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

by Victoria Pade

  “And then there was Sam’s mom.”

  “Candy. We lived together for a year. Long enough for me to see both sides of the Candy coin. Side one is that she appears to be agreeable, like my mom, but that’s because she can’t say no. She’ll let herself be taken advantage of by her friends, her family, at work. Whether she likes it or not. And if she doesn’t like it, she kind of holds a grudge that can come out later. But she still won’t say no.”

  “And the other side of the Candy coin?”

  “She will go to any lengths to avoid a conflict or a confrontation.”

  “Is that part of why she can’t say no? Not just because she’s a people-pleaser, but also to keep from refusing someone something and having them get mad at her?”

  “Bingo!” he confirmed.

  “So you’re worrying that she won’t say no to Vermont, even though she doesn’t actually want to go, because she won’t face down her husband about moving.”

  “I am.”

  “But she has a fight on her hands whichever way she goes because if she agrees to Vermont, she has a custody battle with you waiting in the wings,” Lindie pointed out.

  Sawyer sighed again. “I did that on purpose, thinking that the prospect of a court battle would be scarier to her than just telling her husband she doesn’t want to move. If she’s going to have a fight either way, why not pick the lesser battle? I come up on the short end of that one, though, because she keeps just stepping into the shadows and having Harm deal with me, which means he’s fighting that battle, she isn’t.”

  Again Lindie felt so bad for him. Commiserating, she said, “I know sometimes people hide who they really are or what they really want at first because they want you...or something from you.”

  “You’ve had experience with that?”

  She shrugged as if it wasn’t a big deal.

  Since she didn’t offer more, he let it go. “All I know,” he said, “is that my mom never makes trouble for my dad and yet he can always trust and believe her. But when it’s come to the women I’ve thought were agreeable? I haven’t been able to find anyone who can live up to that standard.”

  Something occurred to Lindie then and she asked, “Is that why you were worried that if I’d have taken the Murphy girls home with me from the hospital that I might have regretted it and resented them? Why you said you were trying to make sure people don’t agree to things they don’t really want to agree to?”

  “Taking home four kids is a big deal. I didn’t want you to wake up the next morning and want to hit me over the head for letting you do it when you were under the influence of drugs.”

  “Oh-ho, girls have you running scared,” she cajoled.

  He laughed genuinely again. “A little bit,” he said in a way that made her not believe him.

  Or maybe it was because he wasn’t looking at her with any kind of fear in his blue eyes. Appreciation, admiration, sensuality, maybe. But not fear.

  “So tell me,” he said, setting his brandy snifter on the coffee table and settling his arm across the top of the sofa cushions, his hand close enough to catch a strand of her hair to fiddle with. “What have I missed that you really want or hate and aren’t saying? Did you really want to eat vegetarian tonight and only ordered the steak because I did?”

  Lindie laughed. “I grew up in a house with ten kids. Speaking up is not my problem. If it was, I’d have been lost in the shuffle.”

  “That seems true enough.”

  “So if those three women had said, ‘Hey, blockhead, I hate it when you do that’ or ‘This is what I want,’ would you have tried to do better or tried to give them what they wanted?” she asked.

  “Sure, I would have. Like I said, my mom is agreeable not a pushover or a doormat.”

  “So you just need to find a way to tell the difference between somebody who’s what you’re looking for and somebody who’s just faking it,” Lindie summed up.

  “You want to come to the rescue and fix that, too, don’t you? First you’ll get me a custody lawyer or send business to Harm, now you’re trying to figure out how to help me read women. You really do have a problem,” he teased.

  “You remember me telling you about my rescuing problem, so you do listen,” she said as if solving a part of the puzzle.

  Another laugh from him. This one sort of intimate. “I do. But I’m not sure there is a fix for the problem I have picking women. After having it happen a third time with Candy I’ve just been pretty much laying low. But now here I am, sitting with someone I definitely shouldn’t be canoodling with—”

  “Canoodling? I’m not exactly sure what that is,” she said with a laugh as she set her snifter on the coffee table, too.

  That move pulled her hair out of his grasp but his hand was still right next to her when she sat back again. He used it to sweep her hair from the front of her shoulder to the back, brushing her shoulder in the process. His touch sent tiny tingles through her but she tried to ignore them.

  “Yeah, I’m not sure what canoodling is, either,” he said, his voice lower than it had been before. “But it sounded better than ‘fraternizing with the enemy.’”

  “I’m still the enemy?” she asked.

  “That does get more and more confusing,” he said, his voice slightly lower.

  “Okay, I guess I like ‘canoodling’ better than ‘fraternizing with the enemy.’ I’m considering it headway,” she concluded, her own voice a little softer all of a sudden. “On the other hand,” she mused, “I have spoken up about what I want from you.”

  “I’m not taking Camden Inc. on as a client,” he managed to say in such a dark-velvet tone that it was actually sexy.

  “But here’s your chance to prove you can come through when a woman tells you what she wants...”

  “Ohhh,” he groaned. “You get points for persistence.” His smile said that was all she was getting when it came to that. Then his gaze dropped to her mouth and in more of that sexy tone he said, “But believe me when I tell you that I can come through.”

