Chapter 19
“Jack and Rose?” Willow asked as she stood cross-armed outside the new mare’s stall. “Seriously?”
Ash gave her a patented Ash Murphy wink. “Since Eli and Boone were dicks the whole trip, making me sit in the back of the cab and torturing me by giving zero control over the music selection, I called dibs on naming the dapples.”
“Dibs?” she let out an incredulous laugh. “Are you eleven?”
He shrugged. “Boone got dibs on shotgun. I got dibs on the names. That’s how it works.”
She shook her head. “Men are forever boys, aren’t they?” She sighed. “But Jack and Rose?”
“It’s on brand, isn’t it?” he asked.
“They hit the iceberg!” Willow replied, throwing her hands in the air. “Jack dies right before the rescue boats arrive,” she added with a hitch in her breath.
“Wait…” Ash said. “He does?”
“Have you even seen the movie?”
He answered her with a wince.
Willow gasped and then backhanded him on the shoulder. “You named these beautiful horses after fated lovers who lose each other after just falling in love! I don’t know if I’ve ever cried so hard watching a movie before.”
Ash bit back a laugh but not soon enough because Willow was staring daggers at him, and if he didn’t know better, he’d have said Rose was side-eyeing him through her gate. “Wait…” he began, opting for defense. “You saw a movie about a real-life ship that sank, and you’re getting choked up just talking about someone in the movie dying when over a thousand people died in the actual incident?”
Rose snorted and stomped a hoof on the bedding of her stall.
“See?” Willow continued. “Even Rose objects. Don’t you, girl?” But Willow’s cooing tone caused Rose to poke her nose over the gate and whinny for a pat. “Or maybe she just likes me so much that she’s setting aside her feelings about her tragic name.” Willow sighed. “She is pretty, isn’t she? I’ve never seen a… What did you call her?”
“A dapple,” Ash told her. “She’s a quarter horse by breed, but the coloring—the gray with the sort of white snowflake pattern—it’s called dappling.” He gave the mare an affectionate scratch between the eyes. “It’s the reason the owners were trying so hard to breed them. Probably thought they’d make some easy money, but malnourished and neglected horses don’t always behave the way you want them to. And if they knew anything about horses at all, they’d know there’s no way to guarantee a dapple anyway.” He felt his teeth clench as he spoke. He had to remind himself that Jack and Rose were going to be okay because of Eli’s skills and reputation as a vet and because he’d rehabbed the family ranch and turned it into a rescue.
“Where’s Jack?” she asked, and he could hear the hesitation in her voice. “I wouldn’t have teased you about the names if—”
“No!” Ash interrupted with a firm shake of his head. “Jack’s fine. Eli…uh… fixed him before we left Tahoe. Geldings bounce right back after surgery, but just to be safe, Eli’s keeping him in the grazing field over by his place for the rest of the day and night.”
Willow nuzzled Rose’s nose. “She’s too thin,” she said softly. “I can’t believe they were withholding food from her.”
“Wanna feed her?” Ash asked with a hopeful smile. He patted the pocket of his jeans to indicate where the treats were hidden. “I’ve got a few carrot slices in here,” he whispered, just in case Rose understood the word.
“Like…right now?” Willow asked.
He shook his head. “I was going to walk her a couple of laps around the arena. If she cooperates, she gets a treat.” He leaned in conspiratorially and whispered in Willow’s ear. “And even if she doesn’t, I’ll probably still give her the treat just because she’s pretty.”
“I see how it is,” Willow told him. “I say we should hit pause and you’re already on to the next pretty girl to cross your path.”
Ash cleared his throat. “No one could ever…” he began. “I mean, I wasn’t wasn’t—”
“Joking!” Willow blurted. “Yes. Let’s take her for a walk. I’d love to get to know her.”
Ash nodded once. He disappeared into the tack room and returned with a halter and lead. He slipped inside the stall and gently affixed both, all the while cooing to the gentle yet still-apprehensive mare.
