A Camden's Baby Secret (13 page)

“I think so,” Callan confirmed, before he changed the subject. “Louie and Margaret—they're the people who started out as staff and then helped raise you, right?”

“Right. They're my grandmother's best friends.”

“And Jonah—he's her husband and he grew up in Northbridge, too?”

“He and GiGi were high school sweethearts who went their separate ways and then reconnected just recently here in Denver. They've only been married since June.”

“Well, the Tellers said they felt at home with your grandmother and her husband, and with Margaret and Louie, too. So doing this tonight was a great idea. Thanks.”

“I can't take the credit. It wasn't my idea...” And it wasn't something she would have suggested on her own, because she'd been worried about being there with a man who wasn't Patrick, and about someone spilling the beans about the baby. “It was GiGi who extended the invitation. I was just the messenger. But I'm glad it worked out.” She paused and then said, “And what's this I overheard about John Sr. getting a car?”

Callan smiled, pleased with himself. “We talked early this morning. I used the same angle on him that you used on me.”

“Angle?” Livi repeated, pretending to take offense at the word.

“You know, that stuff about how if John Sr. had wheels it would help me out?”

“That wasn't an angle,” she insisted, even though it had been. “It was the truth.”

“Yeah, but it was an angle, too. To make me see your point. But I
did
see your point and I thought it was a good approach to take to protect the old man's pride—also what you said needed to be done.”

“Is this you giving me—a
Camden
—credit for something?” she challenged.

“It is. And also I'm giving you a hard time,” he said, again pleased with himself.

“But you and John Sr. actually had a conversation?”

Callan nodded. “I think you could call it that. Enough to get the job done, anyway.”

“You know it's only a start, though, right? I mean, you need to keep up a dialogue to actually
build
a relationship. One conversation doesn't do it.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. But this
was
a beginning and I think I made a little headway—how about you give
me
some credit?”

Livi laughed. “Good job!” she praised, the way she might have praised a puppy in training.

But Callan didn't seem to care. He merely smiled, bowed his head as if humbly accepting an award and said, “Thank you.”

She laughed at him.

He raised his head again and for some reason that simple movement caused her to hone in on his neck. Exposed to just below his Adam's apple, it was thick and strong, and from out of nowhere she suddenly thought that it was very sexy. And she had the oddest inclination to kiss it...

Shying away from her own wandering thoughts, she said, “What about you? Did you have a good time tonight?”

He looked very pointedly at her. “I did have a good time,” he said, as if she was the reason for it.

“Did it convince you that we aren't evildoers and villains?”

He smiled again. “What would Sunday dinner with evildoers and villains be like? Surely they wouldn't want to give themselves away as evildoers and villains, would they?”

“You just think we were on our best behavior?”

“Well, it
was
Sunday dinner—how much evildoing and villainy would go on there?”

Livi rolled her eyes and shook her head. Obviously, he was feeling ornery tonight. But she didn't mind. She was enjoying it. Him. As usual...

“So if you still believe we're treacherous,” she said then, “are you going to chaperone the book club and the yard winterizing to make sure Maeve and John Sr. are safe from Camden duplicity, too?”

Callan sighed dramatically. “Maybe I'll just have to hire bodyguards,” he said, with a Cheshire cat smile that let her know he was kidding.

Even so, Livi reached across him to pinch his biceps.

“Hey!” he protested.

“Do you really still think we're horrible people you have to be careful of?” she demanded.

“The story of Mandy's dad is pretty compelling stuff,” he reminded her.

“That you aren't going to ever let me live down?”

Callan smiled crookedly and a sparkle came into his dark eyes. “The jury is still out, but it's leaning in your favor. You might not want complete exoneration, though,” he said enticingly. “I have to admit that to the old troublemaker in me, there's some appeal in flirting with danger.”

“That's me, all right—pure danger,” she said wryly.

“With your family background? You might not be
pure
danger, but there's an element there,” he said, his voice slightly quieter, as if even a small element of it intrigued him.

Livi didn't think she'd ever before felt as if she was intriguing to anyone. Patrick and she had been close even before they'd reached puberty, so there was nothing unknown between them. And it pleased her that with Callan there was some mystery about her. It actually inspired her to be a little bolder. The way she had been in Hawaii.

“So I guess you'd better watch yourself,” she warned.

His smile grew wicked. “I'd rather watch
you
,” he muttered, just as he leaned forward to kiss her.

