His Wedding
Muriel Jensen
Losthampton Heiress Found!Kidnapped as a toddler twenty-five years ago, Janet Abbott is finally back where she belongs, and just in time to see her two long-lost brothers get married. The whole clan welcomes her with open arms–except for the person whose arms she'd most like to be in, that is.Brian Girard, the "illegitimate Abbott," wants to avoid the festivities like the plague, afraid the press will dredge up old scandals, embarrass the family and make him look like a gold digger–or worse. But Janet's an Abbott in every sense of the word and doesn't like to lose.Which explains why persuading him to join the wedding party is the first step in her grand plan to get the last "legitimate" Abbott–Janet herself–to the altar, as well!The Abbots
“You’re flirting with me,” Brian said
Janet didn’t know whether to be pleased or angry. She started to speak, then drew back and collected her thoughts. She put her food down and firmed her chin.
He prepared himself for her reaction.
“Okay, you want to be straight with each other?”
Not necessarily. He just wanted her to understand—
“I’m attracted to you,” she said, interrupting his conversation with himself. “You’re kind, smart, funny and comfortingly sane…when you’re not being weird about embarrassing the family.”
“But you’re a poor judge of character, remember?” he said brutally. “You were left at the altar—”
“Would you do that to me?” she asked ingenuously.
“No, I wouldn’t, because you’d never get me anywhere near an altar.”
She took another clam and studied it, then looked up at him.
“Are you a betting man?”
Dear Reader,
With this fourth book in THE ABBOTTS series, the family has become very real to me. I’ve explored their minds and hearts and know them as well as I know my own family. I fully expect to round a corner in Astoria and bump into the whole crowd, vacationing here for the Lewis and Clark Bicentennial.
While they’re here, I’d love to be in Losthampton, sunning on the deck at Shepherd’s Knoll, or having coffee on the porch at Brian’s General Store and Boat Rental. Join me there one last time to witness the solution to the mystery of Abby’s kidnapping, and to be on hand as Brian discovers love at last.
Best wishes,
Muriel
P.O. Box 1168
Astoria, Oregon 97103
THE ABBOTTS
His Wedding
Muriel Jensen
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
To the gang at Jarvis, Redwine and Chaloux:
Steven, Mark, Alice, Toni, Trish and Walt.
Thank you for the pleasure of your company.
Work shouldn’t be this much fun.
Books by Muriel Jensen
HARLEQUIN AMERICAN ROMANCE
866—FATHER FOUND
882—DADDY TO BE DETERMINED
953—JACKPOT BABY* (#litres_trial_promo)
965—THAT SUMMER IN MAINE
1020—HIS BABY** (#litres_trial_promo)
1030—HIS WIFE** (#litres_trial_promo)
1066—HIS FAMILY** (#litres_trial_promo)
Contents
Chapter One (#u04363928-7b23-5017-8832-38e0ae94d0b5)
Chapter Two (#u29d0f6e1-5166-56ef-bff2-1d0df948a537)
Chapter Three (#u0d716b04-e70a-572f-8aae-09b29fafd989)
Chapter Four (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter One
“He’ll listen to you. You’re the one who should talk Brian into being Campbell’s best man,” Killian cajoled.
Janet Grant Abbott was sitting across from her brother Killian at the breakfast table on the deck off their family mansion, the August-morning breeze fluttering the linen tablecloth. Their brothers, Sawyer and Campbell, sat at opposite ends. All the women in the house were sleeping in after a family party celebrating Janet’s permanent move to Losthampton had continued to the wee hours. Janet, though, had just rediscovered her brothers after a lifetime apart from them and was still fascinated that they had one another. She’d heard them talk last night about having breakfast together and had gotten up to join them.
As the eldest Abbott son, Killian was CEO of Abbott Mills, a conglomerate of corporations encompassing the production, manufacture and sale of their and other designs. He’d also acquired several unrelated holdings in an experimental foray into other areas.
Janet looked from one brother to another in confusion. “Why should Brian have to be talked into it? He’s our brother…sort of.”
Campbell, the youngest of the three men, shook his head. “I like to think of him that way, but technically, he’s not. He’s their half brother,” he said, pointing to Killian and Sawyer, “but no real relation to you and me.”
There was a visible difference in the coloring of the Abbott progeny. Killian and Sawyer were fair haired and blue eyed, an inheritance from their mother’s Scottish heritage. Campbell and Janet had their French mother’s dark hair and eyes. Otherwise, they had emotional characteristics in common, and a stubbornness that marked all four.
“Well, sure. Technically,” she allowed. “But I’ve noticed that doesn’t seem to matter around here. And he’s your good friend, anyway. That should…”
Campbell was already shaking his head. He was responsible for managing the estate and the apple orchard, and was as quarrelsome as he could be charming. “I asked him while you and China were in L.A., and he made some excuse about this being the busiest time at the store and he had to be there because he was getting estimates to add on a coffee shop, or something. But I don’t think that’s really it.”
Sawyer pushed away his empty plate. “We’ve invited him into the family, but apparently, he prefers to stay carefully on the fringe. Maybe he’s afraid of intruding.” Sawyer headed the Abbott Mills Foundation, the philanthropic arm of the family’s many holdings. He was a daredevil by nature and conducted every phase of his life like an extreme sport. At thirty-five, he was four years older than Campbell and two years younger than Killian.
Janet had come to adore her brothers in the five weeks since she’d rediscovered them, but she did not want to have to talk Brian Girard into anything. She found him interesting and attractive, but he seemed to have little use for her. It was embarrassing.
They saw each other at family get-togethers, and while she managed to be polite, there was always a certain testiness to his behavior that had started the day she’d first arrived at Shepherd’s Knoll, looking for China. She had accidentally run him over with a Vespa, though she’d apologized for that.
“Why can’t Mom talk to him?” she’d asked with a pleading look around the table. “She and Brian are crazy about each other.”
“She stays out of disagreements among her children.” Killian smilingly shot down that suggestion. “If he really were her son, maybe she could bully him into doing it. But she can’t. It’s up to you, Janby. We’re counting on you to make him change his mind.”
He would have to call her Janby. It was what the family had created out of Janet, the name her adopted family had given her, and Abby, the name given her at birth. For the first few days after the DNA test had proven she was the Abbotts’ daughter, kidnapped from her bedroom at fourteen months, everyone had stumbled over her name. She’d arrived as Janet Grant, but she’d become Abigail Abbott. The composite name charmed her.
“He likes to talk to you,” Sawyer added.
“No, he doesn’t,” she denied. “It only seems that way to you because you can’t hear what we’re talking about. Usually, we’re disagreeing about something, or he’s pointing out my mistakes. He doesn’t like me.”
And that was the real source of their antagonism—at least, on her part. She liked Brian, had been attracted to him from the first time she’d seen him. Unfortunately, that was after she’d run him over with the Vespa.
She’d hoped that had been the cause of his antagonism and that he’d get over it. But they’d been in each other’s company half-a-dozen times since then, at one family function or another, and he showed absolutely no interest in her except to take the opposite position on whatever she talked about, or to illustrate how wrong she was about everything whenever he could.
“That’s ridiculous,” Campbell said, disputing her. “Everyone likes you.”
“Come on,” Killian coaxed. “Cordie and I are standing up for Sawyer and Sophie. If you and Brian are witnesses for Campbell and China, it’ll be the perfect family thing. And though Mom’s staying out of it, we know she’d love it, too. Help us do this.”
