His Baby

“I know that,” Killian said. “And no one’s suggesting it.”

“Mom is.”

“Well, you’re her favorite. She’d—”

“No!” Campbell interrupted, grabbing his cup and lowering his foot to the floor in a gesture of impatience. “See! There it is again! That’s not true. I’m not her favorite.”

Killian raised an eyebrow. “There’s what?”

Campbell gestured toward him in clear exasperation. “That…that suggestion that Mom cares more about me because I’m her natural son. You act like I’m the one who’s always seeing differences between your half of the family and mine, but you’re the one—”

Killian concentrated on keeping his voice down as he interrupted. “There are not two halves of this family.”

“There are! You don’t want to acknowledge it because you consider yourself the benevolent ruler of all of us, but we’re not the same. You’re from the first line of Abbotts—the founders’ circle. Wealth, position, bloodline. I’m from the second wife, with none of the above. And when Mom tries to offer guidance to me, all she talks about is you!”

The volume in Killian’s voice grew harder to control. “Wealth, position and bloodline did a lot for Sawyer and me, didn’t they?” he demanded. “You got the mother who stayed!”

Campbell looked taken aback for a moment, then he said more quietly, “Well, cry me a river. You got her, too. She didn’t give birth to you, but you’re her favorite.”

Killian shook his head as the absurd words reverberated around them. “We sound like a couple of children. Isn’t the important thing that we’re all here?”

Campbell ran a hand over his face and sighed. “You would think so. But I feel as though I’ll never know who I am as long as I’m here. You’re brilliant in business, Sawyer lives life on the heroic edge and I’m just here—the farmer, the plodder.”

“Campbell…”

“You can deny it all you want, it’s still true.”

“You’re the best estate manager this place has ever had.”

“I’m the only one it’s ever had. You just gave me the job because you got too occupied with the business, and Sawyer has his hands full, what with running the foundation and trying to get himself killed.”

“It doesn’t matter how you became the estate manager. You are great at it.”

Campbell nodded, suddenly calmer. “That’s why I think my skills could be marketable elsewhere. If I’m ever going to feel like an Abbott in my own right, I have to do it away from here.”

“Away from where the Abbotts are?”

Campbell acknowledged with an exasperated nod that that might sound strange. “I know. My life doesn’t seem to make sense on any level. I’m just going with my gut.”

“Here’s something for that gut.” Sawyer walked into the room with three dessert plates of chocolate cake. Two were splayed in one hand with great dexterity and the third was in the other. He’d been a waiter at the Plucky Duck in town his senior year in high school and every summer in college. Killian remembered that Sawyer’s charm had earned him big tips that had helped support his weekend activities when their father had insisted the boys earn their own disposable income so they’d understand what real life was like.

Killian had always considered that the absence of one’s natural mother had been a serious dose of real life, but he’d understood his father’s point.

Campbell laughed as he reached up to accept his plate. “How do you rate?” he asked.

Sawyer handed Killian a plate, then went to sit at the opposite end of the sofa. “I came in through the kitchen. Kezia was just frosting the cake and I turned on my charm.”

“Nice of you to share with us.” Killian saluted him with his fork. “I remember a time when you’d have absconded with the whole thing and not even worried about us.”

“I would have now,” he admitted with a grin, “but Kezia said clearly, ‘Your brothers are in the library. Two of these are for them.’ I wouldn’t want to have to answer to her if I didn’t share. And I knew you’d blab if I didn’t.”

“Damn right,” Campbell said. “How was your trip?”

“Good. A bunch of nice ladies in New Hampshire trying to build a teen shelter with no money. They think if we help them put it up, they can find funding to run the operation.”

“Help them?” Killian asked.

“Give them the money,” Sawyer clarified.

“Can we do it?”

“With a little artful manipulation.”

“Legal manipulation?”

“Of course.” Sawyer replied with wide-eyed innocence, but Killian knew him to be good at that. He told you what you wanted to hear, then went off and did whatever he damn well pleased.

And usually got away with it. He had their mother’s straight blond hair, which he currently wore in a spiked style Killian was amazed to find appealed to women. It also stunned boards of directors, who expected to deal with a wild man and found themselves head to head with a savvy street fighter who did everything as though he had nothing to lose.

Sawyer had the same blue eyes Killian had inherited from their father, but his were set in a sophisticated face that didn’t look like a Mount Rushmore carving, the way Killian’s did.

His smile, too, charmed the ladies, and he had a sense of fun that was hard for anyone to resist. Until he inevitably found the threat in an undertaking and it grew too dangerous for his companions.

He found a way to use that to his advantage by volunteering his daredevil skills every year at the Children with Cancer fund-raiser. Everyone donated eagerly to see what Sawyer would do this year. In the past years, he’d sky-boarded, rappelled the Abbott Building and offered himself at a bachelor auction—less physically arduous but certainly as dangerous.

This year he was waterskiing. Killian wasn’t privy to the details, but the stunt didn’t sound as harrowing as his previous ones.

Everyone at Shepherd’s Knoll worried about him, Killian included—maybe even Killian particularly. They’d been partners in crime as children, support for each other when they couldn’t figure out why their mother didn’t like them, and they’d decided together to like Campbell when he was born, then to adore Abby.

But something had changed in Sawyer when Abby was taken. Killian was aware of the subtle difference, the slight pulling away, because he himself had been desperately trying not to change. Yet the small distance had happened and there’d been nothing he could do about it.

They’d grown to adulthood with a tight fraternal bond, though they’d gone on completely different roads.

“Good,” Killian said. “Because bailing out Campbell for brawling is one thing. Pleading your case before the Federal Trade Commission would be something else.”

Campbell laughed.

Sawyer glowered at his younger brother. “I thought you and I were allied when it came to standing against Killer’s stuffy big-brothering.”

“We are,” Campbell replied, spearing a large bite of cake. “Unless he’s really trashing you, then I kind of enjoy that.”

Sawyer sighed. “Tell me you got the job and you’re moving soon.”

Campbell shook his head while he chewed. “Sorry,” he said finally. “You’re going to be cursed with me for a little while yet. A few other candidates are under consideration and I’m sure there’ll be a second round of interviews.”

Sawyer pretended a long-suffering sigh. “I’ve been trying to get rid of you for thirty plus years. I guess I can wait a little longer.”

Campbell shrugged, forking another bite. “Sorry to make it hard for you, but Killer’s working against you.”