Chapter 5
“You’re kidding, right?” Ash asked, though the fact that his brother was already wearing his headgear, mouth guard, and boxing gloves showed that Boone Murphy was not joking.
“Come on!” Boone replied as best he could with the guard covering his teeth. “It’ll be good for both of us.” He clapped his padded fists together and bounced side to side on his bare feet. Since Ash had been wearing boots, the older Murphy brother agreed they’d both fight shoeless to make it fair…and so Ash wouldn’t ruin the floor of the boxing ring.
Oh and also…when Boone dragged him to the Meadow Valley Fire Station and the weight room and boxing ring out back, Ash only took off his boots and let Boone plop the headgear onto his head because he thought his brother was kidding .
Now he stood there with his own mouth guard in his left hand, a boxing glove in his right, and the second glove tucked under his right arm.
“Come on,” Boone goaded again, this time tapping Ash lightly on the shoulder with his glove. “When was the last time you worked out all your poor-little-rich-boy frustrations?”
Ouch. Ash felt that one right in the gut.
“Piss off,” Ash muttered in reply. “I’m not doing this.”
Boone shrugged, undeterred. “Hey… I’m not the one who said you were a shitty brother. You figured that one out all on your own.”
This time Ash chose a better four-letter word and modified his directive.
Boone nodded. “There we go.” Then he tapped his brother’s jaw with his glove. “What else you got?” The next shoulder tap felt a lot less tap and a little more push . “Shitty brother…”
The only way for Ash to push back was to free one of his hands, which was the only reason he shoved the mouth guard over his teeth. But all his one-handed shove did was knock himself off-balance and give Boone a reason to counter with a way less playful hook to the jaw.
Ash stumbled back a few steps, more shocked than pained, but still… Boone had hit him. Like…actually hit him.
“You hit me,” Ash said, stating the obvious. “Like…actually hit me.”
Boone barked out a laugh. “Look where we are, Bro! I didn’t bring you here to play. I brought you here to work shit out, so let’s work shit out!” He clapped his gloves together once more and then stormed toward Ash like a man on a mission, and that mission seemed to be to lay his brother out flat.
Ash scrambled to get the first glove on and then the second, barely giving himself the time he needed to block the next blow. But when he threw his hands up to protect his face, Boone’s glove glanced off Ash’s elbow and nailed him straight in the gut.
Ash dropped to his knees, not sure whether he was going to throw up or pass out from the air being knocked clear from his lungs. But when neither happened, and Boone went from the man on a mission to an Oh-shit-did-I-just-hurt-my-brother look in his eyes, Ash climbed to his feet and nailed his opponent with a left cross.
Gone was the concern from Boone’s stare. They’d hit the point of no return. And it. Was. On.
***
Ten minutes later, both men collapsed on a bench outside the ring, Ash with a split lip and a bruise already blooming on the skin over his ribs, and Boone with a bloody nose he insisted was not broken.
After several moments of silence, save for the two men catching their breath and nursing their wounds, Ash finally asked, “So…did we work shit out?”
Boone shrugged. “I feel better. Don’t you?”
Ash rolled his eyes as his brother plugged his bleeding nostril with a wad of tissue. “You look like what your wife is going to do to me once she sees what I did to you . And in case you were wondering, it ain’t pretty.”
Boone nodded at him with a laugh. “I’ll just tell her she should see the other guy. The question is, little bro, do you feel better?”
Ash sighed. He didn’t know how to answer because he’d been knocked over the head and punched in the face, the gut, and the ribs all within the past twenty-four hours. It also was because he couldn’t remember the last time someone had asked him how he felt, and his brain seemed to have lost the ability to compute what for many was such a normal question to answer.
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I mean, it was kind of fun to pummel you now that you’re not a head taller than me anymore.” Ash laughed but then winced as he felt the cut on his bottom lip tug and likely start bleeding again.
Boone leaned back on the bench and tilted his head toward the sky. “I know what I see online is some curated mix of bullshit and truth. And I also know you’re busy as hell and that it’s hard for you to get back here, or maybe you don’t want to.” He straightened to face his younger brother again. “But you’ve got people here who care about you, man.” He clapped Ash on the shoulder. “Enough to give a shit about the real story.”
Ash nodded, but then he stood. “The thing is, Boone…” He licked his busted lip. “I send you and Eli tickets to every damned show. How long has it been since I’ve seen one of my brothers in the crowd?” He shook his head. “Maybe it’s time to hit pause on how shitty I’ve been and take a good look in the mirror.” He shrugged. “How’s that for how I’m feeling?”
And then, prick that he already knew himself to be, Ash spun on his heel and left his brother staring wide-eyed as he strode away.
“Ash! Come on!” Boone called after him. “You wanna hit me again? I’ll give you one freebie, no retaliation!”
Ash replied by holding up his hand and offering his brother a one-fingered salute.
“Are you staying at the guesthouse? I thought Eli said…” And then it all must have clicked because that was where Boone’s words vanished.
Four years ago, Ash Murphy’s career was on the rise.
And four years ago, he let the curated mix of bullshit and truth set fire to the best thing that had ever happened to him because he was too stupid to recognize the best thing wasn’t his career.
“I fucked up,” he’d told his brothers when they ambushed him with a joint video call after the announcement of his marriage.
“You didn’t even invite Mom and Dad,” Eli had replied. “You didn’t even tell them before it happened.”
“Or us,” Boone added.
“We eloped,” Ash explained. “It all happened so fast.”
