A Sweetheart For The Single Dad (The Camdens Of Colorado Book 8)

by Victoria Pade

  Cut-and-dried.

  And no reason she should have spent this past week missing him.

  No reason for her to have shopped for new jeans that didn’t look new, a new tank top and a new sheer shirt to wear over it today.

  No reason that she should have had her phone in her hand nearly every minute all day and evening Thursday in case he called. And then no reason to have been so thrilled when he did. Or to have spent a full hour talking to him.

  Well, talking and flirting.

  Certainly no reason to have taken off work on Friday afternoon to shop for something new to wear tonight.

  Tonight, when he took her to the business dinner he’d suggested during Thursday’s phone call.

  The business dinner that would allow him to tell her what problems he already saw coming in Idaho if his campaign to keep out a new superstore failed.

  The business dinner that Lindie swore to herself she was only looking forward to because it would give her another chance to persuade him that working together could be to everyone’s advantage.

  The business dinner that she also swore would not end with kissing. Regardless of how many times she’d relived Sunday night’s kisses or how much she was itching to have them repeated.

  Okay, she was driving too fast again.

  She eased up on the pedal and tried to counteract her eagerness to get to the community center by doing what she’d also been doing all week—replaying what had happened on Sunday before the kissing. When she’d watched Carter and Sam competing over Sawyer.

  He’s a dad, she must have told herself a million times this past week.

  And that put him on her personal no-fly list.

  It did. It really did. Firmly, in bold print, on her no-fly list.

  The problem was thinking about Sunday before the kissing somehow always led her back to the kisses.

  Those powerhouse kisses.

  It would have been so helpful if she’d hated the way he kissed.

  But, no. He kissed better than any man she’d ever kissed.

  So much better it was a little overwhelming. She’d completely forgotten herself, forgotten about everything else until he’d ended it both times.

  And he always had had to be the one to end it because if it had been left to her she might still be kissing him.

  She had to contain whatever was happening between them. She had to look at the big picture. The future. The future in which she didn’t want kids of her own to compete for their father’s love and attention. The future in which—if she ended up with a man who already had kids—that man would be split between those two family groups.

  “So stop it or you’re going to regret it down the road,” she told herself out loud, believing it wholeheartedly.

  Yet when she pulled into the community center’s parking lot she drove around until she spotted Sawyer’s SUV and parked as near to it as she could get.

  And when she hurried into the center she wasn’t thinking about anything but laying eyes on him again.

  * * *

  Jeans, sweatshirt, tennis shoes—that’s what Sawyer was wearing—nothing spectacular.

  But still the minute Lindie caught sight of him in the group of people preparing for graffiti cleanup her heart raced and she went like a heat-seeking missile to join him.

  Him and Tyler and Eric, who, it seemed, would be part of their team again this weekend.

  But whether or not the boys spent time with them didn’t matter to her. Because the minute Sawyer saw her and smiled as if she was the only person he was really aware of, Lindie had the oddest sense that all was right with the world again.

  A sense that remained with her throughout the day of work.

  * * *

  The fence painting was finished a little after five and again Eric and Tyler lingered around Lindie until Sawyer told them to go home. That amused Lindie.

  But mostly she was thinking about dinner so she didn’t mind when the boys finally left and she and Sawyer could head for their separate cars with plans for him to pick her up at her house at eight.

  She again pushed the speed limit a little to get home as quickly as possible because she wanted to shower and wash her hair. Once she had, she dressed for the evening in the lacy, form-fitting black dress she’d bought the day before. Black hose and four-inch heels completed the outfit that was only subtly sexy while still being acceptable for what she continued to insist to herself was a business dinner.

  For her second application of makeup today, she used a slightly darker and more dramatic eye shadow, a touch more blush and a new lipstick that promised it was kissable.

  Not that that mattered, because the whole time she was getting ready she was also reminding herself that there would be no kissing!

  After blow-drying her hair she pulled it back on one side into a rose-shaped clip and let the other side fall into its natural waves along her face and in front of her shoulder.

  She’d barely finished when her doorbell rang and she hurried to answer it, trying to ignore that she was as excited as a teenager embarking on a date with a rock star.

  “Oh, very nice...” was Sawyer’s greeting after giving her an initial once-over when she opened the door.

  “Thank you,” she said, flattered, before she returned the compliment. Because he did look fantastic.

  He was wearing a gray suit that couldn’t have showed off his broad shoulders to better effect. And the shirt and matching tie that went with it were almost the color of his eyes, making her all the more aware of how gorgeous they were. Plus he was clean-shaved and smelled divine. Altogether Lindie was a little sorry to go out into the world and share him when she sort of just wanted to get him inside and keep him all to herself.

  In an effort to thwart that inclination, she didn’t invite him in at all and just took her evening bag from the table near the doorway and said, “Shall we go?”

  He pivoted on the heels of polished shoes and swept an arm in the direction of her driveway.

  Sawyer had chosen the restaurant and given her general advice to dress up without letting her know where they were going. Not until they were nearly there did he tell her he’d made reservations at a place called the Woodbine Inn.

