His Family

“Ah…yes. Would you ask her to phone her sister, please?” She gave him her cell-phone number, as well as the number there at Shepherd’s Knoll on the chance Janet had misplaced them.

“Yes, of course. As soon as she returns. Guaranteed to be a few days, at least.”

“Thank you.”

China groaned as she hung up the phone. She had a terrible feeling this was not going to happen quickly. She couldn’t imagine where Jasper’s Camp was, but if Janet had had to hire a guide to go there…

She tried to imagine her beautiful stockbroker sister going anywhere that required three days on foot, and grew worried. She also felt great pangs of guilt. Janet had no idea she was probably tracking down China’s roots, and that her own might very well be right here in Losthampton.

China prepared to go downstairs where she could hear the Abbotts talking over wine and popcorn, and tell them that she really wasn’t sure where Janet was but that she’d left a message.

More waiting. She hoped they would take it better than she was able to, as she wondered who her family were.

Chapter Two

“I do not see how you can make plans to leave forever when we may have found your sister after twenty-five years and I’ve been home just two weeks.” Chloe Abbott marched across her bedroom, the dark blue lace coat of a peignoir set billowing after her. She gave Campbell an injured, accusing look over her shoulder. “It’s thoughtless, inconsiderate and…and neither of your brothers would ever do that to me.”

Campbell, leaning against one of two decorative columns at the foot of her bed, let it all roll off him. Chloe had been trying to turn him into Killian or Sawyer his entire life, and he’d been resisting just as long.

“I presume you’re referring to China’s sister, Janet,” Campbell said as she made a selection out of her closet and tossed it on the bed. She paused to look up at him.

“I am,” she replied, then walked farther into the wardrobe where her shoes were. She could be in there for hours.

“China said she had to leave a message. Janet could be out of touch for days, maybe longer if she’s found someone who is part of her family or someone who knows them. I promised Flamingo Gables I’d be there in a week. I’m going to spend the next few days packing and taking care of things. If and when Janet turns up, I’ll get time off.”

Chloe emerged a little rumpled, a pair of white pumps in her hand, her expression still severe. “There will be other estate-management jobs.”

“I want this one,” he said patiently. “It’s a smaller house so there’s less staff to manage, but it has more grounds. They market citrus fruit and flowers and that’s a challenge I’d enjoy.”

She threw the shoes on the floor and marched over to face him, a full head shorter than he was. But he’d stood toe-to-toe with her enough times to respect her power and, reluctantly, her wisdom.

“Why must your whole life be all about finding more?”

He hated that she didn’t get this. “It’s not about finding more. It’s about finding something different.”

“Something that isn’t Abbott.” It clearly pained her to say the words.

He struggled to edit them correctly. “Something that hasn’t already been done better by Killian and Sawyer,” he said calmly. “I love them, I love you, I love this place, but I struggle every day to find myself in all this. Killian’s smarter, Sawyer’s braver, and I don’t resent them or need to compete with them, I just need to get out from behind them.”

“If they stand in front of you,” Chloe said, gesticulating so that the blue silk flew, “it is only to protect you. To help you.”

“I know that. But I no longer need protection or help. I have to do this.”

“And what about me?” she demanded, her expression changing, with a theatrical little sniff, from demanding matriarch to beleaguered victim. “I’m just an old woman trying to hold a volatile family together. And now there’s some problem with a customer and Killian may have to go back to England. Sophie wants to take Sawyer to Vermont….”

Campbell stifled a laugh, but withholding a smile over her performance was too much to ask. “Maman,” he said, taking hold of her shoulders, “you will never be old, and the rest of you Abbotts are so tightly knit nothing will ever drive you apart. You can wear that pout all you want, but you’ll never convince anyone, certainly not me, that you’re just a poor little widow woman.”

She punched him in the arm. “You would leave China at a time when she struggles to know who she is?”

He wondered if his mother had heard anything he’d said. “She doesn’t like me. When she finds Janet, they can exchange boxes, and she might—”

Chloe’s eyes darkened. “When she read the disappointing news,” she pointed out, “she ran into your arms.”

He remembered that moment. Had, in fact, thought about it much of the night and didn’t know what to make of it.

“I was nearby.”

“She ignored me and Cordie, who were right beside her, to get to you.”

That was true. She had. When he didn’t know what to say to that, his mother took advantage of his silence and went on, “Killian and Sawyer tell me that though the two of you quarreled all the time, you managed to work well together. Like true siblings.”

“Mom, the test just proved that we’re not brother and sister. And just as she has to find her identity, I have to find mine.”

“You know you’re an Abbott.”

“I know my name, Mother. I know my parents and the whole line of my ancestry back to Thomas and Abigail who came over on the Mayflower. What I don’t know is what I’m capable of. Someone’s always trying to protect me from it, or do it for me.”

“That isn’t true! You think you haven’t contributed to a project unless you’ve done it entirely on your own. You’re just like your grandfather Marceau, who tilled fifty acres in Provence all by himself for forty years and finally died of a heart attack.”

Campbell frowned at her. “But he did it for forty years.”

“Slowly. Had he been willing to pay a little help, he’d have had more time to spend with your grandmother, more time to spend with his children.”

“Perhaps he loved all of you very much, but felt compelled to work the soil.”

The blue silk flew up again as she expressed her exasperation. “Very well. I’m through trying to persuade you. You’ll do as you wish just as you’ve always done. But mark my words—the day will come when what you want will have to come second, and with no experience at putting yourself second, you might not know what to do and lose everything.”

“Everything?” His eyebrows rose.

“A woman. Love.”

“I have a lot to do before I get serious about a woman.”

She smiled at him and shook her head at the same time, negating whatever happy message had been in the smile. “In some ways, you are the most talented of my children. Killian is brilliant in business, and Sawyer can make money dance. But you know so much about so many things, and yet you know so little about yourself.”

“That’s why I’m going away,” he said emphatically, thrilled to finally be able to make his point.

She sighed and shook her head again, as though he was a particularly thickheaded child. “You don’t even know where to find yourself.”

That cryptic message delivered, she shooed him toward the door. “Go. Cordie and Sophie and I are going shopping for wedding dresses.” At the door, she caught his arm. “You will find time to come home for your brother’s wedding?”

He remembered Sophie saying something about Labor Day nuptials. “I will.”

“Good. If all goes well, Abigail will be home for it, too. Perhaps you can stay long enough to apologize for not letting her play with your dump truck.” She pushed him out into the hall and closed the door on him.

He let his forehead fall against it. This family was hopeless. They loved you with a loyalty that was ferocious, but if you didn’t adhere completely to the family line, you were badgered until you came “to your senses.”

He headed for the stairs, intending to grab something to eat in the kitchen and head for the orchard. Maybe the physical labor of apple-picking would help clear his head.