For once, I didn’t give Asher a hard time about his slowly developing relationship with our aunt.
I wanted Asher to get closer to Millie.
Hell, I wanted him to get closer to everyone.
“You could chat with her yourself if you come to dinner at Tanner’s place. We were both invited.”
I knew it was a long shot, but I was tired of seeing my brother isolate himself at his ranch with only his horses for company.
He’d hired himself a housekeeper, but she was only there for a few hours a day, and I doubted very much that he spoke a single word to the woman.
Asher’s isolation wasn’t healthy.
I’d probably never thought about that before because I’d been very much like him when we’d lived in Austin.
We’d lived to work, and now that we weren’t doing that anymore, I really wanted my brother to try to get a life.
A life that included people in it.
I wasn’t a social guy myself, but Asher’s total isolation worried me.
“She’ll drop by this week,” he replied, blowing off my suggestion.
I let out an exasperated breath.
I’d already known what his answer would be.
I knew I was going to have to let Asher move at his own pace. If Millie could get to him, it was only a matter of time before she’d convince him to give his cousins a chance.
The thing was…if Asher did give Kaleb, Tanner, and Devon a chance, he’d like them. He’d like their wives, too.
Maybe we weren’t really raised together, but our cousins were a lot like Asher and me at our core.
They were driven and ambitious, but they didn’t let that ambition rule their lives anymore.
All of them were straight shooters, and they had very little tolerance for bullshit.
And Kaleb, Tanner, and Devon were close, probably just as close as I was to Asher.
The three of them razzed the hell out of each other, but it was crystal clear to me that they’d always have each other’s backs.
They were also protective of the people they cared about.
All of my theories about having nothing in common with my cousins had been completely wrong.
Maybe we had been raised differently.
Maybe Asher and I hadn’t gotten Ivy League educations.
But we still had more in common than I ever thought possible.
“You’d like them if you got to know them,” I told my brother.
Asher shrugged. “Maybe I would, but I don’t see the point. Other than you, I don’t really give a damn about family.”
I knew that wasn’t really true.
Truth was…Asher didn’t think he was capable of getting close to anyone else.