Even Janet knew she was defeated. Killian, Sawyer and Campbell were the world’s most perfect brothers. They’d welcomed her home, done everything they could to make her comfortable, protected her from the press, explained to her with the clinical detachment of people accustomed to wealth that Killian had opened various bank accounts in her name—checking, savings, a healthy IRA, a trust fund, all of which amounted to a sum so staggering to the simple woman she’d been so far that she’d been unable to speak. And their father had put a block of Abbott Mills stock in her name when she was born, as he’d done for each of her brothers. Killian had added to it over the years as he’d added to their own—in faith that she’d be returned to them one day.
And here she was. She loved them for their faith, not their wealth, and she didn’t see that she could deny them anything.
“Fine,” she said, afraid she might fail but determined to try. “I’ll see what I can do.”
She made her way to the estate’s vast garage and climbed astride the Vespa, determined to get Brian into a tuxedo for the wedding—whatever it took. As she sped down the lane and up the road that bordered the orchard, leaving the fanciful yellow Victorian mansion behind, the air was sweet with the promise of apples and tangy with the ever-present bite of the salty ocean that encompassed Long Island, New York, on this late-summer morning.
The sun warm on her back, she turned onto the road that led to Brian’s General Store and Boat Rental, knowing he’d be open, since it was almost nine o’clock. She enjoyed the smooth ride, going over in her mind various ways to approach Brian about taking part in the wedding.
She considered making an effort to charm him, but she usually did that and he failed to notice.
She could attempt to approach him with subtlety, but he was a very direct man and probably wouldn’t even get the point.
Heaping guilt on him seemed like her only option when she caught sight of a battered blue Trans Am turning off a side road and falling in line behind her. She recognized the car immediately. Souped-up and poorly kept, it belonged to Buzz Merriman, reporter-photographer for the Meteor, a tabloid determined to make something unsavory out of her return to Losthampton.
Killian had explained to her that the Abbott policy toward the press was to treat them respectfully without revealing family secrets. He insisted the reporters were just doing their jobs and could be useful to the foundation’s efforts if the family had their goodwill.
That might work with the reporter from the Lost-hampton Leader, with the one who’d been sent from the New York Mirror and the many radio and television reporters who’d been following her since she’d first come to Shepherd’s Knoll five weeks ago. But she was sure that didn’t hold for Merriman. For one thing, he had no goodwill to cultivate. His stories on Janet always focused on where she’d been and what she’d done in the least flattering way possible rather than on the facts behind her restoration to the family.
His last piece suggested that she and China, though raised by an adoptive family as sisters, would now be at odds because Janet had been discovered to be little Abigail returned when everyone had first thought China was the long-missing heiress. China’s engagement to Campbell, the reporter wrote, was a creative way for China to get the Abbott name.
Janet might have forgiven him for hurting her, but causing her sister pain was unpardonable.
If the Vespa had been any match for the Trans Am, she’d have done a quick turn and taken Merriman on in a game of chicken then and there, but she saw evasion as the wiser move.
She sped down another side road, knowing that the narrow strip ended at the high bank of sand at the back of a waterfront inn, and was pleased to see him follow. Just before the expanse of beach, she took a left through a thin grove of trees. The Vespa swerved in and out of the spindly trunks as she heard the Trans Am’s brakes screechingly applied.
She chanced a glance over her shoulder just to see the car rock from the force of Merriman’s abrupt stop. She enjoyed her success a moment too long, though, and turned back in time to get a pine bough in the face, a pine cone down her shirt and a vicious bump to her backside as she rode over the exposed roots of several trees.
She braked breathlessly at the edge of the grove, the back of Brian’s shop visible just ahead of her. It was a beautiful scene, with the rustic little shop in the foreground, a pier jutting out into the water, all his small rental boats tied to it.
But she wasn’t in the mood to enjoy it. This was a fool’s errand and she was arriving to fulfill it in a bad mood from evading Buzz and taking a beating on her ride through the woods.
She caught sight of Brian, tall and loose limbed, striding along the pier, his blond hair catching the sun. There was a natural arrogance in his bearing that was both appealing and annoying. She just didn’t understand him.
She decided that if charm and subtlety were out in dealing with him, attitude would have to do.
BRIAN SAT on the top step on the porch at the front of his shop, drinking a cup of coffee while reading the Losthampton Leader. He growled to himself over the front-page article about Janet’s move to Losthampton.
Long-lost Heiress Home Again, the caption read under a photo of Janet that must have been taken on her return from Los Angeles two days ago, after she and China had gone back to close up their apartments and make the permanent move to Shepherd’s Knoll.
From the small plane visible some distance behind her, the setting was obviously the airport. Her hair was short and fluffy, her bright eyes squinting against the sun. Her face claimed most of the frame; China was relegated to one small corner of the shot.
At a glance, she looked like any other young woman on a casual afternoon. It was the second look that made the reader realize she was someone special. Then her good breeding showed in the tilt of her head and the set of her shoulders. The wit and intellect in her eyes exalted a simple prettiness to fascinating beauty, and the strength in the line of her mouth made one want to root for her without even knowing if she needed support.
The article revealed all the known details of her kidnap, the family’s position in the world of business, her brothers’ accomplishments, then her own history as a successful stockbroker. She was quoted as saying she hadn’t known where her interest in business and the stockmarket had come from in a family of cheerful, middle-class Americans who never had anything to invest, until she discovered she was an Abbott.
He read with interest one of her friends’ remarks about Janet’s broken engagement three years earlier to a minor-league rock star, a month before the wedding.
It went on to reveal that her adopted sister had come to Losthampton—thinking she might be the missing Abigail, but that a DNA test had proved she wasn’t. And that had brought Janet onto the scene.
He was just about to give the reporter credit for a job not too badly done, when he got to the part about himself:
“Brian Girard, the illegitimate son of Susannah Stewart Abbott, Nathan Abbott’s first wife and mother of the two oldest Abbott sons, and Corbin Girard, the Abbotts’ neighbor and longtime business rival, has been welcomed into the bosom of the family.” It continued in praise of the family’s generosity, considering that Corbin Girard was responsible for setting a fire to their home and vandalizing Brian’s business. It explained in detail that Brian had been legally disowned for defecting to the Abbott camp by giving them information that stopped them from making a business deal they would have regretted. He had no idea how they’d gotten that information, unless one of the family had told them.
Brian threw the paper into the trash and strode, coffee cup in hand, down his dock. The two dozen boats he’d worked so hard to repair and refresh bobbed at the ends of their lines, a testament to his determination to start over at something he enjoyed.
The repainted and refinished shop was stocked with the old standbys people came in for day after day, as well as a few new gourmet products, a line of sophisticated souvenirs, and shirts and hats with his logo on them—a rowboat with a grocery bag in the bow, visible proof of his spirit to survive in the face of his father’s continued hatred.
He could fight all the roadblocks in his path, he thought, looking out at the sun rising to embroider the water with light, but how could he fight the truth? No matter what he did, he would always be the son of a woman who’d thrown away her husband and her two other sons like outdated material, and of a man who’d rejected him since the day he was born and who had no concept of purpose but to make more money than the next man and prevent him from catching up by whatever means it took.
The sorry fact was that Brian couldn’t fight it. He could do his best to be honest and honorable, but that would never inspire a newspaper article. Every time his name came up, it would be as the son of his reprehensible parents.
He didn’t know what to do about it.
“You’re an idiot,” he told himself firmly, “if you allow yourself to be hurt by what you can’t change and by what you had no control over in the first place.”
Right. He got that part. But what about all the other people connected to him—like the Abbotts—who would have to hear or listen to the old scandal dragged up again as the true meat of the story whenever they did something newsworthy?
