Ben's Wife

by Charlotte Douglas

  “You have to earn trust,” he said, “and I don’t know enough about you yet for that.”

  “I’d say we’re even in the trust department. With one exception.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I want to trust you. For the same reason I married Ben Wells.”

  “Why did you marry Ben?”

  “To help catch my father’s k-killer.” Although earnestness sparked in her cobalt eyes, her voice faltered.

  “A noble goal,” he said with a hint of skepticism. She dropped her gaze, and he suspected she was holding something back. “Any other reasons?”

  She raised her head and met his stare straight on. “Ben promised to protect me from Lashner and his associates.”

  “Assassins is a better word.”

  “Assassins?” she whispered, as if afraid of the word. Her hands trembled slightly before she clasped them motionless on her knees, and color drained from her face.

  Josh silently cursed the clumsiness of his interrogation. He had only wanted to shock her into telling all, but he’d succeeded in scaring her to death. He tamped down the urge to hold her, to ease her fears.

  “You don’t think Lashner would soil his own hands, do you?” he asked. “He hires out his dirty work.”

  “Like the driver who hit my car?” She leaned against the chair back and closed her eyes. The roses had vanished from her cheeks, and her golden lashes brushed mauve shadows, signs of her exhaustion.

  “When’s the last time you had a good night’s sleep?” He failed to repress the tenderness in his voice.

  She opened her eyes and struggled upright. “The night before my father died. But I’m fine.”

  “You don’t look fine. You look ready to collapse.”

  “I’m tougher than I look. Let’s get on with it.”

  “It?”

  “Ben said you have a plan to expose Lashner.”

  Josh nodded. “I do, but you’re not going to like it.”

  “I don’t like any of this, particularly your tactless questions.” She rubbed her eyes with her fists in an obvious effort to stay alert. “Even my ordinary and uneventful life back home in Memphis is preferable to being cross-examined like a criminal. It’s Lashner you should be interrogating.”

  “You could go home, away from Lashner,” he said, testing her resolve, yet knowing he couldn’t allow her to leave. “Forget any of this ever happened.”

  Fists still clenched, she dropped her hands to her lap. “Forget someone murdered my father? How cold-blooded do you think I am?”

  Cold-blooded enough to marry a man she barely knew. “You’ll have to be ruthless for the scheme I have in mind.”

  Her head snapped up, and outrage blazed in her weary eyes. “I want justice, not revenge. If Lashner is punished, the courts must do it.”

  He grinned at her misinterpretation. “I’m not a hit man, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

  “Then what did you mean by ruthless?” She narrowed her eyes, creating a furrow in her forehead.

  Her range of expressions fascinated him, and with difficulty he concentrated on her question.

  “To get the goods on Lashner, you’ll have to take chances.”

  “What kind of chances?”

  He assessed Morgan’s beguiling mixture of strength and vulnerability, of fear and determination, and what had previously seemed a good strategy appeared suddenly less attractive. “You’ll have to provide a visible target for his goons.”

  She leaped to her feet, scooted past his chair and backed toward the door. “You want to use me as bait? You’re out of your mind.”

  He hoisted himself from his chair and, in two long strides, faced her. The top of her head reached only to his chin, making her seem more delicate than ever. He toughened himself against her fragility. “If we can catch one of Lashner’s hired guns and have him charged with attempted murder, maybe he’ll give us Lashner in a plea bargain.”

  “You’re forgetting one minor detail.” Her sarcasm pummeled him. “What if Lashner’s assassin kills me before you catch him?”

  “I won’t let that happen.”

  Morgan Winters was an extremely desirable woman, and her righteous anger heightened her appeal. He clasped his hands behind his back to keep from touching her.

  “For a man so slow to trust, you have some nerve asking me to put my life in your hands.”

  Before he could stop her, she marched out of the room and down the hall. The cottage walls shook as the front door slammed behind her.

  Realizing pursuit was futile, he slumped into the easy chair, still warm from Morgan’s body and fragrant with her jasmine perfume.

  She hadn’t given him a chance to explain that she was already Lashner’s target, whether she agreed to the plan or not.

