Читать онлайн книгу «A Sweetheart for the Single Dad» автора Victoria Pade

A Sweetheart for the Single Dad
Victoria Pade
All Is Fair In Love And War! How can a woman complete a task when the subject looks like him? Lindie Camden must keep her eyes on the prize to win Sawyer Huffman as a client and amend their familial dispute that dates back generations. But when she's hit with the single dad's gentle heart and his oh-too-kissable mouth, her idea of "the prize" shifts all too easily…She expects to volunteer in the community center wearing that? There was no denying Sawyer's appreciation of seeing Lindie in her figure-hugging clothes, but he's less impressed with the reason behind the outfits. Despite the initial success of their seductive ploy, he won't allow the Camdens to weasel themselves into business with him. Because the only kind of deal he wanted to make with Lindie involved white lace…and promises…


As far as she was concerned, Sawyer Huffman already had three strikes against him.
The bad history between their families, their professional conflicts and a child.
And that counted him out as a relationship prospect regardless of his appeal.
It was just that he did have appeal.
So, so much appeal …
But she wasn’t going to let that get to her. No way, no how.
Because as determined as she was to get this job she’d been given done, she was even more determined about that!
* * *
The Camdens of Colorado: They’ve made a fortune in business. Can they make it in the game of love?
A Sweetheart
for the
Single Dad
Victoria Pade


www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
VICTORIA PADE is a USA TODAY bestselling author. A native of Colorado, she’s lived there her entire life. She studied art before discovering her real passion was for writing, and even after more than eighty books, she still loves it. When she isn’t writing she’s baking and worrying about how to work off the calories. She has better luck with the baking than with the calories. Readers can contact her on her Facebook page.
Contents
Cover (#u45552a73-6239-5b48-841a-0a6598496da7)
Introduction (#u8721f5cf-31b2-5de1-afa4-cf6dbab2f32f)
Title Page (#u38b38d80-39c1-5419-8103-709234242435)
About the Author (#u49587e1e-c816-594a-9636-5886f0a7b3db)
Chapter One (#ulink_2cbeca0e-4fc4-5940-bfb6-d1a60a31c35d)
Chapter Two (#ulink_9e7ccee4-bae0-54e5-b236-3190cc066a02)
Chapter Three (#ulink_d0f72780-c82d-5f2f-a046-124259a514aa)
Chapter Four (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter One (#ulink_3532973a-ab1d-53e7-a4f0-9bb1d0d007ea)
“You’re a Camden. Shall I guess which one?”
It was late on Monday afternoon, the last day of August, when Lindie Camden went into the recreation room of the Wheatley Community Center and someone stepped up behind her to speak those words.
The voice was male, deep and rich. The tone was slightly confrontational, slightly facetious, and so low that no one else was likely to hear despite the fact that there were a number of other adults and children all around.
Lindie wasn’t sure whether it was good or bad that she’d been sort of recognized. She was on a mission today from her grandmother to connect with Sawyer Huffman and attempt to take the thorn out of the lion’s paw once and for all.
She’d tried calling to request an appointment to see him. But she’d been informed that Sawyer Huffman was not interested in hearing anything a Camden might have to say.
Undeterred, at lunch she’d gone home to change into her tightest pencil skirt, a sleeveless silk top with a cowl neck that flowed with some intriguing folds in front, and a pair of four-inch, come-and-get-it spiked heels.
She’d left her long, espresso-brown hair to fall loosely to the middle of her back the way she would wear it to go clubbing. She’d applied shadow, liner and mascara to her cerulean-blue eyes. She’d dusted her cheeks and her thin nose with a hint more color. Then she’d added her favorite rose-hued lipstick to lips that were naturally full. All to present herself at the offices of Huffman Consulting and hopefully lure him into meeting with her, appointment or not.
That scheme had at least gained her information from a young male intern that Sawyer Huffman had left for the day to volunteer at the community center in Wheatley, a suburb about twenty minutes outside Denver.
The intractably determined Lindie had come straight here and told the person at the front desk only that she was looking for Sawyer Huffman. She’d been informed that he could be found in the recreation room at the chess tables.
It was the chess tables she was looking for when the near-whisper had come from behind.
Lindie turned to face tall, not-too-dark but very, very handsome Sawyer Huffman himself.
The arch nemesis of Camden Superstores.
And the son of a man who had been a victim of some underhanded actions on the part of the previous generation’s Camdens.
As one of Camden Incorporated’s most outspoken opponents, Lindie had seen Sawyer Huffman’s picture in newspapers and magazines; she’d seen him interviewed and in news reports on television. It had been obvious that he was attractive.
But he was a lot more impressive in person.
Standing six-foot-three, he was a big guy all the way around. There didn’t seem to be an ounce of fat behind the suit pants and dress shirt he was wearing. He had a broad chest and shoulders, thick forearms showing from beneath sleeves rolled to his elbows, and massive hands that grasped muscular arms he crossed over his flat middle.
He was kind of daunting even though she didn’t see any anger or resentment on his gorgeous face. He had light brown hair that he wore short on the sides and only a bit longer and carelessly kept on top. His finely angular features included just-high-enough cheekbones, a sharp jawline and a nose with just enough of a ridge in the bridge to give him a roguish air.
His lower lip was fuller than his upper and there were the sexiest little parentheses at their corners, drawn there at that moment by his questioning Cheshire-cat smile. He also had a slightly crooked crease in the center of his square-ish chin and amazing crystal-blue eyes. Eyes filled with curiosity now as he gazed down at her, waiting for her response.
“I’m Lindie,” she said simply.
“I figured. A phone call this morning asking to meet with me and now you’ve tracked me down here? Are you the family assassin?” he asked, the thought seeming to amuse him.
“Not today. I left all my weapons at home” was Lindie’s comeback.
Her clothing choice wasn’t lost on him because his glance dropped for a split second before he said, “I’m not so sure about that.”
Then the tone that had held a mingling of admiration and suspicion became more businesslike. “I came here to run a chess tournament for these kids, so I don’t know what you’re up to but—”
“I’m not up to anything. I’m representing my family’s company. We’d like to improve relations with you and to hire you. But since you wouldn’t see me at your office—”
“Improve relations with me? Hire me?” he repeated as if she were out of her mind. “Neither of those things is ever going happen, Ms. Camden. It’s my job to be your adversary. A job I created and have no intention of changing.”
“Lindie. I’m just Lindie,” she corrected.
“It’s my job to be your adversary, Lindie,” he reiterated as if she might understand it better that way.
Huffman Consulting represented several of Camden Superstores’ competitors—major grocery store, home improvement and department store chains. Every time an area was targeted as the site for a new Camden Superstore, Huffman Consulting went to work to present the downside on behalf of their clients in an effort to raise community support to keep out the superstore.
Through pamphlets, phone calls, news reports, petition drives, websites and contact with big and small local businesses and homeowners, Huffman Consulting spread the word that the arrival of a Camden Superstore lowered property values, drove out small businesses, increased traffic congestion and police calls, and caused any number of other evils.
The campaigns often either kept the Camdens from opening a store at all, or caused lengthy, expensive delays while the company’s PR team worked to combat the campaign and win over the communities.
“If Camden Incorporated became one of your clients it would be your job to represent our interests, as well,” Lindie said reasonably.
“You want me in bed with the enemy,” he countered.
Ooh. That put a saucy image in her head that came out of nowhere and shouldn’t have been there!
Lindie shoved it away and reminded herself that this was solely about business.
“What we want is not to be your enemy,” she said. “It’s only recently come to our attention that some...questionable things were done years ago to your family. We understand that that’s probably left you thinking badly of us and wanting to get even. But we’d like to clear the air and compensate you by way of our business—always worth a substantial amount of money.”
“What is this? The Camdens’ own twelve-step program? Are you on the admit-wrongdoing-and-make-amends part?”
In truth the Camdens were trying to make amends to people who had been wronged by Lindie’s predecessors. But they also didn’t want that widely known and inspiring false allegations.
So Lindie ignored the questions and said, “Give me a chance. Get to know me and Camden Incorporated through me. Let me get to know you and where you’re really coming from. Then maybe we can find common ground and work together.”