He’d been giving that a lot of thought and hoping for a solution other than the obvious: move out of their light. He was a smart man; it would come to him.
Meanwhile, the brief lull between his early-rising customers and the late-stirring sack rats would be over soon and he had things to do. As he walked along the dock, checking his little fleet, he noticed a loose knot on the line securing a square-stern canoe. He’d just gotten down to tighten it when a movement to his left made him turn. Janet was standing nearby, in a white shirt knotted at her waist and white shorts. She smelled of something floral that permeated even the smell of salt water and diesel. She was slightly disheveled, and that seemed at odds with the royal bearing of her squared shoulders.
He caught a glimpse of tanned and shapely limbs before he concentrated on making sure the line was fast.
“Good morning,” he said.
“Hi,” she replied in a purposeful tone. “Do you have a few minutes to talk?”
Finally certain the line was secure, he straightened and saw uncharacteristic confusion in her eyes, backed by a small spark of anger.
“Yes, I do.” He put his hands in the pockets of his khaki shorts, wondering what was going on. “What do you want to talk about?”
She studied him a moment, as though reluctant to bring up whatever she’d come to discuss. Then she made an impatient gesture with one hand that widened the space between the bottom of her shirt and the top of her shorts, distracting him again.
“My sister’s wedding,” she finally blurted.
Oh, no. She was an emissary from Campbell. Or China. He refocused on her face.
“You’re here to talk me into being best man,” he guessed, starting back toward the shop.
She fell into step beside him. “Yes. I know your decision is none of my business, but Campbell and China are very disappointed, and that is my concern. You have to reconsider.”
“Campbell has dozens of friends.”
“He wants you.”
Yeah. Brian liked him, too, but here was that ugly truth again that would only darken an otherwise beautiful day.
“Did you see yourself in the paper this morning?” he asked, taking her arm to steer her around a forgotten bait bucket as she watched a seagull soar overhead.
“Thank you. No. Why? What did it say?” She gently disengaged her arm and said grimly, “I doubt the readership finds me as interesting as all those overeager reporters think I am.”
Brian took issue with that. “I’m sure the locals find you very interesting. Many of them remember when you were kidnapped, and they grieved with your family. Everyone around here loves the Abbotts. And here you are, back in their lives, beautiful and smart. They consider it’s good justice that you’re home again.”
“Good justice,” she repeated. They’d reached the store and she stopped to lean an arm on the newel post. “I do know I’m very lucky. But that’s not the same as being special. I’m thrilled to be home among such wonderful people, but I hate this living-in-a-fishbowl stuff. That tabloid reporter from the Meteor even followed me here this morning! I’m sure the front page of the next issue will have a photo of the back of me on the Vespa, with the headline Heiress Runs Away.”
Brian couldn’t imagine what would be bad about a photo of the back of her—whatever the headline. His guess was that her good looks and lively personality were going to keep her in the public eye for a long time.
“So…I’m sorry, I got distracted by my dislike of press coverage,” she said. “Did you have a point to make about the article?”
“Yes.” He leaned an elbow on the opposite post. “It talked about your broken engagement a month before your wedding, and I was mentioned in the ending paragraphs. Happy news always seems to require dredging up every bad moment in the past.”
“True.” She shrugged philosophically. She wasn’t getting the point.
“Well, the press will surely give the Abbotts’ double wedding front-page coverage. All that happy news. “‘The grooms were handsome,’” he pretended to quote, “‘the brides were radiant, the mother-of-the-grooms was so happy to have her daughter back serving as her brother and adopted sister’s maid of honor,’ yada yada. If I’m best man, it’ll end with ‘Brian Girard, best man, is the son of the first Mrs. Abbott, who ran off with the chauffeur after being impregnated by the neighbor and Nathan Abbott’s arch ene—’”
“I know, I know.” She nodded to cut him off.
“Then you can see why I don’t want to do that to them.”
“Forgive me,” she said, “but I can’t. That’ll probably end the story whether you’re at the wedding or not. And your refusal to be with them hurts them far more than any old sticks-and-stones reporting ever would.”
“Easy for you to say,” he argued. “It’s not your wedding.”
That accusation seemed to inflate her bad mood. “It’s my sister’s wedding. And it’s as important to me as mine would be. You said they brought up my broken engagement and the very newsworthy way it happened. Well, you don’t see me going into a decline over it.”
“Whoa!” He got a little indignant himself. “I’d hardly describe my reaction as a decline. And you’ve been cranky since you got here, over the photographer who followed you. So don’t go casting aspersions on me. My reasons for wanting to stay away are in consideration of the Abbotts!”
“Well, they want you there,” she said, then started off toward the Vespa she’d run him over with when she’d first arrived in Losthampton. It leaned against the No Vehicles Allowed sign. She stopped to turn to him and add, “At this point, I have little purpose at Shepherd’s Knoll but to try to contribute to the well-being of my family, who suffered so much while I was gone. And considering the way they’ve welcomed you into the bosom of the family, I’d think you’d feel the same. So I’m going to tell them you’ve changed your mind, and that you’ll be happy to be best man.” With a toss of her head, she strode off toward the bike.
He hurried to intercept her. “You may be able to order people around in L.A., Miss Grant Abbott, but this is my place. You don’t dictate what happens here.”
“We’re talking about my only sister’s wedding,” she retorted, yanking back out of his reach. “And you’re not going to…aagh!”
Whatever he was not going to do was drowned in salt water when she fell backward into the inlet.
Chapter Two
Her and her big mouth. The shriek Janet had been in the middle of when she felt herself falling had caused her to swallow water. As she sank into the cold Atlantic, she felt as though she’d also ingested one of the small boats—or at least, an oar.
The moment she got over the shock of her fall, she struggled upward, choking. She collided with the bottom of a boat and pulled herself around it, spotting sunlight. The light disappeared when the next boat bobbed against the first one. She groped her way back as she spotted sunlight in that direction. Her lungs were bursting as the shaft of sunlight disappeared again when the first boat now swung the other way.
Resisting panic, she followed it to its stern, but it drifted out with her to the end of its line.
Panic fought back. Had all this turmoil in her life, all this discovery, been intended simply to bring her to this point where she would…die?
It didn’t seem possible, and yet here she was, unable to find the surface, unable to—
Something grabbed the back of her shirt and she was thrust upward until her head and shoulders cleared the surface. She gasped for air, choking painfully, spewing water.
A hand swiped her clinging hair out of her face. “Janet? Are you all right?” Brian asked.
She tried to open her eyes, but all she could do was cough.
Brian swam a small distance, his arm hooked around her middle, taking her with him. Then he put one of her hands on something solid, his legs tucked under her like the seat of a chair to keep her in place.
“You have a hold of the ladder,” he said, placing her other hand beside the first. Just two rungs and you’ll be sitting on the pier. Come on. Up.”
She couldn’t coordinate the movement, then his hand, under her backside, pushed her up. Her feet found an underwater rung and she propelled herself over the top. She was on her hands and knees and beginning to drag in air.
Brian swung up beside her, putting a hand to her back as he squatted to look into her face. “Janet?”
“Yes.” She was embarrassed, but somehow her annoyance with him had fled. Nothing like immersion in cold water to stabilize a mood. “Yes, I’m still Janet. Did you think I couldn’t come up because I was having my name changed?”
He barked a laugh. “Your sense of humor has survived.” Then he lifted her up into his arms. “I’ve got a shower in the back of the shop.”
She held on to his neck as he strode up the steps. “I couldn’t find my way between the boats,” she said, unable to believe that had been so difficult. “Every time I went for the sunlight, the boats bumped together again.”
