A Sweetheart For The Single Dad (The Camdens Of Colorado Book 8) (5 page)

By the time they had several plates stacked with the graham cracker sandwiches, which the sisters were very impressed with, Lindie was beginning to feel like one of the girls.

“Do we bring these around to everyone now?” she asked, hoping it would get her nearer to Sawyer.

“Everybody knows to come in to see if there’s something when they want to eat,” Angel informed her just as Clara was motioning to Lindie to bend so she could whisper in her ear.

When Lindie did, the seven-year-old said, “Could I bring one home to my gramma? She likes chocolate but we couldn’t buy any at the store yesterday because she had to buy so much other stuff for us to eat. We had to put her candy bars back when we didn’t have enough money at the end.”

And that was as much as it took to break Lindie’s heart.

She had no idea what the center’s policy was on sending food home. She’d used all the graham crackers available to arrive at the number of portions Marie had said she should have, and she couldn’t risk that other kids there might go without if she wrapped even one up for Clara.

But during the tour she’d been shown the employee’s lounge and where to put her purse. And she’d seen a vending machine there.

So, ruled only by her need to send something chocolate home with that child, she said, “I think we only have enough crackers for the kids here. But if you don’t tell anyone, I know where I can get a candy bar for you to take home to your gramma.”

Clara beamed with delight. “She likes the ones with nuts.”

“It has to be just between you and me, though,” Lindie warned, worried that she was stepping over some kind of boundary. “Do you have a backpack or somewhere we can kind of hide it?”

“A backpack, yeah,” the little blond girl confirmed.

While the other sisters and more kids began to wander in to take the snacks, Lindie slipped away to the employee lounge, got money from her purse and went to the vending machine.

Since she was alone in the lounge—and thinking that she couldn’t send Clara Murphy’s grandmother a candy bar without sending treats for the girls, too—she ended up putting five candy bars into her pockets before a voice from behind her said, “Are you having a blood sugar crisis?”

She jumped.

Unlike her first visit to the center, this time she recognized the voice.

Sawyer.

She’d been so intent on what she was doing she hadn’t heard him come in. Or step up to stand close behind her.

She turned around to face him, still wondering if he’d arranged for her not to get near him today. And if he had, what was he doing there now?

“Hi,” she said, taking in the sight of him in what she assumed was the remainder of his work suit—grayish-blue slacks and a light blue shirt he wore with the collar button unfastened and the long sleeves rolled to mid-forearms.

Yep, still terrific-looking.

If only that could be toned down some.

“Is there a reason you’re stuffing candy bars in your pockets?” he reiterated.

“The profits go to the center?” she said with a nod at the note taped to the machine.

It was a lame answer and he saw through it. “Try again?”

She told him what she was doing.

“That’s not a good idea, Lindie,” he said when she had. “Kids will work you, if you let them. And even if the candy really is for Gramma, kids also talk and you’ll have this whole place wanting you to do the same thing for them. Plus once word gets out that you’re a soft touch or kids think you’re gullible you could be in line for—”

She knew he was right. She’d been in this situation before too many times to count. And yet... “Clara is seven. She isn’t a mastermind manipulator. And all she wanted was one lousy chocolate-frosted graham cracker to take to her grandmother. My grandmother took me in—along with my brothers and sisters and cousins—when we didn’t have anywhere else to go, too. Granted, money wasn’t an issue, but I can’t imagine how awful I would have felt if she’d had to sacrifice something she wanted to feed us. I felt bad enough about other things, it would have been even worse to know that. It’s just a few stupid candy bars and I’ve already told Clara she can’t say anything about it. But even if she does and I end up having to buy them for the whole place, then fine. But today Clara needs to take her gramma a treat and I’m going to make sure she can. Shoot me.”

He shook that handsome head of his. Just when she thought he was going to tell her there were rules against this or something along those lines, he sighed and said, “I know the Murphy girls. I know that they’re good kids and that none of them is diabetic or has allergies—because if you don’t know those things, you could be causing real problems with treats like this. But because I know that with these particular kids it’s probably okay... Come on, I’ll play lookout while you give them to her. This once!”

