A Baby in the Bargain

by Victoria Pade

  “Can I have this book?” Thorpe asked.

  “If it’s all right with your mom. Why don’t you show it to her, tell her it’s my treat. But don’t run.”

  Thorpe took the book and walked with purpose to the popcorn booth.

  After listening to her son for a moment, the councilwoman waved her approval and Gideon took his wallet from the back pocket of his jeans to put a dollar in the cash box.

  “Please don’t tell me that whoever it was you read that book to every night before bed was your last girlfriend,” Jani teased him, fishing for information in the process.

  As the day had progressed they’d both relaxed more than they had at any other time they’d been together. She’d come to see that Gideon Thatcher actually had a fun—and funny—side. A side that was a little ornery and mischievous and far more lighthearted than she would ever have imagined. A side that had allowed for joking and teasing. And maybe just a little flirting, too.

  It had made the time go faster—and far more pleasantly—for Jani, even though she did keep telling herself that flirting was probably not a good idea.

  Despite the fact that her comment just now had clearly been a joke, Gideon’s smile in response wasn’t as open or relaxed as what she’d come to expect from him today. Instead it was bittersweet, and Jani knew instantly that she’d somehow struck a nerve again.

  “I read the bear book over and over again to my daughter,” he said stiffly.

  Jani very nearly dropped the notebook where she’d just entered the title of the bear book and the amount Gideon had paid for it.

  His daughter?

  “You said you were divorced. I didn’t realize you had kids,” Jani said without any levity at all.

  “I don’t,” he answered in a clipped tone that left her more curious than she had been before.

  “You read the bear book to your daughter, but you don’t have kids...” Jani said, trying to figure out the riddle of that.

  But he acted as if he hadn’t heard her and instead went to straighten the table of books farthest away from her.

  Oh, this can’t be good, Jani thought.

  But before she knew how—or if—she should pursue the subject, she thought she heard her grandmother’s voice in the distance, saying, “There she is! Over at that one.”

  Turning away from the sight of Gideon’s broad back in the thick gray wool sweater he was wearing with jeans, Jani looked out into the crowd of shoppers milling around the booths. She sincerely hoped her ears had been deceiving her, but they hadn’t. GiGi was indeed making her way in Jani’s direction.

  She’d spoken to her grandmother after leaving Gideon the night before and told GiGi all she’d learned about the Thatchers. She’d also told her grandmother that she had agreed to work the flea market today. The elderly woman had given no clue that she might show up.

  But there she was suddenly, accompanied by the man who had become her constant companion since the two high school sweethearts had reconnected in October.

  “Hi, honey!” her grandmother greeted her when the two older people arrived at the book booth.

  At seventy-five years old, they were still both in robustly good health, despite carrying a few more pounds than they should have been on their short frames. GiGi’s blue eyes still sparkled with vigor, and she looked sporty with her salt-and-pepper hair curled around her face. And Jonah’s shock of thick white hair and ruddy cheeks gave him the overall appearance of a spry, beardless Santa.

  “GiGi,” Jani said. “I didn’t know you were coming.”

  She also didn’t know how her grandmother being there would go over with Gideon. Especially since his darker side had made a reappearance.

  Plus there was the noteworthy fact that in all the introductions he’d made today, he’d never once used Jani’s last name. No one was aware that she was a Camden, and Jani knew that was how he wanted it. That he didn’t want his name connected in any way with the Camden name, particularly in Lakeview.

  Jani had merely accepted that. But now here GiGi was, and Jani wondered if she would open a can of worms.

  “Jonah and I spent the day together and now we’re going back to Arden to have dinner at his house with Cade and Nati. Since we were driving right by here on the way, I asked him to stop,” GiGi explained.

  Cade had met his fiancée, Nati, on his mission to make amends for past Camden misdeeds. It’s what had brought GiGi back together with Jonah Morrison, who was Nati’s grandfather. Now GiGi was spending more time in Arden, a suburb west of both Denver and Lakeview where Jonah lived.

  “Hello! You must be Gideon Thatcher. I’m Jani’s grandmother,” GiGi called, looking beyond Jani to Gideon, who had not rushed to join them.

  Jani was glad her grandmother hadn’t uttered their last name but there was still a moment of extreme tension for her when she wasn’t sure what was going to happen, when she worried what Gideon’s reaction might be, when she just hoped he didn’t mistreat her grandmother because if he did, there would be no turning back as far as Jani was concerned.

  But after that moment of tension, Gideon joined them.

  “Hi,” he said, still sounding stiff but courteous nonetheless.

  “This is my friend Jonah Morrison.” GiGi went on with the introductions since Jani was too nervous to make them herself. “Jonah, this is Gideon Thatcher. And you can call me GiGi, Mr. Thatcher—everyone does.”

  “Gideon,” Gideon said perfunctorily, shaking Jonah’s hand.

  “My granddaughter speaks well of you, Gideon,” GiGi said then.

  “Really...” One of Gideon’s eyebrows arched dubiously as he angled a glance at Jani.

  “Well, you know, maybe not so much at first,” GiGi admitted with a laugh, causing Jani to grimace at the revelation. “I understand the start was a little rocky. But that doesn’t mean things have to stay that way, does it, Jonah?” She nudged her companion with an elbow and sent him a sly glance.

