To Catch a Camden (5 page)

Larry and Marion were inside fixing their own dinner, after which they would cozy up on their sofa with popcorn to watch an old movie—their Saturday-night-at-the-movies tradition upheld even though they could no longer afford to go to a theater.

And she was slated for a shower and sitting alone in front of the television, eating whatever leftovers were in her fridge.

Or she could shower and meet Derek Camden for a
bite to eat.
A nondate. Unlike what the minister had invited her to.

She hadn’t been at all tempted to accept the minister’s offer.

But Derek Camden’s?

She just couldn’t seem to bring herself to say no....

“Not a date,” she clarified firmly, knowing even as she did that she was walking a fine line but really hating the thought of those leftovers in front of the TV....

“Not a date,” he confirmed. “We can both wear whatever—shorts, T-shirts, anything comfortable. I won’t pick you up. I won’t open your car door. We’ll just meet at the restaurant. I’ll buy you dinner in exchange for tips on how better to win over these guys so they let me really help them,” he said with a nod at the Bronsons’ house. “And then we’ll go our separate ways afterward.”

She
did
want to encourage a truce between the Bronsons and this man in order to get the Bronsons as much aid from the Camdens as she could.

That was what put it over the top for her. She was doing this for the Bronsons....

“Okay,” she agreed.

“What do you feel like eating—Italian, Mediterranean, Moroccan, Mexican, Chinese, sushi...?”

She closed her eyes to think about it and when she opened them he was grinning at her.

“Did that help you decide?” he asked with a laugh.

“I was just giving my stomach the chance to tell me what it wanted,” she said as if it should have been obvious.

“And what did it tell you?” Another question within another laugh.

“Lemon chicken at the Red Lantern on Broadway.”

“Your stomach is very specific,” he teased. “No dessert?”

“Always dessert—that was actually the deciding vote. The Red Lantern has this really, really dark chocolate pudding—the lemon chicken is just what I have to eat to get to that.”

He laughed again but there was something about it—appreciation or delight or something—that didn’t make her feel as if he was making fun of her at all. “Of course—really, really dark chocolate pudding. Can you be there in an hour?”

“An hour,” she confirmed, knowing that didn’t leave her a lot of time.

But that lack of time ensured that she couldn’t make this a bigger deal than it needed to be, so that was all she gave herself.

* * *

Gia didn’t wear shorts—she wore khaki capris. But she did put on a simple red square-neck T-shirt with a red-and-white-striped tank top peeking from underneath it. Without much time to get ready, she’d washed her hair in a hurry, scrunched it and left it loose in order to spend some of that time applying blush, mascara, eyeliner and a glossy lipstick.

When she got to the Red Lantern she noted that Derek—who was waiting for her by leaning against his black sports car in the parking lot—had also not opted for shorts. Instead he was wearing jeans that were much better than what he’d worn to work in earlier today. But he, too, had gone with a T-shirt—a white V-neck with long sleeves that he’d pushed to his elbows.

He was freshly shaven, his hair was clean and casually perfect, and it didn’t matter whether or not he’d put much thought into his attire; he still looked great.

She warned herself not to pay too much attention to that as she parked.

Having spotted her when she’d turned in from the street, he pushed off of his car and followed her all the way back to the only open space at the far end of the lot. As promised, he didn’t open her car door for her, but he was waiting right there when she got out of her small hybrid sedan.

She caught him giving her the once-over, which prompted a small smile, as if he liked what he saw. But all he said was that he’d already gone in and put their names on the waiting list, so they should have a table shortly.

Gia wondered if he’d tipped the hostess in advance, because the place was crowded but all it took was him stepping up to the hostess station and giving his name for them to be led right to a table.

They ordered soon after sitting down, and once they’d been served their iced teas, he said, “So, how do you think I did today?”

“You were a lot of help,” she assured him.

He laughed. “I don’t mean how did I do with the work. I meant how did I do with the Bronsons.”

“Oh. Well, no rocks were thrown and the hose wasn’t turned on you, so I think that counts as a success at this point.”

