Free A Sweetheart For The Single Dad (The Camdens Of Colorado Book 8) by Victoria Pade Page A

uncle—she confirmed the rumor.”
    Lindie cringed.
    “That was it for Tina,” Sawyer said. “She broke off the engagement and there good old Howard Camden was, waiting to comfort her.”
    Sawyer had finished his sandwich and his chips and he sat back, angled slightly on his side of the booth to prop an elbow on the seatback. “My dad could never prove anything,” he told her. “But he’d heard about the Camdens—that they’d do anything to get what they wanted. When someone my dad hadn’t slept with claimed he had, he started to piece things together. The woman in the office had started around the same time as a handful of construction workers. That was also when all the problems had started. Problems that stopped once he fired the woman and when the workers—having accomplished their mission—all quit. It wasn’t hard to figure out that they were Camden plants to sabotage him, keep him busy and away from Tina so she could become open season for your uncle.”
    Lindie again didn’t say anything, letting only her silence confirm it.
    “My dad went to Tina to tell her what he suspected but with no way to prove it—because tracks had been well covered—she just didn’t buy it. She said she was in love with Howard, she was going to marry him, and that was it.”
    “Was your dad heartbroken?” Lindie asked compassionately.
    “And mad as hell,” Sawyer said with a humorless laugh.
    “But he recovered?” she asked even though she knew he had. GiGi’s research had told them as much.
    “It took some time. The woman who claimed to have had an affair with him had also made a mess of the books and he ended up owing the government back taxes and penalties. His business reputation had suffered a hit so the business came close to going under but he managed to pull it out of the fire.”
    “And he did end up married,” Lindie pointed out.
    “To my mom. He’s always said that she was his reward for surviving what the Camdens did to him and that the lucky part of the whole thing was that it kept him free to meet the love of his life.”
    “So he ended up happy,” Lindie concluded, trying to concentrate on the positive side.
    Sawyer didn’t answer immediately. He studied her so keenly that his crystal-blue gaze began to make her uncomfortable. “Yeah, he did. My dad ended up happy with my mom, he had my brother and me, his business turned around and made him a good living until he sold it so he and my mom could retire to Arizona a couple of years ago. But that doesn’t excuse what your family did.”
    “I know,” Lindie said quietly. “If it helps at all, my uncle really was head-over-heels in love with my aunt. He didn’t think he could live without her.” That was why H.J. and Howard’s father, Hank, and brother, Mitchum, had gotten in on the scheme and participated with their own ideas and connections and contacts.
    “Still doesn’t excuse it.”
    “I know. You’re right,” she agreed. “The ends don’t justify the means. None of us condone what went on and we really are sorry for it.”
    He stared at her for another long moment before he let out a bit of a huff and said, “Uh-huh. You’re all really sorry now that the shoe is on the other foot and I’m in a position where I can make some of
your
business life miserable. Because I don’t see you in Arizona, talking to my dad—who’s really the injured party here. Instead it’s me you want to make nice with.”
    “If there’s something I can do make it up to your dad just tell me and I’ll get it done. But since, as you said, everything ended up working out for him, we just couldn’t figure out what he might need.”
    “My dad doesn’t need anything from you. Or want anything from you. But he does get a kick out of seeing me
stick it
to you all like your uncle and whoever else helped stick it to him.”
    “He likes revenge better than he’d like to see your business profits double or triple?”
    Sawyer laughed sardonically. “I