“Lie and tell me it wasn’t too bad,” Lang said when they were finally back in his SUV.
Carter was in the car seat behind them, softly singing along to something he was watching on Lang’s smartphone. It was just past eight o’clock and they were driving away from Georgianna Camden’s house, headed for Arcada.
“I don’t have to lie,” Heddy answered. “It wasn’t bad at all. I’ve never been anywhere with so many strangers who all had the knack for making me feel like we were old friends.”
Lang cast her a smile. “Maybe you even enjoyed it a little,” he said hopefully.
“I did,” she admitted, without telling him about the darker feelings that had been stirred over the baby announcement.
Because truthfully, while she’d expected those darker feelings to drag her down for the rest of the evening, that wasn’t what had happened. And it was all due to Lang. He had stayed by her side or included her in whatever he needed to do with Carter so she hadn’t ever been left to fend for herself. He had kept the tone light, he’d joked with her, teased her, made it easy to recall names when members of his family came to chat and injected funny stories about his cousins and siblings to make her laugh.
He had been so attentive and charming and fun that he’d actually accomplished what nothing and no one in the past five years had accomplished—he’d made her escape the darker feelings altogether not long after they’d appeared. He’d made her forget everything but him, and she actually had ended up having a good time.
“So you’re the baby of that family, huh?”
Even in the dim car interior lit only by streetlights she saw him grimace. “You’ll never know how much I hated it when one of my older brothers or cousins called me a baby,” he grumbled. “Yes, Lindie, Livi and I—and Jani who is the same age—are the youngest.”
“And you didn’t like that?” Heddy asked.
“There were six boys in the same house who were all older than I was. Three girls who were my age. What do you think?”
Heddy shrugged. “My brother and I pretty much went our separate ways, so I don’t know.”
“It was bad until I could hold my own with the older boys. They didn’t want anything to do with me because I was the baby. That was what they’d say when I wanted in on whatever they were doing. ‘Go play with the girls, you’re a baby.’ That left me with only three girls to play with and that was a clique I didn’t fit into.”
“Even as a triplet? I thought twins and triplets had some sort of special bond.”
“The bond was among the three girls. I was odd-man-out with the whole lot.”
“That doesn’t sound good. Were you a sad little outcast as a kid?” Heddy asked with a sympathetic laugh.
It bought her another glance from him, this one accompanied by a smile that she realized at that moment had the power to send tiny shards of delight all through her. But she tried to ignore it.
“At first we were all sad kids.”
“Oh, sure,” Heddy said in a hurry, regrouping when she remembered how they’d all come to live at GiGi’s house. “The plane crash. You lost your parents and your grandfather, and you had to move.”
“So yeah, at first there was a lot of sadness and grief and upheaval.”
“And you didn’t have anyone to play with even in a house with nine other kids.”
“Pretty much,” he confirmed, laughing again.
“At least you had each other,” Heddy said, looking for a silver lining somewhere.
“I’d say that we had GiGi. And H.J. and Margaret and Louie. It took a little more time for all ten of us to ‘have each other.’ We did get there, though. We’re stuck together like glue now. We’re there for each other through thick and thin, we run Camden Inc. together.”
“So how long did it take for the other boys to stop seeing you as the baby?”
“It varied. I basically fought my way up the ladder or outsmarted them or did something to prove I wasn’t a baby.”
“You literally fought with some of them?”
“We were boys. Rough-and-tumble boys.”
“So it was a jungle inside that beautiful house.”
“With ten kids and seven of them boys? A little bit.”
Heddy could just imagine Lang in nothing but a loincloth.
Naked chest. Broad shoulders. She guessed that he had great pecs. And no doubt hard, washboard abs and thickly muscled thighs...
She shook off the fantasy to say, “And before you started working your way up the food chain? What did you do, just play alone?”
He laughed at that, too. “A little. But I also hung out a lot with Louie, which is probably how I came to be the start-up guy with Camden Inc. He was like a father figure to me. I think early on he felt bad seeing me left out of everything with the other kids. He enlisted me as his helper and I’d followed him around, work in the yard with him, play assistant on his handyman jobs. I learned a lot from Louie. He’s a very methodical person and he taught me about starting projects from the ground up.”
“Just like a father.”
“Yeah. He was also who I called when I had my first fender bender, and when a girl’s father caught me up a tree.”
“Up a tree?” Heddy asked with a curious laugh.
“Her bedroom was on the second floor. There was a big tree just outside it. We had a—” Lang shot Heddy another glance and smiled wickedly “—rendezvous planned. I was supposed to climb up the tree, slither across the branch that would get me to her room and...”
“Her father caught you,” Heddy finished for him. “Did Louie save you?”
“He did. He couldn’t save me from owning up to the fender-bender because I got a ticket and the police and the insurance company got involved. But he was a good buffer between me and an angry GiGi.”
“But when you were up the tree?”
