A Sweetheart For The Single Dad (The Camdens Of Colorado Book 8) (18 page)

“But now my having a kid is not only a part of it, it’s a reason for you to tell me no?”

“It is for me,” she said. “You just told me that you shortchanged Sam today because you wanted to be somewhere else. Wouldn’t that become the story of Sam’s life—and the story of our kids’ lives—if we had kids? Wouldn’t something always have to give? Wouldn’t you have to decide whether to go to Sam’s Christmas program or one of our kids’ Christmas programs? Or sporting events? Or graduations? Or whatever?”

“Maybe. But those things get worked out. They aren’t that big a deal—”

“They’re a big deal to whoever is the one getting shortchanged. And it’s so much more than that. You saw how Carter competed with Sam that day we were all together. Imagine that being every day for Sam or for another kid you love. Another kid you
need
to be there for, another kid who
needs
to feel like they are the most important kid to you but who can never be sure if that’s true. I don’t want that kid to be
my
kid. I don’t want to watch it, to see my kid or kids worrying if you like Sam more, if Sam is better than they are, if—”

“I wouldn’t let that happen, Lindie. Any more than I’d let it happen between two kids we had together.”

“I’m afraid that it’s built-in to having kids who are only half siblings. I’m thinking of Sam, too. Right now he’s everything to you. I don’t think he could help but feel unseated if you have other kids, kids you’re with every day and tuck in every night. And if things don’t work out and he ends up in Vermont...”

She shook her head. And forced herself to take her hand from his, to pull it back, out of his reach.

“If things don’t work out with that dental practice,” she went on, “and Sam ends up in Vermont while you’re here with your new kids—that would make it even worse for him. I don’t want that for Sam, either,” she said quietly but unwaveringly. “I don’t want to be responsible for making him feel what that would surely make him feel.”

“The kind of insecurity
you
felt,” he said with an edge to his voice. “But just because you felt that way doesn’t mean other kids will. And we can be on the lookout for it. Head it off.”

He stalled when she’d been shaking her head no through everything he was saying.

Then he sighed, sounding frustrated. “So you put it all together and—”

“This just can’t work,” she finished for him.

“I think it can. You just won’t let it,” he said. “Of all the damn things you want to fix, why isn’t us being together regardless of anything else one of them?”

If only he knew how badly she
did
want to fix this so she could have him.

She just didn’t believe it could be. And part of what she knew she had to be more aware of was when things couldn’t be fixed, when to accept that and not throw herself into something that would likely end badly.

“I don’t want to be the cause of Sam feeling the way I did growing up. I don’t want to bring other kids into a home where they’ll immediately have to compete with your other son. I don’t want my kids to feel like they have to share their dad with someone who doesn’t feel like part of their family. And, yes, when I put it together with the fact that I don’t want to be the one who tears up my own family—”

“Then we try not to do any of that,” he said, reasoning again.

“And if we do it anyway?” She shook her head once more. “There’s too much at stake. Sam and new Sams and my whole family... And if the damage gets done, it doesn’t get undone.”

“So it isn’t only that you want to fix problems, you’re so afraid of causing any that you won’t even give us a chance?”

She shook her head, unable to say anything around the lump in her throat that she was trying to tame.

“And that’s it?” he demanded, sounding as if he couldn’t believe it. “We can’t even take it a step at a time? We’re just done?”

It was what she’d decided even before she’d come home tonight and found him waiting for her. What she’d decided when she wasn’t under the influence of that face she never wanted out of her sight. Or that body she wanted back in bed with her right at that moment. Or the feelings that were ripping her apart to have to deny.

It was the decision she thought she had to abide by in spite of everything that tempted her not to.

“I think we just have to be done,” she whispered, her eyes burning like fire as hot tears welled up in them.

For a long while as she fought for those tears not to fall, Sawyer merely sat there, scowling at her, looking as if he wanted to shake some sense into her.

Then he stood. But before he moved away from the couch he said, “So my dad lost the girl and now I am, too...”

Lindie didn’t know what to say to that so she didn’t say anything at all. And after another long moment of watching her as if he thought things might change if he just waited, Sawyer sighed a disgusted sigh and walked out.

And the sound of her front door closing on what she wanted more than anything made the day that had started so well one of the worst days of her life.

Chapter Eleven

“W
e’ll make it work, Lindie. We might even be able to recruit him over time,” Lindie’s sister Livi had said saucily, “because you know that when he gets to know us he won’t be able to not like us.”

“But one way or another,” her cousin Jani had put in, “you can’t let us be what keeps you from him if he’s what you want. We wouldn’t ever stand in your way.”

A week had passed and it was Sunday night again. Lindie had claimed she was sick and played hooky from her grandmother’s dinner.

She
was
sick—sick at heart. And after a miserable, awful, horrible week since Sawyer had walked out of her house, she just hadn’t had it in her to go the family dinner. She hadn’t been able to face sitting around the table where all of her cousins and most of her brothers had people they cared about sitting beside them while she was alone and secretly pining for Sawyer. She had not been able to face even another few hours of trying to act as if nothing was wrong.

So she’d played sick.

