A Camden's Baby Secret

Or did they, at some point, talk about Hawaii?

Did she tell him what a jerk she thought he was for ditching her in the middle of the night after sleeping with her?

Or was she supposed to act as if it hadn’t fazed her? As if it was par for the course—sleep together, go your separate ways, it happened all the time...

Was that what he thought of her? That she slept around so much that it wouldn’t be any big deal for a guy to slip out after the fact, without a word? That that was a common occurrence to her?

What an awful thought.

It made her want to shout that until him she’d slept with only one man in her life: Patrick. The man she’d loved and been devoted to. The man who had loved and been devoted to her. Her soul mate and the person she’d expected to spend her entire life with.

But if she did shout that she would just sound defensive, and Callan probably wouldn’t even believe it.

What did people do in a situation like this?

For the second time in two days Livi just wanted to hide or run the other way.

But by then Greta had reached the barn and alerted Callan to the fact that they were there, and he was looking straight at Livi across the distance.

She took a deep breath and decided that, at any rate, she wasn’t going to act as if she’d done something wrong.

Yes, she felt like she’d done something wrong—something terribly wrong—by sleeping with him, but in spite of that, people did hook up with someone they’d just met for one-night stands.

If anyone should be embarrassed, it should be him, for the way he’d treated her—slithering silently out like a snake.

If either of them needed to hang their head in shame, it was him!

So she got out of the car and followed Greta’s path to the barn.

She had barely exchanged hellos with Callan when the little girl announced that she was going to show her grandparents her new shoes and purse. Thinking of that as a reprieve, Livi turned to follow.

Until Callan said, “Can you hang back, Livi?”

And off went Greta. Leaving Livi alone with this man she’d never wanted to see again as long as she lived.

“I wanted to talk to you yesterday, but then I had to come out and load that truck. John Sr. won’t let me let anything slide...” Callan stopped short, as if to keep himself from saying more on that subject, and then started again. “And before I got back inside, you were gone. But we do need to talk.”

“Okay,” Livi said, with a note of challenge creeping into her tone. She was unwilling to give him any help.

“Hawaii...” he said. “I need to apologize to you for that.”

For the night they’d spent together? Or for leaving?

She raised her chin and gazed at him.

“My phone was on vibrate, so it woke me but not you a couple of hours after we fell asleep.”

Livi had thought yesterday was awkward, but this had it beat.

“I definitely didn’t hear anything,” she said with accusation in her voice, thinking that he was just making up some excuse.

“The call was to let me know that Greta’s parents, J.J.—John Jr.—and Mandy, had been in a car accident here,” he said, knocking some of the wind out of Livi’s sails. “Mandy had died on impact. J.J. was still alive but in critical condition. No one was giving him much time...”

Callan’s deep voice got more and more ragged as he spoke, and Livi could see that even now this was difficult for him.

And she’d thought that she was the one entitled to the emotions...

For the second time today she had to make an adjustment, suspend her own feelings and just listen.

“I had to get to J.J.,” he went on. “I had to make sure everything that could be done for him was being done. I had to see him...”

Callan cleared his throat, and realizing how hard-hit he still was somehow made Livi feel guilty for all the nasty things she’d thought about him and his impromptu departure from that hotel room.

“Mandy, J.J. and I grew up here together,” he explained. “We were close. And always stayed close. They were more family to me than my own...”

As if he needed a diversion, he looked down at his hands and pulled off his gloves, slapping them against his thigh.

And Livi hated that her brain was once again thinking about how glorious those hands and thighs were. What in the world was wrong with her?

“So when I got that call,” he continued, “I was only thinking about getting to J.J. Everything went to that. I was in the air an hour later, and halfway here before I realized—”

That not even a thought of her had entered his mind? That fact still stung, even though he’d had a good reason to be otherwise occupied.

“—that I’d just rushed out on you without a word,” he was saying. “By then, when I called the hotel, you were out of the room. And since I didn’t even know your last name, I didn’t have any way to track you down. I did try, I swear to you...” He paused, then added, “Anyway, I’m sorry.”

Livi raised her chin a second time, accepting the apology that way because she couldn’t not accept it when it came with that explanation.

But it wasn’t easy to let go of the humiliation she’d felt at his vanishing without a trace. It was hard to move past thinking the worst of him.

Instead she chose to say quietly, “I’m sorry about your friends.”

He nodded solemnly. “Yeah. Me, too. They were good people.”

Again he didn’t seem to want to make eye contact with her, instead turning to toss the gloves onto a hay bale. “Anyway,” he repeated, “here we are.”

“Here we are,” Livi echoed.

“And I thought maybe we should talk about...you know...where we go now.”

He did meet her eyes then and Livi didn’t allow herself to look away. But she didn’t say anything, because she had no idea where they should go now—especially factoring in that pregnancy test she had in that bag in the trunk of her cousin’s car.

“How about we just put it behind us?” Callan suggested. “Forget it happened. Start fresh.”

Easy for him to say.

“You want to help Greta,” he went on, “and now she’s kind of my job—her and the Tellers—so we’ll be seeing each other. But Hawaii was...well...”

A one-night stand? A vacation fling? Pure stupidity on her part? Yes, what exactly should they call it?