His Baby

“She loves him, darling,” her mother had tried to explain to her father.

He didn’t get it. “You said this divorce was all his fault.”

“It is.”

“Then why does she love him?”

“Because…the separation is his fault, but the problems he has that are making him do it aren’t.”

Her father, the CEO of one of the country’s finest furniture makers and a millionaire in his own right, though not in the Abbott class, stared dumbly at his wife.

Her mother patted his chest. “It’s love, dear. You just don’t understand those things. Trust Cordie. She’s always known what she’s doing.”

While she appreciated her mother’s confidence in her, she now hoped it wasn’t misplaced.

Suddenly, taking a shower and going to bed had it all over eating and spending an evening watching television.

Loving Killian Abbott was exhausting.

Chapter Three

Killian intended to sleep late Saturday morning, but his room was flooded with sunlight at 6:00 a.m. After tossing and turning for an hour, he finally got up, pulled on shorts and a T-shirt and went down to the kitchen and made himself an omelette.

Kezia discovered him as he was buttering toast, her expression horrified. “You fend for yourself all the time,” she said, looking with surprise into the frying pan. “When you’re home, I’m supposed to cook for you.”

He kissed her cheek, scooped his omelette onto the plate that held his toast and headed for the porch. “It’s okay,” he said over his shoulder. “It’s the weekend for you, too. I told Daniel I wouldn’t need him until Monday. Don’t fuss.”

She grumbled further, but he stepped out onto the deck and closed the door behind him. A large lawn sloped to blueberry bushes, then a small apple orchard that sheltered a path to the beach.

He was just beginning to mellow out from a hectic week when again Cordie came to mind. He envisioned her in the back room of her department, her red hair in two French braids looped around the back of her head, giving her a false air of dignity. Her brown eyes had been enormous against her natural redhead’s pallor, but they’d had little of the frivolity he remembered from their marriage. She was taller than average, but looked thinner now. Their separation had probably upset her, but he could make no concessions. They weren’t compatible. They never had been.

Too bad he hadn’t seen that when they’d first met. But he’d been blinded by her glorious hair and her ivory shoulders in a little black dress.

He shook his head against the thought and reminded himself that he was here to relax.

He ate his omelette and made himself count the bank of trees in the distance to prevent himself from thinking of her.

He went to the beach with an old paperback copy of a Robert Parker book and read until he reached a point in the dialogue where the hero and heroine argued about their relationship. Suddenly, his mind was replaying his conversation with Cordie rather than focusing on the dialogue he was reading.

He got to his feet, wondering why a very busy man ever thought his body would allow him to relax for a weekend. It was accustomed to action—albeit corporate action—and his brain was used to making big, quick decisions.

He went back to the house and called Lew Weston, Abbott Mills’s troubleshooter and one-man think tank.

“I thought you were taking the weekend off,” Lew said.

“I am,” Killian replied. “I just wondered if we got that report I asked for on the Florida Shops.”

“We got it. It’ll wait for you until Monday.”

“Your wife wasn’t upset that you volunteered to work the weekend?”

“No. I promised her dinner and the theater.”

“Smart man.”

“Yes, I am. So let me do my job and you get back to the beach or whatever it is you’re doing.”

Killian hung up and headed for the Vespa Campbell kept in the garage. He took a tour of the acreage. Nothing to find fault with here. Acres of apple trees blossomed in perfectly formed rows all the way up to the trees on the neighboring property. Campbell knew what he was doing.

The roads were bumpy and dusty, but the air smelled of sea grass and salt and held the unmistakable sweetness of early summer. The fragrance filled his being, and for reasons he couldn’t explain, seemed to distill itself into the image of Cordie.

With a growl, he rode the bike back to the garage and went into the house to find Kezia fixing dinner despite his insistence that he was self-sufficient. So he went upstairs to take a shower, dressed in fresh slacks and a white cotton sweater and asked the staff to join him for dinner.

Winfield frowned at him. “We know you’re a democratic despot, Mr. Abbott,” he said politely. “You don’t have to prove it to us.”

He denied that was his point. “You eat with Mom all the time. She told me.”