  “Nope. Sometimes the best things are at the end of rocky roads,” Jonah said with a clearly lascivious wink.

  Jani caught Gideon’s eye, made a face and shook her head helplessly.

  Something about her discomfort seemed to amuse him because he cracked the barest of smiles before GiGi drew his attention again.

  “Anyway, I just wanted to stop and tell you how happy I am that you’ve agreed to let us help to honor Franklin Thatcher,” GiGi confided to Gideon in a lowered voice that couldn’t be heard by anyone else. Jani realized that her grandmother had not lost sight of Gideon’s position in the community and was trying to stay anonymous.

  Gideon merely raised his chin in response to what her grandmother had said, and Jani saw a muscle flex in his jaw that let her know he wasn’t entirely happy with her grandmother’s endorsement.

  “I asked everyone to look over things today—we got your proposal and the cost estimates from Jani early this morning. We’re all fine with it and I wanted to give you the go-ahead. Do you like pot roast?”

  The speed with which GiGi had changed the subject startled both Jani and Gideon.

  “Do I like pot roast?” he repeated.

  “Pot roast, potatoes, carrots, little pearl onions, gravy, salad—the works.”

  “Yes...” Gideon said, obviously confused by the direction this had taken. But Jani was beginning to understand. And worry again.

  “I do Sunday dinner every week,” the enthusiastic GiGi announced. “Family. Friends. Family of friends. Friends of friends—it’s a friendly free-for-all and tomorrow we’re having pot roast. Come, I’ll feed you and give you a check so you can put the wheels into motion on this thing.”

  “Oh, I don’t—”

  “No, no, no, I never take no for an answer to my Sunday dinners. You’ll be Jani’s and my special guest, you’ll come away with a full stomach
and a check to make it worth your while.” She pointed an index finger at Jani. “Don’t let him out of it! I’ll see you both tomorrow. Good to meet you, Gideon.” And just like that, she and Jonah left, with Jonah merely waving his goodbye as he went.

  “Soo... That’s my grandmother—sometimes she can be a bit of a whirlwind...” Jani said softly as they watched the older couple disappear back into the crowd. “Thanks for being polite to her.” Although GiGi hadn’t given him much of an opportunity to get a word in edgewise.

  “Takes-no-prisoners kind of lady,” Gideon observed. But without animosity. Jani was thankful for that.

  “She’s a force to be reckoned with. But we all love her dearly and while you might not agree since she’s just steamrolled you, her strong will is generally a good thing.”

  His eyebrows arched again and Jani could see he likely didn’t agree.

  “Really,” she insisted. “If it hadn’t been for that strong will this family would have fallen apart, and I don’t know what might have happened to us all.”

  “Why is that? I haven’t kept up with the latest Camden news, but I thought H.J. was captain of the ship.”

  “H.J. was captain of the business ship. But when it comes to the family, GiGi has been at that helm. It was GiGi who even took care of H.J.—he went to live with her and my grandfather when he had his heart attack and decided to retire, when he really wasn’t doing well on his own after my great-grandmother died. And it was GiGi who was home taking care of him because he’d hurt his back when the plane crash took the rest of the family—”

  “The plane crash...” The words seemed to spark a memory for Gideon. “I was just a kid but I do remember that there was a plane crash—”

  “I’m sure your family was among those who thought it was comeuppance,” Jani said, imagining the Thatchers taking some satisfaction from tragedy befalling the Camdens.

  Gideon didn’t deny that. “My family was betting someone had blown the plane up—that’s why I remember it. It seemed like a movie or something bigger than life.”

  “There’s always been the suspicion that foul play was involved, yes,” Jani confirmed. “But there wasn’t enough wreckage left to prove it.”

  “And who all went down in the crash?”

  “Everyone but GiGi, H.J. and the ten of us grandchildren—”

  “I didn’t realize... So you were orphaned?” Gideon said with unmasked surprised.

  “And GiGi was widowed. My parents, my aunt and uncle, my grandfather were on the plane. It was a family vacation that GiGi and H.J. missed at the last minute because of H.J.’s hurt back.”

  Light seemed to dawn in Gideon. “That’s why you said something before about H.J. helping your grandmother raise you all—when you said that I wasn’t actually thinking that she raised you without your parents being around. I was just thinking that it was...I don’t know, a family affair to raise the kids, I guess. But you meant it literally—your grandmother and H.J. really did raise you?”

  “From the time I was six. The triplets—my cousins—were six, too. We’re the youngest. From there the ages varied up to eleven.”

  “She took on ten kids, eleven and under?”

  “Yep. With the help of H.J. and Margaret and Louie—Margaret and Louie have worked for GiGi forever, long enough to be part of the family. When the ten of us moved in, it was understood that we answered to Margaret and Louie every bit as much as we answered to GiGi and H.J.”

  “And you were just six... How was that for you? I don’t suppose you cared a lot about being a Camden or having the world at your disposal then. You were probably just a scared little kid...”

