“For real!” Beth chimed in. “I wasn’t in this house for two seconds before my sister brought the hen in to greet me, and that monster drew first blood.”
“You’rewelcome!” Delaney singsonged.
Jenna scowled at Beth. “And look where you are now, all because my girlknewyou belonged in Meadow Valley with Eli, and that was the only way she knew to tell you.”
Willow scoffed. “So we’re back on the chicken being psychic again?”
“Oh, she is,” Beth and Delaney replied in unison.
“She’s just not always gentle about it,” Beth added.
Willow narrowed her eyes. “Uh-huh. Right. So her knowing my poor little toe is still broken is supposed to be some revelation?”
Jenna shook her head. “It’s a metaphor, darlin’. She can tell something else still needs to heal before you can truly let love in.”
Willow huffed out a laugh, shook her head, and pivoted back toward her bedroom to change. She could have sworn she heard a few whispers as she turned her back, but they were drowned out by a hen’s deafening, “SQUAWK!”
Chapter 26
Ash found his brothers walking Jack around the arena, Eli on foot and Boone atop Cirrus a few paces ahead of the new gelding.
He climbed and hopped the fence partly to show off and partly to prove that he still could, just like he had when he was a teen and this ranch was his life.
“You boys mind telling me why I’m dressed and out of bed this early on a Saturday?” he called to his brothers.
The two elder Murphys rounded the final corner of the arena and stopped where Ash stood at the gate leading to the barn.
Eli shrugged. “Maddie woke us at five, so I got up and fed her. An hour later, Beth comes into the living room where we are enjoying a riveting episode ofBlueyand tells me all the women are surprising Willow within the hour and that we should think of something to do to keep you busy for the day.”
Ash barked out an incredulous laugh. “Glad to hear it’s not because my asshole brothers were itching to spend time with me.”
“Don’t get your panties in a twist,” Boone calleddown from Cirrus’s saddle. And so the good-natured ribbing began.
When Ash was younger, he often wished he could come up with some of the zingers his brothers tossed his way. But Boone and Eli were always quicker on the draw. But now Ash was the one who slung words for a living, and he found himself holding his own and sometimes even winning.
They started the morning by walking all five horses to the grazing field outside Eli’s place and then putting on gloves to muck out the stalls.
“You didn’t have any better ideas for how to keep me busy today?” Ash called from Holiday’s stall as sweat trickled down his neck and his shoulders began to ache.
“Honestly?” Boone replied from Cirrus’s gate. “No. We’ve never really done anything else together other than this.”
Eli poked his head out from Midnight’s stall as he shoveled droppings into his bucket. “We used to ride,” he added.
“Is anyone getting hot?” Boone asked. But before either of the other brothers could answer, he popped out of Cirrus’s stall with a hose in his hand, the sprayer aimed at Ash.
“Don’t you—” But Boone cut him off with a shot of icy water straight to the chest. Then he whirled on the already retreating Eli and got him right in the ass.
And now Ash knew why Boone had insisted they store the wheelbarrow of clean beddingoutsidethe barn.
***
They were drenched, filthy, and sporting several bumps and bruises by the time the stalls were clean, because of course no water fight between brothers was complete without three grown men rolling on a barn floor trying to kick each other’s asses.
They sat in Eli’s Adirondack chairs facing the horses grazing in the field, nursing cold bottles of beer.
Eli snorted, “No, I don’t think the thirties are supposed to hurt this much.”
“Speak for yourselves, old coots,” Ash replied with a laugh. “My age still starts with the word ‘twenty.’”
