style="font-size:15px;"> “A Republican and a Democrat. At least your father is bipartisan.”
She couldn’t quite stifle the unladylike snort of laughter that would have earned her mother’s censure. “My father’s a dyed-in-the-wool Democrat. That’s why he named my mother’s cat Nixon. Cats are too brazen and calculating to be named after Democrats, he claims.”
“Clearly this was before the Clinton administration,” Cam muttered.
She cleared her throat. “While I find your political views fascinating, I think we should get back to your preferences in women. Do you prefer blondes?”
Some men did, Cam thought, but not him. He’d never found a blonde to be half as sexy as a brunette. Perhaps that was part of his heritage poking through. He glanced at Maddie’s dark cascade of loose curls. The sunlight filtering through the window exposed its burnished highlights. Angela’s hair had been like that, dark and yet full of secrets that could be teased out by the sun. He’d loved to touch her hair, to bury his fingers in it. The memory made him ache.
“Blondes,” he blurted out. Trying to sound less defensive he added, “Yeah, I prefer blondes.”
“Tall, petite, slim, um...well-proportioned?”
He noted her discomfort, and the devil made him say, “I like tall women. And I like them to have a little meat on their bones. A little more meat in some places than others, if you know what I mean.”
She scribbled something on the notepad and, without looking up, she asked, “Any other physical attributes you find appealing, Mr., um, Cameron?”
“Legs. Long legs with thin ankles. Oh, and small feet. Nothing over size seven.”
He thought she might have rolled her eyes, but she kept her head slightly bent as she continued, “Do you have an age range that you would prefer?”
He didn’t really care about age. Angie had been a year older than he. But he stroked his chin, as if considering. “Hmm, how old are you?”
Maddie appeared startled. “Me?”
“Yeah, you.”
She tucked a lush wave of hair behind her ear. It was one of the few utterly female things he’d seen her do, and he found it intriguing. Almost as intriguing as the way that little mole dipped and lifted with her every expression.
“Twenty-eight.” She tucked more hair behind her other ear and moistened her lips before adding, “Last month.”
She looked younger than that right now, despite the eyewear and the formal air she put on.
“Ah, well, you’d be a little old for me, then. I think I’d prefer a woman in her early twenties at this point in my life,” Cam replied.
She definitely rolled her eyes at that, although she tried to hide it by pushing up her glasses. But her tone remained professional and impassive when she continued with, “Do you have a problem with a woman who was married and is either divorced or widowed now?”
“No divorcées.”
Maddie stopped writing and hugged the yellow pad of paper to her chest. The pose struck him as oddly defensive.
“Why’s that?”
“I took those same vows, and I made them work. Even when Angela got sick. Even when it got really ugly. ’Til death do us part.’ I’m not interested in someone who can’t keep their end of the bargain.”
Her expression remained clouded, but she nodded. “I can understand that.”
“Good, because I won’t compromise on this point.”
It was just icing on the cake if his stand on principle made it that much harder for her to fix him up. He wondered if that was why she seemed to take it so personally.
“Very well. What about...children? What if the woman either never married or is widowed and has children?”
He slouched back in his chair and folded his arms, the memories swarming him like flies at a barbecue. When he finally spoke, the words seemed to scrape against his throat, leaving it raw and aching.
“I like kids. Angie and I planned to have a big family, perhaps because each of us came from such small families. I’m an only child and Angie has one sister. Caroline was just starting to crawl when Ang first got sick.” He swallowed thickly, but the bitterness and something even more acidic remained. He doubted he would ever forget the terrible panic he’d experienced the day he first heard a doctor say the word cancer.
“So, you don’t mind children,” Maddie prodded, her tone gentle and magnolia-kissed.
“No. I like kids. One of my biggest regrets is that we weren’t able to have more before...I guess I would just prefer someone who got married first.”
“Is that another one of the points on which you won’t compromise?”
“Yes.”
She made a final note before sliding the pen behind her ear. Most of the ballpoint was lost immediately in the wavy mass of mahogany. Again, he found himself thinking that there was something out of place about that hair on Maddie Daniels. In every other way she was a polished, buttoned-down professional. Practical and conservative, almost to the point of being prim. She was a woman who wore classic styles that would look as tidy and unobtrusive in ten years as they did today. Yet the hair curled around her face, a little unruly, a tad spirited and free. He wondered if that was intentional or a piece of her subconscious poking through.
“So, just to recap, you’re looking for a tall, well-endowed blonde with great legs and small feet who is in her early twenties, never divorced and possibly the mother of children. Does that sound about right?”
It didn’t sound right at all, but Cam nodded, anyway. What did it matter? Maddie Daniels could ask all the questions she wanted. She could take all the information she wanted and feed it into some computer database filled with other singles. But she would never be able to find him a perfect match, another true love.
“Give me a couple of weeks to sort through everything. Then I’ll give you a call.” She stuffed the notepad and pen back into her briefcase and pulled off the glasses before rising.
“I’ll look forward to it.”
“Yes,” she said dryly. “I’m sure you will.”
Later that evening, while Maddie nibbled on a turkey sandwich in her quiet apartment, she spread out her notes on the small coffee table in front of the couch and went over Cameron’s responses one more time. So much of what he’d said had come as no surprise. Yet Maddie couldn’t say why it bothered her so much that his ideal woman seemed to be the antithesis of her: blond, younger, voluptuous, never divorced. She rubbed her aching knee and hip. He wanted a woman with great legs, and he liked children, so it followed that he would want a woman who could have them. The doctors had been clear on that point—Maddie would never become pregnant again.
Well, what did it matter that she wasn’t his type? She had no cause to feel slighted, no right to feel sorry for herself that her future yawned long and lonely. Maddie’s job was to find
