A Camden's Baby Secret Read Online Free PDF Page B

reminded her of him. She’d wallowed in all she’d lost and her own misery.
    That had been a terrible day.
    So the next year she’d tried plunging herself into work, going into the office at six that morning, staying until the cleaning crew showed up that night, pretending it was just business as usual.
    But the cleaners had found her sobbing at her desk, because work hadn’t made anything better, either.
    Last year she’d tried enlisting her family to distract her. And they had. They’d whisked her off to the mountains to go boating and water-skiing on Dillon Lake.
    But all she’d been able to think about, to talk about, had been Patrick—how much Patrick had loved days like that with her family, how much he’d loved the water and how often he’d talked about retiring seaside somewhere, how much he’d loved barbecuing...
    And by the end of the boating and barbecuing and s’mores, she’d still been a mess.
    So this year, in Hawaii, she’d decided to deal with her anniversary by disengaging. By skipping the conference, not scheduling any meetings, any breakfasts, lunches or dinners. By not doing anything.
    â€œPamper yourself,” her sister and Jani had urged, worried about her being so far away and alone on that day.
    Taking their recommendation, Livi had slept until she couldn’t sleep any more—until after noon, something she never did.
    Then she’d gone to the hotel’s luxury spa, where she’d had a massage in near silence, not inviting or welcoming any conversation from the masseuse, trying to keep her mind blank.
    Afterward the massage therapist had advised her to sit in the sauna, to sweat out the toxins. You’ll feel like a new woman , she had said.
    Livi rarely used the sauna because she wasn’t fond of heat like that, but on that day of all days she wanted to feel like a new woman, because feeling like the old one wasn’t good. So she’d sat in the sauna, thinking only about how hot it was, about sweating away the old Livi and emerging a new one.
    Which she’d actually sort of felt she’d accomplished by the time she’d finished. She’d been so calm and relaxed and...well, just different than she usually felt. Especially on her anniversary.
    Different enough to decide to go with the flow of that feeling by moving on to the hotel’s salon.
    She hadn’t had a haircut since Patrick’s death. Four years without so much as a trim.
    Patrick had liked her hair long and she just hadn’t been able to have any of it cut.
    But that day she’d actually felt like it. Nothing short, no huge change, nothing Patrick would have even noticed, just a little something...
    Which was what she’d done—had a scant two inches cut off the length. But she’d also had the sides feathered, and then agreed to the highlights the stylist suggested.
    It was funny how a small change could catapult her even further into feeling like a whole new woman.
    And while she was at it, why not go all the way? The makeup artist had had a cancelation and offered Livi his services. Why not have her face done, too?
    For Lindie’s wedding, Livi had declined the opportunity for that and stuck with her usual subdued blush and mascara. But on that day in Hawaii she’d let the makeup artist go ahead with whatever he wanted to do—nothing dramatic, but different shades of the colors she liked, and slightly more of everything.
    And while he’d worked, she’d also let the manicurist do a skin-softening waxing—feet and hands—for which she’d taken off her wedding rings.
    By then she’d been all in with the idea of a New Livi for just one day, so she’d had her nails painted bright red and stenciled with white flowery designs—something more showy than she’d ever done before.
    She honestly had felt like someone different when she’d left the salon, and she’d decided that