Книга - It’s a Boy!

It's a Boy!
Victoria Pade


Daddy Dilemma!Lang Camden’s just found out he’s a dad (and the sole guardian)… of a rambunctious two-year-old. He’s never changed a nappy in his life – what’s a man to do? Enter Heddy Lanrahan, the widowed baker who’s as luscious and sweet as her cheesecakes. Lang’s on a mission to help her business and Heddy willingly lends a helping hand with his child.The chemistry between them is off the charts – but the history between their two families is complicated and, if Heddy lets herself fall for this man and his little boy, she could lose everything!










Heddy watched Lang carry the sleeping child out to his SUV.

As she did, devouring the view, her gaze riveted to the man she was about to see much more of, she realized that somewhere deep down, on a level that was purely instinctive and primitive and absolutely out of her control, she might be experiencing an attraction to him.

An attraction she didn’t want to have.

An attraction she couldn’t have, especially not now that she was in the same position with him that her mother had been with his father once upon a time.




About the Author


VICTORIA PADE is a USA TODAY bestselling author of numerous romance novels. She has two beautiful and talented daughters—Cori and Erin—and is a native of Colorado, where she lives and writes. A devoted chocolate lover, she’s in search of the perfect chocolate-chip-cookie recipe.

For information about her latest and upcoming releases, and to find recipes for some of the decadent desserts her characters enjoy, log on to www.vikkipade.com.




It’s a Boy!

Victoria Pade







www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)


To the real Carter.

Such a character and so much fun. You’re just great!




Chapter One


“No, Carter, you can’t eat cheesecake with your hands!” The man groaned. “Oh, sure, now scratch your head with cheesecake hands. Great. Perfect. Cheesecake in the hair. Can you just stop? Please …”

Heddy Hanrahan was witnessing the fiasco of an intensely hunky business-suit-clad man ineptly dealing with a little boy Heddy guessed to be about two years old.

They were sitting at a table in her small cheesecake shop. And since they were her only customers late on that Monday afternoon, and the man was having such trouble with the very, very cute little boy with the big blue eyes and the now-cheesecake-laced light brown hair, it was difficult for her not to keep glancing in their direction.

To distract herself, she turned her back to them and faced the mirror that lined the wall behind her counter.

This time it was her own reflection that she looked at. And it seemed to her that worry marked her face.

She’d hoped that business would pick up when the magazine article came out saying that her cheesecakes were Colorado’s best. And it had. But only slightly. And now that it had been two weeks since the article, she was back to business as usual.

And business as usual meant that business was almost nonexistent.

Which was not good.

She raised her eyebrows to relax the line that sometimes formed between them, then lowered them to their usual position over her hazel-colored eyes.

Her situation was bad enough—she didn’t need wrinkles, too.

She also thought that worry was making her ordinarily fair skin even paler than it normally was, which wasn’t good, either. The fair skin came with her dark copper-colored hair and it didn’t take much to wash her out. The last thing she wanted was to be the same color as her cheesecakes, so she pinched her cheeks and made a mental note to use more blush tomorrow.

Her hair was her best asset, though, so she accepted the fair skin as a trade-off. The dark russet locks that fell to five inches below her shoulders were thick and curly—not kinky-curly but wavy-curly. Enough so that even when her hair was pulled up—the way she always wore it in the shop or when she was making the cheesecakes—it was full and just slightly billowy, gently framing her face without being stark.

Although it was a mystery to her why not looking stark mattered so much to her at this moment …

Certainly it couldn’t have anything to do with the attractive man who was her customer because that would just be ridiculous.

She turned away from the mirror and made herself appear busy, leaning into her display case and needlessly adjusting the assortment of cheesecakes that she sold whole or by the slice.

Too many of them were still uncut, but she tried not to let worry creep in again. She had customers, she told herself, that was something….

Glancing through the glass front of the display case, she saw the man using paper napkins in a feeble attempt to get the cheesecake out of the child’s hair. Because he was too intent on that to realize she was watching, she went on watching as she stood again, making sure as she did that the white blouse she had tucked into her jeans was still tucked in in back.

There just wasn’t anything else for her to do but monitor her lone customers. It wasn’t as if she couldn’t keep her eyes off the man. Despite the fact that he was one of the best-looking men she’d ever seen. Things like that didn’t matter to her.

But he was one of the best-looking men she’d ever seen.

He had dark, dark brown hair the color of espresso-laced chocolate, cut short on the sides and only a bit longer on top where it was left slightly messy.

His eyes were as rich a blue as blueberries—even more intense and striking a blue than the little boy’s eyes. His brow was very square, and his nose was perfectly straight and just the right length.

He had lips that somehow managed to strike Heddy as sexy and a jawline chiseled enough to cut bread.

Plus, when he’d first walked in she’d been struck by how tall he was—at least an inch or two over six feet. He had wonderfully broad shoulders and what appeared to be a muscular physique under a suit that was so well-tailored she couldn’t imagine why he’d worn it if he knew he was going to wrangle a child.

“Terrific. Two fists full of cheesecake in the mouth at once,” the intensely handsome man muttered.

Heddy saw the little boy doing just that: eating cheesecake out of both hands by turns, his head swiveling back and forth between them as if he were eating an ear of corn. She couldn’t help smiling at the child’s clear appreciation of her cheesecake.

He was an adorable kid, she noted as well, just to prove to herself that she wasn’t focusing unduly on the man. The little boy was dressed like a miniature lumberjack in imitation work boots, tiny jeans with cuffs at the ankles and a plaid flannel shirt. Somewhere along the way the man had thought to push the sleeves of the shirt up to the child’s elbows and the toddler was also wearing a plastic wristwatch on each wrist—one watch bright yellow, the other baby blue.

The silliness of those two wristwatches made her smile. A sad-feeling smile. But anything to do with kids made her sad; that was why she tried not to pay too much attention to them. It was just too painful for her.

At least this particular child was a boy not a girl….

He resembled the man somewhat—certainly not in the cheeks that were chubby rather than chiseled—but around the eyes and nose. Enough to tell her they were probably related. But because there was nothing about the way the man acted with the child to suggest they were close, she assumed he wasn’t the little boy’s father. Maybe he was an uncle, pinch-hitting at caregiving for the child’s mother or father.

But whoever these two were, it was gratifying to see how much the little boy seemed to like her white chocolate mousse cheesecake when he picked up the empty plate to lick it and then said gleefully, “More!”

The man glanced in Heddy’s direction and smiled an embarrassed smile that was no less knee-weakening because of the embarrassment. Not that her knees were weakened or that it mattered either …

“I guess I was wrong and one piece was not enough for us to share. I’m sorry for the mess we’re making, but can we have another round? Maybe we’ll try a slice of the raspberry white chocolate mousse this time.”

“Sure,” Heddy responded.

Glad for an additional sale and for something to do, she took out one of the knives she kept in hot water. Drying the heated blade, she used it to cut the cheesecake he’d requested.

Then she dampened a clean cloth in warm water from the tap behind her counter and brought it with the cheesecake to the customer’s table. She set the plate out of the toddler’s reach—something it hadn’t occurred to the man to do—before she offered the man the wet towel and said, “You can use this like a washcloth. It’ll probably work better than dry napkins to clean him up.”

“I think I just need a hose,” her customer muttered, accepting the wet cloth anyway and thanking her for it.

Then he said, “You wouldn’t happen to be Heddy Hanrahan, would you?”

“That’s me,” she said, struck suddenly that there might be something vaguely familiar about him. But only vaguely. Maybe he’d been in the shop before.

Then he said, “I’m Lang Camden.”

