A Sweetheart For The Single Dad (The Camdens Of Colorado Book 8) (7 page)

“Because I’m not sure I know the worst of it and I’d like to have the whole picture.” Her grandmother had thought the journals left some things out, so they couldn’t be certain in these situations if they had all the facts.

“My side of what happened.” He took a bite of his sandwich, clearly to give himself time to consider whether or not to answer.

Lindie merely waited, eating a potato chip.

After a moment he’d apparently made his decision because he said, “According to my dad, he met Tina Larson when he did some work on the Denver Country Club.
She
asked
him
out the first time and they hit it off. She was even the one to start talking about marrying him. That was what led to him proposing. But Howard Camden wanted her—my dad says that he’d seen it when they’d all been at the country club or at parties and things at the same time. He said the guy couldn’t take his eyes off her. He even flirted with her right in front of my dad after they were engaged. But my dad’s not an insecure guy, he wasn’t threatened. Tina was his and he wasn’t worried about it. Instead he felt pretty much on top of the world—a beautiful rich girl had pursued him and wanted to marry him. He had his own construction company and it was doing well. He’d won bids on four different major projects so he needed to hire more people and expand. Top of the world,” Sawyer repeated.

Another bite of sandwich, another pause. More silence from Lindie as she merely waited and listened when he spoke again.

“Dad was busy, but not so busy that he had to neglect Tina. Until things started to go wrong.”

“Things like what?” Lindie asked.

“Expensive mistakes started being made in orders for materials. Wrong addresses for deliveries, then there were delays and extra costs for reloading and getting the materials to the right places. Shoddy workmanship caused all kinds of problems—failed inspections, time and money to bring things up to code, some damage to the company’s reputation. Fights broke out among the workers, which had never happened before. There were walkouts. There were scheduling mistakes that left clients mad and put Huffman Construction in breach of contracts. The IRS suddenly came out of the woodwork to do an audit of the books—”

Instigated by a Camden connection within the IRS—that was one of the things she knew. But she didn’t tell him that.

Sawyer took a breath, shook his head and said, “Within months of getting engaged to Tina my dad was overwhelmed with business problems. The company was in serious trouble. He was on the verge of losing everything. He had an obligation to his workers and his clients to get things back in hand. His focus had to be on that. He had no choice but to spend long hours dealing with one disaster after another.”

“And he needed to postpone his wedding to Aunt Tina on top of having hardly any time to spend with her.”

“You got it,” he confirmed. “My dad says that Tina was patient and understanding at first. But he’d had to leave her in the lurch over and over again and after a while...” Sawyer shrugged. “There were parties and country club functions, weddings of friends—not to mention celebrating their own engagement—and a whole slew of other social obligations that she wanted and needed to go to. She got tired of going to everything alone.”

“Enter my uncle,” Lindie supplied.

“Right. Enter Howard Camden. He ran in the same circles Tina did. He was at the same parties and weddings and whatnot. And there he was...understanding and sympathetic.”

“And also handsome and charming and fun. That’s how I remember my uncle.”

“Little by little Tina was spending more time with him than with my dad. All the while—my dad had no doubt—Howard Camden was making it clear to her how much he wanted there to be more between him and Tina.”

“Until there was.”

“What put it over the top was a rumor that surfaced that it wasn’t only business keeping my dad busy. That he was having an affair with a woman who worked for him. He wasn’t. But when Tina confronted the woman—encouraged to do so by your uncle—she confirmed the rumor.”

Lindie cringed.

“That was it for Tina,” Sawyer said. “She broke off the engagement and there good old Howard Camden was, waiting to comfort her.”

Sawyer had finished his sandwich and his chips and he sat back, angled slightly on his side of the booth to prop an elbow on the seatback. “My dad could never prove anything,” he told her. “But he’d heard about the Camdens—that they’d do anything to get what they wanted. When someone my dad hadn’t slept with claimed he had, he started to piece things together. The woman in the office had started around the same time as a handful of construction workers. That was also when all the problems had started. Problems that stopped once he fired the woman and when the workers—having accomplished their mission—all quit. It wasn’t hard to figure out that they were Camden plants to sabotage him, keep him busy and away from Tina so she could become open season for your uncle.”

Lindie again didn’t say anything, letting only her silence confirm it.

“My dad went to Tina to tell her what he suspected but with no way to prove it—because tracks had been well covered—she just didn’t buy it. She said she was in love with Howard, she was going to marry him, and that was it.”

