The Perfect Father. PENNY JORDAN

could provide her own baby with cousins, Sam had laughed and mocked her twin that a man wasn’t necessary for the purpose of procreation any more, at least, not the kind of loving personal contact with one that Bobbie seemed to be enjoying so much. She hadn’t meant it of course, she had simply been giving in to that slightly offbeat side of her nature that had gotten her into trouble so many, many times when she had been growing up. There was an impetuous, an impulsive and very strong streak of determination running through her character, Samantha acknowledged wryly.

      Back there in the office just now for instance, the temptation to throw Cliff’s words back at him and tell him that she would prove to him just how much of a woman she was, that she would prove to them all just how easily she could find herself a partner, have herself a baby, had almost been too strong for her to resist, but fortunately she had resisted it.

      It would have been foolhardy in the extreme for her—a career woman who worked in the hard-nosed business of modern computer technology, where logic was a necessity—to give in to the impulse to throw caution to the winds and go with the heady wave of emotion which had stormed her, riding its crest triumphantly like Pacific surf as she told Cliff that not only could she disprove his words but that she actually would.

      Naturally it ill behoved the daughter of the State’s Governor to give in to such a hotheaded impulse. Her father was another mark against her in Cliff’s eyes, of course. She had overheard the sneering comments he had made to another colleague when she had been offered the job he had tried so desperately hard to win for himself.

      ‘It’s obvious she wouldn’t have had a chance if it hadn’t been for the fact that her father is the State Governor,’ she had heard him saying bitterly. ‘No prizes for guessing just what’s going on. The company has put in tenders for government work and what better way to tip the odds in their favour than by getting in the Governor’s good books by promoting his daughter…’

      It wasn’t true, Samantha knew that. She had won that promotion on merit. She was, quite simply, the better person for the job and she had told Cliff so in no uncertain terms. He hadn’t liked hearing her saying it, no sirree, and he had liked it even less when she had beaten him hands down in the firm’s annual golf tournament.

      She had Liam to thank for that. He was a first-rate player and, even as a teenager, he had never allowed her the indulgence of beating him, mercilessly telling her just where she was going wrong. He was equally good at playing chess—and poker—which was why her father claimed he would make a first-rate Governor.

      Her parents had been discussing that very subject when they had all sat down to supper earlier in the week.

      ‘Well, I can understand why you’re so keen that Liam should run for Governor when you retire,’ her mother had agreed, ‘but if he gets elected he’s going to be the youngest Governor this state has ever had.’

      ‘Mmm…he’s thirty-seven, which I guess does make him a little on the young side.’

      ‘Thirty-seven and unmarried,’ Sarah Jane had persisted. ‘He’d stand a far better chance of getting in if he had a wife…’

      As Stephen Miller raised his eyebrows, Sam’s mother had insisted, ‘Don’t look at me like that. You know it’s true. Voters like the idea of their Governor being a happily married family man. It makes them feel secure and it reinforces their instinctive beliefs that…’

      ‘…that what? A married man is a better Governor than an unmarried one?’ her father had asked dryly. But he still had to concede that Sarah Jane had a point.

      ‘Well, Liam certainly isn’t short of suitable candidates for the position of his wife,’ her father had admired, immediately looking a little shamefaced as her mother had expostulated.

      ‘Stephen Miller, I do believe you are envious of him!’

      ‘Envious. No, of course I’m not,’ he had protested.

      ‘Well, I should think you should look a mite ashamed,’ her mother scolded mock severely. ‘Otherwise I might start to believe that you don’t appreciate either me or your family.’

      ‘Honey, you know that just isn’t true,’ her father had responded immediately and so tenderly that tears had filled Samantha’s eyes.

      How could she ever accept second-best when she had before her not just the example of her twin’s fervently happy marriage, but that of her darling, wonderful parents and, of course, her grandparents who were still just as much in love with one another now as they had been that fateful war-torn summer they had first met.

      Only she seemed unable to find a mate for herself, a mate who would love her and father the children Cliff had so hatefully taunted her that no man would want to give her.

      Oh, but what she would give to prove him wrong, to walk into that general office not just with her wonderful Mr. Right on her arm but with her stomach triumphantly, wonderfully big with his child…his children…As yet Bobbie hadn’t followed in the Crighton family tradition and conceived twins. She had hoped earlier on in her current pregnancy she might have done, but her routine scans had shown that there was only one baby, although now in the late stages of her pregnancy Bobbie was grumbling that she felt large enough to be carrying quads.

      Twins!

      Twins…They ran through the history of the Crighton family like an often-repeated refrain and yet, oddly, despite all the new marriages which had taken place these last few years amongst her cousins—first, seconds and thirds—no one had, as yet, produced the next generation of double births.

      Samantha closed her eyes. She could see herself now, leaning a little heavily onto the strong supporting arm of her love, her smile beatific, her body weighed down by the twin babies she was carrying perhaps, but her spirits, her heart, buoyed up with love and excitement.

      ‘Sam.’

      The sharp warning note in her twin’s voice was so clear, so real, that Bobbie could almost have been there beside her.

      Guiltily she opened her eyes and then realised that someone had actually spoken to her but that that someone was most definitely not her beloved twin sister.

      Exhaling warily she looked up into the silver-grey eyes of Liam Connolly.

      Yes, looked up because Liam, thanks, or so he said, to the Viking ancestry he claimed he possessed through his mother’s Norwegian family and in spite of his quite definitely un-Nordic very dark hair, was actually a good three inches taller than she was herself, taller even than her own father—just.

      ‘Er, L—Liam…’ Why on earth was she stuttering and stammering like a child caught with her fingers in a forbidden cookie jar? Samantha wondered.

      Liam indicated the busy road in front of them and told her dryly, ‘I know you like to think you’re super-human but somehow I don’t think the right way to try to prove it is to cross the freeway with your eyes closed. Besides, we have a law in this state against jaywalking, you know.’

      As Sam heaved a small rebellious sigh, she had no idea what it was about Liam that always made her feel as though she was still fourteen years old and hot-headedly troublesome with it, but somehow or other he always did.

      ‘Dad says you’ve agreed to run for State Governor when he retires,’ she announced, trying to change the subject.

      ‘Mmm…’ He shot her a perceptive look from those incredible eyes that sometimes could seem so sexily smoky and smouldering and at other times could look so flintily cold that they could turn your heart to ice and your conscience to a clear piece of Perspex with every small sin clearly visible through it.

      ‘I take it you don’t approve?’

      ‘You’re thirty-seven. New Wiltshire County practically runs itself. I should have thought you’d want something you could get your teeth into a little more.’

      ‘Like what? President?’ Liam drawled. ‘New Wiltshire County might not mean much to you, but believe me it’s got a hell of