“Louie came to the girl’s house, reasoned with the father, assured him it would never happen again.”
“And didn’t tell your grandmother?”
“It was our secret. But that doesn’t mean I got away with anything. Louie gave me the talks—the embarrassing birds-and-bees talk, the respect-women talk—”
“Apparently not the condom talk,” Heddy teased with a nod at Carter in the backseat.
“Oh, no, I got the no-sex-but-here’s-a-condom-just-in-case talk and the condom to go along with it. I even got the sometimes-things-fail talk. I just didn’t believe it until there was proof.”
They’d reached her house by then, and Heddy was sorry to have the time she’d spent with Lang end. Listening to the tales of his childhood had made the drive home go by too quickly and she would have liked the evening to continue.
But Carter was asleep with his head against the back of the car seat, so she knew the night was over.
However, as she opened the door and got out—thinking to just say thanks and good-night—Lang cracked the windows, left the heat on, put the emergency brake on and got out of the SUV, too.
“I can go up alone, you shouldn’t leave—”
“He’ll be okay,” Lang said, glancing at Carter, who didn’t wake when they closed their doors.
Lang had parked within a few feet of her back door. Had Carter so much as snored they would have been able to hear it.
As Heddy searched through her purse for her keys, Lang said, “So your cheesecakes were a big hit. I don’t think my family could have loved them more.”
Heddy laughed. “I might have thought they were just being nice except that there were so many complaints about not having any left to take home.”
“They weren’t just being nice,” he assured her while she continued to rummage through her purse. “Tomorrow is the inspection of your new kitchen space— remember?”
“Oh, that’s right
,” Heddy muttered with her face nearly inside her hobo bag.
“We should be there to make sure everything is on the up-and-up. I think everybody is honest, but a little supervision never hurts.”
“Okay,” Heddy said as she began to worry that she had somehow not taken her keys with her.
“The inspection is scheduled for one o’clock. How about I pick you up at twelve-thirty and we go over together?”
“I could meet you,” Heddy offered.
“I’ll be driving right by here, no sense taking two cars.”
“Okay.” It struck her then that she’d changed purses for tonight. And probably had left her keys in her other one.
With a sigh of self-disgust, she said, “I don’t have my key to get in. I have one up there, hidden behind that rain gauge, but I have to get the ladder or a patio chair to stand on to reach it and I don’t want to keep you from Carter for too long, so go ahead and—”
“Let’s see if I can reach it.”
“It’s really high so I can see it out of my kitchen window,” Heddy explained as she followed him off the landing to the spot beneath the rain gauge, standing behind him.
Lang was tall but not quite tall enough to reach it on his first attempt.
“I’m so close,” he said. Looking at the ground beneath him, he found a large stone and positioned it so he could stand on it to try again.
With just that much of a boost he made it, and Heddy explained how to open the gauge to get the key out. But while he fiddled with it, the boulder fell from under him, pitching him sharply forward.
It was pure reflex that made Heddy grab him as he fell against the house.
“Are you all right?” she asked in alarm.
“You know, just a broken nose, it’ll be fine,” he said facetiously, laughing. “But thanks for the catch.”
Her hands were still on him. On a man’s hips for the first time in five years. On Lang Camden’s hips...
“Sorry,” she muttered, letting go of him.
“For what? Trying to catch me?”
“You know, for causing problems,” she answered. She couldn’t say she was apologizing for laying hands on him even though that was what she was fretting over. She’d had no business imagining him in a loincloth earlier but at least that had only been in her mind. This had been actual physical contact.
She stepped back enough for him to turn, not realizing that she’d left very little room for that until she found herself separated from him by mere inches.
But fearing that he actually might have hurt his face, she gazed up into it with a nurse’s eye rather than moving farther away.
Only it was really just the woman in her that registered that his ruggedly handsome features were none the worse for wear, and studying them so closely made something inside her go a little weak.
“You’re not bleeding,” she said, her own voice quiet from the effects of looking at him that way and being so near to him.
“I was teasing about the broken nose. I really am fine,” he assured her, his tone deeper. “I’ve taken worse face slams than that, believe me.”
He did have a smudge or a mark on his brow, though, and Heddy reached up to it. “There is something...”
She gently rubbed the shadow with her fingertips. His skin was smooth but not soft. Masculine...
“It’s dirt, not a bruise,” she concluded when part of the mark came off.
He didn’t veer away from her attention; in fact he seemed to focus more intently on her in a moment that suddenly felt a little charged.
Then he took her completely off guard and kissed her.
Not on the temple, like the night before, but on the mouth. His lips pressed to hers so unexpectedly that for a moment Heddy’s eyes opened wider, looking beyond him at the wall of her house. Stop it! That’s what she thought she should say. She should push away from him and shout Stop it!
But then somehow she got swept away in that kiss.
Somehow her eyes closed and she actually thought she was kissing him back.
This man who wasn’t Daniel.
