The Billionaire's Handler

“Okay,” Maguire mumbled. “Moving away from the food list and onto the major life wishes list. And right off the bat, cookie, I can see this list has more potential to be challenging …” He was still obviously talking to himself. He hadn’t lifted his head from the legal pad. “You want to have dinner in a tree house. A real tree house. Hmm. You want fifteen pairs of Italian shoes. No surprise there—the shopping gene was bound to surface sooner or later. You want to sleep in a castle. A real castle. You’d like a weekend at a spa. Now you’re talking. You want to ride in an old MG, like a ‘53, one of those ‘darling ones’ with running boards and all. You want … well, hey. Are you actually listening to this monologue, Carolina?”

Maguire had abruptly looked up. Looked straight at her.

He’d caught her. There was nothing she could do but fess up, so she nodded. “My hearing’s coming back. I can’t make it stay, but I’ve been listening to you talk. And I can hear my own voice. My hearing just seems to fade in and out. It’s not consistent. I don’t understand it.”

“I do. The doctors all explained it the same way. You stopped hearing because your life had become an overwhelming pressure cooker. Remove the pressure, and there was every reason to believe you’d get your hearing back again.”

“But nothing’s changed.” Anxiety nipped at her nerves, then took a serious raw bite. “The pressure and problems are all there, all real. In fact, I have to go home. I have to get up. I have to—”

When she made a move to push off the couch, he interrupted. His voice was quiet, calm. “I’ve got a deal for you.”

“I’m not a make-a-deal kind of person, Maguire. There is no deal. As crazy as it sounds, I haven’t minded being kidnapped, but now … it’s all coming back. I don’t have time to mess around. I have to go home—”

“Hold it, hold it. This is a deal that’s going to work for you. I promise. You want to know how I happened to bring you here, don’t you? So I’ll fill in all the missing information. All you have to do is give me a chance to do that.”

She hesitated. She did want to understand—fiercely—how this whole crazy thing had happened. But she wanted to hear about it right away, with no interruptions.

She should have known better. Everything had to be his way. He came through with a man’s parka and hat and gloves for her, dragged her outside again. Early evening, the last color was just purpling the snow on the mountaintops. Not a breath of wind stirred. He helped her into an old Adirondack chair, buried in down blankets, but mittens out—so she could hold a glass of wine. Maguire started building a fire in a copper pit by the chairs.

It only took a few minutes before a blaze of golden sparks lit up the night. Wood smoke whiskered off in the valley, mingling with the pungent scent of pine. Maguire, wearing a leather jacket so old Goodwill would probably reject it, took the chair next to her, but his attention was on hunching over, stirring the fire, keeping it heaped up and hot.

And then he finally started talking. “Once upon a time,” he said, “there was a man named Gerald who had three sons. Gerald’s daddy had invented something so fantastic that he made millions, then billions, and Gerald inherited it all. He devoted his life to buying anything he wanted … That wine okay with you? ”

“The wine’s fine,” she said impatiently. It was better than fine. It was some kind of fancy Pinot Noir, rich and dry and deep as the night. “Don’t trying diverting me, Maguire. Keep talking.”

“Okay, okay. Well, Gerald’s first son was named Jay. Jay never worked, and probably never will. From the time he was sixteen, he was going through drugs and women, smashing fast cars, getting into every kind of trouble he could think of. He sounds rotten, but I swear you’d like him. Everyone does. He’s a charmer.”

Maguire checked her glass, saw she’d only had a sip or two, poured himself some, then went on. “Gerald went through that wife, then another. Eventually he had a second son. They got along like a snake and a mongoose. About the time Second Son was in college, he had a huge fight with his father because Gerald made a manslaughter charge against Jay disappear. Jay happened to be driving drunk, and hit an old man. The guy was homeless, so he didn’t matter, right? No one knew him. No one missed him. The father couldn’t figure out why his second son got his Jockeys in such a twist, but that was the last time Second Son spoke directly to his father.”

Maguire paused for breath, but Carolina didn’t comment. She’d stopped breathing altogether. For the first time in months, she easily put aside her own life and problems. It didn’t take rocket science to figure out that Maguire was the second son, that he was talking about himself.

“A wife or two later, a third son came into the picture. Tommy was a complete surprise. Unfortunately, when Gerald’s wife was eight months pregnant, he thought she’d enjoy taking a hang-glider ride. Apparently, they both did enjoy it, until the glider crashed. Gerald wasn’t hurt, but his wife went into premature labor. She never made it out of the delivery room, lots of complications. Tommy lived, but he was born weeks too soon, was never right.

“Gerald solved the problem of Tommy like he did everything else. Threw money at it. The kid had full-time help at home, every toy ever made, was dragged to the best medical specialists on a regular basis. Since all the records pointed to the premature birth, the lack of oxygen—and maybe to the recreational drugs Gerald and his wife enjoyed—no one really expected to find miracles for Tommy. But at least there was no fear he wouldn’t always be well taken care of.”

Carolina watched him. He was restless now, couldn’t sit still, had to fuss with the coals again, even though the fire was vibrantly shooting gold sparks into the night sky. “Last summer, Gerald put Tommy in a special place. He’d heard there was this really unusual summer program near South Bend, a school that had fresh ideas for the range of kids who just can’t seem to progress because of their mental disabilities. Gerald wasn’t really expecting Tommy to improve, of course. He just wanted to vacation in Corfu, wanted a place to stash him.”

“Maguire.” She said his voice softly, gently. She couldn’t just let him go on, not when he was expressing so much hurt—in such a tough voice.