“This is where I’m really coming from,” he said with a gesture around the community center. “Areas like this eastern side of Wheatley that are left behind when a Camden Superstore comes to town. When jobs are lost and businesses close and buildings go vacant. When resources are drained away to the more prosperous parts of town. When parents have to take jobs farther away from home so their commute is longer and more time is taken away from their kids. Kids who are ultimately left with less supervision, leading them to get into trouble. Kids who need somewhere to go that isn’t an empty house or apartment.”
Okay, the man didn’t pull any punches. But Lindie could take them.
Before she’d thought of something diplomatic to say he added, “You want to get to know what I’m after? Pitch in here. Volunteer. Learn firsthand what the Camdens leave in their dust. Make some real amends to people you’ve done harm to right now.”
It was a dare. A dare he clearly thought Lindie wouldn’t accept.
He couldn’t have been more wrong. Jumping in to help was her middle name. Sometimes to her own detriment.
But her goal today was strictly to connect with him. To get some time with him. That was the only hope she had of turning him from an enemy to an ally.
So rather than immediately accepting his challenge, she wanted to make sure it would get her what she needed.
“Do you ‘pitch in’ here? Volunteer—beyond your chess tournament today?” she asked.
“I have connections to Wheatley and this community center happens to be my pet project, so, yes, I volunteer here.”
“What kind of connections? Do you live in Wheatley?”
“I live in a loft in lower downtown Denver. But my son lives here.”
“You have a son?” she said, hoping to build some rapport even as she took particular note of that fact for her own personal reasons. The fact that he had a child helped put him all the more securely in the wouldn’t-date-him compartment and she thought that that should help her concentrate on the work at hand.
“I do have a son,” he answered. “Sam. He lives in Wheatley with his mother and her new husband. For now.”
He seemed compelled to add that last part, though it was under his breath. Unsure how to reply, she merely said, “You’re divorced?”
“As a matter of fact I am. But not from Sam’s mom. She and I were never married.”
Divorced, with a child with a woman from a different relationship. The man seemed to have quite a history.
“Does your son use the community center?” she asked.
“He’s four and in the preschool program here. But the center is also important because if the older kids have a place they want to spend time, it keeps them off the streets and out of trouble. Ultimately that makes things safer and better for Sam. Plus, there’s the park the center just acquired next door—he’ll like that when it’s in shape.”
“So other than the chess tournament, what do you do as a volunteer here?” she persisted.
“I come in every Thursday afternoon—today is a special occasion for the tournament—and spend time with the kids themselves. Other than that I do whatever I can. Right now we need community involvement in cleaning up the park. So tomorrow I’m going door-to-door with flyers to get the word out. The most immediate project is rehabbing the park itself—work on that starts Friday afternoon at one. Schools around here are having an early release that day, so we’re doing a lunch for the kids, then putting everybody at the center to work and hoping for outside help, too.”
“So this week you’ll be here tomorrow handing out flyers, then again on Thursday and Friday?” Lindie summarized for clarity.
“Are you setting up a timetable to stalk me? Because if you’re around here, I’ll get you involved,” he warned.
“Let’s say I’m fine with that. What would you get me involved doing? Could I hand out flyers with you? Do whatever you do with the kids on Thursdays? Work by your side on the park cleanup?”
“You want to be my shadow?” he said as if that amused him once more.
“I was just thinking that I could kill two birds with one stone. If volunteering gives me the chance to talk to you, I’m happy to volunteer.”
“Talking to me isn’t going to do you any good.” Another warning.
“I can be very persuasive.”
“Ah. The Camden persuader not the Camden assassin. I can relax.”
“Because I obviously had you terrified.”
He laughed. “You can tag along tomorrow. It’ll give you a look at the realities of the decline your company causes. When it comes to the park cleanup, sure, we can work side-by-side as long as you’re willing to do anything I’m doing.”
“And what will you be doing?” she asked, sensing the need to be wary.
“Oh, it’ll be down and dirty...” he threatened with a whole lot of innuendo.
He was trying to rattle her and was succeeding. But she wasn’t sure if it was because she didn’t know what he might throw at her, or if it was the instant image that flashed through her mind of getting down and dirty with him in a way that had nothing to do with park cleanup. A way that was totally inappropriate and not at all businesslike.
But she refused to let him see that he was having any impact on her composure whatsoever and said matter-of-factly, “I’m not afraid of getting my hands dirty.”
He smiled. “Said like a true Camden,” he taunted.
Lindie raised a defiant chin but that only made him grin before he went on. “When it comes to Thursday, though, what I do with the kids is time I spend with them. If you want to come around, figure out something you can contribute to them yourself.”
“Such as?”
“Go with your strengths. If you’re a math or science whiz, or great with essays and writing book reports, you could help out in the quiet room—homework gets done in there. There’s an art center if you draw or paint or sculpt or any of that stuff. Sometimes there are girls’ basketball or volleyball pickup games—”
His gaze went down her legs to her spiked heels and his smile turned appreciative before he looked back at her face. “You might have to invest in a pair of tennis shoes for that, though,” he added as if he doubted she owned anything that everyday.
Then he motioned to the room they were in. “There’re usually kids in here looking for somebody to play chess or checkers or a board game. Or there’s a kitchen—we have some budding chefs who might appreciate a few lessons in there. Or you can help make sandwiches and snacks. There’s always plenty to do. But on Thursdays it’s the kids I’ll be with, so don’t think you can horn in on that.”
Still, if she was in the same place at the same time he was, she thought she could find the opportunity to talk to him.
Just as she was plotting, a woman approached them, apologized for interrupting and said, “Do you think at the break you could talk to Parker Cauzel, Sawyer? He has some bruises on his arm that he’s trying hard to hide. I don’t know if something happened at home or—”
That took all the amusement out of Sawyer Huffman and before Lindie even knew she was going to say it, she asked, “He could be being abused?”
“His dad had to file bankruptcy and close his sporting goods store last week,” Sawyer informed the other woman. “I know things are rough for the family right now.” Then, pointedly to Lindie, he added, “Emotions can run high when times get tough. Tempers flare. Welcome to the real world.”
Lindie was hardly out of touch with the real world. Especially most recently when it had landed her in the emergency room.
But she wasn’t going to get into that.
The other woman spared her from saying anything by going on. “I heard from some of the other kids that Parker has had a few scuffles on the walks between school and here. If the bruises are from that, he needs a chat about not fighting. And if something worse is going on...? I know he likes you and I thought you might be able to talk to him to figure out if he just needs to vent some way other than with his fists or if we should get authorities involved.”
“Sure, I’ll talk to him. And while I have you here—is it true about the Murphys’ mom?”
The woman’s eyebrows rose in a helpless sort of shrug. “You know she’s had problems making ends meet since her husband died. I guess she was doing something fraudulent on the internet and got caught. She pleaded guilty and will definitely go to jail so—with dad out of the picture, too—the four girls are with Grandma now,” the woman confirmed.
“Lucky they have Grandma.”
The woman glanced at Lindie apologetically. “I hope I wasn’t breaking up something important but I just had a minute. I’ll leave you two alone.”
Then she left and Sawyer took a deep breath before he looked at Lindie again. All traces of amusement were gone from that handsome face. “There you go,” he said, like a lawyer who felt he’d proved his case.
She must have looked confused.
“Two examples right under your nose. The bankruptcy is a direct result of a small business not being able to compete since your store came in. And even the Murphys. Their dad died a little over a year ago, and with businesses going under or cutting back around here mom couldn’t get a job to support the family. I know she tried to get hired on with Camdens but was told you were bringing your own computer people in. I guess she went another route—one more side effect of ‘Camden prosperity.’”
And by volunteering here Lindie was going to end up meeting the people harmed by those side effects.
Sawyer Huffman had no idea just how susceptible she was to that kind of thing.
I’m just going to have to be strong, she told herself.
“On second thought,” he said, “maybe it isn’t a good idea to have you coming around here even as a volunteer.”
But if she didn’t she knew she wasn’t going to get anywhere near him.
“No one needs to know who I am. I won’t give my last name. Or I’ll use a different one if I need to,” she said in a hurry, trying to maintain the ground she thought she’d gained.
He didn’t answer immediately; instead he stared at her for a long moment as if weighing something.
Then he said, “Knockout or not, if I didn’t know exactly who you are I doubt anyone else will recognize you, so I suppose it might be okay if you keep your identity under wraps. But you’d better tone it down some—there’re not a lot of silk and six-hundred-dollar shoes being worn in this part of town.”
