A Sweetheart For The Single Dad (The Camdens Of Colorado Book 8) (2 page)

“His dad had to file bankruptcy and close his sporting goods store last week,” Sawyer informed the other woman. “I know things are rough for the family right now.” Then, pointedly to Lindie, he added, “Emotions can run high when times get tough. Tempers flare. Welcome to the real world.”

Lindie was hardly out of touch with the real world. Especially most recently when it had landed her in the emergency room.

But she wasn’t going to get into that.

The other woman spared her from saying anything by going on. “I heard from some of the other kids that Parker has had a few scuffles on the walks between school and here. If the bruises are from that, he needs a chat about not fighting. And if something worse is going on...? I know he likes you and I thought you might be able to talk to him to figure out if he just needs to vent some way other than with his fists or if we should get authorities involved.”

“Sure, I’ll talk to him. And while I have you here—is it true about the Murphys’ mom?”

The woman’s eyebrows rose in a helpless sort of shrug. “You know she’s had problems making ends meet since her husband died. I guess she was doing something fraudulent on the internet and got caught. She pleaded guilty and will definitely go to jail so—with dad out of the picture, too—the four girls are with Grandma now,” the woman confirmed.

“Lucky they have Grandma.”

The woman glanced at Lindie apologetically. “I hope I wasn’t breaking up something important but I just had a minute. I’ll leave you two alone.”

Then she left and Sawyer took a deep breath before he looked at Lindie again. All traces of amusement were gone from that handsome face. “There you go,” he said, like a lawyer who felt he’d proved his case.

She must have looked confused.

“Two examples right under your nose. The bankruptcy is a direct result of a small business not being able to compete since your store came in. And even the Murphys. Their dad died a little over a year ago, and with businesses going under or cutting back around here mom couldn’t get a job to support the family. I know she tried to get hired on with Camdens but was told you were bringing your own computer people in. I guess she went another route—one more side effect of ‘Camden prosperity.’”

And by volunteering here Lindie was going to end up meeting the people harmed by those side effects.

Sawyer Huffman had no idea just how susceptible she was to that kind of thing.

I’m just going to have to be strong
, she told herself.

“On second thought,” he said, “maybe it isn’t a good idea to have you coming around here even as a volunteer.”

But if she didn’t she knew she wasn’t going to get anywhere near him.

“No one needs to know who I am. I won’t give my last name. Or I’ll use a different one if I need to,” she said in a hurry, trying to maintain the ground she thought she’d gained.

He didn’t answer immediately; instead he stared at her for a long moment as if weighing something.

Then he said, “Knockout or not, if I didn’t know exactly who you are I doubt anyone else will recognize you, so I suppose it might be okay if you keep your identity under wraps. But you’d better tone it down some—there’re not a lot of silk and six-hundred-dollar shoes being worn in this part of town.”

The shoes had cost her eight hundred and just the fact that he realized they were expensive made her feel ashamed of that fact.

But again she wouldn’t let him see it. She tilted her chin defiantly. “That’s fine. I’m really not a prima donna.”

“Yeah, I’ll bet you’ve spent a lot of time in the trenches,” he countered with biting sarcasm. “I guess we’ll see, won’t we?”

The challenge was back again and that, too, had an edge that made her think she was really in for it.

But nothing was going to make her back down so she merely said, “When will you be handing out flyers tomorrow?”

“After work. Probably around six. If, once you think about things, you still want in, I’ll meet you in the parking lot out front.”

“I’ll be here,” she said.

There was skepticism in the wry half smile that quirked up one side of his sexy mouth, but he didn’t say anything except, “I have to get back. You can find your way out?”

“I can.”

He nodded his head, slowly, his crystal-blue eyes steady on her face.

Then, without saying goodbye, he went around her toward the chess tables, calling into the group, “Parker! How about a game to keep you sharp while you wait to play your next round?”

“Yeah? You think you can handle it?” a boy who looked to be about twelve or thirteen called back.