“As in Camden Superstores?”

“That’s us.”

A Camden.

Oh, dear …

That was why he seemed vaguely familiar. The Camden family not only owned Camden Superstores but any number of buildings, businesses, factories, warehouses, production facilities, trucks and who-knew-what-else in conjunction with those stores. The chain was worldwide and the family’s name appeared annually at or near the top of lists of the richest people in the United States.

Their wealth and renown caused pictures of one Camden or another to show up in the newspaper or magazines from time to time. There were so many of them—ten descendants of the man who had built the empire, plus their grandmother—that it wasn’t as if Heddy knew them by sight. But because the Camden name was a name her mother and grandfather were once disastrously connected with, a name she’d heard cursed innumerable times during her life, curiosity always caused Heddy to take more interest in those pictures and the articles that went with them than she might have otherwise. So she assumed she’d probably seen this man’s face a time or two in print somewhere.

“Can we talk?” he asked.

Curiosity about why a Camden would want to talk to her caused her to say a tentative, “Okay.”

“Will you sit with us? Maybe over there, out of the line of fire.” He nodded at the chair across the table from him and from the toddler, who was now standing on his own chair to lean over and reach for the second slice of cheesecake.

As Heddy went to the opposite side of the café table she pointed to the cheesecake and said, “You’re about to lose that.”

Quick reflexes on Lang Camden’s part slid the dessert plate out of the little boy’s reach just in time. Then he caught him around the middle and seated him again.

“More!” the toddler demanded.

The child’s inept caregiver picked up one of the clean spoons Heddy had brought with the second slice and used it to taste the raspberry white chocolate mousse cheesecake. Then he fed a bite to the child with the other clean spoon.

“Mmm …” was the child’s assessment before he opened his mouth for his second bite.

“This is Carter,” Lang Camden said in a flustered voice, still giving her no clue as to who Carter was to him. “He’s two and a half and, as you can probably tell, a big fan of your cheesecake. With good reason—what I’ve tasted so far is fantastic.”

“Thank you,” Heddy said, wondering more by the minute what had brought a member of the illustrious Camden family to her shop in suburban Arcada. And hoping that her mother wouldn’t choose this moment for one of her numerous drop-in visits. Heddy had no doubt that her mother coming face-to-face with a Camden would not be a good thing.

“We saw the article on your shop,” Lang Camden said then, as if he knew what she was thinking.

“‘The Best Cheesecake in Denver That No One Is Eating’?” Heddy asked, reciting the title of the piece that had gone on to say that even after extensive testing by a panel of the magazine’s staff, her cheesecakes had been judged the best that the entire state had to offer.

“That’s the one,” Lang Camden confirmed as he took another bite of the dessert and Carter protested with a “Mine!”

“Okay, okay,” Lang Camden conceded, giving in and sliding the plate to the two-and-a-half-year-old, letting him dive in the way he wanted to.

“How many different variations of cheesecake do you make?” the older of Heddy’s two customers asked then, turning the full focus of those striking blue eyes on her.

“Oh, a lot. I do the mousse cheesecakes and also traditional baked cheesecakes. And besides the most common things like plain, blueberry and raspberry, I try to do what’s in season. Since it’s the start of April we’re getting into spring fruits. I change things up from week to week, and there are a few savory cheesecakes I make, too, but those are special orders.”

He nodded. “We’re about to launch a division of gourmet foods in Camden Superstores,” he informed her. “What would you say to providing your cheesecakes as part of that?”

Taken completely off guard, for a moment Heddy was speechless. Then the only thing she could think to say was, “You’re kidding.”

“Nope, not kidding.”

Heddy heard herself make a sound that was part laugh, part huff. The idea was absurd in so many ways.

“This shop used to be only my house,” she said. “The city allows these old homes on Main Street to be lived in or to act as places of business. In my case, it’s both. I turned my basement into a kitchen space just big enough to make the cheesecakes I sell. Where we’re sitting used to be my living room and sunporch, now it’s my shop. I live in what’s left—the back half and the upstairs. There’s no way—no way—I could ever make enough cheesecakes to supply even one Camden Superstore.”

Not to mention that she already knew much, much too well that the type of arrangement he was suggesting had a history of actually destroying a small business like hers.

“Actually, we’d want to start with all of the Colorado stores at first, then eventually we’d want to expand to put your cheesecakes in every store around the world. And we’d want them to be exclusive to Camden Superstores.”

He really couldn’t be serious with this.

But he’d said it with a straight face.

Maybe he just wasn’t aware of the catastrophe that had befallen her family’s bakery because of doing business like this with his family in the past. It had been years and years ago, long before Heddy was born, before her mother had even met her father. Probably long before Lang Camden had been born, too, since he looked to be her age—thirty or not much past it. She supposed that it was possible that he had no idea that her mother and her grandfather had made a deal with the devil— as her mother liked to put it—and paid for it with their livelihood as well as her mother’s broken heart.

Regardless of the harsh lessons of the past and whether or not Lang Camden knew about what had happened, it seemed more than clear to Heddy that she couldn’t accommodate what he was proposing, so that was the tack she stuck to.

“Again, I couldn’t begin to meet your needs.”

Why had something about that sounded a tad suggestive? She hadn’t intended for it to. And apparently she wasn’t the only one to have heard it because it brought a smile to Lang Camden’s handsome face.

But he made no comment and instead went on to say, “I know that at least part of what makes you leery is that a deal similar to this cost your family their bread business.”

So he did know….

“That’s why we want to do things differently this time around,” he continued. “We’ll provide the financing in the form of a grant for you to expand production—”

“‘A grant’?” Heddy interjected.

“A grant,” he repeated. “Not a loan, not even a partial subsidy. It won’t cost you a penny and it will still be your business. The facility will be in your name alone. You’ll own it outright, and the whole thing will still be your baby.”

Skepticism and suspicion set in.

“That seems a little too good to be true,” Heddy told him point-blank.

“I don’t know why, there are grants for a lot of things—education, small businesses, housing …”

“Maybe from the government, but—”

“There are private grants, too. Camden Inc. gives several of them.”

“Like this? On this scale?” Heddy asked with a full measure of disbelief in her voice.

“I will always be perfectly straight with you,” he said as if he were making a vow. “Yes, this is the first time we’ve done a grant on this scale. But that doesn’t change the terms. A grant goes out free and clear to the recipient—in this case, to you. And I come with it.”

He added that with a smile that was so engaging it was hard for Heddy to maintain her grip on reality. “You come with it?” she said, hating whatever it was in her tone that almost sounded as though that made the offer more tempting. Which of course it didn’t.

“You’ll have my personal guidance as Camden Inc.’s start-up guy to establish and staff a commercial kitchen big enough to produce the supply we need. I’ll make sure that you grow to whatever extent is required to meet demand, and that you’re up and running effectively and efficiently before I leave you on your own so that history doesn’t repeat itself.”

Again, too good to be true.

“Where’s the catch?” Heddy asked.

“I guess if there’s any catch at all, it’s in the exclusivity. Camden Superstores will be the only place to get your cheesecakes. But other than that—”

“If they don’t sell, you won’t carry them and I’ll be through.”

“No-oo,” he assured her. “You’ll have a contract with us. If they don’t sell, we’ll nullify the contract and you’ll be free to sell somewhere else—grocery stores, restaurants, whatever. You’ll still have the capacity for mass production that you don’t have here, so you’ll still have the chance to keep going. But I can’t imagine why your cheesecakes wouldn’t sell through us. Especially since you’ll have our marketing and advertising division behind you, and cheesecakes in a worldwide chain of stores that are never hurting for sales.”