  To keep her alive, Ben Wells would have to convince her to cooperate.

  BEN SLOUCHED in his motorized wheelchair and watched the sun dip toward the horizon beyond the glass walls of his living room. Harper had driven Morgan home at three o’clock this morning, and she had been asleep ever since. Josh had confirmed her loyalty but had failed to enlist her help.

  It was left to Ben to persuade her.

  His bandages abraded his skin, and his injuries skewered him with white-hot agony. He couldn’t take pain pills. He needed a clear head to deal with Morgan.

  When he closed his eyes behind his dark glasses, Frank Winters’s face, seared with burns, loomed in his memory.

  “Take care of my girl, Ben,” the dying man had begged. “Don’t let Lashner hurt her.”

  He had promised Frank through his tears. The chemist had been his best friend, but Ben was indebted to Frank for much more than the affection they’d shared. Winters’s genius had been responsible for much of Chemco’s prosperity, and before he died, Frank had forewarned Ben of Lashner’s treachery.

  Morgan had expressed her gratitude for Ben’s attempt to save her father, but she didn’t know the whole story. Only Frank’s alerting Ben to a second explosion had enabled Ben to escape. He had exchanged the weight of his dead friend, carried across his shoulders out of the burning lab, for his obligation to keep Morgan safe.

  Since learning about the hit-and-run driver who had almost killed her, he had gone without sleep, searching for a plan to expose Lashner’s crimes without risking Morgan.

  So far, no luck.

  Lashner had already tried to kill her once. If he’d been interested only in acquiring her stock, he would have made an offer first. If she had accepted, he could have avoided the capital offense.

  No, from the beginning, Lashner had resorted to murder to insure Morgan’s silence. Besides Lashner, she and Ben were the only two alive who knew about the instability of Frank’s amazing discovery. With both of them dead, Lashner would have a clear field to sell Frank’s formula to the highest bidder and leave the country with his profits before the compound’s flaw was discovered. Totally without conscience, Lashner wouldn’t let the possibility that the product might kill people hinder his plans.

  Ben gripped the wheelchair arms until his hands hurt. He might be confined to this contraption now, but he still had a few tricks up his sleeves. Lashner didn’t know Frank had warned Ben or that Ben had married Morgan. If Ben’s luck held, he would have more than a few surprises for his traitorous partner.

  At the sound of approaching footsteps, he flipped the toggle control and swiveled his chair toward the doorway.

  Mrs. Denny, his housekeeper, waited on the threshold. “Dinner will be served soon, sir. Shall I awaken Mrs. Wells?”

  Ben smiled beneath his oxygen mask. Had she been born male, Mrs. Denny, with her aristocratic British accent and snooty bearing, would have made an exceptionally proper butler. “Yes, thank—”

  “That won’t be necessary.” Morgan walked past the housekeeper into the room.

  The older woman raised her eyebrows at the suitcase in Morgan’s hand, then composed her features quickly before slipping quietly away.

&n
bsp; Dread settled over Ben at the determination on his wife’s face. “Going somewhere?”

  She set down the luggage with a thud and swung the tote bag from her shoulder to the floor. “I’m going home. My plane leaves in two hours.”

  “But this is your home—”

  “We can quit playing ‘let’s pretend.’” More elegant in jeans and a blazer than other women would be in Chanel suits, she straightened her shoulders and removed a paper from her pocket. “Here’s the proxy for my stock. As soon as you’ve prevented Lashner from selling the formula, you can have our marriage annulled.”

  She advanced across the room and laid the paper on the blanket across his lap.

  He ignored it, and it fluttered to the floor. “Did Josh frighten you that much?”

  When she met his gaze, he detected uncertainty beneath her outward assurance.

  “You promised,” she said with a hitch in her voice, “to protect me from Lashner. According to Josh, I’ve been nominated sacrificial lamb.”

  She implied Ben had let her down, and the accusation hurt. “Whether you go or stay, Lashner will try to kill you.”

