Her One and Only (5 page)

‘I need to check in,’ she told him, making a grab for the trolley only too relieved to have an excuse for both changing the subject and escaping his presence and her own thoughts.

‘Mmm...’

Instead of relinquishing the trolley handle Liam kept hold of it so that her hands were resting close to the warmth of his and then, before she could guess what he intended to do, Liam moved with surprising swiftness, covering her hands with his own and keeping her captive, his head bending over hers in the same half beat of time that she lifted her face towards him in irritable surprise.

‘Li—’ she began but got no further than the first syllable of his name before his mouth was covering hers.

He had only kissed her very occasionally before, brief non-sexual courtesy kisses on her cheek, and so she was completely unprepared for the reaction the hard determined pressure of his mouth evoked from her now.

Her pulse gave an unexpected shock-cum-thrill little flutter that left her feeling breathless and light-headed. Or was it the increasingly firm pressure of Liam’s mouth that was doing that? An unexpectedly delicious and temptingly enjoyable firm pressure, the kind of firm pressure that made her sigh softly and lean responsively into him, her own lips starting to part on what just might have been a give-away small sound of heady pleasure.

It was, of course, the bright lights of the airport that were making her close her eyes and then open them slowly again to focus hazily and wonderingly on the deep smouldering depths of Liam’s—of course it was. Languorously, Samantha felt her lips soften against his... Mmm...but it was such a lovely kiss, such a sensuous, nerve-skittering, heart-thrillingly sexy kiss that she would have to have been made of stone to resist it.

But...

Abruptly she stiffened, realising just where her thoughts were heading, and firmly she pushed him away.

‘Thank you, Liam,’ she told him sweetly. ‘That was very nice but shouldn’t you be saving it for someone more...appreciative...’

His eyebrows rose as he released her.

‘Much
more
appreciation and they’d have been hauling us up for indecency,’ Liam drawled back.

‘Indecency...’ Samantha shot him a fiercely indignant look, preparing to do battle, and then stopped, her face flushing as she saw the brief, oh so wryly explicit look he was giving her body.

There was no need of course for
her
to look down at her T-shirt-clad breasts to see just how tautly erect her nipples now were.
She
could feel it...them.

‘That’s just—’ she began defensively.

Liam stopped her, shaking his head as he told her dryly, ‘You don’t need to tell
me
what it is, hon,’ he drawled. ‘In fact—’

‘They’ll be calling my flight,’ Samantha told him, desperate to escape.

She knew her face must be flushed because her body felt hot. Her mind was burning with questions and her instinctive need was simply to escape just as fast as she could, to avoid any kind of confrontation.
Not
with Liam, no, it was
herself
she didn’t feel able to confront, her
own
inexplicable behaviour and reactions. Grabbing hold of the trolley, she started to walk away from Liam as quickly as she could, refusing to give in to the temptation to turn round and see what he was doing—how he was looking.

* * *

T
HE
GIRL
AT
the check-in desk gave her a calmly professional smile as she checked her travel documents and indicated that Samantha was to put her luggage on the conveyor.

Samantha could feel a prickling sensation running jarringly up and down her spine. She just
knew
that Liam was still there watching her. Unable to stop herself, she turned round, her mouth opening in a small O of disbelief when she couldn’t see him. He had gone already. Aggrieved she double-checked the area where she had left him, muttering beneath her breath as she did so, ‘Well, thanks very much...’

It was typical of him, of course, to behave in such an outrageously high-handed manner and then simply walk away without any explanation. No doubt if she had asked him for one he would have responded with something unflattering.

The check-in girl was indicating that she was to go through to the departure area. Briefly Samantha hesitated but there was still no sign of Liam. No doubt he was far more interested in meeting this new PR person than he was in seeing
her
off.

A little forlornly Samantha went through into the departure lounge.

