His Baby. Muriel Jensen

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      Initially, Nathan Abbott had refused to hire him because he’d refused to wear a uniform. Nathan had driven himself to town the morning after the interview and had an accident on the Long Island Expressway while trying to talk to his secretary on the car phone. He’d hired Daniel that afternoon.

      “Yes,” Killian replied, stretching out his legs. “You’re not going to ask for investment advice again, are you?”

      Daniel laughed. “Linus Larrabee gave Fairchild advice in Sabrina and the chauffeur had millions by the end of the movie.”

      “True. But it was the senior Mr. Larrabee who gave him advice, and Fairchild had a beautiful daughter for Linus to fall in love with.”

      “You’re a married man!”

      “Not anymore.”

      “Come on, Mr. Abbott. You’re going to love Miss Cordie till the day you die. Only trouble is, you don’t know how to live with her.”

      “God wouldn’t know how to live with her. I don’t need that kind of trouble.”

      Daniel didn’t reply. That meant he disagreed. Killian felt alarmed at how little stock the family and staff put in Cordie’s adultery. “You’re supposed to humor me, Daniel,” Killian teased. “Tell me I’m right, that women are generally no damn good—except for your Kezia, of course—and that nobody needs the kind of trouble they bring.”

      “Man’s character is honed by trouble, Mr. Abbott,” Daniel philosophized with a bright smile in the rearview mirror. “Your mother running off made a hardworking man out of your father. Otherwise, the way he was goin’, he’d have gambled away your inheritance.”

      “But she proved the women-are-no-damn-good theory.”

      “Yep. Every once in a while there’s one. Still, she’s responsible for you and Mr. Sawyer bein’ here, and that’s no small thing. You make money like nobody’s ever seen and Mr. Sawyer makes sure all the extra gets spread around, doing good work.”

      That might have been an oversimplification of the situation, but Killian liked the sound of it.

      “Thank you, Daniel. By the way, you can have the weekend off. I’m not going back to town until Monday morning.” Daniel lived with Kezia in what had once been the guest house.

      “You sure about that, Mr. Abbott?”

      “I’m sure.”

      Killian loved Shepherd’s Knoll. He didn’t spend nearly enough time here now that Abbott Mills had holdings overseas, but he got the same feeling of security and history he used to get as a child when his father turned onto the long, poplar-lined driveway that led to the house.

      On Sunday-afternoon drives around Long Island, Nathan Abbott used to tell Killian and Sawyer about Thomas and Abigail Abbott, who’d come over on the Mayflower and raised sheep outside of Plymouth. Over the generations, the frugal, clever Abbotts had prospered, and William Abbott had started a woolenmill early in the nineteenth century.

      Jacob Abbott, Killian and Sawyer’s great-grandfather, had continued to run the mill, but he’d fallen behind the competition when he’d failed to install new and more sophisticated machinery, considering it frivolous. His losses were considerable by the time he’d realized the error of his ways, but by then he didn’t have the capital to purchase new equipment.

      So James Abbott, Jacob’s eldest son, had been encouraged to marry a cotton heiress from Virginia. New equipment and the new bride’s knowledge of business had improved the Abbott fortunes considerably.

      With the advent of synthetics in the middle of the twentieth century, Nathan, now in control of the company, had diversified. He’d married Susannah Stewart, the daughter of a Texas oil baron, and they’d moved to her family’s summer home in Losthampton, New York, situated in the small cleft of an inlet on the south coast of Long Island between East Hampton and Southhampton.

      When Nathan and Susannah Abbott had moved into her family’s palatial home, it had been known as Bluebonnet Knoll because of the Stewarts’ Texas connection. But when Susannah had run off with the chauffeur, giving Nathan the house to assuage her guilt over leaving her children, Nathan had changed the name, wanting it to reflect his family’s business rather than hers.

      Killian remembered his mother. Instead of warm, fuzzy recollections of a loving woman, he had strong, clear memories of a light-haired goddess always in gowns and sparkling jewelry, waving to him from across the room. She’d seldom come into the nursery, simply blown kisses from the doorway.

      He’d harbored the hope that someday when he was big enough and smart enough, she’d come and talk to him, possibly even hold him. But that had never happened.

      One day his father had called Sawyer and him into his study and told them their mother was gone and a new woman was coming into their lives. She was French, he’d said, and a designer for one of the clothing companies Abbott’s owned.

      Killian remembered clearly the shock and distress he’d felt at having to accept that the goddess would never get to know him, never hold him, that she was lost to him forever. He’d been five.

      Someone had to pay, so he’d made the new woman, named Chloe, the culprit. He’d told her straight off that he didn’t want anything to do with her, didn’t want her in his house and didn’t want her touching his brother.

      Sawyer, though, even at three a man with a mind of his own, adored her instantly. Killian had resisted heroically, but had finally lost the battle to hate her when she’d walked into the nursery with his father about a week after her arrival and asked, “Is there a reason the children must be confined to this floor while we are home?”

      His father had thought a moment. “Susannah liked it this way. She said it kept them out of her hair when her friends came around.”

      Chloe had shrugged. “Well, as I have no friends yet and…” She’d patted a very short haircut. “As I have no hair for them to get into, I don’t see why they can’t have the run of the house. Except for your office, of course, when you are working at home. The staff tell me they are very good children and usually behave themselves well.” She’d put a hand to Killian’s face and one to Sawyer’s. It had been warm and smooth and had smelled of lilacs. “And you will continue to behave for me, n’est-ce pas?”

      A whole new world had opened up. Although Susannah had never come back and Killian, ever her champion, had sat by his window every night before going to bed and watched for her, during the day he’d loved being with Chloe as much as Sawyer had. She took them everywhere—shopping, to church, to visit the friends she eventually made, to the beach. He’d maintained a locked-up corner of his heart for Susannah, but he’d let Chloe in and allowed himself be happy again.

      Campbell was born the following year and Abby, almost four years after that.

      Killian smiled at memories of his big-eyed, plump-cheeked baby sister, then straightened in his seat and put all thoughts of her out of his mind. He wanted to relax this weekend, to refill the well of his usually nimble mind and steady focus.

      Thoughts of Abby, and, of course, her disappearance, wouldn’t allow that.

      Daniel pulled around to the front of the house. Its cozy grandeur СКАЧАТЬ