A Baby in the Bargain (16 page)

“I don’t know about that,” Gideon answered her honestly.

“Or maybe you could just be the one to forgive us on their behalf,” she suggested. “Maybe Franklin Thatcher didn’t come to it, maybe your grandfather and your father didn’t come to it, but that doesn’t mean you can’t come to it...”

“The wrongs just aren’t mine to forgive,” he said because that was what he believed.

“But you
could
forgive us for what you suffered in the fallout. You
could
choose to put the past behind
you,
” she repeated so earnestly it nearly broke his heart.

But it didn’t change things. Even if she’d taken some of the heaviness out of the old baggage, he still couldn’t imagine himself going over so completely to the enemy camp. Plus there was the even bigger issue of kids.

And that issue was all his own.

As if she could read his mind, she said, “And when it comes to kids... I know—I
saw
in you—how awful it was for you to lose that little girl. I know it’s still fresh to you—if you’ve only been in this place for six months, it couldn’t have been long before that—”

“It’s been about a year.”

“Still, that’s not that long to get completely over something so painful, and I understand that you want to make sure you never go through anything like that again. But—”

She went on to talk about how good he was with kids, about a whole lot of other things that he just didn’t hear because he was suddenly lost in thoughts of Jillie, in recalling the pain, the frustration, the utter helplessness he’d felt when there was nothing he could do to stop Shelly from taking her away.

He was thinking about the empty days and nights after that.

About all the times when he’d thought he could still hear Jillie playing in the next room only to feel like he’d been hit with a baseball bat when he realized that it wasn’t true.

About the worry he still had every day if she was well or being taken care of the way she should be, if she was happy or sad. If she cried for him or needed him, and he wasn’t there...

While Jani was talking about how she knew he would want kids again, he was thinking about having a child who was half Camden. About how even though that child might be half his—unlike Jillie—the power and money and prestige and status of the Camdens could give Jani the upper hand and almost as strong a position from which to play keep-away with a child as Shelly had had with Jillie.

And one way or another, he’d still lose.

It just wasn’t a position he could put himself in again...

“Stop, Jani. Stop,” he heard himself say before she went on any longer.

“No, don’t tell me to stop,” she protested.

“If you think this isn’t ripping me apart, you’re wrong,” he heard himself say, the emotions hitting the surface and sending the words out before he even knew he was going to say them. “But I can’t, Jani. Even if we could take away my family’s history with the Camdens, I won’t ever—
ever—
have kids. And that’s a deal-breaker for you.”

She did stop then. Totally. She just stood there looking at him. She was so beautiful he could hardly believe it, and he could see that he’d crushed her. But that she was trying not to show it.

“Am I just being a dumb girl and thinking that there was more here than there actually was?” she asked.

Now he thought that he knew what she was thinking.

“No,” he said without hesitation. “There’s plenty here. And I didn’t sleep with you to get even or something truly lowlife like that. I have the same feelings about you that you said you have about me—I’m...I’m crazy about you. And even right at this minute keeping my hands off you is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. But—”

“But nothing. Everything else is nothing compared to that,” she insisted.

“Maybe it’s nothing to you, but it’s not nothing to me,” he said, shaking his head. His voice was a deep, sad rumble but that was the only way he could get the words out. “No Camdens. No kids. You were right about both of those things. Especially about the no kids part—”

“Especially no Camden kids,” she said, her voice cracking.

Gideon didn’t respond because yes, at that moment he really was thinking
especially no Camden kids.
But to confirm it was a blow he didn’t want to strike.

Even so he saw her eyes well up. But she didn’t let the tears fall. She was still facing him with her head high, her back straight, and he had the impression that maintaining her composure was taking all the strength she could muster.

He didn’t know what else to say so he seized the subject of business and said, “I’ll understand if you want to pull the funding for the community center. And I’ll return your grandmother’s check.”

She shook her head. “That’s separate from any of this. It’s what we all want to do. For Franklin Thatcher. For Lakeview.” She swallowed hard. “I’ll just arrange for you to work from here on with someone else in the family. Cade, maybe...”

She’d been holding her coat in front of her and now she put it on, not looking at him while she did.