It still seemed too good to be true to Heddy but she couldn’t find the actual flaw so she merely shook her head in continuing disbelief.

“It will all be drawn up legally,” Lang Camden said then. “And you can have whatever lawyers or advisors you want to review the terms for anything that might cause you concern. But let’s face it …” He glanced around and, with a sympathetically wrinkled brow, said, “You gave a party here and no one came. What I’m offering you is a way to still do this but on a larger scale and at no cost to you except to throw in the towel on this place. And let it go back to just being your house.”

Still trying to figure out what the downside was in this, Heddy saw Carter stand on his chair again and lean onto the table to lick the second empty cheesecake plate. Only this time he was tipping the chair and instinct made Heddy jump to her feet and lunge to catch him.

Lang Camden’s reflex was to reach for the chair and steady it, and together they kept the child from falling.

“Carter …” Lang Camden groaned again.

“Good pie,” the toddler responded. “More!”

“I think you’ve had your limit. But we’ll buy one to take home,” the obviously inept caregiver promised.

“The ra’berry one,” Carter demanded enthusiastically.

The older of her two customers again sat the child in the chair. Then he used the wet towel in another attempt to clean him up.

“Wash lallow Zsorzse,” Carter instructed, holding out one arm where cheesecake smudged the face of his yellow wristwatch.

“‘Zsorzse’?” Heddy repeated.

“George. He’s obsessed with Curious George, but he pronounces g’s like … I don’t know, like the way you say Zsa Zsa Gabor.”

“And he tells so much time he needs two watches?” Heddy asked.

“He’s obsessed with watches, too. Don’t ask me why. And some kind of weird toy with a stuffed animal head and a body that’s just a small blanket. He calls that Baby and he has to have it somewhere near at all times. We left Baby in the car but at any minute the fact that it isn’t in here could become a crisis.”

“Baby’s nappin’,” Carter said as if the man was deluded. Then to Heddy, the child said, “More pie?”

“It’s cheesecake, Carter,” Lang Camden amended.

“Not cheese. Pie!” the two-and-a-half-year-old shouted.

Lang Camden sighed and gave up washing the cherubic face before getting it completely clean because Carter had wiggled out of his ineffective grasp.

Now that he was free, the little boy slid off the chair, went to Heddy’s display case and licked it the way he’d licked the cheesecake plates.

“Carter,” Lang Camden moaned in complaint. “Don’t do that!”

“Big food,” Carter said by way of explanation.

Lang Camden rolled his eyes. “I don’t know what goes through his head. He doesn’t usually go around licking everything. I guess he thinks the whole place tastes good.”

“It’s okay,” Heddy said. “I’m flattered that he likes the cheesecakes so much that he even wants to eat the display case.”

“Maybe we’ll use him as an endorsement—that is, if you’re interested in my proposition….”

Again, there was a slightly suggestive inflection but Heddy was reasonably sure he hadn’t intended it because he caught himself and added, “My business proposition.”

Once more Heddy shook her head. “I just don’t—”

“Tell me you aren’t going under here, Heddy,” he challenged. “I can see for myself that you are, and that’s basically what that article said. The cheesecakes are great but not enough people are buying them.”

“Still …”

“No, not ‘still.’ I came here today to make sure the product is worth selling. It is, and my family wants to help you sell it. I’m not talking about buying you out. It’ll continue to be your business and the worst thing that can happen is that you’ll bomb out at Camden Superstores but end up with the ability to sell on a large scale to any number of other places. Or you can sell the facility and equipment to bankroll something else. If you want, I’ll even have something written up that promises my guidance to get you started over in that something else. It’s a no-lose deal I’m offering you.”

“And why is that?” Heddy asked outright.

He sighed as if he had to say something he was hoping he wouldn’t have to say. “We know that years ago your family signed on to provide bread for the Camden stores that were around then. We know that your supply couldn’t keep up with our demand. We know that by the time everyone realized that, and my father and the rest of the family in charge back then decided to make other arrangements, your family had lost all of their other customers so they were left with no business at all.”

Not to mention the personal side of the situation that had taken its toll on her mother. Did he know about that, too?

Heddy reined in her wandering thoughts as he said, “We wouldn’t want to do business with you if your product wasn’t worth selling. But it is, so we do want to do business with you. We just want to make sure that the mistakes of the past aren’t repeated.”

“It just seems—”

“I know, you said it. Too good to be true. But that’s kind of how grants are, aren’t they? Money for free. You have a product we want. The grant will let you produce enough of that product to meet our needs and provide you with a better situation—you make more cheesecakes, we sell more of your cheesecakes, we both win. And one way or another, you don’t lose, which you’re on the verge of doing now.”

“Wan that big one!” Carter announced from the front of the display case.

Heddy used the interruption as an excuse to get up and go behind the counter while she continued to try to figure out what dangers and disadvantages there might be in this.

Lang got up and followed her, remaining on the customer’s side of the display case with Carter and agreeing to buy the largest cheesecake.

While Heddy boxed it for them, Lang said, “Sleep on it. If you have a business consultant, talk to your business consultant about it. If anything still bothers you, we can talk it over, do whatever it takes to make you feel comfortable doing business with us again. But we really want this to work.”

Because her cheesecakes were that good or because the Camdens had another motive that would benefit them and potentially harm her?

Heddy believed her cheesecakes were that good.

But she also knew better than most people how treacherous the Camdens had been in the past, and how easy it was to be caught under the wheels of Camden progress and turned into nothing but road kill.

“Just think it over,” Lang urged as he handed her his credit card.

Heddy made no promises as she ran the card and had him sign the slip.

“I’ll be in touch,” he said as he accepted the card and the receipt. “But you have my word and whatever guarantees you want that I can make this work for you. That I will make this work for you if you’ll let me.”

“I’ll think about it,” Heddy finally conceded. But that was all she was conceding because she was also beginning to think about what her mother’s reaction to this would be. It wouldn’t be good….

“Get your coat, Carter,” Lang told the toddler, and Heddy was surprised to see the child comply.

“Pie in car?” Carter asked as he let the older man put on his coat.

“No pie in the car. Tonight, if you eat your dinner, maybe you can have another piece then.”

“Pie in car,” Carter said as if that were far more reasonable.

“Looks like the cheesecake rides home in the trunk,” Lang confided in Heddy.

“Better the cheesecake than the child,” Heddy said with some humor.

“Are you sure?” Lang joked in return.

“Reasonably …”

He laughed and palmed the top of Carter’s head like a basketball with his left hand, which Heddy just happened to notice sported no wedding ring.

Not that that mattered to her either.

“Come on, Carter man, let’s get you home,” Lang said, guiding the child to the door. Just before he went out, the tall man glanced at Heddy over his shoulder and repeated, “I’ll be in touch.”

Heddy merely nodded, watching him clumsily put the cheesecake in the rear compartment of a large SUV and then get Carter settled in his car seat in the row ahead of that.

As she looked on, she thought about what Lang Camden had just offered her and wondered if this was an answer to her prayers, or if the devil in a business suit had just placed the same temptation in front of her that had sunk her family once before.

One thing was certain, though, she thought as she watched him get behind the wheel. Lang Camden was a handsome devil. A handsome, handsome devil.

And she was just glad that, unlike her mother, that couldn’t get to her. It couldn’t have any kind of real effect on her at all.

Because she was still Daniel’s wife and she would always be Daniel’s wife.

Even if there wasn’t a Daniel anymore….




Chapter Two


“Come on, Carter, let’s let GiGi and your dad talk. We can roll balls into the pockets on the pool table.”

