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It went against everything in Kyla to accept help from anyone. Ever.
And if she were on her own there was no way she would accept anything from him.
But she had Immy.
And she really was alone in Denver.
Eddie’s secretary had been kind, but she was new to the job, barely nineteen, and she already had her hands full dealing with the chaos at the office.
One of the volunteers at the hospital was also a volunteer with the Red Cross and had come to see her. But once the volunteer found out there were resources available to her and Immy through the truck stops Immy now owned, that was the last of the volunteer or the Red Cross.
Eddie’s estate attorney had come to the hospital to talk to her and he’d let her know that even though Eddie and Rachel’s wills needed to go through probate, he could likely persuade a judge to release funds from the estate for the care and well-being of Immy, as well as for Kyla as Immy’s guardian. To tide them over until he accomplished that, he’d advanced her three hundred dollars from his own pocket.
He’d also contacted the truck stop and arranged for their motel room, and for the convenience store and the diner to run tabs for whatever food she ordered and whatever she could use out of the convenience store.
But from there he’d said only that he’d be in touch.
The diner food was salty, greasy and very heavy, but more problematically, the one choice of baby formula from the convenience store wasn’t the organic stuff Immy was used to. Kyla thought it was possible that the newborn didn’t like it and so was refusing to eat. That potentially had contributed to the problems this evening and could ultimately lead to Immy feeling sick or having digestive ailments.
Kyla’s driver’s license and credit cards were lost in the fire, so she couldn’t rent or drive a car to go outside the truck stop, and she had no idea if taxis were equipped with child car seats to allow her to attempt to get anywhere else.
Plus she didn’t even know where she was or where to go from here to try to find Immy the formula Rachel had used.
And besides all of that, Kyla was well aware that she was not only inexperienced and inept with Immy, she also wasn’t physically up to caring for the baby altogether on her own. She’d overestimated the strength of her sprained wrist the first time she’d had to lift Immy and nearly dropped her. And even though she was more careful now, using her wrist and hand was still painful and they were very weak.
So while Kyla was inclined to hold her chin high and refuse even an iota of help from Beau, for Immy’s sake she didn’t think she could look a gift horse in the mouth.
Even if that gift horse was the same person who had left her pregnant and alone with that problem once upon a time.
Still, it meant going to stay at his house. With him...
“Do you have a wife or someone I’d be imposing on?” she asked when that suddenly occurred to her. And made her feel yet another thing she didn’t want to feel—a twinge of jealousy.
“No wife. No girlfriend. It’s just me,” he assured her. “And it wouldn’t be an imposition.”
“Immy cries and needs to be fed in the middle of the night. And tonight she just cried for a long time for no reason I could figure out,” she warned.
“I’ve been through worse,” he said with a hint of the smile she’d never forgotten, a smile that had haunted her. “So what do you say?”
It was galling not to be able to tell him off the way she had in her head many, many times over the years.
But she had to think of Immy. To put her first. And she knew that Immy would be better off if there were two of them to care for her—even two people who didn’t know what they were doing seemed better than one, one who was struggling with injuries to boot. And Beau had the use of both hands and a car, so he could go out and find the formula Immy was accustomed to. Plus if they went to his home Immy wouldn’t be breathing air polluted with exhaust fumes.
So the bottom line was that Beau’s offer was one she just couldn’t refuse, Kyla decided. For Immy’s sake, if not for her own.
But even as she came to that decision she vowed that the minute—the exact second—she could pack up Immy and handle everything on her own, she’d leave Beau Camden in her dust. Not unlike the way he’d left her.
“Okay,” she conceded ungraciously. “But as soon as I get some things in order, we’ll be out of your hair.”
All he said to that was, “There’s a Camden Superstore down the street—I can go there now and get a car seat and whatever else we need and come back—”
The thought of disturbing Immy sent renewed panic through Kyla. “No, not tonight!” she said in a hurry. “You don’t know what it took to get Immy to sleep. Tomorrow—we can move tomorrow.”
“How about I stay here tonight, then?”
In her room? With her? What was this guy thinking?
Then he said, “The rooms on either side of yours look empty. I can check into one of those, probably hear the baby if she wakes up...”
There would be someone else to see to the baby if the crying started again and wouldn’t stop.
