Corner-Office Courtship
Victoria Pade
When a CEO Comes A-Calling… What’s Natalie Morrison to do, especially when said CEO is Cade Camden? Not only did his family double-cross hers a few generations back, but this rich boy is so charismatic – just like the ex-husband who walked all over her. Nati won’t let herself swoon.Cade is on a mission for his grandmother – to make amends for the Camdens’s ruthless treatment of the Morrisons in the early days of Camden Incorporated. But is matchmaking Gran’s ulterior motive? Because there’s something so kissable about Nati…so tempting.He’s here to mend fences, but can he mend this woman’s broken heart too?
Nati was so distracted by the glittery sensation of having Cade’s hand on her arm that she completely missed the approach of the kiss.
She didn’t know what to do. It seemed as if she should tell him to back off because, along with even bigger issues, he was a client, and their families had bad blood between them.
She didn’t say anything at all and instead stood there looking stunned.
“See you,” he said, giving her arm another light squeeze before he let go of it.
“See you,” Nati echoed dimly.
Nati watched him go, taking in the sight of that rear view that was almost as good as the front. And all she could think was that he had kissed her.
Enough of a kiss to leave her at odds with herself when a voice in her head shrieked, No!
And the rest of her whispered, More…
About the Author
VICTORIA PADE is a USA TODAY bestselling author of numerous romance novels. She has two beautiful and talented daughters—Cori and Erin—and is a native of Colorado, where she lives and writes. A devoted chocolate lover, she’s in search of the perfect chocolate-chip-cookie recipe. For information about her latest and upcoming releases, and to find recipes for some of the decadent desserts her characters enjoy, log on to www.vikkipade.com.
Corner-Office
Courtship
Victoria Pade
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Prologue
“Midnight malteds—there must be trouble,” Cade Camden said when he joined his grandmother, his three siblings and his six cousins in the sprawling kitchen of the Denver home where he’d grown up. Georgianna Camden had raised all ten of her grandchildren here after the tragic deaths of their parents.
“Chocolate or vanilla?” she asked without directly responding to his comment.
“Chocolate,” Cade answered.
“It’s been a long time since one of us got arrested for teenage hijinks,” Cade’s older brother Seth contributed.
“Nobody died, did they, GiGi?” Lang, one Cade’s triplet cousins, asked.
Growing up, whenever there was trouble and the sleepless nights that went with it, they’d all congregated in their grandmother’s kitchen. Even if she were angry or disappointed or disgusted with the kids—GiGi had made malteds, done damage control and assured them that they would weather whatever storm came their way.
But tonight, when they’d each been summoned for midnight malteds during GiGi’s seventy-fifth birthday party, it set off alarm bells. It was something Cade had been anticipating anyway, ever since GiGi had requested that her grandchildren all spend the night. For old-time’s sake…
With everyone gathered around the large island in the center of the kitchen, sipping their malteds, GiGi finally explained why she’d asked them here.
“I’ve read the journals,” she said ominously.
As the descendants of H. J. Camden, founder of Camden Incorporated and the worldwide chain of Camden Super Stores, GiGi’s grandkids immediately knew what she was talking about.
Just weeks before Georgianna’s birthday, her oldest grandson, Seth, had come across a small trunk hidden beneath the floorboards of the original barn in Northbridge, Montana, where H.J. was born. The trunk contained several journals written in H.J.’s own hand. Seth had immediately sent them to his grandmother.
“This can’t be good,” Livi, another of the triplets, said softly. Rumors had always flown that Henry James Camden, his son Hank Jr. and even his grandsons Howard and Mitchum had amassed the family fortune by lying, cheating, bribes and much worse.
“It isn’t,” GiGi confirmed. “I haven’t read everything but I’ve read enough to know that the worst that was ever thought or said about H.J.—and even more—is true.”
That sobered everyone in the room.
They all knew that GiGi had never been privy to any of the business dealings, that her response to the rumors and accusations of backroom deals, of misdeeds and wrongdoing had been to instill in her own sons and grandchildren a strong sense of right and wrong. And because H.J. and her late husband Hank had kept business strictly separate from their family life, and been such good and loving heads of the household, she’d chosen to believe better of them.
“During those last couple of months after H.J.’s stroke he said some things to me that made me wonder, that made me think he might have reason to feel some shame. But you know he wasn’t in his right mind most of that time and so I’d still hoped that the worst wasn’t true—”
“But it was,” Cade’s cousin, Dane, finished for her.
“It was,” GiGi said in a dire tone. “H.J. and my Hank especially….” The elderly woman’s voice cracked. She shook her head. She clearly didn’t want to admit it but she raised her chin and continued, “They trampled over other people to build what we have.”
No one said anything to that.
After a moment of collecting herself, GiGi went on. “I’ll grant you that much of what was done was done decades ago—your dads put more effort into giving back and sharing our good fortune. But even they…” GiGi shook her head in disappointment. “Well, they still did H.J. and your grandfather’s bidding.”
“I raised you to be better people and I’m proud of you.” GiGi paused a moment, glancing around the island at each of her ten grandchildren and smiling. “But the more I read in these journals, the more I begin to understand the price other people paid for our success and prosperity. We all benefited from what was done. What if the sons and daughters, the grandsons and granddaughters of people taken advantage of by H.J. still suffer? What if these families never bounced back?”
“It’s a thought that none of us wants to have GiGi, but—”
“But nothing, Dylan,” the older woman said to another of Cade’s cousins, using the I-won’t-take-any-excuses tone they all knew well. “We need to know just how much damage, how much of a ripple-effect might have been caused. And we need to do something about it.”
“You want to make amends?” Cade asked.
“I’ll need to do more research, but yes. For my birthday gift, I want each of you to promise me that you’ll help find out what the repercussions were for whatever was done so we can atone for the wrongs. Seth, you’ve already done your part by finding the journals.”
“GiGi, we could be opening up a can of worms with this,” Cade’s cousin, Derek, warned. “If we go around admitting wrongdoing people will come out of the woodwork to make claims—even when there wasn’t any wrongdoing. We’ll have more lawsuits than any amount of lawyers can handle.”
“I’ve thought about that,” GiGi said. “It has to be done subtly. With a helping hand here, a good word there. Maybe we’ll throw some business in the direction of someone who needs it. Or hire them to come to work for us, or buy whatever they’re selling. We’ll work behind the scenes—”
“You want us to be manipulative?” Lindie, the third of the triplets, asked.
“Only for the greater good,” GiGi answered. “So we can make up for what wrongs were done without opening that can of worms Derek mentioned. And we keep it strictly between us. No one else can know what we’re up to.”
“I don’t know, GiGi,” Lang said. “This could be risky. There are people out there who hate us and, now that we know they have real reason to, you want us to stroll in and try to make nice?”
“And without admitting anything wrong was ever done?” Cade added. “As if it’s just a coincidence that we’re offering something to the family of someone H.J., Gramps, Dad or Uncle Mitchum screwed over?”
“And what if they think we’re there to screw them over again?” Dylan contributed.
“It won’t be easy,” GiGi acknowledged. “And yes, there may be hard feelings and resentments and grudges to deal with. But we’re all living the way we do at the expense of other people. Are any of you all right with that?”
In unison, GiGi’s ten grandchildren said, “No.”
“Of course not.”
“You know us better than that…”
“Then we have to make up for it. Carefully. Quietly.”
“And you’re going to dispatch us each separately, on these… missions?” Lindie asked.
“That’s the current plan. And the first mission—as you put it—is a matter of the heart. Cade, I’m giving this one to you.”