* * *

F
ROM
HIS
VANTAGE
point, well away from the busy main concourse, Liam watched as Samantha set off on her journey. Kissing her like that had been a mistake and mistakes were something that Liam did not normally allow himself to make. It wasn’t good policy for an ambitious young politician. Ambitious...young... Liam gave a semi self-derisory little smile.

Young he most certainly no longer was—and as for ambitious? Recently he had become increasingly aware that he had absorbed much more from working with Samantha’s father than the mere mechanics, the bare bones of what the governorship of their small state actually involved.

Stephen Miller was a true philanthropist. Someone who genuinely wanted to improve the lot of his fellow men, to raise their expectations of life and their belief in themselves in ways both temporal and secular. A rapport had developed between them which had touched upon the sensitive and idealistic side of Liam’s nature, the Celtic inheritance which believed so strongly in the right of the human race to stand proud and free.

His ambitions now no longer centred on Washington or the personal goal of high office. In stepping into Stephen Miller’s shoes, he would be granted a unique opportunity to build on foundations so secure and true that ultimately they could support a society as near to perfection as man with his inherently flawed nature could ever get. Their health care programme, their record for supporting the more needy, especially the elderly, was already being lauded as a model on which other states should base their own programmes.

Their high school drop-out rate was decreasing every year and one of Liam’s own goals would be to find a means of motivating the less intellectually gifted and of giving them both a sense of self-worth and the respect of others.

Liam didn’t believe in deluding himself. Getting the governorship was but the first very small step in what was going to be a long, testing and arduous journey. There was no space in his life either now or in the foreseeable future for...complications.

Other people might claim that he needed a wife but the kind of wife he had in mind, as he knew very well, the kind of
marriage
he had in mind, was a carefully organised and businesslike political partnership, a marriage where it was automatically acknowledged that his work would come first.

The cool analytical controlled side of his nature agreed with this, the idealistic, passionate Celtic side did not.

He saw the tiny frown, the quickly hidden forlorn look Samantha gave the empty space where he had been standing before turning and walking away.

He could still vividly remember the impact she had had on him the first time he had seen her. A teenager she might have been, but her burgeoning womanhood had still been there for those with the eyes to see it. She might have been shy and a little awkward, blushingly self-conscious about the crush she had had on him, but he had been all too well aware of the powerful strength of the womanly passion she would ultimately own.

Pride and passion—they were a dangerous combination in any woman, but most especially in one like Samantha, who also had such a strong maternal yearning.

He had seen the look in her eyes as she held other women’s babies, when she played with her twin’s little girl. If her pride and her idealism had been less he suspected that she might, long ago, have settled for a mundane marriage to a man who allowed her to control their relationship whilst she gave the full passion of her love to their children, but Samantha wasn’t like that. There was no way she could ever allow herself to accept second-best. But now the cruel gibes of her work colleagues had galvanised her into action and she was determined to prove him and them wrong.

Liam frowned. It was time for him to go and meet the Washington flight. Samantha had been more on the mark than she knew with her slightly waspish comments about Toni Davis. Ostensibly she was quite simply joining his campaign in a PR capacity, but Liam was no fool. He knew perfectly well that one of the reasons her name had been put forward was because she would make a perfect political wife. Subtle, discreet, content to remain in the background and to exercise her ambitions via her husband, Toni Davis was the complete antithesis to Samantha, who had
never
learned to fully control her emotions and realise that the best way to do battle for her beliefs was not always the most upfront and open way.

He could hear the Washington flight being announced. As he lifted his arm to look at his watch Liam recognised that the scent wafting from his jacket was Samantha’s.

CHAPTER FOUR

‘S
AM
...
OVER
HERE
....’

Samantha checked and then waved frantically, her face breaking into a wide beaming smile as she caught sight of Bobbie’s brother-in-law and her cousin, James Crighton, waiting for her on the other side of the airport arrivals barrier.

