“Denver is where we’re all headin’,” John Sr. said under his breath, not sounding happy about it.
“That’s where Callan lives,” Maeve explained. “And he wants to look after us now that our John Jr. can’t. We aren’t doing so well on our own anymore.”
Then I don’t have an out? Livi was near panic at the idea of having to face Callan on a regular basis.
“I don’t know about having her around Greta,” Callan said, sounding frustrated at having his stance ignored. “She’s come at us out of the blue. How do we know she doesn’t have something up her sleeve, the way her family did with Greta’s grandfather?”
“It isn’t like you don’t have some things to answer for in your own past,” John Sr. grumbled to Callan. “And that was all you, not some long-gone relatives. Didn’t keep Mandy and our John from lettin’ you be around Greta.”
Callan looked thunderous, which Maeve must have noticed, because she rushed to speak next. “I have good instincts about people and Livi seems like a nice person who’s just wanting to make things right. Everybody makes mistakes. It’s what they do to correct them that matters.”
There was an underlying message in that, aimed at both John Sr. and Callan, but Livi had no idea what that message was. It kept both men quiet, though, while Maeve seemed to take the reins.
“I think it could be really good for Greta to have you be her big sister, Livi,” the elderly lady said then. “To have a young woman’s guidance so I don’t have to worry that I’m not up-to-date enough for her. Today, meeting you, is the happiest I’ve seen her since we lost her momma and daddy. So if you’re willing to take that little girl under your wing to atone for the past, I think we’d be lucky to have you.”
It appeared that both men knew better than to argue with her.
But with resignation in his almost-black eyes, Callan said to Livi, “Greta is my responsibility now and I’ll be watching to make sure you’re on the up-and-up with this.”
He’d be watching? Did that mean that he was going to make sure he was around whenever she was with Greta?
Oh, great, that’s all I need.
But what could Livi say? That he was the glaring reminder of her worst mistake and she didn’t want to face him over and over again?
GiGi had given her the task of performing restitution to Greta. It was her job to make sure Greta was well taken care of, that the little girl’s needs were met—no matter what. Livi had to see it through. She didn’t have a choice.
Maybe this is my punishment for Hawaii, she thought.
But without any way to back out now, she took a deep, bracing breath, plastered a smile on her face and said, “We just want to do something for Greta’s good.”
Regardless how difficult it might prove to be for Livi.
Because despite the way this had started out today, she was now afraid it was going to be very, very difficult...
* * *
“I’ll go in and say hello to John, pay him directly.”
“Yeah, sure,” Callan said to the man whose truck he’d just loaded with hay bales.
There had been an edge of distrust in Gordon Bassett’s voice, but Callan ignored it. Disdain and distrust for him in Northbridge was an old song Callan knew well. And apparently that was never going to change. It was the price he paid for being the kid from the other side of the tracks. A kid who had earned the reputation as a troublemaker.
But Callan had too many other things to think about at the moment to care about that. Actually, he wasn’t even looking at the man he’d known all his life. He was watching the woman he now knew as Livi Camden drive away. And wondering what the hell was going on lately. Life was throwing him one curve ball after another.
Beginning in the middle of the night he’d spent with her.
If she’d told him her last name when they’d met at that beach bar in Hawaii, he might have left her sitting alone to watch the sea turtles and the sunset by herself.
Oh, who was he kidding? Even knowing what kind of people she came from, he probably would have stuck around.
She’d been too damn gorgeous sitting there in the fading sunlight with her long, bittersweet-chocolate-colored hair draping over her sexy bare shoulders. When she’d looked up at him with eyes that were a darker and more beautiful cobalt blue than the clear sky in the distance, eyes set in the face of an angel, he wouldn’t have pulled away no matter what. Not with the mood he’d been in, having just accomplished a buyout he’d been working on for a year. He’d wanted to kick back and celebrate a little at day’s end—so yeah, he’d have probably stuck around even if he had known she was a Camden.
He just wouldn’t have ever told Mandy about it.
But the Livi of Hawaii was a Camden.
And now their paths had crossed again.
Two curve balls for the price of one...
He watched Livi’s car get farther and farther away. He’d had every intention of going out to that car with her when she left so he could talk to her alone about Hawaii.
But then Bassett had showed up for his hay and Callan had had no choice but to head out to load the truck.
Now she was gone and he felt like an even bigger heel than he’d felt in the last two months whenever the thought of Hawaii came to mind.
As big a heel as she no doubt thought he was.
Not that they’d made any plans. Any promises. It had even been Livi who had dodged talk of what she’d called their “real lives.”
But still, to take off without a word, without even thinking about her...
To be honest, in that moment he hadn’t been thinking about anything but that middle-of-the-night phone call.
That lousy, freaking call that had caused his phone to vibrate enough to wake him without waking Livi, so he could take it into the living room of his suite and not disturb her.
That lousy, freaking call that had literally knocked the breath out of him, leaving him dazed and operating on autopilot, struggling to deal with the news that his two closest friends—Mandy and John Jr.—had been involved in a horrible car accident. That J.J. was barely holding on to life. That Mandy was already dead.
Callan had thrown on the clothes Livi had helped him discard hours before. Once he was dressed—taking nothing with him other than his wallet and cell phone—he’d rushed out of that suite, calling his pilot to arrange an emergency flight for his private jet, to get him to Montana immediately.
Calling the concierge to explain the situation and get the man to see to packing his bags, checking him out and sending the bags to him later.
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