“Ah, I see. And when you get married?”
“I already did that and stayed Hanrahan,” Heddy said softly. And Tina had been Tina Hanrahan, the hope being that there would be a son who could take the Doyle name. All to make Heddy’s grandfather feel as if his name still had a chance to survive. Which, now, it wouldn’t...
“You were married?” Lang asked cautiously.
But that wasn’t something she was ready to talk about with him. “I thought you wanted to know about the Hanrahans.”
The dishes were all in the dishwasher by then and after tidying up the rest of the kitchen, Heddy had come to stand in the bend behind the L-shaped counter. She was leaning against the edge, facing Lang, who raised his chin as if to confirm that he got the message that she didn’t want to talk about her marriage.
“Okay, the Hanrahans.”
“There are my grandparents—still living. My parents. Me. And my older brother, Max. He’s a dentist in New Mexico.”
“So your parents are still happily married?” Lang asked, making her wonder again if he was aware of the romance between his father and Kitty and was fishing for information about Kitty.
“They are. Are yours?”
“My parents died in a plane crash when I was six. Along with my aunt and uncle, and my grandfather.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know that,” Heddy said somberly. Her entire life she’d heard her mother rail against the Camdens and say what a dirty dog Mitchum Camden was in particular, leaving out no detail of her breakup with Mitchum. But beyond that, Heddy knew nothing about the Camdens.
“That’s why you went to live with your grandmother when you were six?” she asked.
“Me, my sisters—we’re triplets—and our three brothers and four cousins. Yep, after the plane crash GiGi took us all on.”
“I knew you were a big family but I had no idea...”
“Yeah. Ten grandchildren, and GiGi raised us. So how could I be scared of one kid when she took on that many?” He paused a moment before changing the subject. “Your grandparents are both still alive, too. Well and happy and together?”
“They are.”
“So after the bakery, your mom and your grandfather came out okay?”
“Well, eventually,” Heddy said, unwilling to gloss over the hardships she knew her mother and grandfather had suffered.
“But not right away?” Lang asked as if he needed to know but didn’t really want to.
“At first they tried hard to restart the bakery,” Heddy said. “To go back to the way it was before their involvement with the Camden stores. There was a fair share of local restaurants and delis that they’d supplied with bread and rolls, and they’d had a decent walk-in business. But the restaurants and delis all had different suppliers by then and wouldn’t switch back.”
“What about different restaurants and delis?”
“There’d been some bad word of mouth from their old customers, who were mad when they’d bailed on them to bake only for the Camdens. My grandfather tried to get some new clients—and he got a few—but mainly he’d lost trust among the small businesses. They viewed him and my mom as traitors who’d sold out and gotten what they’d deserved when the Camden stores dumped them. They just ran into too many people who thought it was only a matter of time until they hooked another big fish and cut bait on the little guys again.”
“And the little guys didn’t want to be left in the lurch. They wanted a supplier they knew would be there for them.”
“Exactly. Hanrahans had lost any credibility with the small business owners and there was no getting it back.”
“And the walk-in business?”
“They’d moved from a location with a good storefront to a larger place in a more industrial area, because they didn’t need a storefront. When Camdens pulled their business Grandpa didn’t have the money to relocate again and there really wasn’t any walk-in business where they were. They sent out fliers. They ran ads. They gave out coupons, put up signs... But nothing brought people out of their way. They just didn’t have the business to keep going, so about a year after the split with the Camdens, they had to close up shop.”
“And when they did?” Lang asked quietly.
“More rough times.”
“Financially?”
“Sure. But in other ways, too.”
“‘Other ways’?” Lang repeated to prompt her to go on.
Her mother had been emotionally miserable for a long while but Heddy didn’t want to talk about that. Instead she only told him about the business portion. “Mom and Grandpa had both had such high hopes. When the rug was pulled out from under them, it was all just...I don’t know, so discouraging and depressing and demoralizing for them both. So painful...”
“But they got other jobs,” Lang said hopefully, obviously not eager to hear the downside.
But he’d asked and there had been downsides. And while she wasn’t yet ready to tell him about the romance between his father and her mother if it was something he was unaware of, she wasn’t going to sugarcoat the rest.
“My mom was younger, she went on to a couple of jobs she hated—office work mainly—until she found something else for herself. But the real financial loss was my grandfather’s and he felt like a complete failure. He bottomed out for a while—or so I’ve been told. I wasn’t born then and he doesn’t like to talk about it.”
“What have you been told?”
“That he felt responsible. He felt as if he’d put my mom in harm’s way, as if he’d hurt her. He had some debilitating guilt. He’s usually an even-tempered, upbeat guy—I’ve never known him to be any other way. But I guess he went into a really deep funk. He couldn’t get a job. He’d sunk everything he had into trying to restart the bakery—including taking a second mortgage on his house, so he nearly lost that.”