Then she turned toward the door and paused.

With her hand on the knob, facing away from him, she said with the tears in her throat now, “It’s a mistake, you know? To wrap yourself in hurts and wounds and grudges and all of that? It might keep you safe but it isn’t going to be there to open packages with you on Christmas mornings, or to draw you silly pictures to put on the fridge, or to fill your life. I’ll risk that there might be a downside in order to have the up...” She opened his door, walked out and closed it behind her.

Leaving Gideon with a wave of pain that reminded him much too much of the day he watched Shelly take Jillie away...

Chapter Eleven

“S
o...Monday is my awards lunch—I just set it up to have barbecue brought in for everybody,” Gideon informed Jack when he stopped by his friend’s office on his way out for the weekend.

“Your awards lunch?” Jack repeated, confused.

“Yeah, you know, for being the world’s biggest jerk this whole last week.”

Jack laughed. Gideon appreciated that his friend could still find some humor in the way things had been around the office since Jani had left his apartment eight days ago. Gideon hadn’t intended to take out his rotten mood on anyone else but it had still spilled over into work and he wouldn’t have blamed Jack—or anyone else at the Thatcher Group—for telling him where he could stick his consolation lunch.

“Are you doing any better?” There was sympathy in Jack’s question.

“No. But that tirade I threw over files that weren’t lost because they were right there on my desk, in front of my face, was enough. I just sent out a blanket apology email to everybody with the invitation to lunch, and I swear when I come back on Monday, I’ll keep my lousy frame of mind to myself.”

“Either that or you might have a mutiny on your hands,” Jack joked.

“I know, I know—I’ve been an ass.”

“Remind you of any other time?” Jack asked, grabbing his coat and joining Gideon to head out of the building for the weekend.

“Yeah, I’m also aware that I was not easy to work with when Shelly took Jillie away.”

“I have to drive to Colorado Springs to pick up Sammy or I’d take you to a bar, buy you a few drinks and then tell you what I think instead of just crying in my beer right along with you—like I did last weekend. But I can’t draw this out so I’m going to cut to the chase. When Shelly went nuts enough to opt out of your marriage and take Jillie away, you didn’t have any choice. But now? You did this to yourself, buddy. You could have Jani but
you
turned
her
down. And even though I know your reasons, it seems to me you ought to take another look at them because in order to avoid misery, you’ve walked headlong into it.”

Gideon would have liked to argue, but not only did his friend have to go, Jack was right. “Yeah. I know that, too,” he grumbled.

“No Camdens. No kids. Those are the rules. I got it. But for what it’s worth? Let go of ’em both and seize the day—that’s my advice.”

“Advice you’d be able to take?”

Jack laughed. “Yeah, I’m a little too raw to take it right now. But I’m hoping for the best—that I’ll get over this and go on to something better, something that
does
work. Maybe that’s what you’ve stumbled into. And all you have to do is say yes to it.”

Gideon didn’t respond in any way to that. Instead he said, “Drive safe to the Springs—in case of mutiny I might need you to defend me.”

“I’ve always got your back,” Jack assured before they went their separate ways.

It was Friday night. The second Friday night since he’d parted with Jani. At least last Friday night he and Jack had gone out, and Jack had commiserated with him. Then on Saturday and Sunday they’d played racquetball and basketball and indoor tennis. They’d done more bar-hopping on Saturday night, and taken in a movie on Sunday night—all to exhaust and distract him for the weekend.

But this weekend Jack had his son.

Gideon was on his own.

After what easily qualified as one of the worst weeks of his life, he was now facing two days with nothing but his own company and unbearable bad spirits.

That was what Gideon was thinking as he got behind the wheel of his car and started the engine.

Two days with nothing but his own sad company. Or he could be going home, showering, taking Jani to dinner and spending from now until Monday morning with her.

Hell, he could be going home to her right now....

Except that she was a Camden.

Who wanted kids.

Which meant that having her had to include having kids. And having kids could put him in line for losing kids. Kids who would be half Camdens and would irrefutably connect him to the Camden clan for the rest of his life. Birthdays, holidays, parties, cookouts, celebrations, Sunday dinners—for every bit of it, he’d be with the Camdens...

