Another Man's Son

by Glenys O'Connell

  ****

  “You’re sure that bitch you married isn’t behind this?”

  Ket stared at his father. It hadn’t occurred to him that Kathryn would be capable of spiriting her son away and pretending he’d been kidnapped. “What are you talking about?”

  “Well, it’s been more than obvious that this marriage of yours is a sham. Either you’re not man enough to satisfy a woman or she’s really the frigid piece of work she appears. I don’t much care either way anymore. She’s given me what I wanted—an heir to the Morgan name. I want that boy back here, and if Kathryn Fitzgerald is behind this, make her tell you where he is. Whatever it takes!”

  Ket swallowed. If there was one person in this world who inspired fear in him, it was his father. A little frisson of pleasure darted up his spine, though, to know his father didn’t mind what he did to make Kathryn tell him the truth about where the brat was.

  A pleasure quickly extinguished when he considered what his father was capable of doing to him if he ever discovered the truth about Alex.

  ****

  Kathryn was at her desk in the small room she used as a study when Ket came in. Even in this cubby hole, she could never enjoy private space. She’d been phoning all their friends, all Alex’s friends, the school—everyone she knew who might have seen Alex, or anyone he might have tried to get for help. This was her second time around, and she was nearly at the end of the list when Ket’s hand swooped down and yanked the phone receiver out of her hand.

  The small white phone squawked sadly as he slammed the receiver back into the cradle, to be quickly silenced when he picked the instrument up and flung it across the room to smash on the far wall.

  “Ket! What? Have you lost your mind?” Her startled words were lost as her husband dragged her from the seat and threw her backward against the wall, his eyes wild with anticipation and rage.

  Oh, God help her! She’d known someday it would come to this, that someday the vicious shakes and pinches would escalate to blows, or even worse. But not right now, she couldn’t afford to give into Ket’s bullying. Not when Alex needed her.

  The thought of her son was still in her mind as Ket’s hand smashed across her face. Purple haze enveloped her as the stinging pain zinged through her body and she struggled to speak through bleeding lips.

  “Don’t bother calling for help. Nobody here gives a damn what I do to my wife!” Ket spat the words through clenched teeth. “No one’s going to interfere, so the quicker you tell me what kind of games you’re playing, the better for you.”

  She stared at him, dazed, desperately trying to gather her senses as she saw his hand raised for another blow. “Ket, I don’t know—” But she couldn’t stop him.

  This time his fist ploughed into her belly, and the breath was knocked out of her. She hadn’t known such agony existed. She fought to pull air back into her lungs as suffocating pain racked every inch of her being.

  “Tell me where Alex is! I know you’ve stowed him away somewhere, plotting to ruin things with my father, and get your greedy little hands on a nice fat ransom so you can run away with your beloved little bastard! Just you remember this…you and the boy belong to me. I’ll never let you go!”

  So that was it. Kathryn’s pain-fogged brain cleared. Ket really believed she had Alex, that she was trying to milk the Morgans for ransom money so she could take her child away. Kathryn had the crazy thought that she wished she’d thought of the plan before and started to smile. Which was a mistake.

  Infuriated to see her smile, taking it as defiance, her husband raised his fist for another blow. Hating her lack of courage even as she cowered backward, she knew she was cornered and there was nowhere to go. No one to rescue her as she stared in fascination at the anticipation and malevolence on the face of the man before her. She called on the anger that had been simmering over the years, pulling herself up and readying herself for the pain that would surely come. She could see from his face that Ket wanted her to beg, that he was enjoying this.

  Kathryn was not going to give him that pleasure. No matter what.

  “Lay a hand on her one more time and I’ll kill you myself!” Ben Asher spoke the words like a man who meant what he said. Ket froze, his fisted hand dropping back to his side. Kathryn gave a little hitch of a sob, knowing she was saved—for the time being.

  “Maybe you’d like to step outside and see what it’s like to fight with someone closer to your own size?” Ben’s offer dripped with icy promise.

