asked in pleased surprise as Janet walked through the kitchen, heading for the stairs. China, in grubby jeans and shirt, looked as though she’d just come from the orchard, where she’d been working with Campbell since she’d arrived.
Janet and China were both average height and slender, with dark hair and eyes. But China had long hair, while Janet favored a short style that required a minimum of care. Cheerful smiles and carefully tended good looks lent them a similarity in appearance that had made it easy for them to pass as natural sisters. But close friends of Bob and Peggy Grant of Paloma, California, their adoptive parents, knew the girls had come to their home separately.
China’s eyes went over Janet’s shorts, T-shirt and lank hair. “How did your hair get wet? And you bought a new outfit?”
Janet explained about her impromptu dip, then the discussion that followed over coffee and cookies. She left out her insistence that she needed Brian’s help to negotiate the murky waters of social correctness.
China took her arm as they went up the stairs. “He thought we’d be upset if the papers brought up his past?” she asked, incredulous as Janet explained his reluctance to be in the wedding. “It isn’t his fault. And Susannah’s part of this family’s past whether Brian’s involved or not.”
“I know. But he cares a lot about the family, and doesn’t want you to suffer or be embarrassed on his account.”
“Wait till I get a hold of him,” China threatened.
“Easy,” Janet cautioned. “He’s doing what you asked. I wouldn’t scold him if I were you.”
“True. But make sure Campbell doesn’t hear that reason.”
“I won’t tell if you don’t.”
China stopped her at the top of the stairs. “Jan, thanks for doing this. Are you all right? I can’t believe you fell in the water!”
Janet had been hoping her sister would focus more on her heroic accomplishment of getting Brian to agree, rather than her klutzy backward step.
“I’m fine,” she assured her. “And Brian’s going to be here at ten tomorrow morning for the tux fittings.”
China gave her a quick hug. “You are a genius!”
“How many times have I told you that?” Janet teased. “So, how are things in the orchard? Is the Duchess ready for harvest?
The Duchess was the largest tree in the vintage section of the apple orchard. The trees in that area had been a gift from Thomas Jefferson to the early owners of the property. Campbell watched over the entire orchard with great care but devoted particular attention to the old trees.
China had spent almost a month working with him while waiting for Chloe to come home from Paris so that China could take the DNA test to prove she was Abigail Abbott. Killian and Sawyer had been convinced of her honesty, but Campbell had suspected that she was lying.
Killian’s decision that China work on the estate with Campbell in the interim had been intended to help them get acquainted, but they’d disliked each other and warred continually.
Then the DNA test had proved that she wasn’t an Abbott. China had come to Shepherd’s Knoll in the first place because of a box she’d found in the attic of their adoptive father’s home after he’d died. The sisters had been cleaning out the house to put it on the market and found two cardboard storage boxes hidden in the eaves. One had China’s name on the lid and the other Janet’s.
China’s had contained clippings of the Abbott toddler’s kidnap, a pair of rompers made by Abbott Mills and a homemade rag doll.
Janet’s had held a birth certificate and several other things that had led her on a search to Canada while China had come to Losthampton.
When it became clear that China wasn’t Abby, everyone wondered why her box had been filled with clippings about Abby’s abduction. Then Campbell suggested that perhaps the lids of the boxes had been accidentally switched at some point, during one of the times the Grant family had moved, and that the contents might actually be clues to Janet’s family.
China had sent for Janet and her DNA test had proved that Abigail Abbott was finally home. It also allowed the antagonism that had existed between Campbell and China to turn to attraction, since they weren’t related after all and, eventually, to love. Janet was thrilled to have found her family but envied the look in her sister’s eyes.
“The orchard’s coming along nicely. It’s a waiting game at this point. We won’t harvest until sometime in October. We’re even going to get to go on our honeymoon.”
Janet was fascinated by her sister’s adaptation to life at Shepherd’s Knoll. For a woman who’d made a living running a shopping service for other people, who loved going from store to store, mall to mall, checking the Internet for new products and following sales, she’d settled with remarkable ease into this bucolic life.
“How lucky are we that we both belong here?” Janet asked her seriously as they walked down the corridor. “I’m not sure I could have stayed if you’d had to go.” They’d made a deal, when each had set off on her search for her family, that whatever happened, they would remain sisters.
“You’re Chloe’s daughter, the little sister the guys have missed so much. I wouldn’t have let you leave them again.” They stopped at China’s bedroom door. “But, had some writer created this story out of his imagination, it couldn’t have worked out more perfectly for us. Now not only are we sisters, but we’re going to be sisters-in-law. And double aunts to each other’s children!”
China was apparently giddy over Janet’s success with Brian. “I don’t think there’s any such thing,” Janet laughed.
“Well, there should be.”
“We are blessed. Are you finished work already?”
“No. But I saw you coming home and wanted to know what happened. I also wanted you to try on the dress for my wedding. You can wear the one we got for me when I was supposed to be a bridesmaid for Sawyer and Sophie.”
“Ah, yes. In the simpler days before you and Campbell made it a double wedding.” Janet started slowly backward toward her room at the end of the hall. “Okay. I’ll shower quickly and wash my hair again. Brian didn’t have any conditioner,” she added as an aside. “Give me fifteen minutes.”
Janet had Sawyer’s old room on the northwest corner of the second floor. It had a view of the gardens and, in the distance, the hedges that separated Shepherd’s Knoll from its neighbor.
The room was painted a subtle oyster color, and Chloe had redecorated it as a guest room, added a pink-and-white quilt and pink-flowered curtains. Janet had placed a few photographs around and, before leaving California, had shipped home some things she didn’t want to put in storage. They would arrive in a couple of days.
She’d inherited an old maple hope chest that had been her adoptive mother’s, and China had been willed a Boston rocker that had been their paternal grandmother’s.
Janet thought wistfully of the Grants and wondered what they would have thought of the upscale lifestyle their daughters had become part of. They’d been happy, middle-class people. She was sure they’d had no idea who their adopted daughter really was. She wondered, as she often had since the DNA test had come back positive, how she’d gotten from here as a toddler to the doctor in Paloma who’d placed her with the Grants.
She shook off a stab of sadness and tried to accept that this was a mystery she might never be able to solve.
In the shower, Janet’s thoughts turned to Brian. He was right that his position as bastard son of the scandalous Susannah would always be a tagline for the press. She felt a little guilty for manipulating him into a position where the subject was bound to come up again—in print.
But while he knew the Abbotts would always welcome him, she doubted that he understood how little they cared