“Poo-al,” Carter repeated before he jumped down from the seat of the enormous breakfast nook in Georgianna Camden’s kitchen. He left with Jonah Morrison, the elderly man who’d recently become the constant companion to the matriarch of the Camden family.

That left Lang alone with his grandmother.

“Dad! I don’t think I’ll ever get used to anyone calling me that,” Lang muttered.

GiGi laughed. “Oh, believe me, you will. There’ll come a day when someone in a crowd will yell ‘Dad’ and you’ll answer before you remember that you don’t even have Carter with you.”

“I think it’s more likely that I’ll be in a crowd and forget that I actually do have him with me,” Lang countered.

“He needs a bath and his hair washed,” GiGi decreed.

“Yeah, tonight.”

“That’s pie in his hair?”

“Cheesecake. From Heddy Hanrahan’s shop—we were there yesterday. Carter calls it pie. He got into the refrigerator when I was already late for work this morning, and went straight for the cheesecake with his bare hands. Some of it ended up in his hair. There was nothing I could do about it then. Heddy Hanrahan’s cheesecake gets a stamp of approval from us both, by the way—that’s what I came over to talk to you about. I made her the offer.”

GiGi ignored what Lang said and continued on the subject of Carter’s hygiene.

“That boy has been walking around all day long with cheesecake in his hair?” the older woman said disapprovingly.

“Hey, you and Jani and Lindie and Livi left me in the lurch, remember? No more help from you, no more help from cousin Jani, no more help from my two sisters. That means my hands are full.”

“So he went around all day today with cheesecake in his hair,” GiGi concluded.

“I could have brought him here. You could have given him a bath and washed his hair while I was at work, and then my day would have been a lot better and he’d be clean,” Lang pointed out, his frustration ringing in his voice. “But—”

“No,” GiGi said with a stubborn shake of her head.

“Couldn’t you and the girls take care of him the way you have been just until I can hire a nanny? Or two? He’s such a handful, he’ll probably need more than one.”

GiGi shook her head again and said another firm no. “Your sisters, your cousin and I have been the only ones taking care of him since he came to you three months ago, Lang. That was in January and now this is April. He’s your son. We’re all proud of you for stepping up and doing the right thing, but now you have to actually do it. You need time with that boy. You need to become more than just a biological father.”

“I know, I know,” Lang conceded, feeling guilty for how much he’d relied on his grandmother, his sisters and his cousin since taking Carter on. “But twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week? I need some help and my secretary isn’t moving any too quickly in finding it for me.”

Lang had his suspicions that his family had gotten to his secretary and told her to drag her feet so that he was forced to care for Carter for a while. And because he now had constant child care and a job to do—and the deal with Heddy Hanrahan on top of it all—there was just no way he could beat the bushes for a nanny himself.

“You know that the Camden name can attract trouble,” his grandmother pointed out, running her hand through her salt-and-pepper hair. “Whoever gets hired as your nanny has to be above reproach for Carter’s safety and security. Even after your secretary finds likely candidates, they have to be put through a thorough background check and that takes time.”

“Yeah, I know,” Lang said with a sigh.

He was annoyed with the delay but he knew what his grandmother was saying was true. He couldn’t risk handing Carter over to just any child-care provider and getting back a ransom note. In their position there was always cause for caution. Money made them targets in many ways.

“But if you and Jonah and Margaret and Louie could just watch him on weekdays—” Lang persisted.

“No, Lang.” GiGi held the line.

Margaret and Louie were the house staff who had long ago become more like members of the family than employees. They were GiGi’s closest friends and had helped her raise all ten of her grandchildren after the plane crash that had killed their parents. They’d also provided more than their fair share of Carter’s care for the past three months.

“Carter is your child,” his grandmother went on. “But since taking him you’ve had less to do with him than anyone. It’s been just like everything else since Audrey left—you keep anyone new at arm’s length. But that boy is family. Your family, and you can’t stay closed off from him—it’ll be a disaster for you both.”

“If I had shut myself off and kept everybody since Audrey at arm’s length there wouldn’t be a Carter,” Lang pointed out.

“Bull! Carter’s mother appealed to you because she wasn’t much more than a one-night stand who didn’t ask anything of you beyond the physical. It was a fly-by-night imitation of a relationship on the rebound. And since then you haven’t even bothered to pretend—all you’ve had is flings. One-night stands.”

“Wow, I am not going to talk about one-night stands with my grandmother,” Lang said.

“The point is, you’ve built a wall around yourself. I know it’s protective and gives you the sense that you have the control that you lost with Audrey so you can’t get hurt again, but you can’t live a full life that way, honey.”

“Maybe I’m just holding out for something more.”

“If you’re holding out for anything, it’s Audrey’s clone. You’ve nixed every genuinely nice, substantial girl who’s crossed your path for the past three and a half years because something about them didn’t measure up to Audrey. And that has to stop!”

He really hadn’t come over here tonight to have the riot act read to him.

“Maybe what I’m holding out for is what I felt for Audrey and that just hasn’t happened.” Under his breath he added, “Except the next time I’d like it if the other person feels that way about me, too.”

“You aren’t going to find that in the kind of women you’ve been seeing. And in the meantime, you need to open up enough to be a father to that baby.”

“Well, the result is that he has cheesecake in his hair,” Lang concluded matter-of-factly, and then steered the conversation to what he’d come to his grandmother’s house to discuss in the first place. “Because apparently you didn’t think it was enough to throw me into the deep end with him, you also thought this would be a good time for me to take my turn at your project of making amends.”

Camden Incorporated had been founded and built by Lang’s great-grandfather, H. J. Camden. A scrappy man who had been willing to do just about anything to accomplish his goals.

The family loved H.J., and had hoped that the rumors and suspicions that he had been ruthless and unscrupulous were false. They’d also hoped that the suspicions that his son Hank and his two grandsons had acted as H.J.’s henchmen were false, too. But the recent discovery of H.J.’s journals had left them with no illusions. Camden Incorporated had been built by methods the current Camdens weren’t proud of.

GiGi and her ten grandchildren had set out to make amends to people harmed by H.J., Hank, Mitchum and Howard’s actions, or to the families and descendants who might have suffered as a result.

GiGi decided which of her grandchildren to send on each particular mission. Part of her reasoning being to learn what harm had been done then to offer an opportunity of some kind that might benefit and compensate without appearing to be an outward admission of guilt and an offer of restitution. Their fear was that any public admission of guilt might inspire unwarranted lawsuits against them.

This was why Lang had approached Heddy Hanrahan on Monday.

“Maybe juggling so much will actually be good for you,” GiGi said. “Sometimes having your hands full forces the walls to come down.”

Lang wondered if his grandmother was thinking about herself when she said that. She had opened up her home and herself to ten grandchildren when they landed on her doorstep. As a result, he, his sisters and cousins had been well cared for and had experienced a warm, loving upbringing. But even if that was what she was trying to accomplish for Carter, Lang was still completely overwhelmed and he couldn’t say he liked the position she was putting him in all the way around.

“Now tell me what happened with the Hanrahan girl so you can get that boy home and cleaned up,” GiGi commanded.

Lang saw that nothing he said was going to gain him any help with Carter so he proceeded to outline how his meeting with Heddy Hanrahan had gone for his grandmother.

“I don’t think there’s any doubt that she’s going under if she doesn’t take the deal, but she’s leery of us,” he concluded.

“Of course she would be, it goes with the territory,” GiGi said. “But you told her she can have everything in writing?”

“I did. And even though she seemed on the verge of saying no, I got her to think the proposition over. I’m going back after work tomorrow to see what she has to say.”