And deep down Livi recognized that this was really why she'd been so willing to come in tonight. Really why she'd stayed. Since the moment Callan had left her porch last night all she'd wanted was to kiss him again. And now she had her wish.

It was a simple kiss at first. Chaste and sweet—like on Friday night in the courtyard, except tonight he wasn't touching her at all.

But it stayed that way only for a moment before lips parted and tongues took to frolicking the way they had the previous evening. First with delirious happiness at meeting again, before their dance slowed to something more languorous, more mature and sumptuous and erotic.

Was this what Callan had been aiming for tonight, too?
she wondered, somehow having the sense that it was.

He moved his left hand from the sofa cushion, sneaking under her hair to her nape. Then up to cradle her head as mouths opened more and that kiss dived to new depths.

The arm she'd pinched came around her, pulling her up against him—closer tonight. Close enough for her to register even more strongly how incredibly sensitive pregnancy had made her breasts.

Her nipples turned into knots within the confines of her lacy bra and it was as if they were demanding not to be neglected.

And suddenly Livi was nothing but a jumble of demands being made by a body that had taken over her brain, canceling every thought and leaving her a mass of sensations and needs and longings and cravings.

She couldn't get enough of Callan kissing her, of the feel of one of his hands in her hair, the other massaging her back.

Her own arms had gone around him and she couldn't get enough of the feel of his back beneath her palms, either. She wanted more, so she found the bottom of that sweater and finessed her way under it so flesh could meet flesh.

Every hill, every valley, every muscle and tendon of that oh-so-masculine and muscular back—she memorized it all with her hands. She couldn't press her fingers firmly enough into him, massaging and kneading, mimicking what she wanted him to be doing to her front.

Her front that ached with the driving need to feel his hands there as their mouths plundered each other, leaving her awash in a desire more intense than she could ever remember feeling.

Finally taking the hint, Callan dragged a palm to one of her breasts. Even through her blouse and bra, his cupping it sent a flash flood of even more longing through her, making her groan softly. After only a few caresses, he slipped his hand into the overlapping wrap blouse and down inside the cup of her bra.

Livi couldn't contain the gasp that came from her throat at that.

She hadn't found much to enjoy in pregnancy. So far, it had made her sick every morning, and tired and sluggish throughout the day. It had made her overly affected by simple smells and sometimes weepy when she least expected. But that was all before Callan's big hand formed the perfect mold for a breast that was so alive with sensation that she saw stars.

All on their own, her spine arched and her breasts expanded into his grip. And as he began to press firm fingers into her flesh, to knead and release, to tenderly pinch and twist her nipple and then let it nestle into his palm again, Livi felt the rise of even more demanding desires shouting to be satisfied.

But where?

They were at his place. They could go to his bedroom.

Like they'd gone to his hotel room in Hawaii...

And then what? Would they wake Greta or the Tellers? Would she cross paths with one of his housemates afterward? Would they somehow find out she was there, making love with Callan?

The thought quenched the desire in her just enough to clear her head.

She wanted him. More, Livi thought, than she had in Hawaii. More than she could remember wanting even Patrick.

But not here. Not worrying and sneaking around Callan's new family. Not in any way that might leave her with another round of regrets and shame.

She yanked her head free of that kiss and covered his hand at her breast with her own. But despite intending to pull that away, too, she somehow ended up pressing it tighter to her.

Still she whispered, “We can't do this here.”

“Like two teenage kids hoping not to get caught?” he said, as if he'd read her mind.

He kissed her again before she could answer, and Livi continued to hold his hand to her breast, wanting so badly not to let it go, not to end the contact.

But then he ended that kiss, too, and withdrew his hand from inside her blouse.

“I get it,” he said with a resigned sigh. “But I gotta tell you it makes for a
really
big negative to having other people in my house...”

Livi was focused on trying to tame her own raging desires and didn't comment on that. Instead, after taking a deep breath to gain some control, she said, “I should go.”

The look on Callan's handsome face told her how much he hated that idea, but he didn't say anything to stop her. He merely stood up and held out his hand for her to take.

She almost didn't want to, because touching him in any way at all seemed like an invitation back into what had been so difficult to end already.

But somehow her hand went to his.

As he walked her out of his condo, to the elevator and then through the parking garage, he kept her close to his side.

