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.

“I don’t know, Hanover. Have you been doing something illegal?” Ket Morgan snickered down the line. He found the idea of Hanover being afraid very appealing, but his pleasure didn’t last for long.

“Just do something about it. Remember, Boss, if I go down—so do you.” Hanover slammed down the receiver.

Ket quietly replaced the receiver. There was no mistaking the threat that had been made. If Hanover had trouble with the police, he’d save himself by throwing Ket to the wolves. He drummed his fingers on the desk and sat for a long time, staring into the growing dusk.