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Asher filled both cups and added an ample pour of creamer in his. When he held it up to offer her some, she shook her head. She kept the stuff for her staff in the kitchen downstairs, but she could offer no explanation for the bottle in her apartment. Had she been expecting him? Hoping?
After he put the bottle away, he carried both mugs to the table and sat.
“I finally told the rest of my family about Luna and Harper just a few hours ago.”
“What was your hurry?” She rolled her eyes as she took her first sip. “It took me a while to catch on the other night at the hospital that you hadn’t told anyone before Ainsley.”
Immediately, she regretted that she’d brought up that night, when it served as a reminder that the evening had ended with steamed-up windows on his truck.
She coughed into her shoulder. “How did they take it?”
“They said I should have told them sooner.”
“If you stalled until tomorrow, you could have avoided telling them altogether. Well...depending.”
“Yeah, depending.”
Could this conversation get more awkward? It was as if each lane change they made led only to another pothole. The air in the room seemed heavier than before, as well.
“But after last night, I knew I had to tell them everything.”
“What happened last night? There’s something else?”
“I found a card with a death threat in Dad’s hospital room. Someone, maybe the original shooter, promised to finish the job.”
“I’m so sorry.” She leaned in, tempted to touch the hand that he’d wrapped around his mug. Would he pull away from her compassion if she did?
“Thanks. The police were guarding his hospital room at first, but now we’ve hired round-the-clock guards. I also talked to Sergeant Spencer Colton about the threats to your business. I thought police should look at the possible connection to the incidents facing my family. He wants you to file a police report.”
“Thanks. I will. I appreciate the security service, too. I have to keep our girls safe, them and all the children at the center.”
“Are you scared?”
Willow couldn’t look up from her mug, her fuzzy image staring back at her from the shiny black liquid. His words matched the subject they’d been discussing before, but he had to be asking about only one mystery now.
“About tomorrow? Sure. Aren’t you?”
“Terrified.”
She lifted her gaze and met his again. Just like his one-word answer minutes before, this one was brutally honest. She couldn’t decide whether to feel privileged that he’d confided in her or scared she wasn’t strong enough for him to rely on.
Willow smiled, hoping to reveal neither of those impulses. “I was probably more afraid when I first received the news.”
“How is that possible?”
She tilted her head to the side. “I was still picturing some high-powered couple who might fight for custody of both babies if we found proof that they were switched.”
“Why would anyone try to do that?”
“The reason powerful people do all the inexplicable things they do.” She shrugged. “Because they can. I’m a single mom, still sometimes struggling to make ends meet. I’m an easy target.”
“That’s what you were thinking when you found out I was a Colton. Then you had even more reasons to be upset.”
She shook her head. “Don’t remind me.”
“Why didn’t you think I would go after custody of both girls? Because I was a single parent and not a part of a couple?”
“I did think that you would at first.”