The shoes had cost her eight hundred and just the fact that he realized they were expensive made her feel ashamed of that fact.
But again she wouldn’t let him see it. She tilted her chin defiantly. “That’s fine. I’m really not a prima donna.”
“Yeah, I’ll bet you’ve spent a lot of time in the trenches,” he countered with biting sarcasm. “I guess we’ll see, won’t we?”
The challenge was back again and that, too, had an edge that made her think she was really in for it.
But nothing was going to make her back down so she merely said, “When will you be handing out flyers tomorrow?”
“After work. Probably around six. If, once you think about things, you still want in, I’ll meet you in the parking lot out front.”
“I’ll be here,” she said.
There was skepticism in the wry half smile that quirked up one side of his sexy mouth, but he didn’t say anything except, “I have to get back. You can find your way out?”
“I can.”
He nodded his head, slowly, his crystal-blue eyes steady on her face.
Then, without saying goodbye, he went around her toward the chess tables, calling into the group, “Parker! How about a game to keep you sharp while you wait to play your next round?”
“Yeah? You think you can handle it?” a boy who looked to be about twelve or thirteen called back.
“Guess we’ll see, won’t we?” Sawyer answered, not giving Lindie as much as a backward glance.
And leaving her wondering if she’d just bitten off more than she could chew both with the man and the situation.
Chapter Two (#ulink_ffa101ee-75ae-5475-ad21-bd7a7557fc9f)
“I won’t let it happen, Candy. Sam is my son and he isn’t moving to Vermont. I don’t care if Harmon’s practice here is hurting or that he wants to move closer to his family. Sam’s family lives here and it’s more important for the four-year-old to be with his family than for the thirty-four-year-old!”
Sawyer had been trying not to raise his voice as he spoke to his ex-girlfriend on the phone on Tuesday but he’d lost the battle.
“Maybe you should talk to Harmon,” Candy Ferguson responded as if she were only partially involved.
“Maybe you should talk to Harmon! I know you don’t want to move out of state. You’ve never wanted to move out of state. You gave up a college scholarship and used loans to pay your tuition rather than go away just for four years. Now this guy snaps his fingers and says he wants to move, so you’re willing to do it? No way! Try standing up for yourself!”
“Vermont is nice...” was the wishy-washy answer to that.
They had been going round and round this issue for the past half hour and, so far, Sawyer hadn’t gotten anywhere. He was fed up and pulled out what he hoped was his ace in the hole. “I’ve already talked to Sean.” Sean was his younger brother and his attorney. “If I have to go to court, I will. If you don’t have the guts to tell Harmon that you don’t want to move, then feel free to make me the bad guy and use that as your out. But one way or another, I won’t sit idly by and have you and Harmon take my son across the country to live.”
He hung up without saying goodbye. Frustrated, angry, worried. And cursing himself for the choices he’d made in the women in his life.
“You’re falling for it, too, Harmon,” he muttered as if his ex’s husband could hear. “I’m betting that she’s letting you think she’s okay with moving when she really isn’t. Then she’ll get there and be unhappy and blame you. But you’re not taking my kid along for that ride!”
Sawyer was sitting behind the desk in his office. His door was closed for privacy so—knowing no one who worked for him could see—he dropped his head forward and reached back to try to rub the tension out of his neck.
It was bad enough to have his son living with another man half the time, to have Sam following some other guy’s rules—because, of course, Candy wasn’t going to be the boss. But at least Sawyer still had plenty of his own time with his son. Sawyer could be at T-ball games and school conferences and programs. Sawyer could pick Sam up from school. Sawyer could get to him in the blink of an eye if Sam was sick or hurt. He could be there for him.
If Sam was in Vermont, Sawyer would be relegated to phone and video calls, and he’d only actually be with his son a few times a year. And there was no way he wouldn’t fight to keep that from happening.
The trouble was that he wasn’t altogether sure it was a battle he would win.
Being part of Sam’s life had been an uphill battle for a while now. Things had gone smoothly enough at the beginning. Candy hadn’t known she was pregnant when their relationship had ended, but had told him as soon as she’d found out. She’d declined his suggestion of marriage but had agreed to let him have an active role as Sam’s father. Or, at least, she’d conceded to it. He could never be too sure with her—or with any of the women who had passed through his adult life—whether agreement meant they were genuinely on board or just that they were going along against their will and not letting it show.
Either way, Candy had consented to letting him share custody, and even to naming Sam after Sawyer’s father. Then she’d also accepted Sawyer’s request for equal time with Sam, along with the ample child support he’d offered her.
It was only when Harmon had come on the scene two years ago that problems had started.
Sawyer’s visitation with Sam had mysteriously gotten harder to schedule. Sawyer had stopped being included in decisions about Sam and was no longer informed about whatever was going on in Sam’s life. He hadn’t even been invited to Sam’s last birthday party, and now Sawyer had to rely on the four-year-old to tell him most things, which, more often than not, resulted in only hearing about it after the fact.
But even though the problems started with Harmon, Sawyer couldn’t be sure the other man was actually to blame.
He’d learned the hard way that just because Candy seemed okay with something, it didn’t mean she was. That under the surface things could be simmering that he was completely unaware of, things that would flare up when he least expected it.
Did Candy really want to move to Vermont or was she not telling Harmon she didn’t?
Was Harmon calling the shots with Sam, with Sawyer’s visitation and participation in his son’s life, or was Candy merely using him as an excuse to make Sam’s upbringing go the way she wanted it?
Was it possible that Candy hadn’t been so okay with sharing custody of Sam these past four years and moving to Vermont was her passive-aggressive way of cutting Sawyer out of his life?
Sawyer didn’t know.
And he sure as hell couldn’t say he was any good at deciphering what was really going on with her.
At the start, when Candy was being so agreeable to everything about Sam, Sawyer had taken into consideration that she was the primary caregiver, so he’d agreed to Candy being Sam’s custodial parent.
Now, as the custodial parent, if she petitioned the court for relocation, a judge would most likely grant the relocation petition.
Besides Candy being the custodial parent, Sawyer’s brother had said that the court would consider the fact that Sawyer often had to travel for work while Candy was a stay-at-home mom whose livelihood depended on her husband’s income—an income that could be improved if Harmon took over his father’s practice in Vermont instead of maintaining his own failing practice in Wheatley.
And off Sam would go to Vermont.
So Sawyer didn’t want to go to court. But he might not have a choice. Because even though he thought it was possible that Candy honestly didn’t want to move, he also didn’t hold out much hope that she would openly admit it to her husband.
When it came to the women in his life, he’d definitely had a pattern. On the surface they’d all been agreeable, considerate, seemingly selfless women he’d thought were perfect partners. The kind of perfect partner his mom had been for his dad for the past four decades.
But instead of finding happily-ever-after the way his parents had, Sawyer had ended up accused and found guilty of relationship crimes he hadn’t even known he was committing. As a result, his marriage and what he’d thought was a relationship headed for marriage with Candy had been dead in the water before he’d even realized anything was wrong.
And now his relationship with Sam could be on the line, unless he could rely on a woman speaking up—a woman he already knew was unlikely to do that.
He tapped his fingers on his desktop agitatedly.
He loved that kid more than he loved breathing. He couldn’t lose him to Harmon and Vermont.
“Dammit!” he said under his breath, clenching his hands into two fists to stop the tapping.
A knock on his office door caused him to sit straighter and call a “Come in” as if nothing was bothering him.
His executive assistant poked her graying head through the door. “The day is done. I just wanted to tell you that the fliers for the Wheatley park project are on my desk waiting for you, and to say good-night.”
“Thanks, Marybeth. Have a nice night.”
“You, too,” the sixty-one-year-old answered before retreating and closing the door.
Sawyer checked the time and discovered it was nearly five-thirty. He needed to head for Wheatley.
He pushed his chair back and stood, shrugging out of his tan suit coat, taking off his tie, then unfastening the top button of his ecru shirt and rolling his long sleeves to his elbows.
Casual got a better reception in Wheatley.
In Wheatley where Lindie Camden was supposed to meet him.
If she showed.
Just the thought that she might helped to take his mind off his problems. And made him smile a little.
Lindie Camden.