“My girl’s a good girl, isn’t she?” he whispered. And then, because anytime he said something that reminded him of a lyric led to singing, his gentle whispers morphed into him singing “My Girl,” by The Temptations as he led the mare out of the stall and danced her toward the doors to the arena.
Once out in the open, the afternoon sun shining down on them, he paused and held the lead out toward Willow, but when she reached for it, Rose snorted and began pawing and stomping at the dirt.
“Whoa,” Willow said, holding her hands up. “I do not think she wants me to lead her around the arena.”
Ash lowered the lead, and the mare ceased her stomping and pawing. “Huh,” he remarked, brows furrowed.
“She doesn’t like me,” Willow told him as Ash began walking, and Rose was in full cooperation.
“She can tell you’re nervous,” Ash replied as Willow hung to his left while Rose was on his right.
Willow crossed her arms and set her jaw. “Hard to compete when she’s being serenaded by you ,” she mumbled.
Ash laughed and gently patted the mare on her snowflake-spotted flank. “Well, Ms. Rose, I’m pretty sure someone’s jealous I’ve got a fan. What do you think?” He launched back into “My Girl,” this time giving the chorus his all as the mare’s ears perked up while she eagerly listened.
Willow threw her hands in the air. “See?” she cried. “How am I supposed to compete with that?”
Ash glanced at her and raised an eyebrow. “Why compete when you can join the show? We’re writing a duet, yeah? Maybe we should try singing one together.”
Even in the sun he could see her cheeks turn pink.
“Here?” Willow asked. “With an audience?”
He laughed. “It’s not like she can boo us. ’Course, I’ve only known Miss Rosie for a few days, so there’s no telling how she’ll react if we botch the song. But it looks to me like she’s a big fan of The Temptations, so we at least have that going for us.” Then he stage-whispered, “Unless you don’t know the words.”
She scoffed. “Of course I know the words.” Then she cleared her throat and took it back to the first verse without waiting for him to begin. But that was fine by him. He let her take those first five lines by herself just to listen to her sing and then came in on the chorus.
It was…messy for a couple of lines, but then they found their footing, with Ash taking the melody and Willow coming in higher with the harmony.
It was them . Messy to start, and maybe they were still in the thick of it, hacking at painful memories and wounds still unhealed like overgrown weeds hiding a garden and just itching to grow.
After two laps and one full successful run of the song, Ash slowed and offered the lead to Willow once more. “Even if you’re scared, pretend you’re not,” he told her.
Willow gave him a curious look and then reached for the lead confidently—or at least with an amazing performance of confidence—and Rose pawed the dirt. But once the lead was in Willow’s hand, the mare stopped. She looked Willow in the eye and seemed to be waiting for direction.
“Good girl,” Willow told her, then petted her gently between the eyes.
“Give her this,” Ash told her, and Willow glanced his way to find him holding out a chunk of carrot. “Flat in your palm with your fingers pressed together. So she doesn’t mistake your fingers for more carrot.”
Willow rolled her eyes. “This ain’t my first rodeo, cowboy,” she told him. Then she grabbed the carrot and held it out carefully for Rose to sniff and immediately gobble up from her hand. “Good girl, Miss Rosie!” she cheered, stroking the mare’s mane. “Good girl!”
Rose snorted in response and then stomped in place.
“Okay,” Willow replied with a laugh. “One more lap, and then Ash hopefully has one more treat.” She urged Rose to start walking again, and the mare obliged. Willow darted a glance in his direction. “You do have more carrots, right? I didn’t just lie to her?”
Ash laughed. “Yes I do, and no you didn’t. And I like how you called her Miss Rosie too.”
Willow’s cheeks flushed again, or maybe it was the afternoon heat. “It suits her,” she told him.
“It does,” he agreed. “It can be our name for her.”