“But that’s Miss Chloe,” Daniel said with the same frown Winfield wore. “You’re…you’re…”

“The democratic despot?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You used to eat with me when I was a child.”

“No, you ate with us in the kitchen. That was before you became one of the Fortune 500.”

“Then sit down with me or heads will roll.”

They did, but it was dessert before they were comfortable.

He slept in Sunday morning, then took a call from Chloe as he ate breakfast on the deck.

“Tante Bijou isn’t at all well,” she told him, “and the housekeeper is worried. She wouldn’t let her call me. So I’ve taken over her care and I might be longer than I expected. Is that all right with you?”

“Of course,” he answered her. “Stay as long as she needs you.”

“Thank you, Killian. Give my love to Sawyer and Campbell.”

“I will.”

Campbell arrived home Sunday night—by helicopter. It landed in the middle of the front lawn with rotors beating so loudly that the sound brought everyone in the house to the side porch.

As they watched, Campbell leaped to the grass, ran clear of the rotors, then waved as the ’copter pulled up again and sailed off into the sky, causing a wind storm in the fruit trees and the poplars.

“He didn’t get arrested again, did he?” Winfield asked. He held a large free weight in one hand, obviously interrupted in the middle of his evening workout.

“He didn’t call us for bail,” Killian replied. “And that wasn’t a police helicopter.”

Kezia used the wooden spoon in her hand to point in the direction the helicopter had taken. “That’s his friend Billie Sandusky. She flew him to his interview.”

Killian and Winfield both turned to her in interest.

She shrugged. “No, I don’t know if they’re romantic,” she said, apparently eager to fend off their questions. “But I hope not. She drinks straight shots, and I don’t like to see that in a woman.”

Daniel, standing at the bottom of the stairs with a greasy rag in his hands, warned her with a quiet, “Kezia.” He didn’t wear a uniform and his manner was easy and friendly, but he was always careful never to overstep his position as an employee in the Abbott household—something that was difficult to do in a relationship as long-standing as theirs.

Kezia, on the other hand, often offered her opinion, and seldom with any deference. But the whole family loved her anyway.

Killian frowned at her. “And how do you know what Billie drinks?”

“I play bridge with her mother’s housekeeper. The girl’s out of control, and with Campbell’s confusion about who he is and where he belongs, he doesn’t need that.” Then she seemed to realize that was crossing the line, even for her. She cleared her throat. “Not that that’s any of my business. I’ll just go back to my cake.”

“Hey, Daniel!” Campbell slapped Daniel on the shoulder as he loped past him and up the steps.

“Mr. Campbell.” Daniel shrugged an apology at Killian for his wife’s candor and went back to the garage.

Campbell grinned at Killian and Winfield. “Gentlemen.” He transferred his grip on his overnight bag to shake hands. “Winfield. Killer. Nice of you to meet my helicopter. Did you miss me, or is this an attempt to prevent my return?”

Winfield clapped his shoulder. “Nice to see you back safe and sound, Mr. Campbell.” Then he took off toward the basement stairs and the gym.

Campbell was dark-featured like Chloe, a few inches shorter than Killian and more slender, though his work on the estate had given him well-developed shoulders and upper arms. Chloe was always telling him that his job was to oversee the temporary help harvesting the apples, but he’d never been one to stand by and watch.

Killian remembered trying to teach him to bat a baseball as children. The lesson had resulted in Campbell’s taking the bat from him and swinging until he was exhausted. His father had told Killian that determination was sometimes more important than skill in achieving success.

“Depends,” Killian teased in response to Campbell’s question, even as he gave him a fraternal shove into the front hall. “Did you take the job?”

“It hasn’t been offered to me yet,” Campbell replied. “They have six other applicants.”

“Do you want it?”

“It’s Florida.”

Killian shrugged. “Sunshine every day. Funny-tasting tropical fruit. Big deal.”

“Women in string bikinis,” Campbell countered with a longing look, “all day, every day, all year long. Going to the beach on your coffee break in February, baseball spring-training camps.”

“You’re only yards from the beach here.” That was a flimsy argument and Killian knew it. But there were issues unresolved between the brothers, and he didn’t want him hundreds of miles away until they’d fixed them.