“Was your dad heartbroken?” Lindie asked compassionately.

“And mad as hell,” Sawyer said with a humorless laugh.

“But he recovered?” she asked even though she knew he had. GiGi’s research had told them as much.

“It took some time. The woman who claimed to have had an affair with him had also made a mess of the books and he ended up owing the government back taxes and penalties. His business reputation had suffered a hit so the business came close to going under but he managed to pull it out of the fire.”

“And he did end up married,” Lindie pointed out.

“To my mom. He’s always said that she was his reward for surviving what the Camdens did to him and that the lucky part of the whole thing was that it kept him free to meet the love of his life.”

“So he ended up happy,” Lindie concluded, trying to concentrate on the positive side.

Sawyer didn’t answer immediately. He studied her so keenly that his crystal-blue gaze began to make her uncomfortable. “Yeah, he did. My dad ended up happy with my mom, he had my brother and me, his business turned around and made him a good living until he sold it so he and my mom could retire to Arizona a couple of years ago. But that doesn’t excuse what your family did.”

“I know,” Lindie said quietly. “If it helps at all, my uncle really was head-over-heels in love with my aunt. He didn’t think he could live without her.” That was why H.J. and Howard’s father, Hank, and brother, Mitchum, had gotten in on the scheme and participated with their own ideas and connections and contacts.

“Still doesn’t excuse it.”

“I know. You’re right,” she agreed. “The ends don’t justify the means. None of us condone what went on and we really are sorry for it.”

He stared at her for another long moment before he let out a bit of a huff and said, “Uh-huh. You’re all really sorry now that the shoe is on the other foot and I’m in a position where I can make some of
your
business life miserable. Because I don’t see you in Arizona, talking to my dad—who’s really the injured party here. Instead it’s me you want to make nice with.”

“If there’s something I can do make it up to your dad just tell me and I’ll get it done. But since, as you said, everything ended up working out for him, we just couldn’t figure out what he might need.”

“My dad doesn’t need anything from you. Or want anything from you. But he does get a kick out of seeing me
stick it
to you all like your uncle and whoever else helped stick it to him.”

“He likes revenge better than he’d like to see your business profits double or triple?”

Sawyer laughed sardonically. “I don’t know,” he said. “I haven’t—and won’t—tell him that’s a possibility because it isn’t. For the nth time—I’m not taking Camden Incorporated on as a client.”

“We’ll see,” Lindie said.

“Yes, we will.”

They’d both finished eating some time before and it was getting late so Sawyer crumpled up the sandwich’s paper wrapper, signaling that it was time to put an end to this.

Lindie followed suit, slightly alarmed to discover that she was no more eager to end her time with him now than she had been before they’d had dinner.

And maybe, despite the fact that he’d initiated the cleanup, Sawyer wasn’t, either, because once they got outside he leaned against her car door rather than offer her free access to open it.

“So you really are going to show up again tomorrow?” he asked.

“Really am. Maybe helping clear the spot for your chess tables so you can share the same experience with your little boy will put a drop in the bucket of making things up.”

“It all happened a long time ago,” he said, looking very intently at her. “It doesn’t need to be made up for at this point. It might have been the catalyst for what I do now, but what I do now is important in its own right. That’s why I’m going to keep doing it,” he warned yet again.

Lindie only smiled a small, confident smile at him and said, “I’m going to find a way that works for everyone.”

He shrugged and gave her the same kind of smile. “You can go ahead and keep trying,” he said as if failure was inevitable. But there was something else in his tone, too. In the glint of his blue eyes. Something that had the air of invitation. As if he liked that she was trying. Maybe as if he liked seeing her, having her around. Maybe as if he liked her...

He pushed away from her car door and took a step to stand directly in front of her. His eyes never lost contact with hers. And that sexy little smile never faded.

“Now I have a confession,” he said quietly.

Lindie tilted her chin up, encouraging him.

“You’ve had some schmutz on your face since this afternoon and I didn’t tell you.”

“You made me come here for dinner with a dirty face?”

He grinned. “It’s kinda cute,” he said, raising an index finger to the apple of her left cheek to rub at whatever was there.

There hadn’t been any physical contact before that moment and while it wasn’t much, it still packed a wallop for Lindie. For no reason she could explain, it set off a tingling sensation that was like a giddy little dance of excitement all around that spot.

