Chapter 15
Cole
I was worthless for the rest of the day.
By the time I’d gotten out of the shower this morning, Lauren had already gathered her things and left the ranch.
I’d tried to work for a while, but for once in my life, my head wasn’t into my business.
I’d given up at lunch time.
I’d decided to take a walk to try to clear my head, eventually ending up at Asher’s place.
He opened the door to let me in, surveying my face before he gestured toward the kitchen.
I plopped my ass on a chair at his breakfast bar, and he went to the fridge without saying a word. He pulled out a bottle of beer, popped the top, and slid it in front of me before he leaned his hip against the counter. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“Not really,” I said before I took a slug of my beer.
Hell, that was my older brother.
He didn’t say much, but he was one of the most observant people I knew.
Asher always knew when something was eating at me, and he usually waited until I felt like fessing up and telling him about it.
He shrugged, went back to the fridge, and grabbed another beer. “Then I guess we’ll just sit here and drink a beer.”
And that was exactly what we did for the next five minutes or so.
Asher simply took a seat at the other end of the breakfast bar and waited.
I wanted to talk to Asher, but I found myself hesitant to tell him any of the details of what had happened with Lauren.
Sharing personal things that she’d shared with me just didn’t feel right.
I took another swig of my beer as my eyes landed on the portrait of my mother in Asher’s living room.
He’d had the likeness painted from an old photo.
I’d been just shy of six years old the last time I’d seen my mother.
I had snippets of memories with her, but Asher remembered her better than I did.
“She’d want you to be happy,” my brother said as he recognized what I was looking at. “That was all she ever wanted. She was a woman who believed every one of those fairy tales that she tried to convince us could happen in real life. Right up until the time that she couldn’t anymore.”
I vaguely remembered some of those fairy tales.
And then one day, my mother had just…vanished.
Asher and I had come home from school one day, and my mother wasn’t there to greet us with hugs and another fairy tale story.
My father had told us that our mom was a whore and that she’d run off with another man.
I was probably a little too young to understand what a whore was and why my mother was supposedly missing, but Asher had never believed my asshole father.
My brother had spent the majority of his adult life looking for her, and we were still continuing that search today.
“Any luck with the latest search?” I asked Asher.
He shook his head. “Nothing yet. I’m not giving up, but nothing has panned out.”
Christ! I wanted to find my mother just as much as Asher did, not only for her sake, but also for my older brother’s.
Asher was haunted by the past, and I knew he’d never be content until he found my mother.
We hadn’t been able to start a significant search until we were adults, and every avenue we’d pursued since then had come up empty.
“Have you ever thought about talking to Millie?” I asked Asher. “I know that our father and our uncle didn’t really talk, but Mom got along with Millie, right?”
“They didn’t dislike each other,” Asher confirmed. “But I don’t think they got to talk very often.”
“But Millie saw the relationship as an adult,” I reasoned. “Maybe she talked to Mom more than we think. She might have some insight about what happened. Do you want me to ask her?”
It was unlikely that Asher was ever going to go near the family, so asking him to approach our aunt was probably pretty useless.
“It couldn’t hurt, I suppose,” Asher agreed reluctantly.
I knew that Asher didn’t have any issues with Millie.
He was probably just hesitant to stir up more gossip about our family history.
“Are you ever going to speak to any of them?” I asked.
“For what it’s worth, they never did anything to hurt us.
Millie and our uncle actually tried to help us.
They didn’t know what was really going on, and our cousins were just kids like we were.
I think it bothers Aunt Millie that you keep refusing to talk to her when she tries to visit your place. ”
“We talked a little last week,” he said unhappily. “And then she brought a pie this morning. I took it. She’s stubborn. She makes it almost impossible to ignore her.”
I gaped at my older brother. “You actually spoke to her?”
“She caught me out at the barn with the horses. I couldn’t just walk by her. I can avoid going to the door, but I could hardly bowl over an older woman who’s standing right in front of me.”