But when the dinner had ended her sister and her cousin had showed up at her door, demanding to know what was going on.

Apparently she hadn’t fooled anyone most of the week. Jani and Livi had said that for the first two days they’d written off her mood to her failure to close the deal with Huffman Consulting. But when she still hadn’t come out of her funk they’d begun to see that there was more to it. They’d decided to bide their time and wait for her to open up, but missing Sunday dinner was too much and they weren’t going to let it get any further. Finally, Lindie had broken down and told them the truth.

The end result had been their reassurance that not even getting together with Sawyer Huffman could change the way any of the family felt about her or treated her.

“It isn’t like things are with Dylan,” Livi had said, “because we know what your guy throws our way and we see it coming.”

“And none of it with him is personal,” Jani added.

So it couldn’t alter her position or any of their relationships, was their conclusion. And if she wanted Sawyer, they—and everyone else—would be cordial to him and welcome him despite the problems he caused them in business.

“And we’ll make sure all the boys are nice to him, too,” they’d promised in the same making-a-pact fashion they’d employed growing up as the only three girls facing down seven boys.

That had made Lindie cry, too.

“It’ll just be business as usual,” Jani had said. “And after-hours we’ll turn that off. Whichever side took the hit will put on a happy face and we’ll have Sunday dinner. He’ll just be your guy, and whoever your guy is doesn’t change who you are to us. You’ll always be ours.”

And they would always be hers. Her family. So important to her that she’d been willing to give up Sawyer rather than risk causing any problems with them.

So important to her that nothing any one of them ever did—or anyone they were ever with—could change her feelings for them.

And if she knew that to be true of her feelings for them, she’d reasoned with herself, then why couldn’t she relax and believe that the same was true of their feelings for her?

The more she’d thought about that the more she’d come to believe that she could accept Jani and Livi’s comfort and support. That she could trust that with or without Sawyer, she would always be in the heart and lives of all the other Camdens.

She hadn’t realized how much she still struggled with those old insecurities she’d felt after going to live with GiGi. Those old worries that if she rocked the boat they might wash their hands of her. Fears that she might not measure up in some way to so many cousins and siblings, that she had to “earn” the love and attention of the few adults in their lives.

And now that her cousin and her sister were gone and she was alone with her thoughts about a future with Sawyer again, it occurred to her just how powerful those old worries and insecurities were.

Powerful enough to only add to her belief that Sawyer’s relationship with Sam was a deal-breaker.

So even if she accepted that none of her family would ever snub or shun Sawyer, even if she accepted that none of them would ever stand for her separating herself from them or banish Sawyer or her because of Sawyer, even if she trusted that no one would allow a rift of any kind to develop, there was still that issue that couldn’t go away.

Sam.

She leaned against the front door she’d just closed after saying goodbye to her sister and her cousin and sank back into despair.

She wanted the man so much but she just couldn’t let herself have him...

Because how could she risk that any child she might have—or Sam—would be burdened with worries and insecurities powerful enough to affect them well into their adult lives?

“I can’t,” she answered her own thought.

And she also couldn’t go on crying, she told herself when tears threatened to start again.

Maybe a shower would help.

At the very least it might get some of the puffiness out of her face before she had to see everyone at work tomorrow.

So she showered then plopped onto her bed with a cold washcloth across her eyes, still thinking about Sawyer.

So much about Sawyer.

About how he looked. Every angle of that handsome face, that crooked little dent in his chin, those crystal-blue eyes, that body...

About how much she wanted to be in that same bed with him again, up against that body, to feel those muscular arms around her, to have her face pressed to his chest...

About how sweet and kind and caring and considerate he was.

About how smart, how calm and patient and reasonable and rational and levelheaded.

About how conscientious and responsible he was.

About how funny he was and how much fun she always had with him.

About how right everything felt when she was with him.

And about how much she wanted to be with him. At that moment and for the rest of her life.

About how, if she ever did have kids, he was who she would want to have kids with.

He was such a good dad on top of everything else, she thought. He was good with Sam and he’d been good with Carter. He’d been fair; he’d done his best to give equal time and attention to both little boys. He hadn’t showed any favoritism; he’d given his full concentration to each of them when it had been called for.

But still she’d seen for herself the competition between them, and the way it had led to disappointments and frustrations and resentments.

What if she just didn’t have kids? she proposed to herself.

She did keep remembering Sawyer telling her last Sunday night that anything was worth being with her. Now she asked herself if being with him was worth anything to her.

Almost
anything—that was the answer.

But she wanted kids. She wanted a family. She always had.

And now she wanted those kids, that family, with Sawyer.

It felt selfish.

But she couldn’t escape it regardless of how hard she tried.

She wanted that man.

And she wanted to have kids with that man.

So how was she going to fix it? How could she have Sawyer, have kids with Sawyer, and avoid Sam or her own kids ever feeling any of what she’d felt growing up?

No one had known the way she’d felt growing up. It wasn’t as if she’d shouted it from the rooftop. She’d been ashamed of thinking that her grandmother might like everyone else better. Of the times when she’d tried to outshine her cousins and her own siblings to keep that from happening. Of worrying about being overlooked in the crowd.

