Ashley's Hope Read online

  “I love frozen lasagna,” Phoebe replied. “Well, after it’s cooked, of course.”

  “Of course,” Vi said with a chuckle as she made her way into the living room.

  Ashley waited until she heard the springs of the recliner accept her aunt’s slight weight, then turned to Phoebe and lowered her voice. “What’s going on with Vi? She said it’s arthritis, but she won’t tell me anything else.”

  Phoebe dumped the cucumbers into the bowl and turned to face Ashley. “She’s not saying a lot to anyone—she’s being her stubborn self. But some days, it’s so bad, she can’t get out of bed. Days like that, Misty Jenkins comes over in between her regular clients and helps get breakfast and stuff like that. And she won’t let Vi pay her.”

  “Oh, that’s sweet of her.”

  “She says she owes Vi a ton and it’s her pleasure.” Phoebe glanced toward the living room. “I think Vi’s hoping you’ll come home, Ashley. I don’t mean to pressure you by saying that, but she’s been a little lost.”

  Ashley smiled. “Well, I was going to spring it on you like a ninja, but I’ve already decided to stay.”

  “What?” Phoebe jumped up from her stool and threw her arms around Ashley’s neck. “Are you serious?”

  “I am. I’ve been thinking about it for a while now on some level or another, but as soon as I pulled in and saw Aunt Vi, the decision made itself.”

  The oven timer went off, and Ashley stepped over to pull the bubbling pan off the rack. “Now I’ve just got to figure out what to do with myself here.”

  “You should come do some modeling for my office,” Phoebe said. “We’re always looking for people to pose in front of ‘sold’ signs and stuff like that. It wouldn’t be much, but it’s a start.”

  “Maybe I will,” Ashley said, even though the idea appealed to her less than an ad for wrinkle cream. “Let’s eat—I’m starving.”

  Chapter Three

  A sharp knock jolted Ashley awake the next morning. She and Phoebe had stayed up late talking the night before, and now she felt like she had a hangover. She was going to ignore the sound and go back to sleep, but it was insistent, so she stumbled down the hall through the living room.

  “Yeah?” Her eyes were too bleary to make out who stood on the porch. It was a guy. She could tell that much.

  “I’m sorry for waking you up. Are you Ashley?”

  She pushed her hair back from her face and blinked a few times, trying to clear her vision. “Yes, I am. Can I help you?”

  “I sure hope so, but this is kind of awkward.” He gave a little chuckle. “I’m Walt’s brother. Debbie’s brother-in-law. Debbie Wright, from down the road?” He said it like he wasn’t sure Ashley would know who Debbie was.

  “If anyone should feel awkward, it’s me. In my flannel Minnie Mouse pajamas.” Ashley motioned down to her legs.

  “Again, I’m sorry. Maybe coming here was a mistake.” He moved to step off the porch, but she held up a hand.

  “Now it’s my turn to apologize—I’m being rude. What can I do for you, Mr. . . .?”

  “Josh. Josh Wright. I wondered if you could give me a haircut.”

  Ashley blinked a few more times. “What?”

  “Debbie said you went to beauty school, and I have a job interview at Gray Wolf Outfitters in forty-five minutes, and she says I can’t possibly go looking like this, and she heard you were in town . . .” His voice trailed off.

  Ashley opened the door wider. “Come in. I don’t know where else you’d get a cut this early, and I can’t send a relative of Debbie’s away.”

  “Thank you. You have no idea how much this means to me.” He stepped inside and glanced around. “Great house. Really homey.”

  “Thanks. Have a seat—I’ll be right back.”

  Ashley went into the bathroom and splashed cold water on her face, then looked at herself in the mirror. What was she doing, letting a strange man with shaggy hair into her house at seven fifteen in the morning? He could be a serial killer or something—not that Burnt River saw many of those, but there was always a first time, right?

  She found some comfortable clothes in the suitcase she’d put under her bedroom window and got dressed, then went back in the bathroom and dug around until she found the hair-cutting scissors she’d learned with. They weren’t the best, and she figured they’d be a little stiff from lack of use, but they were all she had on short notice.

  She expected to find Josh waiting for her in the living room where she left him, but instead, she found him sitting in the kitchen with Vi, drinking a cup of coffee.