The sensation took her by surprise. She wondered if he’d somehow felt it, too, because that cocky grin he’d started out with turned more curious and his brows pulsed together in a split second of what looked like confusion.

He traced all four tips of his fingers along the side of her face and said, almost more to himself than to her, “You have the softest skin.”

Before she knew it was coming, he leaned over and kissed her. A quick peck that was there and gone before she’d even closed her eyes or registered it or responded.

Then it was over, his hand was gone from her face and he had a shocked, but amused, expression on his.

“How’d that happen?” he asked as if he hadn’t been responsible.

Lindie asked the same thing but only with the arch of her own eyebrows.

“Want to hit me?” he offered.

She shook her head, unable to speak because what she wanted to say was
kiss me again
. And there was no way she could let herself do that!

“Still on board for tomorrow?” he asked, clearly testing to see if that kiss had changed her plans.

“Yes,” she confirmed.

He grinned as if that pleased him, turned around and opened her car door for her.

Lindie got behind the wheel and glanced up at him, trying not to wish that he would lean in to take advantage of her upraised face to kiss her again, after all.

Which—wishing for it or not—he didn’t do.

Instead he told her to drive safe and closed the door before he went around to his SUV.

So Lindie started her car and pulled out of her parking spot, putting every effort into acting as if that dumb little nothing of a peck on the lips hadn’t stunned her and left that tingle of excitement raining all through her.

But it had.

No matter how she acted.

It had.

Chapter Five

“R
eally? You have to be kidding. To pick weeds? Dumb ass!” Sawyer said to himself on Saturday morning.

He’d just finished shaving and, without thinking about it, had reached for the cologne that he never used unless he was going on a date.

What he
was
thinking about was the same thing he’d been thinking about since he’d met her. Lindie Camden. And thinking about her while preparing to spend the day with her had caused that automatic reach for the cologne. As if picking weeds with her was a date.

“Dumb, dumb, dumb ass!” he repeated as he pulled his hand away from the bottle without grabbing it and using the expensive ocean-breeze scented stuff inside.

I’m as bad as Eric and Tyler.

Worse, he amended. He was worse than Eric and Tyler when it came to Lindie. Sure the boys had tried to linger after Friday’s work was finished to get a little more time with her. But he’d put a stop to that and sent them home. So
he
could get a little more time with her.
Without
the boys interfering and taking up all her attention.

And then he’d topped the whole thing off by kissing her.

Oh, yeah, he was a dumb ass all right.

Definitely worse than two hormonal twelve-year-olds. Put together.

She’s a
Camden
!

That’s what he mentally shouted at himself. The same thing he’d mentally shouted at himself all week long every time he realized he’d lapsed into yet another daydream about her. Every time he’d found himself restlessly counting the hours, the minutes, until he would see her again. Every time the image of her sprang into his mind complete with that long, lustrous hair and those super-blue eyes and that face and that body and even the sound of her voice...

“She’s a
Camden
,” he told his reflection out loud as he closed the medicine cabinet door to keep himself away from that cologne.

He wouldn’t touch a Camden with a ten-foot pole.

Except that last night he
had
touched her.

Because of that smudge on her face.

The smudge was information he’d kept to himself until the evening was coming to an end, but not to embarrass her the way he’d made it seem. The little smear of dirt on the high crest of her cheekbone had actually looked so cute that he hadn’t wanted her to get rid of it right away. He’d liked that one small mar to her perfection.

He’d liked it so much that once he wasn’t going to be the one looking at it, he’d wanted it gone, as if to make sure no one else got to see her that way.

More dumb ass stuff.

But that was what he’d been thinking when he’d wiped that smudge away.

What he hadn’t expected was that something as small, as simple, as touching one lousy finger to her face, would jolt him the way it had. Would leave him incapable of taking his hand away once it was there. Would compel him to bend over and kiss her!

What the hell had gotten into him?

A Camden! She’s a Camden!

Something in him had been shouting that even as he’d been headed for that kiss, and as a result nearly the minute he’d made contact he’d pulled out of it.

But he’d still made the contact. And he wanted to shoot himself for it.

It didn’t make any difference that she was one of the hottest women he’d ever seen. Or that so far she seemed to be one of the nicest. She was still a member of a family he didn’t approve of on any level.

And even if she wasn’t, he had other things that needed his full and complete concentration. Other things to worry about. To fight. He had Sam. And he had that move to Vermont that could be looming. And a potential custody battle.