  Ket managed to paste a cocky smile on his face as he turned around. “Well, that wouldn’t be so good now, would it? I certainly don’t want to be charged with thrashing the acting sheriff.”

  “I think the thrashing would be the other way around, but if you like, I can take off the badge.”

  “But then it would be all around the town that a Morgan had been rolling around in the dirt with trash, and that wouldn’t be much good at all.”

  Ben’s mouth thinned to an angry slit, and for a moment, Kathryn thought he would attack Ket anyway. But then he grinned savagely and stepped back from the brink with a visible effort. “You know, Morgan, I don’t think you’d even be worth getting my hands dirty.”

  The very air throbbed with suppressed violence. She couldn’t let these two men come to blows, not over her. There’d been too much pain and hurt already, and besides, all she wanted in the world right now was for them to help her find Alex.

  “When you two have finished sparring with each other, maybe you could tell me if you’ve made any progress with the search for my son, Sheriff Asher?” She spoke through the tearing pain of her mouth where Ket’s blow had split the tender skin, but she kept her voice cold and her head high as she questioned Ben.

  Ket snorted. “Well, I’ll leave you two alone to discuss your business, but you’d better remember what I told you, Kathryn, my dear.”

  Ben bided his time until the door was closed behind the other man before asking: “Exactly what did he tell you earlier?”

  Kathryn shuddered, remembering Ket’s threats. But she stood up straighter, ignoring the aching bruises on her arms and breasts where Ket’s blows had landed. “That’s no business of yours.”

  He’d moved closer to her without her even being aware of it. Now she could feel his warmth, almost feel his breath on her cheek. And that familiar smell, part light citrus aftershave, part clean healthy male, part simply Ben. She had to swallow hard to maintain her grip on her feelings as he smiled mockingly down into her face. “On the contrary, Kathryn, everything about your life is my business now. At least until I have custody of my son. If he is my son, of course.”

  ****

  The man was back again. He was wearing that funny black cap pulled down over his face, leaving just slits for his eyes. Like Batman wore, kind of. But this wasn’t a Superhero come to rescue him. Alex might be barely seven, but he could still tell the good guys from the bad guys. And this was the bad guy who’d pulled him into his car and brought him to this nasty, dirty place.

  The man didn’t speak to him, just placed a greasy-looking, paper bag on the little plastic table near the blanket-covered pallet where Alex sat, turned, and silently walked out of the room, pulling the heavy door shut beside him. He waited until he heard the heavy clack! of the bolt on the other side of the door. It wouldn’t have mattered if he hadn’t locked the door. Alex was tied to the makeshift bed with a nylon cord that dug into his ankle when he tried to pull himself free.

  He didn’t want to eat the food the man had brought. All he wanted was to go home to his momma. But the smell of a hamburger and French fries tickled his nose until finally, he reached out and opened the bag. He’d wolfed most of the food inside before he saw the plastic knife at the bottom of the bag.

  Chapter Seven

  Ben Asher had ripped her apart. What his abandonment of her hadn’t achieved, what seven years of loveless misery in the Morgan mansion had not accomplished, what Ket Morgan’s fists couldn’t do, he had managed with just a
few words. He wanted custody of their son, but he didn’t want her. Kathryn’s chest burned as she heard him out.

  She obviously wasn’t a fit mother, nor was this a fit home for a child to grow up in. He’d witnessed that with his own eyes, he had told her coldly.

  “Just how many times has the boy witnessed your husband beating you?” Ben asked, as if somehow she was to blame.

  “Alex may be your son, Ben, but you’ll never get custody of him. After all, you abandoned us.” Kathryn tilted her chin defiantly, but inside her heart was breaking. She called on all the fury she possessed to sustain her.

  “Well, I want blood tests done. Then I’ll decide where to go from there.”

  She wanted to rake his smug male face with her nails, but instead she bent and picked up a broken silver photo frame at her feet. Shaking away shards of shattered glass, she held the photograph out to Ben and pointed to the smiling child pictured there. “Just look at that face, those eyes, and tell me you don’t believe he’s yours.”

