Chapter 8
Willow had managed to rain check writing and sharing any sort of formal meal with Ash for three whole days. But her big mouth—signing herself up for a family reunion at Eli and Beth’s place—made it impossible to get out of the barbecue with her newly returned neighbors, her brother and sister-in-law, plus Casey, Boone, and Ash tonight.
“Don’t Eli and Beth want to settle in before hosting everyone? They just got back last night. With a baby ,” she’d reasoned to Colt when he’d called her with the “good” news that morning.
“They’re settling in today, getting Maddie back on her nap schedule and seeing a few patients at the clinic,” her brother had explained. “But it sounds like Eli is itching to have both of his brothers in one place for the first time in years, and he said Beth can’t wait to meet you.”
So…yeah. A big ole family reunion with all the Murphys and Morgans under one roof or sky or whatever. No big deal. Willow wasn’t anxious at all.
Hence the multiple batches of toffee shortbread she’d baked while Ash spent the afternoon with Midnight in the arena.
“I was gonna ride today,” she mumbled to herself while sliding the last cookie off her spatula and onto the cooling rack. But for some reason, after the other afternoon, in addition to writing and eating, she’d avoided riding with him.
President and founder of the Ash Murphy anti-fan club ? What had she been thinking, teasing him like that? Even now, as she thought about the exchange, she had to suppress a grin.
The front door flew open, and she startled, flinging the spatula in Ash’s direction.
“Whoa,” he replied, holding his hands up. “Do I need to start making formal announcements of my arrival so I don’t risk another concussion?”
Willow rolled her eyes. “I didn’t throw the spatula at you. Just in your general direction.”
He rubbed the spot on his temple where the ceramic-induced gash was finally scabbing over. “Is that where you aimed the vase? In my general direction?”
She wiped her hands on her apron, and then—with as much dignity as she could muster—strode to where the spatula lay on the floor at Ash’s dusty-booted feet. She picked it up and offered him a nervous smile. “Sorry,” she told him. “You just caught me off guard.”
He crossed his arms and raised his brows, and Willow tried not to notice the sleeve of his T-shirt stretched over his biceps. Tried…and failed. Because despite not being as na?ve as she was four years ago, she was a human woman with eyes. And Ashton Murphy was an undisputed sight to behold, onstage or off.
He raised a brow. “For the spatula or the vase?”
She hugged the spatula to her chest and sighed. “Both,” she admitted. “You scared the shit out of me that first night, but I know you didn’t mean to. I should have apologized for hurting you, and I didn’t. So…to clarify… I’m sorry for chucking the spatula in your general direction.” She sighed. “And I’m sorry for knocking you out with the vase.”
His blue eyes bored into hers, and it took everything in her not to look away.
“And scarring my otherwise flawless face?” he teased, brushing his fingers over his temple again.
Willow winced. “Ugh. Yes. That too. Though most people think scars add character, right?” She really had clobbered him, hadn’t she? Clobbered him. Hated him. Avoided him. Was it enough, finally? Because Willow was so tired. How did she convince her heart to finally let go and leave the past in the past?
Ash took a small step forward and gave her a conspiratorial grin. “Are you most people, Willow Morgan?” he asked.
Willow’s throat grew dry, and she had to swallow before she could reply.
“No,” she told him. “I’m not most people.”
He surprised her with a grin. “No,” he agreed. “You’re not.” He brushed his hands off on his jeans. “I’m going to shower and then head over to Eli and Beth’s a little early. Figure my official reunion with brother number two shouldn’t be with an audience just in case Eli wants to offer a similar greeting to Boone’s.”
Willow winced. “You really have taken your share of beatings since you got home, huh?”
He leaned back and shrugged. “Probably deserved most of it, right?”
And despite the smile still on his scruffy, unshaven face, Willow felt a small tug in her chest. She’d been punishing Ash Murphy in her head and heart for years, but this was the first time she considered that maybe all this time he’d been doing the same thing to himself.
“No,” she told him, though she wasn’t sure where she was going with her disagreement yet. “I don’t think anyone ever deserves to get hurt, Murphy. It just happens. That’s life. You’re either the hurt er or the hurt ee .”
This time he was the one to protest with a shake of the head. “Some people are neither,” he told her.
Willow sighed. “Aren’t they the lucky ones?”
“They really are,” he agreed.
Silence hung in the air for several seconds before Ash was the one to break it.
“So… I’m going to shower and get out of your hair.”
Willow nodded. “Yeah. Of course. I’ll leave you to it.” She nodded back toward the kitchen. “I’ve gotta see a man about some cookies. Wait…that sounded like innuendo, and it was not innuendo. I really do have a lot of cookies to deal with back there, so…yeah. I’ll leave you to your naked. I mean shower . Oh my god.” She clamped a hand over her mouth and backed away. Slowly.