“Next Saturday night is a dinner-slash-silent-auction my company does for charity every year,” he said as they approached her car. “My ex-wife used to plan it, but my new assistant and secretary have taken it over. I still have to attend, though, and I hate to go alone. Any chance that you'd keep me company? It's for a good cause—it goes to college scholarships for underprivileged kids, and we take the total raised by the auction and match it.”

This definitely sounded like a date. After what had just happened—on top of what had happened in Hawaii—Livi's better judgment told her to say no.

But her hand was so snug in his and what had just happened had left her a little floaty—and she'd already exhausted all the willpower she had access to tonight when she'd first pulled away...

Livi heard herself say, “If it's for a good cause...” as if that mattered at the moment, when what she was really thinking was how much she didn't want him to let go of her, to send her on her way.

“Great,” he said. “Now I can look forward to it.”

They reached her car, and after she'd unlocked her door, he opened it.

But he still didn't release her hand. Instead he used it to swing her around into his arms, where he kissed her again so soundly that it left her slightly dazed.

“I'll get you the information about the auction,” he said, his voice deep and clearly under the influence of the same emotions that were making her knees weak.

Livi nodded.

He took his arms from around her, and when he did, it was more disappointing than she'd anticipated. And her knees really were a little wobbly without him, so she got behind the wheel of her car, fighting against what everything in her was crying out for—to be back in his arms, kissing him...

“Drive safe,” Callan commanded, before he closed her door.

She nodded, stealing one last glance at him, wondering how it was possible that she was feeling what she was and wanting what she was when he wasn't Patrick, and when there weren't any of the other factors or elements that had brought her to his hotel room that night in Hawaii.

Then Callan smiled at her in a way that made her think he was almost as confused by what was happening as she was, before he moved so she could back out of the parking spot.

But even as confused as she was, she still drove home thinking about how amazingly good it had felt to have his hands on her.

And how much she wanted to have them on her again...

Chapter Nine

A
fter telling herself all week that she should, Livi did not cancel with Callan on Saturday night.

In hopes of getting some control over herself, she'd spent the week avoiding him. She'd seen Greta only in public places like the mall and the ice-cream shop, before delivering the little girl to the condo's front door and ducking out in a hurry.

But by Saturday Livi wanted to see Callan all the more and there was just no way she could give up that opportunity.

So she spent the entire day getting ready.

And thinking while she was waxed and manicured and pedicured. While she had her hair trimmed and styled so that it was curlier than she ordinarily wore it. While she had her eyebrows done. While she even had China—the makeup artist who was best friends with her brother Dylan's fiancée, Abby—do her makeup.

Thinking and thinking and thinking...

On Friday night Livi had gathered her entire family together to tell them she was pregnant.

Everyone had had the same reaction as Jani and Lindie: shock that quickly turned to support and vows to be there for her any time of the day or night.

But Livi had also been in line for some pressure from her cousin Beau and her other triplet, Lang.

They both had strong opinions about whether or not Livi should tell Callan she was pregnant. Lang hadn't known about his own son, Carter, until the boy was two, and it had shaken up his entire life.

Thanks to machinations by their great-grandfather H.J., Beau had been left in the dark about having gotten his teenage sweetheart pregnant, and learned about it only a few months ago, when the two of them had met again. The belated news had come as a terrible blow to him, compounded by the fact that the baby had been lost in a miscarriage that the mother had suffered alone.

Livi had made the same points against telling Callan that she'd made with Jani and Lindie. But her male cousin and her brother had been insistent.

“Do it anyway,” Beau had commanded, discounting everything she'd said. “The longer you wait, the harder it'll be, and it has to be done.”

Livi realized that her cousin was right about one thing—the longer she waited, the more difficult it was. Even now, she felt guilty over the fact that while it felt as if they were not only getting to know each other, but actually getting close, she was keeping this enormous secret from Callan. She was willing to be intimate with him in a way that she'd been with only one other man in her life, but she wasn't being honest with him.

But not even worrying and fretting and agonizing about that had gotten her any closer to a decision. Because whenever Livi tried to think about what she should say to Callan, her mind wandered instead to how much she wanted him.

She hadn't been able to eat, to sleep, to focus or concentrate on work, because no matter what she did, she kept finding herself remembering him kissing her, touching her, or making love to her once upon a time in Hawaii.

It was chemistry, she'd finally concluded. Chemistry at its most extreme. In Hawaii and again now. And that chemistry dominated everything else.

