But then he took that hand from under her bra and sweater, and rested it on her thigh.
“I’m gonna go,” Heddy said then, not wanting to give any more explanation or detail, not wanting to have to tell him that if he wasn’t a Camden this might have ended differently. Because certainly everything inside her was shouting for her to stay and let things reach their full and fully satisfying climax.
But Lang didn’t ask any questions. He tugged her sweater firmly down around her hips, straightened away from her, then took her hand and helped her to her feet.
Without another word he walked her to his front door and held her coat for her. Then, leaving the front door open, he took her hand again as he walked her to her car.
It was there—only once he’d opened her car door for her and stood with it between them—that he leaned over and kissed her again. A long, lingering kiss that made her want to rush back inside and finish this after all.
But before she came too close to doing that, he brought the kiss to a conclusion and said, “The auction tomorrow night—”
“I’ll be here at seven,” Heddy confirmed what they’d discussed earlier.
Then she got into her car and started the engine, putting it into gear while Lang studied her as if he were applying every detail of her to memory before he finally closed the door.
Heddy waved goodbye, aching for the touch of the hand he waved back at her.
Then she pulled out of his driveway and headed home.
Thinking as she did about how near she’d just come to making love with someone who wasn’t Daniel.
And surprising herself by somehow actually not feeling guilty about that.
She thought the guilt would probably come. Like an aftershock.
But right then it wasn’t there.
Not even when she realized just how much she still wanted to be with Lang, actually making love....
Chapter Eight
“Look at you! Woo-hoo!”
“Woo-hoo!” Carter hooted, parroting his aunt Livi, who was there to pick him up so Lang and Heddy could attend the country club’s charity auction.
“Go get your coat, Carter,” Lang instructed, as the toddler climbed the stairs to his room, chanting, “Woo-hoo. Woo-hoo. Woo-hoo.”
When the woo-hoos reached the top of the steps and died down, Lang responded to his sister’s comment. “The suit looks okay? I wasn’t sure it would still fit.”
“Does that suit look okay? Is that really what you’re asking? It looks better than okay. I just can’t believe you’re finally wearing it and not for—”
“Don’t say it,” Lang warned.
“Audrey,” Livi said anyway.
“The suit wasn’t for Audrey,” Lang claimed.
Although he had had it custom-made in Italy at the cost of a small car for their honeymoon in Monte Carlo. The honeymoon that he’d also planned to surprise Audrey with. The honeymoon that had never happened. So the suit had never been worn beyond trying it on at the demand of his sisters when it had arrived from Milan.
“It might not have been for Audrey, but you still haven’t worn it because of Audrey,” Livi pointed out. “And it’s a shame because now that I see it again I can tell you that it was almost worth what it cost you. It’s one of the most beautiful suits I’ve ever seen.”
Gray wool with the tiniest fleck of black in the fabric. Faultlessly tailored and worn over the custom-made shirt and tie that were both white, the tie with similar flecks of black in it.
“So-oo...is something going on with Heddy Hanrahan?” Livi asked, the suit obviously having raised her suspicions.
“Just because I’m wearing this suit? Come on,” Lang said as if his sister was out of her mind to even think that.
When, of course, it was true that something was going on with Heddy. He just wasn’t too sure exactly what.
But he wasn’t going to tell his sister so he stuck with denial.
“We’re doing business, remember?” Lang said. “It would be out of line for anything else to be going on.”
“That didn’t stop Dad and her mom....”
“And look how that ended. That’s why we’re helping her—to make up for that. You think I want Carter to have to be doing that for me thirty years from now?”
Livi didn’t look convinced.
“And don’t forget Carter,” he added, citing the second of three absolutely valid reasons for him to resist his attraction to Heddy. “I’ve blundered into fatherhood, I’m blundering as a father. The last thing I need right now is to get personally involved with anyone. I’m barely keeping my head above water as it is.”
“You’re doing fine with Carter,” Livi argued. “Better every time I see the two of you.”
“Still, would you choose now to fix me up with someone, even if she was the most perfect woman?” Which Heddy actually seemed to be, even though he kept trying to discover some flaw—any flaw—that might help him resist what was growing between them.
“No,” Livi admitted. “You’re doing well with Carter, but it is Carter you need to be bonding with. This wouldn’t be the right time to start a relationship with a woman.”
Regardless of how kind and gorgeous and warm she was. Regardless of the fact that he was thinking about her every minute, dying to be with her whenever he wasn’t and actually physically aching for her.
Things that hadn’t happened to him since Audrey.
Which was the third of his very real reasons to shut down what seemed to be developing on its own with Heddy. He wouldn’t ever again risk going through the kind of agony he’d been left with over Audrey. And what were the odds of Heddy going for a Camden? Lousy, that’s what they were.
He just didn’t know what to do to stop things with Heddy.
“But you are wearing that suit,” Livi reminded him, as if that fact contradicted all his objections.