  “Yeah,” Jani said because it was true. “A lot of it is sort of a blur—I remember being taken to GiGi’s house with my brothers, that my cousins were all there, too. I remember that something didn’t feel right, even though we were all at GiGi’s often enough that it shouldn’t have raised any red flags. I remember H.J. sitting in a chair, looking really old and sick—”

  “His back was hurt,” Gideon pointed out.

  “But I’d seen him since his back had been hurt and this was different. Margaret and Louie were there, too, and Margaret stayed really close to GiGi—for support, I’m sure. But at the time I was wondering why Margaret and GiGi were holding hands. And I remember a box of tissues on the coffee table—we were all in the living room and there weren’t ever tissues in the living room...”

  Jani laughed a sad little laugh. “It’s weird the things that stick with you. Then GiGi told us what had happened. She had to explain to the triplets and me that it meant our mothers and fathers wouldn’t ever be coming home—”

  “At six you didn’t have much of a concept of death.”

  “None. GiGi sort of bucked up then, told us we were all moving there to live with her, that we were all still family and would go on as a family—with Margaret’s and Louie’s help. The funerals, the time after that isn’t clear in my mind. Then all of our stuff showed up at GiGi’s. I shared a room with my two girl cousins, Lindie and Livi, who are also two of the three triplets. Sharing a room was new for me, I’d had my own room until then. The seven boy cousins were split up into two other rooms, and that was it—we all lived together from them on.”

  “Happily?”

  “Just like any other family. At first things were a mess and I didn’t help matters.”

  “What did you do?”

  “Everyone would probably disagree with this, but it seemed to me that I had the most problems adjusting. Lindie and Livi had always had each other, had shared a room, and they were sort of their own little support system, while I was the third wheel. The boys—my brothers and my other cousins—were all...boys. They did a lot of keeping a stiff upper lip, not showing much, telling me not to be such a baby when I did get upset. So I felt kind of...alone, as strange as that may sound when I was living in a house with nine other kids and four adults.”

  “You were still just six years old and pretty much odd man out,” Gideon summarized sympathetically.

  “And dealing with the death of the two most important people in my life. I acted out—I was basically just a brat. I had nightmares and my screaming would wake up the whole house. And then there was the sleepwalking—”

  “You’re a sleepwalker?”

  “Not since I was about eight. But until then, going to sleep in my bed didn’t mean that was where they’d find me in the morning. Or where I’d wake up.”

  His smile was sad and sympathetic, but amused, too. “Where did you wake up?”

  “In bathtubs, under beds, in the attic, outside. The weirdest was in the clothes dryer—Margaret found me there one morning. It was an industrial-sized dryer and luckily I hadn’t closed the door or I guess I might have suffocated. Poor GiGi—that one really scared her. She didn’t know what to do with me. For everyone else, talking to a therapist was optional, but I had to. Which I hated—”

  “But did it help?”

  “I think it just helped GiGi feel like she was doing something when she didn’t know what else to do. And after the dryer incident she had an alarm put on our bedroom door. It only sounded in her room if the door was opened, so everyone else could sleep, but she’d know if I was on the move and coax me back to bed before I got into any trouble.”

  “Smart.”

  “Yep, GiGi is that, too,” Jani said proudly.

  “So when did everything calm down? Or did it?”

  “It did. Eventually it got as calm as a house with that many kids in it ever gets. But I think it took about two years. Until then the best I can say is that there were good days and bad. For all of us, really, even though I was mostly figuring it was me who had it bad.” Jani laughed at her own self-centeredness.

  “When did H.J. start impressing upon you all that you had a responsibility to take over
the company—when you were just a little kid or—?”

  “Pretty soon after we started living with him and GiGi. He had to come out of retirement and go back to running the business right after the plane crash—everyone who had been doing it was gone. But he was eighty-eight at the time.”

  “Wow, and he was still able to go back to work?”

  “His mind was sharp until a few months before he died, so that wasn’t a problem. Physically it was more difficult for him, so he established a group of people he trusted to do most of his legwork. He also enlisted those same people to take care of things if and when something happened to him, to mentor all of us until we could handle the business ourselves.”

  “Did you have a choice?”

  There was some criticism in Gideon’s question that H.J. didn’t deserve, and Jani defended her grandfather. “It wasn’t easy on him, either. He’d lost his only son, his two grandsons—not only his family, but the people he’d relied on in business, too. He was eighty-eight and he had to go back to work. GiGi and H.J. just did what they had to do for all of us. Maybe, because of how things ended up, we fell into more responsibilities than we might have had otherwise, but he did what he had to do.”

  Her voice had grown soft again as she finished, and when she glanced at Gideon, he was watching her with a new sort of expression on his face that made her think he might be torn, that maybe he was seeing something for the first time that he didn’t really want to see.

  “I suppose pain and suffering and loss are the same no matter who you are,” he said then.

  “It isn’t easy for anybody to send their family off on a vacation and just have them not come back.”

  “No, I suppose not,” he conceded.

  “But,” Jani continued, “we were also lucky to have each other. Lucky to have GiGi and a place to go. A place where we could all go together. And someone who was willing to take on ten of us at the same time she was dealing with her own grief and caring for her aging father-in-law.”