by Penny Jordan
‘She says it reminds her of when we were little. It was her bear before us and then Tom had him, too, and... Oh, you don’t understand,’ she breathed crossly. ‘You’re too unemotional. Too cold...’
‘You should run for government office yourself,’ Liam told her sardonically. ‘With your mind-reading talents you’d be a wow.’
‘Mind-reading,’ Samantha breathed heavily. ‘Oh you...’
‘For your information I am neither unemotional nor cold and as for Wilfred...’ Ignoring Samantha he walked up to her and deftly took the bear from her unresisting grasp.
‘I had one very like him when I was young. He came originally from Ireland with my grandfather. He was just a boy then...’
Samantha’s eyes widened. Liam rarely talked about his family—at least not to her. She knew he had no brothers or sisters and that his grandparents, immigrants from Ireland, had built up a very successful haulage business which Liam’s father had continued to run and expand until his death from a heart attack whilst Liam was at college.
Liam had sold the business—very profitably—with his mother’s approval. From a very young age he had known that he wanted to enter politics and both his parents and his grandparents, when they had been alive, had fully supported him in this ambition, but it was from her mother that Samantha had gleaned these facts about Liam’s background, not from Liam himself.
‘Why does he never talk to me...treat me as an adult?’ she had once railed at her mother when Liam had pointedly ignored some questions she had been asking him about his grandparents. She had been at college at the time and working on an essay about the difficulties experienced by the country’s immigrants in the earlier part of the century and she had hoped to gain some first-hand knowledge and insights into the subject from Liam’s memories of his grandparents.
‘He’s a very proud man, sweetheart,’ her father had responded, hearing her exasperated question. ‘I guess he kinda feels that he doesn’t want his folks looked down on or...’
‘Looked down on... Why should I do that?’ Samantha had interrupted him indignantly.
‘Well, Liam is very conscious of the fact that his grandparents came to this country with very little in the way of material possessions, just what they could carry with them in fact, whilst...’
‘He thinks that I’d look down on him because your family arrived with Cabots and Adamses and all those other “first families” on the Mayflower who went on to form the backbone of North American early politics, wealth and society,’ Samantha had protested hotly. ‘Is that what he really thinks of me?’
‘Sweetheart, sweetheart,’ her father had protested gently. ‘I’m sure that Liam thinks no such thing. It’s just that he’s as reluctant to have his family background put under the public microscope as your mother would be hers. Not out of any sense of shame—quite the reverse—but out of a very natural desire to protect those he loves.’
‘But Gran is still alive whilst Liam’s grandparents are dead,’ Samantha had objected.
‘The principle is still the same,’ her father had pointed out gently.
Now, some impulse she couldn’t name made Samantha ask Liam softly, ‘Do you still have it...the bear...?’
His austere features suddenly broke into an almost boyish grin and for one breath-stopping moment Samantha actually felt as though something or someone was physically jerking her heartstrings. Impossible, of course, hearts didn’t have strings and if hers had then there was no way that one Liam Connolly could possibly have jerked them. No, it was just the mental image she had had of him as a small boy listening solemnly to his grandfather whilst he related to him tales of his own Irish upbringing.
‘Yes.’
‘You’ll be able to keep it for your children and tell them the stories your grandparents told you,’ Samantha told him impulsively.
Immediately his features changed and became formidably harsh.
‘Don’t you jump on the bandwagon,’ he told her grittily. ‘Everyone seems determined to marry me off. I’ve even had Lee Calder giving interviews stating that a single, childless Governor won’t understand the needs of the state’s parents. My God, when I think of the way he’s been trying to cut down on our education.’
Lee Calder was Liam’s closest contender for the governorship, a radical right-winger whose views Samantha’s father found totally unsympathetic. Lee was an overweight, balding man in his mid-forties, twice married with five children who he had overdisciplined and controlled to such an extent that the eldest, a boy, was rumoured to have shown his unhappiness by stealing money from his parents and trashing the family home with a group of friends one summer when the family were on vacation without him.
No matter what her personal opinion of Liam might be, Samantha knew that her father was quite right when he said that Liam would make an excellent Governor. Highly principled, firm, a natural leader, the state would flourish with Liam at its helm.
Lee Calder on the other hand, despite cleverly managing to package himself as a devoted family man and churchgoer, had a string of shady dealings behind him—nothing that could be proved, but there was something about the man. Samantha vividly remembered the occasion at an official function when he had grabbed hold of her and tried to kiss her.
Fortunately she had been able to push him away but not before she had seen the decidedly nasty glint in his eyes as she rejected him.
She had been all of seventeen at the time and as she recalled his second wife had been pregnant with their first child.
‘Don’t accuse me of trying to marry you off,’ she challenged Liam now.
‘No. By the looks of what you’ve got in that case you’re more interested in changing your own single status,’ Liam agreed derisively.
‘I’ve told you, those are for Bobbie,’ Samantha insisted.
‘And I’ve told you if you really want to catch yourself a man, the best way to do it is by...’ He stopped when he saw her frown, then continued. ‘You know that I’m driving you to the airport in the morning, don’t you?’
