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“How did you even know what her name was, after—” He shook his head. The last thing he needed was to listen to his mother trying to explain the inexcusable. “Why’d you talk to Willow now, after all this time?”
“Even if it was late, she deserved an apology. I should have helped her mother more than I did the night she was fired.”
She scooted closer to the bed and brushed her fingers over her husband’s freshly shaven cheek. “He would probably agree now that he overreacted. He’s softened a little after all these years.”
Asher half expected his dad to wake up and argue that point.
“If he has softened at all, he owes that to you.”
Genevieve squeezed her husband’s pale hand.
“We all make mistakes, Asher. What we do to repair the fences we tear is a sign of our true character.”
“Only you would speak in rancher analogies.”
“What can I say? I’m Payne Colton’s wife.”
Asher’s gaze moved from his father to the woman who loved him despite his flaws. He slumped in his chair.
“I think I’ve made the biggest mistake of my life.”
He waited. If nothing else, he’d always been able to count on his mother to take his side. “So, what did I always tell you to do when you mess up?”
“Fix it.”
“It’s good to know that at least one of my children was listening. I worried that I was whispering into the wind with all of you.”
“You? Whispering?” He shook his head. “Never.”
This time she laughed, sounding more relaxed than she had in a while. She stopped as her gaze fell again on her sleeping husband. Her smile was for him alone as she brushed her fingers back and forth over his hand.
Then she looked up at her son.
“We can’t help who we love, Asher. Or change whatever mistakes brought us to that point. We can only recognize that person for the gift that he or she is, because love and family are the only things that matter.”
He patted his father’s hand and rounded the bed to drop a kiss on his mother’s head. Then he hurried from the room before she had the chance to see how wet his eyes were. Anyway, if his dad awoke right then, he would probably fire him as foreman for the sheer lack of toughness.
Only his mother’s words followed him as he passed the guard posted outside his father’s hospital room door and continued down the hall. We can’t help who we love. And he knew. He loved Willow Merrill. It didn’t matter how they’d met. Or his track record with relationships. Or even hers. But was he ready to take a risk on love the way his mother had described it? His heart still ached at the memory of Genevieve looking with hope at his comatose father, still believing, no matter how much time had passed, how bad the odds were. If he did take a risk with Willow, could he bear it if he ever lost her?
* * *
Asher pulled into his regular spot on the ranch in the line of pickups just as Jarvis Colton emerged from Barn Two. Jarvis, a distant cousin and one of triplet siblings along with Bella and cop Spencer, approached the truck.
“How’s it going, boss? Any change with Payne?”
“How’d you know...?”
“Oh. Rex told me you were taking a little time to see your dad. I’m sure you mom appreciated having you there.”
Asher shrugged. What would he and the other cowboys think if they knew that, even with everything else going on, his mother had reached out to him instead of the other way around? Anyway, it surprised him that his cousin was asking about nonwork matters. Jarvis had previously refused to discuss his own past.
“Is the news that bad?”
“No. There’s just no change, no matter how great everyone keeps saying that Dad looks.”
“Sorry, Asher.”
“Any new deliveries this afternoon?”
