The Perfect Father. PENNY JORDAN
Did you know that our welfare programme has just been applauded as one of the finest in the union and that…’
‘Yes…Yes, I do know all those things, and I’m not knocking the county. It’s my home, after all, and I love it. My father is its Governor and…’
Fixing his steel-grey gaze on her, Liam ignored what she was saying, demanding seriously, ‘Did you know that the gardens surrounding the Governor’s residence have been declared a tribute to our Governor’s lady’s taste and knowledge of—’
‘Oh, but I designed those,’ Sam began and then stopped, glaring accusingly at him.
‘Oh, all right, you got me there,’ she acknowledged ruefully, her own mouth curving into a reluctant smile as she saw the humour in the curl of Liam’s mouth.
‘New Wiltshire County is a wonderful place, Liam, I know that. I just thought you might prefer something a little bit more…a little bit less parochial,’ she told him dryly, unable to resist adding, ‘After all, you seem to spend an awful lot of time in Washington.’
‘With your father,’ Liam replied promptly before adding, ‘but if I’d realised that you were missing me…’
Sam gave him a withering look.
‘Don’t give me that,’ she warned him. ‘I know you—remember…I don’t know what all those girls you date see in you Liam—’ she began severely.
‘No?’ he interrupted her swiftly. ‘Want me to show you?’
To her own irritation Sam could feel herself starting to colour up a little.
She knew perfectly well that Liam was only teasing her. She ought to; after all, he had been doing it for long enough.
‘No thanks,’ she responded automatically. ‘I prefer exclusivity in my men. Exclusivity and brown eyes,’ she told him mock musingly. ‘Yes, there is quite definitely something about a man with brown eyes.’
‘Brown eyes…Mmm…Well, I guess I could always keep mine closed—or wear contact lenses. What were you thinking about when I saw you just then?’ he demanded, completely changing tack.
‘Thinking about?’
Samantha knew perfectly well how he would read it if she was to tell him. He would be even more disapproving and dismissive than her twin sister.
‘Er…nothing…not really,’ she fibbed, then as she saw him start to frown and guessed that he wasn’t going to let her answer stand without some further questioning, she added quickly, ‘I was thinking about my upcoming visit to Bobbie.’
‘You’re going to England?’
Samantha shot him an uncertain look. He was frowning and his voice had sharpened almost to the point of curtness.
‘Uh-huh, for a whole month. More than long enough I guess for Bobbie to put her matchmaking plans into practice,’ she told him flippantly.
‘Bobbie’s trying to matchmake for you?’
‘You know what she’s like.’ Samantha shrugged. ‘She’s so besotted with Luke that she wants to see me equally happily married off. You’d better watch out, Liam,’ she joked, ‘You’re even older than me. She could be matchmaking for you next! Mind you, perhaps she’s right. England could be the place to find a man,’ Samantha mused, her eyes clouding as she remembered Cliff’s taunt. ‘There is something deeply attractive about English men.’
‘Especially when they’ve got brown eyes?’ Liam asked in an unfamiliarly hard voice.
‘Umm…especially then,’ Samantha agreed unseriously. But Liam, it seemed, was taking the subject much more seriously than she was because he looked away from her and when he looked back his eyes were a particularly cold and analytical shade of grey.
‘It wouldn’t be one specific brown-eyed Englishman we are talking about, would it?’
‘One specific…’ Samantha was lost. ‘Well, gee, I guess one would be enough,’ she agreed, putting on her best country-cousin hill-billy voice. ‘At least to start with, but then…What are you getting at, Liam?’ she asked him, dropping the fake accent as she saw the way he was watching her.
‘I was just remembering the way Luke’s brother was watching you at Luke and Bobbie’s wedding,’ he told her coolly. ‘ His eyes were brown, if I remember correctly.’
‘James…’ Samantha frowned. She couldn’t quite remember what colour his eyes had been and most certainly James had been a real honey, seriously good-looking and seriously open about his own desire to settle down and raise a family, no commitment phobia there and most definitely no bias against tall independent women. No sirree.
‘Mmm…you’re right, they were, ’ she agreed, giving Liam an absent smile.
‘Of course, we’d have brown-eyed babies.’
‘ What did you say…’
Vaguely, Samantha looked at Liam. She had just had the most wonderful idea.
‘Brown-eyes genes dominate over blue, don’t they?’ she asked him, not expecting a response.
‘Sam, just what the hell is going on?’
Liam grabbed hold of her upper arm, not painfully but firmly enough for Samantha to recognise that he wasn’t easily going to let go of her.
She gave a small sigh and looked up at him.
‘Liam, would you say that I was the kind of woman who couldn’t…who a man wouldn’t…’ She stopped as her throat threatened to clog with tears, swallowing them down fiercely before continuing gruffly, ‘Someone told me today that I’m not woman enough for a man to want her to…to…to become a mother. Well, I’m going to prove him wrong, Liam…I’m going to prove him so wrong that…
‘I’m going to go to England and I’m going to find myself a man who knows how to love and value a real woman, the real woman in me and he’s going to love me and I’m going to love him so much that…
‘Let me go, Liam,’ she demanded, aware that he’d tightened his grip on her. ‘I’ve already overrun my lunch hour and I’ve got about a million and one things I have to do…’
‘Samantha,’ Liam began warningly, but she’d already pulled free of him and was walking away. Her mind was made up even if rather ironically it had taken Liam of all people to point her in the right direction and there was no way she was going to let anyone change it. In England she would find love just as her twin had done. Why on earth hadn’t she thought of that…realised that before? English men were different. English men weren’t like Cliff. English men…One Englishman would love her as she so longed to be loved and she would love him right back.
Already she was regretting having told Liam as much as she had. Oh, that wilful impetuous tongue of hers, but she certainly wasn’t going to tell anyone else—not even Bobbie. No, her quest to find her perfect Mr. Right, the perfect father for the babies she so longed to have, was going to be her secret and hers alone.
Her eyes sparkling with elation, Samantha walked back into her office building.
‘J UST think, in a little over a week I shall be in Haslewich with Bobbie.’
Samantha closed her eyes and smiled in delicious anticipation, looking more like the teenager she had been when Liam had first met her than the sophisticated, independent career woman she now was.
On the opposite side of the elegant mahogany dining table, which was a family heirloom and which her mother had insisted on bringing with them from the family residence in the small town which her husband’s family had virtually founded to the Governor’s residence where they now