  And to show her, he leaned in to kiss her.

  She kissed him back. A sweet kiss that was over only a moment later when she said, “Are you just shutting me up?”

  “I’m coming through,” he countered.

  “Kissing is not what I spoke up for.”

  “It wasn’t?” he joked, feigning shock. “I guess I really am flawed because I could have sworn it was.”

  “In your dreams?” she suggested.

  “Oh, yeah. Definitely there,” he said, coming in for a second kiss. Only this one was less sweet and chaste. This one had some heat and enough staying power to last quite a bit longer before it ended.

  Somewhere during that kiss his hand had come up to caress her face and he left it there even when the kiss ended. He looked into her eyes for a moment before he said, “There isn’t a no I’m missing here, is there?”

  Lindie knew there should have been. She told herself to give him one.

  But she liked kissing him so much that she’d craved it the entire week that he’d been gone. When all she’d wanted was to see him and have him kiss her again.

  Now that he was right there, ready to kiss her again, his hand brushing her face in feathery strokes, she couldn’t say no to herself. Instead she tilted her chin up and kissed him this time.

  And he wasn’t saying no, either, because the arm from the back of the couch came around her to pull her closer while his other hand cradled her head.

  His lips parted over hers and hers parted in response.

  Even though she’d relived Sunday night’s kisses a million times in her mind the real thing was even better than she’d recalled. No, she hadn’t been imagining it. He was really, really good at it. And, oh, boy, did she adore the way he kissed.

  So much that everything else wafted away and kissing was all there was. His mouth on hers. His tongue coming to meet hers, to toy with hers in the most divine and sensual of games.

  Hands and arms moved. His
went around her, those big hands splayed to her back, bracing her, massaging her, turning her muscles to mush. Hers went around him so she could fill her palms with that broad expanse of back and let her fingers delve in, so her breasts could press against his chest and be tantalized by the sensation of soft against hard.

  And the kissing...

  Mouths opened wider and played with more abandon. Tongues became familiar and even friendlier, and Lindie lost track of how much time was passing, just wanting more and more of what just got better and better—

  Until he put an end to it.

  It almost seemed as if he felt just shy of losing control because he let out a stunned sort of laugh before he pulled her close, her cheek against his chest, and said, “Okay, I think we need some air.”

  Speak for yourself.

  That was what went through her mind but she didn’t say it because she knew he was right. She couldn’t remember how long it had been since she’d made out like that but she did know that since becoming an adult, those kinds of kisses usually led to a bedroom.

  And that was not where this could go, she told herself.

  Though the kiss had stopped, neither of them seemed ready to let the intimacy end. Instead they stayed the way they were for quite a while, wrapped in each other’s arms, her head nestled to him, his cheek to the top of it while he held her tight enough for their bodies to melt into one another.

  Eventually she eased herself out of those big, strong arms she had absolutely no desire to leave at all—now or maybe ever—and sat up and away from him.

  “No?” she said belatedly, though her tone was feeble, barely managing the weak joke.

  He held up his palms. “Heard it. Got it,” he said as if she’d said it an hour ago and they hadn’t just done what they’d done.

  He stood and grabbed his suit coat to hook over one shoulder while he reached his free hand out to her.

  “Show me out, Ms. Camden,” he commanded.

  She slipped her hand into his, accepting his help to stand, too. Then she wondered all the way to her door why holding hands with him somehow seemed inappropriately intimate. Possibly because she liked the feel of his hand around hers more than she wished she did.

  He didn’t let go of it as they stopped at her front door. He hung on to it and turned to face her.

  “Thanks for dinner,” she said.

  “My pleasure,” he responded, gazing down into her face steadily, as if he didn’t want to take his eyes off of her. Then he said, “Thursday,” as if he’d been figuring out when they’d see each other next.

  Or at least that’s what Lindie had been thinking about.

  But then he said, “After tomorrow afternoon with Sam I’m flying back to Idaho.”

  Why on earth did it bother her so much to think he was leaving town again?

  She tried to contain it and not to show how it made her feel. “For the whole week again?”

  “Just until Wednesday. I’ll be back Thursday morning, at the center Thursday afternoon. Did you get Marie’s email invitation to her Thank-the-Volunteers barbecue Thursday night?”

  “I did.”

  “Are you going?”

  “Are you?” she asked.

  “I am,” he said.

  “Me, too.”

  “So, Thursday,” he mused.

  “Thursday,” she repeated as if it didn’t feel like it was a year away.

  He tugged her nearer with the hand he was still holding and leaned over to kiss her again. A long, lingering kiss that lasted at least another ten minutes before he straightened, squeezing her hand as if he didn’t want to let it go.

  But then he did that, too, and Lindie opened her door for him.

  “Why do I feel like I want to say I’ll call you from Idaho?” he asked.

  “You could,” she said hopefully, seizing that idea like a lifeline. “You could give me a daily accounting of the pitfalls you’re finding there so we can keep them from happening. It could be a test case for how we actually might be able to work together.”