“Great. I get to be the test case.”
“Only because you fit the bill, and I’ll be paying close attention to putting each of you in just the right situation. Cade, you have that ratty wall in your house with the wallpaper falling off and you need it fixed.”
“Oka-ay…” Cade said with reservation.
“There’s a small shop in Arden, in Old Town there—”
“It isn’t going to look suspicious for me to go out to the suburbs to find someone to paint a wall for me?” Cade asked.
“It’s only twenty minutes from here on the highway, and I have it on good authority that the girl who owns the shop does a beautiful job. Her reputation is cause enough to go to her,” GiGi said. “Her name is Natalie Morrison. She sells furniture and objects she’s painted. It’s like folk art. But she also does murals and custom wall treatments. I thought you could hire her to tear off that paper and paint something—”
“I don’t want folk art on that wall,” Cade said.
“You can have her do something that makes it look like leather or marble or something. And in the process, you can find out what happened after H.J. pulled the rug out from under her grandfather, Jonah Morrison.”
“Morrison… As in the Northbridge Morrisons?” Seth asked, connecting the name with the small Montana town where H.J. had begun, and where Seth currently ran Camdem Inc.’s extensive ranching operations.
“Jonah Morrison!” Livi said as if the light had just dawned for her, too. “Wasn’t he your first love, GiGi?”
“He was my high school sweetheart,” GiGi amended. “Apparently H.J. bought the loan on the Morrison farm and foreclosed on them to make sure that the Morrisons left Northbridge.”
“You didn’t know that until you read it in the journals?” Cade’s younger sister, Jani, asked.
“I was informed that the Morrisons had sold to H.J. I had no idea he’d foreclosed on them. And I thought that the Morrisons left Northbridge by their own choice, that they might be headed to Denver. Jonah and I had already broken up, and I’d met your grandfather by then.”
“Then you ended up in Denver, too, and you never looked up your old love?” Lindie asked.
“Of course not,” GiGi said. “I loved your grandfather and Jonah was old news. Why would I look him up? But then I read about the Morrisons in the journals and remembered how Maude Sharks recently was bragging at the club about this girl she’d hired to paint the nursery in her daughter’s house—”
“This Morrison girl?” Cade asked.
“It was like fate shining a light on what we needed to do first,” GiGi marveled. “I did some digging and sure enough, Natalie Morrison has family roots in Montana and a grandfather named Jonah. So that’s where we start. Where you start, Cade.”
“With me hiring your old flame’s granddaughter to fix my wall,” Cade concluded without enthusiasm.
“And in the process, find out what ever happened to Jonah and if having his family’s farm foreclosed on by H.J. was a blessing or a curse. For him and for the family that’s come after him—including this girl.”
“If it was a curse, what then?” Cade’s brother, Beau, asked.
“We’ll be giving Natalie work and we’ll figure out what else we can do to make things up to her and the rest of the Morrisons,” GiGi said confidently. “It’ll be up to Cade to figure all that out through the girl.”
For a moment no one said anything as the full impact of what they’d learned settled over them.
Then Cade took a deep breath, sighed and said, “So I guess I’m up to bat…. Happy birthday, GiGi.”
Chapter One
“Oh, you aren’t real, are you—from outside I thought you were…”
Only when Nati Morrison heard the man’s voice did she remember how she’d positioned the life-size scarecrow she was working on behind the checkout counter. Nati wasn’t visible to the man; she was sitting on the floor behind the counter, sewing straw to the inside hem of the scarecrow’s skirt.
She couldn’t see her visitor, but it could be Gus Spurgis, the Scarecrow Festival’s organizer, bringing her fliers for the October festivities. She decided to joke with him.
In a silly voice, she said, “May I help you?” and pushed forward on the pole running up the scarecrow’s back to animate her.
There was no immediate response.
Then Nati looked up, and there, leaning over the counter, was a complete stranger—not Gus Spurgis. Instead it was a man with a staggeringly handsome face and the most beautiful blue eyes she’d ever seen.
He smiled. “I hope you don’t pay your receptionist much—she’s a little stiff. And kind of freaky.”
“She does work cheap, though.” Nati played along as she got to her feet.
And took in the full picture of the man in the business suit standing on the other side of her counter.
Tall, broad-shouldered, with the body of an athlete, he had dark brown hair the color of bittersweet chocolate; a long, slightly hawkish nose; just the right fullness of lips; and a pronounced bone structure that included a finely drawn jawline and chin. It all came together with those incredible cobalt-blue eyes to make him so good-looking that it left Nati a little breathless.
And since he also seemed vaguely familiar on top of it she was lost for a moment in wondering where she might have seen him before.
But she decided she must be imagining things. She was sure that if she had ever—ever—encountered this particular man before, there wouldn’t have been anything vague about the memory.
After a moment, she pulled herself together to stop staring at him, and returned to the subject of her scarecrow.
“Freaky, huh?” she mused, glancing at her handiwork. The scarecrow had a real-looking painted clay face surrounded by hair made of straw, a puffy calico dress with more straw sticking out at the wrists and bloomers that came out from beneath the hem of the dress to form legs. “Since I sculpted and painted the face in my own likeness, I think I’m insulted.”
“It’s interesting—I’ll give you that. But you didn’t do yourself justice.”
Was that a compliment or a comment on her sculpting skills? Nati decided not to take it personally one way or the other. “It’s supposed to be sort of a caricature,” she explained. “I know my nose turns up a little at the end—”
“Just enough to be kind of perky,” the man said, his gaze going from her nose to the scarecrow’s.
“But in order to exaggerate it, I gave her a ski-jump nose,” Nati went on. “And I’m grateful that I don’t have that pointy of a chin—”
“No, your chin is just fine… Delicate. Nice…”
She hadn’t been fishing for compliments but she was flattered.
He went on with his critique. “And you definitely missed on the mouth. Yours is good—you have nice, full lips. But that’s one tight-lipped smile on the scarecrow.”
Her chin was delicate? Her lips were nice and full?
Nati felt some heat come into her face even as she told herself that it was silly. There was nothing flirtatious about what he was saying or the way he was saying it. Was there?
It had been a long time since a man other than her grandfather had noticed much of anything about her, and maybe it was going to her head. Just a little.
It was silly, she told herself again. Silly, silly, silly. They were just making small talk.
Her shop door opened just then and a tiny, frail old woman came in.
“Hi, Mrs. Wong,” Nati greeted, glad for the distraction. Then she said to her male visitor, “If you’ll excuse me for a minute. Feel free to look around…”
Turning her back on the man, who was somehow managing to unnerve her without even trying, Nati grasped a small cheval mirror and brought it around to the front of the counter.
“Oh, that’s just beautiful!” Mrs. Wong said.
She had brought the heirloom to Nati to restore the painted ivy decoration on its frame.
“I’m just amazed,” the older woman said. “There wasn’t much more than a shadow left and you brought it back to life. It’s as pretty as it was the day my father gave it to me—that was seventy-two years ago.”
“I’m glad you like it. Let me carry it out to the car for you.”
“Why don’t you let me do that?” the male customer offered.
“No, that’s okay, it isn’t heavy,” Nati assured him.
But she had an ulterior motive. As she carried the mirror out to the elderly woman’s car parked at the curb, Nati took a peek at her own reflection, making sure her appearance compared favorably to the scarecrow’s.
She’d worn her chin-length, golden-brown hair loose today, just barely turned under at the ends. She would have liked it if she had a comb to run through it to neaten it up a little. As it was, her swept-over bangs were falling a bit in her face.