“Do you think she knows about her mother and your father?”

Lang shrugged. “I have no clue. We only talked business. And Carter ate a lot of cheesecake. We tried two varieties, and that magazine article was right—they’re terrific. We won’t have any problem selling them for sure.”

“And beyond the fact that she didn’t jump at the chance to go into business with us, how was your reception otherwise?”

“Okay,” Lang said. “It wasn’t what Jani met from Gideon that first time she approached him. Heddy Hanrahan doesn’t seem to hate us the way Gideon did initially.”

His cousin Jani had been dispatched on the last of these ventures, and the man she’d encountered during the course of that—Gideon Thatcher—had not been happy to have any contact with a Camden.

“I could tell that Heddy was shocked when I introduced myself,” Lang went on, “but she didn’t tell us to get out or anything. And when I asked her to sit and talk, she did. She was actually fairly friendly—cautious but nice enough.”

“Did you learn anything about her or her family? Is her mother still around? Is she married? Divorced? Widowed?”

“She wasn’t wearing a wedding ring.”

“You met her mother?”

Somehow they were on different tracks. “No,” Lang said, “I didn’t meet anyone but Heddy. I meant Heddy wasn’t wearing a wedding ring. Her mother wasn’t around and didn’t come up.”

Lang wasn’t sure if he’d misunderstood his grandmother because of the way she’d asked the questions or if it was just that he had Heddy Hanrahan on the brain. Because despite the fact that his hands had been full with Carter, his head had been full of Heddy Hanrahan since meeting her.

Thoughts of her had been creeping up on him every time he turned around. Thoughts and images of her. Of that lush red hair—not carrot-colored at all, but a deep, dark, rich mahogany red. Beautiful. She had beautiful hair. Wavy and thick.

And it wasn’t only her hair that had had him sneaking peeks of her when he should have been keeping closer tabs on Carter—which was how Carter had ended up with cheesecake in his hair in the first place. Heddy Hanrahan also had the most flawless peaches-and-cream skin he’d ever seen, and luminous hazel eyes with bright green flecks.

Plus she had a face that was as delicate as fine china: a gently curved brow; high, pronounced cheekbones; a thin, straight nose; and a mouth that sported such pink kissable lips….

Not that he’d had any thought of kissing her, for crying out loud, because he hadn’t. He was just trying to do business with her, to compensate her and maybe the rest of her family, for what had happened to them years ago.

Okay, so he’d also taken enough of a look at her compact little body to know it was great, too—with curves in all the right places—but that didn’t mean he’d itched to touch her.

Although yeah, maybe a little part of him had. But it didn’t mean anything.

“Heddy Hanrahan didn’t mention her mother at all?” GiGi’s voice pulled him out of the reverie he’d slipped into.

“No,” Lang answered in a hurry, hoping he didn’t seem dazed. “We only talked business. You said you couldn’t find an obituary for her mother, so she must be around somewhere, but she didn’t come up.” Then something occurred to him that rocked him. “Heddy Hanrahan couldn’t be my half sister, could she?”

“Don’t be silly,” GiGi chastised. “The article said she was thirty. It’s been thirty-six years since Mitchum was involved with her mother. I was just hoping to hear that her mother was still happily married to her father and had had a good life after what went on with your dad.”

A good life after what went on …

That was what they hoped for in all of these cases— to discover that the people burned by dealing with the Camdens in the past had gone on to bigger and better things and not suffered long-term negative effects.

“So she’s pretty, is she?” GiGi said then.

“Beautiful,” Lang said, putting it out front so GiGi couldn’t think it made any difference to him. “Why? Would we not be offering her this deal if she was homely as hell?”

GiGi smiled a smile that irked him because it seemed to say that she saw through him. But she was wrong. He wasn’t interested in Heddy Hanrahan the woman. He might not agree with his family’s assessment that he’d closed himself off, but he certainly had enough on his hands right now without adding romance or a relationship or even another one-night stand.

Although he really, really would like to see that rust-colored hair down….

But he was always sort of a sucker for a redhead, so that didn’t mean anything, either.

He didn’t want to talk any more about Heddy Hanrahan or her looks with his grandmother, though, so he raised his chin in the direction that Jonah had taken Carter and shouted, “Carter! Come on, we need to get home!” Then, wanting to give his grandmother a little of what she’d dished out, he said to GiGi, “We’d better get going so you can have your evening alone with your old high school squeeze. Seems like he might as well move in, he’s here so much.”

“It’s in discussion,” GiGi said.

“Really …” Lang countered with raised eyebrows. “Is that why you won’t babysit for me? You’re too busy getting busy with—”

“I am not going to talk about that with my grandson!” GiGi said with a laugh, echoing what he’d said to her earlier about one-night stands.

“Ooo-hoo, GiGi’s gettin’ busy …” Lang teased. And he actually thought his grandmother’s ordinarily pink cheeks might have turned a shade pinker.

Sliding out of the breakfast nook, he went around to the other side where GiGi was sitting and leaned close to her ear. “It better be more substantial than a one-night stand,” he goaded playfully before he kissed her on the cheek.

She swatted his arm and said just as playfully, “Mind your manners!”

No chance. Lang decided to be incorrigible. “Shall I have a talk with him? Make sure his intentions are honorable?”

“What makes you think mine are?”

Lang laughed and straightened. He did love the old bird even if she had taken him to task tonight.

“Come on, Carter,” he shouted again just before Jonah Morrison herded the toddler back into the kitchen. “Let’s go. We have to pick up some dinner so we can eat fast and get you a bath and wash your hair. I’m thinking pizza tonight.”

“Wis ‘napple!” Carter contributed.

“Only on your part. I don’t like pineapple on my pizza.”

“Look how good you’re getting—you knew what he was saying,” GiGi praised.

Lang merely rolled his eyes and shook his head before he put on Carter’s coat and they all went to the front door.

“Let me know what happens tomorrow with the beautiful Heddy Hanrahan,” GiGi called after him as he led Carter out, clearly getting Lang back with a jab of her own.

“I will,” he answered just before he hoisted Carter into his car seat.

But the mere mention of Heddy was all it took for the picture of her to pop back into his head—and there was no denying that she was beautiful.

It just didn’t have anything to do with anything.

And neither did the small feeling of eagerness that ran through him at the thought of seeing her again tomorrow.

Because while he would never admit it to his grandmother or any of the rest of his family, even if he didn’t have learning to be a father to Carter on his plate right now, he wasn’t ready to let another woman in.

Not even one with red hair.

And he wasn’t sure he ever would be….

“I’ve gone over your books backward and forward, Heddy, and I wish I could tell you something else. But the honest, ugly truth is that you’ve been open for fifteen months and this shop is not making it.”

Heddy had called her cousin Clair on Monday night after closing up to tell her about the visit from Lang Camden. Clair was a certified public accountant and she did Heddy’s books as a favor to Heddy. Now, late on Wednesday afternoon, Clair had showed up with those books to present to Heddy on paper how her business was going under.

“You used the lion’s share of Daniel’s life insurance money to start the business,” Clair continued. “You’ve had to draw on the rest for working and living expenses because you haven’t made a profit a single month since you opened last year, so what’s left is just about gone. Is there any reason to think you’ll have a turnaround and business will pick up?”

“I hoped that the article would do it but it hasn’t. So no,” Heddy admitted.

“Then I say take the deal from the Camdens,” Clair concluded. “Protect yourself but take it. Clark can draw up papers or look over anything the Camdens come up with to make sure everything’s to your advantage. You know how competitive my husband is, and he’s dying to go head-to-head with the big-boy Camden team of attorneys. But, sweetie, it’s either that or go back to nursing.”

