A Camden's Baby Secret (7 page)

But as she did, she began to think about how nice Kinsey was, how warm and personable. And how pretty, too; she had coloring like Livi's own—dark hair, fair skin and blue eyes.

Livi began to think that if any of her brothers or male cousins were still single she would have told them about the home health care practitioner and offered to set one of them up on a date. But none of them were single anymore.

Callan was, though...

Had he noticed Kinsey? Livi wondered all of a sudden.

How could he not have? Circumstances put them together a lot. And Kinsey had plenty of charms to attract a healthy single guy.

But why did it bother her to think that surely he
had
noticed the pretty nurse? That he could even be attracted to her?

Was that why he was so eager to put Hawaii behind them? So he could feel free to start something up with Kinsey?

“Are you sure you're okay?” the nurse asked, sounding alarmed. “I thought you were pale before, but the color just disappeared from your face altogether.”

“Really, I'm just tired,” Livi repeated in a clipped tone.

But what if there was something going on between Kinsey and Callan? she asked herself.

It shouldn't affect her. It shouldn't matter to her. She should be glad for everyone involved. After all, Greta and the Tellers were already fond of the nurse and she was good to them. Callan clearly needed help. If he and Kinsey got together the whole lot of them could be one big happy family.

And Livi hated the idea so much she was tempted to take the decorative geode from the wooden plank coffee table they were about to move and throw it at Kinsey.

Perfectly nice Kinsey, who was doing nothing but being friendly to everyone, including her.

Perfectly nice Kinsey, who Livi had not seen Callan take any special interest in at all.

Perfectly nice Kinsey, who only seemed peripherally aware of Callan and even then only as her employer.

But still the thought of the two of them together was so horrible to Livi that she didn't know what to do now that she'd had it.

She was aware that what she was feeling was ridiculous. And she reminded herself that she'd had Patrick. Patrick was her one-and-only. He couldn't be replaced. Whatever went on in any other man's life didn't matter to her.

But
why
did she have to remind herself of that? She'd never had to before. It had always been so deeply ingrained in her that she never lost sight of it.

“Maybe I better sit down for just a minute,” she muttered, wilting onto the sofa once they had the coffee table centered in front of it.

“I'll get you a glass of water,” Kinsey said, leaving her alone.

Livi took a few deep breaths, trying to calm herself. Trying to clear her head. Trying to understand.

Maybe this was because of hormones?

The doctor had said she was flooded with them now. So many that they were already making enough changes in her body for the ob-gyn not to need a blood test to confirm the pregnancy. That had to be what was wrong with her. Why else would she be so freaked out by the thought of Callan with Kinsey?

The nurse returned with a glass of water and handed it to her. Livi thanked her, then blurted, “So I'll bet you'll be glad to see Callan when he gets here.”

No! She hadn't really said that, had she?

Kinsey laughed slightly. “So he can move his own furniture?” she guessed.

Livi forced a laugh of her own, gratefully seizing the excuse Kinsey was giving her, because she felt like an idiot for what she'd said. “This stuff is massive,” she added with a nod toward the pieces, which were large enough to fill the room and substantial for even the two of them to have to push across the hardwood flooring, since they were too heavy to lift.

“We're doing okay. If being without my brothers has taught me anything it's that women can do whatever they have to do without men.”

Oh, God, I hope so...
Livi thought.

She was going to have this baby on her own. And maybe that's what had caused that strange burst of jealousy? Maybe it was a biological thing, to want her baby's father to be free to take care of her and the child?

But even if she and Callan were having a baby, that didn't mean they were anything else to each other. Or that he couldn't or wouldn't or shouldn't go on to find his own one-and-only. She should even be hoping that he would. Eventually.

Maybe just not today.

And maybe not Kinsey.

Livi finished the glass of water and got to her feet as if she had renewed energy. “Okay, ready to go again,” she announced.

But as she and Kinsey got back to work she started thinking of what single men she did know.

And who she might be able to fix the nurse up with in a hurry.

* * *

“I never turn down help cleaning,” Callan said to Livi several hours later.

He'd arrived home with his three charges at a little after seven o'clock. Then he'd left the Tellers to Kinsey, Greta to Livi, and gone back out to pick up the dinner they'd all agreed on, while Livi and Kinsey got everyone shown around the condo and moved in to their respective rooms.

They'd all eaten when he'd returned with the food, then left the mess so that Callan and John Sr. could rearrange the furniture in the room the elder Tellers would occupy, while Kinsey got Maeve ready for bed and Livi urged Greta in that direction, too.

Greta had fallen asleep almost the minute her head hit the pillow, and once the Tellers' room was in order Callan had left Kinsey to deal with the elderly couple.

Slipping out of Greta's room, Livi had found him tackling the dining room and kitchen, and asked if he wanted another pair of hands.

But she wasn't just trying to be helpful.

From the moment Callan had gotten there she'd been watching him and Kinsey. Hating herself for it. Not understanding why she was so driven to do it, but doing it, anyway.

She hadn't seen a single indication that there was anything going on between them, but something in her wouldn't let her leave until she knew Kinsey was gone, too.

So she'd offered to help Callan clean up.

“A Camden doing the dishes—is this a first?” he asked jokingly.

“It is a first,” she said teasingly. “As a Camden I've always had a whole staff to do everything for me—put the toothpaste on my toothbrush, cut my food, hold the cup with my morning coffee for me to sip out of, dab the corners of my mouth after every bite I'm fed by my feeder...”

He laughed. “I know it isn't like that, but you
are
a Camden.”

“Clearly you've never met my grandmother. She was a farm girl from Northbridge—get her started and you hear stories about slopping pigs and milking cows and what it really means to get your hands dirty. And since she raised me—along with my five brothers and sisters and four cousins—from the time I was six years old, I can promise you that I have done more dishes than you've probably seen in your lifetime.”