She had on her usual makeup—a little pinkish powder she’d brushed onto her apple-round cheekbones, a little mascara to bring out her brown eyes, and although she’d applied a light lipstick when she’d left the house this morning, it was four in the afternoon and it was long gone.
She was wearing jeans and a T-shirt that suddenly seemed awfully plain and maybe a size larger than necessary. She was comfortable, but now she would have liked to look more stylish. And maybe show off some of her curves.
But still, as she slid the mirror onto its side into the backseat of Mrs. Wong’s car, she decided that she wasn’t too much the worse for wear.
She was better off than the scarecrow.
Not that it mattered. The guy was only a customer, she reminded herself. At least she thought he was. Whatever his reasons for visiting her shop, they weren’t about her personally.
Once she’d made sure the mirror was secure, she closed the car’s rear door and turned back toward her shop, noticing that while Janice Wong was browsing through the painted and stenciled tole pieces she had for sale, the good-looking guy was watching her through the plate-glass windows. Rather raptly…
At least he was until she caught him at it, and then he glanced away.
Maybe he was a summons server and he felt guilty about what he was really there to do….
There had been a summons server from the Pirfoys’ attorneys at the start of the divorce, who had acted a little like this guy…
But the divorce was final. The settlement had been signed. The almighty Pirfoys couldn’t come back and try to take anything else from her or from her grandfather, and surely Doug wouldn’t be bothered doing anything else six months after the fact, would he? Especially when the divorce had been so much to his advantage.
No, she was just being paranoid.
First she had been silly to think something was clicking with this perfect stranger—even though she wasn’t in the market to have things click—and now she was afraid the guy was there to cause her some kind of problem.
She must be delirious. That’s what she got for eating nothing but gummy bears for lunch.
“All set,” Nati announced to the older woman as she went back into the shop.
“And I paid you in advance, didn’t I?” Mrs. Wong asked.
“You did. You’re good to go.”
“I’ll make sure my neighbor is careful when he takes the mirror out of the car and brings it in for me,” Janice Wong promised. “And I just might come back another day for one of those old tin coffeepots—they’re so cute!”
“I’ll be here,” Nati assured her, holding the door open for the tiny woman.
Then she turned her attention back to the man…
“I’m sorry for the interruption,” she apologized. “But now I’m all yours—” She cut herself off the minute the words came out. But she couldn’t help it—she warily enjoyed the sight of this gorgeous guy’s amused grin. She liked how the small lines crinkled at the corners of those excruciatingly blue eyes of his.
“What can I do for you?” she finally asked.
“I’m looking for Natalie Morrison.”
Summons server.
Nati felt dread run up her spine.
“You found her,” she said, going back behind the counter where she felt somehow safer. “It’s Nati, though. No one calls me Natalie.”
The man did not bring an envelope out of his breast pocket. Instead he merely said, “Okay, Nati. I’m Cade Camden.”
Not a summons server—that was good. But a Camden?
That was why he looked familiar. They’d never met but pictures of the Camdens showed up in newspapers and magazine articles periodically because they were one of Denver’s preeminent families. There were a lot of them, so Nati couldn’t have put a name with any of the faces, but she had seen the faces. And she certainly knew the family name.
Her own family’s first negative encounter with the wealthy had been with H. J. Camden. He was the reason the Morrisons moved to Denver in 1950, the reason behind Nati’s great-grandfather losing his farm and needing to pack up his wife and son—Nati’s grandfather—in order to find work beyond the confines of the small Montana town where he was born. It was a story she’d heard numerous times.
But did Cade Camden know it? And what was he doing in her shop? Looking for her specifically?
Nati considered battering him with questions.
She considered throwing him out of her shop in honor of those who had come before her.
But instead, with more reserve than she’d shown so far, she repeated, “What can I do for you, Mr. Camden?”
“Call me Cade.”
Nati didn’t do him the courtesy of saying his name. She merely waited for his answer, not quite sure how to feel about a Camden standing right there in front of her.
“I bought a house not long ago,” he said. “It has a wall in the dining room that has the most hideous wallpaper you’ve ever seen. It’s ripped and peeling and falling off. The wall underneath looks like it could be kind of a mess, too, and I’ve heard that you can do wonders with wall treatments—not stenciling or anything frilly, but something understated, classy.”
“How did you hear about me?” she asked, and this time she was fishing.
“I believe you did something in a nursery for one of my grandmother’s friends. You come highly recommended.”
Nurseries were a large part of her business outside of the shop, so that claim was feasible. But it didn’t explain whether or not he knew about their families’ past.
Knowing who he was and what he said he wanted was a start. But Nati contemplated a few more things as she studied him.
She considered saying she was too busy and didn’t have time for a project like that now. And then recommending someone she knew would botch the job.
She considered taking the job and charging Cade Camden an arm and a leg, effectively cheating him to get even in some small way.
But in the end she didn’t like what that approach would say about her own integrity. Having a clear conscience was more important than making some sort of petty point with this stranger who was generations away from the man who wronged her great-grandfather decades ago. A stranger who might not even know what had gone on.
She could merely refuse to work for him, she told herself, and send him on his way.
But her shop had only been open a few months and she wasn’t in any position to turn away work. She needed any money she could make. And Camden or not, he was offering her a job.
“I’d have to look at the wall,” she said without enthusiasm. “I need to see what kind of shape it’s in before I know what will need to be done and how much it might cost. Plus we’d have to talk about your preferences—different textures and finishes take different amounts of time, so labor charges can add up.”
“Sure,” he said, seeming undaunted by the potential expense. The Camdens were rich enough to buy and sell her a billion times over.
“Is there any chance you could stop by tomorrow?” he asked. “Maybe late in the day, after you close up here and I get home from work?”
“I can come anytime.” Nati nodded toward the double pocket doors to her right, just behind her counter. They were open, exposing the shop next door. “I’m friends with the owner of the Pet Boutique. Whenever one of us needs to be away we open those doors to connect the two stores and take care of both shops at once—I’m doing that right now while Holly goes to the bank.” Too much information.
“And you’re free tomorrow?”
Nati didn’t have to check anything to know that she was. “Just tell me what time’s good for you.”
“Six-thirty? I’m in Cherry Creek, just past the Denver Country Club, off University, if that’s okay.”
“Sure,” she said. “But aren’t there people in your neck of the woods—”
“Like I said, you came highly recommended and I want it done right.”
“Okay,” she said, wondering why she was feeling let down that they’d gone from the easy banter about the scarecrow to this all-business approach.
But all business—only business—was how it should have been from the start. And now that she knew who he was it was certainly how it would be from here on.
He gave her his address and directions to his house. Then he said, “Tomorrow night, six-thirty. I appreciate your coming that late, on a Friday night. I’ve been trying to get in here to meet you all week but I’ve had too many fires to put out at work and this was my first chance. It shouldn’t waste too much of your night to just take a look, though.”
If only he knew that she spent most Friday nights—and every other night of the week—painting inventory to sell in her store.
But she wasn’t going to tell him that. “It’s fine. No problem,” she assured.
He should have left then. But he stayed staring at her for another moment before he said, “When my grandmother’s friend told her about you she gave her your card. The name rang a bell. My grandmother said she knew some Morrisons a long time ago. Jonah Morrison in particular. When she lived in—”
“Northbridge. In Montana. Jonah Morrison is my grandfather,” Nati said pointedly.
“Small world…”
So was this a coincidence?
Somehow that seemed farfetched to Nati.