  “Ashley, can you believe that Debbie’s husband has such a charming brother? Now, don’t get me wrong—I’ve always liked Walt, but he’s so . . . well, ordinary. Josh here—well, did you see those dimples?”

  Ashley felt herself blush clear out to her ears. She’d learned years ago, though, that there was no saying anything to Vi about her obvious attempts at matchmaking, so she just smiled. “I couldn’t see the dimples through all that hair.”

  Josh lifted a hand to his head. “It’s not that bad,” he protested.

  “It’s not that bad if you’re starring in Braveheart or something,” Vi corrected. “Let Ashley work her magic and get you ready for that interview.”

  Ashley pulled a chair out from the kitchen table and motioned for Josh to take a seat, then draped a towel around his shoulders and tucked it snugly into his collar. His hair was still damp from his shower, which was nice because it saved her a step. “So, Josh. Where do you live?”

  “Just in Butte. I left my job there two weeks ago, though, and Debbie said I should come apply here.”

  “Debbie sure seems to do a lot of talking,” Ashley mused as she combed the hair around Josh’s ears. “Doesn’t Walt have an opinion about any of this?”

  Josh laughed. “He does, but you know Walt—he’s not very talkative.”

  “I actually don’t know him all that well. Probably because he’s not very talkative.” Ashley ran her fingers through Josh’s hair, getting a feel for its thickness. It was really healthy, even if it was too long. “So, how much are we taking off?”

  “If I had my way, we’d be leaving it alone, so I’ll have to trust your judgment.”

  “What? You’re telling me to do whatever I want?” Ashley laughed. “You could be opening up a whole can of worms, my friend.”

  He shrugged. “I’m obviously a terrible judge of haircuts, so I’m not to be listened to.”

  “Well, I do need to let you know that it’s been years since I had a license and I haven’t renewed it, so this is totally voluntary, and you’re giving me permission to cut your hair as an unlicensed person. I’m not charging you, obviously, but we need to be clear that you understand my position.”

  He turned and looked at her. “Now you’re making me nervous.”

  “Oh, she’s just covering her bases,” Aunt Vi said, rolling her coffee mug between her hands. “Ashley’s fantastic with a pair of scissors. In fact, I should make her cut my hair when she’s done with you.”

  “I don’t know about fantastic,” Ashley said. Vi always did sing her praises a little too loudly.

  “Well, I agree to your conditions, and I willingly surrender my head into your hands.” Josh settled into the chair and waited, his eyes shut tight.

  Ashley laughed, combed through his hair again to section it off, and then began to cut. She decided on a fairly conservative style that would work well for business, but she would give him the option of gelling it up a little in the front if he wanted to go for something more casual. “So, do you mind my asking why you like to wear it so long?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess I just got tired of feeling like everyone else, like we were all drones in the same beehive with no individuality. There’s nothing wrong with short hair, but growing mine was a way for me to stand out and have my own voice.”

  “And what does that voice want to say?” Vi asked.

  “It wants to say,
I’m here. I matter. I don’t know how to explain it—and now that I’m trying, it sounds pretty selfish and maybe even a little immature.” He chuckled. “It’s the artist in me, I guess. Always looking at the world a little differently.”

  “You’re an artist?” Ashley finished trimming that section and moved on to the next. She was taking off eight inches and hoped he wouldn’t hate her forever.

  “I used to be. Well, no—I guess there’s no such thing as being a former artist. It’s always in there, even if you aren’t doing it currently. I’ve done some painting, stuff like that. A long time ago. Maybe some sculpting.”

  “Maybe? You make it sound accidental, or like you’re not sure if you did.” Ashley gathered up the next section of hair. “Is that like, you didn’t inhale? You held a piece of wood, but you didn’t actually carve anything?”

  He laughed. “Okay, yeah. I sculpted a little.”

  “So why are you ashamed to admit it? Afraid the sculpture police will come along and haul you away?” Ashley asked.

  “We don’t have a police department—we have a sheriff,” Vi added mildly. “A rather nice-looking sheriff.”

  “Wow. You ladies really like getting answers out of people, don’t you?” Josh shifted a little in his chair.

  “We do. And I’m holding scissors, so I suggest you cooperate.” Ashley snipped the blades in the air a few times for emphasis.

