“Fine,” she told him as if it were a burden to leave, then spun on her heel and headed straight back from where she’d come.
“Boone!” Willow said with probably too much enthusiasm for a man she’d met once a few years back. “It’s nice to see you a—”
But when the other Murphy brother turned around to face her, she gasped at the slight bruising under his left eye.
“It wasyou,” she added as realization hit her like a boulder. “You’rethe fight Ash got into earlier today.”
Boone laughed, his bright-blue eyes crinkling atthe corners. He was a slightly older version of Ash, all dark hair, blue eyes, and the same rugged, rancher-ness. But there was something softer in Boone’s presence compared to Ash’s sharp edges. That was the only way Willow could explain it. Even when Ash was all smiles and teasing, she knew that if she wasn’t careful around him, she might get cut.
“Fight?” Boone replied. “Is that what he called it? I like to think of it more as a brotherly bonding sort of thing. Was hoping after having a few hours to marinate on the situation, Ash would see it that way too.”
“Bonding?” Ash asked accusingly, and Willow whirled to see Murphy brother number two rinsed and in a clean pair of jeans pulling a gray T-shirt over his head. Without the suds covering his skin, she caught a glimpse of what looked like his own slight bruising over his left ribs.
“Seriously…” Willow began, her gaze volleying back and forth between the two of them. “Why are men? Just…why?” She grabbed them each by the wrist and dragged them to the breakfast bar. She pointed toward the stools. “Sit.Both of you.”
They sat.
She left them there and strode around the corner and into the galley kitchen where she grabbed the tin of her homemade cookies and plopped it down on the counter in front of them. Then she poured them each a glass of ice-cold milk. “You two aregoing to sit here like good little boys, eating your cookies and milk, and talking your shit out. NO. HITTING.”
They both had the decency to look chagrined as they nodded.
“I’m going to give you boys some space and go groom the horses. If you do what you’re supposed to do and feel up for it, you boys should go for a ride after. Pretty sure activities like that are more of a brotherly bonding sort of thing than whatever you two were up to this morning.”
The brothers nodded again.
“She’s scary,” Boone said to Ash.
“Tell me about it,” Ash replied. “The vase to the temple? My welcome-home gift?” He nodded toward Willow.
“No shit,” Boone replied, then reached for a cookie, but Willow smacked his hand.
“Notuntil you ask your brotherwhyhe took a vase to the temple,” she told Boone.
Boone sighed, then turned to Ash. “Why did you take a vase to the temple?”
Ash blew out a breath. “Destruction of property… Drunk and disorderly…” He waved a hand in the air. “It’s my healthy way of dealing with public humiliation.”
Boone swore under his breath, and Willow saw all manner of teasing leave his expression. “Why didn’t you call?”
Ash shrugged. “Thought I’d sleep it off in the guesthouse before letting you know I was home, but the mediator over there thought I was breaking and entering.” He nodded toward Willow, then let out a mirthless laugh. “Pretty sure, though, that even if I rang the bell, things would have gone down in about the same way.”
His eyes met hers in a flash of acknowledgment before Ash turned his attention back to his brother. Willow’s throat tightened. What was he acknowledging? Her hurt? His regret? Singing “This Time” in the shower?
“Can I have a cookie now?” Boone asked, breaking the silence. “I can smell them, and my mouth is watering, and it kind of feels likenoteating one will—I don’t know—give my taste buds blue balls or something.”
Ash barked out a laugh, and Boone shrugged.
Willow rolled her eyes. “I’m heading to the barn,” she said, then waggled her index finger back and forth at them. “No…?”
“Hitting,” both men mumbled.
“Good,” she replied. “And no recess until you boys have served your full detention, which means working your shit out withwords.”
She gave them one final look that she hoped solidified her expectations before booting up and heading outside.
***
Willow had made it a couple of laps with Holiday in the arena when she heard hoofbeats behind her. She slowed her mare and waited to see which of the brothers approached first. But because she had zero patience, and something about the anticipation of Ash Murphy’s presence made her more anxious than him sleeping on the couch outside her room, she made it approximately three seconds before glancing over her shoulder to see Boone atop his white gelding…and only Boone.