The downside was just that it made her like
him
more, but Lindie only said, “Thanks,” and then took him up on his offer by leading him to the kitchen where Clara was watching for her.

The little girl ran up to her expectantly and the three of them went to where the backpacks were kept. While Sawyer blocked them from view with his back to them, keeping an eye out for witnesses, Lindie passed the candy bars to the child to stash, wondering how this would look on a security camera if there had been one.

But there was just no way she could have lived with herself if she’d refused the child.

When the deed was done and Clara left them to return to the kitchen, Lindie again watched Sawyer shake his head at her. But what he said was “I have another game waiting for me. Try not to get yourself into more trouble, huh?”

He left her standing there, still with no idea if he was trying to avoid her deliberately.

And with nothing else to do but go on with her kitchen duties, Lindie went back to clean up and finish the afternoon.

* * *

At six o’clock the community center was turned over to adult education, art and fitness classes.

Rather than shoving kids out the door at the stroke of six, one person from the daytime schedule remained with them in the lobby to keep an eye on the children waiting to be picked up.

That night Sawyer was the person.

While Lindie still wasn’t sure if he was open to it, his staying back finally gave her the chance to talk to him so she joined him.

“Get into any more mischief?” he asked as she sat with him on a bench.

“I don’t think so. I did talk to Clara about not even telling her sisters what I’d done, about just giving the loot over to her grandmother on the sly and letting her grandmother take it from there.”

“I hope that happens and Clara doesn’t just down five candy bars herself—
on the sly
.”

“I have faith in her,” Lindie said, knowing that too many times in the past she’d said that same thing only to discover that her faith in someone had been unfounded.

But hopefully that wouldn’t be the case here.

Sawyer nodded with a slow, we’ll-see kind of air to it as he kept those keen blue eyes on her for a lengthy moment.

“Stuff will get to you here, Lindie. You have to be careful. There are a lot of hardships, a lot of need, a lot of sad things going on. But you can’t just step in with a quick fix or a pocketful of candy bars every time. That can end up a disaster.”

“So you just ignore it?”

“No. You ask questions. You try to find out if there might be a bigger problem that could have a better all-around solution or help that doesn’t depend on you hitting the vending machine.”

Lindie shot him a mock frown. “I thought I was to blame for everything and was
supposed
to make things right.”

“Not like today,” he said.

“Instead I should have turned it over to the Candy Bar Outreach program?”

“Instead you ask if there were other things Gramma couldn’t afford at the grocery store—like milk or eggs or cereal or meat. You try to find out if there’s enough to eat in general—healthy stuff. You might have found out that it wasn’t only candy bars that Gramma couldn’t swing. And if that’s the case—or even if you just find out that things are a little too tight—you hand over the information to Marie who will talk to our social worker. Then the social worker will look into it to see if maybe food stamps would help ease some of the burden. What you heard today could have been a clue to a much bigger problem than Gramma not getting her sugar fix.”

“Oh,” Lindie said, knowing that once again she should have proceeded with some caution.

“It’s better if you don’t just rush in,” he said as if he’d heard her thoughts. “The social worker here is great. She’s amazingly diplomatic and she knows how to approach these things so nobody ends up feeling like their toes have been stepped on, or like their kids have aired dirty laundry. They can get the help they need and keep their pride intact.”

Lindie flinched. “You think I offended Gramma?”

“Again, I know these girls and I’ve met Gramma and she’s a really nice, down-to-earth, levelheaded lady, so I know this isn’t going to cause problems at home and she’ll probably just eat the candy. And I already talked to Marie, told her it might be good to have the social worker do an interview to see if Gramma needs some help with the expenses of four kids added to her budget. But from here on—”

“I’ll watch myself,” Lindie swore, thinking that this was the second time today she’d had to make that vow when it came to this place.

