A Sweetheart for the Single Dad. Victoria Pade

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СКАЧАТЬ himself feeling his jaw the way he might have if he were about to go on a date; testing to see if he should take his emergency electric razor out of the glove compartment for a second shave today.

      There was a little stubble and, yeah, if this was a date, he probably would have used the razor.

      But this wasn’t a date so he didn’t.

      No matter how attractive she was, he wouldn’t touch a Camden with a ten-foot pole, he thought as he merged into highway traffic in the direction of Wheatley. And not only out of loyalty to his family—although that was certainly a factor. Not even if he wasn’t in a mess over Sam that drove home his need to reassess why things always went so wrong with his choices in women.

      On top of both of those things, Lindie Camden was also his business enemy and that was automatically a roadblock. Roadblocks were huge challenges and challenges in his personal relationships were things he tried to avoid. Things that certainly didn’t improve relationships.

      No matter what, he liked things in his personal life to be smooth sailing. He wanted a woman he was completely compatible with. A relationship that was pleasant and harmonious. Like his parents had. He was sure wanting that wasn’t where he’d gone wrong in the past and he wasn’t changing it.

      And there was no chance that any of that could come about with a woman he was at odds with from the get-go. Especially one who was likely spoiled and pampered and accustomed to getting her own way about everything. A woman who probably didn’t know the meaning of the word compromise.

       So, thanks but no thanks all the way around, Lindie Camden!

      The most he was going to indulge himself in was rubbing her nose in what her stores left behind. In getting her hands dirty cleaning up some of it.

      Other than that, this whole thing was going to be nothing more than a small amusement until she turned tail and ran back to the family in defeat.

      In the meantime he’d just take in the view as a bonus and use his time with her to make his point. To show the almighty Camdens why they deserved to have things made difficult for them. And not only because there was the stain of the earlier Camdens’ underhanded dealings on their record.

      Oh, yeah, Lindie Camden was in for it. He’d make sure of that. Regardless of how hot she was.

      And the fact that when he reached the first stoplight in Wheatley, he took his shaver out of the glove box to run over his face, after all? That didn’t mean anything except that he wanted to make a good impression on the people he encountered tonight in the process of handing out fliers.

      It wasn’t because he was sprucing up to see Lindie Camden again.

      * * *

      Lindie was in her car in the parking lot of the Wheatley Community Center at five minutes before six o’clock on Tuesday night. She was watching every car that pulled in until she could see if the driver was Sawyer Huffman.

      And wondering why it was that she’d been so eager for this all day long. Why it was that every car made her hopes rise and her pulse race. Why it was that she deflated into disappointment each time the driver proved not to be him.

      She was just eager to get this deal done, she told herself. To get Sawyer on board with Camden Inc. so he stopped making things difficult. To put him in line for a nice fat payday to make up for the past. And then she could go on with her life.

      It didn’t have anything to do with the image of the man himself that had been popping into her mind since she’d seen him here yesterday. All big and tall and broad-shouldered and hella-handsome—

      No, no, no, that didn’t have anything to do with it.

      And it also wasn’t the reason she’d left work an hour early today, gone home and changed from business clothes into her favorite navy blue butt-hugging pants and the tailored white blouse that followed every curve so closely the buttons barely kept from gapping.

      Or the reason she’d untwisted her hair from its French knot, brushed it and left it loose again.

      Or the reason she’d refreshed her blush and mascara and applied the new sassy-rose lip gloss she’d just bought on Saturday.

      It had been with him in mind that she’d chosen her shoes, though. Two-inch wedge sandals bought at a bargain price and far more conservative than the spiked heels she’d worn on Monday.

      The fact that they also showed her just-pedicured toes was purely coincidental.

      Sawyer was driving a big white SUV when she finally spotted him pulling into the lot.

      The knight on the white charger—that’s probably how he sees himself, she thought, given that he seemed to have the impression that Camden Inc. was a big, bad evil he was trying to rescue people from.

      Lindie hid her purse under her passenger seat and got out, locking the doors on her metallic-gray sedan and putting her keys in her pants’ pocket.

      He parked in the spot next to her, taking off sunglasses that made him all the more rakish-looking and hooking them on his visor before joining her.

      Not that the removal of the sunglasses muted any of his appeal. The man was simply fantastic-looking.

      But that didn’t make any difference. Even if he had warts and boils she would still have had the same job to do and she’d do it the exact same way.

      “You’re here,” he greeted as he closed and locked his car door.

      “I said I would be.”

      “I thought you’d find an excuse not to be.”

      “Fooled you,” she said victoriously. “Here I am. Ready to walk the streets.”

      Oh, that hadn’t sounded good.

      And he’d caught it because it made him grin before he said, “I’m trying really hard not to make an inappropriate joke right now.”

      “I appreciate that,” she said, curious about exactly what the joke might be. But she was here for business not for pleasure, so she opted to get to it. “Where do we start?” she asked enthusiastically.

      “This way,” he said, pointing with that dimpled chin of his to the street that ran in front of the center and heading there.

      “This is the park we’ll be cleaning up—right next door,” he informed her as they took a left turn onto the sidewalk. “City resources are going into an upscale version near your store on the other side of town and this one has been left to rot.”

      “It definitely needs work,” Lindie commented as she took in the sight of rundown, damaged picnic tables and play equipment, of trees that needed trimming, of the signs of overall neglect.

      Beyond the park they began to go up and down streets lined with small frame houses, heading for front doors to leave the fliers he was carrying.

      While Lindie could see that it had been a nice middle-class area once upon a time, now there were only a few houses that were well-kept. More often than not yards were either overtaken by weeds or totally bare. When it came to the houses themselves, too many СКАЧАТЬ