the constant companion to the matriarch of the Camden family.
That left Lang alone with his grandmother.
“Dad! I don’t think I’ll ever get used to anyone calling me that,” Lang muttered.
GiGi laughed. “Oh, believe me, you will. There’ll come a day when someone in a crowd will yell ‘Dad’ and you’ll answer before you remember that you don’t even have Carter with you.”
“I think it’s more likely that I’ll be in a crowd and forget that I actually do have him with me,” Lang countered.
“He needs a bath and his hair washed,” GiGi decreed.
“Yeah, tonight.”
“That’s pie in his hair?”
“Cheesecake. From Heddy Hanrahan’s shop—we were there yesterday. Carter calls it pie. He got into the refrigerator when I was already late for work this morning, and went straight for the cheesecake with his bare hands. Some of it ended up in his hair. There was nothing I could do about it then. Heddy Hanrahan’s cheesecake gets a stamp of approval from us both, by the way—that’s what I came over to talk to you about. I made her the offer.”
GiGi ignored what Lang said and continued on the subject of Carter’s hygiene.
“That boy has been walking around all day long with cheesecake in his hair?” the older woman said disapprovingly.
“Hey, you and Jani and Lindie and Livi left me in the lurch, remember? No more help from you, no more help from cousin Jani, no more help from my two sisters. That means my hands are full.”
“So he went around all day today with cheesecake in his hair,” GiGi concluded.
“I could have brought him here. You could have given him a bath and washed his hair while I was at work, and then my day would have been a lot better and he’d be clean,” Lang pointed out, his frustration ringing in his voice. “But—”
“No,” GiGi said with a stubborn shake of her head.
“Couldn’t you and the girls take care of him the way you have been just until I can hire a nanny? Or two? He’s such a handful, he’ll probably need more than one.”
GiGi shook her head again and said another firm no. “Your sisters, your cousin and I have been the only ones taking care of him since he came to you three months ago, Lang. That was in January and now this is April. He’s your son. 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
