A Baby in the Bargain. Victoria Pade
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night.
He shook his head. “Anyway, no, I wasn’t thinking about getting even with them—it’s not like I’m obsessed with them, or with payback or something. But it also isn’t as if I want to get in bed with them, either…”
Where had that particular turn of phrase come from? And why had the picture of January Camden popped back into his brain along with it?
It’s a figure of speech and that’s all it is, he insisted to himself. It doesn’t have any hidden meaning.
Still he found himself feeling a few degrees warmer all of a sudden and fidgeting in his chair a little to evade the involuntary response that was going through him.
“I know you wouldn’t ever ‘get into bed’ with the Camdens,” Jack said. “But would that be what a donation from them was?”
“I don’t know,” Gideon said with a sigh. “I do like the idea of putting my great-grandfather’s name on something of value and service to Lakeview. And the Cam-dens sure as hell owe Lakeview.”
“So you’d be killing two birds with one stone?”
“Except that the stone belongs to the Camdens, and they can’t be trusted—my family history proves that,” Gideon added, showing just how much he was vacillating about this.
“Do you think it’s a trick of some kind?” Jack asked, as he finished with his breakfast and settled in with his second cup of coffee.
“I know I won’t let it be. And she said that I can set the terms.”
“So maybe this is on the up-and-up?” Jack suggested. “Maybe they really do just want to make up for what H.J. did?”
Gideon shrugged, showing his reservations.
“The Camdens are heavy into charity and benefits and good deeds now,” Jack pointed out. “Hospital wings, libraries, research labs, animal shelters. They’ve even made donations huge enough to be newsworthy in national and international disasters. Their name crops up with just about anything worthwhile that goes on these days. Could it be that this is a generation of new-and-improved Camdens?”
“New-and-improved Camdens?” Gideon parroted. “I might not be looking to get even but I also don’t know that I buy that, either. Don’t forget that H.J. came into Lakeview a wolf in sheep’s clothing.”
“True. But your eyes are wide open when it comes to these people. And if their donation benefits a community they owe plenty to and your great-grandfather gets paid a little homage in the process, aren’t those two good things?”
“I’m thinking about it,” Gideon said evasively.
The waitress came to find out if they wanted anything. Jack took a refill on his coffee. Gideon just asked for the check.
“This is on me for keeping you waiting,” he told his friend. “But I’m gonna have to leave you while you finish your coffee—I need to get to that meeting with Lakeview Parks and Recreation.”
“Oh, right, I forgot about that. I’ll see you at the office when you get back.”
As Gideon fished in his wallet to leave the money for the check and a generous tip he said, “Don’t worry about things with Sammy. This is the roughest time. He’s still your son and you have every right to him, so it’ll work out.”
“Yeah,” Jack said glumly. “But it’ll never be the same.”
Gideon couldn’t refute that because he knew it was true. So he didn’t try.
He merely said he’d see Jack later and left, knowing what his friend was going through and feeling a wave of old pain himself at the thought.
That pain lasted until he got behind the wheel of his SUV and headed for Lakeview. The thought of Lake-view brought January Camden and what she’d proposed back to mind to distract him.
If he decided to take her up on her offer and had to have contact with a Camden, at least it would be with a Camden who was easy on the eyes.
She’d been some kind of liaison to send. A real attention-getter. He had to give them credit for that, at least.
And she’d weathered the storm he’d sent her way with composure—she got points for that. Dignity and composure. And style—she had that, too. Dignity, composure, style, beauty…
Okay, yes, January Camden was something, he admitted reluctantly.
But she was still a Camden.
And even though he didn’t remember seeing a wedding ring, she must be a married Camden. If that book that had fallen out of her purse was any indication, she was in starting-a-family mode.
The old pain swung back and hit him when that thought went through his head. Family. Babies. Kids…
And suddenly it wasn’t January Camden he was picturing but the little girl who had been his own daughter. If only for a while…
Jillie.
His little Jillie-bean…
All this time and it could still knock him as cold as a fist to the jaw…
And it occurred to him that he’d actually rather think about January Camden than about Jillie. About all the Camdens. He’d rather be mad than maudlin and de-pressed….
So think about the donation…he told himself.
But only about the donation and the lousy, stinking, underhanded Camdens.
Not about the way January Camden looked or carried herself.
Not about her blue, blue eyes.
Not about what might be going on in her personal life.
Just the donation the lousy, stinking, underhanded Camdens wanted to make to Lakeview.
And whether or not he was going to let it happen…
“Aren’t you guys having lunch with GiGi and me?” Jani asked Margaret and Louie, referring to Georgi-anna Camden by the nickname everyone used for her. Jani had come to her grandmother’s house hoping for time alone with GiGi. But Margaret and Louie Halibur-ton were more than GiGi’s house staff; they were the adopted members of the family who had helped GiGi raise her ten grandchildren. They continued to work and live on the estate, and to be important to GiGi and to all of the Camdens.
Because they were in the kitchen with GiGi when Jani arrived, she’d expected them to be staying for lunch, which meant she’d have to have a few words with her grandmother in private later. But after they’d all exchanged pleasantries, Louie announced that he and Margaret should be going.
“I’m being taken out to lunch,” Margaret said with delight on her lined face. “I’d say Louie was becoming a romantic in his old age but I think you’re grandmother put him up to it since he forgot our anniversary.”
“Nah! It was my idea,” Louie insisted.
“Better make it a long lunch, Louie, with a shopping spree afterward, or you’re never getting out of the doghouse,” GiGi advised him, laughing.
The camaraderie among the three older people was obvious. They were genuinely close friends and indispensable to each other.
“Yes, shopping—that’s a good idea,” Margaret said, although Jani wondered why it would appeal to the woman who mainly wore elastic-waistband slacks and either T-shirts or sweatshirts that always had messages printed on them.
Regardless, the couple said goodbye and went on their way, leaving Jani alone with her grandmother to sit at the breakfast nook that was large enough for fourteen people.
GiGi had made her special grilled-cheese sandwiches and tomato-basil soup. That was what they talked about as they began to eat.
But then Jani heard the sound of the front