A Baby in the Bargain

by Victoria Pade

  She honestly thought it was just a matter of time.

  Time that she didn’t have to spend...

  But maybe if she could talk to him, reason with him—

  Fix him?

  Okay, the voice of caution was a little louder now. Probably because yes, what she was considering did constitute trying to fix something the way she’d mistakenly thought she could fix Reggie. But it wasn’t Gideon she was trying to fix—there wasn’t a single thing wrong with him. She needed to fix the problems that stood in the way of having what she wanted with him.

  And she knew that if she didn’t make some effort to solve these particular problems, she wasn’t going to get what she wanted. She was just going to end up at the doctor’s office again tomorrow, looking through profiles of strangers to father the baby she would have without Gideon.

  And raise without Gideon...

  So she thought that she had to at least go to him and lay her cards on the table.

  She had to take the risk.

  She had to because she could see so clearly what a great life she and Gideon could have together.

  Because she could see so clearly what beautiful kids they could have together.

  Because those were the kids she wanted and the way she wanted to have them—sharing the whole experience with Gideon.

  And because she couldn’t let it all slip through her fingers without taking that one last chance.

  * * *

  “Jani?”

  Gideon was stunned to arrive at his loft at eight o’clock Thursday evening and find Jani sitting on the corridor floor outside his door, sound asleep.

  Apparently his voice wasn’t loud enough to wake her because she was still out like a light.

  For a moment he stood there above her, looking at her.

  God, she was beautiful!

  Dark hair fell around the alabaster skin of a face that a master’s hand could have sculpted. She’d taken off her coat, and the navy blue knit dress she was wearing hugged every curve of the tight little body that he just wanted his hands all over again the way they’d been last night and this morning. Her coat was draped across her lap but her legs were still visible, and there was no doubt about it—they were the best legs he’d ever seen, long and lean and shapely, with thin ankles above the four-inch heels that no woman he’d ever known could wear as well as Jani.

  And after a day spent in utter confusion in regards to her, he just wanted to scoop her up, take her to his bed and let tonight be a repeat of last night.

  But the confusion had been just torturous enough to keep him from doing that. Instead he hunkered down on his heels beside her, brushed her hair away from her delicately featured face and said again, more loudly, more firmly, “Jani?”

  It registered this time. She jolted slightly, blinked her eyes and sat up straight.

  Gideon could tell by the disorientation in her gorgeous blue eyes that she didn’t at first know where she was. But after a moment of glancing around, her gaze ended up on him and she smiled that lazy smile he’d seen a couple of times last night—that lazy smile that was a vision of sensuality and enough to turn him on all by itself.

  But he fought the reaction and merely gave her a tentative smile in return. “Hi,” he said in a tone that asked why she was there even though he was so glad she was he didn’t care why.

  “What time is it?” she asked.

  “Eight.”

  “You worked late...”

  “I got a late start,” he reminded her, unable to keep from grinning at the thought of why he hadn’t made it to the office when he should have.

  “Me, too,” she said with the same kind of grin. “But I was so scattered that I couldn’t get anything done anyway, so I left when I usually do.”

  Gideon stood back up, bent over to take her hand and helped her to her feet.

  He tried not to notice how soft her skin was, how small and fragile her hand felt in his, how much he just liked touching her. But he couldn’t help it.

  As soon as she was steady on her high heels, he let go of her and turned to unlock the door.

  “Scattered, huh?” he said as he ushered her into the loft.

  Even though he’d spent the day conflicted over what they’d already done, even though he knew he shouldn’t do it again, he was already trying to find a way to give himself permission for yet another night with her.

  But he wasn’t so sure that was a possibility when she said, “I just couldn’t get into work. I did a lot of thinking—about you and me—and I had to talk to you.”

  He took off his overcoat and tossed it across the back of one of the side chairs. Then he hooked a leg over the corner of the sofa back and propped himself there. It was intended to appear nonchalant but the truth was he was anchoring himself to keep from going to Jani and kissing her.

  She was still standing there, barely inside the door he’d closed behind them. He could see that she was keeping her distance and he didn’t think that boded well for anything.

  “Okay. What do you want to talk about?” he asked.

  “I...” she began, but she stalled, seemed to struggle for the words, then started again, “Last night was a big deal for me. Everything with you has been a big deal for me.”

  Gideon wasn’t sure what that meant. But then she went on to tell him. To talk about having feelings for him. About wanting to have a future with him. About wanting his babies...

  “I know how you feel,” she said when she’d gotten all of it out. Gideon figured that his expression probably showed the alarm that was going off inside him.

  But still she took one step closer, as if that didn’t scare her off.

  “I know you might think of yourself as a traitor for having anything to do with me or any Camden,” she went on. “And I know the agony of losing that little girl you thought of as your daughter is still fresh enough for you to recoil at the thought of having kids. But if you could just get past it all and focus on what we have together... I just think that it’s too good to let anything stand in our way.”

