Muriel Jensen - His Wife

“No, thank you.” She wore a white sweater and joined her hands on the knees of her white slacks. “I don’t think I could swallow. I’ll just sit right here and wait for you.”

Sawyer hurried down the hallway and through the quiet kitchen. Catering staff were handling this last day of the meeting. Through the window he could see them setting up under one of several pavilions on the lawn.

His breath came quickly as he ran upstairs, the expansion of his lungs making his broken ribs hurt. Imagining now that his near-fatal waterskiing accident had occurred less than twenty-four hours ago was hard. He should slow down, but he couldn’t. Abigail was home—maybe.

He rapped on his elder brother’s bedroom door. Killian opened it, a shushing finger to his lips. “Cordie’s still asleep.” He pulled on a blue cotton sweater, then took a good look into Sawyer’s eyes. Killian’s were blue under dark blond hair slightly disheveled by the sweater. “What?” he asked anxiously.

Sawyer pointed downstairs. “There’s a young woman in the library.” He was breathless.

“Yeah?”

“She says she thinks she’s Abby.”

“What?” Killian demanded.

Sawyer told him about the box.

“What’s in it?”

“I don’t know. I thought the three of us should talk to her together.”

Killian went into CEO mode. He lived his life with the same methodical organization he used to lead the Abbott Mills Corporation. Sawyer headed up the family’s charitable foundation, and Campbell, their younger brother, managed the estate. “Is Campbell downstairs?” Killian tugged his sweater into place over stone-colored slacks.

“He was still sleeping when I left the boathouse.” Sawyer and his younger brother had slept there because of the crowd at the house. “I’m going for him right now.”

“Okay. I’ll meet you in the library in ten minutes.”

Sawyer rushed down the stairs and toward the back door, a hand to his screaming ribs. He was halfway across the back lawn when Campbell appeared on the trail, walking toward the house in jeans and a black Abbott Mills T-shirt. He ran a hand through his dark hair, yawning.

“Hi,” he said when he spotted Sawyer. “I heard you get up and leave, and thought that meant you were coming back with doughnuts. Where are—?” He stopped when his dark eyes settled on Sawyer’s face. “What happened?” he asked urgently.

“We have a visitor,” Sawyer replied, taking Campbell’s arm and hurrying him toward the house, “who thinks she’s Abby.”

Campbell froze in the middle of the trail, though the late-June Long Island morning was already growing warm. “What? What makes you think she’s telling the truth?”

“I have no idea if she is or not,” Sawyer admitted, drawing him forcefully along. “I just thought we should all talk to her. I left her in the library and Killian’s going to meet us there.”

“All right, all right. I’m coming.” Campbell yanked free of him. “She’s probably pocketing our first editions as we speak. Why on earth would Abby just show up after all this time? She’s got to be some larcenous babe after part of the Abbott fortune.”

Somehow, Sawyer didn’t think so. “Don’t make judgments before you meet her.”

“And don’t start calling her ‘sis’ before we know the truth.”

Killian was filling the coffeemaker when Sawyer and Campbell arrived. A long granite-topped counter served as a work area for Killian, who used the library as an office. In a corner was a small wet bar and a coffeepot.

“Ah. Here they are.” Killian pulled cups out from under the counter as China Grant stood uncertainly at their arrival. Killian had apparently already introduced himself, and Sawyer could only guess from the hospitable act of coffee-making that his brother had decided she was worth listening to.

Sawyer introduced Campbell. “He’s the youngest brother. Killian and I are Abigail’s half brothers, from our father’s first wife, but Campbell is her full sibling. Still, we’re all very close and none of us notices that we aren’t all full-blooded relations.” He sent Campbell a look that told him to keep his personal confusion about his place in the family to himself.

She offered her hand. “Hello,” she said in a warm, quiet voice. “I’m China Grant. That is, that’s who I’ve been for twenty-five years. I’m not sure who I was for the fourteen months before that.”

Campbell shook her hand politely, but didn’t bother to hide his skepticism. “What makes you think you’re our sister?”

“I found these things….” She pointed to the box she’d carried in. The name China was printed on the lid in broad-tipped black pen. “I did a little research about your family and thought…I might be related.”

“Why?”

Killian encouraged China to sit on the sofa and took the other end of it. Sawyer saw him send Campbell a look that told him to show a little courtesy.

Campbell held his stare without flinching as he sat in a chair opposite the sofa. Sawyer sat in the matching chair.

China removed the lid from the box, pulled out several yellowed newspaper clippings and handed them to Killian. She folded her hands as she watched him scan them.

“They’re all stories of your sister’s kidnapping,” she said. “I can’t imagine why my parents would have saved them in my box if they didn’t relate to me.”

Killian’s expression grew grim as he passed one clipping to Sawyer and perused another.

“Then,” China went on, pulling a pair of light blue corduroy rompers out of the box, “there’re these.” She exposed the label sewn into the back of them. It was the same label Abbott Mills’s children’s wear division used today. Abbott Mills Baby, with a lamb curled atop the double L. In the logo for the company’s other products, a sheep stood on the double L.

“We sold millions of those,” Campbell challenged. “Anybody could…”

But Sawyer had a nebulous memory of a favorite pair of rompers the nanny always put on Abby because of their durability and the baby’s high-speed crawl. The knees were reinforced with star-shaped patches.

China held the garment up by the straps, the patches worn, two corners of one star unraveled.

Sawyer’s heart slammed against his aching ribs.

Killian took the rompers from her and studied them, frowning with concentration.

“I remember them,” Sawyer said softly.

Killian nodded. “I think I do, too.” He ran a hand over the knee patches. “She used to crawl everywhere,” he said, lost in his thoughts. “None of our stuff was safe from her.” He passed the garment to Sawyer.

“I repeat,” Campbell said firmly, “that Abbott Mills made thousands of grosses of those.”

“I’ll bet,” China said, lifting something else out of the box, “that there aren’t thousands of grosses of these.” She drew out a rag doll wearing a miniature pair of the same rompers, with the same star patches. The doll had obviously been specially made, with style and skill. It had painted eyes, cheeks and lips, and elegantly embroidered eyelashes. Brown yarn hair was woven into long braids.

“I think…Chloe made this,” Killian whispered. “Abby carried it with her all the time.”

Campbell crossed the room to take the doll from him. “How can you be so certain this is the same doll? It was twenty-five years ago.”

“I’m not certain,” Killian said. He looked startled, even a little shaken. “But I think there’s enough here that bears investigating.”

“Okay,” Campbell said. “All we need for proof is a DNA test.”

Killian put a hand to his forehead. “Yeah, but Mom’s worried about Tante Bijou at the moment, and I hate to further upset her with the news that a woman who might be her daughter has come to Shepherd’s Knoll. She won’t want to leave Tante Bijou, but she’ll be frantic—Her aunt raised her,” he explained to China, “and she’s in very poor health. Mom’s very worried about her.”