Calling his assistant to get to Montana ahead of him and begin dealing with the nightmare.
By the time Callan was on his way to the airport, and finally remembered the woman he’d left in his bed, it was already too late.
He’d called his hotel room from the plane—no answer. He’d talked again to the concierge, who had gone to the suite while he was still on the line.
But Livi was gone, and there was no way for Callan to contact her when all he knew was her first name.
They’d gone from the beach to his suite, so he had no idea what room had been hers, no way of trying to get a belated message to her. No way of ever letting her know what had happened, and that he’d hoped and expected their time together to end much differently.
At the very least, it wouldn’t have ended with him disappearing into thin air.
He felt rotten for how he’d treated Livi, even if he did have a reason for it. Under other circumstances, if they’d met again, he would have apologized, explained, maybe tried to make it up to her somehow.
But under these circumstances?
Nothing about these circumstances was normal.
She was a Camden. He knew how Mandy had felt about the Camdens—any generation of them. She would never have trusted them. And she would never have let any one of them near Greta.
And why had Livi come around?
Callan couldn’t say that he trusted a Camden’s motives, either. Not after what he knew they’d done to Mandy’s dad.
Did Livi Camden have something up her sleeve?
She was the first Camden to make any contact since they’d got what they wanted all those years ago. It was something Mandy had always added when she’d told the story—that they’d never so much as said they were sorry, not even when her dad died...
And that was what they did to supposed friends.
Now Callan was being pressured to let one of them near Greta?
But just how hard-line could he be with her, after the way he’d abandoned her in Hawaii, even if there had been a good reason? Not to mention just how hard-line could he be going up against the Tellers, who had taken an instant liking to Livi and seemed willing and eager to have her mentor their granddaughter?
The Tellers, who he owed.
The Tellers, who he’d promised John Jr. on his deathbed he would take care of.
That promise was already hard enough to keep, given the way John Sr. refused to trust him. If Callan went against the man in this, it would just make the tensions between them that much worse.
It didn’t seem like this was where to draw a line at all, except for Mandy’s feelings about the Camdens...
Could he really let Livi into her daughter’s life?
It felt wrong.
But apparently only to him.
By now, Livi Camden’s car was out of sight. And with the weight of everything bearing down on him, Callan bent over, hands to knees, and stared at the dirt under his feet.
He’d had one hell of a lot to figure out even before he’d walked into the Tellers’ farmhouse and found Livi-from-Hawaii sitting there.
Shortly, he’d be handing the farm over to the people he’d hired to look after it and taking the Tellers and Greta to Denver with him, and he had no idea what was going to happen then. Especially when it came to Greta. Raising a kid was so much more involved than anything he’d ever done before. He had to be her father. Her family along with the Tellers.
But what did he know about being part of a family? About having a family?
Nothing. Flat-out nothing.
At least nothing good, nothing he wanted to repeat.
And now it was on him to be that, to provide that for Greta.
“I need some help here, guys,” he muttered to the memory of Mandy and John Jr.
More help than what his geriatric charges could give, he thought.
And the Tellers liked Livi.
Greta liked Livi.
Plus Maeve was probably right—Greta was going to need the influence and advice of a woman younger than eighty.
He didn’t have a wife anymore—he’d already blown that. There was no one else on the docket to fill that bill and take over that duty.
And Livi Camden was applying for the job.
So he guessed that rather than buck the Tellers, rather than deny Greta something she should have and clearly wanted, he supposed he had to give in on this.
Sorry, Mandy, he said mentally to his lost friend. But I swear I’ll stick as close as I can every minute she’s with Greta, to keep an eagle eye on her. No matter what, I won’t let another Camden hurt somebody you care about.
Even if it meant he had to take a hard line with Livi down the road, if he discovered she did have some kind of Camden ulterior motive.
Even if it meant he had to be a son of a bitch to her a second time.
He really hoped it didn’t come to that. Not with the first woman he’d had the slightest inclination to approach since his divorce.
The woman he’d had on his mind a surprising amount during the last two months.
The woman who had—at first sight this afternoon—made his pulse kick up a notch. And not just out of guilt for how things had been left in Hawaii, but simply from setting eyes on her again.
He had to keep in perspective that that one night in Hawaii was nothing but one night. In Hawaii.
Because incredible blue eyes that made his pulse race or not, he couldn’t deal with any more than he already was.
The Camden ranch house was still empty when Livi got back after meeting Greta and the Tellers.
And Callan.
Callan from Hawaii.
She’d driven home in the same dull sense of disbelief that she’d been in since setting eyes on him again. She was glad her cousin Seth wasn’t back yet because she needed some time for what had happened to sink in.
She dropped her purse in the foyer, took a sharp right to the living room and sank into one of the oversize leather easy chairs, slumping so low her head rested on the back cushion.
Her mind was spinning.
Callan.
The stranger on the beach in Hawaii was from Denver.
With connections in Northbridge. Just like her.
And now they’d met again...
Was the universe toying with her or was she going to wake up and realize she was dreaming this whole thing?
She knew it was just wishful thinking that this was all some kind of nightmare that would fade away as soon as she woke up.
But still she pinched her eyes closed for a minute and then opened them wide.
No, she definitely wasn’t dreaming.
And she wasn’t nauseous.
That thought almost made her cry.
Because if the nausea was coming from stress, this was the time for it. She should have been miserably sick to her stomach, since the tension she was feeling was through the roof.
But she wasn’t feeling queasy.
With