Lang’s eyebrows arched over those incredible blue eyes. “Did he lose his house?”
“It was headed to foreclosure but they pulled it out in the end. Only not before my grandmother left him.”
“Oh geez, it gets worse....”
“My grandmother leaving him was a rude awakening for my grandfather. He pulled himself together, got a job making bread for a big grocery store chain, then talked my grandmother into coming back to him and managed to save the house. He even says that some good came from all the bad.”
“How so?”
“Working for a big chain gave him health insurance that he didn’t have before. So when my grandmother needed spinal surgery a year later, she could have the medical care he wouldn’t have been able to afford before.”
“I guess that is some good. How does your grandfather feel about the grant and your new arrangement selling to Camden Superstores? Is he upset about it?”
Lang’s worried expression showed what he expected that answer to be, and Heddy had the urge to smooth her fingertips across his lined brow, to ease away some of the stress she’d put there.
But merely having the urge shocked her and she certainly wasn’t going to give in to it.
Besides, she reasoned, she was only telling him the truth. And the answer to that question wasn’t what he thought it was going to be. “Actually, my grandfather isn’t against it,” she told him. “He wants me to be careful, but he thinks that if I don’t make the mistakes he made, it could work out. He’s wondering if this is guilt-money, though.”
“My family is glad to have a second chance to make things work,” Lang said without admitting to anything else. Then, looking into her eyes more intently than he had been, he added, “I’m glad to have the chance to make this work for you. I’m just hoping the past can be the past.”
“I’m not carrying a grudge, if that’s what you’re thinking. And I’m grateful for the opportunity your grant is giving me.”
“This really can be a fresh start then?”
“I hope so.”
“I know I’ll do my damnedest,” he promised. Then he smiled a cocky smile and said, “After all, you are the premier cheesecake-maker.”
“Premier... Wow.” Heddy appreciated his attempt to lighten the tone.
“Superior, unequaled, incomparable, foremost and best.” He went on teasing her with accolades while his blue eyes stayed steady and warm on her.
“You realize that we haven’t set the price for them yet, don’t you,” she goaded.
He grinned. “We’d better just stick with premier then.”
His gaze stayed on her as if he liked what he saw and was enjoying himself again. Enjoying being there with her. Heddy realized that if this were a first date, this was the kind of moment when she’d definitely be thinking of accepting a second date with this guy.
And even as part of her brain was reminding her that this wasn’t a date, and that there wouldn’t be any dates in the future, either, another part flipped back to Thursday night when she’d wondered what it might be like to be kissed by Lang.
Except that tonight she wasn’t just wondering about it fleetingly the way she had on Thursday. Tonight she found herself tipping her chin upward as if it might actually happen. And doing a little more than wondering about it, fantasizing some, too.
Then he pivoted ever so slightly toward her and she saw his gaze drop to her mouth.
And linger...
It would be so easy for him to just lean forward and kiss her....
And that part of her that she didn’t want to own up to wished that he might.
Then he leaned a tiny bit forward as if that was exactly what he was going to do and Heddy panicked.
She stiffened and stood straighter, leaning away from him as she thought fast. “Would you like coffee or tea? Maybe another brownie to go with it? Carter has the couch but we could sit at the kitchen table again.”
He knew. Heddy could see in his heart-stoppingly handsome face that he knew she’d thought she was about to be kissed and was fleeing from it.
He stood taller, too, and shook his head. “I’m good. I should probably get Carter home to bed.”
But rather than move in the direction of the child he continued to look at Heddy so softly, so warmly. He was being understanding about her panic and merely moving on. “What’s on the docket for your Sunday?” he asked.
“The docket for my Sunday... I was thinking that I might try to take down my sign out front. It doesn’t light up, so there’s no wiring to it or anything, and I can unscrew the sign part. But I don’t know about the poles that go down into the ground. Unless you weren’t telling the truth about the paperwork coming this week and I shouldn’t close my doors...”
“Paperwork. This week as promised. And as for the sign, we have people who do things like that. I’ll send a crew on Monday. What about Sunday dinner with your family or something?”
“No, we don’t do anything like that on a regular basis. We get together for birthdays or anniversaries or just when we feel like it, but there’s nothing going on tomorrow.”
“My family has Sunday dinner every week at GiGi’s. It’s a very big deal—the whole family comes and brings people.”
“Just anyone off the street?” Heddy teased.
“No, friends, family of friends, people they’re seeing... My cousin Cade is engaged so his fiancée will be there, along with her grandfather Jonah, who is also GiGi’s former high school sweetheart and current companion. Margaret and Louie are always there.”
“The staff?”
“Well, yeah, that’s their job description, I guess, but they’re there as part of the family. We all bring something—remember, I told you I’d take your cheesecakes for everyone to taste? So I was thinking, if your cheesecakes are going to be there, why shouldn’t you be there, too?”