Maybe Livi just had to let nature run its course. To get wanting him out of her system before she would ever be able to think straight.

So no, she hadn't canceled with Callan for tonight. And she'd given herself a temporary pass on making her decision about telling him she was pregnant, too.

The only decision she'd made was to dedicate tonight to whatever it took to resolve their chemistry.

When her day of beautification was done late that afternoon, she went home to put on the dress she'd bought for the occasion—a little black, knee-length cocktail dress with a lace overlay on the V-neck bodice that topped a full faille skirt.

Sheer black, thigh-high hose, a pair of strappy three-inch-high heels and a small black satin clutch completed the outfit only minutes before her doorbell rang.

Anticipation of seeing Callan again erupted an almost overwhelming rush of excitement through her. But she forced herself to walk at a moderate speed to the door.

He looked so good that her first glimpse of him took her breath away.

He was wearing a black, slim-cut, shawl-collar tuxedo with a crisp white shirt, and rather than a bow tie, a solid black silk tie that matched the tuxedo to a T.

His hair was in its usual tidy disarray, his face was clean-shaven and he smelled of that cologne she liked so much. Livi wasn't sure whether he really did look even better than normal or if it was just that she was starving for the sight of him. But one way or another she was bowled over.

“Wow!” he said, after giving her the same kind of once-over she'd given him. “Aren't you...wow. I don't want to take you out and share you.”

“You clean up pretty well yourself,” she countered.

He didn't acknowledge that, continuing to stare at her for another moment before he jolted out of his reverie and said, “We should get going—they won't start anything until I get there.”

Livi had her clutch bag in her hand and held it up. “I'm ready if you are.”

Ready and too, too eager to be with him again.

But as the evening progressed Livi had her own regrets about the necessity of sharing Callan, because she had to do so much of it.

Although there was staff galore to run the event, as sponsor and host, he was in big demand by everyone attending the function. He couldn't be rude to the legion of guests who wanted to say hello and chat, who barely left them a moment for a few bites of food and who waylaid them every time they headed for the dance floor that they never managed to reach.

All through it Livi stood by his Callan's side and persevered, chafing over not having him to herself.

It was eleven o'clock before the results of the auction had been tallied and announcements were made by the emcee, along with instructions on how the winners could check out.

Livi won a bid on a mural painting service that she thought Greta would like to use to make her bedroom at Callan's condo more kid-like—having okayed it with him before placing the bid.

Callan won a limited-edition bottle of scotch, and once they'd paid and he had his scotch and Livi had the receipt and information about how to redeem her purchase, he asked if she wanted to stay or if they could begin their exit.

She voted for the latter, but it was still midnight before they made it out the door and back into Callan's sleek silver sports car.

“Thanks for being my wingman—or is that wingwoman—tonight. It was nice not having to do all that on my own,” he said as he headed for Livi's house.

“Sure.”

“You're good at it, too—all the people and small talk.... I've never cared for that stuff.”

“You and John Sr. have that in common,” Livi observed. “But I couldn't tell that you don't like it—you hid it very well.”

Callan cast her a mischievous smile. “All an act,” he confided.

She watched him as he pulled off his tie, then unfastened the top button of his shirt and stretched his neck as if to get the kinks out. And she fought the inclination to reach over and rub those kinks out for him.

“I was hoping we might have a few minutes to ourselves—to dance or just to talk—and maybe I could make the event a little more fun for you,” he said. “But there was no chance, was there? I'm sorry for that.”

Me, too...

“It's okay. I'm not a newbie at things like this—we go to them or throw them ourselves all the time. I knew what I was in for,” she assured him, keeping her thoughts to herself.

He gave her a sidelong glance. “And you came anyway...just for me?” he asked, wiggling his eyebrows comically.

Yes, for him. Because of him. But Livi wasn't going to tell him that, so she said, “For the cause.”

He just grinned, as if he knew her real answer.

Then he said, “So where were you all week? I know you saw Greta almost every day, but you made yourself scarce otherwise.”

“Busy week,” she lied. “But I heard that you were home to have dinner with Greta and the Tellers every single night.”

“Told you I'd make more of an effort, didn't I?”

“And you came through.”

“You didn't think I would,” he accused, as they reached her house.

“I hoped for the best,” she said, just before he pulled into her driveway and turned off the engine.

He got out to come around to her side, and as he did, Livi took a deep breath.

Was she going to ask him in?