Willow smiled. Then she fished her phone from her pocket and tossed it to him. “Take a picture of us? Me and Miss Rosie. Need some more fodder for social media, right? Keep Sloane happy and keep the fans guessing who might be on the other side of the lens. Make it a candid one, okay?”
She turned away from him and kept walking, leaving him to decide on the shot. He snapped several, not caring which one made the cut because he took the liberty of texting them all to himself. Well, his actual number since he had no idea what the number was to his loaner. He really needed to get to a phone store. It was either that or ask Sloane to do it, but that meant Sloane making another trip to the ranch, and that was the last thing on his list of things he wanted to make happen.
“Hey, Wills!” he called, and she glanced over her shoulder with a knowing grin.
“Candids!” she called back, then raised her brows.
He laughed, and she turned back to her mare.
They continued like that for another couple of laps before pausing to give Rose another snack and then taking her back to her stall for some water and rest. Then they walked back to the guesthouse, Willow heading straight for the fridge where she removed the pitcher of water and filled two tall glasses.
“Here,” she told him, offering one in his direction.
“Thanks,” Ash replied, suddenly not sure how to talk to her when there wasn’t a horse’s well-being to discuss. “Oh,” he continued, pulling her phone from his pocket. “You probably want this back.”
She set her glass down on the counter and retrieved the device. Ash leaned against the fridge and continued to nurse his drink while she scrolled and tapped, her expression morphing from pensive to curious. Then she seemed to bite back a smile as her top lip grazed her bottom lip before she let out a breath and met his gaze again.
“There,” she announced. “That should hopefully keep Sloane satisfied.”
He raised a brow. “You posted one of the photos already?”
She nodded. “I…um…I like the one you took when I turned around,” she admitted, her lips curling into a soft smile.
Ash nodded. “I like that one too. You’re not worried about people speculating in the comments about who took the photo?” He winced as soon as the question left his mouth because he knew he’d just given himself away.
“Why…Ash Murphy, have you been stalking my Instagram?” Willow asked, a teasing lilt in her tone.
He groaned but then opted for the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth because what did he have to lose? “Yes,” he told her matter-of-factly. “I follow your account. Not officially… I mean, Sloane pretty much runs my socials, and my professional accounts only follow my label’s account and a couple of brands we’ve partnered with for advertising. But I’ve looked at your account since we set up our whole arrangement.”
She eyed him warily. “So you don’t follow me with a finsta or anything like that?”
He let out a nervous laugh. “No finsta.” He scratched the back of his neck. “Not that I hadn’t thought about it over the years. But… I don’t know. I felt like that would be an invasion of your privacy or something.”
Willow picked up her glass and took a long, slow sip before responding. “It’s a public account,” she mused.
“Still felt wrong to follow you without you knowing it was me.” Ash shrugged. “But I saw the comments after the bonfire post. This is only going to add fuel to the fire.”
She nodded. “Which is what we want, right? To build anticipation about what I’m doing and who I’m doing it with? Speaking of which… I have an idea for the chorus, but if you don’t like it—”
“I figured it out,” Ash blurted. “The melody, I mean. Sorry. I shouldn’t have interrupted. I’ve just been wanting to tell you, but I got sidetracked by…” His voice trailed off, and Willow nodded. They both seemed happier to reference their new arrangement—putting the brakes on what they’d started—without actually mentioning it. “And same goes for you. If you don’t like the melody…” He ran a hand through his hair. “Can I hear the chorus?”
She grinned and nodded, grabbing her phone where he guessed she’d written the lyrics down. “Can I hear the melody?”
He found himself smiling too. “I’ll go get my guitar. Couch or patio?” he added.
“Patio,” she replied. “I want to soak up as much of this Meadow Valley air as I can before I have to hit the road again.”
“See you out there,” Ash replied, swallowing the tightness in his throat. Regardless of what they’d started or paused, what happened when the song was written and the festival ended? The hotel incident had followed a local radio interview and performance. He’d had a couple more scheduled, not that he was even sure why. He was between albums and tours, had nothing new to promote.