‘James, what a lovely surprise,’ she cried, hugging him enthusiastically. More than one person stopped to admire the attractive picture they made. James, tall, dark and boyishly good-looking, and Samantha, almost equally as tall and stunningly eye-catching with her golden-blonde hair, their arms wrapped around one another as they kissed with genuine affection.

‘Mmm...’ James murmured appreciatively, a teasing glint in his eyes as Samantha started to disengage herself. ‘That was nice...’

‘
Very
nice,’ Samantha agreed with laughing playfulness, offering him saucily, ‘Want another...’

Laughter gurgled in her throat at the look that James was giving her. They had always gotten on well together but where she was all quicksilver reactions and emotions, James was far more laid back and calm which she found blissfully soothing.

‘People are watching,’ James warned her as his lips touched hers.

‘Who cares,’ Sam returned recklessly, but he still released her, Samantha noticed. Now Liam would not only have mocked
her
he would also have deliberately and arrogantly ignored everybody else.

Liam! Why on earth was she thinking about him now? It should be James she was concentrating on. Beneath her lashes she flicked him a considering look. It was easy to dismiss and overlook the attractiveness of James’s smile, the sheer niceness of him, in favour of the spectacularly smouldering sexuality of his cousin Saul, the austere, exciting sensuality of his brother Luke, the sledgehammer onslaught of the outrageous physical appeal of his other cousin Max, but James, in his own way was every bit as special and sexy as the other Crighton men, even if he came across as being rather more gentle, a little less macho and hormonally charged.

Personally
she
preferred James to the others. His presence was so relaxing and soothing. She loved the calming effect he had on her, so very different from the hostile aggression Liam so often aroused in her. James would make a wonderful father. She could see him now...

‘Bobbie said to apologise for not being able to meet you herself. Francesca’s had a bit of a chesty cough and she didn’t want to leave her.’

‘Oh, poor little girl,’ Samantha instantly sympathised. ‘How is she...? Is she...?’

‘It’s nothing too serious,’ James assured her. ‘It’s just that she’s been a bit fretful.’

‘Well, it’s very kind of you to make time to meet me,’ Samantha thanked him. ‘The last time I spoke to Bobbie she mentioned how busy both you and Luke are.’

‘Mmm... Well, thankfully, since Max joined the chambers the pressure has eased off a little, or at least it was doing but, well, I shouldn’t complain about the fact that we seem to be attracting more briefs than ever. Aarlston-Becker have been placing a considerable amount of work our way via Saul and increasingly I seem to be finding that I’m spending more and more of my time in the Hague involved in lengthy international cases.’

Aarlston-Becker was the multi-national concern with offices in Haslewich, and Saul Crighton, a member of the Haslewich side of the Crighton family through his father Hugh, her own grandmother Ruth’s half-brother, headed the legal team and so it was quite natural that when he needed the expert opinion of a barrister that he should apply to his own family for it.

‘Dad was complaining only the other day about how much the legal profession has changed,’ James continued. ‘Historically, of course, barristers did have specific and special areas of expertise, now these areas have become much more individually defined. We’ve even been talking about taking on a new member of Chambers due to the amount of medical compensation cases we’ve been getting.’

‘Pity I’m not qualified in that field myself,’ Samantha told him doe-eyed.

‘
You’re
looking for a career move?’ James asked her interestedly.

‘Sort of,’ Samantha responded tongue-in-cheek, her eyes dancing with amusement as she wondered what he would say if she were to tell him in just exactly
what
direction she was envisaging her career moving and why.

‘Would you mind if we called on my parents on the way back?’ James was asking her as he guided her towards his waiting car.

‘No, not at all,’ Samantha responded promptly.

She had already met James’s parents and the rest of his family on several occasions and had got on well with them.

She knew from Bobbie that they had just moved to a ground-floor apartment in a recently renovated large Victorian house on the banks of the Dee.