Campbell put his bag down near the hall table. “If you went to the beach here in February, you’d be the ice sculpture at Mom’s next party.” Suddenly he seemed to notice her absence. “She gone already? She left a message on my voice mail saying she was off to Paris with the Mitchells.”

“Right. Winfield had fits, but she went anyway. Need a coffee nudge? I’ve got a pot going in the library.”

Campbell studied him suspiciously. “You’re not planning some big heavy conversation about the family, are you?”

The kid had a good brain. “No,” Killian lied. “My offer was just an effort to help you relax after your flight.”

“Aha!” Campbell pointed a finger at him. “You want to know about Billie!”

Killian shook his head. “I know about Billie. She drinks straight shots and she’s out of control. I was just interested in your weekend.”

Campbell followed him as he led the way to the library. The room was paneled in warm oak and had floor-to-ceiling bookshelves protected by doors with wire mesh. A ladder on runners provided access to top shelves. Killian and his brothers had terrorized many a nanny on it when they were children. Deep blue upholstered sofas and chairs with an even darker blue stripe were arranged near the fireplace, which now held a pot of flowers.

A granite counter ran along one side of the room as a sort of study area, and Killian, who’d adopted this room as a home office, had installed a bar at one end of it. The aroma of a simple French roast filled that side of the room.

At the far end, Palladian French doors opened out onto the side porch and garden.

Killian poured Kahlúa and brandy in a glass pedestal mug, added coffee, then picked up the drink he’d left there when he’d heard the helicopter. He took them to the sofa where Campbell had settled, handed him his drink, then sat in the chair opposite.

“So, you had time to sightsee?” he asked as Campbell angled one knee over the other and leaned back.

“No,” Campbell replied, “but the sights I described are everywhere you look. Definitely one of the perks.”

Silence fell. Campbell was waiting for him to ask more questions, and sure his brother would hate that, Killian waited for him to volunteer information.

Campbell sipped his drink, rested the glass on his knee and finally said in a defensive tone, “You know, I wouldn’t be abandoning the family if I left here.”

Killian nodded calmly. There were only six years between them, but since their father died when Campbell was only seventeen, Killian had taken charge to keep him in school when he’d been offered a job with a software company, to chase him down when he’d run off, to bail him out of jail when he was picked up in a bar brawl in Southhampton. So they had what amounted to father-son issues, though they were brothers and not that far apart in age.

“I know that,” Killian said. “And no one’s suggesting it.”

“Mom is.”

“Well, you’re her favorite. She’d—”

“No!” Campbell interrupted, grabbing his cup and lowering his foot to the floor in a gesture of impatience. “See! There it is again! That’s not true. I’m not her favorite.”

Killian raised an eyebrow. “There’s what?”

Campbell gestured toward him in clear exasperation. “That…that suggestion that Mom cares more about me because I’m her natural son. You act like I’m the one who’s always seeing differences between your half of the family and mine, but you’re the one—”

Killian concentrated on keeping his voice down as he interrupted. “There are not two halves of this family.”

“There are! You don’t want to acknowledge it because you consider yourself the benevolent ruler of all of us, but we’re not the same. You’re from the first line of Abbotts—the founders’ circle. Wealth, position, bloodline. I’m from the second wife, with none of the above. And when Mom tries to offer guidance to me, all she talks about is you!”

The volume in Killian’s voice grew harder to control. “Wealth, position and bloodline did a lot for Sawyer and me, didn’t they?” he demanded. “You got the mother who stayed!”

Campbell looked taken aback for a moment, then he said more quietly, “Well, cry me a river. You got her, too. She didn’t give birth to you, but you’re her favorite.”

Killian shook his head as the absurd words reverberated around them. “We sound like a couple of children. Isn’t the important thing that we’re all here?”

Campbell ran a hand over his face and sighed. “You would think so. But I feel as though I’ll never know who I am as long as I’m here. You’re brilliant in business, Sawyer lives life on the heroic edge and I’m just here—the farmer, the plodder.”

“Campbell…”

“You can deny it all you want, it’s still true.”

“You’re the best estate manager this place has ever had.”

“I’m the only one it’s ever had. You just gave me the job because you got too occupied with the business, and Sawyer has his hands full, what with running the foundation and trying to get himself killed.”