  She saw the flash of longing and recognition that crossed his face before being replaced with the cold expression he seemed to save especially for her. Her heart seemed to break a little more as he stripped the photo from the frame, without asking Kathryn’s permission, and tucked it inside his wallet.

  “Yes, he looks like me, but that’s proof of nothing. You could have slept with half of Lobster Cove for all I know—those looks could have come from anywhere.”

  How dare he! Before she even thought it through, all the pain and hurt boiled up. Her hand flashed out and caught him squarely across the face in a slap that sounded like an explosion in the small space. Lightning fast, Ben grabbed her wrist and dragged her toward him, glaring down into her face as he struggled with his own anger.

  It took only moments for the touch of their bodies to hit a flashpoint; anger turned to passion, lust and need in a nanosecond. Ben’s mouth found hers, his lips hard against her injured mouth, punishing her for making him want her again.

  She gave a tiny mewl beneath his mouth, and she couldn’t tell whether it was pleasure or pain. He wrenched his mouth from hers and muttered a curse against Ket Morgan as he ran his finger over the lips bruised from her husband’s fists.

  “I owe you an apology for that,” he said gruffly. “It shouldn’t have happened.”

  Kathryn couldn’t meet his eyes; she didn’t want him to read in her gaze the smoky desire that still coursed through her veins in the aftermath of that kiss. Even though his anger had sizzled through to her, she’d been unable to fight back the sure knowledge she was still in love with Ben Asher. Heaven help her!

  On a deep breath, she replied: “I think the wrong was on both sides. I shouldn’t have slapped you.”

  “And I shouldn’t have said what I said,” Ben admitted.

  Her sudden laughter surprised him. “I guess we could have another fight over who was the most wrong.”

  He grinned despite himself. “That we could.”

  The humor was a therapy of sorts, and it leeched away the anger between them. Kathryn led the way from the room and along a corridor into a spacious kitchen.

  “I have a few questions I need to ask you, Mrs. Morgan.”

  Kathryn regretted his return to the formal address, knowing he did it to re-establish the emotional distance between them. “On one condition—two, actually,” she kept her voice neutral as she pulled coffee mugs from a cupboard.

  Ben bristled. He obviously didn’t like her putting conditions on him. “I don’t want to fight with you, Ben.”

  “Just what do you want from me?”

  Oh, if only she could give a truthful answer to his question. If she could only tell him how she’d missed him, how she’d longed for him through seven years of long, cold nights. But the anger and hurt stood between them like a mountain range that neither was ready to scale, so she just sighed and said, “I would like you to call me Kathryn, not Mrs. Morgan. I want us to sit down, drink a cup of coffee, and talk over your questions like civilized people. Then, I want you to help me find our son.”

  Our son. Hearing the words like that sparked off a hungry longing in Ben’s gut. He pushed his thoughts away from that route, telling himself the longing was to meet the child—to meet and get to know his own flesh and blood. His own son. Something of the wonder he was feeling must have shown on his face, because Kathryn dared reach out a tentative hand to touch his fingers.

  “He’s a fine boy, Ben.” She murmured the words so softly he had to strain to hear.

  “I’m sure he is.” He tore his eyes away from hers. This wasn’t working. Maybe he should just ask her to come and see him at the office. At least that way he wouldn’t be tempted to take her in his arms and taste her mouth again. Which was what he ached to do now. And more. Next time, he knew, he wouldn’t be satisfied with just capturing her lips.

  Finally, it was Kathryn who looked away.

  Ben shrugged. “Coffee it is, Kathryn.” The name sounded like a promise. He pulled out a pine, pressed-back chair from the scrubbed kitchen table and sat down, dropping his hat on the chair beside him and pulling out a small, black, leather-bound notebook.

  “I’ll need a list of all the people you know in the area and of people the boy knows who live away from here but that he might feel confident in trying to reach out to for help.” He jumped when Kathryn slammed her coffee mug down on the table, slopping its contents.

  “Why do you call him ‘the boy?’ That’s what…what Ket calls him. His name is Alex, Ben,” she snapped, then on a softer note, “Alex. Our son.” And she grabbed a cloth to wipe up the coffee spill, struggling to hold back the tears that filled her eyes.