“Well, then,” Cade Camden said with a sigh, “I guess I’ll see you tomorrow night.”
Why did it seem as if he was looking for an excuse to stick around?
But Nati wasn’t going to give him any reason to. Even if there were an infinitesimal part of her that wanted to.
Instead she said, “Six-thirty. I’ll be there.”
“I’m looking forward to it….” he said almost more to himself than to her.
Then he walked out into the bright October sunshine of a Colorado day while Nati watched him go.
And as she did, she recognized some very conflicting emotions roiling around inside of her—among them what seemed like it might be an eagerness to see Cade Camden again.
But she mentally stomped the feeling out like a cinder from a campfire.
At least she thought she did.
Until a moment later when there it was again…
Chapter Two
“Here’s the material for the next… And there you are again—this is the third time I’ve come into your office today and found you staring into space with that weird little smile on your face.”
Cade glanced in the direction of his open office door, where January was standing in the threshold.
His little sister was right: every time she came into his office today, she’d caught him staring into space. He’d basically wasted this entire day. He seemed to have Nati Morrison on the brain.
As for his smile?
He hadn’t even been aware of that….
“What are you daydreaming about?” Jani demanded.
“Ah, it’s just… You know… Nothing. It’s been a long week, it’s Friday, I guess my brain is starting the weekend a little early and taking me along with it.”
“Do you have big plans?”
“No. In fact I don’t have any plans.” He glanced at his watch. “Oh, but I do need to get out of here. I have that Morrison woman coming by the house to look at the wall and my place is a mess.”
“That Morrison woman…” Jani repeated, coming in and closing the door behind her.
All week long the Camden grandchildren had been discussing what their grandmother had asked of them. But they were always careful to do it so that nothing could be overheard.
They all agreed that amends should be made. But no one was eager for GiGi to send them on their particular missions. So there was some sympathy in Jani’s expression when she turned back to Cade as he began to clear his desk to leave.
“So you finally met her?” Jani asked, her voice somewhat hushed, even though there was no need to whisper. She’d crossed the office to stand facing Cade at his desk.
“I met her yesterday,” Cade confirmed. “You know what this week has been like—I didn’t get over to Arden until late yesterday afternoon.”
“How did it go?”
“Okay, I suppose. It was great until I introduced myself. Then things cooled—we were joking around a little but when she found out who I am… Well, like I said, it got a little chillier.”
“Did she throw you out of her shop?” Jani asked with some dread, as if she were thinking ahead to what she might encounter when it was her turn to do a good deed.
“No, but she might have thought about it,” Cade said. “There were a couple of pauses when I half expected her to unload on me or kick me out or something. But instead she just got less friendly, more businesslike.”
“So it was friendly before she knew who you were?”
“Yeah. Nati Morrison seems really nice. Sweet. Funny—”
“You liked her….”
“Sure. Yeah. You know…” Cade hedged.
“Pretty, nice body, if you’d met her in a bar you’d have bought her a drink?” Jani probed.
Cade laughed. “Probably,” he admitted, not telling his sister that in fact Nati Morrison was beautiful. And cuter than hell when she smiled and a tiny dimple appeared just above the right corner of her mouth.
He also didn’t tell his sister that Nati Morrison had silky, shiny hair. Or that she had flawless alabaster skin with a healthy little pink blush to high cheekbones. Or that she had a nose most women he knew would have paid good money to have surgically produced for them. Or that her lips were lush and lovely, and her big, round eyes were the color of the finest topaz—brown and bronze and gold all at once—incredibly beautiful, with long, long lashes.
And the body that went with it wasn’t bad, either—she was a compact thing at not much more than five feet three inches, with curves in all the right places and a tight round backside….
“Cade?”
Jani’s voice barely got through to him.
This was crazy—he kept zoning out into Nati Morrison Land…
He had no idea what his sister had just said, if she’d said anything at all.
“Sorry. Like I said, I’m in outer space today,” he apologized.
“I said that she must have at least some idea about what went on between H.J. and her family.”
“She knows that GiGi and her grandfather knew each other in Northbridge—I mentioned it and she finished my sentence. Whether or not she knows anything more than that is still a question. She could just be one of those people who doesn’t like us—you know how that is.”
They were all well aware of the two camps of opinions about their family—there were those who admired, respected and appreciated what the Camdens had achieved. And there were those who envied and hated them, and contended that their fortune had been built on the backs of the “little people.”
“Right,” Jani said, “Camdens are either titans of industry or despicable robber barons.”
“And sadly now we know that there could be some truth to that second opinion,” Cade muttered.
“Yeah,” Jani muttered. “But Natalie Morrison is going to do your wall?”
“I think so. That’s what she’s coming over to look at tonight. Then I suppose she’ll give me a price.”
“A million dollars?” Jani joked.
Cade laughed. “I guess we’ll see. That would be a way to get even with us.”
“Well, you better not keep her waiting,” Jani advised. Then she held up the papers she had in her hand. “This is the material for the next board meeting—that’s why I came in here in the first place. To find you lost in thought with a smile on your face—I’d forgotten about that smile….” Light seemed to dawn in Jani. “Is that what you’re thinking about today? And smiling about? Natalie Morrison?”
“Nati. She doesn’t like to be called Natalie.” He had no idea why he was correcting his sister.
“You’ve been sitting around here daydreaming—and smiling—about Nati Morrison?”
“Nah! I told you, it’s just been a long week and my brain has been checking out today.”
“Mentally checking out Nati Morrison,” Jani goaded.
“Just give me the papers and get out of here so I can go home,” Cade countered, snatching the sheets from his sister’s hand.
“Home to Nati Morrison,” Jani teased like the incorrigible younger sister she could be.
“Home to see what I can do to make up for the sins of our fathers. Don’t get cocky, your turn will come.”
“I can only hope that my turn turns me on as much as yours seems to be turning you on.”
Cade laughed wryly and shook his head. “I’m not turned on by anything about this chore GiGi has me doing.”
“If you say so…” Jani teased again as she headed for his office door.
“I say so,” he insisted just as she went out, shaking his head again at the idea that anything about the situation with Nati Morrison was turning him on in any way.
Sure she was a pleasure to look at. She’d also been a pleasure to banter with yesterday before she’d learned who he was—and not so bad even afterward. But that was nothing.
As the first of the Camden heirs to be doing this making-amends thing, he was flying by the seat of his pants, writing the rules as he went along. And the biggest rule so far was to be careful.
Which, coincidentally, had become his biggest rule when it came to women in general these days.
But in terms of Nati Morrison specifically, he had no way of knowing what old issues might be brought back to life merely by a Camden showing up, so he had to be extremely cautious. There was already an ugly history between the Camdens and the Morrisons, and he didn’t want anything in the present to make things uglier—that would defeat the whole purpose of this endeavor.
For that reason alone, Nati Morrison was not someone he could ever risk getting personally involved with.
But that wasn’t his only reason.
Cade finished clearing his desk for the weekend and left his office, telling his secretary to take off early and have a nice weekend.
He headed home with Nati Morrison still on his mind. He tried to think about her in a way that sobered him rather than made him smile.
Yes, the history between their families was a huge concern, no question about it. But on a more personal level, long before he’d met Nati Morrison yesterday, he’d arrived at a firm sticking point in regard to who he would and wouldn’t have a relationship with.
It had to be someone who wasn’t in a position to see him as her golden goose. Or her winning lottery ticket. Someone who didn’t need a golden goose or a winning lottery ticket.
