Authors: Victoria Pade

A Camden's Baby Secret (17 page)

Livi suffered a moment of sadness to think that Patrick hadn't had more life himself. But even in that sadness she didn't feel held back. She finally felt ready, willing and able to move on.

Still staring at Patrick's side of the closet, she kissed the airâthe way she would have hurriedly kissed Patrick goodbye before leaving the house for work.

Then she left the closet, sat on the edge of the bed to put on the fuzzy socks and went downstairs.

Callan was in the kitchen, just turning from her counter with two slices of toast on a plate as Livi reached the doorway.

“Hi,” he said tentatively when he spotted her. “I know you said you didn't want anything, but I was thinking maybe a little dry toast...”

Livi went the rest of the way into the kitchen, standing on the opposite side of the counter from him. “Actually, the nausea seems to be going away early this morning,” she told him, only realizing then that it was true.

He offered her the plate, but it wasn't food she wanted. It was him. She just wasn't sure how to get their previous conversation back on track. So she took the plate and a bite of the toast to buy herself a moment.

“Coffee, too?” Callan asked.

She shook her head, set the plate on the counter between them and said, “I don't really want anything to eat or drink, but thanks for trying.”

“Thanks for trying...” he repeated. “That isn't for more than the toast, is it? It isn't the start of a kiss-off?”

“It's only for the toast,” she said, seeing that he was still fearing what she might say to him now that he'd opened up to her.

“I need to know something for sure,” she said then.

“Anything.”

“I need to know that what you said upstairs wasn't just what you thought you had to say. If you want a relationship with your child, then I'll support that completely. Our relationship doesn't have to be a part of it.”

He shook his head. “I told you that I'd be here telling you that I love you even if there wasn't a baby on board.”

“I know that's what you
said
, but...I'm not a teenage girl in trouble, Callan. I don't need to be made an honest woman. And we can raise a child together without being anything to each other.”

He closed his eyes and took a breath, as if bracing himself. Then he opened them and said fatalistically, “You don't want anything with me. You won't even give me a chanceâ”

“No, that's not what I'm saying. You said you talked to John Sr. this morning, and if this is coming from him pressuring you to âdo the right thing'â”

“I didn't even tell him about the baby. All we talked about was how he feels about Maeve and Greta, and how it's nothing to him to have uprooted his whole life, because otherwise he wouldn't have Maeve. Or Greta. And I realized that I feel the same way about you.”

“You'd uproot your life for me?” she joked.

“Yes,” Callan said without hesitation.

“You're sure? You're already stretched pretty thin...” she said, persisting with the joke just to give him a hard time.

“I've never been more sure of anything in my life than that I want you. Sure enough to risk Mandy coming back to haunt me for bringing in a Camden to co-parent her daughter.”

“So it
was
a proposal upstairs?” Livi asked, recalling that the exact words had not been spoken.

“What did you think it was?”

“Just making sure.”

“Because you want to know what you're saying no to?” There was just enough cockiness in his tone to let her know he was feeling less vulnerable. But she liked that.

“I'm not saying no,” she told him, going on to also tell him how wrong he was to think even for a minute that he didn't measure up to Patrick in her eyes, how great she thought he was.

“But I've had the real thing,” she concluded. “And I don't want to go from that to someone being with me because there's a gun to his back.”

Callan grinned and stepped around the counter. He took her arm and turned her to face him. “I was thinking that it might take a gun to
your
back to get you where I want you.”

“You mean, as part of your family?” Livi said.

“Is that what we can all be?” he asked, testing the waters. “Is that what you'll let us be? Because I may be lousy at it, but it's what I want. With you. You and them and this baby.”

“Families come in all shapes and sizes,” she allowed.

“But will youâcan youâcome and be that with the rest of us?”

She knew what he was askingâif she could leave her past behind. If she would.

Livi didn't have to think any more about it before she told him what she'd realized while she was in the closet, even telling him that she believed they had Patrick's blessing.

“I don't know how it happened,” she said. “I didn't think it
could
happen. But I love you, Callan. Just as much as I loved Patrick.”

Callan's eyebrows shot up as if that came as a surprise to him. “You're not just saying
that
, are you?”

“I'm not. I guess there really can be more than one love of my life.”

“A two-and-only?” he said.

Livi laughed at the made-up phrase. “I don't think there is such a thing. Maybe we should just look at it as the second half for us both. And in this half, you'll be the one-and-only man I have a baby with, a family with...”

“Oh, I like that!” he said effusively, and if she wasn't mistaken, his eyes suddenly had a little extra moisture in them.

Then both his hands went to her arms, clamping them gently but firmlyâas if to keep her from getting away. “So will you marry me, Livi?”

“I will,” she said, surprised to ever be saying that again.