With the Camdens...

He knew he was in a bad way when he couldn’t even muster up any old resentment at the thought of the entire Camden clan. When the thought of another Sunday dinner at Georgianna Camden’s house even had some appeal.

Maybe he really
was
a traitor, he thought as he pulled into the parking garage below his apartment building and found his spot.

Certainly at that moment loyalty was cold comfort...

He got out of his car and trudged to the elevator, having the same ridiculous sense of hope that he’d had every time he’d made that walk since a week ago Thursday. The stupid, self-torturing hope that this time would be like that time—that he’d ride the elevator up to his floor, the doors would open, and there Jani would be again, waiting for him.

But tonight—like every other night—the corridor was empty when he got there. Of course, he knew it would be.

Still, though, disappointment fell over him like a deflated parachute as he unlocked the door to the loft.

And Jack’s words seemed to echo from the sterile interior as he stepped inside.

You did this to yourself....

In order to avoid misery you walked headlong into it....

Jack had also told him to take another look at his reasons for turning Jani down.

He just didn’t want to. The more he thought about everything—and that was all he’d done the past eight days when he wasn’t biting somebody’s head off—the weaker his reasons seemed to get.

He actually laughed mirthlessly at that thought when he threw his coat across a bar stool.

“Don’t look at the justification for something because that justification can’t hold up?” he said out loud.

But his reasons for turning Jani down
did
hold up. They were valid. They hadn’t gotten weaker.

It was just that Jani had been added to the equation.

His feelings for Jani had been added to the equation.

And that had altered things.

That had made his reasons
seem
weaker by comparison because his feelings for her were just bigger and stronger.

Okay, he hadn’t admitted it to himself until that moment, but now, as he went into the bedroom to get out of his work clothes, he suddenly faced facts.

The size and strength of what he felt for Jani made it impossible for him not to question himself—and this choice he’d made that was killing him.

He yanked the knot out of his tie and pulled the strip of Italian silk from around his neck. As he went to the tie rack attached to the side of his dresser, he caught sight of a photograph he kept on the bureau.

The picture was of his great-grandfather, his grandfather and his father at barely twenty-one, all of them standing on the sidewalk in front of the bar that had been the center of the Thatchers’ lives.

He picked up the framed photograph and took it with him to sit on the edge of his bed and stare at it, remembering...

In the picture his father and his work-worn grandfather smiled for the camera, but his great-grandfather was somber. Gideon knew that by the time the picture had been taken, Franklin Thatcher had lost all hope of ever reclaiming his reputation or any of the life he’d had taken away from him in the Lakeview debacle.

“I’m doing what I can, Pops,” he said to that image of his great-grandfather. “I’m redeveloping Lakeview the way you wanted. There will be a community center in your honor—the Franklin Thatcher Community Center. And your name is being cleared in a newspaper article—I know you would have liked that.”

He genuinely would have, Gideon thought. It might be decades late, but he knew that it would have been a huge deal to the old, old man he’d known when he was a child. It would have been a huge deal to have this kind of public acknowledgment.

And even coming late, it was still something.

But the question in Gideon’s mind was: Did all he’d done, all he was doing, earn him something in return?

A pat on the back. His great-grandfather’s appreciation. Pride in him from his family—sure, it would have earned him those things.

But a free path to the Camdens? A charge to
go get her?

Never. There wasn’t a doubt in Gideon’s mind about that—he’d heard enough from all three previous generations to know what they all thought of the Camdens. How they felt about them. To his great-grandfather, his grandfather, his father, the Camdens would have remained the dirty low-down dogs who destroyed the Thatchers.

But thinking of Jani as a dirty low-down dog was just ridiculous.

In fact, he even found it a little difficult to think of the rest of the Camdens he’d met as that.

They just weren’t.

But then, he wasn’t his father or his grandfather or his great-grandfather, either...

Then it struck him.

He was a different man than those who had come before him. He’d worked
not
to end up in that bar, to rise above what the past had left the Thatchers with. He’d learned from their mistakes. He was a new breed of Thatcher.