“It doesn’t matter how you became the estate manager. You are great at it.”

Campbell nodded, suddenly calmer. “That’s why I think my skills could be marketable elsewhere. If I’m ever going to feel like an Abbott in my own right, I have to do it away from here.”

“Away from where the Abbotts are?”

Campbell acknowledged with an exasperated nod that that might sound strange. “I know. My life doesn’t seem to make sense on any level. I’m just going with my gut.”

“Here’s something for that gut.” Sawyer walked into the room with three dessert plates of chocolate cake. Two were splayed in one hand with great dexterity and the third was in the other. He’d been a waiter at the Plucky Duck in town his senior year in high school and every summer in college. Killian remembered that Sawyer’s charm had earned him big tips that had helped support his weekend activities when their father had insisted the boys earn their own disposable income so they’d understand what real life was like.

Killian had always considered that the absence of one’s natural mother had been a serious dose of real life, but he’d understood his father’s point.

Campbell laughed as he reached up to accept his plate. “How do you rate?” he asked.

Sawyer handed Killian a plate, then went to sit at the opposite end of the sofa. “I came in through the kitchen. Kezia was just frosting the cake and I turned on my charm.”

“Nice of you to share with us.” Killian saluted him with his fork. “I remember a time when you’d have absconded with the whole thing and not even worried about us.”

“I would have now,” he admitted with a grin, “but Kezia said clearly, ‘Your brothers are in the library. Two of these are for them.’ I wouldn’t want to have to answer to her if I didn’t share. And I knew you’d blab if I didn’t.”

“Damn right,” Campbell said. “How was your trip?”

“Good. A bunch of nice ladies in New Hampshire trying to build a teen shelter with no money. They think if we help them put it up, they can find funding to run the operation.”

“Help them?” Killian asked.

“Give them the money,” Sawyer clarified.

“Can we do it?”

“With a little artful manipulation.”

“Legal manipulation?”

“Of course.” Sawyer replied with wide-eyed innocence, but Killian knew him to be good at that. He told you what you wanted to hear, then went off and did whatever he damn well pleased.

And usually got away with it. He had their mother’s straight blond hair, which he currently wore in a spiked style Killian was amazed to find appealed to women. It also stunned boards of directors, who expected to deal with a wild man and found themselves head to head with a savvy street fighter who did everything as though he had nothing to lose.

Sawyer had the same blue eyes Killian had inherited from their father, but his were set in a sophisticated face that didn’t look like a Mount Rushmore carving, the way Killian’s did.

His smile, too, charmed the ladies, and he had a sense of fun that was hard for anyone to resist. Until he inevitably found the threat in an undertaking and it grew too dangerous for his companions.

He found a way to use that to his advantage by volunteering his daredevil skills every year at the Children with Cancer fund-raiser. Everyone donated eagerly to see what Sawyer would do this year. In the past years, he’d sky-boarded, rappelled the Abbott Building and offered himself at a bachelor auction—less physically arduous but certainly as dangerous.

This year he was waterskiing. Killian wasn’t privy to the details, but the stunt didn’t sound as harrowing as his previous ones.

Everyone at Shepherd’s Knoll worried about him, Killian included—maybe even Killian particularly. They’d been partners in crime as children, support for each other when they couldn’t figure out why their mother didn’t like them, and they’d decided together to like Campbell when he was born, then to adore Abby.

But something had changed in Sawyer when Abby was taken. Killian was aware of the subtle difference, the slight pulling away, because he himself had been desperately trying not to change. Yet the small distance had happened and there’d been nothing he could do about it.

They’d grown to adulthood with a tight fraternal bond, though they’d gone on completely different roads.

“Good,” Killian said. “Because bailing out Campbell for brawling is one thing. Pleading your case before the Federal Trade Commission would be something else.”

Campbell laughed.

Sawyer glowered at his younger brother. “I thought you and I were allied when it came to standing against Killer’s stuffy big-brothering.”

“We are,” Campbell replied, spearing a large bite of cake. “Unless he’s really trashing you, then I kind of enjoy that.”

Sawyer sighed. “Tell me you got the job and you’re moving soon.”

