"She'd better be good enough for you," Adrienne declared militantly when Cal met her at SeaTac airport. "She is. You'll see." He felt that sensation of sharp pleasure he hadn't yet become accustomed to. Whenever he thought of Sam, of marriage, spending a life together, being a family with her, he couldn't believe it had taken Dorothy's illness and Kippy's need to make him realize this was his woman, the one he hadn't even known he'd been waiting for. Love must have been there all along, lying in wait for him. He'd been too blind, too taken up with computers and e-commerce and networks to realize how necessary Samantha Jones had become to him. He'd never been in love before. It wasn't that he didn't believe in it. He'd spent his childhood watching his parents, and there'd never been any doubt of their love for each other, but he'd never felt that kind of connection with a woman himself—until now. Samantha Moonbeam Jones. He wondered at the whimsy that had led her parents to gift her with such a name.