‘Yes,’ Samantha agreed on a small sigh. She had a very early start and had been quite prepared to order a cab but her father could be an old-fashioned parent in some ways.
‘No, sweetheart, you know what you’re like for getting yourself anyplace on time.’
‘Dad,’ Samantha had protested, ‘that was years ago...and an accident...just because I once missed a plane doesn’t mean...’
‘Liam’s driving you,’ her father had announced, and Samantha had known better than to argue with him. ‘As it happens, he’s picking someone up, as well.’
‘Someone... Who?’ Samantha had asked her father curiously.
‘Someone from Washington. I want him to take her on board as his campaign PR, she’s very good.’
‘She?’ Samantha had raised her eyebrows, her voice sharpening slightly. ‘You wouldn’t be doing a little matchmaking would you, Dad?’
‘Give your sister our love, remember,’ he had answered her obliquely, ‘and tell her we can’t wait to see them all....’
CHAPTER THREE
SAMANTHA CHECKED A SLEEPY yawn as she ruffled her fingers through her still-damp curly crop. Despite the invigorating shower she had just taken her body was protestingly aware that it was only just gone three in the morning.
Still, she could sleep during the flight, she promised herself as she slicked a soft peachy-pink lipstick across her mouth and grimaced at her reflection.
Not bad for a woman who’d slipped over thirty. Her skin was still as clear and fresh-looking as it had been ten years ago and even if there was now a deeper maturity and wisdom in her eyes than any twenty-year-old could have, a person was going to have to stand pretty close to her to see it.
James was in his mid-thirties but he had that boyish look about him that a few
Englishmen have. Although equally as tall and strongly built as his elder brother Luke and just as stunningly handsome, James had about him a certain sweetness of nature which more austere men like his brother, and to some extent Liam, too, lacked. James was, in short, an absolute honey. He would be very easy to love, a wonderful husband and father...and an equally wonderful lover? The kind of lover she knew instinctively a man like Liam would be.
Samantha put down her lipstick and frowned. Now what on earth had put that thought into her head?
Liam as a lover...! Her lover? No way at all!
She glanced at her watch. Time she was downstairs. Liam would be picking her up in five minutes and he was very hot on good timekeeping.
Even though she had said her goodbyes to her parents the previous evening, she wasn’t totally surprised to have them rush downstairs minutes before she left to hug and kiss her and reiterate their messages of love to her twin as well as the rest of the Crightons.
‘Don’t forget that your grandparents should be arriving in Haslewich during the time you are there,’ Samantha’s mother reminded her.
‘How could I forget anything involving Grandma Ruth?’ Samantha teased her mother.
Ruth Crighton, as she had been before her late marriage to Sarah Jane’s father, was affectionately known as Aunt Ruth to virtually all of the Crighton family and so had become Grandma Ruth to Bobbie, Samantha and their younger brother.
Blissfully married at last to the American soldier she had first met during the Second World War, Ruth divided her time together with her husband between Haslewich and Grant’s beautiful American house.
‘Better not keep Liam waiting,’ her father counselled as they all heard the knock on the door.
She went to let him in and he thanked her before going over to her mother to give her a very easy and natural almost filially warm hug. Samantha acknowledged grudgingly that there was no way she could ever fault Liam’s behaviour towards her parents. He might deliberately rub her up the wrong way, inciting her to open rebellion and sometimes even outright war, but no one could have faked the look of very real warmth and affection he was giving her folks.
‘I see you took my advice about the suitcases,’ was his only comment to her once they were inside his car and he had loaded her two cases into its trunk.
Samantha scowled at him.
‘My decisions to repack had nothing to do with you,’ she told him loftily and a mite untruthfully. ‘Mom wanted me to take some extra gifts over for the family.’
The derisory look Liam was giving her silenced her.
‘Dad said you were picking up a Washington PR expert from the airport,’ she commented, deliberately changing the subject.
‘Mmm...’
‘You surprise me, Liam,’ she told him. ‘I thought you were far too confident to feel you needed any image polishing or manipulating.’
‘I don’t,’ Liam assured her, ‘but some of your father’s supporters are concerned that Lee Calder could be planning to market himself as the family’s champion and they want to start up a damage limitation exercise.’
‘By what, marrying you off to this PR woman?’ Samantha asked flippantly before adding, ‘Wouldn’t it be simpler just to marry your current date... whoever she is...’
‘There is no current date,’ Liam told her. ‘And to be frank, Samantha, I’m getting rather tired of this image you keep trying to push of me as some kind of serial lady-killer. For your information—’ He broke off, cursing as a truck suddenly swerved out of a side street in front of them.
Samantha was far too glad of the diversion to reintroduce the same topic of conversation once the truck had gone. Much as she enjoyed baiting Liam, she also knew when it was wise to back off a little.
‘I could say much the same thing to you, you know,’ Liam murmured, turning his head to look directly at her as she turned towards him, warily waiting for what he was going to say.
‘If you’re as keen to prove to your colleagues as you said that you are woman enough to be a mother, then there are far easier ways of doing so than going looking in England for a man to father your child.’