  “Jani—”

  “I know,” she cut him short. “It was kind of off-putting for you to wake up this morning in bed with a Camden—”

  He’d said it jokingly. But the joke hadn’t completely concealed that there had been a certain amount of guilt, too.

  “—I know that this whole thing is complicated,” she continued. “I know the last thing you ever thought you’d do is become part of the Camden family. The last thing you ever wanted to do. And I can’t say I’ll ever renounce being a Camden, turn my back on my family or anything like that. I know what I’m asking is for you to—”

  “Come over to the dark side?” he said facetiously.

  Jani shrugged. “Yes. I know that’s how you’ve always thought of us. But you’ve seen for yourself who we are now. You know we hate what happened to your family because of H.J., and that we just want to make it up to you. That we’re trying—GiGi even wants me to offer the Thatcher Group the chance to build every Camden Superstore from here on, if you’re interested...Not that that’s what I came to talk to you about tonight.”

  “You came to talk to me about things bigger than you think,” he said. Because while he felt an urge to just take her in his arms and say yes to anything she wanted, there was a whole lot of other baggage dragging him down and stopping him.

  “I don’t believe that,” she insisted. “No Camdens, no kids—I know you think those are some kind of carved-in-stone, irrefutable laws that there’s no turning back from. But I think they’re really something else. I think they’re just your response to wounds—old ones and new ones. Wounds that can be healed. You said last night that you felt like a weight had been lifted off you because I set the record straight about your great-grandfather—that says to me that you’
re beginning to heal. Isn’t that possible?”

  “It helped,” Gideon acknowledged because he wasn’t going to withhold credit where credit was due.

  “And now there will be the community center in Franklin Thatcher’s name. Instead of looking at yourself as some kind of traitor, couldn’t you look at it all and know that you’re the Thatcher who got restitution for your family—”

  “Restitution?” Gideon couldn’t help scoffing at that. “Nothing that happens now makes anything up to my great-grandfather or my grandfather or my father. They still lived the lives they led because of what happened, Jani—”

  “But do you owe them your life because of it? Can’t you put the past behind you?”

  “I don’t know about that,” Gideon answered her honestly.

  “Or maybe you could just be the one to forgive us on their behalf,” she suggested. “Maybe Franklin Thatcher didn’t come to it, maybe your grandfather and your father didn’t come to it, but that doesn’t mean you can’t come to it...”

  “The wrongs just aren’t mine to forgive,” he said because that was what he believed.

  “But you could forgive us for what you suffered in the fallout. You could choose to put the past behind you,” she repeated so earnestly it nearly broke his heart.

  But it didn’t change things. Even if she’d taken some of the heaviness out of the old baggage, he still couldn’t imagine himself going over so completely to the enemy camp. Plus there was the even bigger issue of kids.

  And that issue was all his own.

  As if she could read his mind, she said, “And when it comes to kids... I know—I saw in you—how awful it was for you to lose that little girl. I know it’s still fresh to you—if you’ve only been in this place for six months, it couldn’t have been long before that—”

  “It’s been about a year.”

  “Still, that’s not that long to get completely over something so painful, and I understand that you want to make sure you never go through anything like that again. But—”

  She went on to talk about how good he was with kids, about a whole lot of other things that he just didn’t hear because he was suddenly lost in thoughts of Jillie, in recalling the pain, the frustration, the utter helplessness he’d felt when there was nothing he could do to stop Shelly from taking her away.

  He was thinking about the empty days and nights after that.

  About all the times when he’d thought he could still hear Jillie playing in the next room only to feel like he’d been hit with a baseball bat when he realized that it wasn’t true.

  About the worry he still had every day if she was well or being taken care of the way she should be, if she was happy or sad. If she cried for him or needed him, and he wasn’t there...

  While Jani was talking about how she knew he would want kids again, he was thinking about having a child who was half Camden. About how even though that child might be half his—unlike Jillie—the power and money and prestige and status of the Camdens could give Jani the upper hand and almost as strong a position from which to play keep-away with a child as Shelly had had with Jillie.

  And one way or another, he’d still lose.

  It just wasn’t a position he could put himself in again...

  “Stop, Jani. Stop,” he heard himself say before she went on any longer.

  “No, don’t tell me to stop,” she protested.

  “If you think this isn’t ripping me apart, you’re wrong,” he heard himself say, the emotions hitting the surface and sending the words out before he even knew he was going to say them. “But I can’t, Jani. Even if we could take away my family’s history with the Camdens, I won’t ever—ever—have kids. And that’s a deal-breaker for you.”

  She did stop then. Totally. She just stood there looking at him. She was so beautiful he could hardly believe it, and he could see that he’d crushed her. But that she was trying not to show it.

  “Am I just being a dumb girl and thinking that there was more here than there actually was?” she asked.

  Now he thought that he knew what she was thinking.