  “He’ll forget about me if I go home to Memphis and keep my nose out of his business—”

  “If I believed that, I would have booked your flight myself, right after the hit-and-run.” Panic spiraled in his gut. He’d promised Frank to look after her. How could he protect her if she was more than seven hundred miles away?

  “This is between you and Lashner now,” she said.

  “What happened to your desire to see Lashner punished for your father’s death?”

  “I have a greater desire to stay alive.” Her wistful, apologetic smile enhanced her beauty.

  He had to keep her talking until he could convince her to stay. If only he could spring from this blasted chair and hold her—but that would frighten her more than she already was. Her poise didn’t hide the anxiety in her eyes. “Sit down. Let’s talk about this. I’m stronger today and can answer more of your questions.”

  She stooped, retrieved the proxy and laid if on the table beside him. “Josh gave me all the answers I need.”

  He couldn’t lie and promise she’d suffer no harm if she stayed. “You’ll be safer here with Josh and Harper to protect you. If you go back to Memphis, Lashner will come after you. You’ll be alone—”

  “Lashner doesn’t want me. You control my vote. That’s all he’s interested in.”

  He clenched his fists, and the agony of his injuries seared him. He had to break through her denial. “Morgan, please—”

  “Take care of yourself, Ben. Get well and stay safe.” She reached out as if to take his hand, but stopped short of touching his bandages. “Thank you for all you’ve done, for all you tried to do.”

  The determination in her eyes confirmed further argument was pointless. She had convinced herself Lashner would spare her if she returned home. Nothing could break through her illogical refusal to face dangerous reality.

  “I’ll ring for Harper. He’ll drive you to the airport.” he said.

  “I’ve already called a cab.” The feathery touch of her fingers brushed the gauze that covered his face. “Goodbye, Ben.”

  Mrs. Denny stepped into the room. “Your cab is here, Mrs. Wells.”

  Without a backward glance, Morgan picked up her luggage and disappeared into the foyer, leaving only a trace of jasmine perfume behind.

  Ben wheeled to his desk and depressed the button on his intercom. “Harper, get in here. Fast. We have a problem.”

  THROUGH THE CAB’S rear window, Morgan watched the wrought-iron gates of Ben’s estate swing shut in the tailhghts’ red glow and battled an onslaught of giddiness.

  Everything had happened so fast. Her father’s death, the attempt on her life, Ben’s accusations against Lashner, followed by his startling proposal of marriage. The escalating momentum of events had sent her spinning.

  The knockout blow had been her clandestine meeting with no-last-name Josh. Handsome. Mysterious. And deadly. His crazy scheme to nail Lashner would have gotten her killed.

  For a few brief days after the funeral, she believed she had found a safe haven from Lashner in Ben Wells’s waterfront estate—until her meeting with Josh proved her sanctuary a sham. She’d been stunned to learn her husband expected her to endanger herself to entrap his partner. And the inscrutable Josh had seemed eager to assist in placing her life on the line.

  A disturbing idea niggled in the back of her mind. What if it wasn’t Lashner who had tried to kill her? What if Ben had hired Josh to stage the car crash in an effort to solicit her help? After all, what did she know about Ben?

  Your father loved and respected him, and you trust him. More than any other man you’ve ever met, her conscience argued, pricking her for her doubts.

  She reclined against the scratchy seat of the musty cab and tried, without much luck, to think straight. Even after twelve hours of uninterrupted slumber, her mind and body hadn’t rebounded from sleep deprivation. Her movements were as sluggish as a diver’s in a deep-sea suit. Her mind functioned with even less alacrity.

  Regret joined the muddle in her mind. She didn’t love Ben Wells. Their marriage was a temporary arrangement, but by a remote chance, she might have built a permanent life with him, caring for the invalid in return for protection and companionship. He was only about ten years her senior, and eventually they might have found something in common besides Lashner’s treachery.

  Dream on, girl. Lack of sleep has made you crazy.

  Okay, so maybe it wouldn’t have happened, but it hadn’t hurt to dream. Not if her instincts were right about Ben.