“You need to promote yourself in the offseason,” Sloane insisted. “Stay in the public eye…in a positive way,” she always added, so much so that Ash was able to mouth the words along with her every time she said them. Not that she was wrong to remind him of the necessity. He just seemed to care less and less these days about what anyone else thought of him.
Except Willow. And…okay…maybe Eli and Boone too.
When he met her outside, she was curled up on a cushioned lounger. Ash opted for one of the wooden bench chairs surrounding the small outdoor table.
“No guitar?” he asked her, noting that the only thing in her hands was her phone.
Willow shook her head. “I want to hear your melody, and then I’ll sing you the lyrics. We’ll see if it all works together or what we might need to fix.”
“Okay,” he told her, then slung his guitar strap over his shoulder and gave the strings a quick tune. “Should we record it on one of our phones?” he asked. “So we can listen to playback and see how it sounds?” And then he started to play.
She smiled. “Great idea. How about yours since I’m using mine? That way we can put it midway between us so no one’s voice overshadows the other’s.”
Ash dragged the chair close enough to the foot of her lounger that his shins were touching it. He pulled his phone out of his pocket, set it at her feet, and hit Record on the voice memo app. “Ready?” he asked, and Willow nodded. Then he sang the two verses they’d already written…
Didn’t feel like the right time to unpack
With the whole damned world cracking a whip at my back.
So I hopped on a horse and rode until dark,
Knowing with each step I’d never recapture the spark.
Everyone wants me to fix what I broke,
But it took me this long to get in on the joke.
Maybe I’ll sit in my life, give it time to soak in
’Stead of letting ’em clean every mess I get in.
He almost stopped playing until Willow’s voice cut in, so he did his best to follow her lead as she built from the melody he began with and took it to the chorus.
Starin’ up through the clouds, nothing seems to have changed.
Beautiful and ordinary, my life rearranged.
Notes on the mirror still making me cry,
Collecting ‘I’m sorrys’ like stars in the sky.
Should have known from the start we’d still end in goodbye.
She sang the last line again, eyes closed and nodding her head to the soft rhythm as he played a few more bars. Finally, when they’d both gone quiet, she looked up at him with a tentative smile.
It was beautiful and haunting, his melody with her voice. He knew right then and there the song would be exactly what her label wanted. He knew for it to be considered a duet, he’d have to come in on a verse or two. But the chorus was all hers. It had to be. The words were hers. The words were the truth, or at least the version of the truth Willow Morgan believed.
“The melody is perfect,” she told him. “I love it, Ash.”
He pressed his lips into a smile because she was right. Their collaboration worked seamlessly. And yet he couldn’t ignore the sort of prophecy they’d fashioned, wondering if—or rather, how —it would come to fruition.
“That’s how you think it’s going to go, isn’t it?” he asked, keeping his voice even. He motioned between them with his guitar pick still pinched between his thumb and forefinger.
Willow rolled her eyes. “It’s just a song.”
He laughed. “Wills, we both know that is the biggest lie any musician can tell.”
She froze for a second and stared at him.
“What?” he asked. Did she remember what he’d said the night she was drunk? Would it even matter if she did? Just because a guy wrote some songs about the one who got away—the one he let get away—didn’t make it all better. She didn’t trust him, and he didn’t blame her. It still stung to see her put it in their song.
Willow shook her head. “Nothing. Just déjà vu, I guess?” She dropped her phone in her lap and crossed her arms. “But if you want the whole truth, fine. Your note on the mirror got the creative juices flowing, but that doesn’t mean I’m predicting the future with it. If you disagree, then just vow right now never to leave me a sticky note on the mirror that says I’m sorry , and voilà! Crisis averted!”
He groaned, and Willow sat up straighter in the lounger, leveling him with her gaze.
“Ashton Elias Murphy, I did not write that chorus as a premonition, prediction, or prophecy. The only nugget of truth was the note on the mirror. The rest is fiction.”