  “Or we could just talk,” he said softly.

  That was all she really wanted to do.

  “Or we could just talk,” she confirmed, feeling slightly traitorous.

  He gave her just a bare hint of a smile then, kissed her again and said good-night without making any commitment to those phone calls.

  And all Lindie could do was answer his good-night with one of her own and watch him go to his car.

  Hating the fact that another four days had to pass before she could see him again.

  And knowing it didn’t have a single thing to do with the real reason she was supposed to be seeing him.

  Chapter Eight

  Sunday was the weekly family dinner at GiGi’s house—the big Tudor on Gaylord Street where Lindie had grown up. Despite the fact that she worked with her brothers, sisters and cousins, and saw most of them at least once a day, she still loved it when they all came together on Sunday night at their grandmother’s house. That was what felt like the center of everything to her. The heart of all that was really important.

  The event was getting larger and larger as the family grew but even that was nice to see. She liked that so many of them were finding their soul mates and starting families.

  There was one thing different about this particular Sunday, though.

  It was the first one she’d attended feeling as if she had something to hide, as if she was sneaking around behind all their backs. And it didn’t help when she went into the kitchen for a glass of water and happened upon GiGi checking on the roast in the oven, her cousin Cade opening a bottle of wine, and her brother Dylan munching on one of the housekeeper, Margaret’s, homegrown and pickled green tomatoes. Because the minute they saw her Cade said, “You’re the person we were just talking about. We were all hoping you might show up with Sawyer Huffman ready to sign a peace treaty today.”

  “He’s raising a big fury in Idaho that we really need to shut down,” Dylan added.

  Lindie made a face as she went to the refrigerator to fill her glass. “Sorry,” she said.

  “How is it going with him?” her grandmother asked.

  Lindie nearly laughed. She would have said it was going great if he wasn’t who he was, if she wasn’t who she was, and if all the circumstances were different than they were and they were just dating. But they weren’t dating.

  As it was, her assignment wasn’t going anywhere, while her inappropriate feelings for him were rushing ahead at full speed.

  But after filling her water glass she turned to face her inquisitors. “I can’t even say I’m getting anywhere with him.” If she didn’t count locking lips with him. Over and over again. And the nonstop thinking she was doing about him that so rarely had anything to do with business or the task she’d been assigned.

  If anyone in her family knew what she was really doing with Sawyer she didn’t think they could possibly consider it anything but disloyal. That was certainly how it felt to her. But even the guilt tended to fade into the background when she was with him. Then it was all about him and her overpowering attraction to him.

  Trying to set aside her conscience so she could focus, she said, “I know he’s being paid to represent our competitors because our stores hurt their business and that’s just...well, business. But when it comes to the mom-and-pop shops, when it comes to the things he says to get the community support to keep us out, I’m seeing firsthand that he has some really valid points.”

  “Aw, Lindie,” Dylan grumbled, “you can’t go all tender-hearted on us the way you do. Not with this.”

  “This is business,” Cade reminded her. “You have to toughen up.”

  Lindie glanced at her grandmother. GiGi had said the same thing to her and the look on the elderly woman’s lined face reiterated it even before she said, “You were supposed to just concentrate on Sawyer Huffman. On making some sort of restitution.”

  “And get him over to our side,” Dylan put in.

&nb
sp; “But to do that I have to spend time with him,” Lindie attested. “He would only do that if I volunteered alongside him in Wheatley. And I can’t ignore the evidence right there in front of my face of the damage we can do.”

  “File it away to be addressed later,” GiGi advised. “But for now—”

  “Get this guy off our backs!” Cade said.

  “In a way that makes up for what your father did to get your mother, Cade,” GiGi contributed with a subtle rebuke.

  “I know, I know,” Cade muttered.

  “I’m not sure I’m going to be able to get him off our backs,” Lindie said. “I honestly don’t think the money he could make with us as a client matters to him. But something else has come up that could be a more meaningful way of making amends,” she added somewhat tentatively.

  Then she told them about the possibility of Sawyer losing his son to Vermont.

  “I think it would be a much more valuable compensation to him and to his whole family if we could direct enough patients to his ex’s husband’s dental practice to keep the man from selling it and moving,” she concluded.

  She knew it wasn’t what her cousin or her brother wanted to hear. But despite the fact that Huffman Consulting gave Camden Incorporated so much grief, everyone in the family genuinely was committed to making up for what had been done in the past. She thought it was likely that that kept both of them quiet for a moment.

  Reluctantly, Cade said, “The guy isn’t one of the dentists on our company plan?”

  “I did some research today to figure that out. I only knew his first name but it’s unique—Harmon—and he’s the only dentist with that first name in Wheatley so it wasn’t hard to put two and two together. And, no, he isn’t on our company plan. But if we added him and put up a notice in the employee lounges announcing that he’s a new addition to the providers list and welcomes new patients, maybe that would build his practice back up and then—”

  “He might not sell it, which means that he would stay put and so would Sawyer Huffman’s son,” GiGi concluded, sounding as if she liked the idea.