LITMIR.BIZ

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that night...

      Livi swallowed with some difficulty, trying to manage so many emotions at once—the shame and humiliation, but also the attraction she wished she could repress. Because she couldn’t help appreciating what an impressive, imposing specimen of a man he was.

      “I didn’t know you were a cowboy from Montana,” she said weakly.

      “Cowboy?” John Sr. commented, breaking through Livi’s shock. “He isn’t really that.”

      “He is when he’s getting his hands dirty doing our work around here,” Maeve retorted. “And, yes, Livi is a Camden,” the older woman confirmed to Callan. “She’s Seth Camden’s cousin, Georgianna Camden’s granddaughter, and she came to offer sympathies and help with Greta.”

      Livi watched Callan’s thick eyebrows dip together in a frown. “Help with Greta,” he repeated without inflection. But the frown was enough to let her know that he wasn’t as receptive to the idea as the Tellers had already seemed to be. “Why would a Camden want to do that?”

      Suspicion. It was clear as day in his voice then.

      So much for this going smoothly...

      And despite what had happened in Hawaii and how monumental it was to her, Livi realized that their personal history was now on the back burner for him. That they’d veered into anti-Camden territory. John Sr. and Maeve hadn’t seemed to know the details of the bad blood between the Camdens and Randall Walcott, but Livi was willing to bet Callan knew the whole story—and held a grudge.

      “I know that once upon a time there was a falling out with the Camdens and Randall Walcott—”

      “A falling out?” Callan repeated with an unpleasant huff. “You people played that guy for a sucker. You lured him in and then pulled the rug out from under him.”

      Livi took a deep breath, wishing she could deny any part of what he’d just laid at her family’s doorstep, but knowing she couldn’t. The harsh, often unethical behavior of the senior Camdens was the very reason she and her siblings and cousins were working so hard to make restitution.

      “Until very recently none of the Camdens who are around today—me, my brothers and sister, my cousins and our grandmother—knew what went on all that time ago,” she said. “My grandmother knew Randall Walcott as a boy her sons grew up with, worked with—”

      “They worked him, all right,” Callan continued with a sneer. “They had their old man give him advice on how to start his shoe business. Even gave him a loan so he could expand it. But about the time he had everything up and running they called in the loan, knowing he couldn’t pay. Then they took over his company, stealing what he’d started and built up. You people still sell Walcott Shoes, if I’m not mistaken.”

      “You people” again...

      “I was only two years old when it went down,” Livi felt compelled to point out. “And no one alive today had anything to do with it. None of us would let something like that go on now and—”

      But Callan seemed determined that the entire story be told, because he interrupted her to go on. “Mandy’s dad ended up with nothing! That poor bastard had to come here with his tail between his legs and move his family in with his in-laws. Mandy told me all about it. She was just a kid, but when you see your dad as upset and beaten down as he was, you remember it. She hated what had happened to him...especially with what happened next, when after two years of more failure here he ended up putting a gun to his own head—”

      “Shh, shh, shh...” Maeve whispered suddenly, apparently spotting Greta just before she returned to the room, having changed clothes.

      “I wanted to put on my dress that goes with the scarf,” the little girl announced. Then, spotting Callan, she laid a small hand to the hair adornment and said, “Look, Uncle Callan—Livi gave me this and tied it like she had it. Isn’t it pretty?”

      “It is,” he confirmed, but his voice was tight.

      “Come on, Greta,” Kinsey said in a hurry, as if she was looking for any reason to escape this scene herself. “Let’s go see how many other things will match the scarf.”

      The nurse held out her hand to the little girl and Greta took it eagerly, chattering as if Kinsey was a girlfriend as they both left the room.

      Not until they heard a door closing upstairs did anyone speak.

      Then Callan broke the silence. “Any Camden is the last person on earth Mandy would want near her kid,” he said flatly, as if that put an end to the discussion.

      “But this girl didn’t have nothin’ to do with anything that happened all those years ago,” John Sr. argued. “It’s nothin’ to do with Greta, neither, and far as I can see, it’s nothin’ to do with you no way, Tierney—”

      His last name is Tierney?

      The name meant nothing to Livi, but she tucked it away as information she might need.

      “Least you could do,” the elderly man went on, “is hear out Livi here. We hardly know Seth Camden, her—” he looked to Livi “—cousin, is it?”

      “Yes,” she said.

      “We don’t barely know him, but when word got around town about our troubles, he sent his crew over here to help out. Come pickin’ time, they did our whole harvest. And when I asked what we owed them they said that they were on the Camden clock, that Seth Camden was just bein’ neighborly and wantin’ to help us out, and not to even mention it. Seems to me that’s a sign of what this young lady is sayin’—the new breed isn’t like the old one.”

      Livi took that endorsement as her cue. “We want to make up for what was done all those years ago. Greta is Randall Walcott’s only living descendent and the only person we can compensate. We want to make sure she’s looked after and has anything she needs. Anything—care and attention, a trust fund. A college fund, maybe—”

      “She doesn’t need your money,” Callan said, as if financial matters were of no importance.

      “But we want to take care of whatever she does need,” Livi persisted.

      Just then Greta came bounding back into the living room, running straight to Livi. “Look at this other scarf I found!”

      “That’s the sash to your Christmas dress, sweetheart,” Maeve said.

      “But it’s like a scarf!” Greta insisted to her grandmother, before honing in on Livi again. “Can you teach me how to tie it like you did? And could you paint my fingernails like yours, too? I think that would look nice with my outfit. Oh! You have pierced ears!” she exclaimed, apparently just noticing. “My mom’s ears were pierced and she said I could have mine done, too. My friend Raina’s mom pierced hers—can you do that?” the little girl asked eagerly.

      “Greta, where did you go?” the nurse called from upstairs. “Come back and see—I found something we can tie in your doll’s hair like you wanted.”

      “I’ll be right back!” Greta promised Livi, before charging out of the room again.

      As she did, Maeve said, “She’s attached to Kinsey. Follows her like a shadow. But what will happen when I’m better and don’t need a nurse anymore? Then an old lady will be the only woman Greta has paying any kind of close attention to her. What she needs is a younger one, somebody who can give her what Mandy would have. And she seems to have taken to you, Livi...”

      GiGi had suggested something similar—that Greta would need a woman in her life. And that had been something Livi had thought she might be able to do, even if it was long distance. She could make frequent trips to Northbridge, she’d decided. And maybe Greta could occasionally come to Denver on long weekends or vacations from school, to give her guardian a break.

      Only, now that Livi knew who Greta’s guardian was, she couldn’t say she was eager for any contact that might put her in the position she

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