Heddy shook her head. “I can’t do that,” she said with the same edge of near-panic that the idea had given her since she’d left pediatric nursing after that awful night that had cost her so dearly. “I can’t even stand the thought of going back to working with kids—of being close to any kids, sick or well. No way.”

“You know the fact that you were a nurse and on duty that night isn’t to blame. And whether or not it’s the way you want it, working that night actually saved you,” Clair said compassionately.

It was the same thing her cousin had said numerous times in the past five years.

“You could go into some other area of nursing—you were so good …”

More fierce head-shaking. “No. Maybe it doesn’t seem logical or reasonable—or even sane—to you, but I can’t go back to doing what I was doing that night. These stupid cheesecakes were my salvation.”

Clair sighed. “Then take the Camden’s offer,” she reiterated as if there was no other advice she could give. “Clark and I will keep an eye on your side to make sure what happened to your mom and your grandfather doesn’t happen to you. If it’s set up the way it was laid out to you, even if the Camdens do bail, what Lang Camden said is right—you can sell to grocery stores or restaurants. That still puts you in a better position than you’re in now.”

That was how Heddy saw it, too. Despite trying to talk herself out of it since Monday when she’d watched the hauntingly handsome Lang Camden leave.

“But there’s still Mom,” Heddy said direly. “I haven’t told her anything about this yet. You know she’ll hit the ceiling.”

“You can’t blame her. But still—”

Heddy and Clair were sitting at one of the tables in the shop—Heddy with her back to the door, Clair facing it—when the shop door opened.

“My second customer of this whole day,” Heddy muttered to her cousin, wondering why Clair’s jaw dropped when she glanced at whoever had just come in.

When Heddy got up to tend to the customer, she saw it was Lang Camden, with Carter in tow again.

“Oh,” Heddy said, understanding her cousin’s expression.

“Hi.” Lang greeted the two women with a smile.

He was dressed in another business suit. This time it was a dark grayish-blue, with a pale blue shirt and matching tie. While Heddy had been tormented by the recurring mental image of the man far, far more than she’d wanted to be since Monday, she was somehow struck all over again by how drop-dead gorgeous he was.

“Hi,” Heddy said after a pause. “Uh … Clair, this is Lang Camden. Mr. Camden, this is my cousin and best friend—and accountant—Clair Darnell.”

“Call me Lang,” he amended. “Nice to meet you, Clair. I hope you’re here in all your capacities to persuade Heddy to do business with me.”

Clair was jolted back into the moment. “We’ve talked,” she said without giving anything away. Then she gathered her purse and a file folder from the table and said to Heddy, “I have to get going, but let me know what you decide. And if you want, I can be there when you tell your mom….”

“Thanks,” Heddy responded as Lang followed his eager little boy companion to the display case and Heddy walked with Clair to the door.

Once they were there, Clair leaned close to Heddy’s ear and whispered, “You didn’t tell me he looked like that! I could leave home for him.”

Heddy laughed softly, as if his good looks didn’t affect her—which was a long way from the truth. Not only was she unable to stop thinking about him, she’d even dreamed about him. Three times in only two nights …

“You wouldn’t leave Clark for anyone,” she whispered back to her cousin.

“Don’t be too sure,” Clair muttered as she peered over Heddy’s shoulder for a second glimpse. “And the kid?”

“I don’t know who he is. He was with him before, too,” Heddy said just as Carter announced loudly that he wanted “burberry” pie.

“You better get over there. Call me,” Clair said, sneaking another look at the man as she left.

“I wan burberry pie,” Carter repeated to Heddy as she went behind the counter to face Lang and the boy.

“I think that means blueberry,” Lang said uncertainly. “Let’s hope so, anyway. Give us a slice of the blueberry white chocolate mousse. And today I’ll have a slice of the plain New Jersey. Is that the basic, traditional, baked variety?”

“It is,” Heddy confirmed, taking out both as-yet-uncut cheesecakes to slice.

“Then will you come and sit with us?”

“Sure,” Heddy agreed, feeling a rush of butterflies to her stomach.

She wasn’t sure if the tension was coming from the fact that she was seriously considering taking the leap and accepting his business proposal, a leap that would not be well received by her family. Or if it was just having Lang Camden in her shop again—tall and lean with that dark, dark hair artfully tousled and that hint of scruffy whiskers on that sharp jawline.

He was as sexy in the flesh as he’d been in those unwelcome dreams she’d had of him.

He got Carter situated at the table nearest to the display case and Heddy brought over the two slices of cheesecake. Then she sat across from them and watched as the little boy, who had on jeans and a crew-necked sweater, grabbed the spoon and scooped up a bite too big for his mouth, opening wide in a feeble attempt to get it all in.

“Gooo,” he mumbled around what he had managed to accommodate.

Lang Camden used his own spoon for a bite of Carter’s cheesecake, confirmed the child’s opinion, then tried his own slice.

He let his eyes roll back into his handsome head and moaned. “And I thought the mousse ones were good! That’s the richest, creamiest … It’s terrific.”

Heddy smiled. “I’m glad.”

“So tell me you’re going to let me sell these,” he said then, without any more preamble.

Heddy didn’t answer him immediately.

She wasn’t sure about her grandfather but she knew that her mother would have a fit if she said yes to going into business with the Camdens in any way.

But talking to Clair had confirmed what Heddy had known herself—this business was failing fast. She had to make a living. And she couldn’t return to nursing to do it. She just couldn’t. So where did that leave her?

“My recipes would have to stay a closely guarded secret,” she said as if in challenge.

But Lang Camden was unruffled by that, shrugging one broad shoulder. “Sure. We want the finished product, everything else is entirely up to you. But I can help you work out a system where you’re the only one who knows the exact ingredients or techniques or whatever it is that you feel will protect your secrets.”

The man exuded strength so the idea that he could provide whatever protection she asked for didn’t seem beyond his capabilities. Of course he was part of a family she worried she needed protection from, but as long as he wasn’t asking to have any knowledge or access to her recipes she felt marginally reassured.

“I don’t have any money I can invest in this, and I can’t—and won’t—borrow or go into debt,” she warned.

“The money will all come as a grant, free and clear.”

“And before I sign anything, my cousin and her husband, who’s a lawyer, will have to see it.”

“I’m glad you have people you can trust on your side to put your mind to rest. Everything will be up-front and on paper, and we don’t have any problem with you showing it to anyone.”

Despite his assurances, Heddy was still incredibly nervous about this. She recognized that due to her own family’s history with the Camdens, it probably wasn’t possible not to worry.

But the bottom line was that she didn’t feel as if she had another option.

So she heard herself say a very uncertain, “Okay.”

But she uttered the word at the exact moment that Carter’s lack of coordination with the spoon caused him to shoot a chunk of cheesecake at Lang Camden, splattering it on the front of his well-tailored suit.

“Oh geez, Carter, I just got this back from the cleaner’s,” Lang complained as he wiped the cheesecake from his lapel with a napkin.

As he focused on that, he missed the fact that Carter, thinking the incident was hilarious, was about to purposely shoot a second glob at him.

Heddy didn’t want to get involved but it was clear that disaster was in the offing and if she didn’t stop it, no one would.

She reached across the table and took the spoon a split second before Carter could accomplish the next lob. “Uh-uh, we don’t throw food,” she said firmly.

“Wan-oo,” Carter insisted.

“No,” Heddy informed him as Lang finally realized what she’d saved him from.

“Hey! No!” he decreed.

“Wan-oo!” Carter responded, plunging a hand into the cheesecake, obviously with every intention of throwing it since Heddy still had his spoon.