Sawyer had suggested that they could be on the lookout for it happening. That they could head it off.

Was that possible? If they tried to make sure right from the beginning that Sam knew he wasn’t being replaced if there were other kids? If they took every measure to merge Sam and any other kids into one cohesive family—the way she and her brothers and sister and cousins had all eventually come to be?

Was it possible to prevent the suffering she’d gone through and the lingering influence of it if—because she knew what to look for and was watching for it—she pulled out all the stops to make sure that neither Sam nor any other kids felt as if they had to compete for their parents’ love and attention?

Was it possible to keep Sam or any of her own kids from ever feeling the way she had? The way friends had felt about their own half siblings?

Maybe they could try...

It was the second glimmer of hope she’d had and this time she clung to it.

Wasn’t
trying
to head off problems all that any parent could do for their kids?

All that any parent could do was their best to make their kids feel safe and secure and special in their own right.

All any parent could do was their best.

Certainly it was what she
would
do.

And she knew she could trust that Sawyer would, too.

And if—fingers crossed—their kids and Sam never had the foundation of their young lives shaken the way she had, maybe they could better weather sharing Sawyer.

If Sam had his own room in whatever place they lived, if everything was unfailingly equal, if there was never a bigger deal made of any one kid, or any one event for any one child, if they guarded against anyone feeling shortchanged...

Sawyer
had
said he wouldn’t let it happen, she recalled.

And he’d also said that it was him who felt as if he had shortchanged Sam last Sunday, but that Sam hadn’t seemed to notice because he’d gone overboard a little with a special gift.

If they went to all those lengths, if they were vigilant, could she feel all right about a life with a man who already had a child?

Or was she fooling herself because she wanted Sawyer so much?

She
did
want him. So much. She couldn’t deny that.

But maybe this really could be okay, too. As long as she stayed on top of it. As long as Sawyer stayed on top of it.

It might not be perfect, she recognized that.

It wasn’t what she’d planned.

But sometimes life just didn’t happen the way it was planned.

“
Most
of the time life doesn’t happen the way it’s planned,” she said as she took the wet cloth away from her eyes and sat up.

She might have planned not to get involved with a man who already had kids but if anyone was worth altering her plans for, it was Sawyer. Sawyer was worth accepting whatever complications came with him.

Sawyer was worth the need to be a little extra watchful over the feelings of Sam and any kids they might have.

Sawyer was worth taking extra pains to blend families.

Being with Sawyer, having Sawyer, she realized, wasn’t worth
almost
anything.

It was worth anything at all.

She sat for a moment with that thought, imagining a future with him and her family at Sunday dinners, imagining herself as the instant second mother of Sam and making a place for him in her house and her life, imagining herself having her first precious baby without any of it being a first for Sawyer.

And, no, it wasn’t exactly what she’d imagined before she’d met him. But with him in every picture, it was exactly what she wanted now.

If he was still interested in letting her make those adjustments. Because now the question was could she fix the problem she’d created with Sawyer?

That wasn’t something that needed to be thought about, it was something that needed action. And she couldn’t wait even another minute to take that action.

She just didn’t want to take it looking the way she was afraid she might look after two days of sobbing.

She got off the bed and went into her walk-in closet, taking a close look at herself in the mirror on one wall of the space that was really a small room in itself.

The cloth over her eyes had helped some of the redness and swelling, and she thought makeup could help even more. So that was the first thing she did—she fixed her face.

When she’d done the best she could with that, she brushed her hair and opted to leave it in the wild-lady disarray that the natural waves fell into if an effort hadn’t been made to tame them as they dried. Then she yanked on jeans and a gray tank top, slipped her feet into a pair of sandals and rushed out of her closet.

That was when it occurred to her that she’d never been to Sawyer’s place.

He’d told her that he had a loft in one of the high-rises in lower downtown Denver, but that was all she knew.

And maybe it was better if she called first, anyway, rather than just surprise him.

She left her bedroom to find her cell phone but once it was in her hand she hesitated.

What was she going to say?

What if he didn’t want to talk to her?

What if he didn’t want to see her ever again?

But she couldn’t let herself think about those things. She couldn’t let more fear stand in her way now.

So she pulled up his number to place the call and tried to ignore her own rapidly beating heart as she waited for an answer.

When the call didn’t go to voice mail, when he did answer, she froze for a split second before she said, “Sawyer? It’s me. Lindie.”

The sound he made was sort of a laugh, sort of a sigh, sort of sad-sounding. “I know.”

Because his phone recognized her number and told him. But at least he’d answered knowing it was her.

“Can we talk?” she asked, terrified that he might say no.

“I guess that’s better than you calling the cops on me.”

“Why would I call the cops on you? I just wanted to talk and realized that I’ve never been to your place so I called for an address and directions.”

“I’m parked outside your house, Lindie. I thought that’s what you were calling about.”

She hurried to the window in her living room and peered out the plantation shutters.

Sure enough, there he was, his SUV at the curb in front of her house. She could see him sitting behind the wheel.

“What are you doing out there?” she asked.

“I brought Sam home, headed for mine and somehow my car came here instead.”

“To do something I should call the cops for?”