Plus he hadn’t figured out what the hell he did wrong with the women in his life that kept leading him to disasters in his relationships.

Even if Lindie wasn’t a Camden, he shouldn’t be cultivating anything with her.

He certainly needed not to be touching her or kissing her—however innocently or briefly.

“It’s not going to happen again,” he told his reflection in the most threatening tone he could muster, as if the guy in the mirror was someone else.

But he meant it.

He wasn’t going to touch her. He sure as hell wasn’t going to kiss her.

He was going to make sure she understood all the harm her family had done and then he was going to walk away, deal with his own problems and go on being Camden Incorporated’s worst nightmare.

There was no question. That was how this thing with her had to go.

In the meantime he was also going to ignore how stinking excited he was when he walked out of the bathroom, out of his bedroom, out of his house, knowing that he was on his way to her again.

* * *

“I am so-oo sorry!” Lindie apologized for what was probably the tenth time. “Really, you don’t have to stay here with me. This is all incredibly embarrassing.”

It was after six on Saturday evening and Sawyer had been sitting with her in a hospital emergency room for more than four hours.

What had seemed to be a hay fever reaction to the weeds they were clearing at the community center’s park—a reaction Lindie was just trying to endure with aplomb—had turned serious when they’d reached some mold-laden sedentary water.

Because streets had been rerouted to accommodate the Camden Superstore, emergency response times to the east side of Wheatley were longer and Sawyer had decided they couldn’t risk waiting for an ambulance. He’d put her in his SUV and raced for the hospital himself. She’d been struggling for breath by the time they’d arrived and the ER staff had rushed her in.

The initial treatment had gotten her out of immediate danger. But they’d wanted to give her oxygen for a while and to keep an eye on her to make sure she was stable. Since the place was busy, there were long gaps between visits from the doctor or the nurses. The whole thing had resulted in hours and hours of sitting. With Sawyer by her side. And her trying to convince him that he didn’t have to be.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he said, also for about the tenth time.

Ordinarily, Lindie would have called someone in her family and the entire group would have rallied. But her cousin Seth and his wife had a week-old baby boy that everyone except her brother Lang had gone to Northbridge, Montana, to see. Lang and his wife weren’t going until Sunday because they were in Vail for a wedding today, making him also too far away to get there. When a nurse had asked if there was anyone she wanted contacted and she’d explained the situation—with Sawyer there to hear it, too—he’d settled in and refused to leave.

But she was still trying.

“Really, when they release me I can call a cab to get me back to my car and—”

“You can’t drive—they’ve pumped you so full of antihistamines and antianxiety drugs that you keep dozing off in the middle of sentences and you weave when you walk. I’m staying until they release you, then driving you home. I already called the Wheatley police during your last nap and explained that your car would have to stay in the community center’s parking lot overnight. Tomorrow I’ll pick you up and take you back to get it. That’s the way it’s going to be, and that’s all there is to it.”

He was all the more attractive when he took charge—it was something Lindie had noticed through the work at the park. But she had mixed feelings about his stubborn refusal to leave her on her own at the hospital.

On the one hand, she was grateful to him for getting her there, for keeping her company and looking out for her during a frightening situation.

On the other hand, she hated having him see her this way. She was certainly not at her best—vulnerable, panicked, loopy, in a hospital gown with a tube stuck in her arm and an oxygen cannula up her nose. And most likely with the makeup she’d applied that morning worn away and her hair in who knew what kind of mess.

While there he was, incredible looking even in a T-shirt and a pair of well-worn jeans. Jeans that he most definitely wore well, and an army-green T-shirt with the short sleeves stretched taut over noteworthy biceps and molded to muscular shoulders, chest and a very flat middle.

In comparison she felt at a disadvantage.

A male nurse came into the room to announce that the doctor had finally decided she could be released. The nurse went over her instructions with both Lindie and Sawyer before she signed the papers. Then Sawyer took them to keep track of and left the room while Lindie’s oxygen and intravenous tubes were removed so she could get dressed.

Without a mirror in the room she still had no idea how she looked once she’d dressed in her own jeans, tennis shoes and a V-necked yellow T-shirt.

She retrieved a brush from her purse and took her hair out of the pigtails she’d put it in that morning. Then she ran the brush through it and let it hang loose, hoping the rubber bands hadn’t left ugly ridges.

But that was the best she could do—and really all she was up to doing—before she left the tiny cubicle of a room.

