

She took a deep breath and decided that, at any rate, she wasn’t going to act as if she’d done something wrong.

Yes, she felt like she’d done something wrong—something terribly wrong—by sleeping with him, but in spite of that, people did hook up with someone they’d just met for one-night stands.

If anyone should be embarrassed, it should be him, for the way he’d treated her—slithering silently out like a snake.

If either of them needed to hang their head in shame, it was him!

So she got out of the car and followed Greta’s path to the barn.

She had barely exchanged hellos with Callan when the little girl announced that she was going to show her grandparents her new shoes and purse. Thinking of that as a reprieve, Livi turned to follow.

Until Callan said, “Can you hang back, Livi?”

And off went Greta. Leaving Livi alone with this man she’d never wanted to see again as long as she lived.

“I wanted to talk to you yesterday, but then I had to come out and load that truck. John Sr. won’t let me let anything slide...” Callan stopped short, as if to keep himself from saying more on that subject, and then started again. “And before I got back inside, you were gone. But we do need to talk.”

“Okay,” Livi said, with a note of challenge creeping into her tone. She was unwilling to give him any help.

“Hawaii...” he said. “I need to apologize to you for that.”

For the night they’d spent together? Or for leaving?

She raised her chin and gazed at him.

“My phone was on vibrate, so it woke me but not you a couple of hours after we fell asleep.”

Livi had thought yesterday was awkward, but this had it beat.

“I definitely didn’t hear anything,” she said with accusation in her voice, thinking that he was just making up some excuse.

“The call was to let me know that Greta’s parents, J.J.—John Jr.—and Mandy, had been in a car accident here,” he said, knocking some of the wind out of Livi’s sails. “Mandy had died on impact. J.J. was still alive but in critical condition. No one was giving him much time...”

Callan’s deep voice got more and more ragged as he spoke, and Livi could see that even now this was difficult for him.

And she’d thought that she was the one entitled to the emotions...

For the second time today she had to make an adjustment, suspend her own feelings and just listen.

“I had to get to J.J.,” he went on. “I had to make sure everything that could be done for him was being done. I had to see him...”

Callan cleared his throat, and realizing how hard-hit he still was somehow made Livi feel guilty for all the nasty things she’d thought about him and his impromptu departure from that hotel room.

“Mandy, J.J. and I grew up here together,” he explained. “We were close. And always stayed close. They were more family to me than my own...”

As if he needed a diversion, he looked down at his hands and pulled off his gloves, slapping them against his thigh.

And Livi hated that her brain was once again thinking about how glorious those hands and thighs were. What in the world was wrong with her?

“So when I got that call,” he continued, “I was only thinking about getting to J.J. Everything went to that. I was in the air an hour later, and halfway here before I realized—”

That not even a thought of her had entered his mind? That fact still stung, even though he’d had a good reason to be otherwise occupied.

“—that I’d just rushed out on you without a word,” he was saying. “By then, when I called the hotel, you were out of the room. And since I didn’t even know your last name, I didn’t have any way to track you down. I did try, I swear to you...” He paused, then added, “Anyway, I’m sorry.”

Livi raised her chin a second time, accepting the apology that way because she couldn’t not accept it when it came with that explanation.

But it wasn’t easy to let go of the humiliation she’d felt at his vanishing without a trace. It was hard to move past thinking the worst of him.

Instead she chose to say quietly, “I’m sorry about your friends.”

He nodded solemnly. “Yeah. Me, too. They were good people.”

Again he didn’t seem to want to make eye contact with her, instead turning to toss the gloves onto a hay bale. “Anyway,” he repeated, “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 didn’t allow herself to look away. But she didn’t say anything, because she had no idea where they should go now—especially 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?” Callan suggested. “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 job—her and the Tellers—so 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 last 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 between them than that.

And while she certainly didn’t, either, it was still a rejection. This made it seem as if she expected something from him that he was letting her know he wasn’t on board for.

I belong to Patrick! she wanted to tell him in no uncertain terms.

But she resisted the urge. Instead, she tried to rise above what felt like an insult and said, “Hawaii is already forgotten.”

Liar, liar, pants on fire...

“And we can just do...whatever...for Greta and go on?” Callan asked.

“Sure.”

“Not that Hawaii wasn’t something damn memorable...” he said, as if giving credit where credit was due, his eyebrows raised in what looked like appreciation.

“But it’s over and done with. Finished. On to a new chapter,” she said curtly.

This time it was Callan who nodded in acknowledgment. “Yeah, I guess,” he said, though now he sounded a little confused. And perhaps a little offended. “But maybe we should actually get to know each other...for Greta’s sake.”

Was that what he’d been trying to say? Livi didn’t have any experience with any of this, and was running on high-octane emotions. Maybe he wasn’t being a jerk—even if it still felt that way.

She took a deep breath and tried to look at things from a calmer, less sensitive perspective.

She’d been as responsible as he had been for them spending the night together in Hawaii. And though he had left, he’d had a good reason.

Now here they were, but he’d inherited a nine-year-old—and apparently two geriatrics on top of it—and had his hands full. It stood to reason that romance was the last thing he needed at the moment. And yet he and Livi would still have to spend time together, for Greta’s sake, so it made sense to settle things between them.

And it wasn’t as if her own thinking was any different than it had been before she’d met him in Hawaii. Livi still couldn’t imagine herself in a relationship with anyone other than Patrick.

Take away her newest worry, and Callan was right that they just needed to wrap up Hawaii and stuff it in a compartment. That they just needed to start over as nothing more than they actually were—two strangers brought together over the welfare of a little girl.

Thinking about it all like that helped Livi calm down.

“Hawaii is history,” she decreed. “Let’s wipe the slate clean and just move on.”

Those words again. Only it was her saying them this time.

But in this instance she meant them. She just hoped that they could move on freely and with a genuinely clean slate. If they couldn’t—if that pregnancy test came back positive... But she refused to think about that yet. She’d wait to deal with that hurdle when she’d actually taken the test and knew for sure what was going on.

There was certainly no need to tell Callan before then.

“So we’re okay?” he asked, sounding sincere.

“We’re okay,” Livi confirmed, with more bravado than confidence.

“Good,” he said, as if he was relieved.

“Good,” she parroted, not relieved at all. Then she inclined her head toward the house, told him she needed to get going and wanted to say goodbye to Greta.

“Sure,” Callan said, bending over to pick up those gloves, putting them on again.

Onto those hands that Livi suddenly recalled the feel of on her body.

Until she forced that memory out of her head, took a long pull of fresh air and turned to go to the farmhouse.

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