His Family

Campbell watched her serious expression, waiting for it to crack. So far, through the “deuces double the value of tens” rule, the “highest score gets a fifty-point penalty” rule, and the “first one to get a royal flush wins” rule, it was flawless. “I’ve never heard of millionaire rummy before tonight,” he said.

“Me, neither,” his brothers chorused.

China gazed at each of them in innocent disbelief, her eyes landing barely a second on him. “And each of you a millionaire. Go figure.”

“Queens Are Wild is our stage name,” Sophie said, as she stood up to reach the coffee carafe in the middle of the table and began topping up everyone’s cup.

“Stage name?” Sawyer gaped.

She nodded. “We’re going on the road as a song-and-dance team.”

Killian said to Cordie with exaggerated gentleness, “Sweetheart, you can’t sing.”

She shrugged that off as she held out her cup. “Our dancing will cover that. Show a little leg and the crowd will go wild. No one will hear our sour notes over the cheering.”

Sawyer turned to Killian, his expression half amused, half worried. He turned back to the women. “What happened out there today?”

“Don’t you see it?” Killian asked, taking a sip from his cup. “They went dress shopping and discovered they have chemistry. They’re intending to take over the world with it, starting with a simple card game.”

“Ah. Well, that’ll have to wait until Sophie and I return from Vermont, and Killian and Cordie are finished in London. Unless China chooses to strike out on her own, just to warm up your potential audience.”

“Oh, I don’t think so.” Sophie sounded discouraged. “She’s convinced that talent is all-important. And as she keeps reminding us, she’s not a sister.”

“But neither are you and Cordie.”

“We’re sisters-in-law. Or will be. Close enough.”

“Well, there you go.” Killian took Campbell’s cup and held it up for Cordie to refill. “You have to marry China to save their musical careers. Then she’ll be a sister, and she can still perform while Cordie and Sophie are away.”

“And that helps you and Sawyer and me how?” Campbell asked.

Killian handed back his cup. “They become stars, support us in the manner to which we are accustomed, and the three of us kick back and…I don’t know, race Brian’s boats, or Sawyer can teach us to do stunts on motorcycles. We can have fun for a change.”

Killian had spun out the whole scenario simply to carry on the joke, but Campbell thought it was interesting to hear his workaholic brother talk about having fun. His refusal to allow himself to enjoy anything—a legacy of the guilt all the brothers shared over Abby’s kidnapping—had been part of the reason for his initial breakup with Cordie. Their reconciliation and the pending arrival of their babies had helped him loosen up, lighten up.

China, on the other hand, had pushed back her chair, taken the empty cookie plate into the kitchen and returned with it full again. She reached over Sawyer to put it in the middle of the table.

“Thanks, China.” Sawyer patted her hand. “I think she’d make a great sister-in-law,” he said, glancing at the other two women. “It didn’t occur to either of you to refill the cookie plate.”

“If she married me,” Campbell teased, watching her face for a change of expression, “she’d be moving with me to Flamingo Gables, and that wouldn’t help your quest for cookies, anyway. Or the whole sister-act plan. She’d be a thousand miles away.”

“If I married you,” China corrected, no betrayal of discomfort in her eyes, though there was a little color in her cheeks, “you’d be coming with me to Canada’s far north to find my family.”

For one quick moment, unconnected with the here and now, he speculated on what it would be like to follow her to the Canadian north. He got a mental image of moose and bear, pine trees, snow-covered hills and a snug log cabin with a fire going inside. There was furniture upholstered in plaid wool, a big bed covered with a thick quilt—and the two of them in it. Her search wasn’t going well and she was crying just as she had the night she’d opened the report from the lab. But now she was naked in his arms, pressed to him for comfort, arms wrapped around him. He could feel the soft inside of her leg hitched over his thigh, her pearled breasts against his chest. The image was very real and it shook him to the bone.

“Campbell? Cam!” Killian’s voice.

Campbell came back to the moment to find everyone around the table watching him in concern. Had he said something? he wondered. Groaned? He looked across the table at China and saw that she was as perplexed as the rest of them. Odd, considering how real those images had been, that she didn’t remember inhabiting them.

“Yeah?” he asked.

“I said that I spoke to Brian about checking in at the house every couple of days while we’re all away,” Killian repeated patiently. “And being available to Winfield if he needs him.”

“Why would your butler-cum-security-force need Brian?” Sophie asked.

“Sometimes when he’s worried about Mom’s safety and does or doesn’t want her to do something, he needs support from one of us to get her cooperation.”

“And you’ll all be available to come right back,” China asked, “if Janet suddenly calls?”

Killian nodded. “We’re just an overnight flight away.”

“And we’ll be close enough to drive home in a few hours,” Sawyer said.

“What about you, Campbell?” China challenged with a smile. Mentally, he had to put clothes back on her. The tips of her breasts were driving him crazy. “How are you going to get away when you’ll be so new on the job?”

He pushed away from the table, returning her polite smile. “My employer’s prepared. I explained when I accepted the job that there was a family complication. Of course, at the time I thought it was you.”

As the words left his mouth, he realized that he’d called her a complication. His hope that no one had noticed was dashed when Killian gave him a raised eyebrow. China, however, took it with a lift of her chin and a go-to-hell glance. “I always thought you were the complicated one,” she said.

He stood and pushed his chair in. “If you’ll all excuse me, I’ve got to pay some bills tonight so the household accounts are all caught up when I leave. And don’t forget tomorrow night.”

Sawyer’s brow furrowed. “Tomorrow night?”

Killian groaned. “Sorry, Cam. I forgot to tell him. And I’m supposed to be the smart one.”

Campbell snorted and addressed Sawyer. “I’m taking you, Killian, Brian and Daniel to dinner at Fulio’s while the ladies are at Cordie’s baby shower.”

Sawyer put a hand to his heart in a dramatic portrayal of an attack. “What? You mean you’re choosing to be with us? Even treating us?”

“Only because I won’t have to see you for some time afterward. Six o’clock. Be ready.”

“Ah…wait. I’m happy to have Daniel with us, but I thought he was driving the girls to the shower. I’m not wild about the idea of them trying to get around in the city.”

“I’m driving,” China said. “I fight the freeways in L.A. I assure you we’ll be safe.”

“But you know L.A.,” Sawyer argued. “You don’t know New York.”

“The shower’s not in the city,” Cordie put in. “It’s in Westbury on the west end of the island. And I’ll be navigating.”

“Oh, God!” Killian exclaimed. “They’ll be in Nebraska by morning. We need a plan B.”

Cordie walked around the table to pummel him. Laughing, he pulled her into his lap. “All right, all right,” he said, holding her fists in one hand. “I’m just remembering the time you were supposed to navigate us to the Dawsons’ open house and we ended up in a creek.”

“We’ll let China use the tractor,” Campbell proposed with a straight face. “She drives it quite well, and can mow down anything in her path.”

“Does it have global positioning?” Sawyer asked.

Campbell excused himself again and left the room, the laughter still going on. The coziness was beginning to get to him. Life with his brothers had been one thing when Killian had been a workaholic and Sawyer had been determined to kill himself. He’d been able to hold his practical, no-nonsense approach to life up against their baggage and feel somewhat superior.