Campbell shook his head while he chewed. “Sorry,” he said finally. “You’re going to be cursed with me for a little while yet. A few other candidates are under consideration and I’m sure there’ll be a second round of interviews.”

Sawyer pretended a long-suffering sigh. “I’ve been trying to get rid of you for thirty plus years. I guess I can wait a little longer.”

Campbell shrugged, forking another bite. “Sorry to make it hard for you, but Killer’s working against you.”

Now Sawyer pretended disgust. “You’re not encouraging him to stay?” he asked Killian. “Come on, this is our chance! We’ve been plotting it our whole lives.”

“Yeah, but Mom’s gone and I’m going to make him host the Women of Losthampton Historical Society. If he leaves, it’ll have to be one of us.” The small-and-aged group met in the house’s great room once a month, a perk Chloe had granted them when she joined many years ago.

Sawyer nodded. “I missed that completely.”

Sawyer and Campbell also had a rapport that didn’t involve Killian. Being younger, they’d supported each other’s resentments of privileges and attitudes enjoyed by the eldest sibling. So if Killian had any concerns that Campbell would be offended by Sawyer’s teasing, they were laid to rest by Campbell’s grim expression as he caught chocolate crumbs—all that was left on his plate—with the flat edge of his fork. The look was completely false and there was laughter in his eyes.

“The ladies like me better than either of you, anyway,” Campbell said, getting to his feet. “Four or five of them have me lined up for their daughters.”

Sawyer smiled at Killian. “That could work. We’d still get rid of him.” Then he looked puzzled. “I thought Mom was just gone for the weekend.”

“Tante Bijou’s under the weather. She’s staying to take care of her for a while. She sends both of you her love.”

“Well, you’re getting rid of me right now.” Campbell stretched and Sawyer moved his head aside theatrically, evading the fork in his right hand. “Selling my good qualities has been more exhausting than I realized.”

“Mmm,” Sawyer said. “All that stuff you had to make up, probably.” He had to shout the last few words as Campbell left the room.

Sawyer stood up to pour himself a cup of coffee, then sat down again and picked up his cake. “Does he think he aced the interview?” he asked Killian, suddenly seriously.

Killian shrugged. “He didn’t say. He got defensive about why he wanted to leave, and I tried to tell him he was valuable here, and we got into it like we always do. So, I don’t know.”

Sawyer nodded, familiar with Campbell’s attitude. “He just needs to get away and realize we don’t make him feel he doesn’t belong—he does it to himself.”

Killian couldn’t help a laugh. “You just told him we’ve been plotting to get rid of him for years.”

Sawyer laughed, too. “Yeah. But he knows I’m kidding. Doesn’t he?”

“I’m sure he does.”

“What’d the two of you fight about?”

Killian said intrepidly, “Which one of us Mom loves the most.”

Sawyer made a scornful noise. “That’s easy. Me.”

KILLIAN RODE to work Monday morning in the back seat of the limo, checking stock-market quotes on his laptop, grateful that his calendar showed a relatively easy day. He’d had a good weekend, but he feared he was losing what little ability he had to relax. Not that he understood why he was worried about it. He’d been a workaholic since college, when his father had given him a part-time job keeping statistics on production costs for every business within the corporation, sales figures and every other recordable process in between.

Once in the city, he thanked Daniel and wished him a good day, then took his private elevator to the twenty-third floor. He responded with a smile to all the polite “Good morning, Mr. Abbott’s” directed at him. His mail was on his desk, along with a steaming cup of coffee and a brioche Barbara had bought from the Montmartre Bakery on her way in from the subway.

Life was good at the office, he thought as he remembered his pleasant but very quiet weekend at home. There, he’d had to work to fill the time. Of course, Chloe had been gone, and his brothers hadn’t returned until Sunday night. But was he so unused to his own company that he was now lonely by himself?

The notion surprised him.

He took a sip of coffee, bit into the freshly baked roll and went through the mail and e-mail messages.

He noticed a memo from human resources, asking him to call Jack regarding the sudden revelation of confidential information about an employee. He was about to put the memo aside until after he’d handled a few things he thought had priority, when he saw that the employee in question was Cordelia Magnolia Hyatt.