It was tempting.
But Kyla shook her head, her independent streak somehow demanding that she draw at least that line. “We’ll be all right for tonight,” she said with more confidence than she felt. “But Immy does have to have a car seat—Eddie’s secretary borrowed one to pick us up from the hospital.”
“I’ll have one by the time I get here—and I’ll get here any time you say tomorrow morning. But you’re sure you’ll be all right tonight?”
She wasn’t.
But she also wasn’t willing to let him see that. “I’ll be fine,” she said, hoping she was wrong about Immy not liking the formula she had for her—or at least that the baby would put up with it for now.
“Have you eaten?” he asked.
“I ordered something from the diner. Most of it is still left, if I get hungry.”
He nodded and as she watched him do that she thought, Geez, he’s good-looking...
Then she realized what had gone through her mind and she pushed it out of her head.
“I suppose I should let you go in and get some rest,” Beau said then.
Kyla stood, trying not to flinch as she did, and faced him as he took a business card out of his pocket and handed it to her. “My cell phone number is on this. If you need anything—anything—just call.”
Again, words that were fourteen years too late.
Kyla accepted the card without comment.
“So I guess I’ll just see you tomorrow,” he said, as if he wasn’t sure that was the right course. “What time?”
“Nine maybe...” she suggested aloofly and with no real knowledge of how that would work for Immy. Then she moved to the motel room door again.
“I really—really—am sorry, Kyla,” Beau said quietly to her back.
Too little, too late, she thought. But all she said was, “Tomorrow,” before she went into her room, closing the door on him.
And wondering what incredible twist of fate had put her in the position she was in.
To be rescued by Beau Camden of all people.
Chapter Two (#ulink_ef594d8c-3caa-5ee7-9146-284981dd1e41)
Beau spent the remainder of Tuesday evening on the phone from home causing trouble for several Camden Superstore departments and employees. When he was done, he’d arranged to have his currently unfurnished guest room and a nursery fully outfitted by the time he transported his new charges to his house.
He’d decided it all needed to get underway at zero-five-hundred and to be finished by zero-eight-hundred tomorrow morning.
“Yes, that means the first truck is to be here at five a.m. and the whole job has to be done by eight a.m.,” he’d had to explain to more than one person who had acted as if he was out of his mind to believe what he wanted was possible.
But he hadn’t brought his men and himself through three deployments to the Middle East by leaving room for error and he wasn’t going to start now. This time, unlike the way it had been since he’d been discharged, the civilian world was going to have to adjust to him rather than the other way around.
Since going to the den with GiGi that afternoon and learning what he’d learned, he’d been on Marine autopilot. Show no emotion. Stoic composure at all costs. Do whatever it took to get the job done and make sure everyone under his command knew the same thing applied to them.
As one of the ten owners and board members of Camden Incorporated, everyone who worked for Camden Superstores was basically under his command. It was something he’d verified with Cade before taking action.
By then word had already circulated within the family about what was going on with him, so he hadn’t had to explain anything. Instead Cade had reminded him that everything the family owned and everyone they employed were at his disposal. Cade had told him to do whatever was required, and had given him the names and numbers of the people to contact.
“Anything you need, however many people you need to get it done,” he’d been told. “We’re all still spinning over this one involving you...I’m sorry, man...”
“Yeah, me, too,” Beau had said emotionlessly before going on to take charge.
He doubted his inflexibility had made him any friends among Camden Superstores employees tonight. Because tonight he’d pulled rank and his orders weren’t going to be easy to follow.
Not that he cared. This was top priority, even if decorators didn’t ordinarily arrive at their offices until nine or work so fast, even if items weren’t usually delivered and set up before ten. Tomorrow it all would be. At least here it would.
But as Tuesday ticked into Wednesday there was no more he could do. He was finally off duty. At home. Alone.
He’d poured himself a short Scotch when he’d returned from that truck stop tonight and come into the den to get busy. Most of the drink was still left in the glass on the desk he was sitting behind. He reached for it and finished it in one gulp.
The next thing he knew he’d thrown that glass against the wall, shattering it into a million pieces.
Then he took the first deep breath he’d taken since reading the entry in H.J.’s journal and exhaled until it felt as if his lungs had collapsed.
