Corporate Daddy

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  THE TEXAS TATTLER

  All the news that’s barely fit to print!

  DNA Tests To Prove Paternity of Tiny Fortune Heir

  Males in the Fortune clan are reluctantly rolling up their sleeves this week to give blood samples for a DNA test that should solve the mystery surrounding who fathered abandoned child Taylor Fortune. Insiders report a virtual mob of nervous tycoons outside Red Rock’s criminologist office—now that’s a bread line with a lotta dough!

  But it’s the ladies who are lined up and clamoring for the attention of Logan Fortune. The marriage-elusive executive’s latest “acquisition” is a gal he’s been spotted hugging, kissing…and burping. Seems that when darling daughter Amanda Sue appeared on his doorstep, Logan promptly promoted his devoted corporate assistant to live-in mommy. Rumor has it Girl Friday Emily Applegate still fetches Logan’s coffee—but now she does it in her nightie!

  Don’t miss next month’s Fortune update exclusively in The Tattler!

  * * *

  About the Author

  ARLENE JAMES

  grew up in Oklahoma and has lived all over the South. In 1976 she married “the most romantic man in the world.” The author enjoys traveling with her husband, but writing has always been her chief pastime. Arlene is also the author of the inspirational titles Proud Spirit, A Wish for Always, Partners for Life and No Stranger to Love.

  ARLENE JAMES

  Corporate Daddy

  Meet the Fortunes of Texas

  Logan Fortune: When the powerful CEO inherited his motherless daughter, he enlisted the help of his capable assistant. Would time spent in Emily’s arms have Logan looking for more than just daddy lessons?

  Emily Applegate: This plain-Jane secretary’s heart melted when she saw Logan cuddling his newfound baby girl. Could she convince her handsome boss that there was no need to hire a nanny…because he had a potential wife and mother for his child right outside his office door?

  Baby Taylor: The identity of the recovered baby is still a mystery. But rumors were running rampant among the Fortune family about his true parentage, especially since the adorable child has the Fortune crown-shaped birthmark.

  Jace Lockhart: Ryan Fortune’s brother-in-law recently returned to Texas for a hometown visit. And this globe-trotting journalist might just find love where he least expects it.

  To MJ, the best of editors. Much thanks. DAR

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  One

  “So she’s really ours.”

  Mary Ellen Lockhart Fortune tucked her thick, wavy red hair behind her ears and made a silly face at her wriggling granddaughter who smiled, yawned, rubbed her eyes and flipped over onto her belly, quickly crawling toward the end of the couch. Mary Ellen and her tall, handsome son, Logan, both made a grab for the child. Logan reached her first, coming off his seat on the ottoman at his mother’s knee. Holding his daughter at arm’s length—much like an escaped piglet that had found the mud hole—he gingerly carried her back to the original spot and sat her next to his mother. Sixteen-month-old Amanda Sue promptly flopped and flipped, emitting a shrieking grunt in the process, as if warning him not to interfere with her plans again. Mary Ellen chuckled. Logan quivered. The battle of wills his surprise baby daughter had been waging with him these past two hours was wearing on him.

  “She’s a Fortune, all right,” he muttered, capturing his daughter again. Amanda Sue twisted and screamed, then went limp and put back her head in a dramatic sob for release. “That temperament confirms it, as if the blue eyes, hereditary crown-shaped birthmark and the blood test didn’t. Plus, her hair’s almost as red as yours, a little darker, maybe.”

  “She looks like you and Eden,” Mary Ellen said wonderingly.

  “I’m not sure my sister would appreciate being lumped into the same category of looks as me,” Logan said, struggling to put his daughter back on the couch, “but I did notice that Amanda Sue looks like some of Eden’s baby pictures, discounting the hair, of course.”

  “Was her mother red haired?” Mary Ellen asked gently.

  Amanda Sue stopped wriggling and looked up alertly. “Mama,” she called. “Mama?”

  “Poor darling,” Mary Ellen crooned, gathering the child against her. Amanda Sue crammed her hand in her mouth and waited, as if listening for her mother’s voice.