“I’m wearing the suit because it caught my eye when I was standing in the closet, and for the first time...” He shrugged. “Hell, Liv, I don’t know. For the first time I wanted to wear it. I didn’t care about the rest.”
Although he had wanted to wear it because he was going to be with Heddy.
Livi’s expression showed surprise. “You didn’t care that the suit was for your honeymoon or about the whole Audrey deal? That’s a big step,” she said. “And a really good sign.”
Was it a good sign? Because Lang wasn’t sure. It was unsettling to find something—someone—trumping Audrey in any way.
“It means that you’re finally—really—getting over Audrey,” Livi continued.
“I’ve been over Audrey for a long time,” he insisted, knowing it was true but understanding that his family didn’t believe it. His approach with women since Audrey was like adding a security alarm after a break-in—a safety precaution to keep himself from going through the same thing twice. To keep history from repeating itself.
What he didn’t understand was why Heddy Hanrahan seemed to be the exception when he wasn’t willing to make an exception.
“Whatever,” Livi said, making her own opinion obvious. “I’m just so glad to see you in that suit and thrilled to know that you don’t care about any of the rest of what went along with it before. And you do look good. It would have been a crime to waste that suit.”
“Woo-hoo. Woo-hoo. Woo-hoo,” Carter was still chanting when he came down the steps, holding on to the railing and carrying his coat under one arm.
“Okay, that’s enough, big man,” Lang said.
Still, Carter had to get in one more woo-hoo before he stopped.
“What are you guys up to tonight?” Lang asked, putting Carter’s coat on and seizing the chance to change the subject.
“Mac and cheese, a movie on DVD, our special warm milk and bed.” Livi
recited what had apparently been a routine for the two of them when Livi had done her share of babysitting.
“Mac an’ cheese!” Carter echoed this time, showing his enthusiasm. “I like it!”
Livi laughed. “I know you do.”
“Wus go,” the two-and-a-half-year-old said as soon as Lang had zipped up his coat and tied his hood.
“Hey,” Lang said to Carter, feeling a little embarrassed to do what he was about to do in front of his sister. “Give me a kiss good-night.”
It was something the toddler had instigated a few nights ago after watching one of his cartoons. The monkey in it had kissed everyone good-night before going to bed, and ever since then Carter had been demanding a good-night kiss after his bedtime story, before Lang turned off the light.
Lang had complied, thinking he was just doing it to appease Carter. But for some reason he couldn’t explain, it was suddenly important to him, too. Important enough to do in front of his sister.
His sister, who was grinning from the sidelines as she watched Carter grant Lang’s request with an exaggerated pucker.
But Livi didn’t say anything about it. Which Lang was grateful for.
“You be good for Aunt Liv,” Lang told the boy.
“Me an’ Zsorzse,” Carter amended.
“Yeah, you and George both be good and do what Aunt Liv tells you to.”
“Eat-tin’ mac an’ cheese!” Carter confirmed.
Livi picked up Carter’s backpack and took the toddler’s hand. “We’ll see you tomorrow at GiGi’s. Don’t forget tonight is business even though that suit is way, way too nice for work.”
“All business,” Lang repeated as he held the door open for his sister and Carter.
And yet as he glanced in the direction Heddy would be coming any minute, it wasn’t business he was thinking about.
It was Heddy. Again.
Heddy, whom he was far more eager to see than he wanted to be.
And no amount of repeating to himself all the reasons why he needed to stamp out his attraction to her made the slightest bit of difference. He still couldn’t wait to be with her again.
Maybe it would all just wear itself out, he thought. Maybe once he had her business up and running and they stopped having any contact, everything that was churning around inside him would just fizzle and die.
Which was what he wanted.
It was what needed to happen for everyone’s sake.
And in the meantime he swore to himself that he was going to regain some control.
He just didn’t know how he was going to do that when there wasn’t even a minute since she’d left the night before that he hadn’t wanted his hands all over her again.
* * *
“I’ve been hearing about this place my whole life—it’s nice to get to see it,” Heddy said as she and Lang stepped out onto the terrace connected to the Denver Country Club’s banquet room.
Behind them a five-piece band played music that they’d been dancing to since the auction had ended. The night had proved a triumph for Heddy’s cheesecakes, which had garnered far more through bidding than she’d ever charged in her store.
Heddy and Lang had danced several times since then. Each time Lang had held her closer than the time before. Each time Heddy had been less and less conscious of the crowd. Each time she’d been more aware of having Lang’s arms around her, of the feel of his big body against hers. And each time she’d looked up into those blue eyes and gotten a little more lost in them.
So when he’d asked if she wanted to get some air and see the country club’s renowned golf course, Heddy had jumped at the idea.
“My mom is a golfer and playing here—being here—is something she’s always talked about,” she told him.
“My dad brought her,” Lang said.
“That’s the story,” Heddy countered, unsure if they should get into this or not as they stood at the carved railing, looking out over the golf course her mother measured all other golf courses against.
Maybe Lang was unsure about broaching the subject, too, because for a moment neither of them said anything.