Now that was an impressive ambassador to send to get on his good side!
The Camdens kept a relatively low profile but pictures of them cropped up here and there. Sawyer never paid enough attention to know who was who, but they did all bear a resemblance to each other—enough for him to have a general image of dark hair, fine features and blue eyes that were apparently considered so remarkable that the local media called them the Camden Blue Eyes—as if no one else in the world owned a pair.
To have the unusual request for an appointment followed by the appearance of a very un-Wheatley-looking woman in the community center’s rec room hadn’t made it a huge leap to suspect that that woman was the same one who had called. Lindie Camden.
When she’d turned around he’d seen that she’d had plenty to go along with those eyes that were, he had to admit, remarkable.
Lush, shiny, coffee-bean-colored hair down to the middle of her back. Skin like alabaster. High, well-defined cheekbones. Long, thick eyelashes. And full, sexy lips.
All together with well-shaped legs, a rear end the skirt she’d been wearing hugged to perfection, the temptation of just-the-right-size breasts peeking from behind silk folds, he could imagine treaties being signed between warring factions just because she asked.
Or at least he’d imagined it until she’d said she wanted to hire him. Then he’d reminded himself that he represented one side of those warring factions and that no matter how breathtaking the woman, he wasn’t surrendering.
Take on Camden Incorporated as a client? Not a chance!
But he had seen another opportunity. An opportunity to open those big baby blues of hers to some of the damage her family’s stores did.
If, in the process, he also found the opportunity to get her pretty little hands dirty cleaning up the mess left behind? There was just enough orneriness in him to get a kick out of the possibility of that.
Grabbing his discarded coat and tie, he took them with him as he went out of his office. A few of the people who worked for him were still there, wrapping things up for the day. After exchanging some small talk and good-nights, he picked up the fliers from Marybeth’s desk and handed over locking-up duties to his office manager.
But Lindie Camden stayed on his mind.
Would her hair be down again today? he wondered. What would she be wearing? Surely not a skirt as tight as yesterday’s or heels as high.
Not that it would matter. The woman could walk around barefoot, in rags, and still be gorgeous.
Had the Camdens thought that sending someone who looked the way she did would make him more apt to cave?
It seemed impossible for her looks not to be part of the plan. They’d probably thought to blind him with her beauty so he’d be putty in their hands.
Well, it wasn’t going to work. A pretty face was not going to derail him professionally or get him to turn his back on what he believed in or on the people and businesses he was glad to represent.
And it wasn’t going to get to him personally, either, he thought as he got into his SUV and found himself feeling his jaw the way he might have if he were about to go on a date; testing to see if he should take his emergency electric razor out of the glove compartment for a second shave today.
There was a little stubble and, yeah, if this was a date, he probably would have used the razor.
But this wasn’t a date so he didn’t.
No matter how attractive she was, he wouldn’t touch a Camden with a ten-foot pole, he thought as he merged into highway traffic in the direction of Wheatley. And not only out of loyalty to his family—although that was certainly a factor. Not even if he wasn’t in a mess over Sam that drove home his need to reassess why things always went so wrong with his choices in women.
On top of both of those things, Lindie Camden was also his business enemy and that was automatically a roadblock. Roadblocks were huge challenges and challenges in his personal relationships were things he tried to avoid. Things that certainly didn’t improve relationships.
No matter what, he liked things in his personal life to be smooth sailing. He wanted a woman he was completely compatible with. A relationship that was pleasant and harmonious. Like his parents had. He was sure wanting that wasn’t where he’d gone wrong in the past and he wasn’t changing it.
And there was no chance that any of that could come about with a woman he was at odds with from the get-go. Especially one who was likely spoiled and pampered and accustomed to getting her own way about everything. A woman who probably didn’t know the meaning of the word compromise.
So, thanks but no thanks all the way around, Lindie Camden!
The most he was going to indulge himself in was rubbing her nose in what her stores left behind. In getting her hands dirty cleaning up some of it.
Other than that, this whole thing was going to be nothing more than a small amusement until she turned tail and ran back to the family in defeat.
In the meantime he’d just take in the view as a bonus and use his time with her to make his point. To show the almighty Camdens why they deserved to have things made difficult for them. And not only because there was the stain of the earlier Camdens’ underhanded dealings on their record.
Oh, yeah, Lindie Camden was in for it. He’d make sure of that. Regardless of how hot she was.
And the fact that when he reached the first stoplight in Wheatley, he took his shaver out of the glove box to run over his face, after all? That didn’t mean anything except that he wanted to make a good impression on the people he encountered tonight in the process of handing out fliers.
It wasn’t because he was sprucing up to see Lindie Camden again.
* * *
Lindie was in her car in the parking lot of the Wheatley Community Center at five minutes before six o’clock on Tuesday night. She was watching every car that pulled in until she could see if the driver was Sawyer Huffman.
And wondering why it was that she’d been so eager for this all day long. Why it was that every car made her hopes rise and her pulse race. Why it was that she deflated into disappointment each time the driver proved not to be him.
She was just eager to get this deal done, she told herself. To get Sawyer on board with Camden Inc. so he stopped making things difficult. To put him in line for a nice fat payday to make up for the past. And then she could go on with her life.
It didn’t have anything to do with the image of the man himself that had been popping into her mind since she’d seen him here yesterday. All big and tall and broad-shouldered and hella-handsome—
No, no, no, that didn’t have anything to do with it.
And it also wasn’t the reason she’d left work an hour early today, gone home and changed from business clothes into her favorite navy blue butt-hugging pants and the tailored white blouse that followed every curve so closely the buttons barely kept from gapping.
Or the reason she’d untwisted her hair from its French knot, brushed it and left it loose again.
Or the reason she’d refreshed her blush and mascara and applied the new sassy-rose lip gloss she’d just bought on Saturday.
It had been with him in mind that she’d chosen her shoes, though. Two-inch wedge sandals bought at a bargain price and far more conservative than the spiked heels she’d worn on Monday.
The fact that they also showed her just-pedicured toes was purely coincidental.
Sawyer was driving a big white SUV when she finally spotted him pulling into the lot.
The knight on the white charger—that’s probably how he sees himself, she thought, given that he seemed to have the impression that Camden Inc. was a big, bad evil he was trying to rescue people from.
Lindie hid her purse under her passenger seat and got out, locking the doors on her metallic-gray sedan and putting her keys in her pants’ pocket.
He parked in the spot next to her, taking off sunglasses that made him all the more rakish-looking and hooking them on his visor before joining her.
Not that the removal of the sunglasses muted any of his appeal. The man was simply fantastic-looking.
But that didn’t make any difference. Even if he had warts and boils she would still have had the same job to do and she’d do it the exact same way.
“You’re here,” he greeted as he closed and locked his car door.
“I said I would be.”
“I thought you’d find an excuse not to be.”
“Fooled you,” she said victoriously. “Here I am. Ready to walk the streets.”
Oh, that hadn’t sounded good.
And he’d caught it because it made him grin before he said, “I’m trying really hard not to make an inappropriate joke right now.”
“I appreciate that,” she said, curious about exactly what the joke might be. But she was here for business not for pleasure, so she opted to get to it. “Where do we start?” she asked enthusiastically.
“This way,” he said, pointing with that dimpled chin of his to the street that ran in front of the center and heading there.
“This is the park we’ll be cleaning up—right next door,” he informed her as they took a left turn onto the sidewalk. “City resources are going into an upscale version near your store on the other side of town and this one has been left to rot.”
“It definitely needs work,” Lindie commented as she took in the sight of rundown, damaged picnic tables and play equipment, of trees that needed trimming, of the signs of overall neglect.
Beyond the park they began to go up and down streets lined with small frame houses, heading for front doors to leave the fliers he was carrying.
While Lindie could see that it had been a nice middle-class area once upon a time, now there were only a few houses that were well-kept. More often than not yards were either overtaken by weeds or totally bare. When it came to the houses themselves, too many had chipped and peeling paint or siding, missing shutters and shingles or other signs of disrepair.
“It costs money to water lawns. To fertilize grass and flowers and to kill weeds. To paint and fix things when they age or weather takes a toll,” Sawyer said when he noticed her avoiding the brown branches of a dead hedge to one side of a small porch. “And it takes time that a lot of people had when it was a ten-minute drive to and from work, but don’t have now that it’s an hour or more commute every day.”