And not because he was a snob—GiGi grew up with modest means and had raised him and all the rest of her grandchildren to be anything but snobs. She’d be the first to cut him down to size if she thought he was.
But dating exclusively within his own social circle or the very near ripples around it had just become a safety issue for him. An issue of protection. Of self-preservation.
Any woman he opened the door to had to be a woman who was only interested in him for the person he was, regardless of his last name or the size of his bank account.
So he wasn’t taking any chances when it came to Nati Morrison. He would do what GiGi wanted him to do, but that was it. He wasn’t getting personally involved. He wasn’t putting himself at risk.
He’d made that mistake twice before.
No, he told himself as he drove home, as he pulled into his driveway then into his garage, Nati Morrison might be funny and spunky and kind to old women; she might have great hair, great skin, lush lips, beautiful eyes, even a dimple, but it wasn’t enough for him to let down his guard.
Soget on with this, get it over with, then get out, he told himself.
And that was exactly what he intended to do.
He just wished that his grandmother would have sent him on a mission that didn’t include someone whom he’d now spent an entire night and day thinking about.
And apparently smiling like an idiot over when he did….
Nati was five minutes early on Friday evening when she arrived at the Cherry Creek address that Cade Camden had given her the day before.
About a mile east of the Denver Country Club, the house was in a neighborhood comprised of older, upscale homes. Cade Camden’s house was a stately redbrick, two-story Georgian with decorative black shutters on either side of the black door and all of the white-paned windows. While it was hardly modest, it wasn’t the mansion she’d thought it might be.
For the sake of privacy, the front yard was bordered by redbrick columns and wrought-iron fencing. Two larger columns bracketed a double-car driveway. Nati drove her aging sedan around the block while she tried to decide whether she should pull into the driveway or park in front of the house on the narrow city street.
Nearing the house for the second time, she decided it might be presumptuous to park in the driveway, so she pulled up to the curb and turned off her engine.
Why am I so nervous about this whole thing? she asked herself as she unbuckled her seat belt and gathered the notebook with samples of her work and the pamphlets and fliers about wall textures and colors.
She’d arrived at any number of houses in the last six months to bid on jobs.
But none of those other bids had involved a Camden, she reminded herself.
Cade Camden.
The man she hadn’t been able to stop thinking about since she’d first looked up from behind her counter into those amazing blue eyes.
But if ever there was a guy for her to stop thinking about, it was him.
She’d spent a full year under legal siege from her now ex-husband and his family. Barely six months after the divorce, the very last thing she needed was to get involved with another spoiled rich boy and the family that came with him.
And if that weren’t enough—and it most definitely was—this particular rich boy was a Camden.
If dealing with the power bought by the Pirfoys’ money had been daunting, she couldn’t even fathom what kind of hell the Camdens could rain down on her.
And the Pirfoys hadn’t come with the reputation the Camdens did. Or with the track record the Camdens already had with the Morrisons.
Ruthless—that was what her grandfather had said about H. J. Camden. Whatever and whoever was in H. J. Camden’s way got run over, left as roadkill.
And how far from the tree could the apple have fallen? Nati asked herself.
Probably not far. It was unlikely that the Camden stores, the Camden empire, the Camden fortune had continued to thrive without H. J. Camden at the helm because his descendants were nice guys.
And the fact that Cade Camden had seemed like a nice guy yesterday?
Her ex-husband had seemed like a nice guy at the start, too.
She could still turn this job down, she reminded herself.
Maybe she should….
But her car was sixteen years old and making a bad noise. Plus, she had trouble getting it to start every morning. She had more bills due this month than she had money to pay them, her grandfather’s birthday was next month and with Christmas the month after that, there was no doubt that she needed the money this job would bring in. She just plain couldn’t afford to turn it down.
And this was just a job, after all. She would do what he hired her to do, get paid and go on her way. What went on in her head in the process didn’t matter. It was just a nuisance that she’d have to deal with until it wore itself out. Which she was certain it would do.
She was going to do this job, collect a nice fat check and get her car fixed and pay her bills. And in a way, the fact that Camden money would be paying those bills was a win for the Morrisons. Not that her great-grandparents would have considered it anywhere near restitution, but it was a teeny, tiny win nonetheless.
Nati pulled on the handle to open her car door but nothing happened.
The door needed to be fixed, too, and she suffered a moment of anger, frustration and longing for the luxury car she’d had to leave behind in the divorce.
“Don’t pour salt into the wounds,” she beseeched the old beige sedan that she’d used in college until she’d married Doug. She’d left it with her grandfather for the six years of her marriage and was now driving it again.
As if her plea had helped, when she tried the door a second time it opened and she got out.
“Thank you,” she said to the car when she closed the door, then she headed up the driveway to Cade Camden’s house.
There were two steps up to the small landing at the front door where twin marble planters bearing matching topiaries stood like sentries on either side. Nati rang the bell and instantly heard a muffled “Coming” hollered from inside.
A moment later, Cade Camden himself opened the door.
He was wearing suit pants and a white dress shirt with the sleeves rolled to his elbows and the collar button undone. There were some nearly transparent spots on the front of his shirt where water must have splashed him, and he was drying his hands on a dish towel.
“Right on time!” he crowed in greeting. “If you had been ten minutes earlier you would have caught me with dirty dishes in the sink.”
“Your maid didn’t do them?”
“My maid?” he parroted with a laugh. “I don’t have a maid.”
“Sorry,” she said. “I just figured—”
“They were my dishes from last night and this morning,” he explained. “My grandmother would have shot me if she knew that I hadn’t rinsed them and put them in the dishwasher when I’d finished eating, but you know how it is—sometimes you just feel lazy….”
“I won’t tell,” Nati promised, taking stock of his face again and realizing that no, she hadn’t been imagining him to be better looking than he actually was—something she was hoping she might have been doing. He was every bit as head-turningly handsome as she’d been remembering him, and he smelled wonderful, too. He appeared to be freshly shaven and the scent of citrus and clear mountain air was wafting out to her.
And weakening her knees a little…
He also had great hair, she realized in that instant. Thick and clean, he wore it cut short on the sides and back with the top just a bit longer but still neat. Not so neat that it looked as if he’d put much care into it, though. In fact, it was just tousled enough to keep him from appearing too businesslike, to give him a casual air. And somehow it made her want to run her fingers through it….
Nati tightened her grip around her notebook and pamphlets as if that was the only way she was going to be able to keep from doing it.
“Come in,” he invited then, moving to one side of the entry so she could step across the threshold.
The entry was large, with a steep set of stairs directly in front of the door, a hallway alongside the stairs that was a straight shot to a kitchen at the other end of it, a formal living room to the left and double doors to the right that were open to a library that looked like something out of a Charles Dickens novel—all dark wood, tufted leather seating and books and books and books.
Cade closed the front door. “The wall that needs work is in the dining room—be prepared,” he cautioned as he led Nati down the hallway beside the stairs.
Don’t look at his rear end…
Don’t look at his rear end…
Don’t look at his rear end…
Oh, but it was such a good one…
Because yes, despite her efforts to keep herself from doing it, she did look. And whether his impeccably tailored pants did it justice or his backside did the pants justice, Nati didn’t know. She only knew that Cade Camden had a very, very fine derriere….
“Nice house,” she said, forcing herself to glance at the big spotless kitchen that showed no signs of having been a mess earlier.
Cade tossed the dish towel on a kitchen counter. “I’ve been here almost a year but I can’t take credit for anything—the couple who owned the place before me had been remodeling it a room at a time. The dining room was last on the list and just as they were getting to it, they split up.” He took her through the kitchen, through an adorable butler’s pantry and into a formal dining room.