  Logan sighed. “Her m-o-t-h-e-r was a blonde.” He spelled out the word to avoid causing his bewildered daughter to ask for what she could not have, ever again.

  “Her name was Bailey, wasn’t it?” Mary Ellen went on. “Donna Bailey?”

  Amanda Sue’s ears seemed to perk up, but she made no sound. Mary Ellen eased the pacifier pinned to Amanda Sue’s T-shirt into the child’s mouth. The baby sucked absently.

  “Yes,” Logan said, wishing he could avoid the subject, knowing he couldn’t.

  “What was she like?” Mary Ellen wanted to know.

  Logan tried to keep deep regret from sounding like bitterness. “I remember her as adventurous, full of life, independent. She was a military brat. She told me that both of her parents were lifers. So, naturally, she followed in their footsteps. She learned to fly helicopters in the army and got a small plane license after.”

  “So our Amanda Sue gets that fierce spirit from both ends,” Mary Ellen said, petting the baby’s head. Amanda Sue looked up somberly at the stranger who was her grandmother, the lilting curls springing up in the wake of Mary Ellen’s touch.

  “It would seem so,” Logan admitted. “The way I understood it, Donna’s parents died trying to set a record in a hot air balloon. I’d say the need for adventure was ingrained.”

  “What about Donna? How did she die?” Mary Ellen asked.

  He swallowed, remembering the tall, shapely blonde with whom he’d enjoyed a few weeks of fun and games. Of all the women he’d known, Donna was the last with whom he’d expected to have made a child. He wasn’t surprised, though, that she hadn’t contacted him after discovering that she was pregnant. The Donna he had known was fiercely independent and proud of her ability to take on whatever life threw at her. She had followed, quite literally, in the footsteps of her parents.

  “She was piloting an experimental glider,” Logan explained succinctly. “It crashed.”

  “Poor thing.” Mary Ellen sighed. Amanda Sue leaned against her, porcelain eyelids drooping over bright blue eyes. “I deeply regret the tragedy, but I can’t say I’m sorry to have this little one in our lives. How did the authorities know to contact you?”

  “Donna left instructions.”

  “Well, thank goodness for that, at least.”

  Logan nodded, watching his daughter slip off to sleep. She’d been fighting it tooth and nail from the moment he’d picked her up at the airport in San Antonio. The social worker who had accompanied her had predicted that the child would drop off to sleep in the car, but instead Amanda Sue had squirmed and kicked and fought the seat belt, working out of it several times. The drive down to the ranch had been a nightmare. He’d never felt so inadequate. But he had to admire her fighting spirit.

  She was innocence personified, impish and cherub cheeked with ivory fair skin, curly, reddish-brown hair, and eyes that sparked pure blue fire, and in addition, she possessed the mind of a warrior. Even as he took a perverse pride in her spirit, however, he couldn�
��t help thinking that fatherhood was going to be problematic enough without it. God knew he didn’t have the slightest idea how to go on.

  His own father had been a washout as both a parent and a husband, so much so that Logan had always figured his safest bet was to avoid both states fervently. He’d thought, briefly, in the first moments of shock, about refusing custody of his unexpected daughter, but he’d quickly rejected the idea. Amanda Sue was a Fortune; she deserved to be raised as one. Thank God for his mother.

  “How are we going to handle this?” he asked, suddenly wanting it all settled.

  Mary Ellen studied the small hand curled around her forefinger. “What do you mean by this?”

  “Her. Amanda Sue. How are we going to work it?”

  Mary Ellen looked up then. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Well, obviously she has to live here,” he pointed out impatiently, waving a hand to encompass the luxurious eight-bedroom, contemporary Colonial house with its many amenities, including pool, tennis courts, decks, balconies and spacious guest quarters. Even with his brother Holden and his wife Lucinda in residence, the place had more than ample room. Still, Mary Ellen shook her head.

  “She belongs with you, Logan. She’s your daughter.”