“That's a
lot
of brothers and sisters and cousins. Your grandmother raised you all after the plane crash?” he asked as they stacked take-out containers, gathered used napkins, plates, silverware and glasses. “I remember hearing about the crash when it happened, but I was just a kid myself. I never thought about there being kids left behind until now.”

“Well, there were. A full ten of us. I'm just grateful we still had my grandmother—plus my great-grandfather, H. J. Camden. He's the one who started the whole Camden enterprise. The two of them had to stay home at the last minute because H.J. had hurt his back. They ended up being the only two left to take care of us.”

“Or they would have been lost, too,” Callan said with some astonishment. “It's weird. Until now I've only been on the other side of this. I have to admit, I wasn't heartbroken that the people who had stolen Mandy's dad's business didn't end up living long and prosperous lives themselves.”

Livi didn't know what to say to that.

“Sorry, that was...” Callan paused, then said, “I have some mixed feelings going on here. On the one hand you're Livi. From Hawaii. And when that's all you are...well, I can't say I hate being around you.”

That sounded like an understatement. Did it mean that he
liked
being with her?

“On the other hand,” he continued, “you're a Camden. And one of my best friends hated Camdens so much I wouldn't have trusted her to be in the same room with one. So when that part comes up...I guess I go into Mandy-mode and...well, I'm sorry if I say something I shouldn't.”

Livi nodded, distracted by his inadvertent admission that he liked being with her.

Then he seemed to make an effort to separate her from her family name, and said, “So tell me about being raised by your grandmother. Ten of you, huh?”

“Ten kids, yeah,” she confirmed. “But only eight births, because I'm a triplet with my brother Lang and my sister, Lindie.”

“I've never met a triplet before.”

“You don't run into too many of us. Lang and Lindie and I, and our cousin Jani, are the youngest of the family—Jani is the same age we are.”

“So she was six when the plane crash happened, too.”

“Right. GiGi—that's what we call our grandmother—took over after that and raised us all. With some help from H.J., who had to come out of retirement at eighty-eight to run Camden Inc., and with Margaret and Louie Haliburton, who started out as staff but became just like family.”

“They were the ones who put the toothpaste on your toothbrush?” Callan teased.

Livi laughed and appreciated that he'd lightened the tone. “I think they might have, actually. Once or twice when I was little. But the Camden name and coffers didn't mean a thing to GiGi. She raised us the way she'd been raised.”

“You had pigs to slop and cows to milk?”

“No, but every one of us had chores, from the moment we went to live with GiGi until the day any one of us moved out—and even on vacations home from college. We all still pitch in there when something needs to be done.”

“But you started doing chores when you were six?”

“I did. I learned to make my own bed, pick up after myself, and we all got together in the kitchen every single weeknight to lend a hand making dinner and then cleaning up.”

“So
you
were the staff?” he joked again.

“We were just one big family. We worked together and played together and we're still a pretty tight-knit group.”

“And it sounds like you like that.”

“I did and do. There's always been company and support and help when any one of us needs it...” Things she knew she was going to need again now, facing pregnancy and single parenthood. Things she was counting on. “We still do what GiGi started all those years ago—we have movie nights at her house, dinner every Sunday. We share the responsibilities and run Camden Incorporated equally and keep up with each other's lives and babysit for one another and whatever.”

“So basically your grandmother is an expert at doing the whole family thing.”

“Well, yeah...” Livi said, hearing in his voice that the idea seemed foreign to him.

“And now that I'm doing what she did, taking over for Mandy and J.J., that puts me in her position? Does that mean I should do that kind of thing?” he asked, as if this was news to him.

“Should you assign chores so Greta learns responsibility? Cook dinner yourself every night and make sure the whole family is together for Sunday dinner every week? Should you have movie nights and arrange fun stuff for everyone to do together? I suppose you have to make it work for you and the Tellers and Greta, so there might be variations of all that, but sure. Were you not thinking about being Greta's family now? Because you are... Along with the Tellers, of course, but they won't be around forever. And you aren't just loaning rooms out in your house.”

“I guess I didn't really think about any of that,” he admitted, frowning as they began to take things from the formal dining room into Callan's ultracontemporary kitchen.

Neither of them said anything as they made a few trips to clear the dining room. Livi had the impression that he was contemplating what seemed to have been a revelation to him. She left him to it as she packaged leftovers and he rinsed plates and put them in the dishwasher.

They'd just about finished when Kinsey came in to say that Maeve and John Sr. were in bed for the night and she was leaving, that she would be back the next morning.

Livi thought she should say good-night, too, and walk out with the nurse. But the kitchen wasn't completely clean. The dining room table needed to be washed off. And she
had
volunteered to help...

Oh, who was she kidding? She just wasn't eager to have her time there end yet.

Callan said only a perfunctory good-night to the nurse, without casting a glance in her direction, as he loaded the dishwasher.

He didn't seem to hear Kinsey say in a more casual, genial voice to Livi, “Get some rest tonight.”

“You, too,” Livi countered.

Then Kinsey said a general “See you all tomorrow” that only Livi answered, and left.

When she had, Callan's attention was solely on Livi again.

“Didn't you sleep well last night?” he asked.

No, she hadn't slept well. Not with that doctor's appointment this morning on her mind. But she didn't want to mention that, so she said, “I was up early to leave Northbridge—the same way Kinsey was. We were commiserating before you got here.” It was Livi's turn to pause before she said, “She's nice...”

Callan shrugged. “Kinsey? Yeah, she is,” he agreed vaguely. “I haven't had a whole lot of interaction with her—she keeps me updated, but she's just sort of...around, doing her job. But yeah, she's nice enough.”