“You say that as if you half expected it to happen,” he said with a laugh.

Gia shrugged. “You were the one who thought rocks might be thrown, so I didn’t think that would happen. But the hose part was mentioned....”

His laugh had just a touch of alarm to it. “They talked about turning the hose on me?”

Gia shrugged again. “You know, what your family did to the Bronsons was pretty bad.... Awful, in fact....”

He sobered somewhat and admitted, “Actually, I might not know exactly what went on. It was 1968—my father and my uncle were only teenagers then, so it was my great-grandfather and my grandfather at the helm. But even when my father and my uncle grew up and were on board they all kept things completely separate—business was business, home was home. They
never
brought business home with them—”

“But still the Camdens have a reputation....”

“I know. Over the years we’ve heard the bad stuff that’s been said about us. But H.J. always said it was nothing, not to take it seriously, that he’d never done anything wrong. And to us—” Derek took a turn at shrugging “—H.J. was our great-grandfather. He took care of us. He doted on us. That was all we knew from him. When anyone brought up something that was being said, he’d say that in business, in politics, in sports and in life there were wins and there were losses. And that whoever lost was never happy about it—that that was where the bad-mouthing came from and not to pay any attention to it.”

“So you didn’t,” Gia said as their meal arrived and they began to eat.

“Not really. GiGi’s take on it was that success came with a cost, and she guessed that having some negative things—she actually called them lies—said about us was that cost.”

“But they aren’t lies. I mean, I don’t know about anything else, but they aren’t lies when it comes to Larry and Marion.”

“With the Bronsons, I don’t know all the details, to be perfectly honest. I know that they owned a hotel—”

“The Larkspur,” Gia supplied.

“It was built in the late 1800s.”

“By Larry’s great-great-grandfather,” she filled in as they ate.

“And it was in the very heart of downtown Denver on a prime piece of real estate.”

Again Gia offered information. “A prime piece of real estate that H. J. Camden wanted to build a store on.”

“Right,” Derek concurred. “But while the real-estate was prime, what was on it had gone downhill....” he said diplomatically.

“The Larkspur needed work,” Gia conceded. “Larry and Marion admit that they hadn’t had the time or money it needed because of Roddy—”

“Roddy? Who’s Roddy?”

“Their son. You didn’t know they had a son?”

“I didn’t,” Derek said.

“So you
don’t
know everything,” Gia muttered more to herself than to him.

“I don’t,” he answered. “In fact, I think it’s probably safe to say that what I do know is only the tip of the iceberg, and even that I haven’t known for long.”

Gia wasn’t quite sure what that meant but she didn’t see a point in trying to figure it out.

Instead she said, “Roddy was born with a lot of congenital problems. Larry says the doctors were actually surprised that he lived, but he thinks that Marion willed him to. He was ill and severely mentally and physically handicapped. He died thirty years ago, long before I knew Larry and Marion—”

“How long have you known them?”

“Three years. As long as I’ve been in my house—that’s when we met, when I moved in. But we got close fast. They were good to me at a time when I needed some—I don’t know, some kindness, people who cared about me, some bolstering—and they did all that and... Well, they treated me like
I
was their kid.”

But she didn’t want to say more about herself so she went on telling him about the Bronsons. “They’ve talked a lot about Roddy, though, and I’ve seen a few photographs. He spent his life in a wheelchair—spinal issues made him sort of twisted and he couldn’t walk. He couldn’t talk or do anything for himself.... But he was their son and they loved him and they were committed to taking care of him themselves, which took a lot.”

“I can imagine,” Derek said sympathetically. “And that’s where their time and money went.”

“It was a struggle for them. Roddy’s medical expenses were considerable and one of them needed to be with him all the time. And running a hotel is a round-the-clock operation, too, so they were stretched thin—although they never talk about it with any kind of complaint, it just was what it was.”

“And what it was was difficult.”

“I can’t imagine it myself,” Gia said. “But
inn keeping—
as they call it sometimes—was all they knew. The Larkspur was all they had. And they also had Roddy. So they did the best they could.”