  His daughter. The words still brought a shock of unreality with them. “I don’t know anything about being a father!” he countered, and the sound of his voice jerked the baby awake. She took one look around and wailed. He bounded to his feet. “See! She’ll be miserable with me!”

  Mary Ellen made an exasperated sound and gathered the child into her lap, bouncing and cuddling her. “There, there, darling. He didn’t mean to shout. There, there.” She poked the pacifier into the cupid’s bow mouth, and the piercing wail shut off instantly.

  Logan pushed a hand through his wavy, dark brown hair. “I don’t know how to take care of a baby,” he said in a level voice that in no way conveyed the panic he was feeling.

  Mary Ellen chuckled. “Logan, no first-time father—or mother, for that matter—knows how to take care of a baby. You’ll learn as you go, that’s part of it.”

  “My father didn’t,” Logan grumbled.

  Mary Ellen looked up at him with implacable blue eyes a shade paler than his own. “He did the best he could, Logan. So will you, and I’m quite sure it will be more than enough. In fact, I think you’ll make a wonderful father.”

  “Just let her stay until we get used to one another,” Logan pleaded shamelessly, but Mary Ellen was at her reasonable, logical best.

  “And how will you do that with her living here at the ranch and you living fifty miles away in San Antonio?” she asked. “No, son, there’s only one way to do this, and that’s to dive in headfirst. Besides, I want to be a grandmother, not another parent. I’ve raised my family, and I did it pretty much on my own, as you well know. I want to concentrate on other things now. It’s only fair. And your uncle Ryan really needs my help with the business right now. This kidnapping mess and the divorce are enough for any one man to handle on his own.”

  Guiltily, Logan sat down again. His own world had spun so out of control that he hadn’t even thought of Ryan or Baby Bryan and his parents. “You’re right. What’s the latest news concerning the kidnapping?”

  Mary Ellen looked at the child drifting off again in her arms. “It’s the most confounding thing. Bryan disappears, the wrong baby is returned, and he turns out to be a Fortune, too.”

  Logan shook his head. “How are Matthew and Claudia holding up?”

  Mary Ellen sighed. “It’s hard to say. In one way, having Taylor with them is a comfort—that’s what they’re calling the other baby, you know, Taylor—but in another way, it’s a definite problem. I mean, what if Matthew turns out to be his father? Claudia will be destroyed.”

  “You don’t really think that’s possible, do you? I mean, Matt’s always been such a straight shooter.”

  Mary Ellen looked down meaningfully. “I’d say just about anything is possible, wouldn’t you?”

  Logan looked to his newfound daughter. “Obviously.”

  “Right now, though, I think the priority for Ryan and the whole family is getting Bryan back.”

  “That’s understandable,” Logan said, and Mary Ellen nodded, looking at her granddaughter.

  “Life is so strange, isn’t it?”

  Strange didn’t begin to describe his life right now, Logan mused, looking again at the cause. His now peacefully slumbering daughter busily sucked her pacifier for a few seconds, then pushed it out with her tongue. She smiled at something in a dream, showing tiny white teeth, and just abruptly frowned, her bottom lip pouting. She was amazing, alarmingly so, and Logan knew, deep down, that he was very lucky to have her. He only hoped that he was up to the task of raising her.

  “What am I going to do with her, Mom?” he whispered.

  Mary Ellen’s gaze was loving and wise. “You’ll figure it out, dear. I have every confidence in you.”

  But Logan wasn’t so sure. Mary Ellen was his mother, after all. She had always believed in him, found the best in him. Even now when she had every right to blast him for his irresponsibility in conceiving a daughter out of wedlock, a daughter he had only recently learned existed, she merely smiled and trusted him to do the right thing. It was because of her that he’d worked his way to the Executive V.P. position of Fortune Tx, Ltd. He could have played on the Fortune name and the Fortune influence to get where he wanted to go, but Mary Ellen had expected him to earn his way honestly, and he had taken pride in doing so.

