“I don’t know who he is. He was with him before, too,” Heddy said just as Carter announced loudly that he wanted “burberry” pie.
“You better get over there. Call me,” Clair said, sneaking another look at the man as she left.
“I wan burberry pie,” Carter repeated to Heddy as she went behind the counter to face Lang and the boy.
“I think that means blueberry,” Lang said uncertainly. “Let’s hope so, anyway. Give us a slice of the blueberry white chocolate mousse. And today I’ll have a slice of the plain New Jersey. Is that the basic, traditional, baked variety?”
“It is,” Heddy confirmed, taking out both as-yet-uncut cheesecakes to slice.
“Then will you come and sit with us?”
“Sure,” Heddy agreed, feeling a rush of butterflies to her stomach.
She wasn’t sure if the tension was coming from the fact that she was seriously considering taking the leap and accepting his business proposal, a leap that would not be well received by her family. Or if it was just having Lang Camden in her shop again—tall and lean with that dark, dark hair artfully tousled and that hint of scruffy whiskers on that sharp jawline.
He was as sexy in the flesh as he’d been in those unwelcome dreams she’d had of him.
He got Carter situated at the table nearest to the display case and Heddy brought over the two slices of cheesecake. Then she sat across from them and watched as the little boy, who had on jeans and a crew-necked sweater, grabbed the spoon and scooped up a bite too big for his mouth, opening wide in a feeble attempt to get it all in.
“Gooo,” he mumbled around what he had managed to accommodate.
Lang Camden used his own spoon for a bite of Carter’s cheesecake, confirmed the child’s opinion, then tried his own slice.
He let his eyes roll back into his handsome head and moaned. “And I thought the mousse ones were good! That’s the richest, creamiest... It’s terrific.”
Heddy smiled. “I’m glad.”
“So tell me you’re going to let me sell these,” he said then, without any more preamble.
Heddy didn’t answer him immediately.
She wasn’t sure about her grandfather but she knew that her mother would have a fit if she said yes to going into business with the Camdens in any way.
But talking to Clair had confirmed what Heddy had known herself—this business was failing fast. She had to make a living. And she couldn’t return to nursing to do it. She just couldn’t. So where did that leave her?
“My recipes would have to stay a closely guarded secret,” she said as if in challenge.
But Lang Camden was unruffled by that, shrugging one broad shoulder. “Sure. We want the finished product, everything else is entirely up to you. But I can help you work out a system where you’re the only one who knows the exact ingredients or techniques or whatever it is that you feel will protect your secrets.”
The man exuded strength so the idea that he could provide whatever protection she asked for didn’t seem beyond his capabilities. Of course he was part of a family she worried she needed protection from, but as long as he wasn’t asking to have any knowledge or access to her recipes she felt marginally reassured.
“I don’t have any money I can invest in this, and I can’t—and won’t—borrow or go into debt,” she warned.
“The money will all come as a grant, free and clear.”
“And before I sign anything, my cousin and her husband, who’s a lawyer, will have to see it.”
“I’m glad you have people you can trust on your side to put your mind to rest. Everything will be up-front and on paper, and we don’t have any problem with you showing it to anyone.”
Despite his assurances, Heddy was still incredibly nervous about this. She recognized that due to her own family’s history with the Camdens, it probably wasn’t possible not to worry.
But the bottom line was that she didn’t feel as if she had another option.
So she heard herself say a very uncertain, “Okay.”
But she uttered the word at the exact moment that Carter’s lack of coordination with the spoon caused him to shoot a chunk of cheesecake at Lang Camden, splattering it on the front of his well-tailored suit.
“Oh geez, Carter, I just got this back from the cleaner’s,” Lang complained as he wiped the cheesecake from his lapel with a napkin.
As he focused on that, he missed the fact that Carter, thinking the incident was hilarious, was about to purposely shoot a second glob at him.
Heddy didn’t want to get involved but it was clear that disaster was in the offing and if she didn’t stop it, no one would.
She reached across the table and took the spoon a split second before Carter could accomplish the next lob. “Uh-uh, we don’t throw food,” she said firmly.
“Wan-oo,” Carter insisted.
“No,” Heddy informed him as Lang finally realized what she’d saved him from.
“Hey! No!” he decreed.
“Wan-oo!” Carter responded, plunging a hand into the cheesecake, obviously with every intention of throwing it since Heddy still had his spoon.
Lang grabbed his wrist just in time, shoved the cheesecake plate out of the way and turned his efforts to cleaning Carter’s hand rather than his suit coat while Carter launched into a classic terrible-two screaming fit demanding the return of his cheesecake.
Lang apologized over the din.
Heddy got up, went behind her counter, cut a second slice of the blueberry cheesecake and took it back to the table. She set it far out of Carter’s reach but because her movements had sparked his curiosity and stopped his screams, she said, “If you can eat it nicely, you can have this other piece.”
“Nicey,” Carter begrudgingly agreed.
When his hand was clean Heddy slid him the new slice, seeing the toddler rub his eye with his other hand before he dug into the cheesecake.
