A Baby in the Bargain. Victoria Pade

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      Chapter One

      Two hours and twenty-three minutes. That was how long January Camden had been waiting in her car on that Monday afternoon. Actually, it was Monday evening by then because it was now twenty-three minutes after six o’clock. And she decided that, for her, there was no appeal to being a stalker.

      But stalking Gideon Thatcher at his place of business was what she’d been reduced to.

      She closed the book she’d been reading when it was still light out, put it into her oversize hobo purse and turned on the engine of her sedan in order to run the heat for a few minutes.

      It was the end of January—the month of her birth and the reason for her name. And although the daytime weather in Denver had been unseasonably warm and springlike, it was now after dark and getting much colder, forcing her to start her car and turn on the heater more frequently than when she’d first begun this quest today.

      How late did this guy work, anyway?

      She knew that Gideon Thatcher was in the office because she’d called and quizzed the receptionist before beginning this stakeout. The helpful older-sound-ing woman had said that he was expected to be there until five.

      Jani had arrived in the heart of downtown Denver at four o’clock. She’d taken one turn around the block to make sure there wasn’t a rear exit to the redbrick turn-of-the-century mansion that had been remodeled into office space. Then she’d parked on the street two car lengths from the front of the building where she could see the entrance.

      At that point she’d placed a second call to the Thatcher Group’s receptionist and again asked if Gideon Thatcher was in. “In, but not available” had been the answer. So she’d been waiting ever since to ambush the man. She’d seen pictures of him on his website and in a recent newspaper article, so she was certain that he hadn’t slipped by without her recognizing him.

      Gideon Thatcher was the owner of the Thatcher Group, a private company that offered city planning services. The article had brought him to Jani’s grand-mother’s immediate attention, leading seventy-five-year-old Georgianna Camden to recruit Jani for her project of making amends to the victims of the Cam-den family’s past business misdeeds.

      The Camdens owned Camden Incorporated, which encompassed a worldwide chain of superstores and many of the factories, warehouses, production facilities, ranches and farms that stocked them. An empire. Built by Jani’s great-grandfather, H. J. Camden.

      The caring family man she’d loved.

      Unfortunately, when it had come to business, H. J. Camden had been very different from the way he’d been at home. It had always been rumored that he was ruthless, that he had trampled and sacrificed numerous people in the building of the Camden empire. That he’d instilled this ruthlessness in his son, Hank, and even in his grandsons—Jani’s late father, Howard, and her uncle Mitchum.

      The family had hoped the rumors weren’t true. It just didn’t sound like the kind, loving men whom Jani, her siblings and her cousins had experienced. But now, thanks to finding H.J.’s journals, the worst of the stories about his business dealings had been confirmed.

      And so Georgianna had drafted H.J.’s ten descendants, sending them on fact-finding missions to learn how best to make some sort of compensation to his victims and their families. They were determined to do what they could to atone to some of the people most wronged in the past.

      But Gideon Thatcher wasn’t making this easy for Jani. He’d denied her request for a meeting with him. He hadn’t answered her voice mails or emails or the letter she’d sent to him. She wasn’t sure what else to do but lie in wait for him and try to force him to talk to her. Essentially she was stalking him.

      Jani sat up straight and arched away from the car seat to ease the kink out of her back, then slipped her arms into the navy blue wool peacoat she’d taken off when it was warmer. She buttoned it over her white turtleneck sweater and navy wool slacks.

      “Come on, just quit for the day and go home,” she said, staring in the direction of the front door where other people had already emerged in end-of-the-work-day mode.

      But nothing happened at her command. Bored and antsy, she took a lip gloss from her purse and craned up to her rearview mirror to apply it.

      She’d always wished that her mouth wasn’t quite as wide as it was, and the rectangular mirror only seemed to accentuate that flaw. She puckered up a little just to make herself feel better. Then, when she’d applied the lip gloss, she took stock of the rest of what she could see in the small reflection.

      No mascara smudges to muddy her blue eyes—the blue eyes that all ten of Georgianna’s grandchildren had and that had, over the years in school, come to be known as the Camden СКАЧАТЬ