Expecting to find Sawyer right outside, she was surprised that he wasn’t. She paused, looking up and down the corridor, but she still didn’t see him. Unsteady and disoriented, she wasn’t sure which way was the way out.

The male nurse happened by, pointed and said, “He’s right around the corner.”

Lindie thanked the nurse and walked on slightly wobbly legs in the direction he had indicated.

It was an odd relief when she rounded the corner and there Sawyer was.

His back was to her and as she headed for him she couldn’t help noticing yet again that the rear view was as good as the front, making her want to get closer to him the way she always did. But as she got nearer she realized that he was talking to four little girls she recognized—the Murphy sisters—and that there was a police officer nearby.

“Lindie!” the youngest of the Murphy girls said when she spotted her approaching them all. “My gramma got sick!”

Lindie could tell by the sober expressions that that didn’t mean anything good as she joined the group.

“What happened?” she asked.

Sawyer answered. “Their grandmother had a stroke. They think they’ve stabilized her but they’re moving her into intensive care.”

And their grandmother was their guardian because Dad had passed away and Mom had gone to prison.

“She’ll be okay, though,” Lindie said softly to Sawyer, hoping for something that sounded like encouragement.

The arch of Sawyer’s eyebrows didn’t give it. “The doctors are taking good care of her.”

“And the girls?” she said equally as softly.

“Officer Brown here has called in social services. Their caseworker is on her way. Do you think you’re up to waiting with them?”

Lindie didn’t hesitate. “Absolutely.”

They were asked to move out into the lobby then. The police officer stepped up as if to enforce a command and Angel, the oldest of the Murphy girls, took Clara’s hand. “Come on,” she said, leading her sisters toward the exit from the treatment rooms with the police officer tagging along.

“We’ll be right there,” Lindie told them, hanging back to talk to Sawyer.

“How bad is it?” she asked when the girls were out of earshot.

“It isn’t good. Gramma hasn’t regained consciousness and she isn’t responding to pain stimuli. I’m just repeating what I was told. I’m not sure what that means except that they said it wasn’t a good sign.”

“And she’s all they have?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Where will they go if she is?”

“Foster care.”

Lindie shook her head emphatically. It wasn’t in her nature to sit idly by when someone needed help. And while she was trying to curb some of those impulses because they’d gotten her into sticky situations—that had most recently even put her in danger—there was no way she could walk away from those four girls.

“They can come home with me,” she said without hesitation. “I have a house and empty bedrooms and—”

“Hold on!” Sawyer cautioned. “You can’t just do something like that.”

“Yes, I can,” she insisted, adrenaline pumping through her to make her feel more on top of things suddenly. “I don’t want to see them just stuck somewhere or split up.”

“I understand how you feel, but they may have other family to go to. Maybe family that isn’t as close as Gramma but an aunt or an uncle or a cousin or somebody. This may be a long-term thing, Lindie, if Gramma doesn’t make it or she’s permanently disabled or even if she’s in for a long recovery period before she can handle four little girls again.”

“Still,” Lindie said, undaunted.

“No, not
still
. You’re half out of it and even if you weren’t, there’s no way I’d let you sign on right here and now, before you’ve thought it through, for what could turn out to be a substantial commitment to these girls. We’re going to stay with them so they aren’t alone with strangers until their caseworker gets here. Then we’ll listen to what the caseworker has to say and—”

“I don’t want them to go into foster care for even one night. If that’s the only option, I’m taking them home with me.”

“Okay, if foster care is where they’ll need to go tonight, then
maybe
you can volunteer. But promise me you won’t volunteer until we find out if that
is
where they need to go.”

When she didn’t immediately agree he said, “Promise me or I
will
put you in a cab to get you out of here before you do something you shouldn’t.”

He made the threat firmly enough for her to believe that was exactly what he would do, so she took a breath and made the promise, conceding not to rush into anything and reminding herself that that
did
often get her into trouble.

Neither of them said anything else as they left the treatment area and went into the lobby where the girls were watching anxiously for them. Apparently the young cop saw his position as solely observational because he wasn’t talking to them at all.

Sawyer insisted that Lindie sit in the remaining empty chair in the row of five with the girls and he stood in front of them all.

Once she was settled, the girls spontaneously launched into the story of finding their grandmother on the kitchen floor, of Angel dialing 9-1-1, of riding in a police car behind the ambulance that had brought their grandmother to the hospital.