Lang grabbed his wrist just in time, shoved the cheesecake plate out of the way and turned his efforts to cleaning Carter’s hand rather than his suit coat while Carter launched into a classic terrible-two screaming fit demanding the return of his cheesecake.

Lang apologized over the din.

Heddy got up, went behind her counter, cut a second slice of the blueberry cheesecake and took it back to the table. She set it far out of Carter’s reach but because her movements had sparked his curiosity and stopped his screams, she said, “If you can eat it nicely, you can have this other piece.”

“Nicey,” Carter begrudgingly agreed.

When his hand was clean Heddy slid him the new slice, seeing the toddler rub his eye with his other hand before he dug into the cheesecake.

“Not a good nap today?” Heddy guessed.

“Yeah. No. None at all. I try to get him to take one if I can, but it doesn’t usually work out.”

“Oh, kids this age have to have a nap,” Heddy said. “They need one every day. They need the rest and they need the schedule, the routine …”

She’d said too much. It wasn’t her place. She had no idea under what circumstances Lang Camden was caring for this child, so she certainly shouldn’t be counseling or criticizing.

But he didn’t seem to take offense. He just seemed out of his element. Which was strange for someone who seemed so in control otherwise.

“Yeah, there’s a lot I have to work out,” he said. “I’m learning on the job.”

That still didn’t tell Heddy who Lang and Carter were to each other and why the man was even attempting to take care of the toddler.

But he didn’t satisfy her curiosity. Instead he merely said, “I should probably warn you that until I can get this kid thing squared away and find some help, we’re a package deal. He’ll be tagging along on everything you and I will need to do.”

The thought of seeing the little boy every time she had anything to do with Lang Camden was so painful that Heddy was tempted to say no to the business proposition altogether.

“A package deal?” she queried.

“Where I am, he is these days,” Lang answered, pinning her once more with those eyes that seemed like the bluest eyes in the world before he returned to talking business. “Was that an okay I heard from you just before the cheesecake attack?”

Heddy offered herself the opportunity to deny it, to not go through with this, after all.

But nothing in her situation had changed in the past several minutes so she said another less-than-enthusiastic, “Yeah.”

“Great! You won’t be sorry.”

Heddy could only hope that proved true.

“So what now?” she asked.

“I’ll leave it up to you when to formally close your doors, but my advice is to do it right away. We’ll be busy getting this ball rolling so you won’t really have time to be here to run this place.”

And there was no sense spending any more money on a sinking ship, Heddy thought, assuming he was also thinking that but was being kind enough not to say it.

“I’ll have a sign made that announces that your cheesecakes will soon be available at Camden Superstores. You can put it out front. It’ll be our first advertisement and then any of your regular customers will know where to look for them in the future.”

Heddy nodded, feeling sad at the thought of closing the shop. Then she realized that she felt a little relieved, too, especially knowing that she had something else to move on to.

“For right now,” he continued, “let me work up a game plan to get things going the quickest way possible, so you won’t have too much downtime between the shop and the new production.”

“That would be good,” Heddy said, thinking of her already stressed finances.

“I’ll do that tonight and tomorrow, then how about if you do a tasting for me tomorrow night? Give me a chance to have a bite of most of the flavors you make—not necessarily the seasonals, but the everyday varieties. We won’t want to start out with too many choices. We’ll want to introduce some basics, then add to them, maybe do weekly or monthly specials. But let me try nearly everything to see what we want to launch with.

And while I’m gorging on cheesecake we’ll go over the game plan I come up with between now and then.”

“And paperwork …” Heddy said, still feeling insecure about this whole thing.

“I’ll have that drawn up, too. Though I won’t have that ready for a couple of days. I’ll lay out the grant portion of the deal, and also our standard contract for you to sell cheesecakes to Camden Inc. as soon as you’re in production.”

“Okay,” Heddy repeated, feeling as out of her element in this as he seemed to be with Carter.

Carter, who had finished the second slice of cheesecake and was now nodding off in his chair.

Lang noticed him at the same time Heddy did and used another napkin to wipe the drowsy child’s face and hands as he said in a quieter tone, “Looks like you’re right. He’s tired. I’ll get him out of here and maybe he’ll snooze a little in the car.”

The mother in Heddy wanted to reiterate that Carter needed more than a snooze in the car, but she fought the urge the same way she fought not to like his more intimate tone of voice.

Carter didn’t rally much even through his face and hand cleaning. So when the big man stood, he picked up the child and slung him onto one hip.

Sound asleep, Carter’s head dropped to Lang’s shoulder.

And there was something much too appealing in the sight of them together like that.

Heddy averted her eyes and busied herself gathering dishes.

But then Lang said, “I’m sorry I can’t make it tomorrow during business hours. Is it all right that we do the tasting in the evening?”

It seemed rude not to look at him again, not to go with him to the door, so Heddy did. “It’s fine. My evenings are not jam-packed. And it will give me the chance during the day to make a few more cheesecake variations for you to taste.”

“What time works for you?” he asked, pushing the door open with the same arm that was holding Carter.

“Any time. Work around Carter’s dinner. And bedtime …” She was not only thinking of the little boy but doing some fishing as she wondered if Lang had responsibility for the child in the evenings, too.

“Let’s say six-thirty. I can usually get him some dinner by then and we should have a pretty decent couple of hours before I’ll need to get him home to bed.”

So he did have the child round-the-clock.

“Six-thirty is fine.”

“I guess we’re in business,” he concluded, holding out his hand for her to shake.

Heddy took it and was instantly more aware than she wanted to be of every sensation of that handshake—of the pure size of his big, masculine hand. Of the warmth and power. Of the confidence.

Of how much she liked the feel of his skin against hers …

The handshake that sealed their business deal ended, and she swallowed back the very unbusinesslike feelings it had prompted in her.

“Six-thirty,” she repeated in a voice softer than she wanted it to be.

“Right,” he confirmed. “Tomorrow night. See you then.”

Heddy merely nodded and watched Lang carry the sleeping child out to his SUV.

As she did, devouring the view, her gaze riveted to the man she was about to see much more of, she realized that somewhere deep down, on a level that was purely instinctive and primitive and absolutely out of her control, she might be experiencing an attraction to him.

An attraction she didn’t want to have.

An attraction she couldn’t have, especially not now that she was in the same position with him that her mother had been with his father once upon a time.

Then, as if to save her from herself, her mind flashed her a painful memory.

A memory of watching Daniel carry Tina the same way Lang Camden was carrying Carter.

That helped offset the attraction.

At least a little anyway.




Chapter Three


“Don’t do this, Heddy! You don’t know what you’re getting into. The Camdens will chew you up and spit you out, just like they did your grandfather and me. Especially me!”

“This ship is already down, Mom. I don’t have anything else to lose,” Heddy told her mother on Thursday afternoon. As expected, Kitty Hanrahan was horrified by the thought of the venture with the Camdens.

“I talked to Grandpa on the phone this morning and told him,” Heddy went on as she put together some of the cheesecakes she wanted Lang Camden to taste in flavors that she didn’t already have made or frozen.

Her mother stood nearby watching. “Your grandfather doesn’t blame the Camdens the way I do.”

“He said it was his own fault for getting in deeper than he should have, for not anticipating that he would need to expand to meet demand.”

“And is he forgetting that when we asked for help expanding after the Camdens led us to believe they would give it, they ended up refusing and still took their business away and left us with nothing?”

Heddy had heard it all before and knew that her mother and her grandfather didn’t completely agree. But she chose not to argue. Instead, she laid out for her mother why she hoped this was a safer situation.

