LITMIR.BIZ

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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 and a job to do—and the deal with Heddy Hanrahan on top of it all—there was just no way he could beat the bushes for a nanny himself.

      “You know that the Camden name can attract trouble,” his grandmother pointed out, running her hand through her salt-and-pepper hair. “Whoever gets hired as your nanny has to be above reproach for Carter’s safety and security. Even after your secretary finds likely candidates, they have to be put through a thorough background check and that takes time.”

      “Yeah, I know,” Lang said with a sigh.

      He was annoyed with the delay but he knew what his grandmother was saying was true. He couldn’t risk handing Carter over to just any child-care provider and getting back a ransom note. In their position there was always cause for caution. Money made them targets in many ways.

      “But if you and Jonah and Margaret and Louie could just watch him on weekdays—” Lang persisted.

      “No, Lang.” GiGi held the line.

      Margaret and Louie were the house staff who had long ago become more like members of the family than employees. They were GiGi’s closest friends and had helped her raise all ten of her grandchildren after the plane crash that had killed their parents. They’d also provided more than their fair share of Carter’s care for the past three months.

      “Carter is your child,” his grandmother went on. “But since taking him you’ve had less to do with him than anyone. It’s been just like everything else since Audrey left—you keep anyone new at arm’s length. But that boy is family. Your family, and you can’t stay closed off from him—it’ll be a disaster for you both.”

      “If I had shut myself off and kept everybody since Audrey at arm’s length there wouldn’t be a Carter,” Lang pointed out.

      “Bull! Carter’s mother appealed to you because she wasn’t much more than a one-night stand who didn’t ask anything of you beyond the physical. It was a fly-by-night imitation of a relationship on the rebound. And since then you haven’t even bothered to pretend—all you’ve had is flings. One-night stands.”

      “Wow, I am not going to talk about one-night stands with my grandmother,” Lang said.

      “The point is, you’ve built a wall around yourself. I know it’s protective and gives you the sense that you have the control that you lost with Audrey so you can’t get hurt again, but you can’t live a full life that way, honey.”

      “Maybe I’m just holding out for something more.”

      “If you’re holding out for anything, it’s Audrey’s clone. You’ve nixed every genuinely nice, substantial girl who’s crossed your path for the past three and a half years because something about them didn’t measure up to Audrey. And that has to stop!”

      He really hadn’t come over here tonight to have the riot act read to him.

      “Maybe what I’m holding out for is what I felt for Audrey and that just hasn’t happened.” Under his breath he added, “Except the next time I’d like it if the other person feels that way about me, too.”

      “You aren’t going to find that in the kind of women you’ve been seeing. And in the meantime, you need to open up enough to be a father to that baby.”

      “Well, the result is that he has cheesecake in his hair,” Lang concluded matter-of-factly, and then steered the conversation to what he’d come to his grandmother’s house to discuss in the first place. “Because apparently you didn’t think it was enough to throw me into the deep end with him, you also thought this would be a good time for me to take my turn at your project of making amends.”

      Camden Incorporated had been founded and built by Lang’s great-grandfather, H. J. Camden. A scrappy man who had been willing to do just about anything to accomplish his goals.

      The family loved H.J., and had hoped that the rumors and suspicions that he had been ruthless and unscrupulous were false. They’d also hoped that the suspicions that his son Hank and his two grandsons had acted as H.J.’s henchmen were false, too. But the recent discovery of H.J.’s journals had left them with no illusions. Camden Incorporated had been built by methods the current Camdens weren’t proud of.

      GiGi and her ten grandchildren had set out to make amends to people harmed by H.J., Hank, Mitchum and Howard’s actions, or to the families and descendants who might have suffered as a result.

      GiGi decided which of her grandchildren to send on each particular mission. Part of her reasoning being to learn what harm had been done then to offer an opportunity of some kind that might benefit and compensate without appearing to be an outward admission of guilt and an offer of restitution. Their fear was that any public admission of guilt might inspire unwarranted lawsuits against them.

      This was why Lang had approached Heddy Hanrahan on Monday.

      “Maybe juggling so much will actually be good for you,” GiGi said. “Sometimes having your hands full forces the walls to come down.”

      Lang wondered if his grandmother was thinking about herself when she said that. She had opened up her home and herself to ten grandchildren when they landed on her doorstep. As a result, he, his sisters and cousins had been well cared for and had experienced a warm, loving upbringing. But even if that was what she was trying to accomplish for Carter, Lang was still completely overwhelmed and he couldn’t say he liked the position she was putting him in all the way around.

      “Now tell me what happened with the Hanrahan girl so you can get that boy home and cleaned up,” GiGi commanded.

      Lang saw that nothing he said was going to gain him any help with Carter so he proceeded to outline how his meeting with Heddy Hanrahan had gone for his grandmother.

      “I don’t think there’s any doubt that she’s going under if she doesn’t take the deal, but she’s leery of us,” he concluded.

      “Of course she would be, it goes with the territory,” GiGi said. “But you told her she can have everything in writing?”

      “I did. And even though she seemed on the verge of saying no, I got her to think the proposition over. I’m going back after work tomorrow to see what she has to say.”

      “Do you think she knows about her mother and your father?”

      Lang shrugged. “I have no clue. We only talked business. And Carter ate a lot of cheesecake. We tried two varieties, and that magazine article was right—they’re terrific. We won’t have any problem selling them for sure.”

      “And beyond the fact that she didn’t jump at the chance to go into business with us, how was your reception otherwise?”

      “Okay,” Lang said. “It wasn’t what Jani met from Gideon that first time she approached him. Heddy Hanrahan doesn’t seem to hate us the way Gideon did initially.”

      His cousin Jani had been dispatched on the last of these ventures, and the man she’d encountered during the course of that—Gideon Thatcher—had not been happy to have any contact with a Camden.

      “I could tell that Heddy was shocked when I introduced myself,” Lang went on, “but she didn’t tell us to get out or anything. And when I asked her to sit and talk, she did. She was actually fairly friendly—cautious but nice enough.”

      “Did

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