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Her brow furrowed as she came to see that as a possibility.
“It could have happened any number of ways,” he went on, subtly reeling her in. “Did you ever move when you were growing up?”
“Twice,” she replied. “Friends of my father’s helped us.”
“Could have happened then. The boxes fell over, and the lids got mixed up. Or maybe one of your parents adding something to the boxes inadvertently did it.”
She stared into his eyes with a sort of horrified awe. “That’s…grasping at straws.”
“Is it?” He held the branch for her when her fingers grew lax and a branch was about to scratch her face. “You were convinced by the old clippings that they must have been intended for you. But since the test proved that wrong, then the other possibility doesn’t seem that far off, does it?” He let that sink in for a minute. “If the clippings weren’t for you, then who else is there?”
CHINA WOULD HAVE liked to push him onto the fragrant grass. Since the day she’d first set eyes on him, he’d stood determinedly in her way. He didn’t believe she was his little sister returned; didn’t believe she wanted no money, just family; blocked at every turn her attempts to be friends with him. Even now, when all she wanted to do was leave, he put up another roadblock.
She didn’t want to stay another minute, was embarrassed and disappointed that she’d turned everyone’s life upside down quite needlessly, as it turned out. But what if he was right? What if, somehow, the lids of the boxes had gotten mixed up and her adopted sister, Janet, was their flesh-and-blood sister?
She met Campbell Abbott’s dark gaze. He stood there like the locked gate he’d been since she’d arrived—an inch or two shorter than his brothers, but broader in the shoulders, and more inclined to seriousness than they were. He’d prevented her from ever feeling completely welcome, and now he wanted to prevent her from leaving!
She turned away, headed for the parking lot. “I’ll call her and tell her to get in touch with you,” she shouted back at him.
He caught her arm at the edge of the parking lot and turned her to him. “You can’t do that,” he said with surprising gentleness. “You can’t just take off on Mom. We all have to talk this out. Come to a solution. And if your sister is our sister, you can’t expect to be able to stay out of it.”
She could expect to, but of course it wouldn’t happen.
Janet was prettier, smarter, loved by everyone for her unfailing good humor and quick wit. China had never resented her for it, only envied her. China was basically shy, but inclined to speak her mind if the situation warranted. The courage she’d required to present herself to the Abbotts as possibly their daughter/sister returned had been huge.
Her grief that she wasn’t theirs was softened somewhat now by the suggestion that Janet might be Abigail. China and Janet had squabbled as children but come to appreciate each other as they grew older. Though Janet had the brains and the boys, China had the domestic skills that kept their home going after their mother died.
They now loved and respected each other, and the last time they’d been together, before each had set off to solve the mystery of her cardboard box, they’d vowed that whatever came of their searches, they would be sisters forever.
“China.” Campbell spoke quietly as his family hurried toward them en masse. “You can’t leave them yet. Please.”
There was something to be said for having reality thrust upon you. It seemed to alter time. Just fifteen minutes ago, she’d been sure she was Abigail Abbott and the report she was about to open would prove it.
Now it seemed as though that moment had been aeons ago. She was not an Abbott. She was still China Grant, the same woman she’d always been. The heady excitement of discovery had been doused, but there was something comforting about familiarity.
Chloe threw her arms around her and held her closely. “You must not leave,” she said, her voice tight with emotion. “We’re all agreed. You may not be my daughter, but you’ve become an important part of the family.”
Chloe leaned back to look into China’s eyes, her own sweet and pleading. China opened her mouth to reply, but Chloe interrupted. “Yes, I know you have a life of your own. A small business you must keep track of. But we need you, too. Killian tells me you’ve done a wonderful job helping run the estate, and if Campbell chooses to leave us to conquer new horizons, then you must stay and help us until we find someone to replace him, oui?”
China would have loved nothing more than to make a little niche for herself with the warm and wild Abbotts, but it didn’t seem fair to the real Abigail. Especially if that was Janet. But maybe she did have to stay long enough to help them determine if indeed she was.
“I’ll stay until I can find my sister, Janet, for you,” she said.
When that met with a confused expression from the rest of the family now pressed around them, Campbell explained his theory about the boxes.
Killian and Sawyer, both with the fair good looks of their father’s first wife, frowned at each other, then at Campbell. “You really think this possible?” Killian asked.