“The grant money and Lang Camden’s expertise will put me in a position to meet demand from the start,” she noted. “And if my cheesecakes aren’t a success at the Camden stores, I’ll still be the owner of the facility and the equipment, so I’ll have mass-production capabilities that I don’t have now. That will open other avenues I can pursue if I end up needing to.”

“Unless the Camdens blacklist you so no one else will ever touch your cheesecakes. You don’t know what you’re dealing with. I know how Camden men operate—they’re good-looking and they reek of charisma, and before you know what’s hit you, you’re sucked in and then left in their dust.”

“I know that’s what happened to you—”

“And why Mitchum Camden refused us any help to expand to meet the demands of his stores. When he was finished with me he wanted to forget I existed and the best way to do that was to take his business elsewhere. He didn’t care that he was taking away our livelihood.”

Heddy didn’t know if that was true or not but she did know that that was how her mother had always interpreted what had happened. And even though Heddy’s grandfather tried to take the blame for their business failure, he also never explicitly denied Kitty’s claims, which lent some credence to them.

Still …

“Grandpa said—and I agree—that I can learn from the past mistakes,” Heddy insisted. “And you’ve just made a good point. I’ll make sure that Clark puts some sort of contingency or gag order in the contract I sign with the Camdens so that they can’t blacklist me or bad-mouth me in any way if things don’t work out with them. And Lang Camden has already offered to help me branch into other areas if the cheesecakes don’t do well in his stores.”

“Don’t believe what they say,” her mother warned ominously. “Mitchum Camden made me plenty of promises that he didn’t keep. Like the engagement ring that ended up on someone else’s finger.”

“I know,” Heddy said sympathetically. “But for me this will be strictly business. I’ll make sure everything is on paper, that there aren’t any loopholes, and that I’m protected in every way possible. And you don’t need to worry about me getting personally involved because that’s not going to happen, not with a Camden or any other man. It can’t. One man, one marriage, that was it for me—you know that.”

“Oh, Heddy …” Her mother’s tone was so sad that Heddy knew she’d switched gears even before she said, “I don’t want you to go anywhere near a Camden, but I wish you would get involved with someone again. Five years is a long time—long enough to grieve. I don’t want to see you alone forever.”

“I’m okay,” Heddy assured her. “I’m not grieving anymore. Honestly. And I’m happy enough.” As happy as she could be now and could hope to be later. “But Daniel was my one-and-only and I can’t even imagine myself with anyone else. Or having any more kids—”

“You would have had at least one more baby if what happened hadn’t happened,” her mother pointed out.

“But now every kid makes me think of Tina—” Ache for Tina … “—and the only way to avoid that is to stay away from kids. Another baby would have been a brother or a sister for Tina. It would have made a full, complete family. Now having another child would be like I was trying to replace Tina somehow. As if that could ever be done. So no, the whole marriage and kids thing is just a part of life that’s over for me. And I’m okay with it. Daniel was my husband. Tina was my little girl. No one else can ever fill those slots.”

Not even the handsome, charming, sexy Lang Camden or the very cute Carter who both sprang to mind suddenly for no reason Heddy understood.

“Getting involved with someone is just not on the menu for me,” she concluded firmly. “So there’s no risk of that part of your history repeating itself. And I think I can protect myself from the rest of it happening again.”

“I still don’t like it,” Kitty said. “None of it. Your involvement with the Camdens and your refusal to go on living your life.”

“I’m living just fine,” Heddy said with a laugh at her mother’s dramatics.

“You’re not, Heddy. You’re not …”

“I’m going to be a big cheesecake mogul, Mom. That’s living, phase two—successful career woman.”

Her mother was standing beside her, near enough to pull her head to the side and kiss the top of it. “It’s not enough,” her mother whispered.

But Heddy insisted that it was.

And again shooed away the mental image of Lang Camden that almost seemed to make her mother’s case.

“What exactly is a start-up guy?” Heddy asked Lang that evening, hoping to find out more about what he did for Camden Incorporated.

He and Carter had arrived on time for the tasting but Carter had again been overly tired and cranky. Lang hadn’t come equipped with any diversions for the child, so Heddy stepped in and gave him pots and pans and wooden spoons to play with. But it had quickly become clear that the little boy was just too tired to be appeased.

So, at Heddy’s suggestion, they’d moved the tasting from the shop to her living area in the back where she’d persuaded Carter to lie on her comfy couch with a pillow and a fluffy blanket. She’d found a children’s station on television for him to watch, and he’d promptly fallen asleep.

She and Lang sat alone at her round pedestal kitchen table while he methodically sampled the array of cheesecake flavors she’d set out for him. Without the distraction of Carter, Heddy felt the need to make conversation. Lang’s comments about which of the cheesecakes he thought they should start with and which should be featured later weren’t enough.

Plus she was curious about him.

She hated that she was. But she was.

“The brandy mousse—wonderful but tastes seasonal. Let’s hold off and do that as a Christmas or New Year’s flavor,” he said, waiting for Heddy to make a note before he answered her question. “What do I do as the start-up guy? Well, when the decision gets made to open a new store or to branch out, the first thing I do is the research. If it’s a new store, I start by doing the demographics and scouting for the best location. From there I do all the groundwork, bid on the land, deal with zoning, apply for the permits, find contractors…. Things that set the wheels into motion.”

“And if it’s a new endeavor?”

“I do what I’ll be doing with you. If we want to add a department or to start selling something we haven’t sold before, I look for the best way to do that. Is it better to buy from someone else who produces what we want to sell? If so, under what terms, and can they supply to the extent we need? Or, is it better if we set up production ourselves? If it is, I look for facilities and for the best people to man the operation, and I get it going.”

“My situation is a combination of those. You’re doing what you’d ordinarily do to set up your own production, except that you’re doing it for me.”

“Yeah,” he confirmed.

“And if you decide along the way that you’d be better off producing your own cheesecakes?” Heddy asked.

Things were more casual tonight. She was in jeans and a plain blouse she wore untucked. He was in tweed slacks and a sport shirt. And yet even sitting in her spotless white kitchen with its bright red and navy blue accents, separated from her cozy living room and Carter only by an island counter, it was still in the back of Heddy’s mind to find the pitfalls in this deal.

“Not going to happen,” he said without any indication that he’d taken offense at her suspicion. “You make the best cheesecakes and you have the recipes and the techniques. I already told you that I’m fine with you guarding those things. I’m not trying to wiggle my way in and steal your trade secrets so we can turn around and produce the cheesecakes ourselves.”

Heddy had no idea why the thought of him wiggling his way in to anything seemed a tad alluring but she ignored it and forced herself to focus on more important matters.

“But even as it is—just tonight—you’re learning things you could copy. Flavor combinations I put together. Brainstorms I’ve had for varieties no one else makes—”

“Anybody who walked into your shop and tasted something would have that same information, wouldn’t they?”

Heddy shrugged, conceding his point. She had been fairly revealing in telling him how she got certain degrees of flavor—for instance in her blackberry chocolate cheesecake—and now she wished she hadn’t.

“Think of the big picture, Heddy,” he advised. “With some things it’s to our advantage to go into production ourselves—to have our own factories—because it would cost us more to buy from someone else. But for this? For one item in a line of gourmet foods? That’s a niche. It’s more cost- and time-efficient to buy what you produce than to find and hire chefs to develop a recipe, to have to continue to operate production after it’s set up, to have the expense of employees, their benefits and what-have-you long-term. Just for cheesecakes. Can’t you see that it makes more sense to do it this way? We’re not conspiring against you. We’re just doing good business that will hopefully benefit us all.”





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