Daddy In Charge_A Billionaire Romance

by Natasha Spencer

  “Ahuh. Carrie—” He tried to shift nearer the edge of the hospital bed but got tangled up in all the cords and wires attached to various places and cursed softly with frustration. “Touch me, will you?

  There were a couplea times I came to long enough to wonder if I’d make it. If I’d ever see you again. And all I wanted was to have you beside me, with your head on my shoulder, and your hands doin” things—doin’ things…”

  “Oh, Ben!” She broke down then. Her chair was pulled as near as possible, and she bent forward and burst into tears.

  “Sweetheart, don’t. I didn’t mean to make you cry. Oh, Carrie, darlin’…”

  “I thought—I thought I’d—lost you,” she sobbed. “I was afraid you’d—oh, Ben Taggart, if you’d gone and died on me, I never would have forgiven you!”

  His fingers worked to get under her chin, to lift her dampened face up so he could see into her eyes. That was when, astounded, she realized that his lashes were as wet as her own. Still, Ben, as the everlasting Puck, was grinning.

  For a few minutes they simply sat in silence, grasps intertwined, thinking and feeling about this incredible watershed moment, and what it portended for their future.

  Finally, he began to smooth one finger up and down along her cheekbone. It was time.

  “Carrie, I need to tell you some things. Facts about my past that—well, only Tom knows. So it’s important to me that you hear me out.”

  Gravely she considered him, this man she loved with her entire heart and soul. “Yes, Ben.”

  There was yet a hesitation, a reluctance to lay bare his innermost being to a woman, wife or not, he’d known for such a short time.

  “Diane. The first Mrs. Taggart. She wasn’t killed in that car crash. She’s alive…somewhere. I don’t know where.”

  Caroline swallowed hard. His grip tightened, as Tom’s did during an emotional moment, as if to lend strength.

  “See, I have this brother…”

  A ne’er-do-well brother, whose name was never spoken. Even now. He’d forsaken the family fortune only by not partnering in it, but was not too proud to take monthly allowances as a handout. Ben and a restless Diane had been married but a few short months when the brother returned to begin a passionate affair with his sister-in-law. Ben, traveling then perhaps more than in the present, had had no idea. Until Diane had announced her pregnancy.

  “Sophie,” breathed Caroline.

  “Yes. Sophie. Not my daughter, Carrie. She’s my niece.”

  Merciful heaven, what a confusing chain of events. More pieces to the puzzle.

  “After she was born,” Ben continued slowly, softly, “I told Diane I wanted a divorce. Not a separation. Not some marital counseling. A divorce. And she was never to be a part of Sophie’s life again.”

  “Oh, Ben…” Of all times, she wanted to hold him, to cradle his head against her breast, to soothe with her body in all the caring ways she knew.

  Between Ben and Tom, they’d worked out the arrangements. The paperwork was done quietly, and then the car was crashed and burned, and an elaborate funeral service put together. Diane was gone forever, erased, as if she had never been.

  When Ben hated, he hated hard.

  “I’m sorry. Ben, I’m so sorry.”

  His expression, when he looked steadily at her, was bleak. “It took me a long time to get over the whole thing, Caroline. I threw myself into my work. Traveling, making deals, buying, selling—you name it. That’s all life meant to me. I forgot about Sophie.”

  Thus the decision to try marriage for a second time. For two reasons, as he had told her in the beginning: as a mother for the little girl, and as a receptacle in his bed.

  “But then you got here, and we were married.” Everything about him had just mellowed, sort of melting away all the hardness and toughness into one vulnerable human being. “And you were you. And I realized what I’d been missing. Carrie, I don’t want sex with you.”

  Dazed, she stared at him. “You don’t?”

  “No. I want to make love with you. I want a family with you. I want to live in this house and grow old with you. Do you see that happening?”

  Her heart seemed to have been torn out of her vitals and stripped into little pieces, each bit trembling with emotion. “Oh, Ben. Ben.”

  “Yeah?” Looking as hopeful as a young boy about to capture the moon, he started to smile. “Damn me if I haven’t fallen head over heels in love with you, Caroline Taggart. It would make me mighty proud if you’d consent to be my wife.”

  “Ben, you impossible man.” She began to laugh, giddy, everlastingly grateful. “I’m already your wife, in every way. And I love every foolish inch of you.”

  When the door whooshed softly open and someone entered, she was doing her best to avoid every bandage and appendage even while bending over him to share the most exquisite kiss of their marriage

  “Sorry about interruptin’,” said Tom, sounding not sorry at all.

  “Huh,” muttered Ben, put out. Even given the shape he was in, he was in quite good shape, to judge by what was going on beneath the sheets. “So am I.”

  “Glad t’ see you’re doin’ so well.” Removing his sombrero, he spun its crown on one finger and sailed it into the chair. Plainly he was planning to stay a while. “Got some news.”

  Caroline turned. “What is it, Tom?”

  “Caught your man,” he said casually.

  “Yeah? Lundigan?”

  “Yep. Not two hundred miles away, headin’ north.” Tom snickered. “Poor man’s truck broke down on the highway and he was fixin’ t’ get help. Winchester rifle still just a-layin’ in the cab.”

  Involved, Ben was sitting up a little higher against the pillows. “Not the sharpest knife in the drawer.”

  “Nope. So he’s been hauled away and put b’hind bars good and proper, son. Charged with attempted murder and whatnot, and we’ll have us a wingding of a trial right soon.”

  Her hand tightened over Ben’s free and unencumbered fingers. “It’s done. The worst of it, I mean. It’s done and over with.”

  He gave her the slow, sizzling grin that sent liquid fire all the way to her toes. “That part is, darlin’. The rest of it, for us, is just beginnin’.”

  “Well, amen to that,” said Tom.

  And the puzzle was complete, the puzzle of a family, with each piece put into its proper place.

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