Who's The Daddy?

“Now, in local news, Caroline Adkins, daughter of—”

Max almost drove off the road. Horns blared around him and the woman behind him sailed past, shaking an angry fist.

He pulled to a stop, reaching for the volume knob.

“…in an accident. A Memorial Hospital spokesman said she will be kept overnight for observation.”

Without considering the consequences, he swung the truck back on the road and did an illegal U-turn at the next intersection. In two minutes, he was pulling into the parking lot at Memorial Hospital.

Please, God, let her be all right.

And if she was, he was going to break her neck for running out on the best thing that had ever happened to him.

“DID CAROLINE ASK to see me?” Amelia asked as the limo pulled into the hospital parking lot.

James sighed with impatience. “I told you, Amelia, she’s lost her memory.”

“Yes, dear, but if she didn’t ask for me, I don’t see why I couldn’t have come after my meeting ended. Agnes told me I shouldn’t always do whatever you say, you know.”

James and his second daughter, Chelsea, groaned together. “That woman,” James said through gritted teeth, “never agrees with me.”

“Well, I know Caro didn’t ask to see me,” Chelsea said before her mother could respond. Her lips formed into a pout that seemed natural. “She never even calls me. You would think, now that she’s to be an aunt, that she would show some interest in my baby.”

“She told me last night how excited she was about your baby,” Adrian assured Chelsea hurriedly, as if hoping to stem her complaints.

“Really? Well, she should spend more time with me, then,” Chelsea said.

The limo pulled to a stop, and the chauffeur opened the door. All three men hurried out and then turned to help the two women.

“I think we should tell the doctor that I’m pregnant before I go into Caro’s room, in case there could be any danger,” Chelsea continued as they approached the front doors.

“Amnesia isn’t contagious!” James snapped. He’d silently endured the complaints of both women for the length of the ride, but he was anxious for word of Caroline.

He would admit, though not to Amelia and Chelsea, that Caroline was his favorite. Not that they didn’t fight. On the contrary, Caroline argued with him at every turn. She was too much like him not to.

Chelsea was like her mother.

“Chelsea!” someone called, and they all halted.

Chelsea’s husband, Roderick Grant III, hurried up to them.

“What are you doing here?” James demanded. He didn’t have anything against the boy, but Roddy wouldn’t be of much help in a crisis.

“Daddy! Roddy’s my husband!”

“I know that. I paid for that damned wedding, didn’t I?” He muttered an apology when Chelsea and Amelia stared at him in shock. “I’m worried about Caroline,” he added.

“Of course, you are, sir,” Adrian said, patting him on the shoulder.

“Why don’t we go right up,” Prescott added. “I’ll find out her room number.”

“I know it. It’s 482,” James snapped, and strode for the elevators, leaving his entourage to hurry after him.

When they reached the fourth floor, the nurse on duty ushered all of them into the waiting room. “The doctor is with her now. I’ll let you know when you can go in.”

“Damn it, woman, I’m James Adkins. You go tell that doctor I want to see my child at once!” As the nurse calmly walked away, he bellowed, “Why won’t any woman listen to me?

“CAROLINE ADKINS, where can I find her?” Max had no idea how he’d gotten from the road outside the site to the hospital information desk.

“Is she a patient, sir?” the grandmotherly lady in a pink pinafore asked, smiling benignly at him.

“She was in an accident. They said they’re holding her for observation.”

“How would you spell that last name?”

Quelling the urge to grab the little old lady by the daintily tied bow at her neck, he spelled Caroline’s name.

“She’s on the fourth floor. Room 482.”

Max was running for the elevator before the lady ever finished talking. After stepping into the first one available, he jammed the close door button after punching the number four.

He’d find Caroline—and this time she wasn’t going to get away. Not until he had an explanation.

As soon as he got out of the elevator, he halted a nurse pushing a trolly of trays.

“Which way to 482?” he demanded.

“Just down the hall, sir.”

With a hurried thank-you, he followed her direction and spotted the room up ahead of him. He pushed past a small group of people and reached the door.

“Just one minute!”

He looked over his shoulder to see a large man in both height and girth staring at him. “Yes?”

“Where are you going?”

“What business is it of yours?” he demanded.

“That’s my daughter’s room.”

Max checked to see if he had the right room number. He did. “The desk said this was Caroline Adkins’s room. I think you’ve made a mistake.” He was sure Caroline didn’t have anyone close by, much less a mob of people.

“I don’t make mistakes!”

Max shrugged his shoulders and pushed open the door.

The man grabbed his arm before he could take more than a step into the room. “Who are you and why are you visiting my daughter? Are you the one who hit her?”