“And the hotel went downhill.” His tone suggested that what he was learning didn’t sit well with him.

“It had been in Larry’s family since it was built. The Larkspur rivaled the Brown Palace and the Oxford, they tell me. And every generation that had managed it had made sure that it was updated and expanded to keep up with the times. Including Larry and Marion—”

“Until they had Roddy.”

“For a while they had some family—parents—who helped. But when they lost them, they were on their own with Roddy and with the Larkspur and they just couldn’t maintain the standard. So yes, it went downhill. And that was when H. J. Camden swooped in.”

“He offered to buy them out.”

“In order to tear the Larkspur down and build a Camden store. Of course the Bronsons said no.”

“And he increased the offer,” Derek said, stating a fact, not being confrontational at all, merely supplying what he
did
know about things.

“It still wasn’t a great offer, but it wouldn’t have mattered. The Larkspur meant something to the Bronsons. More than the fact that it was their only asset and their only way to make a living. They were going through the process of having it qualified as an historic landmark, which would not only have protected it but would have brought in restoration funds. And they’re sure it would have happened if not for H. J. Camden.”

The waiter came to remove their plates, and Derek ordered Gia’s chocolate pudding and sorbet for himself for dessert.

When the waiter left, Derek didn’t comment on her last statement and she had the sense that he didn’t know what to say to it. But Gia felt as if she was finally letting the Bronsons be heard, so she continued.

“H. J. Camden had political clout and the money to buy influence. Getting the Larkspur declared an historic landmark was going well until he decided he wanted the property it was on. Then all of a sudden the whole qualification process stalled. And at the same time, state inspectors became overly interested in the Larkspur and cited it with enough health and building code violations to have it condemned—”

“Literally condemned?”

“Literally. Inspectors said it was going to fall down around them and not only couldn’t they stay open for business, they couldn’t live there themselves anymore, either. And that was absolutely not true—they had an independent contractor look at it and he confirmed that it wasn’t in that kind of shape—”

“And the independent contractor’s report didn’t carry any weight?”

“Not when he was suddenly hired by Hank Camden to build Camden stores out of state and the report disappeared.”

Derek flinched slightly at that.

“All the hotel really needed was what the Bronsons’ house needs now—paint, plumbing and electrical repairs and updating, maybe a new kitchen—but it wasn’t falling down around their ears.”

Derek’s frown caused his brows to twitch together, suggesting he was troubled by what Gia had told him. But he gave no response.

She went on without one. “Larry challenged the rulings, but without the independent contractor’s report, without the money to hire another one or to hire a good lawyer, he was no match for what he found himself up against. He lost the challenges, the Bronsons couldn’t afford repairs to address the inflated building code violations and they had no choice but to close their doors and take the Camden offer. An offer that was mere pennies on the dollar of the initial offer.”

Derek was scowling by the time the waiter served their desserts. But still Gia didn’t let up.

“The Bronsons were left with no property, very little money and mounting expenses for Roddy. Not being able to live at the hotel meant they were even homeless. So they used the lion’s share of the money from the buyout to get the house they’re in now—”

“Over forty years ago—shouldn’t that have been paid off years back?” he asked between bites.

“Spoken like a finance guy. Actually, they used the money from the hotel to buy the house outright—it made them feel a little more secure after the rug being pulled out from under them. But without the hotel, they had to go to work for other people, and Roddy went through health crisis after health crisis that would keep them both away from their jobs, so they’d eventually be let go. Over the years the house had to be mortgaged and refinanced and refinanced and second mortgaged—”

“So it isn’t paid off.”

Again Gia was hesitant to reveal too much of the Bronson’s vulnerability, just in case, so she merely shrugged once more in answer and concluded what she was saying.

“No matter how you look at it—and certainly it’s the way they look at it—because of what H. J. Camden did to get what he wanted, rather than being the owners of their family legacy and a Denver landmark, the Bronsons saw that legacy and landmark get bulldozed. They ended up having a life of hardship and money problems, and age and no extra retirement funds and trying to make it on a fixed income have only compounded those problems.”