A Sweetheart for the Single Dad. Victoria Pade

the tone that had held a mingling of admiration and suspicion became more businesslike. “I came here to run a chess tournament for these kids, so I don’t know what you’re up to but—”

      “I’m not up to anything. I’m representing my family’s company. We’d like to improve relations with you and to hire you. But since you wouldn’t see me at your office—”

      “Improve relations with me? Hire me?” he repeated as if she were out of her mind. “Neither of those things is ever going happen, Ms. Camden. It’s my job to be your adversary. A job I created and have no intention of changing.”

      “Lindie. I’m just Lindie,” she corrected.

      “It’s my job to be your adversary, Lindie,” he reiterated as if she might understand it better that way.

      Huffman Consulting represented several of Camden Superstores’ competitors—major grocery store, home improvement and department store chains. Every time an area was targeted as the site for a new Camden Superstore, Huffman Consulting went to work to present the downside on behalf of their clients in an effort to raise community support to keep out the superstore.

      Through pamphlets, phone calls, news reports, petition drives, websites and contact with big and small local businesses and homeowners, Huffman Consulting spread the word that the arrival of a Camden Superstore lowered property values, drove out small businesses, increased traffic congestion and police calls, and caused any number of other evils.

      The campaigns often either kept the Camdens from opening a store at all, or caused lengthy, expensive delays while the company’s PR team worked to combat the campaign and win over the communities.

      “If Camden Incorporated became one of your clients it would be your job to represent our interests, as well,” Lindie said reasonably.

      “You want me in bed with the enemy,” he countered.

      Ooh. That put a saucy image in her head that came out of nowhere and shouldn’t have been there!

      Lindie shoved it away and reminded herself that this was solely about business.

      “What we want is not to be your enemy,” she said. “It’s only recently come to our attention that some...questionable things were done years ago to your family. We understand that that’s probably left you thinking badly of us and wanting to get even. But we’d like to clear the air and compensate you by way of our business—always worth a substantial amount of money.”

      “What is this? The Camdens’ own twelve-step program? Are you on the admit-wrongdoing-and-make-amends part?”

      In truth the Camdens were trying to make amends to people who had been wronged by Lindie’s predecessors. But they also didn’t want that widely known and inspiring false allegations.

      So Lindie ignored the questions and said, “Give me a chance. Get to know me and Camden Incorporated through me. Let me get to know you and where you’re really coming from. Then maybe we can find common ground and work together.”

      “This is where I’m really coming from,” he said with a gesture around the community center. “Areas like this eastern side of Wheatley that are left behind when a Camden Superstore comes to town. When jobs are lost and businesses close and buildings go vacant. When resources are drained away to the more prosperous parts of town. When parents have to take jobs farther away from home so their commute is longer and more time is taken away from their kids. Kids who are ultimately left with less supervision, leading them to get into trouble. Kids who need somewhere to go that isn’t an empty house or apartment.”

      Okay, the man didn’t pull any punches. But Lindie could take them.

      Before she’d thought of something diplomatic to say he added, “You want to get to know what I’m after? Pitch in here. Volunteer. Learn firsthand what the Camdens leave in their dust. Make some real amends to people you’ve done harm to right now.”

      It was a dare. A dare he clearly thought Lindie wouldn’t accept.

      He couldn’t have been more wrong. Jumping in to help was her middle name. Sometimes to her own detriment.

      But her goal today was strictly to connect with him. To get some time with him. That was the only hope she had of turning him from an enemy to an ally.

      So rather than immediately accepting his challenge, she wanted to make sure it would get her what she needed.

      “Do you ‘pitch in’ here? Volunteer—beyond your chess tournament today?” she asked.

      “I have connections to Wheatley and this community center happens to be my pet project, so, yes, I volunteer here.”

      “What kind of connections? Do you live in Wheatley?”

      “I live in a loft in lower downtown Denver. But my son lives here.”

      “You have a son?” she said, hoping to build some rapport even as she took particular note of that fact for her own personal reasons. The fact that he had a child helped put him all the more securely in the wouldn’t-date-him compartment and she thought that that should help her concentrate on the work at hand.

      “I do have a son,” he answered. “Sam. He lives in Wheatley with his mother and her new husband. For now.”

      He seemed compelled to add that last part, though it was under his breath. Unsure how to reply, she merely said, “You’re divorced?”

      “As a matter of fact I am. But not from Sam’s mom. She and I were never married.”

      Divorced, with a child with a woman from a different relationship. The man seemed to have quite a history.

      “Does your son use the community center?” she asked.

      “He’s four and in the preschool program here. But the center is also important because if the older kids have a place they want to spend time, it keeps them off the streets and out of trouble. Ultimately that makes things safer and better for Sam. Plus, there’s the park the center just acquired next door—he’ll like that when it’s in shape.”

      “So other than the chess tournament, what do you do as a volunteer here?” she persisted.

      “I come in every Thursday afternoon—today is a special occasion for the tournament—and spend time with the kids themselves. Other than that I do whatever I can. Right now we need community involvement in cleaning up the park. So tomorrow I’m going door-to-door with flyers to get the word out. The most immediate project is rehabbing the park itself—work on that starts Friday afternoon at one. Schools around here are having an early release that day, so we’re doing a lunch for the kids, then putting everybody at the center to work and hoping for outside help, too.”

      “So this week you’ll be here tomorrow handing out flyers, then again on Thursday and Friday?” Lindie summarized for clarity.

      “Are you setting up a timetable to stalk me? Because if you’re around here, I’ll get you involved,” he warned.

      “Let’s say I’m fine with that. What would you get me involved doing? Could I hand out flyers with you? Do whatever you do with the kids on Thursdays? Work by your side on the park cleanup?”

      “You want to be my shadow?” he said as if that amused him once more.

      “I was just thinking that I could kill two birds with one stone. If volunteering gives me the chance to talk to you, I’m happy to volunteer.”

      “Talking to me isn’t going to do you any good.” Another warning.

      “I can be very persuasive.”

      “Ah. The Camden persuader not the Camden assassin. I can relax.”

      “Because I obviously had you terrified.”

      He laughed. “You can tag along tomorrow.