“My fault,” he replied, walking through the shop and into a small area in the rear. “I was pushing them apart, looking for you from the pier, so when your opening disappeared, it was probably me, shoving from the other side.”
“Nice guy.”
“What do you want from the son of Susannah Abbott and Corbin Gir—”
She put a hand over his mouth. “If you bring that up again,” she threatened, “I’ll have to bite your ear.” Her position in his arms made his ear an easy target.
He stopped in front of a half-open door. She glimpsed a shower stall and a medicine cabinet, but what really caught her attention were the lively depths of Brian’s blue eyes a mere inch from hers. Usually, they were so steady on her that they made her feel defensive. But today they made her feel…odd?
“And that would discourage me?” he asked with a half smile.
Her mouth fell open. Was he more interested in her than it appeared?
Before she could analyze that, he set her on her feet in the doorway and pointed to a small wicker rack of towels. “There’re soap and shampoo in the shower.”
“And…you can dry my clothes?”
“No, but I can give you something to change into. I’ve got matching T-shirts and shorts with the store name on them. Pink, green or yellow?”
“Yellow.”
He studied her. “Small? Medium?”
She folded her arms to hide a little shudder of that same sensation. “Medium.”
“I’ll leave them on the doorknob.”
“Thank you.”
She stepped into the bathroom, locked the door behind her and took the first good breath she’d had since he’d looked into her eyes and suggested that he wouldn’t mind if she bit his ear.
The bathroom was small and utilitarian, all in white tile with the same checkered curtains the shop windows sported.
She peeled off her wet things and climbed into the cubicle. The showerhead was powerful, with a pulsing adjustment that went a long way toward relaxing the tense muscles in her neck and back.
He had shampoo but no conditioner. And no blow-dryer. Her hair would dry flat, but at least it would be clean.
She stepped out of the shower, wrapped a towel around her head and opened the door just enough to see if he’d placed the shorts and T-shirt on the doorknob. He had.
She grabbed them and locked the door again. She noticed in pleased surprise that he’d thought to include a three-pack of panties and a sports bra. Remarkably, everything fit. The shorts were a classic boy cut, with his logo on a hip pocket. The T-shirt had the logo across the chest.
She was staring in the mirror at her alarmingly natural face, free of makeup, and her wet hair, into which she’d tried to fluff a little volume, when there was a knock on the door.
She opened it.
Brian stood there, a pair of floral flip-flops in one hand and simple white tennies in the other. He held them up for her to make a decision.
“Ah. Perfect.” She chose the tennies.
“Come out when you’re ready,” he said. “I’ve poured you a cup of coffee.”
She had already slipped on the shoes and took only a moment to fluff her hair again, then concluded any effort to look fashionable was hopeless.
She found Brian tearing at a package of oatmeal cookies. He’d pulled open the curtain between the front and the back of the store, probably so that he could watch for customers.
A battered coffee table next to an old red sofa held two diner-style mugs of coffee and an empty plate. He dumped the open pack of cookies unceremoniously onto the plate.
“Good thing about owning a general store,” he said, gesturing her to sit down. “You can entertain at a moment’s notice.”
She sank onto a sofa cushion. “And provide clothing for people who fall into the drink.” She grinned in self-deprecation. “Certainly was a conversation stopper, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, it was. But it doesn’t have to be the end of the argument if you have more to say.” He sat beside her and thought back. “As I recall, you said, ‘We’re talking about my sister’s wedding and you’re not going to—’ And then you screamed.”
She took a cookie, dunked it in her coffee and popped it into her mouth. “Actually, now that I’ve been immersed in cold water, I see your arguments more clearly.”
“Really. You agree with me?”
“No,” she denied firmly, “but your feelings aren’t that different from mine.”
1He leaned back into his corner of the sofa, his legs stretched out and crossed under the table. He sipped at his coffee and waited for her to explain.
She turned toward him, cookie in one hand, cup in the other. “I’m afraid of embarrassing them, too, though for different reasons. I feel very much out of my element amid all their style and elegance. I mean, Chloe would probably never dunk a cookie in her coffee, would she?”
“Uh…I can’t say I’ve ever seen her do it.”
“See? And she’s not only stylish and elegant, she’s European. I am so not going to measure up to the rest of the Abbotts.”
As she made that claim, an idea formed, full-blown. Three years ago, she’d been left at the altar—well, not the altar, the travel agency. Her fiancé was supposed to meet her there to pay for their honeymoon tickets to Hawaii. When he never came, she went home, to find a voice-mail message that he’d changed his mind about the wedding and was off to London.
She’d been more careful of men since then but hadn’t stopped looking for the right one. And despite Brian’s resistance, she was beginning to wonder if it was him. Now she thought she had a way to spend time with him to determine if he was or not. Convincing him of that, of course, would take time and effort and was a job for later.
“You’re not going to measure up?” he said in disbelief. “That’s ridiculous. You always behave as though—”
She interrupted with a swipe of her cookie in the air. “It’s an act. I’m just afraid that one day I’m going to do something embarrassing to them.”
“Get a grip, Janet,” he said. “They’re not royalty. They’re just wealthy people who are socially well connected.”
She gave him a dry look. “If I may quote you, ‘Easy for you to say.’ You grew up in their world. Your parents had the same standard of living, the same social connections. You know how to behave among all this—” She raised a finger to stop him when he would have interrupted her. “Yes, you have that scandalous background.” She enunciated the word with a dramatic waggle of her eyebrows. “But people deal so much more on perception than they do fact. All people notice is that you behave like a gentleman, that you’re well-spoken and well educated. Columbia, wasn’t it?”
“Yes. I went to Columbia.”
“I went to Las Manzanas Community College and Columbia River College.”
“Doesn’t education depend on the thirst for knowledge in the student, rather than on where he goes to school?”
“I don’t imagine my brothers’ Ivy League educated friends would believe that.”
He studied her with a frown. “I think you have some reverse snobbery at work here.”
She smiled innocently. “Why? You’re convinced everyone’s going to judge the Abbotts by the unfortunate circumstances of your birth.”
He continued to frown, and she couldn’t decide if he was out of arguments or out of patience. She considered it a good time to make her point.
“I’ve been asked to be Campbell and China’s maid of honor,” she said, sipping her coffee, “and I don’t have the luxury of refusing them. China’s my only sister and I’m hers.” She paused on the chance he wanted to comment. He didn’t.
“So friends and family are coming from far and wide to this wedding of the year, and I have to be part of the party and take my chances that I won’t do or say something inappropriate among all those people and with all the press bound to be there. Word is the New York Times is sending someone.”
She bit into her cookie, avoiding his eyes. Was she overdoing it? She couldn’t tell. And for a usually straightforward man, he was a master at hiding what he was thinking when he wanted to.
She ate the last bite of her cookie, chewed and swallowed, buying time.
“But if you were best man,” she added, putting her cup down and dusting off her hands, “I’d feel less intimidated. You can help me during the Mass. I wasn’t raised Catholic and I’m not familiar with the ritual, but you are, right?”
“My mother took me to church when I was a child, but I haven’t been in a long time. I don’t think your brothers have, either.”
“At least you have some experience. I won’t know whether to stand or sit or kneel, but you’ll be beside me. You can give me a high sign. You can provide moral support during the reception, and I can deflect the reporters away from you. We’ll help each other.”
HER ARGUMENTS WERE very transparent. The Mass could be confusing to the uninitiated, and it was true that the congregation sat behind the wedding party, so it wasn’t possible to follow their lead in sitting, standing, kneeling unless you turned around to see what they were doing—and that would be just the faux pas she seemed so worried about.
