Who's The Daddy?

Either the movement, or the puzzle that was her life at the moment, pushed the headache out of control. She reached for her forehead with her free hand, clasping the daisies to her breast with the other.

“Are you all right?”

“I need to sit down,” she said faintly, and he guided her to the only chair. As she was sinking into it, her head lolling back against the top of it, the door to her room was pushed open.

“What are you doing to my daughter?” a booming voice demanded.

Caroline dropped the flowers into her lap and pressed both hands to her throbbing temples. “Please—”

Without answering her father’s question, Max walked to the bed and pressed the nurse’s button.

“I’m sorry, Caro, I didn’t mean to make your head hurt,” James Adkins hurriedly apologized, and then glared at Max, as if it were Max’s fault he had yelled.

“Yes?” the nurse asked as she came back into the room.

“Ms. Adkins’s headache has come back,” Max said softly. “Is there anything you can give her for it?”

“It never went away,” Caroline contradicted him.

“Because of the baby, we can’t give her a painkiller. She just needs to have peace and quiet.” The nurse glared accusingly at the two men.

“I’m here to take her home,” her father said stiffly. “I don’t know why he’s here.”

“Well, she needs to be back in bed as soon as possible. The doctor’s on the way up to release her.” She backed out of the room, still frowning at Caroline’s visitors.

“He wants my phone number,” Caroline told her father. “Would you give it to him, please? I don’t remember it. And get his.” Stupid statement. No one would expect her to remember a phone number when she couldn’t even remember her shoe size.

But she didn’t want to lose Max Daniels. Her reaction to him told her he had to be the one—the father of her baby. The love of her life? Frustration filled her—and not a little panic. What if she never remembered? What if—

Her father disrupted her fears by glaring at Max again and moving closer to her chair to say in a stage whisper obviously intended for Max’s ears, “Caroline, I’m not sure that’s wise. We only have his say-so that you two were—you know.”

Caroline rolled her eyes. Great. Next her father would want to explain the birds and the bees. “Intimate. That’s the word. Please give him my phone number.”

Max stepped forward, ignoring her father, and extended a business card to her. “Both my work and home numbers are on this card. Call me if there’s anything I can do for you—or anything.”

“You’ve already done too much, according to you!” her father growled.

Max’s lips—those enticing lips—flattened tightly against each other, and Caroline had the strangest urge to tease them into a smile. As attracted as she was to Max Daniels, if he was the father of her child, she felt sure she had put up no resistance whatsoever to any intimacy between them. In fact, she may have seduced him.

But what about the other two men who claimed to be the daddy? She wished she could rule them out, but she reluctantly admitted she couldn’t. She’d read about women who carried on with more than one man, but—she had?

Distracted by a memory, even an insignificant one, she lost track of the men’s conversation. It was such a relief to remember something, even though it was useless for solving her problems.

“Look, Mr. Adkins,” Max said, moving closer to the older man, “what happened is between Caroline and me. What’s her phone number?”

“It’s unlisted.”

“I figured that. I called all the Adkinses as I could find in the telephone book.”

That remark snapped her from her thoughts. “You did?”

“You disappeared without saying goodbye. I wanted to know why.” His expression said he blamed her for her unexplained departure.

She’d like to know why she’d gone away, too. Why would she leave someone she was obviously attracted to? Had she found out some deep, dark secret? Or was his entire story a lie?

“She probably realized she was in love with Prescott or Adrian. She came back to them, didn’t she?” James offered.

Her father’s interpretation of past events might not be quite reliable, Caroline decided. He seemed intent on persuading her that one of the other men was the mysterious father.

“By the way, where are the Bobbsey twins?” she asked.

Max choked and tried to hide a chuckle behind one of his big hands. Her gaze remained fixed on his crinkling blue eyes, hoping for a glimpse of his smile.

“Caroline! You shouldn’t call them such a thing. They’re down in the limo, waiting. They wanted to come up here, but I assured them we’d be right down.” James glared at Max again.

“They really came?” She’d only been teasing, hoping to lighten the moment.

“Of course. They’re very concerned about you.” He waved to the roses on each side of her bed. “After all, they sent you roses, a lot more expensive than those daisies.”

In spite of her headache, Caroline smelled a rat and asked, “How do you know the roses came from them?”

“Well, I thought— I suggested— It was just a guess.” He blundered to a stop.

As if it were a natural occurrence, her gaze flew to Max’s and they shared a smile, a glorious smile that she’d been waiting to see. She took a deep breath of appreciation. The guy was as sexy as could be. She wondered what he’d look like without his shirt.

“Caroline!” Her father was obviously irritated at her distraction.

“Please, my head.”

Both the doctor and the nurse returned to her room at that moment, the nurse pushing a flower cart.

“All ready to go, Caroline?” Dr. Johansen asked cheerfully.

“Yes, I guess so. But my headache is getting worse again.”

“Hmm. Probably the excitement of getting out of here. I don’t know why people react to hospitals that way,” he teased as he picked up her wrist to take her pulse.

The door opened again to admit the two men her father called Adrian and Prescott. “James? We thought we’d better come up in case you needed help,” Prescott said, his gaze sweeping the room. When it landed on Max, he stepped closer to James.

Interesting, Caroline decided. He goes to my father’s side, not mine. Adrian, the second one, kind of hovered between her father and her, as if undecided about where his loyalties lay. As they moved, Caroline looked closely at them. They were both handsome, in a conventional manner. Adrian was blond, but a little too smooth for her tastes. Prescott was darker and slightly shorter, but neither stirred her as Max did. “What’s he doing here?” Prescott demanded, disdainfully waving his hand toward Max.

“He never left,” Caroline rapidly answered, not happy with Prescott’s attitude. What business was it of his if Max wanted to visit her? “We spent the entire night together.”

Everyone except Max and the doctor gasped, staring at her. Then a babble of protests made her regret her short-tempered response. “Just kidding, just kidding,” she said, raising her hand to halt their noise.

“Caroline’s headache is back. Too much noise is bad for it,” Max said calmly.

Prescott glared at Max, but Adrian moved closer to Caroline. “Is there anything I can do?”