But he motioned her with a hand. “I know this is a long story, Carolina, but I really hate telling it. I’m almost at the end, so just let me get through it, okay?”

She nodded.

“So Tommy goes to this incredible place. And he has a seizure. Seizures aren’t unusual for someone with Tommy’s brain issues, but this teacher thinks there’s something that doesn’t make sense. So when an ambulance picks him up from the school, she goes to the hospital with him. Everybody starts getting mad at her. The doctor, the medical staff. They think she’s interfering, full of herself, doesn’t know anything. But the thing is, this teacher—by the name of Carolina Daniels—was right. All this time, there was actually a reason for a lot of Tommy’s mental and physical disabilities. He had a tumor behind one eye.

“Now Tommy still isn’t perfect. Never will be. But his life just became damn close to normal, thanks to her. Gerald, being Gerald, offers her money. This Carolina woman won’t take it. But that’s all Gerald has ever known how to do—throw money at problems—so he puts her in his will, leaves this unsuspecting teacher somewhere around fifteen million dollars. Of course, Gerald wasn’t actually planning on dying. But whatever. Gerald wanted her to have some payback, and being Gerald, he got what he wanted.”

Maguire finally tried stretching out his long legs toward the fire, leaning back in the chair. “My guess is that our mysterious teacher—Carolina Daniels—was initially thrilled about the money. I mean, hey, who wouldn’t be? Isn’t that everybody’s dream, to have total financial security, financial freedom, never have to worry about money again? Only, it didn’t seem to work out quite that simple for her.” For the first time since he started talking, he shot her a glance. “You cold?”

“No, not at all.”

“We’re going inside the minute you’re cold. You hungry?”

“No.”

“More wine?”

“No. Good grief.”

“Okay then. We’re getting to the last part of the story. The awkward part. Here’s the deal. The second son was always an interfering son of a gun. Selfrighteous. Thinks he knows everything. That kind of pain-in-the-neck type of character. But he happens to really love his little brother. And even though Tommy’s got a trust set up that will protect him forever financially, that second son has always been a part of Tommy’s life. So that’s how he knows about this teacher of Tommy’s. How she saved Tommy’s life. How she inherited that nest egg from Gerald.”

Carolina opened her mouth, closed it. She had to let him finish.

“Okay. So Second Son—even though he hasn’t got a legal right in the universe, even though it’s none of his business in any way, even though he doesn’t have time to mess around with a stranger’s life—tracks down this Carolina Daniels. I don’t know what you call that. Guilt? Lunacy? Trying to fix the sins of the father? Whatever. Second Son gets the impression that maybe this teacher isn’t the toughest nut on the tree. In fact, this new, fabulous fortune isn’t working at all like the fairy tale’s supposed to be. Her money’s brought out every vulture and piranha in the area. She’s never had to cope with sharks before. She’s never been trained to deal with greed at this level—or what levels people will fall to—to get a cut out of her. All that money, but she can’t get safe. She can’t …”

Carolina was still listening, but some of his monologue made her zone out. Her heart suddenly felt hugely full, brimming over. She still didn’t have all the answers she wanted, and she hadn’t had time to phrase even half the questions she wanted to. But he’d told her enough.

Her kidnapper was a good man. Better than a good man. Maguire was a true modern-day white knight who actually stepped up for damsels in distress—even if she wasn’t a damsel, much less the kind of woman who counted on a man to save her from anything. Carolina never needed saving, anyway. She’d just desperately needed two seconds to think, to put her new life together, and there hadn’t been a single stretch where she could hide from the bombardment of ceaseless pressures and demands being made of her.

“Maguire?”

“Yeah?” His voice edgy, wary now.

“You know I thought Maguire was your last name. You never once let on your real last name was Cochran.”

He answered, “Well, hell. I didn’t want you to have a negative impression right off the bat. It’s not like I had any choice over the family I was born into. Believe me, I would have chosen Smith. Or Jones.”

She got it, that he was hoping she’d laugh off the “little deceit” he’d pulled on her. But she couldn’t stop thinking. “I kept trying to understand why I felt an … instinctive trust for you. Why I wasn’t more afraid. I mean, for Pete’s sake, you were kidnapping me.”

“Borrowing,” he corrected her swiftly. “Less prison time if we use a little different term than kidnapping.”

“I had every reason to think you’d be after my money. Because everyone’s been after my money. So why would you have taken me if not for ransom? It’s the conclusion any sane person would come to, wouldn’t you think? But it just didn’t make sense in my mind. It just didn’t … fit.”

“You’ve been pretty drugged up, cookie. You shouldn’t be expecting yourself to think rationally or normally for a while yet.”

“Maybe. But I still knew. Somehow. That you weren’t going to hurt me. That this wasn’t about your wanting something from me.” She leaned forward. “Maguire, how’s Tommy?”

“Good. He’s in Seattle. I petitioned the court for custody after my dad died, but as I mentioned, Gerald and I had issues. Dad did a good job of financially protecting him, but that’s the best I can say. I see him at least twice a month, and sometimes he stays with me for weeks at a time …”

“So who is he with?”

“As odd as it sounds … with Jay’s ex-wife. One of Jay’s ex-wives. Shannon. The one thing Tommy needed that no amount of money could give him was a plain old mom. The nurturing of a mom, the warmth of a mom, the parenting relationship of a mom. He’s crazy about Shannon. So it isn’t a blood tie, but probably that’s best. The Cochrans aren’t exactly famous for their maternal or paternal judgment.”

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