Ash’s cheeks warmed. “You remember my middle name?”
She dropped her feet to the ground on either side of the chair and inched toward him as close as she could without tipping the chair forward.
“All three Murphy men carry both their mother and father’s surnames. Eli’s full name is Elias, your mom’s maiden name, though he’s never gone by it. And you and Boone were both given the same as your middle names. I know we were only together for a few months, but I listen when people talk.”
He lifted the guitar over his head and laid it on the table behind him.
“Well, Willow Mae Morgan (legal name Hammond), I listen too.”
“It’s actually Willow Morgan Hammond now. Legally,” she admitted. “But still Morgan professionally.” She swallowed, and her eyes took on a sheen that wasn’t there before. “I love my adoptive parents,” she continued, her voice rougher than it had been before. “And I’m grateful for all they’ve done for me. But just like your parents made sure your mom’s name lives on with the next generation, I wanted to do the same for both of mine.” She cleared her throat and stood, brushing out the creases in her shirt. “That’s enough work for tonight, right? I’m hungry. We should eat. Order in? Or I could run out and pick something up? Maybe there’s a frozen pizza. I’ll go check.”
She spun toward the door as fast as the string of words erupted from her lips. But before she made it to the door, Ash was on his feet, his arms wrapped around her shoulders as he pulled her back to his chest.
“What are you doing?” she asked, a tremor in her voice.
He rested his chin on the top of her head and exhaled a long breath. “Hugging someone I care about when she might be sad remembering her mom.”
Willow froze for a moment before finally letting her shoulders fall as she relaxed against him, clasping her hands over his.
“Thank you,” she whispered. “I needed that.” After another moment of silence, she continued. “You know, I never thought about the kind of friend you might be, but you’re really good at it.”
He laughed softly. “Friend, huh?”
She squeezed his hands. “For now,” she assured him.
The funny thing was, no one had ever told him that before. Outside of Meadow Valley, everyone who surrounded him was either making money because of him or wanted to make money because of him.
Was he a good friend? Did that mean Willow was finally starting to trust him? This somehow felt bigger than he’d expected, something that—if he messed it up—would be irrevocable this time.
That night Ash lay awake on the couch, thinking about the lyrics she’d written for the chorus of their song.
Notes on the mirror still making me cry,
Collecting ‘I’m sorrys’ like stars in the sky.
Should have known from the start we’d still end in goodbye.
He’d make sure I’m sorry never found room on that mirror by filling it with everything but.
He swung his legs off the couch and padded to the kitchen to grab the notepad, only to remember he’d left it in the bathroom, and based on its absence from the kitchen drawer, Willow hadn’t put it away either.
He headed toward her bedroom door ready to knock, only to find it slightly ajar.
“Wills?” he whispered, but he was answered with a soft, adorable snore followed by a dreamy hum.
She was out like a light and he was nearly naked, in nothing but his boxers, about to enter the bedroom of a woman who—the last time he’d done so unbeknownst to her—knocked him out cold.
He squared his shoulders and pushed the door open enough to slip through, then padded to the bathroom where the only thing illuminating the space was a slip of moonlight mostly obscured by the small glass-block window on the shower wall.
It was enough for him to find the notes and the pen still resting on top of the pad. He quickly scribbled the song title that popped into his head, one he remembered from a movie he made his brothers watch with him over and over again when he was a kid. It was one of the first songs he ever learned to play on the guitar even though it was meant for the piano.
Ash hesitated for a moment, wondering whether or not Willow would take it the wrong way, but the second he heard a soft sigh as she stirred in bed again, he knew he had to either make a move and get out of there or end up possibly concussed again. So he quickly scribbled, “You’ve Got a Friend in Me,” stuck it on the mirror and hightailed it out of the room and back to the couch.
He found himself smiling as he finally drifted off to sleep.
Things were different this time.
He was different. Better. Willow could already see it, and he would prove to both of them that she was right.