“Guess we’ll see, won’t we?” Sawyer answered, not giving Lindie as much as a backward glance.

And leaving her wondering if she’d just bitten off more than she could chew both with the man and the situation.

Chapter Two

“I
won’t let it happen, Candy. Sam is my son and he isn’t moving to Vermont. I don’t care if Harmon’s practice here is hurting or that he wants to move closer to his family.
Sam’s
family lives here and it’s more important for the four-year-old to be with
his
family than for the thirty-four-year-old!”

Sawyer had been trying not to raise his voice as he spoke to his ex-girlfriend on the phone on Tuesday but he’d lost the battle.

“Maybe you should talk to Harmon,” Candy Ferguson responded as if she were only partially involved.

“Maybe
you
should talk to Harmon! I know you don’t want to move out of state. You’ve
never
wanted to move out of state. You gave up a college scholarship and used loans to pay your tuition rather than go away just for four years. Now this guy snaps his fingers and says he wants to move, so you’re willing to do it? No way! Try standing up for yourself!”

“Vermont is nice...” was the wishy-washy answer to that.

They had been going round and round this issue for the past half hour and, so far, Sawyer hadn’t gotten anywhere. He was fed up and pulled out what he hoped was his ace in the hole. “I’ve already talked to Sean.” Sean was his younger brother and his attorney. “If I have to go to court, I will. If you don’t have the guts to tell Harmon that you don’t want to move, then feel free to make me the bad guy and use that as your out. But one way or another, I won’t sit idly by and have you and
Harmon
take my son across the country to live.”

He hung up without saying goodbye. Frustrated, angry, worried. And cursing himself for the choices he’d made in the women in his life.

“You’re falling for it, too,
Harmon
,” he muttered as if his ex’s husband could hear. “I’m betting that she’s letting you think she’s okay with moving when she really isn’t. Then she’ll get there and be unhappy and blame you. But you’re not taking my kid along for that ride!”

Sawyer was sitting behind the desk in his office. His door was closed for privacy so—knowing no one who worked for him could see—he dropped his head forward and reached back to try to rub the tension out of his neck.

It was bad enough to have his son living with another man half the time, to have Sam following some other guy’s rules—because, of course, Candy wasn’t going to be the boss. But at least Sawyer still had plenty of his own time with his son. Sawyer could be at T-ball games and school conferences and programs. Sawyer could pick Sam up from school. Sawyer could get to him in the blink of an eye if Sam was sick or hurt. He could
be there
for him.

If Sam was in Vermont, Sawyer would be relegated to phone and video calls, and he’d only actually be with his son a few times a year. And there was no way he wouldn’t fight to keep that from happening.

The trouble was that he wasn’t altogether sure it was a battle he would win.

Being part of Sam’s life had been an uphill battle for a while now. Things had gone smoothly enough at the beginning. Candy hadn’t known she was pregnant when their relationship had ended, but had told him as soon as she’d found out. She’d declined his suggestion of marriage but had agreed to let him have an active role as Sam’s father. Or, at least, she’d conceded to it. He could never be too sure with her—or with any of the women who had passed through his adult life—whether agreement meant they were genuinely on board or just that they were going along against their will and not letting it show.

Either way, Candy had consented to letting him share custody, and even to naming Sam after Sawyer’s father. Then she’d also accepted Sawyer’s request for equal time with Sam, along with the ample child support he’d offered her.

It was only when Harmon had come on the scene two years ago that problems had started.

Sawyer’s visitation with Sam had mysteriously gotten harder to schedule. Sawyer had stopped being included in decisions about Sam and was no longer informed about whatever was going on in Sam’s life. He hadn’t even been invited to Sam’s last birthday party, and now Sawyer had to rely on the four-year-old to tell him most things, which, more often than not, resulted in only hearing about it after the fact.

But even though the problems started with Harmon, Sawyer couldn’t be sure the other man was actually to blame.

He’d learned the hard way that just because Candy
seemed
okay with something, it didn’t mean she was. That under the surface things could be simmering that he was completely unaware of, things that would flare up when he least expected it.

