“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