  He sat quietly, watching her but making no effort to intervene.

  Finally, she sat back down at the table, pale but no longer tearful. “I’m sorry. I’m not normally…all this anger seems to be welling up inside me. I should not snap at you like that. You need time to think of Alex as a person, as your son. You haven’t even met him yet!”

  Ben winced at the ‘yet.’ If Alex really had been kidnapped, there was a good chance he might never get to meet his son. Not alive, anyway. Looking at Kathryn, he knew she was also aware of this, and the knowledge hovered between them like an unwelcome guest.

  “Anger and tears aren’t unusual responses to the kind of stress you’re under. But there is a certain urgency about all this, if you feel up to it.”

  She nodded gratefully. “Oh, I’ll be up to it. Alex is the most important person in the world to me. I don’t know what I’ll do if…”

  “Don’t even think that way. We’ll bring him home.” Even as he spoke the words, Ben knew he had no way of guaranteeing his promise. Fear shivered up his spine. This time it was personal. He’d worked on kidnap cases before. He knew the risks and the chances that must be taken. He’d worked competently, diligently, and in three out of four cases, successfully. He didn’t want to remember the fourth case, a five-year-old girl kidnapped by her father in a custody dispute who’d suffocated in the trunk of her daddy’s car.

  His radio crackled to life then, interrupting his thoughts. “Just wanted to remind you that you’ve a meeting in thirty minutes, Sheriff. Oh, and that information you requested on Bertie Hanover is on your desk.” Tess’s bright voice filled the kitchen, and Ben cursed. Tess should know better than to announce police business to everyone and anyone who happened to have a police scanner.

  “I’ll be back shortly. Make sure that confidential information stays that way,” he warned, reminding himself to have a chat about police protocols with his secretary as soon as he could. But too late. He sensed Kathryn tense.

  “Bertie Hanover?” She pounced on the name. “He works for Ket, doesn’t he? Do you think he had something to do with this?”

  “No, I don’t think that. It’s a completely unrelated matter.” Ben hated to see the hope die in her eyes.

  “Well, it wouldn’t surprise me if he was. Hanover’s a thug,” Kathryn replied,
hugging her arms around herself. “Hanover is a vicious, swaggering lout and I couldn’t bear the thought of Alex anywhere near him!”

  Ben stood, placing a comforting hand on her shoulder for a moment. “I have to go, but there’s one piece of information I have to have before I can make any further moves. Does Ket Morgan know about Alex?”

  Kathryn glared at him. “You mean does he know Alex isn’t his son? Of course, he does. What kind of person do you take me for? That I’d pass off another man’s son as his?”

  Ben’s mouth narrowed to a thin line. “Isn’t that what you’ve been doing for the past seven years? The whole town seems to think your son is Ket Morgan’s heir. What am I supposed to think?”

  “It’s a long story, Ben, and I don’t think it’s anything to concern you,” Kathryn told him coldly.

  “Oh, I think it has everything to do with me, Kathryn, and believe me, before this case is over, I will know everything there is to know about your little family.”

  Kathryn frowned. “Is that all this is to you? A case?”

  “No, not at all, Kathryn, this is much more personal,” Ben replied softly, picking up his hat and seeing himself out of the silent mansion.

  ****

  In his fine office in the Morgan Bank, Ket Morgan, Junior was listening intently to a scanner tuned to the police frequency. Hearing Bertie Hanover’s name he swore roundly and picked up the telephone.

  “Get out of my office!” he bellowed at the small, stoop-shouldered older man who was just coming in through the door, a pile of ledgers in his hands. Alfred Morris, long-time chief accountant to two of the Morgan companies, apologized and scurried from the room just as the receiver was picked up at the other end.

  “Hanover here,” the hired thug growled.

  “Were you listening to the police scanner?” Ket didn’t take time for courtesies.

  “I heard. What the hell is going on? Why’s that acting sheriff putting out calls for information on me?” There was no mistaking the underlying anxiety in Hanover’s voice.