But Sophie, Sawyer’s fiancée, knew the ritual; she sang in the choir at St. Paul’s. Following her lead would be easy enough.
And he couldn’t remember ever seeing Janet make a misstep despite her insistence that Abbott society was unfamiliar to her.
He could only deduce that she was laying it on a little thick because she was determined that her sister and her brother have the wedding they wanted, and that included him.
And, though he disliked admitting this to himself, he found it hard to refuse the appeal in her wide brown eyes. Even knowing it was as much performance as sincere emotion, he was going to let it reel him in. Undoubtedly, he would hate himself for this later.
“All right,” he said.
She blinked at him. “You mean…you’ll do it?”
“Yes.”
“But…why?”
“Because you’re so persuasive.” And, he added silently to himself, I’m a self-indulgent idiot.
He rested one hand on his knee and she closed both hers over it as she beamed at him. “Thank you, Brian.” Her gratitude did sound heartfelt, and her hands on his knee, even over his hand, had a very pleasant effect on his body. “They’ll be so happy.”
“Well, that’s what we want.”
The bell rang over the front door. “Excuse me,” he said, getting to his feet. “Customer.”
Another came in before he was finished with the first, and before he knew it, the place was suddenly hopping.
When he turned to see if everyone had been helped, he found Janet trying to reach something on a top shelf for an older woman who watched her in concern. Brian recognized the woman as a three-or-four-times-a-week customer for most of August and September.
Janet’s body was stretched to its utmost, her heels off the floor, her calves and her bottom in the shorts tight with her effort. He could have watched her in that pose for a while, but he hurried to lend a hand.
“What are you after, Mrs. Lindell?” he asked.
She pointed to the back of the shelf. “That bottle of hair gel.”
He caught it off the shelf and handed it to Janet. She gave it to the woman, who already had a helmet of hair that looked as though it wouldn’t move in a class five hurricane. It was carved into a curled and flipped style he remembered his mother wearing twenty-five years ago.
“Is that the right brand?” Janet asked helpfully.
“That’s it exactly!” The woman gave Janet a ten-dollar bill. “I was sure you were out of it! You wouldn’t believe what a sailboat can do to a hairdo.” To Brian she said, “I’m glad to see you’ve gotten yourself another assistant. She’s more attentive than that boy you just hired. The last time I was here, he was so engrossed in an argument he was having with a girl he didn’t even notice me.”
“I’m sorry.” That was unwelcome news. Joe Fanelli was young, but he’d been so eager for the job. Part of the reason Brian had hired him was that his grandfather owned and operated Fulio’s, the best restaurant in Lost-hampton, known for its attention to detail and customer service. Joe had worked for him after school and during summers, and Brian was sure Fulio insisted on a work ethic at least as strong as his own.
Janet passed him the ten and the three of them went to the cash register. He made the woman change and put her purchase in a bag. “Thank you for telling me,” he said. “I promise that won’t happen to you again.”
“Thank you.” She took her change and chatted on about the dearth of cheerful and dependable retail help while she opened her wallet, dropped the change into the right compartment, then closed it and moved several things around in her purse so that she could put the wallet back in.
Then she picked up the bag and patted Janet’s cheek with her free hand. “You’ll go far, sweetie. The consumer likes a convenient place to shop and a helpful staff. My husband owns four delicatessens. I know what I’m talking about.”
She winked at Brian. “Bye, now.”
Brian watched her walk away, hoping he wouldn’t have to fire Joe Fanelli.
“I think I know what Joe’s problem is,” Janet said, leaning a hip against his counter.
That surprised him. “I wasn’t aware you knew him?”
“I don’t. But I heard the ladies at the beauty shop talking about him when I had my hair trimmed just before I left for L.A.”
“And?”
“And,” she said gravely, “his girlfriend is pregnant. That’s why he’s put off college for a year. Her parents are furious at both of them. His parents are angry at him. Even the girlfriend wants him to go to school. She’s insisting she’ll get a job and raise the baby and wait for him to graduate. He wants to get married and assume his responsibilities.”
Brian leaned against the other side of the register. “You ladies really discuss things in depth over hair trimmings.”
“Having your hair or your nails done inspires confidences. It’s a fact.” She looked worried. “Are you going to fire him? He needs the job.”
“I understand that. But I’d like to stay in business, and that won’t happen with customers being ignored. I’ll talk to him. Then if he doesn’t shape up, I’ll fire him.”
She nodded approval. “Very fair. Well, now that I’ve argued with you, fallen in the inlet, had coffee, made a sale for you and acted as Joe Fanelli’s union advisor, my work here is done. Can I have a plastic bag for my wet clothes?”
He reached under the counter for one and handed it to her. “I’ll close up for a few minutes and drive you home.”
“No!” She put a hand to his chest. His heartbeat reacted to her touch. She must have felt it, because she dropped her hand immediately, then cleared her throat. “I’m perfectly capable of riding the Vespa home.”
“Not a good idea after your dunking,” he said, moving her aside when she stood in his path. “And I appreciate your lending a hand when I got busy. Thank you.” He went to the door, changed the Will Be Back sign to read In Fifteen Minutes, then ushered her out ahead of him and locked the door.
“This is silly!” she argued, hurrying to keep up with him as he steered the Vespa toward his truck, then lifted it into the back.
“I…” she started to say, but he opened the passenger door and lifted her into the truck.
She growled and she pulled out the seat belt.
“As a general rule,” he said, before closing her door, “socially correct women never growl. You might bear that in mind.”
He had her home in five minutes, unloaded the Vespa and placed it for her in a corner of the garage. Behind her at a small distance, the beautiful yellow-and-white mansion that was her family’s home was perched on a knoll, with a view of the vast lawn and the apple orchard. The house had a central cupola and porches at the front and back that exemplified the cozy style at the heart of everything Abbott. Janet seemed to fit in well.
The construction going on at the west end of the house reminded Brian again of the potential for scandal in his very name. His father had almost destroyed Chloe’s addition. She’d wanted to enlarge the sun porch on the first level, add a room for Brian on the second level so that he could stay with them during holidays and other family occasions and expand the third floor so that when Sawyer and Sophie were married, there would be lots of room for her three children. Now Sawyer and Sophie were living at Sophie’s place, nearer the hospital where she was a nurse, but Chloe had visions of having the entire family together in Shepherd’s Knoll for holidays and long, lazy weekends, even though they all lived nearby.
His father had cruelly, vengefully set fire to the addition though it was obvious that both China and Chloe’s wheelchair-bound Tante Bijou were inside. The building had gone up quickly, and had it not been for China’s courage and quick thinking, and the fact that Campbell and Winfield, who handled the estate’s security, had arrived home at the right moment, both women might be dead. He shuddered at the thought.
“Thank you,” Janet said. “Can you come over tomorrow?”
He had to pull himself out of his grim thoughts. Had he really agreed to be in this wedding? “Ah…why?”
“Because Abbott’s West is sending someone from the men’s department to measure all of you for tuxes.” Abbott’s West was the retail flagship store in Manhattan.
He groaned. Yes, he had agreed. He’d done it for Janet, as much as for the family.
She widened her eyes at him teasingly. “If it’s socially incorrect for women to growl, are socially correct men allowed to groan?”
She made him smile, but it seemed wisest not to answer. He knew this was going to get worse before it got better. “What time tomorrow?”
“Ten. And you’d better go easy on Joe Fanelli. You’re going to need him a lot between now and the wedding.” She patted his shoulder. “Thanks for the cookie and the coffee.”
