Ash ran a hand through his hair and stepped between the two women. “No.” He was the one shaking his head now. “We’re not putting Willow in the middle of this.Igot arrested last night.Imessed up the whole end-of-the-marriage thing.Ishould be the one to figure out how to clean it up.” He held his arms out and spun slowly. “That’s why I’m here. I need to lay low in a place where cameras and social media and all of that bullshit can’t find me. The last thing I want to do is drag Meadow Valley or anyone in town into the circus.”
He stared at the woman who’d helped build his career and image over the past decade and silently pleaded with her to leave the whole ordeal alone. He’d—they’d—figure something out. Just not this.
“I’ll do it,” he heard from over his shoulder, andAsh pivoted to find a resigned Willow still in her flour-covered apron, shoulders squared and chin held high.
“What?” he asked. “Wait…what?” he repeated. “Why?”
Willow cleared her throat and smoothed out her apron. Though all she really did was smear the flour farther across the fabric. “Sloane’s right.” Willow shrugged. “My album was pushed because it’s not done. The label wants aBillboardcountry hit for the first single, and they’re not convinced that hit is any of the otherelevensongs I’ve already recorded.” She let out a bitter laugh. “I can’t believe I am this much of a cliché. Debut album is enough of a hit that they sign me for number two, and I go and fall into the sophomore slump.”
She strode toward Ash and gently poked her index finger against his still-bare chest. Jesus, he could smell the sweet mix of sugar and butter, the coconut of her shampoo. It hit him in one intoxicating wave, making him lose the ability to speak, which he guessed was okay because Willow looked like she had a lot more to say.
She stared at him for several seconds, her chest rising and falling, the heat from her fingertip threatening to brand his skin.
“You sleep on the couch,” she began. “And wework. Day and night, however long it takes.”
Ash nodded.
“No drinking, no drugs, and—and no women or any other distractions in the house.”
He wanted to tell her that there had only been two times in his life when he’d gotten blackout drunk and that somehow, thanks to the menacing asshole that was the universe, Willow Morgan had been there for both, even if the former was only via email. But what did it matter anymore? She saw him like every other person who read the tweets, posts, and comments. And on some level, he deserved it. So he simply said, “That’s a lot ofno, but okay.”
She whirled on Sloane. “I choose where and when we snap a selfie.Ipost on my own social media. Both of you agree not to disclose our location toanyone, and nothing gets mentioned about any song until it’s actually written and I have my label’s permission to debut it at the festival. Are we in agreement?”
Willow glanced back and forth between Ash and Sloane. He was still too stunned to articulate any of the thoughts swirling around in his head, but Sloane was smiling like a hyena cornering her prey.
“We are very much in agreement,” Sloane told her, extending her hand. But Willow didn’t reciprocate.
“I want it in writing,” Willow replied instead. “Signed by all parties involved.”
Sloane slowly lowered her hand but laughed. “I like her, Murphy.” She turned to face him. “Dare I sayit might actually be agoodthing that A.B. posted her engagement news last night before we had a chance to announce the divorce? Your…reaction…might actually earn you the sympathy vote. Poor, jilted Ash Murphy. We get your fans to eat this up and then BAM! You rebound with Willow Morgan and a duet!”
“It’snota rebound,” Willow and Ash said at the same time.
Well, good to know she was adamantly opposed to that sort of connection between them. He wouldn’t want to mistake her agreement for any sort of forgiveness or reconciliation. This was work for Willow, and that was all it would be for him. She’d get a song, and he’d get an image makeover. Again.
Sloane shrugged and then flicked a piece of nonexistent lint from the shoulder of her suit jacket and grabbed her phone from the counter. “I’ll have a draft of the contract sent over this afternoon.” She pointed at Ash. “You stay out of trouble, especially the kind that involves handcuffs and fingerprints.” Then she turned her attention back to Willow. “Andyou…Well, you just keep being America’s next country sweetheart, and we’ll all get what we want out of this spectacular new arrangement. I’ll see myself out.”
And with that, Sloane sauntered toward the door and back out into the morning sun.
“What the hell just happened?” Ash asked after several beats of silence.
“I think…” Willow began, staring blankly toward the door through which Sloane had disappeared. “That I just sold my soul to the devil for a song.”
Chapter 3
Willow got the last of the toffee shortbread cookies—her and her brother’s favorite—onto the cooling rack and untied her apron.
Moments after Sloane left, Ash found his shirt and shoes and disappeared somewhere outside himself.
“I need to find my phone,” he’d mumbled before striding straight past her and out the door, which had given Willow way too much time to think. And because she hated thinking about things she didn’t want to think about, she baked. Hence the whole early-morning shortbread-batter creation in the first place because sleeping in that big, beautiful, ridiculously comfortable king-sized bed hadnotbeen an option if all she could do was lie there and think about the fact that Ash Murphy was passed out on the couch on the other side of her door.
Except now the cookies were done, her quiet two months had turned into a fun house version of her life, and she still didn’t want to be alone with her thoughts…or with the newly divorced Ashton Murphy, for that matter. Yeah, that little nugget of information had not escaped her notice.
A.B., or Annabeth Calder-Payne, was a Scottish tennis prodigy with an affinity for country music…or at least for a certain country music singer-songwriter who grew up on a horse ranch and charmed every woman in his orbit.
As the story went, the two supposedly struck up a secret relationship around five years ago after she won a tournament that happened to be in the same town where he’d had a gig, only going public a year later when news of their engagement hit all the online entertainment outlets on an early, rainy, we-should-stay-in-bed-all-day Sunday morning.
Bile rose in Willow’s throat, and she yanked the apron over her head and tossed it on the couch.