The realization caused her to brace for a negative reaction. For the overwhelming sense that she was doing something horribly wrong.
But it didn’t come despite the fact that she was very much aware that this wasn’t Daniel. That this was Lang.
All Lang.
He kissed differently than Daniel. His mouth against hers felt different. But none of that was bad. In fact, it was good. This kiss was very, very good,
And not only were his lips moving over hers, hers were moving right with them, even parting just the slightest bit the same way his were.
But this isn’t Daniel...
And yet as strange as it seemed, she didn’t feel guilty. She didn’t feel as if she was doing something she shouldn’t be doing. Instead, she just liked it. It was nice....
Then it was over. Lang straightened, still gazing down at her, but with an expression that said his actions had taken him somewhat by surprise, too.
“Concussion?” he suggested.
“Maybe,” Heddy concurred without any excuse for herself.
“Except that I feel fine,” he nearly whispered with a smile that said he didn’t want to make excuses. “Really, really fine.”
So did she, which stunned her even more than the kiss. She felt really, really fine.
“And I got the key,” Lang added, holding it up for her to take.
It only occurred to Heddy at that moment, when his glance dropped to her mouth and she thought he was going to kiss her again, that she was still standing very close to him.
And while she was inclined to stay right there and have him kiss her again, she wasn’t sure if that might be tempting fate so she took a step back.
“I’m sorry,” she apologized again. “It was stupid to leave my keys and if I hadn’t—”
He shook his handsome head to stop the apology and took her hand to press the key into it “It was worth it.”
She made a fist around the key and pulled her hand away from his, heading for her door again where she was quick to open it.
Then Lang was there with her, reaching in around her to turn on her kitchen light.
Turning her on a little, too, when that big body brushed against her ever so slightly and the heat of him wrapped her in warmth.
It was something purely instinctive that caused her to turn her face to look at him over her shoulder, to tilt her chin even though she was at an odd angle.
And odd angle or not, he kissed her a second time. A second long time. And she kissed him again, too, wondering if she’d gone a little crazy, before the kiss ended and he stepped back.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said softly, sounding confused himself, though Heddy didn’t understand why.
Then she went inside and closed the door, only listening for him to drive away as what had just happened began to sink in.
Chapter Six
Heddy could tell that something wasn’t quite right with Lang when he picked her up for the inspection of her new commercial kitchen space on Monday. To begin with, he was very late getting there. And while she’d always dealt directly with him, this time his secretary had called to tell her that Lang was running behind schedule.
To avoid further delays, Heddy watched for him so she could go out as soon as he arrived. As he pulled into her drive he was saying something over his shoulder to Carter that was obviously stern and it was clear he was not in a great mood.
When Lang greeted Heddy with an apology for keeping her waiting, his agitation didn’t seem aimed at her. But she still couldn’t help thinking that it might be a reaction to their kiss the night before. That he regretted it. That maybe he blamed her for it.
She hadn’t been
able to think about much except him and those kisses since they’d happened. But in all of the confused emotions that had swept through her in the process, there hadn’t been anything that had made her as out of sorts as he seemed to be. It was unnerving to think that might be his reaction.
He was a little hard on the inspector when they finally got to the new space, and he gave no quarter with the Realtors who were also there.
Watching him closely during the course of the inspection, Heddy began to see a pattern. Lang was all-business with the business people; he was more somber but still companionable with her. But he was having the most difficulty containing his temper when he dealt with Carter.
Carter, who was particularly wild and ornery throughout the inspection, and seemed no more pleased with Lang than Lang was with him. In fact, at one point when Lang took him to task, Carter’s usually hard-to-understand vocabulary became perfectly clear when he shouted, “Grouch!”
It was when he pulled off his shoes for the third time, brought them to Lang and said, “Here, take eeze,” and Heddy saw Lang’s jaw clench, that Heddy decided it might be better if she left Lang to the inspection and took Carter aside to put his shoes back on herself.
“Maybe both of you guys got up on the wrong side of the bed this morning,” she muttered as she did.
Apparently Carter thought he was supposed to respond to her comment, because he said, “I pooss uh phun in uh toy-et.”
Heddy didn’t quite follow that. “You put fun in the toilet?” she asked, thinking he was talking about potty training in some fashion.
“No, uh cephun,” Carter corrected.
“You put Lang’s cell phone in the toilet?” she asked.
“An my Mick-eye Mouse wash.”
Heddy had noticed that Carter was only wearing one of his wristwatches today. “You put your Mickey Mouse watch and Lang’s phone in the toilet,” she translated.
“An a bad shoe. I fooshed ’em!” he confirmed.
“You flushed them?”
“Wa-er aw ober!”
“Water all over...” Heddy was getting the picture.
Just as she finished putting on his shoes, he gave her another indication of how Lang’s morning had gone by taking them off again and repeating, “Take eeze. No shoes!”
It's a Boy! Page 9