Lindie didn’t comment, especially when they passed a house that was obviously vacant and had a foreclosure notice in the front window. But she did feel the weight on her conscience and in response she picked up some toys dropped in the yard of the next house and left them neatly stacked at the door as Sawyer slid the flyer into a grate on a screen torn away from the frame.
There was an elderly man working on the engine of an equally elderly truck at the next house. Sawyer said hello and approached him with the fliers.
“Think you could hold this for me for a minute?” the elderly man asked.
Sawyer passed the fliers to Lindie so he could assist with something in the engine. As she stood there waiting it occurred to her that all of the vehicles parked in driveways and at the curbs were dated. That there wasn’t a new car anywhere to be seen.
“Okay, I can take it from here,” the old man said a moment later, handing Sawyer a rag to wipe his hands on and glancing at the flier he accepted from Lindie.
“Glad somebody’s doin’ something with that park,” the man said. “It’s turning into another eyesore around here and we don’t need any more of those.”
“Maybe you can come down and help out,” Sawyer suggested encouragingly.
“Maybe,” the man allowed as Sawyer said they’d let him get back to his work.
He took the fliers from Lindie so they could move on.
Block after block, they encountered more of the same downtrodden homes and people. Several residents either complained about the decay and neglect or wearily committed to helping and voiced their hope that something would improve the area.
Lindie took it all in, continuing her own minor aid by picking up a bicycle or a newspaper here and there to bring up to the house it belonged to, by righting an overturned lawn chair, by doing whatever small thing she could when she encountered it.
Fences were also casualties at many houses and a humorously ferocious Yorkshire terrier leashed to a post let them know he would rather have been free to run around the yard that could no longer contain him—or at least that was Sawyer’s interpretation of the yipping that greeted them.
Worse than the houses whose owners were clearly having trouble maintaining them was the small shopping center they came to late in the evening. Darkness was just beginning to fall and they’d come almost full circle when Sawyer stopped to point it out.
The shopping center was downhill from where they stood so they could look out over the entire area. There were four buildings with multiple storefronts in each one, all of them vacant. Windows were broken in or boarded up. Graffiti, litter, cracked pavement and the signs of general decay made the whole thing an ugly blot on the landscape. Worse, it was a gathering spot for some unsavory-looking teenagers currently loitering there.
“This place is the most direct result of your store,” Sawyer said. “Before there was a Camden Superstore there were tenants in every one of those storefronts. Now they’ve all gone broke or moved. We’ve requested that the Urban Renewal Authority come in and make it a revitalization project but so far they haven’t agreed and this is what the area is left with.”
There was no denying how bad it was, so Lindie didn’t try. And despite the guilt she felt, she said, “It isn’t our goal to do damage to any community. We always go into an area conscientiously and we do everything we can not to cause problems. We make offers to small businesses to buy them out but if they refuse and then can’t compete and go broke, or if they accept and the buildings that housed them get abandoned—”
“It ends up like this,” he concluded, not letting her off the hook. “And it lowers the value of every piece of property around it.”
“We can’t go in and buy every house that might decrease in value because another part of town booms and theirs busts,” she argued. But even though she knew the words were true, they didn’t make her feel any less terrible about what she was seeing tonight.
“No. But, for instance, you could have bought those buildings down there and offered the businesses in them rents reduced enough to let them survive. You could have introduced a program to bring in businesses and shops that offered products or services that didn’t have to compete with Camden Superstores. You could have offered existing business owners other avenues—retraining or something that kept their doors open somehow. That kept this area alive. Instead it’s just decimated and all because of you.”
“Those are suggestions I can make! Things I can push for in the future—”
“Uh-huh. And maybe you’ll come through. Or maybe, if you shut me up, you don’t have to bother. That is why I’ll never take you on as a client. It’s why I won’t stop warning communities that this is what can happen when you come in. Why not only won’t I stop trying to protect areas and residents from the residual havoc you wreak but why I sure as hell won’t work for you and end up a part of the problem!”
“If you worked for us maybe you could be the one to push us to take your suggestions.”
“Sure,” he said, his tone making it clear he wasn’t buying that for a minute.
Lindie didn’t give up. “Maybe you could keep on top of the problems when they develop, before they get to this point, and bring them to our attention.”
“Oh, very slick,” he said as they moved on, returning to the community center parking lot. “And once I’m on your payroll it would mean my job if I made a stink and refused to spout the company line. Again—not a chance,” he repeated as they reached the driver’s side of her car and stopped.
“Did this all come from my uncle winning my aunt from your father?” Lindie asked, feeling frustrated with his hardline stance.
“Winning implies a fair fight,” he said, arching an eyebrow as he leaned against the side of his SUV, settling in to focus on her. “Camdens don’t fight fair.”
“But we do!”
He ignored that claim and instead answered her question. “No, this doesn’t all come from what went on between my father and your uncle. It started there—certainly I grew up hearing that story more than once. Then there were a couple of things that added to it.”
“Like what?”
“Like the Camden Superstore that went into Dunhaven when I was in middle school. My dad was in construction. He worked all over and he’d seen what happened in the wake of your stores. He knew what we were in for. So by the time I was ready to go to high school my folks decided they’d better sell the house I’d grown up in and get out while the getting was good.”
“Part of Dunhaven ended up like this side of Wheatley?”
“Yeah, it did,” he said as if wondering how she could not know that.
“So you and your parents—”
“And my younger brother, moved,” he went on. “My parents had to take a loss on the house to sell it. I ended up having to enter a different school district and leave behind all my friends.”
“That didn’t make you happy,” Lindie commented, interpreting his tone.
“No, that did not make me happy. And when I went back to visit those friends I saw this.” He motioned to what she’d now had her eyes opened to.
“The last time I went back—for a Friday-night visit in the summer,” he continued, “my old friends were bashing in windows for entertainment. The movie theater had closed. They didn’t have anything else to do. The building they were vandalizing was a tire store in an area of town that had been doing okay when I moved. But thanks to Camden Superstore’s automotive department it had eventually gone under and so had my friend’s father—he’d managed it. My friend had a lot of pent-up anger about it and that was how he let it out. It was the last time my parents let me go back to visit, but I heard over the transom that that particular friend kept to that path. He got into more and more trouble and ended up in jail.”
“And you blame us,” Lindie attested.
“I can tell you firsthand that he wasn’t on the road to prison before your store came in and ruined his old man...” He left the rest of the answer to her.
“Then, in college, H. J. Camden came up in a couple of my business courses,” Sawyer went on. “I’ll grant you that it wasn’t always negative—he is quite a success story and more than one of my business professors admired the hell out of him. But he also came up on a list of modern-day robber barons.”
Lindie had heard that title applied to her great-grandfather before but it still caused her to flinch. “And that was what you paid attention to,” she concluded.
“Like I said, I grew up on the story of a Camden’s ruthlessness. So, yeah, I paid a lot of attention to that side of things.”
“And that was when you declared war on all Camdens?”
He motioned with one hand to all that was around them. “I had good reasons not to admire you all. Nothing personal,” he added.
“Right,” Lindie said with a tone full of sarcasm, goading him. “Because personally you admire me.”
He smiled a sly half smile and shrugged, leaving her unsure exactly what that meant. It did seem as if he might at least be admiring the way she looked, though, because his cool blue eyes never veered to take in anything else.
Then he said, “Are you and the corporation the same thing? Isn’t there anything about you that isn’t business to be admired?”
“There’s a lot about me that isn’t business.” Why was this starting to sound a little flirty?
“Like what?” he asked. “Are you married? Because there’s no ring. Kids?”
“No, I’m not married.”
“Ever been?”
“No. So I also don’t have any kids.”
“You can have one without the other,” he informed her as if letting her in on a secret.
“Well, I haven’t.”
“So what is there about you that isn’t business?” he challenged.
“I have a nephew—Carter—who I love to death. And there’s a new baby in the family—Immy—that my cousin’s about-to-be wife inherited. I love babysitting for her, too. And there’s my family. And I have four dogs.”
“Four? Let me guess, some snobby kind of show dogs?”
“Actually, they’re four rescue mutts that were hard to place. And whenever there’s a need for a temporary foster home for dogs requiring special care until they can be adopted, I take those, too.” Because all the local animal shelters knew she was a soft touch.