“Not a good nap today?” Heddy guessed.
“Yeah. No. None at all. I try to get him to take one if I can, but it doesn’t usually work out.”
“Oh, kids this age have to have a nap,” Heddy said. “They need one every day. They need the rest and they need the schedule, the routine...”
She’d said too much. It wasn’t her place. She had no idea under what circumstances Lang Camden was caring for this child, so she certainly shouldn’t be counseling or criticizing.
But he didn’t seem to take offense. He just seemed out of his element. Which was strange for someone who seemed so in control otherwise.
“Yeah, there’s a lot I have to work out,” he said. “I’m learning on the job.”
That still didn’t tell Heddy who Lang and Carter were to each other and why the man was even attempting to take care of the toddler.
But he didn’t satisfy her curiosity. Instead he merely said, “I should probably warn you that until I can get this kid thing squared away and find some help, we’re a package deal. He’ll be tagging along on everything you and I will need to do.”
The thought of seeing the little boy every time she had anything to do with Lang Camden was so painful that Heddy was tempted to say no to the business proposition altogether.
“A package deal?” she queried.
“Where I am, he is these days,” Lang answered, pinning her once more with those eyes that seemed like the bluest eyes in the world before he returned to talking business. “Was that an okay I heard from you just before the cheesecake attack?”
Heddy offered herself the opportunity to deny it, to not go through with this, after all.
But nothing in her situation had changed in the past several minutes so she said another less-than-enthusiastic, “Yeah.”
“Great! You won’t be sorry.”
Heddy could only hope that proved
true.
“So what now?” she asked.
“I’ll leave it up to you when to formally close your doors, but my advice is to do it right away. We’ll be busy getting this ball rolling so you won’t really have time to be here to run this place.”
And there was no sense spending any more money on a sinking ship, Heddy thought, assuming he was also thinking that but was being kind enough not to say it.
“I’ll have a sign made that announces that your cheesecakes will soon be available at Camden Superstores. You can put it out front. It’ll be our first advertisement and then any of your regular customers will know where to look for them in the future.”
Heddy nodded, feeling sad at the thought of closing the shop. Then she realized that she felt a little relieved, too, especially knowing that she had something else to move on to.
“For right now,” he continued, “let me work up a game plan to get things going the quickest way possible, so you won’t have too much downtime between the shop and the new production.”
“That would be good,” Heddy said, thinking of her already stressed finances.
“I’ll do that tonight and tomorrow, then how about if you do a tasting for me tomorrow night? Give me a chance to have a bite of most of the flavors you make—not necessarily the seasonals, but the everyday varieties. We won’t want to start out with too many choices. We’ll want to introduce some basics, then add to them, maybe do weekly or monthly specials. But let me try nearly everything to see what we want to launch with. And while I’m gorging on cheesecake we’ll go over the game plan I come up with between now and then.”
“And paperwork...” Heddy said, still feeling insecure about this whole thing.
“I’ll have that drawn up, too. Though I won’t have that ready for a couple of days. I’ll lay out the grant portion of the deal, and also our standard contract for you to sell cheesecakes to Camden Inc. as soon as you’re in production.”
“Okay,” Heddy repeated, feeling as out of her element in this as he seemed to be with Carter.
Carter, who had finished the second slice of cheesecake and was now nodding off in his chair.
Lang noticed him at the same time Heddy did and used another napkin to wipe the drowsy child’s face and hands as he said in a quieter tone, “Looks like you’re right. He’s tired. I’ll get him out of here and maybe he’ll snooze a little in the car.”
The mother in Heddy wanted to reiterate that Carter needed more than a snooze in the car, but she fought the urge the same way she fought not to like his more intimate tone of voice.
Carter didn’t rally much even through his face and hand cleaning. So when the big man stood, he picked up the child and slung him onto one hip.
Sound asleep, Carter’s head dropped to Lang’s shoulder.
And there was something much too appealing in the sight of them together like that.
Heddy averted her eyes and busied herself gathering dishes.
But then Lang said, “I’m sorry I can’t make it tomorrow during business hours. Is it all right that we do the tasting in the evening?”
It seemed rude not to look at him again, not to go with him to the door, so Heddy did. “It’s fine. My evenings are not jam-packed. And it will give me the chance during the day to make a few more cheesecake variations for you to taste.”
“What time works for you?” he asked, pushing the door open with the same arm that was holding Carter.
“Any time. Work around Carter’s dinner. And bedtime...” She was not only thinking of the little boy but doing some fishing as she wondered if Lang had responsibility for the child in the evenings, too.
“Let’s say six-thirty. I can usually get him some dinner by then and we should have a pretty decent couple of hours before I’ll need to get him home to bed.”
So he did have the child round-the-clock.
“Six-thirty is fine.”
“I guess we’re in business,” he concluded, holding out his hand for her to shake.
Heddy took it and was instantly more aware than she wanted to be of every sensation of that handshake—of the pure size of his big, masculine hand. Of the warmth and power. Of the confidence.