Did
Candy really want to move to Vermont or was she not telling Harmon she didn’t?

Was
Harmon calling the shots with Sam, with Sawyer’s visitation and participation in his son’s life, or was Candy merely using him as an excuse to make Sam’s upbringing go the way
she
wanted it?

Was
it possible that Candy hadn’t been so okay with sharing custody of Sam these past four years and moving to Vermont was her passive-aggressive way of cutting Sawyer out of his life?

Sawyer didn’t know.

And he sure as hell couldn’t say he was any good at deciphering what was really going on with her.

At the start, when Candy was being so agreeable to everything about Sam, Sawyer had taken into consideration that she was the primary caregiver, so he’d agreed to Candy being Sam’s custodial parent.

Now, as the custodial parent, if she petitioned the court for relocation, a judge would most likely grant the relocation petition.

Besides Candy being the custodial parent, Sawyer’s brother had said that the court would consider the fact that Sawyer often had to travel for work while Candy was a stay-at-home mom whose livelihood depended on her husband’s income—an income that could be improved if Harmon took over his father’s practice in Vermont instead of maintaining his own failing practice in Wheatley.

And off Sam would go to Vermont.

So Sawyer didn’t want to go to court. But he might not have a choice. Because even though he thought it was possible that Candy honestly didn’t want to move, he also didn’t hold out much hope that she would openly admit it to her husband.

When it came to the women in his life, he’d definitely had a pattern. On the surface they’d all been agreeable, considerate, seemingly selfless women he’d thought were perfect partners. The kind of perfect partner his mom had been for his dad for the past four decades.

But instead of finding happily-ever-after the way his parents had, Sawyer had ended up accused and found guilty of relationship crimes he hadn’t even known he was committing. As a result, his marriage and what he’d thought was a relationship headed for marriage with Candy had been dead in the water before he’d even realized anything was wrong.

And now his relationship with Sam could be on the line, unless he could rely on a woman speaking up—a woman he already knew was unlikely to do that.

He tapped his fingers on his desktop agitatedly.

He loved that kid more than he loved breathing. He couldn’t lose him to Harmon and Vermont.

“Dammit!” he said under his breath, clenching his hands into two fists to stop the tapping.

A knock on his office door caused him to sit straighter and call a “Come in” as if nothing was bothering him.

His executive assistant poked her graying head through the door. “The day is done. I just wanted to tell you that the fliers for the Wheatley park project are on my desk waiting for you, and to say good-night.”

“Thanks, Marybeth. Have a nice night.”

“You, too,” the sixty-one-year-old answered before retreating and closing the door.

Sawyer checked the time and discovered it was nearly five-thirty. He needed to head for Wheatley.

He pushed his chair back and stood, shrugging out of his tan suit coat, taking off his tie, then unfastening the top button of his ecru shirt and rolling his long sleeves to his elbows.

Casual got a better reception in Wheatley.

In Wheatley where Lindie Camden was supposed to meet him.

If she showed.

Just the thought that she might helped to take his mind off his problems. And made him smile a little.

Lindie Camden.

Now
that
was an impressive ambassador to send to get on his good side!

The Camdens kept a relatively low profile but pictures of them cropped up here and there. Sawyer never paid enough attention to know who was who, but they did all bear a resemblance to each other—enough for him to have a general image of dark hair, fine features and blue eyes that were apparently considered so remarkable that the local media called them the Camden Blue Eyes—as if no one else in the world owned a pair.

To have the unusual request for an appointment followed by the appearance of a very un-Wheatley-looking woman in the community center’s rec room hadn’t made it a huge leap to suspect that that woman was the same one who had called. Lindie Camden.

When she’d turned around he’d seen that she’d had plenty to go along with those eyes that were, he had to admit, remarkable.

Lush, shiny, coffee-bean-colored hair down to the middle of her back. Skin like alabaster. High, well-defined cheekbones. Long, thick eyelashes. And full, sexy lips.

