right to be here, but she wouldn’t stay. For she was part of whatever life Janet was discovering at this very moment somewhere in the northern Canadian wilderness. Poor shopping there, she imagined.
Campbell, in jeans and a dark blue T-shirt, came to stand under the Duchess. She smiled pleasantly at him to implement her new plan. Unfortunately she wasn’t watching what she was doing and dropped a small, hard-culled apple on his head. Or she would have if he hadn’t dodged it.
“You don’t have to do this today,” he said, steadying the ladder as she reached for a cull.
“This is your last chance to have someone else help you with the picking,” she said. “You should take advantage of it.”
“I’m leaving before you are. In a few days this is going to be someone else’s responsibility.”
She glanced down at him in surprise. “You’re leaving before Janet comes?”
“I had promised to report for work at the end of the week. And right now, you’re not sure where your sister is. I’ll come back to meet her when she arrives.”
“Who’s going to replace you?”
“Everyone’s hoping you are.”
Distracted again, she chipped her fingernail with the shears.
“It wouldn’t be fair,” she said. “This is another woman’s life. Maybe Janet’s.”
“Don’t we all live in each other’s lives?”
It was interesting, she thought, that though they didn’t get along at all, he was able to pinpoint the one thing in all this she was having difficulty letting go. When she’d set out on this journey to find out if she was Abigail Abbott, it was because she’d wanted to find the life that was really hers. True, she’d loved her adopted parents, and Janet couldn’t be more her sister than if they’d been born twins. But since she’d been aware of what adoption meant, she’d felt a burning desire, if not a desperate need, to know about her past. She couldn’t explain it.
And whoever had given her life had bequeathed her a possessiveness and a single-mindedness that often made her difficult to live with.
“Come down from there,” he said, tugging at her pant leg, “before you cut off your finger.”
Even she thought stopping was a good idea. She handed down the shears. “You’re right about living in each other’s lives,” she said when she had reached solid ground. She helped him fold the ladder. “But aren’t you the one who has to leave here to find the place where you belong? And you were born to Chloe. Your brothers are your blood. What is it you need to know?”
He laughed lightly, self-effacingly. “I guess I’m proof that blood isn’t always what it’s all about. It’s about feeling that you fit in, that you do your share, that your contributions are valuable and significant.” He grinned now, his expression ripe with all the unpleasant words that had passed between them since her arrival. “Much as it pains me to admit it,” he conceded grudgingly, “your time spent here has been all that.”
She couldn’t believe her ears, and made a production of slapping a hand against the side of her head as though something obstructed her hearing. “You didn’t just say I’ve worked hard and well?” she asked in a theatrically shocked voice as they picked up opposite ends of the ladder and carried it to the toolshed. “Because I don’t think I could survive a compliment from you. I’ve been so changed by all your criticisms and complaints that I survive on them. A kind word would—”
“Give it a rest,” he advised, pointing to the shed’s closed door. “Would you open it, please?”
She held the door open, putting her wrist to the back of her forehead as he walked past her and inside. “I’m feeling faint,” she went on. “Everything’s beginning to blur. The whole—”
He stood the ladder up and leaned it into its spot in the corner, then took the shears from his belt and placed them on the tool bench. She’d followed him inside. “Put a sock in it, China. Your work’s been good, but your mouth and your attitude have been a big problem for me.”
“Probably because you have the same mouth, the same attitude.”
They looked into each other’s eyes under the harsh fluorescent light, the smells of herbal supplements, natural pesticides and the oil that kept the equipment running permeating the air. She had that sense again of being somewhere that would have been so foreign to her just a month ago.
As this man would have been. Though dressed for physical labor, Campbell had the Abbott breeding and grace so apparent in Killian’s and Sawyer’s good manners and kindness. Until now she’d found it less visible in Campbell, because she’d always been focused on how difficult he was and how angry he made her, but though they’d exchanged little barbs this morning, some subtle change was taking place in the way they dealt with each other.
His treatment of her didn’t offend her quite so much now that she knew he wasn’t her brother, and he seemed a little more inclined to pull his punches—maybe for the same reason.
“If there’s a brother in your real life,” he speculated, taking her elbow in an unconscious gesture and pushing her ahead of him toward the door, “he may be harder to get along with than I’ve been.”
While he padlocked the door, she walked out into the sunshine, aware of a persistent prickling on her arm. She rubbed at it. “I don’t know if that’s possible,” she teased. “In any case, I’ll be well prepared.”
“Something bite you?” he asked, indicating the arm she chafed.
“I don’t know.” She twisted her arm awkwardly to look at it. “It just sort of…”
“Let me see.” He took hold of her arm and leaned down to study it more closely. “There’re spiders in the shed. Not that they’d mistake you for something sweet.”
“Ha-ha.” The artificial laugh came out breathy and surprised, instead of as the taunting response she’d intended. And as the air left her lungs, she understood the reason for the new tingle on her arm.
His touch!
The tingle ran from her shoulder to her elbow now as his fingertips traced a path there, looking for the source of the problem. Then it trickled down her wrist as he explored further.
“I don’t see anything,” he said finally, running his thumb over the back of her elbow one last time.
The tingle followed the path of his thumb. Against every ounce of willpower she tried to muster, heat rose from her throat and crept into her cheeks.
She saw him take note, watched his eyes linger on her blushing face, his expression changing from momentary confusion to something she didn’t even want to analyze.
She snatched her arm away. “I must have scraped it on the door,” she said quickly. I…I’ve got to get back to the house. I promised I’d go wedding-dress shopping with the girls and I have to shower.”
He opened his mouth to speak, but she didn’t wait to hear. She ran for the house and into the kitchen, where Sophie and Cordie still sat.
“Oh, good!” she said breathlessly. “You haven’t left yet.”
Cordie studied her worriedly. “What’s the matter? What happened?”
“Nothing. Can I change my mind and come with you?”
Sophie nodded. “We’re still waiting for Chloe. She’s having trouble finding a comfortable pair of shoes.”
Thank goodness. China abhorred the thought of being left alone here alone with Campbell.
“I can be showered and dressed in twenty minutes,” she promised.
Cordie smiled. “Take thirty. We might still be waiting for Chloe.”
China