“You realize that when your stores do what they’ve done to places like Wheatley and the economy suffers, so do pets. If people are struggling to feed their kids, they certainly can’t feed their dogs and those dogs end up needing to be rescued.”
“Oh, you just never miss an opening, do you?” she lamented, feeling more weight on her conscience.
But this time, rather than tell her she deserved it, he grinned and said somewhat sheepishly, “One too many jabs?”
“If I cry uncle will you stop?”
“Maybe for now.”
“Uncle!” she said.
That made him grin again. “Okay. You did do your own little cleanup tonight along the way, I’ll give you that.”
Lindie made a face, knowing that picking up a bicycle here or a newspaper there was inconsequential and that nothing had really been solved tonight. Not for Wheatley and not for her goal of winning over and compensating Sawyer Huffman.
Yet, somehow, even given all that, she’d enjoyed the long walk and talking to Sawyer in spite of everything else.
“So Thursday...” she said. “What time do you come here?”
“I’m with the kids on Thursdays,” he warned, reminding her that he was unavailable.
“I’ll still be here,” she insisted. After seeing more of Wheatley she felt a need to do something. Coming to the center wasn’t only about finding an excuse to get to him anymore.
“I end my work schedule at two-thirty on Thursdays so I can get here by three, about the time the kids start showing up after school.”
“I’ll be here at three, then,” she said.
He didn’t say anything but this time it didn’t look as if he doubted her the way he had yesterday.
Instead, sounding as if he was admitting something reluctantly, he said, “I’m glad you came tonight.” He smiled mischievously. “Even if I did give you a hard time, it was better than walking the streets alone.”
Lindie laughed at his gentle gibe over her verbal gaffe at the start of the evening. “You just couldn’t let it go completely.”
“I couldn’t,” he confessed. “But that was so much tamer than anything else I could have said.”
He pushed off his SUV and reached around her to open her door for her, waiting with it open as she got in behind the wheel.
“I’ll see you Thursday,” she repeated.
For some reason he smiled as if he was glad to hear it this time. But all he said was “Drive safe,” before he closed her door.
Lindie started her engine and drove off. As she did she hated to admit to herself that—in spite of how it had made her feel to see the damage that her family had caused—she’d been on dates that she’d enjoyed less than her time with Sawyer Huffman tonight.
But as soon as she realized that, she decided to take it as a caution.
The man really didn’t like Camdens and could easily have a hidden agenda when it came to one of them.
And since Lindie was already no stranger to men with hidden agendas that ended up hurting her, she knew very well to watch out.
Chapter Three (#ulink_52fe2641-548e-5c1a-b75f-07c1045a3d8e)
“If I lived in that part of Wheatley I’d hate us, too,” Lindie concluded.
It was lunchtime on Thursday. Lindie was in her office on the top floor of the Camden Building that housed the offices for all ten of the Camden grandchildren. But the door was closed and no one was in on that particular lunch but Lindie and her grandmother.
Georgianna Camden—who everyone called GiGi—had brought beautiful Cobb salads for Lindie and herself to eat so that Lindie could report on her first two encounters with Sawyer Huffman.
As matriarch of the Camden family, GiGi had been the one to read the journals kept by the late H. J. Camden—founder of all of the Camden enterprises, great-grandfather to Lindie, her brothers, sisters and cousins, and father-in-law to GiGi.
As much as all of the current Camdens wished it wasn’t true, having H.J. on a list of modern-day robber barons was not unfounded.
Rumors and accusations had always swirled around H.J.; his son Hank, who was GiGi’s husband; and Hank and GiGi’s sons, Howard and Mitchum. Through the years various people had claimed their business practices were dirty, unscrupulous, underhanded, ruthless and all-round heinous. The men themselves had denied any wrongdoing. And since they’d been loving, caring husbands, fathers and grandfathers, those denials were believed within the family.
Until H.J.’s journals had been discovered at the Camden ranch in Northbridge, Montana.
Reading the journals had proved to GiGi that most of the accusations against the men that all of the current Camdens had loved and respected were actually true. As a result the current Camdens were attempting to seek out some of the people who had taken the brunt of former Camdens’ misdeeds and trying to make it up to them directly or through remaining family members.
Settling business grudges was hard enough. Personal grudges, as with the Huffmans, were even tougher. And what had occurred for personal reasons now had business consequences for the Camdens.
“It’s just awful, GiGi,” Lindie went on. “Seeing firsthand how, because of us, people have lost their livelihoods. How perfectly nice homes are now run-down. How hard times are causing domestic violence and crime and families coming apart at the seams and—”
“Okay, okay, slow down, Lindie,” her grandmother interrupted. “You’re getting carried away again. I know you think you have to cure all the ills in the world but you’re supposed to be working on trying to curb some of that, remember?”
“I know. I know,” Lindie said. “But—”
“No buts.”
“But there are kids and—”
“No buts!” GiGi raised her voice. “You need to stop this! To toughen up. We’ve caused problems. We’ll do what we can about them. We’ll do whatever it takes to avoid them in the future. But that’s not what you’re supposed to be looking at now and so far that’s all you’ve talked about. We’ve finished with lunch and I still haven’t heard anything about Sawyer Huffman. The situation with him is what we need you to work on now.”
Lindie took a deep breath and exhaled, knowing her grandmother was right; that she did need to get control of her runaway compulsion to save everyone.
“It’s one thing to be sensitive,” her grandmother went on lecturing. “To care as much as you about...well, everything. We’re all proud of that in you. But you can’t take care of everything or everyone. There has to be limits and you still have to learn when and where to set them. So for right now, let’s just concentrate on Sawyer Huffman.”
Sawyer Huffman with those pale, crystal-clear blue eyes shot through with silver rays...
She might not have said much about him yet but her grandmother didn’t need to be worried that she wasn’t concentrating on him. Yes, her sense of responsibility and guilt was in overdrive again when it came to Wheatley, but not even that had kept her from thinking far, far, far too much about Sawyer Huffman.
Although she had to admit that her thoughts were less on the situation than on the man himself. The image of that sculpted face...that dented chin. The way his lips quirked just so when he smiled. Those broad shoulders and big, big hands and arms he liked to cross over that impressive chest...
Even the deep, whiskey tone of his voice had gotten to her so much she’d been having trouble not thinking about him. And she’d tried. Boy, had she tried!
She just hadn’t succeeded.
“He’s pretty unwavering about us and not taking us on as clients,” Lindie told her grandmother, using business to defuse some of those rampant thoughts about Sawyer Huffman. “He’s nice enough about it. He’s not hostile and so far I haven’t seen signs that he bears too much of a grudge for what went on with his father. He mentioned that it was an influence on him but he hasn’t said more than that.”
“Yet.”
“Right. Yet. But up to now all I’ve seen is that he’s very matter-of-fact about how much he likes the role he’s carved out for himself as our enemy. It’s a role he thinks needs to be filled on behalf of places like Wheatley and its residents, and I’m not sure how—or if—I can get him to change anything. He doesn’t even seem to care about the money he could make from us. I don’t think it even tempts him, so I’m not quite sure what will.”
“These things always look impossible at the start,” GiGi insisted. “Especially this one because Samuel Huffman and Huffman Construction rebounded so well after what your uncle Howard did that I couldn’t find any way that we could make anything up to him directly. That’s why you have to really get to know his son. That will help you find a way in. Then you’ll be able to figure out what we can do in the form of restitution for what happened in the past and, hopefully, get us on the path to better relations for the future. This project is tailor-made for you, Lindie. You like to fix everyone’s problems and I think this is a good avenue for that. You just can’t let yourself be pulled in other directions. Put the problems of Wheatley, its economy and the people in it on hold for the time being and just find a way to fix things with Sawyer Huffman first. Tunnel vision—you have got to develop some!”
Lindie nodded, understanding what her grandmother was saying. Agreeing with it. She just wasn’t altogether sure she was capable of ignoring so many other problems to deal only with the task she’d been given.
But there was a lot riding on this particular mission beyond making amends. Huffman Consulting turned every proposed new store into a political hotbed to keep it from happening. The situation needed to be neutralized somehow and it was her job to do that.
“I’m volunteering this afternoon at the Wheatley Community Center so I can see him again,” she said, wondering after the words were out why that didn’t sound as businesslike as it should.