“Me?” Heddy said, not hiding her shock.
“Sure, you. You’re the person responsible for our dessert. You should be there to eat dinner and dessert with us, and then to take a bow.”
Did a grant recipient refuse an invitation to dinner with the grant-giver?
Heddy thought it was probably poor form.
But this didn’t really seem to be a business invitation. This felt more personal. Like something private between herself and Lang.
Then Lang leaned forward again and confirmed her suspicions. “Besides, I’d like it if you came. I’d like it so much that I’ll come out here and pick you up and bring you home.”
That shouldn’t have been the deciding factor.
And yet it was. Because more than feeling any sort of obligation or duty or debt, Heddy was weighing spending another long, long Sunday alone against spending it with this man she’d already decided she would have a second date with. If she were dating.
Which she wasn’t.
“What time?” she asked, as if that might influence her decision.
“I’d be here about four-thirty. Dinner is fairly early—six—but we all start getting there around five, have a drink, some appetizers, meet anyone new...”
“Isn’t this a little late to add a guest?”
“Never. There’s always plenty to eat and drink, and GiGi believes the more the merrier. Plus, she wants to meet you. If not this week then I’d say you can count on her finagling a way to invite you herself next week. Besides,” he said with a grin and a nod toward Carter, “you know I’m going to end up with your blanket again. This way I’ll be able to return it.”
“True.”
“So will you come?”
Heddy thought about it. Weighed it. Knew her mother would hate it.
But it was only common courtesy to accept an invitation to meet the people funding her new business venture.
“Okay,” she said, agreeing less than heartily, the same way she’d agreed to everything else Lang had presented her with.
Except that where before her tentative agreement had been tinged with doubt and worry, this time her feelings were edging far more toward something else. Something like a secret excited anticipation that she didn’t want to have...
“Great!” Lang said, pushing away from the counter and reaching to squeeze her arm as if his enthusiasm just forced him to touch her.
The gesture took Heddy by surprise and was over even as it registered. She was left staring after him as he went around the island counter to get to the living room.
Her arm was still tingling with that simple contact and her traitorous mind was still regretting that she may have missed out on a kiss earlier, but Heddy used the time it took Lang to scoop up Carter—blanket and all—to regroup. To remind herself that there wasn’t—and couldn’t ever be—anything personal going on between them. Certainly not kissing.
Then she met them at her back door to open it for them.
“Dinner was fantastic. Thanks for cooking for us,” he said with the sleeping child in his arms between them.
“I enjoyed it,” Heddy confessed.
“See you tomorrow at four-thirty.”
“Fancy dress or...?”
“Comfortable casual but not jeans. GiGi doesn’t think jeans should be worn to Sunday dinner.”
“Okay, got it,” Heddy confirmed.
She expected Lang to go out, so she pushed open the screen door and held it for him. But he didn’t move. Instead he stood there for another minute, with Carter acting as a safety bar between them, looking at Heddy in a way she couldn’t decipher.
Then he smiled a small smile and leaned over enough to kiss her on the temple as if he just had to, despite her earlier dodge.
He followed up instantly with a “Good night,” and finally went out the door.
Leaving Heddy to call, “Good night, drive safe,” after hi
m as if nothing had happened.
But something had happened.
She could still feel where his mouth had pressed against her skin for that split second.
And she liked it.
She felt guilty for liking it.
But she liked it nevertheless.
Which didn’t seem possible because the kiss hadn’t come from Daniel...
Chapter Five
“Roardaroys.”
“Yep, corduroys,” Lang confirmed. “We have to dress up some for Sunday dinner at GiGi’s.”
“ZsiZsi for dinner. I wanna go.”
“Good, because you are. That’s why we just put on your nice shirt and your corduroys. Now I have to take a shower and change my clothes, then we’ll pick up Heddy and come back this way to GiGi’s. You want to watch some Curious George or some turtles while I get ready?”
“Ninzsa Tortles!” Carter decreed excitedly. Then he charged Lang’s king-size bed, climbed up and hopped like a frog to the head of it where he got into position facing the entertainment center and lounged on the pillows like a sultan.
Lang started one of the DVDs he now kept in his bedroom to occupy the child while he showered, shaved and dressed every day.
With Carter’s attention on the television, Lang closed and locked the bedroom door. He’d learned the hard way—with permanent marker on a downstairs wall—to contain Carter as much as possible when he couldn’t keep his eye on him.
In the connecting bathroom, Lang stepped into the shower, calculating how long he had to get ready as he turned on the water.
He had to go all the way from his place in Cherry Creek, which was deep in the heart of Denver, out to suburban Arcada for Heddy, then back to Cherry Creek to GiGi’s.
Deciding that he didn’t have much time to waste, he did a fast shampoo and an equally fast lather-up before standing under the spray to rinse off.
It's a Boy! Page 7