He sighed and smiled. “I don’t regret that. But I’m starting to wonder if fishing you out of the water was the wisest thing I could have done.”
“I guess only time will tell. See you tomorrow.”
She headed for the house. He climbed into the truck to spare himself the view of her neat little backside as she walked away.
But there it was, beautifully framed in his rearview mirror.
Chapter Three
Janet congratulated herself on having handled the best-man issue well. Except for the falling-into-the-water part.
“You made him change his mind?” China asked in pleased surprise as Janet walked through the kitchen, heading for the stairs. China, in grubby jeans and shirt, looked as though she’d just come from the orchard, where she’d been working with Campbell since she’d arrived.
Janet and China were both average height and slender, with dark hair and eyes. But China had long hair, while Janet favored a short style that required a minimum of care. Cheerful smiles and carefully tended good looks lent them a similarity in appearance that had made it easy for them to pass as natural sisters. But close friends of Bob and Peggy Grant of Paloma, California, their adoptive parents, knew the girls had come to their home separately.
China’s eyes went over Janet’s shorts, T-shirt and lank hair. “How did your hair get wet? And you bought a new outfit?”
Janet explained about her impromptu dip, then the discussion that followed over coffee and cookies. She left out her insistence that she needed Brian’s help to negotiate the murky waters of social correctness.
China took her arm as they went up the stairs. “He thought we’d be upset if the papers brought up his past?” she asked, incredulous as Janet explained his reluctance to be in the wedding. “It isn’t his fault. And Susannah’s part of this family’s past whether Brian’s involved or not.”
“I know. But he cares a lot about the family, and doesn’t want you to suffer or be embarrassed on his account.”
“Wait till I get a hold of him,” China threatened.
“Easy,” Janet cautioned. “He’s doing what you asked. I wouldn’t scold him if I were you.”
“True. But make sure Campbell doesn’t hear that reason.”
“I won’t tell if you don’t.”
China stopped her at the top of the stairs. “Jan, thanks for doing this. Are you all right? I can’t believe you fell in the water!”
Janet had been hoping her sister would focus more on her heroic accomplishment of getting Brian to agree, rather than her klutzy backward step.
“I’m fine,” she assured her. “And Brian’s going to be here at ten tomorrow morning for the tux fittings.”
China gave her a quick hug. “You are a genius!”
“How many times have I told you that?” Janet teased. “So, how are things in the orchard? Is the Duchess ready for harvest?
The Duchess was the largest tree in the vintage section of the apple orchard. The trees in that area had been a gift from Thomas Jefferson to the early owners of the property. Campbell watched over the entire orchard with great care but devoted particular attention to the old trees.
China had spent almost a month working with him while waiting for Chloe to come home from Paris so that China could take the DNA test to prove she was Abigail Abbott. Killian and Sawyer had been convinced of her honesty, but Campbell had suspected that she was lying.
Killian’s decision that China work on the estate with Campbell in the interim had been intended to help them get acquainted, but they’d disliked each other and warred continually.
Then the DNA test had proved that she wasn’t an Abbott. China had come to Shepherd’s Knoll in the first place because of a box she’d found in the attic of their adoptive father’s home after he’d died. The sisters had been cleaning out the house to put it on the market and found two cardboard storage boxes hidden in the eaves. One had China’s name on the lid and the other Janet’s.
China’s had contained clippings of the Abbott toddler’s kidnap, a pair of rompers made by Abbott Mills and a homemade rag doll.
Janet’s had held a birth certificate and several other things that had led her on a search to Canada while China had come to Losthampton.
When it became clear that China wasn’t Abby, everyone wondered why her box had been filled with clippings about Abby’s abduction. Then Campbell suggested that perhaps the lids of the boxes had been accidentally switched at some point, during one of the times the Grant family had moved, and that the contents might actually be clues to Janet’s family.
China had sent for Janet and her DNA test had proved that Abigail Abbott was finally home. It also allowed the antagonism that had existed between Campbell and China to turn to attraction, since they weren’t related after all and, eventually, to love. Janet was thrilled to have found her family but envied the look in her sister’s eyes.
“The orchard’s coming along nicely. It’s a waiting game at this point. We won’t harvest until sometime in October. We’re even going to get to go on our honeymoon.”
Janet was fascinated by her sister’s adaptation to life at Shepherd’s Knoll. For a woman who’d made a living running a shopping service for other people, who loved going from store to store, mall to mall, checking the Internet for new products and following sales, she’d settled with remarkable ease into this bucolic life.
“How lucky are we that we both belong here?” Janet asked her seriously as they walked down the corridor. “I’m not sure I could have stayed if you’d had to go.” They’d made a deal, when each had set off on her search for her family, that whatever happened, they would remain sisters.
“You’re Chloe’s daughter, the little sister the guys have missed so much. I wouldn’t have let you leave them again.” They stopped at China’s bedroom door. “But, had some writer created this story out of his imagination, it couldn’t have worked out more perfectly for us. Now not only are we sisters, but we’re going to be sisters-in-law. And double aunts to each other’s children!”
China was apparently giddy over Janet’s success with Brian. “I don’t think there’s any such thing,” Janet laughed.
“Well, there should be.”
“We are blessed. Are you finished work already?”
“No. But I saw you coming home and wanted to know what happened. I also wanted you to try on the dress for my wedding. You can wear the one we got for me when I was supposed to be a bridesmaid for Sawyer and Sophie.”
“Ah, yes. In the simpler days before you and Campbell made it a double wedding.” Janet started slowly backward toward her room at the end of the hall. “Okay. I’ll shower quickly and wash my hair again. Brian didn’t have any conditioner,” she added as an aside. “Give me fifteen minutes.”
Janet had Sawyer’s old room on the northwest corner of the second floor. It had a view of the gardens and, in the distance, the hedges that separated Shepherd’s Knoll from its neighbor.
The room was painted a subtle oyster color, and Chloe had redecorated it as a guest room, added a pink-and-white quilt and pink-flowered curtains. Janet had placed a few photographs around and, before leaving California, had shipped home some things she didn’t want to put in storage. They would arrive in a couple of days.
She’d inherited an old maple hope chest that had been her adoptive mother’s, and China had been willed a Boston rocker that had been their paternal grandmother’s.
Janet thought wistfully of the Grants and wondered what they would have thought of the upscale lifestyle their daughters had become part of. They’d been happy, middle-class people. She was sure they’d had no idea who their adopted daughter really was. She wondered, as she often had since the DNA test had come back positive, how she’d gotten from here as a toddler to the doctor in Paloma who’d placed her with the Grants.
She shook off a stab of sadness and tried to accept that this was a mystery she might never be able to solve.
In the shower, Janet’s thoughts turned to Brian. He was right that his position as bastard son of the scandalous Susannah would always be a tagline for the press. She felt a little guilty for manipulating him into a position where the subject was bound to come up again—in print.
But while he knew the Abbotts would always welcome him, she doubted that he understood how little they cared about that information resurfacing during the wedding.
So in reality, she told herself while working a rich conditioner through her short hair, she was performing a service for him. He had to see it happen, to be a part of their happiest times, to realize how much he was loved anyway.
Thus far, his life had been grim. China had told her that when Susannah Stewart had died in London shortly after Brian was born, the chauffeur she’d run off with had called Corbin Girard to tell him about his motherless son. But Girard had been out of the country and his wife, Frances, had taken the call.
Frances, a scrupulous woman, had sent for the baby, and when Corbin had arrived home insisted they raise the boy. Corbin had hated Brian for reminding him of the mistake he was unable to escape. And while Frances loved Brian, he reminded her every day of her husband’s faithlessness. Brian claimed to have been confused as a child by the sadness in her eyes when she looked at him.