“Okay, but remember that he’s your goal. Don’t get sucked into other things,” GiGi warned, apparently not hearing what Lindie had heard in her own words.
“I won’t,” she promised as her grandmother stood to leave.
“Keep me posted,” the elderly woman said by way of a goodbye.
“I will,” Lindie assured her.
Once she was alone in her office she chastised herself for what she’d said.
Technically it was true that she was volunteering at the center to see Sawyer again. But it wasn’t as if seeing him again was for pleasure.
And yet...
Okay, she was looking forward to seeing him again, she admitted to herself. She didn’t want to be, but she couldn’t help it.
The guy was great-looking. He was intelligent. Interesting. He had a sense of humor.
And she was only human. If she’d met him at a party she would have hoped he’d ask for her number or ask her out.
But even if they’d met under those circumstances, even if there wasn’t history between their families to start things off on the wrong foot, even if he wasn’t her business foe, he still wasn’t someone she would be looking at as a potential partner, she reminded herself.
At thirty she knew it would be naive and unrealistic to expect to meet eligible men who didn’t have any romantic problems in their past at all. Sure, she’d never been married, didn’t have any kids, and it would be nice to find someone in that same situation. Someone who’d had just a couple of serious relationships in their past to teach them a thing or two and leave them with valuable experience that wasn’t baggage they’d never be able to leave behind.
So given that that requirement might narrow the field a little too much, she was okay with a past that included a divorce. She even tried to look on the bright side by acknowledging that while a divorce was a bigger deal than a long-term romance gone bad, she could still consider it evidence that the man could make a serious commitment, that he could get all the way to the altar.
What she didn’t want was a man who had a child.
She loved kids. She wanted kids. But she really wanted her kids to be the only kids her husband had. She really didn’t want someone who was pulled in two directions—toward the family he had with her and the family he’d started with someone else.
At thirty she knew that also narrowed the field, but that was a narrowing she was willing to accept to have a man without lifelong complications from his past.
And Sawyer Huffman had a child.
To her that put an immediate kibosh on the slightest idea of anything romantic between them, even if there weren’t the obstacles of family history and business.
It was just that the man also had a lot to offer at a glance...
Those looks.
That confident, brash, strong personality tempered with humor and what appeared to be an even temper.
That sexiness that just seemed to be natural to him without him putting any effort into it.
And that whole fighting-for-the-underdog determination that really hit home for her.
That was a whole lot that was impossible to ignore and, yes, it did make her want to see him again.
But if she controlled anything, she vowed, it was going to be what she would only admit reluctantly might be an attraction to him.
Because there just wasn’t anywhere for that to go. There just wasn’t anywhere she wanted it to go. Anywhere she would let it go.
As far as she was concerned, Sawyer Huffman already had three strikes against him.
The bad history between their families, their professional conflicts and a child.
And that counted him out as a relationship prospect regardless of his appeal.
Because as determined as she was to get this job she’d been given done, she was even more determined about that!
* * *
Angel, Casey, Biz—who was really Elizabeth—and Clara. Lindie had repeated the names of the four Murphy sisters several times to remember which was which as she worked with them in the community center’s kitchen that afternoon. Angel was the oldest at eleven, Casey was nine, Biz was eight and Clara was seven.
They were the four girls whose dad had died, whose mother had turned to computer crime to support them, who were now living with their grandmother while their mother went to jail.
When Lindie had arrived at the center she’d again said only that she was there to see Sawyer. But this time she was asked her name and when she gave it—only Lindie—the woman who introduced herself as Marie greeted her warmly and said, “Sawyer told us you might be coming to volunteer.”
Marie had then cheerily explained that she was the volunteer coordinator and that it was her job to familiarize new volunteers with the center’s layout and to put them to work.
A tour was the first order of business and as Lindie was shown the recreation room, she saw Sawyer in the distance at a chess table, playing chess with the boy—Parker Cauzel—who he’d been asked to talk to on Monday.
Sawyer appeared to be watching for her because he spotted her the minute she entered the rec room and waved. But that was the extent of their interaction. He stayed at the chess table and Marie kept Lindie occupied.
It made her wonder if he’d set up the whole thing to make sure she didn’t get to him. And while that frustrated and concerned her since she was there expressly for the purpose of seeing him, it also disappointed her and struck a bit of a blow to her ego.
He’d warned her that he spent Thursdays with the kids and wouldn’t be available to her. But she hadn’t taken that too seriously.
Since she’d been so eager to get there today to see him, it was a little demoralizing to think that he hadn’t been as eager to see her; that instead he might have arranged for her to be intercepted by someone else to keep her away from him.
In fact, it was more than a little demoralizing.
But with no choice except to go through the new-volunteer orientation with Marie, that’s what Lindie did. When it came to deciding where her skills could be best used and she tried for the rec room, she was told that there were enough volunteers in the rec room today. Instead she was steered toward the kitchen where help was needed.
Still, making the best of the situation and hoping to connect with him later, Lindie had jumped in in the kitchen and accepted the assignment of making a snack using what was available—several boxes of graham crackers.
Since there were also the ingredients for frosting, Lindie made a suggestion and got the okay before she was left with the four Murphy girls to get to work.
“This was our favorite afterschool snack when I was little,” she said as she taught the girls how to make a simple chocolate frosting. Then she and the two older Murphys spread the frosting on one side of graham crackers, handing them over to the younger girls to top with a second graham cracker and stack on plates.
As they worked it didn’t take much for the girls to warm up to her—they were impressed with her hair and interested in how she twisted it in back and left curls to erupt out of the twist at her crown. They liked her simple twill slacks and the embroidery down the front of her blouse. They loved her shoes—ballet flats that were the same blue-black of her pants and had white polka dots all over them.
The longer they worked together, the more they interjected information about themselves, too, letting Lindie get to know them. She concluded that they were lovely, polite little girls trying to cover up the fact that their mother had done something wrong.
By the time they had several plates stacked with the graham cracker sandwiches, which the sisters were very impressed with, Lindie was beginning to feel like one of the girls.
“Do we bring these around to everyone now?” she asked, hoping it would get her nearer to Sawyer.
“Everybody knows to come in to see if there’s something when they want to eat,” Angel informed her just as Clara was motioning to Lindie to bend so she could whisper in her ear.
When Lindie did, the seven-year-old said, “Could I bring one home to my gramma? She likes chocolate but we couldn’t buy any at the store yesterday because she had to buy so much other stuff for us to eat. We had to put her candy bars back when we didn’t have enough money at the end.”
And that was as much as it took to break Lindie’s heart.
She had no idea what the center’s policy was on sending food home. She’d used all the graham crackers available to arrive at the number of portions Marie had said she should have, and she couldn’t risk that other kids there might go without if she wrapped even one up for Clara.
But during the tour she’d been shown the employee’s lounge and where to put her purse. And she’d seen a vending machine there.
So, ruled only by her need to send something chocolate home with that child, she said, “I think we only have enough crackers for the kids here. But if you don’t tell anyone, I know where I can get a candy bar for you to take home to your gramma.”
Clara beamed with delight. “She likes the ones with nuts.”
“It has to be just between you and me, though,” Lindie warned, worried that she was stepping over some kind of boundary. “Do you have a backpack or somewhere we can kind of hide it?”
“A backpack, yeah,” the little blond girl confirmed.
While the other sisters and more kids began to wander in to take the snacks, Lindie slipped away to the employee lounge, got money from her purse and went to the vending machine.
Since she was alone in the lounge—and thinking that she couldn’t send Clara Murphy’s grandmother a candy bar without sending treats for the girls, too—she ended up putting five candy bars into her pockets before a voice from behind her said, “Are you having a blood sugar crisis?”
She jumped.
Unlike her first visit to the center, this time she recognized the voice.
Sawyer.
She’d been so intent on what she was doing she hadn’t heard him come in. Or step up to stand close behind her.
She turned around to face him, still wondering if he’d arranged for her not to get near him today. And if he had, what was he doing there now?
“Hi,” she said, taking in the sight of him in what she assumed was the remainder of his work suit—grayish-blue slacks and a light blue shirt he wore with the collar button unfastened and the long sleeves rolled to mid-forearms.
Yep, still terrific-looking.