Ash watched her go until she bumped into the wall and waved him off with her spatula.
He laughed and disappeared through the bedroom door, making sure to close it behind him.
***
Willow fidgeted with the spaghetti strap of her pale-pink maxi dress. She’d worn the same dress onstage on more than one occasion and felt nothing but confidence in what had become her performance look—a simple dress and her calf-high boots. Tonight, though, she couldn’t help wondering if it was too much or maybe not enough. Did it look like she was trying to look good? The follow-up question being, did she look like she was trying to look good for Ash ? And why did she care one way or another?
“You are allowed to put in the effort simply for yourself,” she told the woman in the bedroom mirror. But what kind of fool would she be if that wasn’t the case?
Rather than overthink to the point of tossing on jeans and an oversized sweatshirt, she squared her shoulders and strode to the kitchen where she found the tin she had lined with wax paper and three layers of her late mother’s famous toffee shortbread cookies. She dropped her phone in her pocket and with her other hand grabbed the bottle of red she picked up at the local market the day before, anticipating a quiet Saturday night in the guesthouse. She guessed now she’d have to share.
“The clinic will be closed, so just head around back,” Colt had told her. “Everyone will be outside.”
So, Willow exited the safety and cocoon of the guesthouse and ventured the handful of yards over to the rear of the Murphy Veterinary Clinic where she found a stamped concrete patio looking out on a fenced-in field where Holiday, Cirrus, and Midnight grazed. And gathered around a built-in grill stood four men, three of whom looked like the spitting images of one another from different stages in life, save for the unexpected addition of Eli Murphy’s beard. The odd man out was, of course, her brother, Colt.
“Am I interrupting the bro portion of the evening?” she asked, stepping onto the patio and making her presence at this strange reunion official.
“Wills!” Colt called, striding toward her with his arms outstretched, a bottle of beer dangling from one hand.
Willow held up her own hands, both occupied, and her big brother immediately set his beer down on a long wooden table set for eight and grabbed both the cookies and the wine, placing them next to his beer. Then Colt scooped his sister into a giant hug, lifting her off her feet as she yelped with laughter.
“Okay! Okay,” she told him, her grin growing wider every second she was with the person she loved most in this world.
He set her back down on her feet.
“Don’t you think I’m getting a little too old for that?” she asked him with raised brows.
Colt shrugged. “Not until I’m too old to do it without breaking a hip or something like that.”
She laughed again, and from behind her brother she saw Eli approach. Boone waved from the grill, and Ash seemed to be preoccupied with something in the field beyond. Or maybe he was simply avoiding her like she had been avoiding him since the clearing.
“Willow!”
“Eli. Hi!” she replied, extending a hand. But Eli Murphy—who she’d only met once and didn’t remember being the openly affectionate type—followed Colt’s lead and drew her into a warm hug. “Oh,” she said as the eldest Murphy gave her a quick yet warm embrace before taking a step back and offering her a welcoming smile.
“How’s the guesthouse?” he asked. “Everything working okay? Do you have enough space to…um…to work?”
Ah. So that was where the warm greeting was probably coming from.
Is it okay that my brother crashed your stay, and if not, do you want me to toss him out on his ass? Because I’ll do it. Just say the word.
At least, that was what Willow imagined as the subtext Eli was trying to convey.
“The house is lovely,” she told him. “And there might have been some space issues at first, but I think I’ve got everything worked out,” she assured him.
Eli let out a relieved breath. “Good,” he replied. “Good. Wouldn’t want the first review of our vacation rental to tank just because of a not-quite breaking and entering.” He laughed.
Willow’s eyes widened. “Vacation rental?” she asked. “I thought it was a family residence.”
Eli nodded. “It is. I mean, it was going to be. But Beth grew up in the hospitality business, and you know your brother here knows a thing or two about running guest ranches.”
Colt grinned. “Not that the Meadow Valley guest ranch is looking for competition, but the Murphy property is a great opportunity for more of an intimate ranch experience. And if the first review comes from someone who others might consider a celebrity…”
Willow’s cheeks flushed. She was still getting used to the fact that people she’d never met knew her name and actually paid money to see her perform. She loved what she did, but she also appreciated places where she could separate herself from that person people only knew as a presence onstage… Places like Meadow Valley where she might get a knowing glance or two, but other than that—thanks to her brother being pretty damned beloved by the town he now called home—Willow could simply be .
“I would be honored to give the Murphy Ranch a glowing first review,” she told Eli. “As long as there are no other surprise late-night guests.”
Eli nodded toward where Ash and Boone still stood at the grill, Ash’s back conveniently to the rest of them. “Thank goodness there’s only one of him, right?” he teased.
