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“Looks like you’ve won my daughter over.”
But not you. He shrugged. “You already said she hates the stroller. She’s just thinking I’m the patsy who’ll help her escape.”
She scoffed, but he figured that was the best answer he could expect to get from her.
He gestured toward the hospital door. “Everything in there was, well, crazy. The news. The delay on testing. All of it. I don’t know about you, but I’m going out of my mind.”
Though her gaze narrowed, she nodded. “Yeah, me, too.”
“Do you think we could go somewhere and just, you know, talk about it? I could use someone to talk to right now, and if you’re half as freaked out as I am, maybe you could, too.”
She didn’t say yes, but she hadn’t automatically refused, either, so he licked his suddenly dry lips and tried again.
“We have some brand-new calves on the ranch. Maybe we could take the girls out to one of the barns to see—”
“Pigs will fly before I step foot on the Triple R.”
“Okay.” He stretched the word out. “That’s a long time.”
“Look. Sorry. I don’t mean to be rude, but...” She shook her head and pushed her stroller forward. “I’ll just see you tomorrow—”
“I know the ranch can be, well, big. How about we talk at your place, then?”
She stopped but didn’t look back at him. “Not going to happen.”
“It’s not like that. I mean... Well, how about somewhere neutral? Like Bubba’s Diner.”
“I couldn’t eat.”
“Then what about Java Jane’s? Just coffee. Half an hour. Tops.”
She was still shaking her head. He’d never begged a woman to stay with him before, except Nora, and she’d left anyway. Those two situations were nothing alike, but that didn’t explain why it had become so critical to him that Willow would say yes.
Was it more than that she owned a childcare facility and he needed to find a new nanny for his daughter? Or even how she’d reacted when she’d found out about his family? Could it have been because she was the only one who might understand the fear and misgivings inside him that threatened to eat their way out?
For what felt like hours, she didn’t answer, but finally she looked back at him.
“Just thirty minutes?”
“Absolutely.”
“I’ll meet you there.” This time she headed down the walk.
He’d won. He should just keep his mouth shut and wait for a better time to ask, but the words escaped all on their own.
“And when we get there you can tell me why you automatically hate me because I’m a Colton.”
Chapter 4
Willow yanked open the door to Java Jane’s, propped it with the stroller wheel, pushed the door wider and angled the contraption inside. She pulled off her sunglasses and waited a few seconds for her eyes to adjust to the muted industrial lighting in the building with its black-painted ceiling, bare brick interior walls, long counters with high-back stools and a spattering a tables and chairs.
Asher stood up from the table in the corner and hurried over to her.
“Sorry. I would have gotten that door for you.”
“I could handle it perfectly well by myself, thank you.”
“I see that.”