On the previous Saturday night, she'd wished she had. But it was a big step to actually invite that man into the home she'd shared with Patrick. Especially when she considered what could happen when she did.

Not that it
had
to...

She could stop it from getting to the bedroom if anything about that didn't feel right, she told herself.

And knowing that she had the option was enough to get her out of the car and to her house. Where Callan did accept her invitation.

“How was it—going home to a family, to dinner with everyone, every night?” she asked as she closed the door behind them and set her purse on a table nearby.

“I think things went pretty well,” he answered, following her into the living room, where she kicked off her shoes.

As his hostess, she knew she should offer him something to drink, but she didn't want the wine issue she'd skirted around at the auction to come up again. She'd ordered only pomegranate juice with a twist of lime and explained it away by saying that she liked to keep her wits about her when there would be names to remember.

But now she wouldn't have that excuse, so she merely sat on the couch, tucking her legs under her.

If Callan noticed the lack of etiquette he didn't show it and instead made himself at home by removing his tuxedo jacket and tossing it across the back of an easy chair before joining her on the sofa.

He sat nearby, angled toward her, his elbow hooked atop the cushions behind them, relaxed but intimate.

And even though Patrick crossed Livi's mind, it was only in realizing that nothing about having Callan there like that alarmed her. She wasn't thinking that Callan was in Patrick's place. She was just somehow comfortable with the fact that she was there, like that, with Callan.

Who she was still drinking in the sight of...

“Did you and John Sr. talk over dinner or are the two of you still doing that thing you do—talking to Greta and Maeve and Kinsey and never really to each other?”

“We did a little better. Monday night we exchanged a few words about going car shopping, which we did on Tuesday. I got him an SUV that feels like a truck to him, he said. Then one night he said it ran well. Another night he told me he was picking up Louie so Louie could show him some shortcuts and easy routes to use around town. And after that I asked him how it went and he said fine.”

Livi laughed. “Let me guess—none of that is a brief summary of longer conversations. They're the totality of the few words you said to each other before you both went back to not talking, or only talking to everyone else.”

Callan laughed, too. “Well, yeah...” he admitted. “But John Sr. went all week without saying anything bad about me under his breath—that's something. And he even said it felt good to have a way to get out around here—I took that as a thank-you for the car. Oh, and Thursday night he told me he'd do some grocery shopping on Friday, and asked if I needed anything...”

“That's pretty big, actually,” Livi commented.

“So I don't think we're doing too badly. We're not BFFs yet or anything, but we aren't at each other's throats, either.”

She smiled at his BFF remark. She doubted that term had been in his vocabulary before taking in a nine-year-old girl. “And Greta has been talking your ear off?”

“I don't know how you know that, but yeah,” he said, sounding somewhat worn-out by the little girl.

“That's the way she is with people she likes,” Livi explained. “It's great, though, that she's talking to you. That's how you build your relationship with her, too. You should enjoy it while it lasts, because in a few years she'll be a teenager and she'll clam up.”

“How soon is that?” he asked hopefully, clearly teasing.

“And how about Maeve?” Livi asked. “Kinsey had her trying to stand on that leg when I brought Greta home yesterday.”

“Yeah, Kinsey switched her over to a home health care service here. They sent a doctor to admit her and the new doc thought she could start doing that a little. Seemed to go okay. Kinsey's been great helping her through it, coming in even earlier, staying later.”

Livi had a brief flash of that jealousy she'd felt thinking about Callan and the pretty nurse. But she reminded herself that there was nothing going on between them. Also, it was her own choice to make herself scarce this past week. Greta had tried to persuade her to stay for dinner every night and she'd declined, so if Callan had spent more time with the nurse than with her, it was Livi's own fault.

“So are we all caught up?” Callan asked then.

She laughed once more. “Why? Do you have something else you want to talk about?”

“You.”

“Me? What's there to say about me?”

He straightened his arm along the back of the couch, catching a strand of her hair and letting it wind around his finger. “Now that I know more, there's something that's bothering me about Hawaii.”

He paused, his frown making it clear that this was troubling him. “Did I sort of take your virginity without knowing that's what I was doing?”

“My virginity? I was married, remember? You definitely didn't take my virginity.”

“I don't know...” he mused, unconvinced. “It was a first—a couple of pretty big firsts, actually. The first time after you lost your husband. The first time ever with someone who
wasn't
Patrick. And I didn't know.”