  Lindie knew it. It was a fancy restaurant designed to look like a chalet plucked from the Swiss Alps. Set in a secluded cove of evergreens at the base of Denver’s foothills, it was very elegant and known for its four-course meals.

  “Ah, the Woodbine Inn—out of the way enough to make it unlikely that any of your clients will spot you with a Camden,” she chided when he told her.

  He grinned but didn’t deny it.

  Lindie couldn’t fault the practicality of his choice, though, when it was also one of the most beautiful and romantic restaurants Denver had to offer.

  Not that romance was a part of the equation for dinner tonight, she told herself firmly as they went inside.

  Despite the lush, dimly lit ambience of the old-world European-style restaurant, and the glasses of wine that began the meal, Lindie did manage to keep conversation about business.

  Idaho was the topic and Sawyer didn’t hold back when it came to his criticisms of putting a new Camden Superstore there. He even rattled off staggering statistics on the projection of small businesses failing, revenues and job loss, and property value declines that Lindie tried to counter with the positives that a superstore provided.

  They had a healthy debate that lasted through the appetite tray of foie gras, salmon butter, shrimp, olive tapenade, port wine cheddar and spinach mousseline. It lasted through salads. Through two rare filets with fingerling potatoes and sautéed chard. And even through the dessert tray replete with an assortment of fresh fruit, petits fours and pastries.

  It wasn’t until the drive back to Lindie’s house that she steered him toward giving her his thoughts on some kind of compromise—such as how to build and open the superstore with a minimum of damage. That lasted until they were inside her house and taking two glasses of
a brandy she’d been given as a gift into her living room.

  By then it seemed to her that she’d safely kept their dinner strictly business and could finally relax. And change the subject.

  So off went her shoes while Sawyer removed his suit coat and stuffed his tie in the jacket pocket. Then he loosened his collar button, and they settled in the center of her sofa.

  “Do you have Sam tomorrow?” she asked, sitting sideways and tucking her feet under her to face him.

  Sawyer angled toward her with an elbow braced on top of the back couch cushions and took a sip of the brandy. “I do,” he said. “But only for a few hours in the afternoon.”

  “Are you supposed to have him longer than that?” she asked, interpreting the cause of the edge in his voice.

  “I’m supposed to have him more all the way around. But lately Candy and Harm keep coming up with reasons to cut me short.”

  “Harm?”

  “Candy’s husband. Harmon. He’s a dentist in Wheatley. For now.”

  For now.

  The same words Sawyer had said that first day they’d met. And he’d said them in the same tone, again giving her the sense that something was going on behind the scenes.

  This time Lindie decided not to just let it pass the way she had before.

  “Harm isn’t long for Wheatley?” she asked.

  “That’s the rumor,” he said, going on to tell her about more fallout from a Camden Superstore—even medical and dental practices suffered when losses of jobs and livelihoods meant losses of health insurance, leaving them either with fewer patients or with patients who couldn’t pay their bills.

  “Vermont,” she repeated when he told her there was the possibility that his former girlfriend and her husband could be moving.

  “That’s what Harm and I were...discussing when we dropped Sam off last Sunday night.”

  “Discussing heatedly,” Lindie said.

  He didn’t deny it, merely saying, “Candy, being Candy, won’t be the one to tell me anything she knows is going to be aggravating and potentially start a fight. She leaves it to Harm, who, as far as I’m concerned, is not who I should be dealing with when it comes to my son. But that’s how it is and last Sunday he told me he’s putting out feelers to sell his practice here. If there’s interest he’s going to take the next step.”

  “Meaning he’ll actually sell the practice and move your son to Vermont.”

  “I’m not losing Sam if I can help it,” Sawyer said darkly, going on to talk about his willingness to mount a custody battle for his son. But he also admitted that he could very likely lose. And Lindie could see how much that jarred him.

  “I’m so sorry,” she said. “Is there anything I can do? We have legions of lawyers and contacts everywhere. I don’t know if this Harm person is on Camden Superstores’ dental insurance, but if it would drum up some business for him I can see if we can add him. Or... I don’t know...anything?”

  But even as she said it—and meant it—she also knew that she was doing what she always did; what she was supposed to be tempering. She was butting in in an attempt to fix someone else’s problems.

  Still, though, she felt so bad for Sawyer. And for Sam. And she was on a quest to make up for wrongs done in the past. Besides, she knew how important it was to Sawyer to be a good dad, to be there for Sam. And he was a good dad. A good dad who could potentially lose his son.

  “I have a lawyer,” he said in a way that told her to slow down again. “A good custody lawyer who I never talk to without my brother, Sean. Sean is also an attorney and does Huffman Consulting’s legal work. But he’s helping me wade through the custody issues, too, so I can be sure no base is left uncovered and anything that can be done is being done. But it would still be better if Candy would speak up. I know her and I know she doesn’t want to move out of Colorado herself. She never has.”

  “If she doesn’t want to move why wouldn’t she say that?”

