Chapter 16
Willow covered her eyes as Ash neared the edge of the cliff over the falls. They’d already watched several others—mostly teens—jump from the same spot and land safely in the water below, but something about seeing Ash up there made Willow feel like she was nearing the edge of the cliff herself rather than wading in the water below.
She held her breath as he took a couple of deliberate steps back, enough to give him a running start. And just like that, after a short sprint, his feet left the ground, and Ash Murphy was airborne. He whooped and hollered with unbridled joy as he soared out and then down toward the water, finally landing with a thunderous splash.
When he popped back up through the surface wearing an exuberant, boyish grin, Willow finally exhaled. Ash swam toward her as she waded in his direction until they finally met where the water was up to her shoulders and just below his chest.
“That was—” he started, but Willow cut him off.
“ Terrifying! ” She pressed her palms against his chest and gave him a gentle yet, she hoped, meaningful shove.
Ash laughed. “I was going to say unbelievable , but do we need to unpack your reaction first?”
Willow splashed him this time. “ No ,” she replied petulantly.
He had the audacity to wrap his arms around her and pick her up, and only because she didn’t want to be rude did she drape her arms over his shoulders and hook her legs over his hips.
“Wills…?”
“What?” she replied with a sigh.
“Were you worried about me?”
“No,” she insisted again, but the response sounded even less convincing than the first time.
Ash laughed as they slowly bobbed up and down in the water surrounded by other campers and tourists who hadn’t noticed that country’s biggest bad boy had just cannonballed off the cliff. Willow’s star might have been on the rise, but she’d learned how to move about in public places and stay under the radar.
“Wills…” he said again, but this time her name was a declaration. “If you didn’t want me to do it, you could have said something.”
She scoffed. “Right…like I’m going to be the kind of girl who tells her guy not to do something that he wants to do and that is well within his right to do.”
If it was possible for Ash Murphy’s smile to grow any bigger or brighter or more knock-her-off-her-feet gorgeous, it just had. Luckily, her feet were already off the sandy bottom of the swimming hole.
“What now?” Willow asked, worried he was about to ask her if it was okay if he went and risked life and limb again while she watched.
“Willow Morgan…did you just call me your guy ?”
Her mouth fell open. Then she threw a hand over it as if something else incriminating might leak out.
“Holy shit,” Ash remarked. “I’m Willow Morgan’s guy!”
“Shh!” she hissed. She might fly under the radar, but if someone nearby recognized her name, their whole fairy tale would end, and they’d have to go back to the real world.
He tilted his forehead against hers. “You like me,” he teased.
“Shut up,” Willow mumbled.
“You care about me,” Ash added.
“Seriously, Murphy…” she warned this time. “You better shut that stupid mouth and throw away the key.”
“You were so worried about me on that cliff, and now that you know I survived what a bunch of teens and preteens have been doing since they got here, you want to kiss the hell out of my stupid mouth.”
He grabbed her thighs and hiked her higher and a little closer so that now they were practically mouth to mouth.
Of course she wanted to kiss the hell out of his stupid mouth. In barely more than a week she’d gone from hating him, to trying (accidentally) to kill him, to tolerating him, to forgiving him, and now to what? Caring about him so much that she couldn’t breathe when he did exactly what a middle schooler was doing right then and there?
“I don’t want to care this much yet,” Willow finally admitted.
“I know,” Ash replied.
“This is supposed to be the fun, easy, fantasy getaway where we don’t think about the after.” But Willow was thinking about the after, things like… What if he’d hurt himself jumping off that cliff? What if he’d done something worse? How much would it hurt to lose him a second time? Yeah, those were not questions she wanted to be asking or answering on an impromptu trip where the only thing on her mind should be how great the sex was and when they were going to do it again.
Ash nodded. “Then let’s get back to fun and easy,” he told her and dropped her back to her feet. “Last one to the waterfall has to make and clean up dinner tonight.” And then he dove beneath the surface and popped up only when he was already a few yards away. “Better catch up, Morgan!” he called over his shoulder. “Not sure if I have any mac and cheese left, but I bet there’s a fish or two swimming around your feet right now!”
He dove back under, and Willow yelped as she felt something touch her ankle. Please let it be seaweed. Please let it be seaweed. Willow wasn’t going to wait around to find out. She dove after him, kicking and paddling like she was aiming for Olympic gold rather than simply trying to get out of dinner duty. Then she found herself smiling even as her arms, legs, and lungs worked overtime to not only catch up but overtake her daredevil of a guy just before the spray of the falls hit them.
Her guy, she thought again.
Hers.
She could admit it, right? At least to herself. Ash was different now. They were different. Maybe she didn’t have to think about the after as far as this little getaway was concerned. Weren’t her two months in Meadow Valley a getaway—albeit a working one—in and of itself? She treaded in water barely over her head, pumping one victorious fist into the air as Ash popped up beside her.
Because he could stand, he shook out his hair like a golden retriever and then scooped her into his arms.
Willow laughed as he spun her in a circle singing Queen’s “We Are the Champions.”
“We?” she cried. “What’s this we , you cheater! I beat the pants off of you even after you gave yourself a head start!”
He flipped her over his shoulder caveman style as she continued to laugh and pretend to beat at his back as if she were opposed to being taken prisoner. Ash strode through the waterfall toward a small patch of sand on the other side, a spot you could only reach by swimming, and a spot that—as of right now—was free of any other visitors.
Even when the water had made it to his knees and then his ankles, Ash held her tight, only relinquishing her when they finally reached shore.
He laid her down on the sand, cradling her neck with his hand as he hovered over her, dripping wet and smiling like he had when he’d leaped off the cliff—with complete and unmistakable joy.
“You look happy,” Willow told him, still breathless after the race and her subsequent capture.
“That’s because I’m happier than I’ve ever been, ever in my life…ever,” he replied, staring down at her with his hypnotic blue eyes.
“That’s a lot of ‘evers,’” Willow informed him.
“It bore repeating,” he said. “Now do you want to kiss the hell out of my stupid mouth or not?” he added, teasing her by lowering his head but keeping his lips just out of her reach.
Willow swallowed, her throat dry despite the two of them being soaked to the bone.
“Is that my reward for kicking your ass and leaving you in the dust?”
“Sure is,” he said with a laugh. “But—spoiler alert—I’m a sure thing. You can kiss my stupid mouth anytime you want, whether you kick my ass or not.”
She knocked the inside of his elbow, causing him to lose his balance and drop to his forearm so that his lips were now right where she wanted them. “Shut your stupid mouth, then, cowboy.” And in case he didn’t understand the request, she cupped his cheeks in her palms and pulled his mouth to hers.
“Permission to not keep my stupid mouth all the way shut?” he asked in a gravelly whisper that made Willow’s whole body tingle.
“I’ll allow it,” she whispered back and then parted her own lips, inviting him to lick and taste and drive her absolutely mad with want. “I think I’m done swimming for the day,” she managed to say through kiss after breathless, needy kiss.
“Me too,” Ash growled.
They had to swim back to the actual beach, dry off, and then hike back to Holiday and Midnight. Then they had to follow the trail back to the campsite, where they both realized they were too sandy to simply hop back into the sleeping bag.
“I don’t want mac and cheese,” Willow admitted. “Or to shower in a public bathroom when there is a perfectly good shower and tub back at the guesthouse. And a bed ,” she added wistfully. “That big, giant, king-sized bed with all those pillows and blankets and…” Her voice trailed off and she ran her fingers up Ash’s damp T-shirt until they reached those stupid lips again.
“Can we go home?” she asked. “And move you into the bedroom for the rest of our time in the house?”