Willow crossed her arms and nodded. “But I’m guessing you and Boone are pretty happy to have him back for a bit, huh?”
The eldest Murphy scratched the back of his neck and nodded slowly. “Yeah,” he admitted, no hint of teasing left in his tone. “It’s about time we all stood on the same piece of land. Four years is too long.”
“Four years?” she asked, but Eli didn’t have a chance to respond as one by one, three women emerged from the sliding door leading into the home attached to the back of the Murphy Veterinary Clinic.
Casey carried what looked like a charcuterie board to end all charcuterie boards. Jenna held a pitcher of sweet tea. And the third woman—the one who had to be Beth—carried a six-month-old girl with fine dark curls, bright-blue eyes, and a four-toothed grin.
Casey blew Willow a kiss as she strode by. Jenna kissed her on the cheek before dropping the pitcher of tea off at the table. And Beth—a woman she’d never met before—handed her the baby.
“It’s the only way I can properly hug you,” Beth told her with a sheepish grin. “Plus my two other baby handlers had their hands full, and my back is killing me.”
And then Willow received her third hug in a matter of minutes…and a baby who seemed fascinated with Willow’s face, exploring it with her adorable, chubby, and mildly sticky fingers.
“She’s very tactile,” Beth explained. “I hope that’s okay.”
“Back still bothering you?” Eli asked, sliding his hand across the small of his wife’s back.
She wore a green camisole, dark skinny jeans, and black ballet flats that reminded Willow that she wasn’t the only performer in the group, Beth having danced with the Radio City Rockettes, even while pregnant with Maddie.
Beth nodded, and Eli kissed the top of her head. Then he held his arms out toward his daughter, and the young girl clapped when she saw her daddy, reaching for and grabbing hold of his beard. “Ow!” he said with a laugh as he situated Maddie in his arms. “I’ll take her to see the chickens and then get her ready for bed if you want to open the wine and take a load off.”
Beth beamed at what Willow could tell were the loves of her life. “Her bedtime bottle is all ready for you on the counter, and I am going to take you up on the wine and the sitting and everything else you just said.” She grabbed her daughter’s foot and kissed her toes. Then she raised herself on her own tippy toes and kissed her husband too.
“Finish up the burgers and dogs!” Eli called to his brothers as he strode off toward the chicken coop at the far end of the field. “I’ve got a date with one of my girls!”
“What about Boone and Casey’s little girl?” Willow asked.
“With my parents,” Casey announced, approaching the group with two glasses of wine and handing one to Willow.
“And we are in between fosters right now,” Jenna added, handing the third of four glasses of wine to Beth, her shoulders slightly sagging. “Christopher just left for college, but he’ll be home for the holidays, and we’ll hopefully have a houseful by then.”
Colt stepped behind Jenna, wrapping his arms around her waist and pulling her to his chest. “Just means we’ll have to find something else to keep us busy at home until the bedrooms are full again.” He dipped his head and kissed her neck, and Jenna’s cheeks flushed pink.
This was… Wow. Willow was surrounded by so much love. It felt like a fun house version of her current life where she was always surrounded by others—her band, tour manager, and the few roadies who dealt with the minimal equipment with which they traveled. And while on tour, everyone was her best friend. They were a family of sorts. But when there was no gig, they all went their separate ways, back to their lives outside of the show. It was like summer camp, but for grown-ups.
But everyone here was family in the truest sense of the word.
“You okay, Wills?” Colt asked, and Willow realized she’d gotten lost in her head with everyone else watching.
“Yeah,” she replied, holding up her glass. “It’s just really nice to be here.”
And as everyone seemed to settle into their roles of grillers, wine pourers—because of course there was more than the one bottle she brought—appetizer passers, and storytellers, Willow forgot that she’d second-guessed her outfit or whether or not she’d been softening toward Ash. She just enjoyed existing among brothers and sisters-in-law and people who—at least for now—didn’t care who she was outside of this backyard.
“Thank you,” she leaned over and whispered to her brother once dinner got underway.
“For what?” Colt asked.
“For not going all Neanderthal when you found out Ash was going to be here.”
“I’m not going to ruin the night.” A muscle pulsed in his jaw. “Do you forgive him, Wills?”
Do you regret what happened four years ago?
And Ash hadn’t even hesitated to answer.
Every day.
Maybe it was more than being too exhausted to hate. Maybe there was more to his side of the story. Either way, they were sharing a house and writing a song, and Willow was ready to let go.
But did she forgive him?
She might have been talking to her brother, but when she glanced across the table to where Ash sat at the far end, she found him looking directly back at her, offering her a tentative smile.
“Yeah,” she told her brother. “I think I do.”