If only that could be toned down some.
“Is there a reason you’re stuffing candy bars in your pockets?” he reiterated.
“The profits go to the center?” she said with a nod at the note taped to the machine.
It was a lame answer and he saw through it. “Try again?”
She told him what she was doing.
“That’s not a good idea, Lindie,” he said when she had. “Kids will work you, if you let them. And even if the candy really is for Gramma, kids also talk and you’ll have this whole place wanting you to do the same thing for them. Plus once word gets out that you’re a soft touch or kids think you’re gullible you could be in line for—”
She knew he was right. She’d been in this situation before too many times to count. And yet... “Clara is seven. She isn’t a mastermind manipulator. And all she wanted was one lousy chocolate-frosted graham cracker to take to her grandmother. My grandmother took me in—along with my brothers and sisters and cousins—when we didn’t have anywhere else to go, too. Granted, money wasn’t an issue, but I can’t imagine how awful I would have felt if she’d had to sacrifice something she wanted to feed us. I felt bad enough about other things, it would have been even worse to know that. It’s just a few stupid candy bars and I’ve already told Clara she can’t say anything about it. But even if she does and I end up having to buy them for the whole place, then fine. But today Clara needs to take her gramma a treat and I’m going to make sure she can. Shoot me.”
He shook that handsome head of his. Just when she thought he was going to tell her there were rules against this or something along those lines, he sighed and said, “I know the Murphy girls. I know that they’re good kids and that none of them is diabetic or has allergies—because if you don’t know those things, you could be causing real problems with treats like this. But because I know that with these particular kids it’s probably okay... Come on, I’ll play lookout while you give them to her. This once!”
The downside was just that it made her like him more, but Lindie only said, “Thanks,” and then took him up on his offer by leading him to the kitchen where Clara was watching for her.
The little girl ran up to her expectantly and the three of them went to where the backpacks were kept. While Sawyer blocked them from view with his back to them, keeping an eye out for witnesses, Lindie passed the candy bars to the child to stash, wondering how this would look on a security camera if there had been one.
But there was just no way she could have lived with herself if she’d refused the child.
When the deed was done and Clara left them to return to the kitchen, Lindie again watched Sawyer shake his head at her. But what he said was “I have another game waiting for me. Try not to get yourself into more trouble, huh?”
He left her standing there, still with no idea if he was trying to avoid her deliberately.
And with nothing else to do but go on with her kitchen duties, Lindie went back to clean up and finish the afternoon.
* * *
At six o’clock the community center was turned over to adult education, art and fitness classes.
Rather than shoving kids out the door at the stroke of six, one person from the daytime schedule remained with them in the lobby to keep an eye on the children waiting to be picked up.
That night Sawyer was the person.
While Lindie still wasn’t sure if he was open to it, his staying back finally gave her the chance to talk to him so she joined him.
“Get into any more mischief?” he asked as she sat with him on a bench.
“I don’t think so. I did talk to Clara about not even telling her sisters what I’d done, about just giving the loot over to her grandmother on the sly and letting her grandmother take it from there.”
“I hope that happens and Clara doesn’t just down five candy bars herself—on the sly.”
“I have faith in her,” Lindie said, knowing that too many times in the past she’d said that same thing only to discover that her faith in someone had been unfounded.
But hopefully that wouldn’t be the case here.
Sawyer nodded with a slow, we’ll-see kind of air to it as he kept those keen blue eyes on her for a lengthy moment.
“Stuff will get to you here, Lindie. You have to be careful. There are a lot of hardships, a lot of need, a lot of sad things going on. But you can’t just step in with a quick fix or a pocketful of candy bars every time. That can end up a disaster.”
“So you just ignore it?”
“No. You ask questions. You try to find out if there might be a bigger problem that could have a better all-around solution or help that doesn’t depend on you hitting the vending machine.”
Lindie shot him a mock frown. “I thought I was to blame for everything and was supposed to make things right.”
“Not like today,” he said.
“Instead I should have turned it over to the Candy Bar Outreach program?”
“Instead you ask if there were other things Gramma couldn’t afford at the grocery store—like milk or eggs or cereal or meat. You try to find out if there’s enough to eat in general—healthy stuff. You might have found out that it wasn’t only candy bars that Gramma couldn’t swing. And if that’s the case—or even if you just find out that things are a little too tight—you hand over the information to Marie who will talk to our social worker. Then the social worker will look into it to see if maybe food stamps would help ease some of the burden. What you heard today could have been a clue to a much bigger problem than Gramma not getting her sugar fix.”
“Oh,” Lindie said, knowing that once again she should have proceeded with some caution.
“It’s better if you don’t just rush in,” he said as if he’d heard her thoughts. “The social worker here is great. She’s amazingly diplomatic and she knows how to approach these things so nobody ends up feeling like their toes have been stepped on, or like their kids have aired dirty laundry. They can get the help they need and keep their pride intact.”
Lindie flinched. “You think I offended Gramma?”
“Again, I know these girls and I’ve met Gramma and she’s a really nice, down-to-earth, levelheaded lady, so I know this isn’t going to cause problems at home and she’ll probably just eat the candy. And I already talked to Marie, told her it might be good to have the social worker do an interview to see if Gramma needs some help with the expenses of four kids added to her budget. But from here on—”
“I’ll watch myself,” Lindie swore, thinking that this was the second time today she’d had to make that vow when it came to this place.
Sawyer accepted it easier than her grandmother had, though, because he seemed to relax his posture, stretching both arms along the top of the bench and looking at her as if he was getting his first glance of the day.
Then, in a more conversational vein, he said, “So, what is it you do for the family business if you aren’t their assassin—which, by the way, I’m still not quite convinced of since you’re hanging around. You aren’t just hoping for the chance to make toast of me tonight, after all, are you?”
“Is that why I wasn’t assigned the rec room? You fear for your life?” she countered.
His expression showed some confusion. “I don’t have anything to do with where volunteers are sent for the day.”
So, possibly, it hadn’t been a conspiracy?
He wasn’t trying to get away from her now—or even trying to persuade her to leave. Instead he was chatting with her. Lindie decided to give him the benefit of the doubt and drop her suspicions.
“I have a degree in communications.” She answered his question simply. “So I oversee our public relations. And sometimes, if it’s absolutely necessary for someone in the family to speak out, I’m our spokesperson.”
“How come I haven’t seen you before this, then? Because believe me, I would have remembered.”
The appreciation in the way he was looking at her convinced her that was true. But she tried not to take it to heart. “I’ve been our spokesperson several times in my eight years on the job but it’s always been to announce positive things, so they probably didn’t interest you enough to pay attention.”
He was paying attention to her now, though. Close attention. “I know Camden Inc. is family owned and operated,” he said. “So how does that work? What’s the hierarchy? Who’s the boss?”
“The titles are really just formalities. Camden Inc. was left to H.J.’s ten great-grandchildren. The way he set it up, we run it—we’re the board of directors—and we each have one vote in everything so no one carries more clout than anyone else.”
“And that works?” Sawyer asked skeptically.
“It does for us. To be honest, it’s the way we were brought up. Our grandmother—we call her GiGi—raised us after the plane crash that killed our grandfather and all of our parents. Ten kids is a lot to handle. But for it not to be constant war, we were taught a lot about cooperating with each other, about solving the problems and disagreements we had. I guess we learned really well how to get along and that crossed over into business.”
“And was Howard or Mitchum your father?”
That could have been a loaded question given the history between his father and Howard, so Lindie was glad to say “Mitchum was my dad. There are six of us. I’m a triplet and we’re the youngest. Along with our cousin Jani, who’s our same age.”
“You’re a triplet?”
“With my sister Livi and our brother Lang.”
“So Howard had—”
“Four kids. My cousins,” she said a bit defensively in case he was going to say anything against them or their father. Then to redirect the conversation, she took a different tack. “Even though there are so many of us, though, we’re easy to work with. Don’t worry that it would be complicated to take us on as a client.”
“Not going to happen,” he reminded her, though he seemed amused.
“I’m just saying that you’re welcome to talk to any vendor, any outsourcing, anyone we deal with, because you won’t hear complaints that they don’t know who they’re answering to or are ever pulled in different directions by us. We’re one solid unit, decisions are majority rule, and we all know how to cope with being on the losing side of a vote.”

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