Liz felt torn as she watched her father—her rock—fall apart before her. Every emotion surged through her as she tried to make sense of his big reveal. Tried to determine what she should do next. Should she comfort her kidnapper? Should she yell and rage? Or should she ignore the crime and focus on all the years of love and family he’d given her?
“I don’t understand,” she said at last, having decided to focus on the facts and sort out the feelings later. “Is Warwick my dad? Is your name really Ben Benjamin? And who was the baby that died?”
Her father—the man called Ben—began to cry. His shoulders heaved as he struggled between drawing air and letting out his tears. “How did you know about the baby?” he asked, his eyes and face both red.
“We found the obituary for Elizabeth Marie Benjamin,” Dorian answered.
“Stop crying and talk,” Shane demanded. “She’s been waiting her whole life to find out the truth.”
“Do you need a paper bag to breathe into or something? A drink, maybe?” Lauren offered.
“He doesn’t get anything until he talks,” Shane boomed. His temper was infamous within the sledding community, but Liz had never seen it up close. And she still didn’t know whose side she was on in this confrontation between him and Ben.
Dorian squeezed her knee, reminding her that at least somebody was on her side. “Take some deep breaths,” he told the panicked man before them. “Count to ten, then answer Liz’s questions.”
It felt weird, hearing her name and knowing it wasn’t hers. Could she ever think of herself as Janie? Probably not. But now she wasn’t Liz anymore, either.
Ben finished counting under his breath, then shifted back into his story. His words were still shaky, but they came more readily now. “His name isn’t Warwick. It’s Charles Bingham, and, yes, he’s your birth father.”
He paused, but Liz didn’t know what questions to ask.
“Keep going,” Dorian prompted.
Ben filled his lungs, let the air out slowly. “My name really is Ben Benjamin, and that baby, Elizabeth, she was my daughter.” He cried out again as the shadow of this painful memory overtook him.
“We can’t keep stopping and starting like this,” Shane said, though now his voice held a small measure of kindness. “When you begin talking again, keep going until it’s all out.”
Ben nodded meekly and looked toward Liz.
“Why?” she asked. She didn’t need to say anymore. She only wanted to understand so she could decide whether Ben had saved her life or destroyed it.
“Your mother,” Ben started up again. For the briefest of moments, a far-off smile flashed across his face as he remembered the woman he’d loved. “She was married to Bingham when we fell in love. She always said she’d leave him for me, but she was so afraid. He was a man with a vicious temper. He’d hit her, push her, choke her.”
Ben gained strength in his fury. He kept going without either a harsh word from Shane or a kind one from Dorian. “She was going to leave him,” he insisted. “She was. But then she got pregnant with our child, with Elizabeth. Well, he found out, and she told him it was his. She was too afraid to tell him the truth or to leave under those circumstances, so she stayed. She said it was just until the baby was born, then we’d run away, start all over again, be the family we were always meant to be.
“All of us—your mother, me, our baby, and her little girl, Janie—that was you. But when she went into labor, the entire plan fell apart. The doctors couldn’t save her, and your sister, she died an hour after being born. All this happened three weeks before your mother’s due date, so her husband was out of town on a business trip.
“It gave me time alone with Elizabeth, and for that one hour she was in the world, I loved her with everything I had. I couldn’t stand the thought of no one remembering her, so I took out the obituary but I didn’t mention our names. I knew I needed to keep it secret because of what came next.”
“What came next?” Liz asked, still taking it all in.
“You already know. I took you. I’d promised your mother that we would all start a new life together, that you’d be safe from Bingham. But now it was only you and me left, and I couldn’t stand the thought of breaking that promise. Maybe I was crazy with grief, or maybe I knew it was only a matter of time before he hurt you, too. So I took you and ran as far away as I could get.”
“To Alaska,” Dorian said.
“Yes.” The word came out clipped, as if he had no strength left to say anymore. “Bingham hadn’t known of our affair, and he didn’t know me, so he wouldn’t know where to find us. I called in some favors, paid some shady characters, and was able to get you legally recognized as Elizabeth Benjamin. I had all the papers, and it was my name as the father on that birth certificate. I think the moment that baby died in my arms, some part of me knew what my plan was. That’s why I couldn’t put his name down, no matter what your mother had planned. That baby was mine. You were mine, too. You may not have been born to me, Liz, but I am your father. I love you.”
With that, he began to cry in earnest once more.
Liz didn’t have time to think. She ran to him and took him in her arms.
However it had happened, this man was her father.
And she believed him when he said he loved her.