He was in desperate need of a large dose of good cheer. Preparations for a double wedding would certainly provide that.
She wrapped a towel around herself and left the bathroom, to find Chloe placing a large crystal bowl of white roses on a crocheted doily on top of the old mahogany highboy in the corner. She turned to smile at Janet, her heart in her eyes as it always was when she looked at her.
“I thought you might like these,” Chloe said with a soft smile. She was petite, with short gray hair in a smooth style and a still-beautiful face with smile lines and artfully applied makeup. She wore the outfit Janet had brought her from the Joshua Burke outlet in L.A. Chloe usually wore gauzy, loose-fitting gowns around the house, and tailored suits when she went out. But Janet had fallen in love with the soft pink cropped pants and cropped jacket she’d known would flatter her mother’s still-slender figure.
“Thank you. They’re exquisite. And that looks wonderful on you.” The color pinked her cheeks and brightened her dark eyes.
“When you were a baby,” Chloe said, handing her a light eyelet robe, “you loved to give things—your bottle, your doll, the shirt off your back quite literally. Your father used to tease that you were a bad advertisement for Abbott Mills products because you were always taking off your clothes.” Her voice quieted and her eyes filled. “And this is my first gift from my grown daughter. Thank you, ma chère. I’m thrilled that you thought of me.”
“It was my pleasure.” Janet belted the robe and went to hug her mother. “You’ve been so good to me and China.”
Chloe dismissed that with a very Gallic wave of her hand. “You’re my daughter. And we thought China was, too, for a while, and have decided that she will remain one. I’m so happy she’s marrying Campbell, because now I can still claim her as part of the family.” She looped an arm in Janet’s. “Kezia’s made scones. Will you join us for tea? All the girls are up and waiting to hear how you convinced Brian to be in the wedding.”
Kezia was the Abbott’s African-American cook and housekeeper. She and her husband, Daniel, the chauffeur, had been with the Abbotts since before Killian was born. A handsome couple, they had the status of family. While Daniel tried to remember what he considered “his place,” Kezia thought hers was in the thick of things and offered her opinion and counsel on all manner of issues, whether asked to or not.
“I’ll be right there,” Janet promised. “As soon as I’ve put some clothes on.”
Chloe, one hand on the doorknob, studied Janet with suddenly pointed interest. “China tells me you fell into the water.”
Janet reached into the closet to avoid Chloe’s gaze. Though they’d been separated most of Janet’s life, she had a mother’s gift for reading her daughter’s mind.
“I was distracted,” she said, pulling a pale blue shirt out of the closet. She reached into a drawer for matching shorts.
“You find Brian distracting?”
“We were arguing. That’s what distracted me.”
“What did you say to make him change his mind?”
“I heaped guilt upon him.”
Janet tossed the clothes on her bed, expecting Chloe to scold her for doing such a thing. Instead, her mother grinned.
“Well done. I’m never afraid to use guilt in a pinch, if I’m sure it’ll bring about the right result.” She blew Janet a kiss. “It is true that the apple never falls far from the tree. An apt metaphor around here in more ways than one. Hurry, chérie. Killian wants to talk to you, but don’t let him keep you too long or all the scones will be gone. He’s in the library.”
Dressed and feeling triumphant that she’d been able to accomplish something for Killian by encouraging Brian to join the wedding party, she went downstairs to the beautiful, quiet room Killian used as an office when he was home. It opened onto the rose garden, where Chloe had picked the blooms she’d placed on the high-boy in Janet’s room.
But Killian didn’t seem surprised that Janet had convinced Brian.
“I heard,” he said when she tried to tell him about it. He gestured her to a plump sofa. “China told me. Well done. I knew he’d listen to you. But, you’re the one I want to talk about.”
She wasn’t sure whether to be pleased or nervous. Her situation here, though she felt fairly secure in it, was still so new that she half expected it to come crashing down on her at any moment. She waited for him to go on.
“I realize it’s early yet and you deserve some time to get your bearings,” he said, coming to sit beside her, “but when you’re ready to go back to work, I’d like you to think about working for Abbott Mills. You’d find the family business challenging and a good place to spread your wings as a businesswoman. You have an impressive history with Watson, Dunn and Crawford.”
She pretended to frown at him. He was known for the research he put into projects of any description. “You looked me up?”
“I look everything up,” he admitted. “You’ve been in the business only four years, but you had some very happy clients and bosses who raved about your accomplishments. At a time when no one can predict what the market will do, you were making investors money.”
“The market’s fairly simple to analyze…” she began.
“No, it’s not,” he argued. “It’s difficult and painstaking, but you seem to have a gift for it. I’d have probably been able to pick you out as an Abbott even before the DNA test proved you one.”
She shrugged away the compliment. “We had a business class in high school and one of our projects was to pick a few stocks and follow their progress. I won some and lost some but tapped a real enthusiasm for the process. I kept the interest up in college and had so much fun with it I knew I’d make a career of it.”
She heard the words come out of her mouth and wondered what had happened to the woman she’d been just a little over a month ago. She was still Janet Grant, but she felt as though discovering the Abbotts had changed the shape of her life. No, she wasn’t really Janet anymore. She was Janby, a composite of then and now.
Killian’s offer touched and flattered her, but business was the last thing on her mind right now.
“Will it disappoint you if I decide to do something else?” she asked candidly. “At least for a while.”
He considered a moment. “Only in that it’s so great to have you back and to discover that you’re a lot like I am. I’d miss the time it’d give us together. It makes me wonder what our lives would have been like if we’d grown up together, instead of my feeling responsible for the fact that you were taken.”
Every other thought in her head dissolved at that casual admission. She hitched a knee up on the sofa cushion to turn toward him and look him in the eye.
“What?” she asked.
He shook his head and prepared to stand, but she put a hand to his arm to hold him there. “Killian…”
“Doesn’t matter.” He placed a fraternal hand over hers. “It’s not important. It’s just interesting to speculate on what might have been.”
She saw a line form between his eyes, and detected a definite tension in his shoulders. “How could you possibly have been responsible for the fact that I was kidnapped?” she insisted.
“Janby…”
“Please tell me.”
He expelled a breath and leaned back again. “I was a tense little kid,” he said with another shrug, obviously trying to make light of what he was about to say. “And the oldest. I felt responsible for everything. Now, about your working for us…”
She folded her arms. “I want to talk about this. Don’t think you can put me off.”
He rolled his eyes. “God, you’re Campbell all over. Part Abbott, part bull terrier. He never lets anything go, either.”
“In some instances, that can be a good thing.” She smiled. “Please. I’d like to understand.”
“Okay, but it’s pretty simple, and not all that dramatic except in how it affected me.”
She nodded in acceptance of that and he went on.
“You know that Sawyer’s and my mother left when we were very small. She was pregnant with Brian, thanks to Girard, but he wouldn’t leave his wife for her, so she took off with the chauffeur. No one suspected she was pregnant at the time, or that Girard was involved.”
“Yes, China told me.”
“Well, I couldn’t believe my mother wasn’t coming back.” He stared across the room, the memories playing themselves out on some screen Janet couldn’t see. “Every night for years, I sat at my window and watched for her to return. I was sure she’d miss me. Even after your mother married our father, I was sure Susannah would return one day.”
“But she didn’t.”
