just a small blanket. He calls that Baby and he has to have it somewhere near at all times. We left Baby in the car but at any minute the fact that it isn’t in here could become a crisis.”
“Baby’s nappin’,” Carter said as if the man was deluded. Then to Heddy, the child said, “More pie?”
“It’s cheesecake, Carter,” Lang Camden amended.
“Not cheese. Pie!” the two-and-a-half-year-old shouted.
Lang Camden sighed and gave up washing the cherubic face before getting it completely clean because Carter had wiggled out of his ineffective grasp.
Now that he was free, the little boy slid off the chair, went to Heddy’s display case and licked it the way he’d licked the cheesecake plates.
“Carter,” Lang Camden moaned in complaint. “Don’t do that!”
“Big food,” Carter said by way of explanation.
Lang Camden rolled his eyes. “I don’t know what goes through his head. He doesn’t usually go around licking everything. I guess he thinks the whole place tastes good.”
“It’s okay,” Heddy said. “I’m flattered that he likes the cheesecakes so much that he even wants to eat the display case.”
“Maybe we’ll use him as an endorsement—that is, if you’re interested in my proposition….”
Again, there was a slightly suggestive inflection but Heddy was reasonably sure he hadn’t intended it because he caught himself and added, “My business proposition.”
Once more Heddy shook her head. “I just don’t—”
“Tell me you aren’t going under here, Heddy,” he challenged. “I can see for myself that you are, and that’s basically what that article said. The cheesecakes are great but not enough people are buying them.”
“Still …”
“No, not ‘still.’ I came here today to make sure the product is worth selling. It is, and my family wants to help you sell it. I’m not talking about buying you out. It’ll continue to be your business and the worst thing that can happen is that you’ll bomb out at Camden Superstores but end up with the ability to sell on a large scale to any number of other places. Or you can sell the facility and equipment to bankroll something else. If you want, I’ll even have something written up that promises my guidance to get you started over in that something else. It’s a no-lose deal I’m offering you.”
“And why is that?” Heddy asked outright.
He sighed as if he had to say something he was hoping he wouldn’t have to say. “We know that years ago your family signed on to provide bread for the Camden stores that were around then. We know that your supply couldn’t keep up with our demand. We know that by the time everyone realized that, and my father and the rest of the family in charge back then decided to make other arrangements, your family had lost all of their other customers so they were left with no business at all.”
Not to mention the personal side of the situation that had taken its toll on her mother. Did he know about that, too?
Heddy reined in her wandering thoughts as he said, “We wouldn’t want to do business with you if your product wasn’t worth selling. But it is, so we do want to do business with you. We just want to make sure that the mistakes of the past aren’t repeated.”
“It just seems—”
“I know, you said it. Too good to be true. But that’s kind of how grants are, aren’t they? Money for free. You have a product we want. The grant will let you produce enough of that product to meet our needs and provide you with a better situation—you make more cheesecakes, we sell more of your cheesecakes, we both win. And one way or another, you don’t lose, which you’re on the verge of doing now.”
“Wan that big one!” Carter announced from the front of the display case.
Heddy used the interruption as an excuse to get up and go behind the counter while she continued to try to figure out what dangers and disadvantages there might be in this.
Lang got up and followed her, remaining on the customer’s side of the display case with Carter and agreeing to buy the largest cheesecake.
While Heddy boxed it for them, Lang said, “Sleep on it. If you have a business consultant, talk to your business consultant about it. If anything still bothers you, we can talk it over, do whatever it takes to make you feel comfortable doing business with us again. But we really want this to work.”
Because her cheesecakes were that good or because the Camdens had another motive that would benefit them and potentially harm her?
Heddy believed her cheesecakes were that good.
But she also knew better than most people how treacherous the Camdens had been in the past, and how easy it was to be caught under the wheels of Camden progress and turned into nothing but road kill.
“Just think it over,” Lang urged as he handed her his credit card.
Heddy made no promises as she ran the card and had him sign the slip.
“I’ll be in touch,” he said as he accepted the card and the receipt. “But you have my word and whatever guarantees you want that I can make this work for you. That I will make this work for you if you’ll let me.”
“I’ll think about it,” Heddy finally conceded. But that was all she was conceding because she was also beginning to think about what her mother’s reaction to this would be. It wouldn’t be good….
“Get your coat, Carter,” Lang told the toddler, and Heddy was surprised to see the child comply.
“Pie in car?” Carter asked as he let the older man put on his coat.
“No pie in the car. Tonight, if you eat your dinner, maybe you can have another piece then.”
“Pie in car,” Carter said as if that were far more reasonable.
“Looks like the cheesecake rides home in the trunk,” Lang confided in Heddy.
“Better the cheesecake than the child,” Heddy said with some humor.
“Are you sure?” Lang joked in return.
“Reasonably …”
He laughed and palmed the top of Carter’s head like a basketball with his left hand, which Heddy just happened to notice sported no wedding ring.
Not that that mattered to her either.
“Come on, Carter man, let’s get you home,” Lang said, guiding the child to the door. Just before he went out, the tall man glanced at Heddy over his shoulder and repeated, “I’ll be in touch.”
Heddy merely nodded, watching him clumsily put the cheesecake in the rear compartment of a large SUV and then get Carter settled in his car seat in the row ahead of that.
As she looked on, she thought about what