  “I tend to have a pattern when it comes to women,” he admitted reluctantly. “They seem like my mom and then they aren’t.”

  “They seem like your mother?”

  He laughed. “It isn’t the way you make that sound. I don’t have some kind of weird mommy complex,” he assured her after taking a healthy swig of his brandy. “The thing is, my parents have a great marriage. A genuinely happy relationship.”

  Lindie was glad to hear that, especially after what had happened with her uncle.

  “With all my girlfriends through high school,” he went on, “there was a lot of drama and demands and stuff that made me miserable and got our house egged and the air let out of my tires and things that none of my family appreciated. One day when I was a senior my dad was helping me clean wet toilet paper off the trees in the front yard and I was griping about it. My dad suggested that I take a look at my mom and find someone like her instead of the high-maintenance girls I’d been bringing around.”

  “Advice he gave as much for his own sake, I’m assuming.”

  Sawyer laughed. “He was pretty disgusted, yes.”

  “But you took his advice.”

  “Well, initially I did what any teenage boy would do. I rolled my eyes at him and said thinking about my mom when I liked a girl was gross. But after another couple of crash-and-burns with girls in college, I kind of did start watching what went on with my parents. And what I saw was that my mom is not a drama queen. She’s an easygoing person. It takes a lot to ruffle her. She doesn’t make a big deal out of things that aren’t a big deal. But, also, when it comes to my mom and dad’s relationship, my mom is pretty accepting of anything my dad wants to do. He wants to plant a garden, she says plant a garden. He wants to take up hiking, they take up hiking. He likes to watch Westerns, she watches Westerns.”

  “Your dad calls the shots,” Lindie summarized.

  “Not really, no. When my mom wants something, she lets him know. If she doesn’t, she says that, too. She isn’t a doormat or a pushover, she’s just...agreeable, I guess. Not demanding. Certainly not someone looking to pick a fight or to make trouble. And not hard to please.”

  “So that’s what you switched to looking for?”

  “Right.”

  “But...?” Lindie said what seemed implied.

  “But I guess I read women wrong because my string of not-drama-queens hasn’t been any more successful. In fact, it’s kind of led me to even bigger disasters than house-egging and toilet-papering.”

  Lindie sipped her brandy. “How long is the string of not-drama-queens?” Not that it was any of her business or something that mattered, but she still had to ask.

  “It stretches back to college. That was my first really serious relationship. I met Cynthia at a Christmas party sophomore year and we were together until just before graduation. I wanted to make concrete plans for the future I’d been talking about for a while. The future I thought we both wanted.”

  “But she didn’t.”

  “And hadn’t. We’d never wanted the same things. She just hadn’t let me in on her actual plans. She said she’d been playing along because it had made me happy, but when it actually came down to it, she wasn’t staying in Colorado, she was going back to Georgia.”

  “And you really didn’t have any idea?”

  “In retrospect I could see that she hadn’t said any real yes to anything, but I took the lack of a no and her listening and putting in a suggestion here and there, to be a yes. Stupidly, I guess. But if my dad wanted burgers and fries and my mom didn’t, she said she didn’t—right up front, loud and clear. If she went along with it, it meant she was okay with burgers and fries. My dad didn’t need to question it, he could just feel sure she was on board.”

  “That seems reasonable,” Lindie conceded. “But Cynthia—”

  “Graduated, went back to Georgia and I started my master’s degree feeling disillusioned.”

  “And brokenhearted?”

  He would admit to that only by raising his glass as if in toast before he sipped
the brandy again and shook his head. “Then there was Melanie who I married two years after college.”

  “How long were you married?”

  “Three years. Just long enough for me to start talking about having kids and to have her shock me by telling me she wasn’t going to do that. That was a lot like Cynthia. I’d said I wanted kids even before we got married and Melanie hadn’t said she didn’t want them so I just assumed she...”

  “Did,” Lindie finished for him.

  “But she didn’t. And once that conversation started, out came everything she was unhappy about. All news to me because she hadn’t said anything. I’d apparently misinterpreted her not complaining about the house we lived in and my travel for work and a dozen other things as happiness and contentment with our life together.”

  “When the truth was?”

  “She’d been waiting for me to figure out that she didn’t like any of those things. Or much of our life together. But I don’t know how I was supposed to catch on to that without a clue from her, because, believe me, I’ve rehashed it and rehashed it, and she seemed okay with everything. She did agree to marriage counseling where she admitted that she hadn’t been open about what she wanted. The therapist pointed out that I shouldn’t have been expected to just know. But once she did start saying what she wanted...” He shrugged sadly. “We both realized that we did not want the same things and divorce was the best option for us both.”

  “So she wasn’t really agreeable,” Lindie said softly. “She was just pretending to be and waiting for you to read her mind.”

  “That was the gist of it. She said if I really cared for her and was in tune with her the way a husband should be, I would have been able to tell she was unhappy.” He sighed, his frustration evident.

  “Another broken heart?”

  “And some plain old anger thrown in,” he confided. In a sadder tone he added, “At least we didn’t have kids who had to suffer through a divorce.”