But then Lang broke the silence. “You told me that your grandfather is okay with you doing business with us, but you didn’t say how your mother feels about it.”
Heddy shrugged a shoulder covered by the sparkly black shrug she was wearing over her sleeveless black dress. “Mom is a hundred percent against it,” she said honestly.
They were standing side by side at the railing, both of them gazing out at the golf course, but from the corner of her eye Heddy saw Lang nod.
“Not a surprise,” he said. And that was all either of them said for another few minutes before he ventured further. “So if she went on to a couple of jobs she hated after the bakery closed and then found something else for herself, what was the something else?”
“Mom went into nursing.”
“Ah, and influenced you to do the same,” he noted. “Did your parents meet through her job?”
“They did. My dad was an administrator at the hospital where my mom worked. It was about two years after the bakery closed.”
“Did your mom like nursing and stay with it?”
“She liked it but when my brother and I were born she quit to stay home with us. Then, when I started school, she became the school nurse part-time so she was only away from home while my brother and I weren’t there.”
“And your parents have been happy together?”
Was he looking for absolution for his father?
Heddy knew that Kitty wouldn’t give it if it was up to her, so she didn’t feel free to. “My dad says she was pretty tough to get through to at first, but yes, they’ve been happy together since he finally did.”
Another moment of silence passed before Lang said, “She was tough to get through to because of the way things ended with my dad.”
“She was really in love with your dad,” Heddy said outright, deciding she wasn’t going to skirt the issue anymore. “He left my mother for yours, didn’t he?”
“Yeah,” he admitted. “And there was some overlap that your mom found out about....”
“He and my mom were talking marriage,” Heddy said. “My mom thought it was a done deal. That the ring and a formal proposal were on their way. She thought he might propose here, on this golf course, or at a fancy party. But just when everything was supposed to come together, the newspaper ran a picture of your father kissing someone else—that was how my mom found out he was cheating on her. With someone that the society page apparently considered a much more suitable match for him than ‘the little baker he’d been seen with recently....’”
Heddy felt Lang flinch beside her. “I didn’t know that,” he said. “That’s how she found out? She saw a picture in the newspaper of him with my mother?”
“Kissing your mother. And with a caption that put my mother down,” Heddy repeated because the insinuation that she hadn’t been good enough for Mitchum Camden had caused Kitty additional pain and humiliation. “It hit her hard. It was one of those couldn’t-believe-her-own-eyes things. But then she confronted your father and...well, the rest is history.”
“We only found out recently about it.”
“How could you only find out recently?”
“GiGi may have seen the picture in the newspaper at the time—I don’t know about that—but it was only in the past year or so that we came across proof about what really went on with your mom and my dad. About how lousy my dad had handled things.”
“Proof? Like letters?” Heddy remembered her mother saying that she’d written several scathing letters to Mitchum Camden condemning him for ruining her life and business.
“Actually it was something in my great-grandfather H.J.’s papers.”
So not the le
tters. That was probably good. Heddy couldn’t imagine that her mother would want letters like that read now, by people other than who they’d been intended for years and years ago.
“Not even GiGi knew at the time what my dad had done,” Lang said then. “Or, believe me, she would have had something to say about it. GiGi has very high standards. She thought that things ended amicably between your mom and my dad before he met my mother.” He paused another moment before he added with some reluctance, “And as far as GiGi or any of the rest of us knew until we read what H.J. wrote, the reason the Camdens stopped doing business with your family’s bakery was just an inability-to-keep-up-with-demand issue. We thought that there was nothing personal in it.”
“Except there was.”
Lang didn’t deny it.
So Heddy decided to push a little for her mother’s sake. “My mom has always said that it was bad enough that Mitchum Camden cheated on her and publicly dumped her for someone else, but then he had to ruin Hanrahans Bakery on top of it because he couldn’t face her, because he wanted to pretend she didn’t exist anymore once he’d moved on.”
“It isn’t something that we’d let happen now,” Lang replied, essentially admitting that her mother was right by again not offering a denial. “But we do a lot of things differently than the old guard did. If it helps, apparently my great-grandfather was pretty unhappy about losing Hanrahans bread. He really liked it.”
Heddy laughed wryly. “My mother would not take comfort in that.”
After her night at the Denver Country Club and her visit to Georgianna Camden’s mansion, Heddy could see clearly the life her mother had been so sure she would be living, the future that Kitty had been convinced she’d have with the man she’d loved. It was a far cry from the suburbs and the public golf courses and the middle-class life that she’d ended up with. On top of that, Kitty had felt responsible for the failure of the Hanrahans Bakery.
“I’m sorry,” Lang said, sounding genuinely contrite. “He was my dad and I loved him, but I have strong feelings about cheaters—it’s kind of altered some of my thinking about him. But I also can’t say that I’m sorry he ended up with my mom. I loved my mom, too. There’s just nothing that makes what he did to your mom, and to your family’s business, okay.”
It's a Boy! Page 14
