Margot Dalton - A Family Likeness

Cover Page

Excerpt “Alex, I have something to tell you about your daughter. “I should have told you before, but I was…” Gina’s voice broke. She rummaged in the pocket of her jeans, took out her billfold and extracted a photograph from one of the side pockets. Wordlessly, she handed it to Alex. He studied the smiling girl in the picture, his eyes widening. “It’s Steffi,” he said at last, then hesitated. “Isn’t it? She looks older.” “It’s not Steffi. It’s my sister, Claudia, when she was Steffi’s age. You can see a difference in her mouth. Steffi has your mouth.” “I don’t understand. How can they look so alike?” “Because they’re related. Claudia is Steffi’s aunt” “Her aunt? What are you saying, Gina?” “I’m Steffi’s biological mother.…”

About The Author ABOUT THE AUTHOR A Family Likeness, Margot Dalton’s sixteenth Superromance novel, is set in the Okanagan Valley, British Columbia, Canada, where the author has lived for the past seven years and been inspired by the spectacular beauty and natural wildness of her surroundings. This bestselling author has also written seven books in Harlequin’s popular CRYSTAL CREEK series, two mainstream titles for MIRA Books, and has contributed to two anthologies.

Title Page A Family Likeness Margot Dalton www.millsandboon.co.uk

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Copyright

“I should have told you before, but I was…” Gina’s voice broke. She rummaged in the pocket of her jeans, took out her billfold and extracted a photograph from one of the side pockets. Wordlessly, she handed it to Alex.

He studied the smiling girl in the picture, his eyes widening. “It’s Steffi,” he said at last, then hesitated. “Isn’t it? She looks older.”

“It’s not Steffi. It’s my sister, Claudia, when she was Steffi’s age. You can see a difference in her mouth. Steffi has your mouth.”

“I don’t understand. How can they look so alike?”

“Because they’re related. Claudia is Steffi’s aunt”

“Her aunt? What are you saying, Gina?”

“I’m Steffi’s biological mother.…”

A Family Likeness, Margot Dalton’s sixteenth Superromance novel, is set in the Okanagan Valley, British Columbia, Canada, where the author has lived for the past seven years and been inspired by the spectacular beauty and natural wildness of her surroundings.

This bestselling author has also written seven books in Harlequin’s popular CRYSTAL CREEK series, two mainstream titles for MIRA Books, and has contributed to two anthologies.

www.millsandboon.co.uk

“NOW, LET’S SEE…it’s seven inches down to this little bunch of flowers, and four and a half inches up from the bottom…”

Gina made a pencil mark at one end of the strip of wallpaper stretched out on the floor, then crawled briskly over the hardwood, pencil clamped between her teeth, to make a corresponding mark farther down on the roll.

“Did I say four and a half inches?” she muttered, pausing to frown at the paper. “Or did I say four?”

“Who are you talking to?”

Gina glanced up at the doorway, then gestured toward the wall behind her. “Hi, Mary. Isn’t this pretty?”

Her housekeeper strolled into the room, wiping her hands on her apron, and looked at the strips of new wallpaper that partly framed an upholstered window seat.

“You were right,” she said in surprise. “I thought it was too yellow, but it looks really nice on the wall.”

“I knew it would. This paper is exactly what I wanted.”

“Listen to her,” Mary said indulgently. “The girl who always knows what she wants. You’re too young to be talking to yourself.”

Gina crawled back around to measure the strip again. “Four and a half inches,” she said. “I thought so.”

Mary dabbed with her dishcloth at a tiny soiled patch near the edge of the window seat. “I’ve got to find the time to clean all these before the summer rush,” she murmured.

“Now you’re doing it.” Gina held the ruler in place to make a pencil line, then started cutting.

“Doing what?”

“Talking to yourself.”

“I’m sixty years old,” Mary said placidly, smiling and looking out the window as a pair of white butterflies danced an aerial ballet near the lilacs. “I can talk to myself anytime I want.”

“Well, I’ll be thirty-six next week.”

Gina rolled the strip of wallpaper and plunged it into a narrow plastic trough. She stood erect, holding the dripping sheet of paper over the trough, and glanced at the other woman.

“You know, Mary,” she said, “there are times when I can hardly believe it.”

“What?” Mary sat down on the window seat, fingering the yellow chintz upholstery with a dreamy faraway look.

“That I’m almost thirty-six years old. Where have all the years gone? It seems like yesterday that I bought this place.”

“There’ve been a lot of yesterdays,” Mary said in her gentle voice. “And you’re right, they’re really flying by.”

“Well, I guess that means we’re having fun, right?” Gina said dryly. “Even though it doesn’t always feel like it.”

“You love this place,” Mary said.

Gina carried the wet length of paper across the room and climbed the ladder. She frowned in concentration as she fitted the strip into place, matching the pattern carefully. “You’re right,” she said. “This was the only thing I ever wanted to do with my life. But that doesn’t mean I don’t find it pretty frustrating sometimes.”

She took a sponge from the tray on the step-ladder and began to smooth the paper. Mary asked, “The only thing?”

“Beg pardon?” Gina was still wiping briskly at the damp paper.

“Gina, you’ve got a big wrinkle there on the edge, right under that yellow basket.”

Gina smoothed the wallpaper while Mary watched her with a thoughtful eye. “I just wondered,” the housekeeper went on, leaning back against the broad oak window frame, “whether that’s really true. I mean, that running this business is the only thing you ever wanted.”

“Of course it’s true. What else have I ever wanted to do?”

“That’s what I’m asking.”

Gina’s face shadowed and she turned away quickly. “If you mean a husband and babies, I’ve never wanted them. You and Roger are my family.”

Mary smiled. “Some family,” she said.

“It makes me happy.” Gina climbed down from the ladder to smooth the bottom of the wallpaper, then trimmed it above the wide baseboard. “Families come in all shapes and sizes, you know.”

“I know.” Mary got to her feet and headed for the door. “But you and me and Roger, we’re a mighty strange family by anyone’s standards.”

Still kneeling at the baseboard, Gina looked over her shoulder. “Speaking of Roger, don’t forget to tell him about that cracked toilet seat in the blue room, all right?”

Mary’s cheeks turned pink with distress. “You’ll have to tell him yourself,” she said. “I’m still not speaking to him.”