Assumed Identity(36)
“You need to answer that?” Jake asked, before she could resume the argument.
“I have it on vibrate. It startled me, that’s all.” The pink scrape mark on her jaw stood out as the rest of her skin paled. She picked up Emma’s toy keys and gently cupped the baby’s face.
“What’s wrong?”
Jake didn’t buy the smile she gave him when she looked up to meet his assessing gaze. “I was assaulted last night. What do you expect? Of course I’m jumpy.”
“Don’t give me that. You found out my name, tracked me down, dolled the kid up—all so you could feed me dinner? I’m not buying it.” He reached across the table take hold of the hand she rested there. Jake damned himself for doing it. He damned her for shifting her grip to hold on. “Something’s got you spooked. And whatever you just saw on your phone is part of it.”
Setting her phone on top of the table, she showed him the message written there. “My assistant, Mark, keeps texting to tell me this woman I talked to before I left the shop has called three more times asking for me.”
“What woman?”
“I answered the first time because I thought she was a reporter.”
“What woman, Robin? What did she say?”
“It was a prank call. She sounded drunk. I’m assuming she read about me in the paper.”
“And?” Her long, artistic fingers were like ice to the touch. And Jake couldn’t seem to stop from stroking his thumb against the pulse in her wrist, trying to instill some warmth into her.
“She said I didn’t deserve her.” She was holding on with both hands now. “She said I should have died last night.”
Jake concentrated every nerve on his grip to keep the surge of anger from fisting his hand too tightly around hers. “Lousy coward. You don’t believe that, do you?”
“I don’t care what anyone says about me. But she was so adamant about how terrible a mother I am. I know I’m a single mom, but I do my best. I get tired sometimes, but I can support Emma on my own. She has a good doctor, a safe home...” A deep breath shuddered through her. “I read every book, I took classes—so I’d be ready when my chance to have a child came. I fought so hard to have a baby on my own. I don’t have that many years left when I can have a healthy pregnancy. But none of the relationships I’d been in were right for starting a family. And none of the science I tried took.” She pulled one hand from his and reached over to touch Emma’s cheek. “And then this little miracle fell into my lap. I wanted to adopt her as soon as I met her. It was love at first sight.”
Even a blind man could see how much Robin adored her daughter and what a fiercely protective mother she was. “This crackpot said you didn’t deserve her? I’m assuming she didn’t give her name?”
She shook her head. Her gray-blue eyes darkened like a starless night. Her fingers convulsed around his and Jake tightened his grip. “She said I put Emma in harm’s way last night.”
The bastard who’d attacked Robin had put the baby in harm’s way. Did the sliced seat belt and tipped car seat mean that lowlife had been after Emma? Was the attack on Robin collateral damage to the unthinkable crime of kidnapping or hurting her infant daughter? Without thinking, Jake stretched his arm out to touch Emma. But at the last moment, he wised up and settled for returning the slobbery plastic keys to her surprisingly strong grasp. No sense completing a circle that had nothing to do with him—that shouldn’t be his concern.
He let go of Robin, too. These weren’t his women to protect. He couldn’t be swayed by searching eyes and needy grasps. Curling both hands into fists, Jake tried to think like the tough guys on the IDs in his apartment. He had to think like that ruthless survivalist from his nightmares. “You didn’t recognize the phone number?”
Robin rubbed her hands together on top of the table, perhaps missing his touch, more likely just feeling chilled again. “She’s only called the shop. I don’t have caller ID there. She didn’t tell me who she was, of course.”
“How specific was the threat? Did she mention Emma’s name?” So his tone was a little sharper than he intended. That was the whole idea of being a tough guy, right?
“No. But how does she know I’m not her real mother? Adoptions aren’t public record, and only my attorney and friends know I didn’t give birth to her. She talked to me like I’d done something wrong, like...like I’m the one who put Emma in danger. She sounded like she wanted to take Emma away from me.” He realized that Robin’s suspicions were following his own. “KCPD is focusing on the Rose Red Rapist. I’m trying to figure out who’s doctoring the books at my shop and stealing from me. Maybe there’s someone else out there none of us have thought of whom I need to be worried about.”