A Sweetheart For The Single Dad (The Camdens Of Colorado Book 8) (10 page)

Something was going on there that wasn’t good, Lindie concluded. But still she didn’t feel as if she should pry.

So she went back to talking about his childhood and the father he clearly held in high esteem.

“It sounds like you were really close to your dad.”

“Still am. Even though he’s in Arizona, we touch base almost every day by phone or email or text.”

“Never a rough patch between you? Not even when you were a teenager?”

“Oh, sure, there were rough patches when both Sean and I were teenagers,” Sawyer said with a laugh, as if that was obvious. “We were teenagers. Isn’t the job of every teenager to give their parents gray hair?”

“So, the fun with your dad stopped then?”

“Not completely. There were still a lot of camping trips and chess games, but you know how it is then, kids want to be with their friends not their parents.”

She would have given anything to have had the chance to be with her parents as a teenager but she didn’t say that.

“Most of the other stuff we’d done with Dad, we did with friends instead,” Sawyer continued.

“Is that when the troublemaker side we have to deal with came out?” she quipped.

He laughed. “I wouldn’t say I
made
trouble but I got
into
some. Boys will be boys, you know? But it was actually Sean who was more into causes and politics and petitions. My troublemaking was not quite that organized then.”

“What kind of trouble did you get into?”

“It was my dad’s fault,” he joked, not really laying blame. “That fun we had driving go-carts sort of translated into some drag racing the first summer I had a license. And that camping-out stuff? Let’s say that’s what sparked sneaking out of my bedroom window to enjoy some long summer nights.”

“Alone?”

“Alone until I got to my girlfriend’s house,” he said with a devilish laugh.

After a day that had been so consumed with the boys and keeping them in tow and supervised and entertained and safe, it was nice to have Sawyer all to herself just to talk and she was dreading reaching the community center and having it end.

She tried to ignore that. “So do you have a police record from drag racing and whatever you did with your girlfriend—kidnapping, corrupting a minor, lewd and lascivious behavior?”

He laughed. “Are you looking for something to smear me with when I’m mounting a campaign against you?”

“Hmm. I hadn’t thought of that.”

“Sorry, no police record. And it’s not ‘corrupting a minor’ when you’re a minor, too. Or ‘kidnapping’ when the girl willingly sneaks out.”

“But it
was
lewd and lascivious?”

She was looking at his profile when she said that so she saw him grin. But all he said was “I got caught drag racing when I drove off the road and into a ravine I couldn’t get out of. We were in the middle of nowhere—
not
at the movies where I was supposed to be that night. So while nobody called the cops, I did have to call my dad to come with one of his work trucks to tow me out.”

“That would have been the end of driving for any one of us in that situation,” Lindie observed.

“For a solid year,” he said as if it had been painful. “My parents said if I was dumb enough to drag race I was too dumb to drive at all. They took my license.”

“And the girl and the sneaking out?” she asked, unwilling to let him get away without telling her about that.

“That went on for a full three weeks the summer before I turned seventeen.”

“Until you got caught?”

“Oh, yeah.”

“How did you get caught after getting away with it for three weeks?”

“The longer I did it, the sloppier I got and the later I’d stay out. One night I didn’t come back until dawn. My dad was up and there I was, climbing in my bedroom window when he came out to see if his newspaper was there yet.”

“Did he board up the window?”

“No, but he was pretty mad. Instead he added a security system that would go off if either Sean or I tried to sneak out. Then, just for good measure, my mom planted really thorny rosebushes outside every window we might ever think of climbing through. I was grounded for the rest of that summer.” He paused, sighed at the memory and then added, “It was worth it, though...”

“Really?” She mused at the satisfaction in his tone and his Cheshire-cat smile.

“Oh, yeah,” he said again, the smile turning into a grin once more.

“What? Did you lose your virginity when you were sneaking out?”

The grin got even bigger.

“You did!” she said.

But all he would say was, “Totally worth it.”

