Muriel Jensen - His Family

“I just don’t want you to think you can make excuses for reneging on a deal.”

China stopped with a forkful of omelet halfway to her mouth. “What deal? We haven’t made a deal.”

Campbell appeared unconcerned by her denial. “It wasn’t written and signed, but there damn well is a deal going on here, and you know it. Had we been alone when you woke up this morning, we’d be in bed now and not giving a damn about breakfast.”

He spoke with complete honesty, and while she admired that, she couldn’t quite match it. She put the bite of omelet in her mouth to buy time.

“It would have been a mistake,” she said finally.

Campbell leaned even closer to China. “When you get your courage back,” he said, his voice very quiet, “I’ll show you that making love with me would never be a mistake.”

Dear Reader,

Campbell Abbott is a man trying to find his own identity. His eldest brother, Killian, is a brilliant businessman, and Sawyer, his second brother, is a courageous daredevil. Campbell is the product of their father’s second marriage, and has always felt inferior because his dreams are smaller than those of his brothers.

China Grant has just discovered that she isn’t who she thought she was. Though she loves the Abbotts and they want to take her in as part of their family, she has a desperate need to unearth her real past before she can plan her future.

Campbell and China are making a common mistake. They think that love, like most other things in life, requires a solid foundation on which to build. I’ve tried to prove with this book that that isn’t true. Love can come to life on the smallest invitation, grow in conditions that would support nothing else we know of, and flourish when everything else is dying. It can live when the bottom’s fallen out of the world and there’s nothing to hold on to. It depends upon nothing for its survival but the willingness that it be there—or maybe the determination.

I hope you enjoy Campbell and China’s adventures on the road to that discovery.

My best wishes!

Muriel Jensen

P.O. Box 1168

Astoria, Oregon 97103

His Family

Muriel Jensen

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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HARLEQUIN AMERICAN ROMANCE

882—DADDY TO BE DETERMINED

953—JACKPOT BABY *

965—THAT SUMMER IN MAINE

1020—HIS BABY **

1030—HIS WIFE **

1066—HIS FAMILY **

Thomas and Abigail Abbott: arrived on the Mayflower; raised sheep outside Plymouth

William and Deborah Abbott: built a woolen mill in the early nineteenth century

Jacob and Beatrice Abbott: ran the mill and fell behind the competition when they failed to modernize

James and Eliza Abbott: Jacob’s eldest son and grandfather of Killian, Sawyer and Campbell Abbott; married a cotton heiress from Virginia

Nathan Abbott and Susannah Stewart Abbott: parents of Killian and Sawyer; Nathan diversified to boost the business and married Susannah, the daughter of a Texas oilman who owned Bluebonnet Knoll

Nathan Abbott and Chloe Marceau: parents of Campbell and Abigail; renamed Bluebonnet Knoll and made it Shepherd’s Knoll

Killian Abbott: now the CEO of Abbott Mills; married to Cordelia Magnolia Hyatt

Sawyer Abbott: Killian’s brother by blood; a daredevil

Campbell Abbott: half brother to Killian and Sawyer; manages the Abbott estate on Long Island

China Grant: thinks she might be the missing Abigail

Sophie Foster: mother of Gracie, Eddie and Emma Foster; the woman with whom Sawyer Abbott falls in love

Brian Girard: half brother to Killian and Sawyer

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Campbell Abbott put an arm around China Grant’s shoulders and walked her away from the fairground picnic table and into the trees. She was sobbing and he didn’t know what to do. He wasn’t good with women. Well, he was, but not when they were crying.

“I was so sure!” she said in a fractured voice.

He squeezed her shoulders. “I know. I’m sorry.”

She sobbed, sniffed, then speculated, “I don’t suppose DNA tests are ever wrong?”

“I’m certain that’s possible,” he replied, “but I’m also certain they were particularly careful with this case. Everyone on Long Island is aware that the Abbotts’ little girl was kidnapped as a toddler. The possibility that you might be her, returned after twenty-five years, had everyone hoping the test would be positive.”

“Except you.” It surprised him that she spoke without rancor. In the month since she’d turned up at Shepherd’s Knoll looking for her family, he’d done his best to make things difficult for her. In the beginning he’d simply doubted her claims, certain any enterprising young woman could buy a toddler’s blue corduroy rompers at a used-clothing store and claim she was an Abbott Mills heiress because she had an outfit similar to what the child was wearing when she’d been taken. As he’d told his older brothers repeatedly, Abbott Mills had made thousands, possibly millions, of those corduroy rompers.

Campbell had wanted her to submit to a DNA test then and there. If she was Abigail, he was her full sibling and therefore would be a match.

But Chloe, his mother, had been in Paris at the time, caring for a sick aunt, and Killian, his oldest half brother, hadn’t wanted to upset her further. He’d suggested they wait until Chloe returned home.

Sawyer, his other half brother, had agreed. Accustomed to being outvoted by them most of his life, Campbell had accepted his fate when Killian further suggested that China stay on to help Campbell manage the Abbott estate until Chloe came home. Killian was CEO of Abbott Mills, and Sawyer headed the Abbott Mills Foundation.

Killian and Sawyer were the products of their father’s first marriage to a Texas oil heiress. Campbell and the missing Abigail were born to his second wife, Chloe, a former designer for Abbott Mills.

When Chloe had come back from Paris two weeks ago, the test had been taken immediately. While everyone had been preparing for the hospital fund-raiser that had just taken place that afternoon and evening, China had been at the house alone when the results had arrived by courier. So she’d brought the sealed envelope with her and opened it just moments ago, when the family had been all together at the picnic table after the fund-raiser.

They’d all expected a very different result. That China couldn’t be related to the Abbotts had been an unhappy surprise. His mother was heartbroken, his siblings saddened, the other women in their family upset. Even Campbell felt…well, ambivalent about it.

The late-July evening was warm and redolent of fair-ground food and salt water. He could even smell the ripening apples at Shepherd’s Knoll. For reasons he couldn’t explain, his senses were sharpened tonight.