Callan smiled once more before he pulled her close enough to kiss her, so deeply that it laid bare all his feelings for her and chased away any last doubts.

When the kiss ended, he pressed her close, holding her head to his chest. “I don't know how this morning-sickness thing works. Is kissing a bad thing?”

She laughed again. “Not this morning.”

But with her own arms around him, her hands grasping his strong back, and his arms wrapping her like a big, warm comforter, it all felt too good to disturb by raising her face even to have him kiss her again.

Instead she just stood there with him holding her, her holding him, and letting herself get used to the fact that this would be where she belonged from here on.

In the arms of a man who wasn't Patrick.

But who had given her her life back and now wanted to share it with her.

Epilogue

“O
h, Conor, finally!” Kinsey
Madison said when she connected with her brother for a video chat.

It was six o'clock on Monday morning and she'd been waiting
tensely for this since 5:00 a.m. to accommodate the time difference between
Denver and Germany.

“Is Declan okay?” she asked.

“He came through the third surgery just fine,” her oldest
brother said. “He's in recovery. They were able to save the leg.”

“Thank God,” Kinsey said. “Is he awake?”

“Not completely or I'd let you talk to himâI'm in recovery with
him. He's responsive, but he can only keep his eyes open for a few seconds
before he drifts out again. That's normal. But what's important is that we'll
have him back up and around before you know it.”

“So he won't get a medical discharge,” Kinsey concluded.

“He can apply for one, and at this point, get it if he wants
it,” Conor said.

“
If
he wants it. But you guys...”
She shook her head in frustration. “You just won't ever do what I wish you would
and come home for good.”

“Actually,” Conor said, as if he'd been waiting to surprise
her, “I've filled out my discharge papers, Kins.”

“Really?”

“Really. I haven't turned them in yetâand I won't right now, so
I can stay with Declan until he's well again, to oversee his care. But after
that...”

Kinsey sighed. “After that there will be some other reason for
you not to turn in the papers, and the three of you still won't come home,” she
said dejectedly.

Raised by an ex-military stepfather, her brothers had had the
military and service to country ingrained in them from earliest childhood.

“Things are different this time,” Conor said, but not with
enough conviction to convince her. “With the drawdown to reduce active-duty
forces, the ranks are being trimmed. Could be I can do more stateside.”

“In Denver?” Kinsey asked dubiously, knowing she shouldn't get
her hopes up.

“I don't know, maybe. I know from here Declan will go to
Bethesda, Maryland, and I'll go with him. Then we'll see. But once he's doing
well in Maryland, I'll come home for a visit, anyway.”

Visits were all that ever actually happened. Brief visits that
were few and far, far between.

Without pinning too many hopes on anything, she said, “So I'll
at least get to see youâand maybe Declan once he's on the mend. And how's
Liam?”

“He's good. He made it to the base yesterday before we left on
transport. He's talking about the drawdown, too. Who knows, you might have all
three of us back in the next year.”

“I know what you guys are doing, Conor. You want to make me
think there's that chance so I don't do anything about the Camdens.”

“We know you're alone now that Mom's gone, Kins. None of us
like that. We all feel bad about itâ”

She cut him off to say, “I've met themâthe Camdensâsince I
talked to you last...”

“Oh, no! You told them?” Conor moaned. “You said we could talk
more about it before you would.”

“I haven't
done
anything. I met
them by happenstance. Remember the job I took with the Tellers? That I could
start in Northbridge and then transition back to Denver? Well, it's a long story
I won't go into now, but Livi Camden got involved with the Tellers'
granddaughter, Greta, and I met Livi through that. Then I went to one of the
Camden Sunday dinners and met the rest of them. I think it's a sign.”

“It
isn't
a sign,” Conor insisted.
“It's a coincidence, Kinsey. And not a far-reaching one. We grew up in
Northbridge and that's where the Camdens were from. You were there to take care
of Mom, and then went to Denver, where the Camdens live. It's not like you went
to the ends of the earth and bumped into one of themâ
that
would be a sign.”

“Mom told me the truth about our father so I could look up the
Camdens. So I wouldn't be alone, since you guys keep going off halfway around
the world,” Kinsey said, taking a different tack.

“Mom told you to explain where all that money came from,” Conor
corrected. “Mom and Hugh Madison were our parents. They're who raised us. Our
biological father doesn't matter. Just have some patience, Kinsey. I'm coming
home. Declan may
need
to come home. And if we both
do, maybe Liam will, too. Just let the other lay.”

But Kinsey didn't know if she could do that.

Now that she knew she and her brothers were all half Camdens,
she just wasn't sure she could keep it quiet.

* * * * *

Love the Camdens? Well, there are still some left to meet...
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