Sawyer accepted it easier than her grandmother had, though, because he seemed to relax his posture, stretching both arms along the top of the bench and looking at her as if he was getting his first glance of the day.

Then, in a more conversational vein, he said, “So, what is it you do for the family business if you aren’t their assassin—which, by the way, I’m still not quite convinced of since you’re hanging around. You aren’t just hoping for the chance to make toast of me tonight, after all, are you?”

“Is that why I wasn’t assigned the rec room? You fear for your life?” she countered.

His expression showed some confusion. “I don’t have anything to do with where volunteers are sent for the day.”

So, possibly, it hadn’t been a conspiracy?

He wasn’t trying to get away from her now—or even trying to persuade her to leave. Instead he was chatting with her. Lindie decided to give him the benefit of the doubt and drop her suspicions.

“I have a degree in communications.” She answered his question simply. “So I oversee our public relations. And sometimes, if it’s absolutely necessary for someone in the family to speak out, I’m our spokesperson.”

“How come I haven’t seen you before this, then? Because believe me, I would have remembered.”

The appreciation in the way he was looking at her convinced her that was true. But she tried not to take it to heart. “I’ve been our spokesperson several times in my eight years on the job but it’s always been to announce positive things, so they probably didn’t interest you enough to pay attention.”

He was paying attention to her now, though. Close attention. “I know Camden Inc. is family owned and operated,” he said. “So how does that work? What’s the hierarchy? Who’s the boss?”

“The titles are really just formalities. Camden Inc. was left to H.J.’s ten great-grandchildren. The way he set it up, we run it—we’re the board of directors—and we each have one vote in everything so no one carries more clout than anyone else.”

“And that works?” Sawyer asked skeptically.

“It does for us. To be honest, it’s the way we were brought up. Our grandmother—we call her GiGi—raised us after the plane crash that killed our grandfather and all of our parents. Ten kids is a lot to handle. But for it not to be constant war, we were taught a lot about cooperating with each other, about solving the problems and disagreements we had. I guess we learned really well how to get along and that crossed over into business.”

“And was Howard or Mitchum your father?”

That could have been a loaded question given the history between his father and Howard, so Lindie was glad to say “Mitchum was my dad. There are six of us. I’m a triplet and we’re the youngest. Along with our cousin Jani, who’s our same age.”

“You’re a
triplet
?”

“With my sister Livi and our brother Lang.”

“So Howard had—”

“Four kids. My cousins,” she said a bit defensively in case he was going to say anything against them or their father. Then to redirect the conversation, she took a different tack. “Even though there are so many of us, though, we’re easy to work with. Don’t worry that it would be complicated to take us on as a client.”

“Not going to happen,” he reminded her, though he seemed amused.

“I’m just saying that you’re welcome to talk to any vendor, any outsourcing, anyone we deal with, because you won’t hear complaints that they don’t know who they’re answering to or are ever pulled in different directions by us. We’re one solid unit, decisions are majority rule, and we all know how to cope with being on the losing side of a vote.”

“Not a concern I have because you won’t ever be my client.” Again, he said that nicely but firmly.

But Lindie was persistent. She had to be to justify sitting there with him when her instincts were telling her to run while she still could.

“If you don’t have plans,” she said, “Camden Inc. could buy you dinner and we could talk about it.” Just for business. Only for business. Not because she
wanted
to have dinner with him.

He shook his head as if she were incorrigible.

“Two things,” he said. “I do have plans. Since I’m already in Wheatley on Thursdays, I take my son to dinner. And Camden Inc. will
never
buy me anything. That would look to my clients like a bribe.”

Hmm. If having dinner with him really would have been for no reason other than business, why did she feel personally shot down?

It was stupid, she told herself.

Nevertheless that was how she felt. And rejection wasn’t something she was accustomed to personally or professionally so she wasn’t exactly sure how to respond.

Just then the last of the kids went out the front doors so Sawyer’s job was done. He pulled his arms from the back of the bench and said, “That’s it for us. We can take off.”