‘Henry loves it,’ Bobbie had told Samantha, referring to her father-in-law. ‘He spent hours wrangling with the builders over the quality of workmanship and Pat says that taking charge of the owners association has given him a new lease of life.

‘Luke complains that he can see a lot of his father’s stubbornness in Francesca...’

‘His
father’s
stubbornness,’ Samantha had repeated drolly, whilst Bobbie had laughed ruefully.

‘Okay, okay, I know, I have my fair share of that particular vice, no need to rub it in. Still, a little toughness won’t do Fran any harm, not if she’s going to follow family tradition and go into the law.’

‘Fran! No way,’ Samantha had told her twin robustly. ‘She’s going to be running the country at the very least.’

The Cheshire countryside in sunshine had to be one of the prettiest sights there was, Samantha reflected happily as she sat next to James in comfortable silence as he drove them towards Chester.

In the distance beyond the fertile neatly checkered fields lay the blue haze of the Welsh mountains. No wonder in centuries gone by there had been so much feuding over the Welsh border. No wonder warring English kings had needed to build so many strong castles to protect their rich domain.

It was a humbling thought to remember that the Romans had farmed these lands and mined the rich vein of salt from which the town of Haslewich had got its wealth and its name.

Now the salt was no longer mined and the modern legacy that industry had left was one of flooded salt works and dangerously unstable buildings.

As though he had read her mind James commented conversationally, ‘We’ve got an interesting case at the moment. A local farmer is trying to sue Aarlston-Becker because he claims the weight of the company’s headquarters is causing subsidence on his land.’

‘Oh, and is it?’ Samantha asked him interestedly.

‘Hard to say, but certainly it’s a topic which arouses an awful lot of emotions. It’s the classic story of the old guard being suspicious of the new incomers. The case had been given a lot of local publicity. Aarlston has an image to maintain of a socially aware and ecologically sound organisation so, in the end, to protect that image they may have to opt for a one-off payment to the farmer. His land is over a mile away but he maintains that because of the interlinking network of mines and tunnels beneath the ground, the weight of the Aarlston building is being reflected in land subsidence some distance away.’

‘Mmm...sounds like a try-on to me,’ Samantha pronounced.

‘Mmm...indeed,’ James conceded, returning the laughing smile Samantha was giving him, his gaze lingering for just a shade longer than was merely cousinly on her face.

A small sensation of happy warmth curled up through
Samantha’s body. Coming to England had quite definitely been the right decision. What she would give to have Cliff witness that look she had just seen in James’s eyes.

They would make the most beautiful babies together. Samantha gave a small contented sigh.

How thoughtful of fate to give her plans an active boost like this. Keeping her voice carefully neutral she told James, ‘With her pregnancy and everything Bobbie has her hands pretty full at the moment...’

Deliberately she affected a small downcast sigh. ‘I was so looking forward to seeing a bit more of the area, too, and of catching up with the rest of the family.’

‘Well, if you need an escort
I’d
be more than happy to offer my services,’ James responded gallantly.

Samantha produced a slightly self-conscious look, flapping her eyelashes and exclaiming, ‘Oh, James, would you...? That would be so kind, although I didn’t mean...’

‘It would be my pleasure,’ James assured her fervently.

She really wasn’t behaving very well at all, Samantha reflected a little guiltily, but it was for the very best of causes and if she hadn’t sensed that James liked her...

They were just outside Chester now and Samantha could feel the excitement starting to bubble up inside her. She was so looking forward to being with Bobbie. She gave an exultant sigh and closed her eyes. What would Liam make of Chester, she wondered. He would be impossibly well informed about its long history, of course, with every fact and figure at his fingertips, and whilst
she
fantasised about the romanticism of its history, he would no doubt insist on bringing her down to earth by reminding her of the savagery and bloodshed it must have known.

Angrily Samantha opened her eyes. Liam!
Why
on earth was she thinking about
him?
Just because he had kissed her? Just because she...

