A Camden's Baby Secret by Victoria Pade Page B

s’pose. You’ve kind of got me over a barrel, having Maeve in your corner.”
    â€œI won’t do it if you’re uncomfortable with it,” Livi said. “I’ll even take the blame—I can call Greta in the morning and say something came up and I can’t make it.”
    â€œThat would make you the bad guy instead of me,” he said, as if there was some appeal in that. But then he shook his head. “No, that would disappoint Greta. And I want her room to be what she wants. But I’m paying this time. Whatever she picks out, have the salesperson call me and I’ll give my credit card number for it.”
    It was Livi’s turn to laugh, because he’d said that as if it somehow justified him agreeing to let Greta be alone with her. “If that makes you feel better. And I swear I’ll try not to corrupt her while we’re picking out dust ruffles.”
    â€œI don’t know what a dust ruffle is, but thanks,” he said facetiously. He shook his head again. “I told you, this is all pretty mixed up for me.”
    Livi nodded. “I get it—it’ll just take some time for you to see that I really only want to make up for what was done years ago.”
    â€œSo you aren’t a Camden Trojan horse.”
    â€œWhat exactly would I be infiltrating?” she challenged, a part of her realizing how much she liked these teasing exchanges.
    â€œI don’t know. I only know how Mandy felt about Camdens, and I’m trying to do right by her.”
    â€œI respect that,” Livi admitted. “You’re just being a good friend and looking out for her daughter.”
    And it was something about him and his character that she noted herself. Admiring it in him even if it did make him suspicious of her.
    He was studying her face as if to reassure himself. Or maybe to resolve those two elements that he found at odds—her being whatever it was he’d thought of her in Hawaii with the fact that she was a Camden.
    Then he pushed off her fender and stood in front of her. “It’s also tough,” he confided, “because Camden or not, you’re a big help to me. And I need it all the way around. At least, while I’m trying to figure this whole thing out, Greta doesn’t have to suffer for my incompetence as her guardian.”
    â€œSo think of it as that—help to you that Greta benefits from.”
    â€œThat sounded a little Trojan horsey—like you’re trying to suck me in so I lower my guard,” he said with one eyebrow arched.
    But his voice was more playful than venomous. And the expression on his handsome face changed to something more intimate.
    Then he reached a hand to her upper arm, squeezing it affectionately, as if that was a perfectly natural thing between them. “Anyway, thanks for what you did today and for sticking around tonight. Like I said, it put Greta in a better mood, and I think the Tellers were happy to see you, too.” He paused a beat, squeezed her arm a second time, and added, “And I can’t say I was un happy to see you...”
    She liked hearing that more than she wanted to.
    Then, when she wasn’t expecting it at all, he leaned forward and kissed her forehead.
    Livi froze, taken by surprise and knocked off balance by that contact.
    But it was over the next moment when he let go of her arm to step back.
    Nodding toward the driver’s side of her car, he said, “Go on home and get some sleep.”
    Livi swallowed with some difficulty and could barely find her voice to say good-night before she did as he’d instructed.
    But after an entire day of muddled emotions, as she drove home she felt even more confusion.
    In her entire life she had never seen herself with anyone but Patrick.
    In Hawaii she’d been outside of herself. But here she was now, with her feet firmly planted on home turf.
    And while she wasn’t actually seeing herself with Callan,