Past Asher groaned and scrubbed his hands over his face. “Fine. Yes, I agree. Now go to sleep, you weirdo.”
“Love you, too,” she said through laughter before the screen went black.
Cole closed the laptop and cleared his throat, folding his hands on top of the conference room table. “There’ll be a hearing, of course, but in the meantime, they’ll be stayin’ with Asher. As long as he’s okay with that.”
Three sets of eyes swiveled to him, and he swallowed down his apprehension. What the hell did he know about taking care of two kids? Nothing. Okay, so maybe one percent above nothing, but that had been hard earned in the past five days, and it was mostly thanks to the help he’d gotten from others. The Havens, Nash, Nat… But who knew how long she’d stay. And while the Havens were as much a part of this town as the very streets that ran through it, he couldn’t expect them to drop everything just to help show him the way.
But it didn’t matter.
It didn’t matter that his life was about to be flipped upside down, irrevocably changed. It didn’t matter that he had no idea what he was doing. It didn’t matter that, eventually, he’d have to figure this out all on his own.
All that mattered was making good on his promise to his sister—one he hadn’t even remembered making, no doubt thanks to a haze of exhaustion and excitement—and taking care of June and Owen since she was no longer able to. Those two kids were the only family he had left, and he was going to do everything in his power to make sure they were as happy as possible after devastation.
Nat couldn’t believe Asher had been doing this by himself fordaysbefore she’d arrived. She was exhausted, still reeling from jet lag. He’d only been gone for two hours, and she already felt like she’d been trampled by a herd of elephants, then tossed in a dumpster, only to be emptied into a garbage truck, and then discarded in a pile of rubble.
So yeah, she and this whole in-charge-of-two-humans thing were getting along great.
“Nat, why don’t you come in here and help us?” her momma called from the kitchen where she, June, and Gran were currently baking a batch of peanut butter cookies.
Since Nat’s visits to Havenbrook were few and far between, her momma and gran always tried to soak up as much time with her as they could, never knowing when she’d land again. Despite telling them she was here for a little while until Asher got things squared away, they’d still shown up right after Asher left.
And considering she wasn’t all that confident in her abilities to handle two kids by herself, she’d welcomed them in with open arms.
Nat may not have known much, but shedidknow it wasn’t wise to leave an eight-month-old baby who was dead set on getting into everything he wasn’t supposed alone. So, she stood and swept up a drooling, smiling Owen, bringing him close and munching on his neck to his deep belly laughs. “Should we see what everyone’s doin’?”
She rounded the corner into the kitchen, her eyes darting around the space as she took in her momma and June in their matching aprons, Gran sitting at the counter where the duo was working.
The kitchen was spotless, despite sounding like a battle had taken place in there. She didn’t know why she was surprised, though. She’d seen it enough times in her childhood home when her nieces had been helping her momma out. Somehow, this miraculous woman managed to keep things clean even when faced with a human hurricane. Meanwhile, Nat’s kitchen somehow became messy even if all she did was boil water.
“I’ve got my hands full with this one,” Nat said, tickling Owen’s round belly. “But I will happily be the taste tester. In fact, why don’t you just shovel a spoonful right in my mouth, Junie B?” Nat opened her mouth and leaned toward June.
Instead of responding, the little girl fell into a puddle of giggles on the counter. “We have to cook them first, silly!”
Probably wasn’t the best time to tell this impressionable child that, in an act of utter rebellion, Nat had eaten her way through an entire tube of cookie dough during a single episode ofSupernatural, and she’d only felt a little sick by the time the credits were rolling. But she was pretty sure that had more to do with the questionable moo goo gai pan she’d had before she’d started her gluttonous adventure than it had to do with the cookie dough.
“Well, what’re you waitin’ for, then? I want some cookies, and your uncledefinitely—”
The side door opened, and Asher stepped into the house, his eyes bouncing around the space before locking with hers for a millisecond and then sliding away. But that millisecond was all she needed.
She’d been friends with him a long time, had witnessed him growing from an almost-shy newcomer to a lanky, gangly adolescent to a mysterious teen heartbreaker all the girls in their school were going crazy over to a self-assured man who probably had to beat off groupies with a stick. It also meant that in those tens of thousands of looks they’d shared, she could read the tiniest inflection, even when he probably didn’t intend it to be there.
All that to say something was off. The only thing she couldn’t quite figure out was if this off was good or bad.
“Are those cookies?” he asked, eyeing the pan full of cookie dough balls in front of her momma and June, all while totally avoiding Nat’s questioning gaze.
“See, I told you he’d want them.” Nat bounced Owen on her hip, the little boy’s face immediately breaking into a wide grin as he held his arms out to Asher.
“Hi there, sweetheart,” her momma said, shooting Asher a smile. “We’re just about to pop ’em in the oven. Shouldn’t be more than a little bit before they’re ready.”
“Can’t wait. Did Gran and Nat already eat half the batter?”
“How dare you,” Nat said at the same time Gran responded, “What I do in my spare time is none of your concern, young man.”
With a grin, Asher tossed his keys on the counter and strolled straight toward Nat, his eyes connecting with hers again for a moment. Oh yes, there was most definitely something he wasn’t telling her.
“Hi, buddy.” He gathered Owen and tossed him in the air once before holding him against his chest, propped up on one solid, muscled forearm. “What’d I miss?”
“Miss Caroline and Gran took me to get ice cream!”