  “No,” he said without hesitation. “There’s plenty here. And I didn’t sleep with you to get even or something truly lowlife like that. I have the same feelings about you that you said you have about me—I’m...I’m crazy about you. And even right at this minute keeping my hands off you is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. But—”

  “But nothing. Everything else is nothing compared to that,” she insisted.

  “Maybe it’s nothing to you, but it’s not nothing to me,” he said, shaking his head. His voice was a deep, sad rumble but that was the only way he could get the words out. “No Camdens. No kids. You were right about both of those things. Especially about the no kids part—”

  “Especially no Camden kids,” she said, her voice cracking.

  Gideon didn’t respond because yes, at that moment he really was thinking especially no Camden kids. But to confirm it was a blow he didn’t want to strike.

  Even so he saw her eyes well up. But she didn’t let the tears fall. She was still facing him with her head high, her back straight, and he had the impression that maintaining her composure was taking all the strength she could muster.

  He didn’t know what else to say so he seized the subject of business and said, “I’ll understand if you want to pull the funding for the community center. And I’ll return your grandmother’s check.”

  She shook her head. “That’s separate from any of this. It’s what we all want to do. For Franklin Thatcher. For Lakeview.” She swallowed hard. “I’ll just arrange for you to work from here on with someone else in the family. Cade, maybe...”

  She’d been holding her coat in front of her and now she put it on, not looking at him while she did.

  Then she turned toward the door and paused.

  With her hand on the knob, facing away from him, she said with the tears in her throat now, “It’s a mistake, you know? To wrap yourself in hurts and wounds and grudges and all of that? It might keep you safe but it isn’t going to be there to open packages with you on Christmas mornings, or to draw you silly pictures to put on the fridge, or to fill your life. I’ll risk that there might be a downside in order to have the up...” She opened his door, walked out and closed it behind her.

  Leaving Gideon with a wave of pain that reminded him much too much of the day he watched Shelly take Jillie away...

  Chapter Eleven

  “So...Monday is my awards lunch—I just set it up to have barbecue brought in for everybody,” Gideon informed Jack when he stopped by his friend’s office on his way out for the weekend.

  “Your awards lunch?” Jack repeated, confused.

  “Yeah, you know, for being the world’s biggest jerk this whole last week.”

  Jack laughed. Gideon appreciated that his friend could still find some humor in the way things had been around the office since Jani had left his apartment eight days ago. Gideon hadn’t intended to take out his rotten mood on anyone else but it had still spilled over into work and he wouldn’t have blamed Jack—or anyone else at the Thatcher Group—for telling him where he could stick his consolation lunch.

  “Are you doing any better?” There was sympathy in Jack’s question.

  “No. But that tirade I threw over files that weren’t lost because they were right there on my desk, in front of my face, was enough. I just sent out a blanket apology email to everybody with the invitation to lunch, and I swear when I come back on Monday, I’ll keep my lousy frame of mind to myself.”

  “Either that or you might have a mutiny on your hands,” Jack joked.

  “I know, I know—I’ve been an ass.”

  “Remind you of any other time?” Jack asked, grabbing his coat and joining Gideon to head out of the building for the w
eekend.

  “Yeah, I’m also aware that I was not easy to work with when Shelly took Jillie away.”

  “I have to drive to Colorado Springs to pick up Sammy or I’d take you to a bar, buy you a few drinks and then tell you what I think instead of just crying in my beer right along with you—like I did last weekend. But I can’t draw this out so I’m going to cut to the chase. When Shelly went nuts enough to opt out of your marriage and take Jillie away, you didn’t have any choice. But now? You did this to yourself, buddy. You could have Jani but you turned her down. And even though I know your reasons, it seems to me you ought to take another look at them because in order to avoid misery, you’ve walked headlong into it.”

  Gideon would have liked to argue, but not only did his friend have to go, Jack was right. “Yeah. I know that, too,” he grumbled.

  “No Camdens. No kids. Those are the rules. I got it. But for what it’s worth? Let go of ’em both and seize the day—that’s my advice.”

  “Advice you’d be able to take?”

  Jack laughed. “Yeah, I’m a little too raw to take it right now. But I’m hoping for the best—that I’ll get over this and go on to something better, something that does work. Maybe that’s what you’ve stumbled into. And all you have to do is say yes to it.”

  Gideon didn’t respond in any way to that. Instead he said, “Drive safe to the Springs—in case of mutiny I might need you to defend me.”

  “I’ve always got your back,” Jack assured before they went their separate ways.

  It was Friday night. The second Friday night since he’d parted with Jani. At least last Friday night he and Jack had gone out, and Jack had commiserated with him. Then on Saturday and Sunday they’d played racquetball and basketball and indoor tennis. They’d done more bar-hopping on Saturday night, and taken in a movie on Sunday night—all to exhaust and distract him for the weekend.

  But this weekend Jack had his son.

  Gideon was on his own.

  After what easily qualified as one of the worst weeks of his life, he was now facing two days with nothing but his own company and unbearable bad spirits.