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At least she didn’t have to worry that the honk had frightened her six-month-old baby. Luna’s squeals coming from the rear-facing infant car seat in the back told Willow her daughter was just fine.
“What are you laughing about back there?”
The baby cackled as she did at all her mother’s jokes. Great. Her kid was going to be a thrill seeker, a luxury Willow had never known.
Her kid. Willow swallowed. How had she forgotten, even for a few seconds, why they were headed to the hospital in the first place? This couldn’t be happening. The woman on the phone had to be wrong. One more thing in a week that had started out bad and had gone downhill from there. Her gaze flicked to the notebook in the passenger seat. She’d written all the details from the call on it before giving her own instructions to her staff and racing out with Luna in her arms.
There had to be a mistake. How could there be a chance that precious Luna wasn’t her child? The infant’s tawny skin was as dark as hers, and the child’s capful of brown hair had already begun to curl. If only basic resemblance could guarantee that they were mother and daughter. Nearly a third of Arizona’s population was of Latino heritage like her, so babies with Luna’s hair and skin coloring were hardly rare in Mustang Valley.
An ache formed in Willow’s chest, squeezing and twisting. Heat gathered behind her eyes. No, she wouldn’t cry. Luna needed her to be strong. She needed her mother. And nothing could convince her that Luna wasn’t the baby she’d once cradled inside her own body and had met at her first breath. She’d promised this child a life filled with the type of security Willow had only dreamed of. Could she have made that vow to the wrong infant?
Managing to avoid more near misses on her trip along the town’s main drag, she pulled into the hospital campus and parked at the five-story building’s main entrance.
She buckled Luna in the stroller the child loathed and rolled it through the automatic doors. Following the signs, she headed down a long corridor and stopped in front of the administrative offices.
A woman in a light pink pantsuit pounced on her the moment she pushed Luna inside.
“You must be Mrs. Merrill.” The woman pumped Willow’s hand, a flush climbing her own pale neck, her blond bob bouncing. “I’m Anne Sewall, but please call me Anne. I appreciate your coming over so quickly.”
“It’s Willow. And thanks for giving me the information over the phone.”
The older woman’s glasses shifted as she wrinkled her nose. “I didn’t have a choice, since the other party had insisted that I release the details that way.”
Other party. That was the only descriptor Willow had for someone who might be about to steal away her child. She wasn’t ready to wrap her thoughts around the possibility that another mother might be raising an infant biologically connected to her.
“Will your husband be joining us this morning?”
Willow shook her head. “No. He was my ex-husband. I mean, well, both he and his new wife are deceased.”
The last development was recent enough that this was the first time Willow had been forced to explain it to anyone beyond close friends. The part about Xavier leaving her for another woman, though, was well-traveled history.
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Merrill.”
“Thank you.” She would have preferred to say, “don’t be,” but she couldn’t tell a stranger that.
Anne wrung her hands and then crouched in front of the stroller where Luna was already fussing and wiggling against the harness safety restraint.
“You must be Miss Luna Mariana Merrill. You’re a beauty.”
The baby scrunched her face, so to avoid what would surely be a good wail, Willow unsnapped the buckle and lifted the child into her arms.
“She takes compliments better once she’s out of that contraption.”
The administrator struggled to her feet and pointed to a place next to the wall. “Why don’t you park the stroller right there and take a seat inside my office? I’m sure the others will arrive shortly.”
An image of a happily married couple and child, a family worthy of a Thomas Kinkade painting, invaded Willow’s thoughts as she pulled the diaper bag from the stroller handle. Would a judge see that intact family unit as a better choice for both babies if this awful premise turned out to be fact? She shook her head to push away the thought, but nothing could calm her insides.
Just as she stepped inside Anne’s office, a beep signaled that the reception-area door had been opened.
Anne held up her index finger. “I’ll be right back.”
From somewhere outside the room, the administrator’s muffled voice melded with a baritone one. Willow dragged one of the visitors’ chairs as far as she could from the other, sat and settled Luna on her lap.
Needing something to do with her hands, she straightened her baby’s mint-green top and smoothed her fingers over the striped leggings. Then she gripped one of the open sides of her chambray shirt that she’d thrown on over her clothes and tried to cover her bare legs. If only she’d had time to change out of her work clothes.
“We’ll be fine, sweetie. Just fine.” She only hoped what she’d told her daughter was true.
She straightened as heavy footfalls grew closer to the office.