And if he was a new breed of Thatcher, couldn’t he accept that Jani’s family was a new breed of Camdens? That they might all be like Jani—decent, honest, honorable people?

That
was
what they were known for now, despite some of the stigma that remained from their past.

So should they be held responsible for what was done by earlier generations?

He didn’t feel responsible for anything done by the generations before him, he realized. And like what he was doing in Lakeview, the Camdens were trying to make up for the past despite the fact that they’d had no hand in it.

In one way or another, weren’t they all pretty much working for the same thing? he asked himself. To set old wrongs right?

They were.

And maybe it was part of making things right again to do what Jani had suggested he do—put the past behind him. Certainly it didn’t seem fair to him, at that moment, to be forever tied to those old wrongs.

But there was still the kid issue.

Jani thought that he would eventually get over his problems with that. That time would heal the wound of losing Jillie and he’d want kids again.

It wasn’t something he’d let himself think about since deciding to take a no-kids route. But difficult as it was, he forced himself to consider her perspective as he went on sitting on the edge of his bed.

Okay, yeah, he really had loved being a dad.

And yes, he really did like kids.

And a kid with Jani?

He closed his eyes. He took a deep breath.

Yeah, he could see himself wanting a kid with Jani.

God help him, he could actually see himself wanting that a lot.

Suddenly the feeling was much bigger and stronger than the suffering he’d gone through over losing Jillie...

He hadn’t thought that anything could ever diminish that pain.

But at that moment he knew that not only did he want Jani with every fiber of his being, in every way, every minute of every day and night, he also knew that he didn’t
want her to have a baby the way she planned to. Or worse yet, with another man. He didn’t want her to have a baby without him....

It terrified him. But yes, deep down there was the desire to be the father of her baby.

A Camden baby.

One who could bring a wall of Camden power between him and that child if things ever ended with Jani...

He wavered.

But some people do stay together...

The thought came out of nowhere and he didn’t shoo it away. He felt as if his life was hanging in the balance and he
needed
to entertain it to survive.

But it was true—some people
did
stay together. They had kids and raised them together. They actually did what Jani had said she wanted—they had an entire future together, they grew old together, they enjoyed their grown kids and their grandkids and their great-grandkids. Together.

And if he could have that?

It wasn’t a big leap to knowing that yes, if he could have Jani, if he could have a family with her that he never, ever lost, then that was exactly what he wanted.

Even if she
was
a Camden.

He wanted it so much—he wanted her
so much—that he knew he had to give in.

Because regardless of who she was, regardless of what he’d thought since Shelly had left him, when it came to Jani, when it meant not having her, he just couldn’t keep an old grudge alive another day, and he couldn’t play it safe.

He sat up straight and took the photograph from where he’d set it on the mattress beside him, looking at it again.

“I’m sorry,” he said to the men in the picture, to the family that had come before him and suffered because of Jani’s ancestors. “But I have to have her.” He shook his head again, resolved. “I
have
to have her...”

* * *

“Just dinner, Jani. Lindie and I will pick you up, we’ll go somewhere quiet and nice, we can talk about him or not talk about him, we can do anything you want...”

Jani appreciated what her cousins were offering but it had been a long and awful week after a long and awful weekend last weekend. She’d spent most of the past eight days talking about Gideon. She knew that all of her family had to be sick of hearing about him. She was actually sick of talking about him.

“Thanks, but I’ve already showered and washed my hair,” she told Livi. “I’m in pajama pants and a T-shirt and slippers, I’m just going to go to bed early and try to catch up on some sleep.” Which she’d lost a lot of...

“You’re not going to sleep at seven o’clock,” her cousin insisted. “What if we come there, order in, maybe watch some tear-jerker movie—”

She didn’t think she could stand to cry more tears.

“—or a comedy,” Livi amended, realizing her mistake.

But there was nothing that could make her laugh, either.

“No, really Liv, it’s okay,” Jani said wearily. “Shoe shopping with you guys tomorrow will be good—maybe we can have dinner after that. But for tonight I’m just going to fix myself a sandwich and go to bed early.”