All together with well-shaped legs, a rear end the skirt she’d been wearing hugged to perfection, the temptation of just-the-right-size breasts peeking from behind silk folds, he could imagine treaties being signed between warring factions just because she asked.

Or at least he’d imagined it until she’d said she wanted to hire him. Then he’d reminded himself that he represented one side of those warring factions and that no matter how breathtaking the woman, he wasn’t surrendering.

Take on Camden Incorporated as a client? Not a chance!

But he
had
seen another opportunity. An opportunity to open those big baby blues of hers to some of the damage her family’s stores did.

If, in the process, he also found the opportunity to get her pretty little hands dirty cleaning up the mess left behind? There was just enough orneriness in him to get a kick out of the possibility of that.

Grabbing his discarded coat and tie, he took them with him as he went out of his office. A few of the people who worked for him were still there, wrapping things up for the day. After exchanging some small talk and good-nights, he picked up the fliers from Marybeth’s desk and handed over locking-up duties to his office manager.

But Lindie Camden stayed on his mind.

Would her hair be down again today? he wondered. What would she be wearing? Surely not a skirt as tight as yesterday’s or heels as high.

Not that it would matter. The woman could walk around barefoot, in rags, and still be gorgeous.

Had the Camdens thought that sending someone who looked the way she did would make him more apt to cave?

It seemed impossible for her looks not to be part of the plan. They’d probably thought to blind him with her beauty so he’d be putty in their hands.

Well, it wasn’t going to work. A pretty face was not going to derail him professionally or get him to turn his back on what he believed in or on the people and businesses he was glad to represent.

And it wasn’t going to get to him personally, either, he thought as he got into his SUV and found himself feeling his jaw the way he might have if he were about to go on a date; testing to see if he should take his emergency electric razor out of the glove compartment for a second shave today.

There was a little stubble and, yeah, if this
was
a date, he probably would have used the razor.

But this wasn’t a date so he didn’t.

No matter how attractive she was, he wouldn’t touch a Camden with a ten-foot pole, he thought as he merged into highway traffic in the direction of Wheatley. And not only out of loyalty to his family—although that was certainly a factor. Not even if he wasn’t in a mess over Sam that drove home his need to reassess why things always went so wrong with his choices in women.

On top of both of those things, Lindie Camden was also his business enemy and that was automatically a roadblock. Roadblocks were huge challenges and challenges in his personal relationships were things he tried to avoid. Things that certainly didn’t
improve
relationships.

No matter what, he liked things in his personal life to be smooth sailing. He wanted a woman he was completely compatible with. A relationship that was pleasant and harmonious. Like his parents had. He was sure wanting that wasn’t where he’d gone wrong in the past and he wasn’t changing it.

And there was no chance that any of that could come about with a woman he was at odds with from the get-go. Especially one who was likely spoiled and pampered and accustomed to getting her own way about everything. A woman who probably didn’t know the meaning of the word
compromise
.

So, thanks but no thanks all the way around, Lindie Camden!

The most he was going to indulge himself in was rubbing her nose in what her stores left behind. In getting her hands dirty cleaning up some of it.

Other than that, this whole thing was going to be nothing more than a small amusement until she turned tail and ran back to the family in defeat.

In the meantime he’d just take in the view as a bonus and use his time with her to make his point. To show the almighty Camdens why they deserved to have things made difficult for them. And not only because there was the stain of the earlier Camdens’ underhanded dealings on their record.

Oh, yeah, Lindie Camden was in for it. He’d make sure of that. Regardless of how hot she was.

And the fact that when he reached the first stoplight in Wheatley, he took his shaver out of the glove box to run over his face, after all? That didn’t mean anything except that he wanted to make a good impression on the people he encountered tonight in the process of handing out fliers.

It wasn’t because he was sprucing up to see Lindie Camden again.

* * *

Lindie was in her car in the parking lot of the Wheatley Community Center at five minutes before six o’clock on Tuesday night. She was watching every car that pulled in until she could see if the driver was Sawyer Huffman.