‘Are you okay?’ James was asking her, sensing the tension, his forehead creased in concern.

‘I’m fine,’ Samantha assured him, but somehow it felt as though a small cloud had been cast over the exultation she had felt earlier. It was stupid of her to compare the warm, affectionate, almost brotherly touch of James’s lips to the hard, pulse-dizzying possession of Liam’s, and
why
was she doing it anyway? Liam’s kiss hadn’t meant
anything
to her.

Not cerebrally maybe, but her
body
had certainly responded to it—to
him.

An accident; an aberration, a faulty bit of sexual programming, that was all that had been.

‘You’ve gone quiet. Are you tired?’ James asked her solicitously.

‘A mite jet-lagged I guess,’ Samantha agreed, gratefully seizing on the excuse he had given her for her lapse in concentration. James was so wonderfully caring and considerate.

‘We’re here now,’ he told her as he swung his small sporty car in through a pair of high wrought-iron gates which opened automatically for them.

The builders who had renovated and converted the large Victorian house into apartments had taken great care to maintain the original facade and to provide well-secured grounds around it. An immaculate expanse of gravel swept round to the front of the building. No parking bays had been marked out on it but James informed Samantha drolly that there was a definite parking spot for each apartment and woe betide anyone who parked in the wrong place.

‘I think if he could get away with it Dad would impose “on the spot” fines on unwitting miscreants parking in the wrong place,’ he told her ruefully.

‘It’s a magnificent house,’ Samantha enthused, automatically reaching for the passenger door handle of the car, but before she could swing it open James was out of the car, sprinting round to the door to open it for her.

There was always a certain formality and protocol attached to being a member of the Governor’s family but Samantha couldn’t remember the last time a
date
had proved so solicitous towards her.

From its elevated position on the banks of the Dee the house overlooked the river itself and the countryside beyond it and Samantha could well appreciate why James’s parents had wanted to move here.

‘With none of us left at home Ma was finding the house far too large and with three storeys, each with a flight of stairs, it made sense to move to somewhere more easily manageable.’

As he spoke, James was guiding Samantha towards the main entrance to the building.

A special security card was needed to gain entrance into the inner hallway, coolly elegant in cream marble and illuminated with an enormous crystal chandelier.

‘It’s this way,’ James told her, indicating a pair of handsome carved doors on the left and going up to them to press the bell.

Almost immediately the door was opened by James’s mother. Although Patricia Crighton was a very attractive-looking woman, it was from their father that Luke and James had inherited their striking dark good looks.

‘Samantha, my dear, do come in,’ Patricia Crighton greeted her, kissing Samantha warmly on the cheek.

The drawing room the older woman took Samantha to was filled with the elegant antiques Samantha remembered from their previous home. There was, she noticed, a very recent photograph of her twin sister with her husband Luke and their little girl amongst the other family photographs on top of the elegant Queen Anne side table.

‘Is Dad here? I’ve got those papers he asked me for,’ James said to his mother.

‘He’s in his study, darling,’ she responded, adding, ‘Oh, and by the way, we’ve got a visitor.’ She stopped, giving James a rather wary look, and then the drawing room door opened to admit her husband and a young woman who Samantha did not recognise.

‘Rosemary, what the devil are you doing here?’ she heard James demanding sharply, the antagonism so very evident in his voice and his demeanour that Samantha looked at him in surprise. Suddenly he looked and sounded so very much more like his elder brother, so very forcibly a Crighton, and it was obvious from his expression what his feelings were for the girl who had just walked into the room. What on earth had she done to make James, of all people, dislike her so much? Samantha wondered curiously.

Small and red-headed, she had a neat triangular-shaped face with high cheek-bones and huge amber-flecked golden eyes. Although she was wearing jeans and a T-shirt there was no disguising the rounded voluptuousness of her figure. Her waist was tiny, Samantha noticed, so small that she guessed a man could easily span it with his hands.