There was a long rectangular table with six chairs on each side and one at either head, a sideboard and a tall hutch—all in mahogany. The back wall immediately drew Nati’s attention. The gold-foil wallpaper printed with black safari animals riveted the eye.
“Oh, dear…” she said with an astonished laugh.
“Yeah, I know. Even if it wasn’t peeling off and ripped in spots, it would still be something, wouldn’t it?”
“Do you mind if I tear that piece off a little more so I can see what shape the wall is in behind it?” Nati asked, pointing to one section that was already coming away.
“Be my guest. It’s all gonna have to come down anyway.”
Nati set her things on the dining room table and got to work.
“The paper comes off pretty easily and the wall doesn’t look as if it’s in bad shape, so that’s all good. I’ll need a day to strip the paper and clean up the wall—whatever glue is left will have to be cleaned off so the surface will be uniform and smooth, and it’ll have to be primed. Then I can go to work on it.”
She glanced at Cade and found that he was staring at her, not the walls. “So it seems like something you can do?”
“It does,” she answered. “It will take a few days—this wall is big and there will have to be some overnight drying time between coats. But yes, I can do it.”
“Music to my ears,” he said as if he’d been worried that she couldn’t. “When can you start?”
“I’ll have to check with Holly to make sure she’ll watch my shop but I think I can probably sneak away tomorrow afternoon and get this paper down and the wall primed—that way it will have Sunday to dry and I can come back on Monday—does that work for you?”
“I have to go into the office tomorrow, but I can give you the code to the front door so you can come and go whenever you need to.”
That seemed very trusting of him. But Nati was trustworthy; plus, the Camden’s probably wouldn’t expect anyone to dare do wrong by them.
“Okay,” she agreed. “Then I can be here Monday until about one—I have to watch both shops Monday afternoon—and we’ll take it from there?”
“Sounds like a plan,” he confirmed.
“So let’s talk colors, textures and finishes,” Nati suggested.
He pulled out a chair for her, and then took the one next to it at the head of the table for himself. Sitting back in the seat, he brought one ankle to rest atop the opposite knee and held on to his shin with a big, powerful-looking hand. Then he laid his other elbow on the table. Nati had an inordinate awareness of the masculine forearm exposed by his rolled-up shirtsleeve, of the thickness of his wrist. Of all things…
Thoughts—these are only thoughts, she reminded herself. They don’t mean anything. Just go on with what you’re supposed to be doing… .
She opened her notebook and set out her pamphlets and color choices, telling him what each texture entailed and how it would look.
“I can leave the pictures and the samples with you if you have someone whose opinion or input you might want—a fiancée or significant other.”
The thought that there might be someone else had just occurred to her. She’d been assuming that he was on his own because everything he’d said about this project, about this house, had made it sound as if it were his and his alone. But looking at him—nearly drooling over how gorgeous he was and having the mere sound of his voice send goose bumps up her arms—made her realize suddenly that he probably had any number of women he could pick and choose from, and possibly someone he’d already chosen in the wings.
And, yes, she was curious. Even though it didn’t matter to her one way or another if he were involved with anyone.
“It’s just me,” he said. “No fiancée, no significant other.”
Nati wondered if she might have stepped in it. “I’m sorry if that sounded like I was prying. I just thought that it’s a big house for one person and—” Then she had another thought and instantly said, “Oh, maybe you’re recently out of a relationship. Or a marriage. Maybe that’s why you bought this place—” She stopped herself when she realized she was really being nosy. “It doesn’t matter, I was just saying that if there’s someone you want to consult with, you don’t have to make a decision today.”
He was smiling. Her verbal scrambling was funny to him. “I bought the place because I felt like I was ready to take on a house. I liked this one, and it’s ten minutes from my office, from my grandmother, from most of my siblings and cousins. I’ll rely on your advice when it comes to what would go best in here—I can tell from what’s in your shop that you have good taste, I just don’t want—”
“Anything frilly. You want something understated and classy.” She was repeating what he’d said the day before.
“Right.”
“I can do that,” she assured him, and went on to make her recommendations, showing him pamphlets that displayed a variety of textures.
“Yeah, I think I like the Venetian plaster the best, too,” he said when she’d finished. “In the light gray. And you do the plastering, too, huh? Because this can’t be done with just paint, right?”
“Right. It’s actually paint, then a light layer of plaster applied just so, then some sanding and potentially more paint or polishing. And, yes, I can do it all,” she assured.
“Did you go to school to learn this stuff?” he asked.
“No. In college I studied art history and conservation. My grandfather was a housepainter, though, so I grew up helping him and learning the basics—and cleaning a lot of paint brushes.” She laughed. “The tole painting in the shop and the murals and stenciling and wall finishes sort of combine what I learned in college with what my grandfather taught me. And I do some restoration, too—like the frame on the mirror you saw yesterday.”
“So you got a degree in art history and conservation but you didn’t want to work as an art historian?”
“There aren’t a lot of opportunities in the field—it wasn’t the smartest choice in terms of degrees that can be translated into a job. When I graduated from college I went to work for a company that did art restoration but—” She paused, feeling as if she were talking too much. “You don’t want to hear this.”
“I do, though,” he said, sounding genuinely interested. “Did you get to restore paintings or—”
“I was mostly just the gofer—I did a lot of cleaning brushes then, too,” she said. “It was a trainee position but I didn’t stay long enough to actually get any hands-on experience, so it didn’t really do me any good.”
“Why didn’t you stay long?”
“I quit to get married….” But she didn’t want to talk about that so she quickly continued, “Then when I needed to get into the workforce again, I had the degree but no experience, and without any experience the degree was just a dusty piece of paper that didn’t do me any good.”
“So you opened your own shop.”
“Holly and I have been friends since first grade—Holly owns the pet supply store next door—and she talked me into the shop. I came up with the idea of doing outside work, offering services as a restorer and doing jobs like this one—the fancier, more specialized things that my grandfather wouldn’t have done as a housepainter.”
Cade nodded. “Are you doing okay—financially, I mean?”
Nati laughed. “Are you afraid I’m going to charge you an arm and a leg for this?”
He laughed. “No, I’m just wondering if you’re doing okay.”
“I don’t have a retirement fund. Or savings. But I’m only six months into this and I’m meeting my operating expenses. Arden’s city council is putting a lot of resources into getting people into Old Town—there are all kinds of events planned like the Scarecrow Festival. Plus, with the holiday shoppers and word-of-mouth bringing in jobs like this one of yours, I think I’m about where I should be with a new business.”
“Well, you are pretty far from retirement age so there’s time yet for that, but the no-savings part worries me a little.”
Nati laughed again. “You’re worried about me?”
“Oh, you know… I’m just saying that you should have savings….”
“Believe me, it’s one of my goals. But for now, I like what I’m doing and I feel good about it, so I’m okay with things. And as for charging you an arm and a leg—you’ll pay for the materials and my labor will be my standard by-the-hour fee. You can check with whoever it was who recommended me and you’ll find out that I charged them exactly the same rate. For this job…”
She did some computations and then passed him her figures.
“… this is my ballpark bid.”
Cade barely glanced at it before he said, “That seems fine to me.”
“You can get another bid. Or two or three if you want,” she said.
“No, you’re who I want—” He cut himself off as if something about that had come out wrong. Then he said, “—for this job. You came highly recommended. And I realize if you get into this and it takes longer than you think, your labor charge will be higher and that’s okay, too—I know this is only an estimate, it isn’t carved in stone.”