They’d reached the community center and he pulled into the lot.

Her car was waiting where she’d left it the day before and he parked in the spot beside it.

The second stop in motion and the quiet of the car when Sawyer turned off the engine still didn’t wake Carter from his sound sleep in the backseat. And even fully aware that she needed to get him home to bed didn’t make Lindie in any hurry to end the night.

Sawyer got out and she had to accept the fact that the evening was going to end whether she was ready for it to or not. She got out, too.

Carter was in his own car seat and Sawyer adeptly unfastened it. Then he transferred seat and boy to her car, secured it there and closed the door—all without Carter so much as stirring.

“I’m glad you know what you’re doing with that,” Lindie said when he was finished. “I would have had to fumble around to figure it out but you did it so smoothly.”

“Practice,” he said, laying a long arm across the top of her car roof and leaning one hip against the door he’d just closed as if he wasn’t in any hurry to say good-night now, either.

Lindie opened the driver’s side door but she didn’t get in. She stood in the lee of it, facing him.

“Sam said something about you being gone this week,” she said.

“Idaho,” Sawyer answered with a nod.

Lindie didn’t need more explanation than that. It was where the next Camden Superstore was slated to go in. “I heard your people were starting things there. I don’t suppose you’d stop even if I asked you nicely,” she said coyly.

“People have a right to know the flip side of the coin,” he said with a glance around at the heart of Wheatley’s decline.

“We were courted by the area,” she countered. “They invited us into their suburb as part of
improving
their decaying economy. It’s an urban renewal project.”

“Uh-huh. But with that
improvement
comes other issues that the side that invited you in isn’t talking about. We will be. Because someone
needs
to be.”

“It doesn’t
need
to be handled the way you handle it—by making us the demon seed being planted in their midst.”

That made him smile again. “
Demon seed.
I like that. I might have to use it.”

Lindie closed her eyes and shook her head at his incorrigibleness. When she opened them again he was watching her very intently and in a way that was not the look of one enemy at another.

Hoping to use that to her advantage she said, “Come on, let’s you and I hash it out without making it into a big deal.”

He laughed. “Let’s you and I just not talk about it,” he countered. “We had a nice day and I’ll be gone until next weekend. Let’s not waste our time arguing now.”

“So you won’t be here on Thursday,” she said with a nod in the direction of the center.

“Nope,” he said with what sounded like real regret.

She wasn’t sure if that regret was for missing his usual day there or for not seeing her. Although on second thought it seemed arrogant of her to even think it might be about seeing her. She knew how much the kids at the center meant to him.

“So I guess you’re off the hook this Thursday,” he said.

“No, I’ll still come. My Take Dinner Home program starts this week,” she reminded him.

“Ah, that’s right. I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that. Marie said you’d approached her with it. The kids can sign up to cook the meal and package it to take home with them for their whole family, right?”

“Right.”

“They get the kitchen and cooking experience here and then also get to provide an already-prepared meal for their family that night. No work for the folks at home for one night and a free meal because you’re funding it, if I’m understanding the way you’ve set it up.”

“The
horrible
Camden Incorporated is funding it through one of our foundations that very few people know is us. Marie just thinks it was something I heard about and arranged. So my cover here isn’t blown. She still doesn’t know I’m a Camden.”

“Anybody can sign up and it doesn’t matter if the family is large and a lot of portions are needed.”

“They just have to give me a headcount the week before.”

“That’s a pretty slick way of giving out a free meal.”

She wasn’t sure if he approved.

She also didn’t care.

Well, part of her wanted his approval—as much as she wished she didn’t. But even if he didn’t approve of this in particular she thought it was a small way of helping people in need without hurting anyone’s pride, so his approval mattered less to her.

“I got the idea from things you said about the candy bars. Nobody is forced to sign up or to do it. If they don’t need or want the meal, they just don’t have to. But this way the kids get to cook one night a week for the family, the family has one less meal a week to pay for, and I don’t see how there’s anything bad about it.”

