Page 8 of In Colton's Custody (Coltons of Mustang Valley)

“Why do the tests need to be legally admissible?” Willow asked, but she had already come up with her own answer before Anne lowered her head and stared at her hands. If the hospital had made the mistake, the board would expect a lawsuit. They would be getting one.

Asher’s arms tightened around his daughter, finally causing her to squirm. Willow leaned forward and studied the infant. Harper didn’t look like her. She also appeared to have a calm nature. No one would ever have described Willow that way. She was intense and always moving, more like Luna.

“This is crazy!” Asher popped to his feet, startling Harper, who whimpered. “This is my child. You might think there’s been a switch, but you’re wrong.”

Anne stood and stepped around the end of her desk. “Please take a seat, Mr. Colton. We will figure this—”

“You’re a Colton?”

Willow leaped up as well, and Luna let out a wail, her pacifier dropping. Willow was surprised that she managed to catch it. After all, the administrator had just invoked the name of the family she hated most in the world.

She bounced and swayed to calm her child before speaking again in a lower voice. “You’re Asher... Colton?”

“Yeah. So? I already introduced myself.”

“Not quite,” Anne noted. “You didn’t say your last name.”

No wonder he’d looked familiar to Willow earlier. She’d probably seen him before, holding court with the rest of his family, considered Mustang Valley’s royalty. Maybe spinning around town in one of their luxury cars.

“Please sit. You’re upsetting your daughters.”

They’d been staring warily at each other, but at Anne’s words they glanced at their own children and lowered into their seats again.

Willow’s gaze lifted to Asher again. From his innocent expression, she would have thought he’d never received a look of loathing in his life. Given his last name, she doubted that.

“So, yes, I’m a Colton, if that matters. It didn’t save me from having to be involved in a mess like this again, did it?”

Willow stared back at him. If that matters? Hell yes, it did. Then something else he’d said struck her. Again. Mustang Valley was a small town. Even before it had hit the news, she’d heard about his family’s infant-switch scandal. That didn’t mean she had to pity them.

The Coltons might have once been able to take everything from her mother, but she wouldn’t allow their Richie Rich spawn to take her only child. Even if he was Luna’s biological father.

She sneaked another peek at the infant in Asher’s lap. If Luna could be his, Harper could be hers. Could she bear living in the same town as the child she’d carried for nine months without having the chance to know or love her? On the other hand, could she give up the baby she’d nursed, diapered and loved for six months?

“I can’t do this,” she said.

“Well, then, let’s get this over with.”

Asher’s words crushed hers, contradicting them in both loyalty and intent.

Didn’t it matter to him which infant he took home? Was his daughter as interchangeable as one of the cows on the Triple R?

“We can go to the lab right now,” he continued.

Anne gripped her hands together. “Unfor

tunately, we can’t do the test today.”

“But you asked us to bring our children in immediately.”

Asher’s voice lifted an octave, but, somehow, he remained in his seat this time.

“Yes, I said that, but when I called the lab, I discovered that they were booked all day. I scheduled you both for ten tomorrow morning.”

Willow drew her brows together. “How can that be possible? This is a hospital.”

“All emergency lab work will be handled immediately,” Anne said. “But elective lab work requires an appointment.”

“You don’t call possibly switched infants an emergency?” Why was Willow making Asher’s argument for him? She wasn’t in a rush to find out answers that could crush them, but she couldn’t help herself. “Or maybe a potential lawsuit?”

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