  One thing was certain. A marriage to Ben was more realistic than a working partnership with Josh. His forceful presence, his intoxicating scent, the contour of his profile and his velvet-smooth voice had sent hormones reeling through her bloodstream like drunken sailors. In the lamplight, his extraordinary looks, beautiful in a rugged way, had stolen her breath, while a saner part of her noted the secrets hidden in his eyes.

  She had to be out of her mind.

  She’d allowed her emotions to be roused by a man who’d regarded her only as a lure for a killer. So much for instinct, when it made her crave a man who obviously had ice water running through his veins.

  No, she’d grown too old at twenty-eight to believe the man of her dreams would ever materialize. Soon she’d be back in Memphis, her hasty pseudomarriage annulled, and prospects for a home, family and children about as substantial as smoke on a windy day.

  As the cab traveled across the bay causeway toward Tampa International Airport, she gazed with bleary vision at the swath of silver moonlight reflecting off the smooth waters. Ben had her proxy and, with it, enough votes to stop the formula’s sale. He no longer needed her, but the fact gave her no comfort. She couldn’t shake the ridiculous notion that, by leaving Ben, she had turned her back on her one true chance for happiness.

  Going home was the right thing to do, wasn’t it?

  Her head ached with the same uncertainty and insecurity that had prevented her from taking chances all her life, in everything from jobs to relationships.

  For a fleeting instant, she considered ordering the driver to turn back. So what if she gambled her life to trap Lashner? She would never truly live, or love, until she was willing to take risks.

  But try as she would, she couldn’t force herself to face the challenge. Her innate anxiety restrained her from seizing her opportunity, and her urge to run back to Ben vanished as quickly as it came.

  Forgive me, Daddy, for lacking the courage to catch your killer. I guess I wasn’t meant to be a hero.

  She shifted her thoughts to Memphis, and by the time the cab arrived at the drop-off for departing flights, she had almost convinced herself she was looking forward to her one-bedroom apartment and her humdrum job in accounting at Myers Department Store.

  A friendly skycap opened the cab door and offered to take her luggage, but she declined. Fli
nging her tote bag over her shoulder, she gripped her suitcase and edged her way through the milling crowd of tourists toward the reservation desk.

  Once she had picked up her ticket and checked her luggage, she wandered among the shops along the concourse, killing time until boarding.

  As she scrutinized the jewelry case in the Disney shop, the skin on the back of her neck prickled with the uneasy feeling that someone was watching. She whirled around, but the few customers in the store were concentrating on the souvenir merchandise.

  At the nearest snack bar, she ordered a cup of cappuccino, then meandered toward the newsstand, unable to shake the impression someone was trailing her. Each time she looked back or caught a reflection in a display glass, no one appeared to be paying her the slightest attention.

  Nerves, she assured herself, the result of grief, her accident, too little sleep and too much caffeine. After a day’s rest back home in Memphis, she’d be fine.

  She finished her coffee, tossed her plastic cup into a trash container and entered the newsstand. Pausing before a rack of paperbacks, she studied the covers in search of a riveting fantasy to lose her troubles in for a few hours.

  She flinched when something sharp pricked between her shoulder blades.

  “Make a noise or any sudden moves, and I plunge this knife straight into your heart.”

  The low, menacing voice alone would have frightened her, but with the accompanying blade pressed against her blazer, Morgan fought to keep her knees from giving way. Her mouth turned cottony, and fear squeezed the air from her lungs.

  Her panicked gaze swept the crowded shop, but no one, not even the tall, red-bearded tourist closest to her, noticed her or the man pressed against her back. If she screamed, her assailant could kill her in an instant.

  “Just do as I say,” the raspy voice directed. He grabbed her arm and twisted it behind her. “Head toward the elevator. Press the up button. And don’t try anything funny.”

  Funny? She throttled an illogical urge to laugh, fearful she’d succumb to hysterics and precipitate her sudden death. On rubbery legs and with pain stabbing her shoulder from her contorted arm, she shuffled toward the bank of elevators opposite the shops. The crowd had disappeared here, leaving no one to help, even if she dared scream.