But Boone and Eli had both called bullshit. They were the only people who knew that the woman in Ash’s bed the morning of the big announcement wasn’t his blushing bride. They were the only ones who knew that the Ashton Murphy they’d grown up with would never exclude his family from a family affair.
Except by then, he wasn’t that Ashton Murphy anymore. And rather than admit what they already knew, he played along with the curated picture of his life that had been created for him—and in doing so had pushed the people who mattered most so far that they’d stopped trying to find a way back in.
He took his time heading back to the Murphy property, soaking in the solace on the stretch of country road that connected Meadow Valley’s town square to the ranch where he’d spent more than half his life. No one gave a shit who he was in Meadow Valley, and for the first time since he’d had the audacity to think that there was something bigger for him outside the confines of his hometown, he enjoyed it.
“Change of plans!” Ash declared as he strode into the guesthouse, not even sure Willow was there, considering he’d slipped out after she’d gone for another ride on Holiday. But when an idea struck, he needed to say it out loud before he forgot it. The same went for writing songs.
Speaking of which… Willow was home, sitting on the far arm of the couch in a black tank top and jeans, her bare feet resting on the cushion as she fingered the frets on her guitar and strummed one chord and then another, her brows furrowed as she stared at her instrument.
“You writing without me?” he asked, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. Though this time he exercised caution so he didn’t reopen the cut again.
“Change of what plans?” Willow countered, glancing up to meet his gaze. “Jesus, Ash!” In one swift move, she tossed the guitar onto the couch and strode across the room, stopping short when she likely found herself standing closer to her new roommate than she wanted. She fidgeted with the bottom of her tank before crossing her arms and glaring at him. “What was it this time? A midday bar brawl? A throwdown with a photographer who dared to get too close to the great Ashton Murphy?”
He flinched but then did his best to school his expression. “Why don’t you tell me what you really think of me, Wills.” He cleared his throat. “I mean Willow .”
Her jaw tightened. “Only Colt gets to call me that.”
Ash nodded once. “I know. It was a mistake. It won’t happen again.”
Though in his head he remembered the first time the nickname had rolled off his tongue.
“Okay… That’s so weird. That’s what my brother, Colt, calls me,” she’d told him.
“Oh,” Ash had replied. “Then I won’t—”
“No,” Willow interrupted. “It reminds me of home…the name. And I think maybe I like you reminding me of home too.”
He was pretty sure home was the last thing he reminded her of now.
“So?” she asked, bringing him back to the present. “Are you going to tell me who you got into a fight with or not?”
Ash shrugged. “Does the who really matter?”
“I guess it doesn’t.” Willow sighed. “Are you going to tell me about this change of plans?”
He rounded the corner and stepped into the kitchen, grabbing a much-needed glass of water and downing the whole thing before answering her.
“Your terms with Sloane…” he began. “You choose the photos, you post them, no disclosed location, and no mention of a duet, right?”
She nodded slowly, her eyes narrowed, mistrusting.
“And nowhere in those terms does it specifically say that my face has to be shown in any of those photos?”
This time she shook her head. “I signed it virtually this morning and sent it off to my agent for her signature as well. Your name is only mentioned as the song collaborator.”
Ash raised his brows. “Then we don’t identify me at all in the photos. You can tease the collaboration and leave the reveal for the concert. This is your gig. It should be about you .”
She was fidgeting with the hem of her shirt again, still nervous. Still not ready to trust him. Not that he could blame her.
“But Sloane only wants to do this to clean up your image after…you know…”
He huffed out a laugh. “After I got publicly dumped, replaced, and arrested in the same night?” He set his glass in the sink and gripped the edge of the countertop, the veins in his wrists and forearms growing taut. “Maybe I need to sit in my mess for a bit until I can clean it up myself. Anyway, I’m pretty sure sharing the stage with the Willow Morgan is all the cleaning up my image will need.” He relaxed his arms and ran a hand through his hair. “It’s the best thing for the town too. Don’t you think? The fewer people who know I’m here, the better.”
Willow stared at him long and hard. He could see the wheels turning but couldn’t read her expression.
“So you want to do what’s best for me and the town?”
Ash nodded. “Yeah. I guess I do.”
She backed away, slowly at first, but then scrambled back onto the couch, tossing her guitar strap over her shoulder as she started to strum again. Then she sang, her voice breathy and delicate yet at the same time a powerhouse of emotion that knocked Ash harder than any blow Boone was able to land.
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.
Willow shrugged when she was done. “Or something like that, I guess?”
“You don’t need me for this,” he told her. “You’re too good on your own.” It was the truth. He hadn’t written or sung a note with that much of himself in the sound of it for years.
But she shocked him by shaking her head. “Look… I don’t believe in muses or stuff like that…”
“And I am definitely no muse,” he added.
She laughed. “Maybe not. But… I don’t know. You being around is unlocking something up here.” She tapped her temple. “Right when I was convinced I’d lost the key.”
His pulse quickened as more of the song started to play in his head, parts they hadn’t written yet. “Okay…” he told her. “Okay…” He made his way out of the kitchen to where she was. “I have a slight tweak for the melody if you want to hear it.”
She started to lift the strap from over her shoulder but abruptly stopped. “You’re a lefty,” she said. “I forgot.”
Except she didn’t forget. Willow remembered he was a southpaw and wanted him to stay. She wanted to do this together.
“I’ll get my guitar,” he told her.
She smiled. At him . And even if this truce would only be short lived, he would gather every scrap she tossed his way, savoring each one.