“Sooo, we’re in business?” Nati asked.
“We are definitely in business,” he said, seeming more pleased and enthusiastic about it than he needed to be. He was looking so intently at her that she had the oddest sense that there was something more personal to this than getting his wall fixed.
She told herself that she had to be imagining it, and began to gather her samples.
“Shall I pay you half now, half when the job is finished, or how do you want to work this?” he asked then.
Oh. She’d forgotten about getting paid. Where was her head?
As if she didn’t know…
“You can just write me a check for the estimated cost of the materials and we’ll settle up the rest when I finish,” she said, pretending she hadn’t completely overlooked an important detail.
“Let me get my checkbook,” he said, leaving the dining room. He was gone only a moment before he returned with checkbook in hand.
While he was writing the check, Nati said, “I’ll bring the formal paperwork with me tomorrow. If I don’t see you, I’ll leave it for you to sign and then pick it up when I come on Monday. I probably won’t see you then, either, because I assume you’ll be at work.”
And why was she feeling slightly disappointed at the thought that she likely wouldn’t encounter him much—if at all—while she was doing this job?
No, she didn’t want an answer to that question. She just shooed away the feeling.
“I’m sure I’ll be here at various points,” he said as if it were a promise, looking into her eyes as he handed her the check. “But for now I’ve probably kept you longer than I should have—I know it’s Friday night and you must have a date or something planned with your… husband?”
She’d told him she’d quit her first job out of college to get married. She hadn’t said anything else about that. Was he as curious about her personal life as she’d been about his? Because that was how it sounded.
“I’m not married anymore. I’m divorced.”
“I’m sorry. For long?”
“It was final six months ago, but there was a year before that when it was… in process. And no, there isn’t a date, or a fiancé, or a significant other or even a whoever for me, either. But I do have a new bottle of bubble bath waiting for me….”
She stood, holding her materials like school books.
“I guess I’ll see you tomorrow or Monday… or maybe I won’t,” she said as she headed for the front door.
“Tomorrow or Monday,” he repeated.
Cade opened the door when they reached it and, as Nati stepped outside, he peered over her head and said, “Where’s your car?”
“I parked on the street.”
“Ah…” he said, following her as if he intended to walk her to the curb.
“It’s okay, you don’t have to come all the way out here,” Nati said.
“It’s after dark—this neighborhood is relatively safe, but still…”
He had manners. That was nice. He went ahead of her to her car door and waited while she unlocked it, then leaned in to open it for her.
“It sticks,” she warned.
But for him it opened just fine.
“From now on go ahead and pull into the driveway,” he instructed as she got in behind the wheel. “Use the side closest to the house—I’ll use the other side while you’re working here so you won’t have to carry things as far.”
Also nice. And considerate.
Not that that mattered, either. She was just doing a job for him. Here and gone. Don’t get sucked in.
“Drive safe,” he said as he closed her door.
Nati nodded and turned the key in her ignition, willing the aging car to start on the first try since Cade was still standing there, watching her.
Luck was with her, because the engine turned over instantly for once and allowed her to put the car into gear to leave.
But not before she let herself have one last glance at Cade standing there as if he were keeping her safe until she could get on her way. Tall, broad-shouldered and so handsome…
Nati raised a hand in a little wave and finally gave the car enough gas to actually put it into motion.
All the while unable to prevent herself from fantasizing about being back in that big Georgian house again.
And spending the rest of her Friday night alone there with Cade Camden…
Chapter Three
“I brought lunch.”
“I’m so glad! I’m starving,” Nati told her friend when Holly arrived at the shop around noon on Saturday. “Did you get your errands done?”
“Every one—thanks to you being here to share shop duties now. How was the morning?”
“You made a couple of nice sales. I’ve only had a few looky-loos, nobody bought anything.”
“But now you’ll have the money from doing the Camden wall—you were smart not to turn that down.”
Nati shrugged, unable to decide whether working for Cade Camden was good or bad. Certainly the money was good. The fact that she was working for a Camden—whom she’d actually had dreams about all night long in which one or more of them was hot and bothered and not entirely clothed—didn’t seem like such a good thing.
“What’s for lunch?” she asked, changing the subject.
“My throw-everything-in salad with the homemade dressing you like.”
“Yum. Thanks for this—I was running late this morning and didn’t have time to fix lunch. I was going to skip it,” Nati said.
“Another sleepless night because of The Camden?” Holly guessed.
Holly was a childhood friend who was more like a sister to Nati. They’d always told each other everything, so Holly knew that Nati was suffering doubts about having anything to do with a Camden. Holly also knew that Nati had been up half the night after her Thursday meeting with him. But last night? Holly didn’t know about last night yet.
“I had trouble falling asleep again and then when I did the dreams I had were… Wow!” she confessed to her friend.
Holly laughed. “Cade Camden is the stuff ‘wow’ dreams are made of,” she concurred.
Holly had come in just as Cade had left on Thursday so she’d seen him.
“Have you decided yet if you’re going to tell your grandfather you’re working for a Camden?” Holly asked as they ate. Nati’s friend had gone to her side of the door that connected their shops.
“No, I still don’t know if I should tell him or not,” Nati said.
“He gets home tonight?”
Nati’s grandfather, Jonah Morrison, was on a brief vacation in Las Vegas with some of his lodge buddies.
“Late tonight. I have until tomorrow to think about it, I guess,” Nati answered.
“I think you should tell him. I know you—you’ll be sorry if you don’t. You’ll hate lying—even by omission—and you’ll worry that he might find out. And I don’t think he’ll care, anyway. What went on was a lifetime ago, and your grandfather will be glad you have the work. He’ll say good for you for taking some of the Camdens’ money.”
Holly had grown up across the street from the Morrisons, so she knew Nati’s grandfather well.
“Yeah, I could see him saying that,” Nati agreed.
“Because he’s the sweetest guy in the world. He’d give you the shirt off his back. He’s so tenderhearted that he tears up at the sight of puppies and kittens, and he’ll just be happy that you have money coming in no matter who it’s from.”
“Right—it was more like my great-grandparents to rant and rave about the Camdens, not my grandfather.”
“Although he might feel guilty because you need the work—” Holly cut herself off. “No, forget that. It’ll be fine. You need the money, and your grandfather won’t care who you’re working for. Just do the job, take the check, then wash your hands of the Camdens.”
“Yeah,” Nati agreed, unsure if she was doing the right thing.
Or if washing Cade Camden out of her thoughts when this was all over with would be as easy as Holly made it sound.
“It’s just me…”
Nati heard Cade’s voice coming from the entrance as he let himself in. It sent a tiny tingle up her spine.
It was after five o’clock on Saturday and she’d been expecting that he might show up any time. And maybe hoping—just a little—that he would. She couldn’t help it.
She was cleaning up the remnants of the mess made from tearing off wallpaper, cleaning the wall and then priming it, when Cade came into the dining room.
Apparently working on Saturday didn’t require him to dress up because he was wearing a pale yellow sport shirt tucked into a pair of jeans. A pair of jeans that he wore to perfection slung slightly low on his hips. Nati’s jaw dropped for a split second before she forced her eyes up to his face, which looked remarkably sexy with a five-o’clock shadow.
“Hi,” she said, her voice catching in her throat.
“Hi. I’m so glad you’re still here.”
She didn’t know why he should be glad but his words gave her a wave of satisfaction anyway.