  Business was second nature to him, though. It was part of who he was. Most of what he had achieved was the product of sheer instinct. Fatherhood, on the other hand, was like a strange planet where nothing was as he expected. Up was down and in was out in this eerie land. He had no idea of his own worth here, his own power, but he had no choice except to step out and endure whatever came, making up solutions as he went along. He took a deep breath and stepped out.

  “We’ll head back to San Antonio right after lunch.”

  Mary Ellen smiled. “You’ll be fine. Both of you. Once you get her settled in and find someone to watch over her while you work, life will be rich and sweet again, just in a different way.”

  He hoped that she was right. He prayed to God that she was right. For his daughter’s sake.

  Emily Applegate, like everyone else in the building, heard the screams even before the elevator doors opened. Logan’s executive assistant lifted her head, absently smoothed the heavy, sandy-brown bun on the back of her head, and listened. The cries obviously belonged to a child, a very angry, desperate child. She couldn’t imagine who would have brought a child into the office, but she would shortly know. They all would. Office doors were opening. People were stepping out into the hallway.

  She stayed at her desk, gold-framed reading spectacles perched on the end of her nose, and watched the stir through the glass wall of her office, thinking that Logan had picked a good day to be out on personal business. He’d left a cryptic message on her voice mail sometime last night, informing her of his change of plans. She’d been shuffling appointments and standing in at meetings all day and desperately needed about two hours to catch up on her weekly report.

  Thoughts of the weekly report had been supplanted by curiosity, however, when the wails had first reached her. What caught her attention now, though, were the looks on people’s faces as the wailing drew nearer. They were stunned, all of them, stunned speechless, apparently. And suddenly she knew why as Logan Fortune himself stepped into view, a squalling bundle of auburn curls and flailing arms and legs caught against his chest.

  Emily stood, chin dropping, in a complete state of shock as Logan turned, maneuvering briefcase, child and—wonder of wonders!—diaper bag to push through the glass door. He stumbled into the room, yanking free the diaper bag as the door closed against it. Inside the closed room, the sound was deafening, shrill enough to split eardrums if not shatter glass. Logan looked at her as
if she was the one making it, then he juggled the child in her direction.

  “For pity’s sake, Applegate, take her!”

  Emily scrambled forward. “Mr. Fortune, what—”

  He shoved the child at her, threw her almost. Emily caught the wailing bundle and clasped her tight. Suddenly she was looking down into an astonishing pair of bright blue eyes rimmed with thick red-brown lashes and sparkling with diamond-bright tears. Emily pulled back, taking in the angelic face and tousled curls. The little one shuddered on a sob, and Emily’s heart turned over.

  “Well, hello there,” she said softly. “What’s wrong, sweetheart?”

  “Ba-ba-ba-ba,” the little one cried, bottom lip quivering. “Ba-ba-bobble.”

  Emily looked at Logan. “What’s wrong with her?”

  Logan lifted his chin, stretching his well-muscled six-foot frame. “She hates me, that’s what’s wrong with her,” he grumbled, plunking the diaper bag on top of her desk.

  The baby suddenly lunged for the bag, crying, “Baba-ba! Babable!”

  Emily spied the top of a bottle protruding from an end section of the bag. “I think she wants a drink.”

  The little one shook her head wildly. “No!” She reached again, opening and closing her little hand pleadingly. “Ba-a-ba-ob-ba!”

  Emily suddenly understood. For a child this age, a drink must be something taken from a sippy cup, a bottle was nourishment. “She’s hungry. She wants her bottle.”

  Logan looked as though he’d been dragged through a keyhole backward. His strong, aristocratically sculpted features were haggard, his full mouth turned down at the corners, his dark brown hair rumpled rather than waving back sleekly from his high forehead. He wrenched open the diaper bag and started tearing through it with broad, long-fingered hands.

  “It’s right there on the end,” Emily pointed out.

  He turned the bag on its end and plucked the pink bottle from its pocket. The baby reached for it, making a sound somewhere between a relieved laugh and an accusing sob. He jerked off the nipple cover and thrust it at her.