Of how much she liked the feel of his skin against hers...
The handshake that sealed their business deal ended, and she swallowed back the very unbusinesslike feelings it had prompted in her.
“Six-thirty,” she repeated in a voice softer than she wanted it to be.
“Right,” he confirmed. “Tomorrow night. See you then.”
Heddy merely nodded and watched Lang carry the sleeping child out to his SUV.
As she did, devouring the view, her gaze riveted to the man she was about to see much more of, she realized that somewhere deep down, on a level that was purely instinctive and primitive and absolutely out of her control, she might be experiencing an attraction to him.
An attraction she didn’t want to have.
An attraction she couldn’t have, especially not now that she was in the same position with him that her mother had been with his father once upon a time.
Then, as if to save her from herself, her mind flashed her a painful memory.
A memory of watching Daniel carry Tina the same way Lang Camden was carrying Carter.
That helped offset the attraction.
At least a little anyway.
Chapter Three
“Don’t do this, Heddy! You don’t know what you’re getting into. The Camdens will chew you up and spit you out, just like they did your grandfather and me. Especially me!”
“This ship is already down, Mom. I don’t have anything else to lose,” Heddy told her mother on Thursday afternoon. As expected, Kitty Hanrahan was horrified by the thought of the venture with the Camdens.
“I talked to Grandpa on the phone this morning and told him,” Heddy went on as she put together some of the cheesecakes she wanted Lang Camden to taste in flavors that she didn’t already have made or frozen.
Her mother stood nearby watching. “Your grandfather doesn’t blame the Camdens the way I do.”
“He said it was his own fault for getting in deeper than he should have, for not anticipating that he would need to expand to meet demand.”
“And is he forgetting that when we asked for help expanding after the Camdens led us to believe they would give it, they ended up refusing and still took their business away and left us with nothing?”
Heddy had heard it all before and knew that her mother and her grandfather didn’t completely agree. But she chose not to argue. Instead, she laid out for her mother why she hoped this was a safer situation.
“The grant money and Lang Camden’s expertise will put me in a position to meet demand from the start,” she noted. “And if my cheesecakes aren’t a success at the Camden stores, I’ll still be the owner of the facility and the equipment, so I’ll have mass-production capabilities that I don’t have now. That will open other avenues I can pursue if I end up needing to.”
“Unless the Camdens blacklist you so no one else will ever touch your cheesecakes. You don’t know what you’re dealing with. I know how Camden men operate—they’re good-looking and they reek of charisma, and before you know what’s hit you, you’re sucked in and then left in their dust.”
“I know that’s what happened to you—”
“And why Mitchum Camden refused us any help to expand to meet the demands of his stores. When he was finished with me he wanted to forget I existed and the best way to do that was to take his business elsewhere. He didn’t care that he was taking away our livelihood.”
Heddy didn’t know if that was true or not but she did know that that was how her mother had always interpreted what had happened. And even though Heddy’s grandfather tried to take the blame for their business failure
, he also never explicitly denied Kitty’s claims, which lent some credence to them.
Still...
“Grandpa said—and I agree—that I can learn from the past mistakes,” Heddy insisted. “And you’ve just made a good point. I’ll make sure that Clark puts some sort of contingency or gag order in the contract I sign with the Camdens so that they can’t blacklist me or bad-mouth me in any way if things don’t work out with them. And Lang Camden has already offered to help me branch into other areas if the cheesecakes don’t do well in his stores.”
“Don’t believe what they say,” her mother warned ominously. “Mitchum Camden made me plenty of promises that he didn’t keep. Like the engagement ring that ended up on someone else’s finger.”
“I know,” Heddy said sympathetically. “But for me this will be strictly business. I’ll make sure everything is on paper, that there aren’t any loopholes, and that I’m protected in every way possible. And you don’t need to worry about me getting personally involved because that’s not going to happen, not with a Camden or any other man. It can’t. One man, one marriage, that was it for me—you know that.”
“Oh, Heddy...” Her mother’s tone was so sad that Heddy knew she’d switched gears even before she said, “I don’t want you to go anywhere near a Camden, but I wish you would get involved with someone again. Five years is a long time—long enough to grieve. I don’t want to see you alone forever.”
“I’m okay,” Heddy assured her. “I’m not grieving anymore. Honestly. And I’m happy enough.” As happy as she could be now and could hope to be later. “But Daniel was my one-and-only and I can’t even imagine myself with anyone else. Or having any more kids—”
“You would have had at least one more baby if what happened hadn’t happened,” her mother pointed out.
“But now every kid makes me think of Tina—” Ache for Tina... “—and the only way to avoid that is to stay away from kids. Another baby would have been a brother or a sister for Tina. It would have made a full, complete family. Now having another child would be like I was trying to replace Tina somehow. As if that could ever be done. So no, the whole marriage and kids thing is just a part of life that’s over for me. And I’m okay with it. Daniel was my husband. Tina was my little girl. No one else can ever fill those slots.”
It's a Boy! Page 4
