Sweet Liar Read online

  But Samantha didn’t feel very forgiving. When she turned to Mike, her eyes were blazing in anger. “Do me a favor and drop yourself off the nearest cliff.”

  As she turned on her heel and walked away from him, away from the entire group, Mike’s family burst into laughter.

  Samantha was nearly out of sight before Mike caught up with her.

  “Sam, honey—” he began.

  “Don’t speak to me.” When he reached out for her, she said, “And don’t you even think of touching me.” She started walking again, Mike beside her.

  “What are you so angry about?”

  “I’ve been trying to make a good impression on your family and you…you make a fool of me by putting your brother up to pawing me in front of them. It was humiliating. Didn’t you think about how I’d feel?”

  “No,” he said, smiling. “People can’t tell us apart. I thought you’d think Kane was me.”

  Pausing, she stared at him; sometime between yesterday and today his brain had fallen out of his head.

  “Sam, Kane and I are identical twins. We’re exactly alike, even down to moles and birthmarks.”

  Samantha gave him a look that said, Tell me another one. “Mike, tell me,” she said with great patience, “was the person who delivered you and your brother one of your relatives?”

  “As a matter of fact she was, but what’s that got to do with anything?”

  Giving him a look of great patience, she explained. “Because, just like you, she’s a liar. She lied to you and your whole family. Your brother doesn’t look like you at all. If you’re twins, you’re fraternal twins, or maybe one of you is a nine-month baby and the other is an eight-month one. If that’s the case, then you’re just brothers, nothing else.”

  Mike gasped at her in disbelief. “Sam, Kane and I have won contests for being the most identical twins.”

  “Then the losers must have been different colors. Now would you mind—”

  She didn’t say any more because Mike grabbed her in his arms and began to kiss her, and when she tried to push him away, he wouldn’t let her. “Sammy, sweetheart, I really didn’t mean to humiliate you, honest. Kane and I have been playing jokes on people since we were kids. It’s a kind of initiation into the family.”

  “And I failed,” she said gloomily.

  He laughed. “Failed? You passed with glowing colors. Come on, let’s go back to my family. You’ll see how well you’ve passed.”

  She allowed him to keep his arm around her shoulders, allowed him to lead her back to the others, but as they reached the picnic tables, she saw Kane talking to his mother. “Your brother touches me again and he’ll be sorry.”

  Mike kissed her cheek. “No, I won’t let him touch you.” There was pride in his voice, such pride that Samantha refrained from asking him why he had never bothered to tell her that he had a twin brother.

  One thing Mike hadn’t lied about was that his family would be pleased with her for knowing which brother was Mike. The fact that, as far as she could tell, none of them could tell Mike and Kane apart made her understand why his family had not greeted Mike when he’d first arrived—they’d thought he was Kane. It occurred to her to tell them all that they needed a good eye doctor if they thought Mike looked like his brother, because Kane didn’t look anything like Mike. In fact, Kane was rather ordinary looking. He was handsome, yes, but he didn’t have the beautiful mouth that Mike did, his hair wasn’t as curly, he didn’t move as Mike did, and Kane was just a wee bit fat, not muscular like Mike was.

  For the rest of the day, until sundown, Samantha had to put up with one little test after another, with every family member except Mike’s parents and Jilly referring to Mike and his brother by each other’s names. Twice Kane put his hand on Samantha’s shoulder, once when she had her back to him. Heavens, but the man didn’t even feel like Mike.

  It was in the early evening, when the children were getting sleepy and the men had gathered away from the women to talk, that Samantha had a chance to sit quietly on a chair and look at the group. There were more people here named Taggert than Montgomery, but there were enough of each, and she’d spent enough time around both families that she was beginning to be able to tell them apart.

  The Montgomery men and the Taggert men were very different from each other, both physically and in their personalities. The Montgomerys were taller, but the Taggerts were prettier. The Taggert men, ranging in height from five eight to just six feet, were all big men, big and thick and heavily muscled. The men together looked like a convention of weight lifters or a crew of construction workers. What made them different, what set them apart from other brawny men, was the prettiness, in a way, of their faces: big eyes, full lips, the sweetest smiles imaginable. For all their size and muscle, not one of them looked as though he could hurt a fly.

  The Taggerts were men that a woman could curl up with, men a woman could go to for help, men a woman could trust to protect her, to pull her from a burning building without giving a thought for his own life. They were sexy men. Samantha had no questions as to why each woman who married into the family seemed willing to bear a countless number of children. She had no doubt that every Taggert father was close to his children from birth to first love to grandchildren. These weren’t men who went off with the boys on Sunday afternoons. In fact, looking at them, Samantha wondered if any Taggert man who had children ever went anywhere without one of them. These were men who knew how to give and receive love, not just tell a woman he loved her, but really, truly love her through sickness, through the good times and the bad, through turmoil and peace, through sadness and happiness. The Taggerts were men a woman could depend on to always be there, men a woman could trust.

  The Montgomery men were different from their cousins, for the Montgomerys were as elegant as the Taggerts were down-to-earth. Samantha thought that a Montgomery man would know if one made a mistake and said an opera aria was by Puccini when it was actually by Verdi. They’d know when a person goofed and used the butter knife on the fish. They’d recognize a Chanel copy from a Chanel. They were, without exception, quiet, reserved men, all of them tall, all of them handsome in a sharp sort of way, with unreadable eyes, sculptured cheekbones, and jaws that were almost belligerent. The only softness in their faces was their mouths. Samantha couldn’t help wondering if, when they fell in love, their whole faces softened. All in all, they were rather fierce-looking men, men who could lead in wars, men who would die protecting the men under them—or their wives and children, she couldn’t help thinking.

  She wondered what the private lives of the Montgomerys were like, did they love with all the fierceness she saw in their eyes? She had no doubt that when they did fall in love the recipient was selected very carefully. Did the Montgomery men laugh? Did they cry? Did they play ball with their sons and talk to their daughters about their Barbie dolls? She wondered if she’d ever know the answers to her questions, for she knew without being told that a Montgomery would allow a person to know only what he wanted a person to know about him.

  “And what have you decided?” Pat Taggert asked, taking a chair next to her, making Samantha aware that she had been watched and that Pat knew what she was thinking. Maybe when Pat had been contemplating marrying Mike’s father, she too had compared the two families.

  “That I wouldn’t mind having an affair with a Montgomery but I’d rather marry a Taggert,” she answered, then realized that what she’d said shouldn’t have been said.

  Pat smiled, seeming to like the honesty of her answer. “Exactly the same conclusion I reached some time ago.”

  Samantha looked down at hands. “You didn’t…I mean…”

  “I didn’t, but I do like to mention Raine’s oldest brother to Ian now and then.” The women laughed together.

  Later, as it began to grow dark, people started taking their leave of each other, and Samantha realized that she felt at home with these people. As she helped clear the tables, all the leftover food to be taken to a homele