“She’s your aunt,” I reminded him. “I knew she’d eventually get to you. She has a way of wearing people down. She cares, Asher. I’m not sure why, but she does.”
“I moved back here to find some peace,” Asher grunted.
“You’ll get your peace most of the time,” I told him with a grin.
“It’s not like she stops by every day, and she usually brings food.
If I don’t hear from her for a while, I actually stop by her place.
Our cousins adore their mother, but I’m not sure that Millie always tells them when she needs something done. ”
Asher shot me a questioning glance. “Does she need some stuff done? I could probably find some time to help you if she does.”
I hid my grin this time because I knew Asher was completely sincere in his offer.
He might not be willing to initiate contact with the family, but I had to wonder if he realized that he was making it clear that he’d be there if Millie really needed him.
Honestly, I’d never doubted it for a minute.
Asher might be antisocial, but he was always loyal and dependable.
The Remingtons were family to him, even though he didn’t want to admit it.
I shook my head, almost feeling guilty because I’d pushed him to admit that Millie was getting to him. “She’s good. Her arthritis is bothering her, but nothing needs fixing there right now. I’ll just stop there when I get a chance and ask her about Mom.”
“Are you ever planning on telling me what’s eating at you today?” Asher asked.
“I was an asshole to Lauren,” I answered simply.
Asher shrugged. “Apologize.”
“It’s not quite that simple,” I informed him.
“It doesn’t have to be complicated, Cole. You like each other, and the chemistry is obviously there. You can offer her things that no other man ever could.”
“I’m an emotionally vacant asshole, Asher,” I reminded him drily. “I don’t think all the material things in the world can make up for that.”
“You’re not emotionally vacant,” my brother argued. “You’re cautious. I’ve never seen you like this with a woman before, Cole. I’m afraid that if you screw this up, you’re going to regret it.”
I snorted. “I think I already do.”
“Then do what we’ve always done,” Asher advised. “Give it your best shot. If it doesn’t work after that, then at least you gave it your all. She’s worth it, right?”
“Fuck!” I cursed as I slammed my fist down on the breakfast bar in frustration. “She deserves better.”
Asher shot me an assessing look. “Does she? What happens if she doesn’t get something better?
What if she ends up with a real asshole who couldn’t care less about her happiness?
She might be an economics genius, but is she really worldly?
You and I both know what kind of assholes are out there.
You might not always have the words or the romance, but I think you give a shit about what happens to her.
I definitely can’t say that about guys like Todd Massey. ”
Just the thought of that bastard or someone like him laying a finger on Lauren made the hair stand up on the back of my neck.
“Are you trying to piss me off right now?” I asked Asher in an annoyed voice.
“Maybe. Or maybe I’m trying to make you see some sense.”
“It’s not like you to actually push me toward a relationship,” I grumbled.
“Probably because I’ve never seen you this hung up on a woman before,” he pointed out. “I’m also trying to make you realize that there are a lot worse men out there than somebody who just wants her to be happy. That doesn’t sound like an emotionally vacant guy to me.”
Fucking hell!
Asher knew exactly what he was doing, and it was working.
I was seriously considering whether or not Lauren would be better off being with me .
What if she did end up with a smooth-talking asshole who didn’t care about her?
Were there really that many genuinely nice guys out there?
If there were, I didn’t know any of them.
Every single one of them were imperfect in different ways.
Asher was right.
I might be an asshole sometimes, but I did care about Lauren’s future, her well-being, and her happiness.
I chugged down the last of my beer and stood up.
“Leaving so soon?” Asher said lightly.
I glared at him. “You really are a manipulative asshole sometimes.”
He smirked at me. “It’s not like you didn’t know that you were being manipulated.”
Yeah, I knew, but I hated the fact that my older brother knew exactly what buttons to push to get my ass in gear.
“Let me know how that apology goes,” Asher said stoically as he opened the front door for me.
My irritability with my older brother fled the moment I walked out his door.
Every thought I had was focused on what in the hell I was going to say to Lauren.
If I was truly going to give this relationship everything I had, she was going to have to be willing to talk to me first.