Perfect Blend: A Novel (38 page)
“I’d say fantastic and thank you, but I’ll need some maternity leave.”
“Why?”
She laughed. “Because I’m pregnant.”
He couldn’t have been exactly delighted by the news, but to his credit, he didn’t let it show. “Okay, fine. Take all the time you need.”
“Roy, could you just hang on a minute?”
She put her hand over the phone and explained Hargreaves’s offer to Sam. He agreed with her that it sounded perfect.
Amy put the phone back to her ear. “Okay, it’s a deal.”
“It is? Good girl. You’ve done the right thing. I’ll get the contract sent out this week.”
“Perfect … and Roy, thanks again.”
“Don’t thank me, just come up with a few more stories like Crema Crema Crema.”
Amy and Sam linked arms as they continued back to the house. “Well done,” he said. “You dug in your heels and you got a result. Hargreaves is clearly desperate to get you.”
“Seems like it. Now all I need to do is come up with some decent story ideas.”
Back at the house, Sam opened the packet of kibble he had bought. Charlie let Fang eat off his hand and had hysterics because it tickled so much. Amy came over with a bowl of water. She placed it beside the puppy, who immediately started lapping at it. Then she sat down on the floor next to Charlie and Sam.
“So, have you got a baby in your tummy right now, this very minute?” Charlie asked.
“Actually, I have. And Sam is the baby’s daddy.”
Charlie became thoughtful. “I haven’t got a daddy.”
“Well, if it’s all right with you,” Sam said, “I could be your daddy as well as the baby’s. But only if you want me to.”
Charlie’s face became a grin. His head was nodding up and down. “I do.”
“And I need you to know,” Amy said to Charlie, “that I love you very, very much and you will always be my special big boy. Nothing is ever going to change that.” She pulled him onto her lap and kissed him.
“K,” he said, wriggling off so that he could get back to Fang. “Can we go and see the pigs and the sheep later?”
Amy said they could so long as it was all right with Colin.
“Right,” she said. “If there are no other matters arising, I shall make some tea and then we should think about lunch.”
As she stood waiting for the kettle to boil, she became aware that she was tapping out a rhythm on the worktop and humming.
Sam came over, picked up the beat, and joined in the tune.
“What
is
the name of that song?” Amy said. “I know it’s one of those ‘Lady in Red,’ ‘You Are the Sunshine of My Life’ über-cheesy numbers.”
She carried on humming.
“It’s not ‘I Just Called to Say I Love You,’ is it?”
Sam was laughing. “Nope, way more cheesy than that.”
“What is it, then? Please put me out of my misery.”
“It’s ‘We Are Family.’”
With that, he pulled her gently toward him and kissed her.
“Urgh. Kissing. Yuck,” Charlie cried, burying his face in Fang.
S
UE
M
ARGOLIS
was a radio reporter for fifteen years before turning to novel writing. She has also written
Forget Me Knot, Gucci Gucci Coo, Original Cyn, Breakfast at Stephanie’s, Apocalipstick, Spin Cycle
, and
Neurotica
. She lives in England.
Perfect Blend
is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
A Bantam Books Trade Paperback Original
Copyright © 2010 by Sue Margolis
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Bantam Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
B
ANTAM
B
OOKS
and the rooster colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Margolis, Sue.
Perfect blend : a novel / Sue Margolis.
p. cm.
eISBN: 978-0-553-90779-7
1. Single-mothers—Fiction. I. Title.
PR6063.A635P47 2010
823′.914—dc22 2010008288
v3.0