Yes, the military had trained him well not to show emotions during the course of a mission.
But nothing could keep him from having them.
Especially not these.
And now that he was off duty, they rose to the surface.
To Beau the wrongs that were done in the name of building Camden Incorporated were disgraceful. It was still a struggle to resolve the fact that those actions had been taken by men he’d loved and respected. Men he’d known were strong-willed and determined—like any good marine—but men he’d believed were honest and decent, too.
But the knowledge of what they’d done to other people was bad enough. He didn’t know how to process that his own life had been screwed with by one of H.J.’s conspiracies.
Or what to do with the emotions that knowledge had let loose in him.
He’d thought there was nothing worse than learning that the men in his own family had, in reality, no honor to them. And he’d fully supported the family’s plan to make amends.
In fact, wanting to do that had contributed to his decision to come out of the service now.
He’d told GiGi that she could give all of the projects to him from here on, that he was volunteering for that duty. That he was willing to make it his own personal undertaking to atone on behalf of the family.
His grandmother’s response had been odd. She’d gone too quiet and very pale. She hadn’t seemed to be able to make eye contact with him. But he’d taken her excuse that he needed time to get his land legs back at face value.
Now he knew what had really been going through her mind. She’d already read the part of the journals that revealed what had been done to him and was just waiting for him to settle in before she broke the news to him. She’d already known what was unimaginable to Beau—that he was one of the people H.J. had wronged.
Along with Kyla.
And potentially their baby.
Because if Kyla had lost that baby out of stress, or by doing something dangerous or foolhardy in hopes of ending what she didn’t want to deal with on her own, that made that loss H.J.’s fault, too, as far as Beau was concerned.
No, he definitely didn’t know what to do with how it all made him feel...
He’d brought Kyla’s letter with him into the den and it was in front of him. He read it for about the tenth time since his grandmother had given it to him today.
Kyla had written it only weeks after he’d left the ranch that summer.
When he was home again, starting his senior year of high school. Being patted on the back and congratulated on his official candidacy for admission to the naval academy at Annapolis.
Not everyone had known because he’d received the news in June, after school was out. The news had been the reason he’d opted to spend the summer in Northbridge. Once he knew for sure Annapolis was where he was headed, he’d wanted to start toughening up for the military by doing ranch work.
He’d accomplished that—gaining some muscle mass and stamina.
But he’d also met Kyla Gibson...
Today was the first time he’d seen the letter. The first time he had any knowledge whatsoever that Kyla had changed her mind about the end of that summer being the end of any contact they had with each other.
In the letter—the letter addressed to him—she told him that she was pregnant. That she’d just found out. She said she didn’t know what to do. She said she hadn’t told her parents yet. She said she hoped that Beau would have some idea of where to go from there. That he’d get hold of her, maybe come back to Northbridge for a weekend so they could figure something out.
Holding that letter in his hands, staring at the words written on the page, Beau could see the hope she’d had that he would offer some solution, some help, some support, anything that would tell her that she wasn’t in it alone.
And again emotions rose that he could hardly stand.
H.J. had written in his journal that he’d intercepted the letter. He’d visited the ranch a few times that summer. He’d seen Beau with the daughter of one of that summer’s hired hands. He’d seen how unhappy Beau was when he’d come home and had put two and two together, figuring that Beau was in the throes of his first love.
But that summer was over and—according to H.J.—the romance needed to be, too, so that Beau wouldn’t endanger his future.
H.J. wrote that when he’d seen the Northbridge postmark and the return address with Kyla’s name on it, he’d decided it couldn’t contain anything that would do Beau any good. Better a clean cut with the girl—that was what H.J. had written at the time.
He hadn’t even opened the letter. He’d just tucked it away.
He’d only learned about the pregnancy when Kyla’s father had shown up on the doorstep two weeks later.
Which was when H.J. took the second step in keeping Beau from knowing about Kyla’s situation.
“It’s a good thing you’re not here now, old man,” he threatened from between clenched teeth.
Yes, going to Annapolis had been what Beau wanted from the day his great-grandfather had explained to him that that was the best course into the Marines. And, yes, a teenage pregnancy, a child, would have canceled his candidacy and the full acceptance that was contingent only on his graduation.
