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e nothing.”
“If that’s true, I’m glad. Because it didn’t sound like ‘nothing’ when you got the call.”
“Why don’t we just say that yesterday was a lousy day and leave it at that?”
“Okay.”
She expected an argument, or at least for those perceptive eyes to stare at her until she spilled her story. He did neither thing, bouncing his daughter on his knee instead.
“Our family had a rotten day, too,” he said after a long time.
“Why? Was the caviar too salty? Or was the champagne flat?”
This time he rolled his eyes. “Does making fun of my family ever get old for you?”
She grinned. “Not yet. But, okay, I’ll stop.”
“If you haven’t figured it out, I’m more a burger-and-a-frosty-mug type. But no, salty fish eggs weren’t the worst things that happened yesterday.”
“What was it?”
“I thought you followed the local news.”
“I do, just not last night. Why? What did I miss? Did something happen with your dad?”
He blinked a few times and then shook his head.
Her next thought had her sitting straighter. “Did someone find out about our, uh, situation?”
She shivered as she asked it. The only thing that could be worse than news of the possible switch getting out would be if it ended up being true.
“Nothing like that. There was just a bomb threat at Colton Oil.”
“A bomb threat?” she called out.
At that, he chuckled. “I thought there still might be a handful of locals who hadn’t heard yet. Thanks for fixing that.”
“Do you always make light of serious stuff?”
“Maybe.”
“So, what happened?”
His voice just above a whisper, he gave her what had to be the bare-bones version of the story.
“That must have been terrifying for your whole family. You’re lucky the police didn’t find anything.”
“Even without my dad and Ace working there, I still had a sister and a brother in that building when the threat came in. Marlowe’s pregnant, too.”
Willow swallowed. She’d wasted so much energy hating the Coltons without thinking of them as a family. With a different set of problems from hers, but a family just the same.
“My other sister would have been in her office, too, if she hadn’t been on an errand.” He glanced over at her. “In the hospital lab.”
If Asher had made the comment a few minutes earlier, Willow might have chuckled, but she no longer found any humor in it.
He lowered his voice again. “She was there for a DNA test to determine if our guest at the ranch is my dad’s firstborn son. That baby really was switched at birth.”
“You win.”