“I don’t, either,” he said.

Apparently she was just being defensive because he went on to say, “I think it’s great. A lot of the budgets around here can use a little relief, the kids can feel pleased with themselves and proud of cooking for their family one night a week, and everybody wins. The subterfuge of not knowing where the money for it all is really coming from bothers me a little, but around here we take what we can get so I won’t rat you out.”

She’d told herself she didn’t need or want his approval, but it felt pretty good anyway.

“So you think it’s okay?” she heard herself say.

“I do. Better than sending vending-machine candy bars home hidden in backpacks.”

“There’ll be dessert,” she informed him.

He laughed and there was no doubt about it, she loved the sound and those lines at the corners of his eyes.

“Good,” he said as if dessert were inconsequential. “How long is the program going to last?”

“Indefinitely. I’ve set it up through the foundation so the funding will go on until the center wants it stopped. And I have a standing order for the take-out containers to be delivered every two weeks until otherwise notified, too, with the bill going to the foundation.”

“You’re overseeing the cooking on Thursdays?”

“Growing up, all ten of us kids fixed dinner every night with GiGi. I’m just going to do it the way we did.”

“A better childhood skill translation than go-carts to drag racing,” he conceded.

“Wait, wait, wait,” she said, feigning shock. “Was that a
not
-negative comment about the Camdens?”

His smile was sheepish. “Maybe.”

“That’s it? That’s the best I get?
Maybe?
”

His smile this time was slow and thoughtful as his eyes stayed on hers, holding hers. “Maybe you’re not such a bad Camden?” he teased.

“Oh, that’s very generous of you,” she countered facetiously.

“I’m gonna miss Thursday,” he said.

This time she had the distinct sense that he was talking about her.

“Don’t go to Idaho, then,” she challenged. But this time she wasn’t thinking about business, she was thinking about the fact that she wouldn’t see him.

“Have to,” he answered remorsefully. “But maybe I’ll call Thursday night to see how your program went on its maiden voyage.”

She knew he was only using the program as an excuse to call. But she was so glad that she’d at least talk to him this week that that was all she could think about.

“Okay,” she said softly.

“Okay,” he repeated just as softly, still looking into her eyes.

Was he standing closer than he had been? she wondered.

He must have been because all it took was the bend of his elbow on the top of her car for his hand to reach the back of her neck.

And once it was there, only the slightest pressure brought her head up a little more and him nearer still.

Near enough to lean in just enough to press his mouth to hers.

And then they were kissing. Really, really kissing. With lips parted and breath mingling and a slight sway that went on and on and made it so, so much better than that quick buss of Friday night, and so, so,
sooo
much better than that peck on the forehead the night before.

And yes, the man could kiss! If she’d ever had a better kiss she couldn’t recall it. This was a kiss that carried her away on the cool night air and told her he just might hate that they were saying goodbye for an entire week as much as she did.

Then it was over. When her eyes drifted open again it was to look up into those well-formed features mere inches above hers, those crystal-blue eyes studying her as if he were committing her face to memory to take with him.

“I should let you get that boy home,” he said, his voice deep and quiet.

Lindie nodded, not wanting to go but also now recalling the day and all she’d thought about and the reality that he had Sam.

Yet when Sawyer came in for a second kiss she tilted up her chin and let it happen again. Let it go on and on for a very long time. Let it end only when he did that, too.

He took his hand away from the back of her neck, put his other hand on the top of her doorframe and stepped back so she could get in behind the wheel of her car.

“Drive safe,” he advised.

“You, too,” she responded before he closed her door and took a step back as she started her engine.

She glanced through her window at him again.

Oh, but he was handsome.

He waved.

She waved back.

Then she pulled out of the parking spot and drove off.

Taking with her the feel of his mouth on hers, a head full of self-recriminations, and the hope that the week ahead didn’t drag as much as she was afraid it would.