“And I won’t have time to stop anywhere else before I do my other errand tonight,” he added.
“Here. Give me a minute.” Willow left the three of them in the kitchen and descended the staircase to the center below. She returned minutes later, carrying a second high chair for Harper.
“Great idea.”
Asher lowered the infant into it and handed her a teething toy. When Willow passed him a box of cereal, he dropped a handful of pieces on the tray.
She opened the refrigerator door and pulled out a bag of mixed greens and a large tomato. “Here, let me throw together a salad. Meanwhile, you can tell me what made you miss what was probably a fine dinner on the Triple R and show up late here after you promised you’d be on time.”
“It was kind of an emergency.”
She paused from slicing the tomato to repeat his joke from the other day. “A cow had a difficult delivery?”
“No, someone cut down the fence, and we had about two hundred head of cattle running all over southeastern Arizona.”
“Deliberately cut?”
“Sliced out like a new gate.”
She couldn’t help shivering as he filled her in about their discovery that afternoon. The situation had nothing to do with her or Luna, and yet the attack felt personal to her.
“Were you able to get all the cattle back inside their pens?”
After handing Asher plates and cutlery to set the table, which he did well for someone probably performing the task for the first time, she carried the salad bowl to the table. Then she pulled the small pan of lasagna from the oven and set it on a hot pad at the center.
“If you mean pasture, then yes. We think we have them all. But it took us hours.”
“Which is why you’re late and why you’re starving now.”
“Yeah, you’ll have to forgive me if I make a pig of myself with your lasagna.”
“You wouldn’t do that, would you?”
“I might.”
She grinned as she slid into the seat next to his, and then she blinked as the truth fell into place. “Wait. You didn’t bring Harper here because you had to or even as a cute shield for being late. After the damage you found in the field, you just wanted her with you.”
He’d started to lift the first slice from the pan, but at her words, his hand stilled.
“Can you blame me? Too many things have happened to my family lately. They must be connected somehow.”
Finally, he lowered the spatula without dishing out the lasagna to either of them.
“What do you mean?” she prodded when he didn’t start again.
“The email to the board saying that Ace wasn’t a real Colton. Someone shooting my dad. The bomb threat. All three things were awful, and they all jeopardized my family members, but tonight? This one was different. It happened on the ranch. We live there. My baby lives there.”
His voice broke on his last comment, and her heart squeezed on his behalf. Asher was watching his daughter instead of her, his shoulders drooping as if the weight of his family’s problems all rested squarely on his back.
“I forgive you for being late to sign the forms tonight. You can still register Harper at Tender Years.”
When Asher turned back to her, he was almost smiling.
“If my excuse worked, then it was all worth it, right?”
“Some people will do anything to make sure they’re not stuck on a waiting list.”
His lips spread wide, and it was there again, that spark that flashed inside her whenever he was around. Dangerous, yet utterly appealing, two traits she’d learned to avoid in her well-ordered life. Sparks from flint and steel produced fire, which could consume everything in its path. She couldn’t afford to take a risk like that again, not when she had a child to protect.