Campbell made a noncommittal gesture. “Seems that way to me. How else would you explain that China has everything in that box that would relate her to us, but she isn’t Abby? Yet she has a sister the same age, adopted at about the same time, who’s gone off on her own quest with a box identical except for the contents?”
Sawyer raised an eyebrow. “He might have a point,” he said to Killian. “You don’t think he’s smarter than us, after all, do you?”
“Never happened,” Killian grinned. “Well, how do we find your sister, China?”
China tried to remember the town in Canada’s north mentioned on the birth certificate in Janet’s box. That was where Janet had intended to begin her search. “Somewhere in the Northwest Territories. I can’t remember the town, but she’s staying at an inn there—I have the name and number written down in my book at the house. I’ll call tonight.”
China was suddenly flanked by Cordie, Killian’s pregnant wife, and Sophie, who was engaged to marry Sawyer. They led her toward the Abbotts’ limousine, with Sophie’s daughters—Gracie, 10, and Emma, 5—dancing along ahead of them. Sophie’s seven-year-old son, Eddie, hung back with the men. “You have to stay for the wedding,” Sophie said. “We’re thinking about Labor Day.”
“Oh, I…” China tried to formulate an excuse, certain she could locate Janet, stay just long enough for the DNA test, then find a graceful way to leave.
“I need you for a bridesmaid.” Sophie, who’d grabbed China’s hand, tightened her grip.
“And you won’t want to leave without seeing my babies.” That was Cordie. Her babies weren’t due for another four months.
China let them talk, smiling cooperatively at all their suggestions of what she must do, privately making plans to be gone within two and a half weeks at the most. Three days to get Janet here from wherever she was and tested, then two weeks for the results of the test.
Daniel, the Abbotts’ chauffeur, opened the door of the long black Lincoln and the women piled inside, along with Daniel’s wife Kezia, the Abbotts’ cook and housekeeper. Killian lifted Tante Bijou out of her wheelchair and into the other side, while Sawyer folded the chair and put it in the trunk.
Chloe, tucked into the facing seat with China, wrapped an arm around her and patted her shoulder. “All will be well,” she promised with the determined smile China had grown used to since Chloe had been home. “Trust me on this.”
“I’ll call Janet right away,” China promised.
“I mean,” Chloe corrected, “that all will be well with you.”
China smiled and nodded politely, knowing Chloe wanted her to feel a part of their family. While she appreciated that, she’d just received irrefutable proof that she wasn’t. It would be hard to explain to anyone how bereft she felt.
It wasn’t as though she’d had an unhappy childhood. The Grants had been loving and kind to her and Janet. She didn’t remember specifically being told she was adopted; it was as though she’d always known. Her father had told her over and over that she and her sister were special because they’d been “chosen.”
Still, she’d felt the need to know where she’d come from. Her mother had always said that she knew nothing about their natural families, only that the doctor through which they’d adopted the girls said China’s mother had been a single woman dying of cancer, and Janet’s mother, also single, had been killed in an automobile accident.
They’d always accepted that, and neither had ever instituted a search for their biological parents for fear of upsetting their adoptive parents. Then they’d discovered the boxes in the attic and realized that what they’d been told wasn’t true.
It suddenly occurred to China that if Campbell’s theory was correct, the truth about her life was somewhere in Janet’s box. Somewhere in northern Canada.
IN HER BEDROOM overlooking the back lawn, part of the apple orchard and the small house where Daniel and Kezia lived, China sat at the antique desk, trying to decipher her sister’s handwriting. She’d received a forwarded letter from Janet just a week ago. It was brief and to the point.
I’m staying at the Little Creek House Hotel near Fort Providence. I’ve finally tracked the godmother’s name on the birth certificate to this town. Very thinly populated. Have learned she went to live with her son, but no one I’ve talked to so far knows where that is. Got my work cut out for me, I guess. Hope you’re having better luck. Love, Jan.
She’d included the telephone number of the hotel.
A cheerful masculine voice answered. “Little Creek.”
“Hello. May I speak to Janet Grant, please?” China asked.
“I’m afraid she’s away for several days,” the man replied. “May I take a message?”
“Away?” China repeated.
“Yes. She’s hired a guide and gone to Jasper’s Camp. It’s several days by foot. I’m afraid there’s no cell phone reception there.” He again offered to take a message.
“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.
