if he was her brother?
The older man stepped forward and picked up her hand.
“Caroline, are you okay?”
She said faintly, “Yes, I’m fine.”
As if he didn’t believe her, he looked at the doctor.
“Are you Mr. Adkins?” the doctor asked. “Yes.”
“I’m Dr. Johansen. Your daughter is in good condition, considering the accident.”
“Fine, fine. When can I take her home?”
She couldn’t help the panicked gaze she sent to the doctor. These people were all strangers. She didn’t want to go with them.
Before the doctor could answer, the older lady pushed through the crowd to the side of the bed. “You’re fine, aren’t you, Caroline? I know you wouldn’t have asked me to leave my meeting. I told your father that, and Agnes agreed.”
The younger woman groaned. “Mother, do you have to repeat everything Agnes says? Besides, I’m the one who shouldn’t have come. After all, I’m expecting.”
Caroline frowned. The young lady announced her condition as if she were the first pregnant woman in the world. As her lips quirked slightly, Caroline discovered something new about herself. She had a sense of humor. Thank goodness. I’d hate to live with these people and not know how to laugh.
She looked at the four men who hadn’t spoken. Three of them were in expensive business suits. The other man, the one who’d first caught her attention, was dressed in jeans and a short sleeved shirt. He was slightly taller than the others, and his muscled figure was bronzed from the sun.
He opened his mouth, as if to speak, when the doctor said, “I understand how much you’d like to take her home at once, but, in her condition, I think we should keep her overnight for observation.”
“I thought you said she was okay,” the man in blue jeans snapped. Caroline liked the anxious look he sent the doctor.
“She is. But with the baby—”
“Oh, that’s all right. I don’t live at home anymore. She won’t bother me,” the young woman told the doctor with a superior air. “My husband and I have our own home, quite lovely, just a few blocks away from Daddy.”
Dr. Johansen looked nonplussed, the first time he’d been stumped since Caroline met him after she’d awakened. Finally he said, “I think you misunderstood me. I wasn’t referring to your baby, young lady, but Caroline’s. She’s pregnant.”
In the silence that followed his explanation, Caroline moved her hand to her stomach, unable to believe the doctor’s words. Pregnant? She couldn’t be. Could she? Oh, dear, what had she gotten herself into?
And with whom?
A look at the shocked faces around her told her that no one else had known.
Then the young woman whimpered. “I should’ve known. I should’ve known you’d go out and get pregnant just to spite me. You always think you have to be better than me!” She broke into sobs, burying her face in the suit jacket of one of the younger men.
“Oh, no, dear, no. This is all my fault,” said the woman she supposed was her mother.
The man who claimed to be her father turned to stare at the woman. “What are you talking about, Amelia?”
Amelia? Her mother’s name was Amelia?
“I should never have asked Caroline to work in the unwed mother’s home. It’s my fault.”
“Amelia, pregnancy isn’t contagious, either!” the man ranted, his face turning red.
Caroline almost felt sorry for him. He seemed surrounded by some very strange people.
Dr. Johansen spoke again. “I apologize. I didn’t realize you didn’t know about the pregnancy. Of course, she’s only two months along, but usually—”
“Two months?” Mr. Blue Jeans asked sharply.
“Yes, but—”
“I demand to know who the father is,” the older man suddenly exclaimed, glaring at everyone in the room. In that tone of voice, Caroline was sure he was always obeyed.
She was right.
Three men stepped forward, each of them staring at her, and, in unison, as if rehearsed, said, “I am.”
CHAPTER TWO
SHE WAS SLEEPING with three men? At the same time? What kind of woman was she?
Caroline stared at each of those who’d claimed parentage to her child. No flicker of recognition arose. She was debating what her response should be when everyone else in the room spoke for her.
“I don’t understand,” Amelia said, a puzzled look on her brow.
“Well, I do! Caroline, how disgusting,” her sister said, staring down her nose at Caroline.
“That’s impossible!” James Adkins roared. “You couldn’t be the father of her child!”
Caroline frowned as she realized her father was only speaking to the odd man out, the one in blue jeans. Her father didn’t have a problem with the other two men claiming to be the father of her child? What qualified them? The fact that they were wearing suits?
After directing a glare at her father, the man turned to look at Caroline. She found herself swallowed up by his burning gaze.
“Oh, yes, I certainly could,” he said, with no doubt in his voice.
If it were a matter of attraction, she’d accept his word, hands down, she realized. But it wasn’t. “Who are you?” she asked.
There was a flash of disappointment in his gaze, but it disappeared almost at once. “Max Daniels.”
“We—we dated?”
“Briefly.”
“Caroline, the man is obviously after your money. I’ll get rid of him,” James Adkins promised, and then motioned to the other two daddy candidates.
She didn’t know who she was, or who these people were, but she did know she didn’t take kindly to being overruled. “I don’t think that decision is yours to make.”
The uproar her assertion of independence brought from her father, the other two men, even her mother and sister, was enough to make Caroline’s headache feel like a volcanic eruption.
Even in pain, however, she noticed that the center of the controversy, Mr. Blue Jeans, shot her a look of approval. Well, he needn’t think he was home free. She wasn’t about to take a stranger’s word about such an important matter.
She was struck by the irony of calling the man a stranger