‘What are you suggesting—artificial insemination. No way!’ Angrily Samantha turned away from him, staring in silence out of the car window.
* * *
LIAM WAS A good driver and long before they had crossed the state line Samantha had dropped off to sleep, her body angled towards Liam’s, one hand resting under her face.
After he’d safely overtaken a truck, Liam turned his head to look at her. She had to be one of the most breathtakingly stunning women he had ever seen. Her sister Bobbie was beautiful but where Bobbie exuded an air of relaxed self-control, Samantha was a bundle of quicksilver fieriness, impulsive, impatient, almost too sensitive for her own good at times, proud and...
Liam cursed under his breath. As he knew all too well, there were almost no lengths Samantha would not go to to prove her point if someone hurt her pride. And he knew better than most, having watched both girls grow up, that despite all the positive influences they had received from their parents and family, both of them, but especially Samantha, were privately a little sensitive about their height.
Liam could remember overhearing a much younger Samantha telling her mother in a low voice choked with tears, ‘Mom, the other girls at school say that I should have been a boy because I’m so big...but I’m not a boy, I’m a girl and...’
‘They’re just jealous of you, darling,’ her mother had reassured her quickly. ‘You are indeed a girl, a very beautiful, clever and lovable girl, a very feminine girl,’ she had reinforced, and Liam had watched as Sarah Jane had very cleverly, and with maternal love and concern, made sure that her daughters learned how to focus on the very feminine aspects of their personalities, to hold their heads up with pride and grace.
They were tall, and as a teenager Samantha especially had gone through a phase when she had been all gangly limbs, a little lanky and perhaps almost boyish, but that had been as a teenager. Now she was all woman... Oh, yes...now she was very definitely all woman!
Waking up beside him, Samantha wondered what had caused that sudden burst of fire to ignite the darkness of Liam’s eyes. Whatever it was, whoever it was... Was it a whoever rather than a whatever? Samantha suddenly wondered. The new PR woman perhaps? She gave a small, quick, sharp intake of breath. Liam might be prepared to bow to the fears of the more conservative lobby and do the conventional thing, marry in order to improve his public appeal, but there was no power on earth that could ever force her to do the same thing. Her principles, her need of her own self-respect, were far too strong, but Liam, of course, was far too pragmatic to understand such a sensitive point of view. Cousin James in Chester was very sensitive. She had noticed that in him the moment they had met, and had been touched and warmed by it and by his concern for her.
James.
She was already beginning to feel a very definite tingle of excitement at the thought of seeing him again. The Crighton men made wonderful fathers, even the family’s erstwhile outcast Max had totally and unexpectedly shown that he possessed the loving Crighton gene when it came to parenting.
‘He seems more thrilled about this new baby they’re expecting than Maddy is,’ Bobbie had confided to her sister when she had passed on to her the news that Max’s wife Maddy was pregnant with their third child.
‘A reconciliation baby,’ Samantha had commented. ‘Well, I hope it works—for the new baby’s sake.’
‘Mmm... I can’t get over how their relationship has turned around,’ Bobbie had continued. ‘Max seems to have completely given up his old ways. He’s based himself in Chester now and he and Luke have developed a rapport I would have thought completely impossible at one time.
‘It’s Maddy who’s changed the most, though. I thought that with Max back at home, recovered
from the vicious attack he suffered in Jamaica and so completely repentant and determined to make their marriage work that Maddy would have reverted to her previous role of full-time wife and mother—after all, it’s no sinecure, not when you think of what running a house like Queensmead entails, and the fact that she’s also got Ben living with them.
‘I know she thinks the world of him and him of her, and of course Max has always been his favourite grandchild, but that doesn’t alter the fact that he can be very irascible and that he holds very strong and old-fashioned views. But no, instead, she’s not only kept on the work she was doing for Grandma Ruth’s mother and children charity, but she’s actually got even more involved. Luke told me the other day that Max had admitted that he sometimes felt as though he needed to make an appointment in order to get Maddy’s undivided attention these days.’
‘Mmm...well, I certainly noticed how much she’s blossomed the last time I was over,’ Samantha had agreed.
Previously she had found that Maddy, with her self-effacing timid ways, although sweet-natured and gentle, wasn’t someone she felt particularly drawn to, but on her last visit she had been not just amazed and intrigued by the change in her, but she had also discovered how interesting and entertaining Maddy was to talk with.
‘She certainly has. Her latest thing is that she’s instituted a bi-monthly women’s night out when we all get together and leave the men in charge of the babes. We all host the event in turn and it’s amazing the different things everyone comes up with. It’s my turn next and I was wondering if we could bribe the men into extending their child-minding so that we might have a weekend in New York.’
Recalling their conversation now, Sam remembered, too, how she had felt just that little bit envious of her sister’s almost idyllic lifestyle. Her own friends, the girls she had grown up with and then met at college, were scattered all over the States and beyond them, some married, some not, and whilst they all kept in sporadic touch there was not the close-knit sense of community, of family, between them that Bobbie had become so much a part of in her life in England.