“No. She died right after Brian was born, but we didn’t know that. Anyway, the night you were taken, I joined a sleepover at a friend’s house. Your mother was wonderful and I was finally beginning to realize that she loved me more than Susannah ever did. So I left my post and went to the party.” He turned to her, speaking the words as if searching for absolution. “And you were kidnapped. Had I been looking out that window, I might have seen someone approach the house or leave with you.”
She took his hand and squeezed it, feeling just a little of what he must have suffered. “Oh, Killian. I’m so sorry. What a burden you’ve placed on yourself, when it wasn’t your fault at all.”
He nodded glumly. “I know. But I was a kid whose mother left him without a second thought. I was sure I had to be pretty bad. It was easy to blame myself for yet another family tragedy.”
Tears filled her eyes and burned her throat. She imagined a serious little boy burdened by all that darkness. And she realized for the first time all the love that must have been hers when she was born.
He saw her brimming eyes and gave her his handkerchief. “Please don’t cry. It’s all over now. And it wasn’t just me. We all felt responsible. Sawyer thought he was the stand-in big brother since I was gone, so it was his fault. And Campbell threw you out of his room that afternoon because you were a destructive little devil and broke one of his precious trucks. So he had to live with the knowledge that his last contact with you was a shout for your mother to get you out of his room.”
She absorbed this information with quiet dismay.
“But all’s well that ends well,” he said, suddenly brisk. “We shouldn’t even be talking about this when we’re so, so lucky to have you back.”
“I’m the lucky one. Now I feel guilty that you all beat yourselves up because of me.”
He leaned over to wrap her in a hug. “That would really be silly. We all have to focus on the fact that you’re back, not that you were gone.”
That made sense. Still, she hated the mystery that had caused her family so much pain. Though she’d been the victim, she’d escaped relatively unscathed. She found that upsetting. But Killian seemed to be trying to put the past behind them and she wanted to support him. “You’re absolutely right,” she said.
“I am. And try to give some thought to how much fun it would be to work together.” He stood, offered her a hand up, then walked her toward the kitchen, telling her about the companies that made up the conglomerate of Abbott Mills, and the different ways her talents could be put to good use. She smiled and gave him her full attention, but she was troubled by what he’d told her.
JOE FANELLI WAS several inches shorter than Brian and more thickly built. He helped Brian restock the shelves after closing, a frown of concentration on his face. Considering he was putting laundry detergent on the same shelf with canned vegetables, Brian figured his focus wasn’t working.
Brian opened two refrigerated colas and invited Joe to join him at the chairs near the potbellied stove that occupied the middle of the shop. Joe looked surprised. “I’m almost finished,” he said, holding up his last bottle of detergent.
Brian nodded. “But look at where you’re putting it.”
Joe turned back to the shelf. His head tipped back in exasperation. “I’m sorry,” he said, gathering up bottles. “It’ll just take me a—”
“That can wait a few minutes,” Brian insisted. “We haven’t had much time to talk since I hired you.” He held up the cola invitingly. “Come and sit down.”
Joe took the place opposite Brian, a dark blue apron over his jeans and white T-shirt emblazoned with the store’s logo. He looked wary as he accepted the can of soda.
“You’re going to tell me I’m not doing a good job,” he said, slightly defensive.
“No,” Brian corrected him. “When we work together, you do a very good job. But over the next couple of weeks, I’m going to have to leave you alone for a few hours every few days. My friend’s getting married and I’m going to be in the wedding. Lots of fussy stuff to do.”
Joe smiled hesitantly. “The Abbotts?”
“Yes.”
“My mom’s been talking about it. She’s helping my grandfather with the catering. She says you don’t see a double wedding every day.”
“Yeah. That’s why I asked you to work tomorrow morning. I have to get fitted for a tux.”
Joe made a face. “When you’re used to shorts and T-shirts, a tux makes you feel like you’re choking.”
Brian remembered. “I used to have to wear one a lot. I even had my own. It does feel like you’re going to strangle.”
Joe nodded, his manner relaxing. “When you were in the November Corporation? Before your father—” He stopped abruptly, his face going pale. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay.” Brian took a swig of cola. “I know people talk about it. Life’s full of all kinds of things you can’t do much about, and, unfortunately, people find gossip interesting. Probably because they all have their own problems, and they like to talk about stuff that doesn’t affect them.”
Joe seemed surprised by that candor, then a flush replaced his pallor. “Yeah, I know.”
“My concern,” Brian said, “is that the good work you do while I’m watching you doesn’t change when I’m not around.”
Joe’s flush deepened. “That woman complained,” he guessed, “about the afternoon you went to Springfield.”
Before Brian could concur that it was Mrs. Lindell, Joe went on to describe her. “Short, round lady with big, old-fashioned hair?”
“Yes. Mrs. Lindell. I’ve only owned this place a couple of months, but she’s been coming here for years, and we want her to keep it up.”
“I’m sorry.” Joe appeared sincere. “I knew she was going to be mad. She was trying to find this hair stuff I never heard of, and I took her to where we stock hair products. Then Natty called—that’s my girlfriend—and she wanted to talk about this…this problem we’re having.” He lowered his eyes and picked at the rim of the can with his thumbnail. “I tried to tell her I was busy, but we have a big problem and I…I felt like I had to listen. For that minute…it was more important than the work.”
At this point, Brian wished he didn’t know what Joe’s problem was. It would have been easier to tell him that when he was on the job, nothing was more important than the work. But he was Brian Girard, not Corbin. He knew there were times when life was much more important than work, no matter whose livelihood was at stake. Particularly when a woman and a baby were involved.
“Can I promise to do better?” Joe asked hopefully. “I like working here and I really need this job.”
“And I really need someone to help me out. But I have to be able to depend on you.”
“I know, I know,” Joe said eagerly. “I promise you can. I’ll tell her not to call me unless it’s an emergency.”
“Tell her you’ll call her when it’s slow. But if you get busy, you’ll have to call her back.”
“I will.” He looked relieved and sat forward in his chair. “She’s been kind of…well, she’s sort of…” He suddenly gave up trying to talk around it and said with a deep breath, “She’s pregnant. Our parents are totally freaking out, but I’m okay with it. I’m staying home from school so I can save some money so we can get married. But my parents want me to go to school. They say they’ll pay for everything. I want to, though. She’s my girl. It’s my baby.”
Brian had to commend him for his attitude, but wondered if Joe had a realistic idea of what he was up against. And what it would cost.
“Do you have insurance that’ll help with this?”
“No. But I’ll work hard. The trouble is, we were going to wait to get married until I could afford an apartment and a car, but her parents want her to give the baby up for adoption. She’s really upset. Her parents are nice people, but they don’t understand that we really love each other and we want this baby.” He firmed his jaw. “So you can take all the time off you want, and I’ll be happy to fill in for you ’cause I could use the extra hours, and I’ll do everything the way you would do it. Don’t worry.”
Brian felt for his innocence, while still applauding a sense of responsibility that wasn’t always in evidence among kids Joe’s age.
“Tell you what,” he said. “If you do a good job for me—take care of our customers and keep the shelves stocked and the place clean—maybe we’ll have to talk about a raise.”
The boy was stunned, then his face split in a wide grin. “That’d be cool,” he said.
“Okay. After you finish stocking, then you can go home. I’ve got a few orders to place before I leave tonight.”
Brian went into his small, cluttered office, all that talk about babies reminding him that he’d intended to lay in more baby supplies. He had diapers and wipes, but mothers were always asking for baby food, teething biscuits, pacifiers. He pulled out a catalog he’d saved from the score that came in every day and settled down to review it and make some choices.
The cover of the catalog featured a young woman with long dark hair and a young baby on her hip. The woman reminded him of Janet and he was instantly distracted.
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