“Five minutes later and I wouldn’t have been,” she informed him as she stuffed the last sheet of wallpaper into the trash bag she’d brought with her. “The contract is there on the dining room table,” she added with a nod in that direction. “I was just going to leave it for you.”
“Any chance you could stick around for a while? I can sign the contract and then there’s another job I’m hoping you might take. If you don’t have to be anywhere in a hurry maybe we could talk about it….”
“No, I don’t have to be anywhere—in a hurry or otherwise,” she said, realizing only after the fact that it made her sound like a dud.
But what difference did it make if he knew her social life was nearly nonexistent? In fact, it was better that he think she was a dud, she told herself. Maybe it would act to deter any interest in her.
As she pulled the drawstring closed on the trash bag, she said, “I’ll take this to my car and give you a minute to read the contract, then come back.”
“Okay,” Cade said with more enthusiasm than seemed warranted.
Outside the sun had gone down and taken the warm autumn temperature with it, so after putting the trash bag into her trunk Nati opened her car door to retrieve the overblouse she’d brought with her.
Slipping it on, she tried not to think about the fact that while she’d worn a perfectly work-appropriate beige crewneck T-shirt and jeans, the overblouse took the outfit beyond work clothes and made it a tad dressier. It was fine-gauge wool in deep cocoa brown, with long sleeves and an asymmetrical front opening that fastened at her hip with one large button.
Yes, it added another layer and a bit more warmth, but just a bit. Its primary purpose was to spruce her up a little. Which was what had been in the back of her mind when she’d brought it with her.
And when she took a brush from her glove compartment, ran it through her hair, and then applied some lip gloss, it was hard to deny her intentions—she wanted to look her best now that Cade Camden was home.
But only because she wanted to be presentable when dealing with a client…
She called herself a liar and went back inside.
She hoped Cade wouldn’t notice that she’d done anything. But he glanced at her the minute she rejoined him in the dining room, giving her a quick once-over.
He seemed to approve, though, because the faintest of appreciative smiles brushed across his lips before he handed her the signed contract.
“That was quick,” she said with raised eyebrows. “You didn’t have any questions or problems with it?”
“Nope, looks just right to me,” he said, almost as if he was commenting more on her appearance than on the contract.
Then he switched his attention to the wall she’d spent the afternoon working on.
“This is already an improvement,” he observed.
“It’s only primed but just losing that gaudy wallpaper was a big step.”
“Did you have any problems with it?”
“Only in a few spots. Nothing big. And I got everything off without doing any damage, so I think we’re good to go from here.”
“I told my grandmother about what you did with the frame on that mirror I saw in your shop and it reminded her that she has her grandmother’s hope chest.”
“That would be your great-great-grandmother’s hope chest. How old is that?”
“GiGi—that’s what we call my grandma—is seventy-five. If we stick with round numbers, let’s say GiGi’s mother would have been twenty years older than her, add another twenty years to get GiGi’s grandmother’s age, so the hope chest has to be…” He laughed. “Really old.”
Nati laughed, too, at his failure to come up with a precise number.
“I’d never seen it before,” he went on, “but GiGi made me root around in the attic until I found it this morning. It’s kind of like a wooden steamer trunk. The overall finish has survived pretty well, but the design painted on the front, around the latch, and on the very top has faded nearly into oblivion. GiGi wanted me to ask you if you could redo it the way you redid the mirror frame.”
“I’d have to check it out to know.”
“It’s a leafy vine motif with some hearts and flowers—”
“That’s the kind of thing I do. But I can’t say if the original design is restorable until I see it.”
“There are some spots that are gone altogether,” he warned. “Especially around the latch—”
“Sure, where hands brushed against it over and over again. But if there’s enough of the pattern left in other places I can usually figure out what’s missing and fill it in.”
“You just have to see it first to know,” he repeated. “What about now? If you don’t have anywhere to be, we could go over there and take a look…”
“Oh. Now? To your grandmother’s house?”
“It doesn’t have to be now. We can set it up for later. I just thought that since we’re both free, and you’re already on this side of town, and GiGi’s place is just over on Gaylord—”
Saturday night and he was as free as she was? He didn’t have a party or an event or a date with some drop-dead-gorgeous socialite? That was hard to believe.
“Sure, I can do that,” she answered after a pause.
“We can take my car or you can follow me over and go home from there—your choice,” he offered.
The thought of riding in a car with him seemed a little awkward and at the same time too appealing, so she said, “I’ll just follow you in my car.”
“Okay. Then if you’re all finished here, why don’t we go? We might be just in time for you to meet GiGi before she leaves for her dinner plans.”
GiGi. Every time he said it there was affection in his tone. Georgianna Milner Camden. Nati’s grandfather’s old love.
Nati’s curiosity suddenly ran high.
“Okay,” she agreed, worrying all over again that this whole thing might smack of disloyalty in some way. But she couldn’t stop herself now.
Cade ushered her out the front door and back to her car. It was parked beside his in the driveway.
“Just follow me,” he suggested.
“Okay,” Nati agreed, hoping her old clunker could keep up with his sleek black sports car.
As they drove the short distance, Nati saw him repeatedly glance into his rearview mirror to make sure she was there. But he drove conservatively enough for her not to have any problem following him.
After a few minutes, Cade turned onto a driveway that ran through the gap in a ruddy redbrick wall bordering an enormous estate.
She followed him up the stone-paved drive and around the fountain that formed the centerpiece of the front grounds. They came to a stop near a five-car garage. It was attached to an expansive house that would have made her former in-laws drool with envy because it dwarfed theirs.
The Tudor mansion curved out from the garage in a two-story semicircle of brick, stucco, wood trim and arched windows. The classically steep roof was dotted with dormers, two sculpted brick chimneys and gables under which thick green ivy grew.
Nati was embarrassed by the sound her car made when she turned off the engine but she pretended not to be when she got out.
“This is beautiful,” she said with unveiled awe as Cade led the way up the three steps onto the wide curved landing that stretched out from the house’s entrance.
Cade didn’t knock on the huge single door with its stained and leaded glass in the upper half. He merely opened it, held it and motioned for Nati to go in ahead of him.
She did, stepping as gingerly as if she were walking on eggshells, into an enormous foyer with a vaulted ceiling and a crystal chandelier centered over a round entry table large enough for a family of six to eat around had it been a dining table.
Cade followed her in, closed the door and shouted, “GiGi? Are you still here?”
“In the den,” a voice from somewhere farther into the house shouted back.
Having been married to the heir to an airline fortune, Nati had had the occasion to see some pretty impressive places. But nothing had compared to what she saw as she followed Cade to the left of the foyer, through double doors and into an oak-paneled den where two women were standing at a curio, one of them dusting antique watches, and then handing them to the other woman who carefully placed them on display.
Nati judged the woman replenishing the display to be about sixty years old—too young to be Cade’s grandmother. She was short, plump, with rosy round cheeks. She was dressed casually in knit slacks and a sweatshirt, her ash-blond hair cut close to her head all over in a low-maintenance cap style.
The other woman was older—more the age of Nati’s seventy-five-year-old grandfather and more likely to be the matriarch of the Camden clan. Like the sweat-shirted woman, she was also not much more than five feet tall and had a somewhat fluffy figure that said she enjoyed her food and robust good health, too. She was the more attractive of the two women, with a lined face that still bore the signs of glowing beauty. Her hair was salt-and-pepper colored, and she wore it short and curly. And despite the fact that she was dressed in a stylish black evening suit with a lacy white blouse and several strands of pearls, she was doing the dusting.
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