Tall, Dark_.Westmoreland! - Brenda Jackson [20]
But it didn’t bother her in the least that her brothers’ good deeds had somehow made people forget about her. Besides, she hadn’t lived in this country in four years, returning only on occasion to visit, mainly around the holidays.
She began mingling, introducing herself as Orin Jeffries’s daughter, and actually got a kick out of seeing first surprise and then acknowledgment on many faces. One such incident was taking place now.
“Why, Olivia, how good it is to see you again. It’s been a while since you’ve been back home. But I do remember you now. You must be extremely proud of your father and brothers.”
“Yes, I am, Mrs. Hancock, and how is Beau? I understand he’s doing extremely well. You must be proud of him.”
She watched the older woman’s eyes light up as she went into a spiel about her son. She was a proud mother. Olivia knew Beau from school. Unless he had changed over the years, Beau Hancock was an irrefutable jerk. He’d thought he was the gift to every girl at Collinshill High School.
She glanced down at her watch. She had ten minutes left before everyone would take their seats for lunch. She had called the Saxon Hotel on the off chance that someone from housekeeping had come across her diamond earring and turned it in. That hadn’t been the case. A part of her was disappointed that it had not been.
There was still one section of the room she needed to cover. Mrs. Hancock, in singing Beau’s praises, had taken up quite a bit of her time. Now she was again making her way through the crowds, speaking to everyone, as Norris had suggested.
“You’re doing a marvelous job working the room,” Senator Reed whispered. The older man had suddenly appeared by her side.
She forced a smile. For some reason, she’d never cared for him. “Thanks.”
She had already met several of the candidates since entering the room, but she had yet to meet the man who would be her father’s real competition, Reggie Westmoreland.
As she continued mingling and heading to the area where Reggie Westmoreland was supposedly rubbing elbows with the crowd, her curiosity about the man who opposed her father couldn’t help but be piqued. She started to ask Senator Reed about him but changed her mind. The senator’s opinion wouldn’t be the most valuable.
“You look nice, Olivia.”
She glanced up at the senator, who seemed determined to remain by her side. He was a few years older than her father, and for some reason, he had always made her feel uncomfortable.
“Thanks, Senator.” She refrained from saying that he also looked nice, which he did. Like her father, he was a good-looking man for his age, but Senator Reed always had an air of snobbery about him, like he was born with too low expectations of others.
“It was my suggestion that your father send for you.” When she stopped walking and glanced at him, with a raised brow, he added, “He was in a dilemma, and I thought bringing you home to be his escort was the perfect answer.”
She bit back a retort, that bringing her home had not been the perfect answer. Being in that dilemma might have prompted her dad to ask Cathy to attend some of those functions with him. No telling how things would have taken off from there if the senator hadn’t butted in.
She was about to open her mouth, to tell Senator Reed that her father was old enough to think for himself, when, all of a sudden, for no reason at all, she pulled in a quick breath. She glanced up ahead, and no more than four feet in front of her, there stood a man with his back to her.
The first thing she noticed about him was his height. He was taller then the men he was talking to. And there was something about his particular height, and the way his head tilted at an angle as he listened to what one of the men was saying, that held her spellbound.
He was dressed in a suit, and she could only admire how it fit him. The broadness of his shoulders and the tapering of his waist sent a feeling of familiarity through her. She stopped walking momentarily and composed herself, not understanding what was happening to her.
“Is anything