Read Online A Camden's Baby Secret by Victoria Pade - Free Book Online

wondering about too many things from her afternoon and evening watching his interactions with all three Tellers. And since he’d wandered out here with her and the evening air was still warm—and he didn’t seem to be in any hurry for her to leave—she thought she’d take the opportunity to do a little digging.
    â€œYou don’t seem all that comfortable with...things,” she ventured.
    â€œThings?”
    â€œGreta, being around kids...and John Sr., too. Did you know you were being named as Greta’s guardian?” Livi asked, narrowing the scope of her inquiry to that for starters.
    â€œSure, I knew. Mandy and J.J. asked me if I’d do it. But you know, you never think anything is actually going to happen.”
    â€œAnd now that it has? Is it a job you really want?”
    His brows drew down over those brooding, coffee-colored eyes, but he didn’t hesitate to say, “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
    That surprised her. “It’s just that you don’t seem...” She struggled for a diplomatic way to express what she was thinking. “You aren’t married anymore and don’t have any kids of your own, if I’m remembering what you said in Hawaii—”
    â€œJust before you said you weren’t married—anymore—and didn’t have any kids, either, and then told me you didn’t want to talk about our real lives,” he stated drily.
    She needed fewer and fewer reminders of that night, as more and more details popped into her head every time she was with him.
    But she stayed on track and said, “So you’re a single guy without any experience with children, let alone a little girl. Yet they chose you as Greta’s guardian.”
    â€œAnd you can’t figure out why they would have,” he surmised with a wry laugh and a hint of a smile that lifted one side of his mouth.
    â€œI’m just wondering about it, is all.”
    â€œI grew up here,” he said, nodding in the general direction of Northbridge. “On the wrong side of the tracks. My father’s family had a good-sized working farm at one point, but when my old man inherited it he let everything go to seed, then sold it off acre by acre for booze money for him and my mother.”
    That was blunt and raised Livi’s eyebrows. “Your parents had a drinking problem,” she said, putting it in more polite terms.
    â€œThey didn’t think it was a problem. For them, it was a way of life. They drank from the minute their feet hit the floor in the morning until they passed out. And when they came to, they drank more.”
    â€œDid they do that from when you were just a little kid?”
    â€œI think they always drank, yeah—my mother even admitted that she drank some when she was pregnant with me. I can recall knowing as a little kid that there was my orange juice for breakfast and grown-up orange juice that I wasn’t supposed to touch.”
    â€œYou actually remember that?”
    â€œI do,” he said without question, before picking up where he’d left off. “But they held jobs until I was maybe seven or eight, so I guess they were initially what’s considered ‘functional alcoholics’—they’d just hit the bottle hardest after work. But they got less and less functional and kept losing their jobs. By the time I was about Greta’s age, drinking was pretty much their occupation.”
    â€œBut they still took care of you,” Livi said, assuming that had to be true.
    â€œIn their way,” he answered with a shrug. “The more they drank, the more I took care of them. But luckily, as that started to happen, I was old enough to do things for myself.”
    â€œEverything?” Livi asked, unable to imagine that a nine-or ten-year-old could take complete care of himself and his parents, too.
    Callan looked embarrassed to admit it, but said, “I have a pretty high