  “Fine, I’ll tell you everything you want to know. Except for where I buried the money—that one’s going with me to my grave.” He took a deep breath. “I gave up art when I realized it wasn’t going to pay my bills, and I had some bills that needed to be paid pretty badly. I . . . um, I was married young, and my wife got cancer, and she passed away about a month after she was diagnosed. It was a big shock, and I didn’t have anything set aside for her treatments or her funeral, and it was a tough time.”

  Totally embarrassed and wishing she could crawl under a rock, Ashley stopped cutting and rested her hand on Josh’s shoulder. “I’m so sorry,” she told him. “You know we were just teasing, right? We didn’t mean anything by it.”

  “No, you’re fine,” he replied. “I mean, it’s not my favorite thing to talk about, but it’s part of who I am, and I don’t want her to be forgotten. She was amazing, and I wish everyone could have known her.”

  A tender note entered his voice, and Ashley swallowed hard. That kind of love . . . She’d only witnessed it a few times, and it was beautiful and worth fighting for with every bit of blood a person had in them. Her parents had loved each other like that. Pain shot through her chest as she wondered if anyone would ever feel that way about her, followed by another pain as she wondered if that chance had passed her by just like everything else she’d ever wanted.

  She shook her head, refusing to take that ridiculous path. If Josh could lose his young wife to such a horrible disease and stay focused on moving forward, she could certainly stop wallowing in her own little drama.

  “I’m going to trim around your ears now, so I’ll need you to hold extra still,” she said. “What was your wife’s name?”

  “Melody. And that’s funny, actually, because she was pretty much tone deaf. Her mother used to say that she wished she’d known that before she chose the name.”

  Vi chuckled. “I bet a lot of parents wish they could have seen the future when they named their children.”

  Ashley finished around the ears, then stepped back to make sure the sides were even. “Okay, I’m going to grab my electric clippers and clean up the edges.”

  “Clippers? Just how short have you gone?”

  She rolled her eyes. “This is just for those little tiny hairs that the scissors sometimes miss. Nothing bad is happening to you, okay?”

  He glanced over at Vi. “Do you promise?”

  Vi nodded. “You’ll be just fine.”

  Five minutes later, with all the edges cleaned up and his hair laying in waves on his head, Josh stood up and turned around. “Well?”

  Ashley blinked. She hadn’t expected that at all. She knew he was a nice-looking guy, but with all that hair going every which way, she hadn’t realized just how nice-looking. “I think you’ve been holding out on us,” she said at last.

  “I think what she means to say is that you’re one hottie boombalottie,” Vi added.

  Ashley almost choked. “Aunt Vi! Where did you even hear that?”

  Vi looked surprised. “What? I watch television. I’m not entirely shut away from the world, you know.”

  “I think I might like to shut you away from the world for a while. It’s safer that way.” Ashley had never been so embarrassed in her entire life.

  “Safer for me or for you, dear?”

  Josh looked back and forth between them, an amused expression on his face. “So, is it all right if I see it? I need to leave in just a couple of minutes, and I’d like to know what I look like before I head out.”

  “Oh, of course. I’m sorry. The bathroom’s this way.” Ashley showed him down the hall, biting her lip as he looked into the mirror. She should have stepped back and given him a little space, but she had to know if he liked it or hated it.

  “Wow,” he said as he turned his head from side to side. “I don’t know what to say.”

  “I’m so sorry,” she said. “I’ll glue it all back on—I promise.”

  He laughed. “No, I like it. It’s a great cut. I just haven’t seen myself this way for a long time. It’s like you’re showing me a different dimension, a different reality, and it’s kind of blowing my mind.”

  “But not in a bad way?”

  “No. Just different.” He took a washcloth from the little bamboo stand to the side of the sink and wet it, then used it to wipe some bits of hair from his forehead. “So, tell me about Gray Wolf Outfitters. Debbie says they’re a pretty big deal around here.”

  “Oh, they definitely are. They’re the biggest employer in this town.”

  “I’ve seen their stuff everywhere, but I didn’t think such a small town could support something so huge.”

  “Yeah—it’s kind of like the Pepperidge Farm factory. I mean, you see the cookies everywhere, but the factory is in this tiny little town in Utah, and it’s hard to imagine they could do all that. Right? Is that what you mean?”

  He quirked an eyebrow at her, and that made her heart give a thump. Oh, boy. That was some eyebrow.

  She realized how crazy she sounded, but for some reason, she kept going. “But they have a headquarters back east, so that sort of helps with their credibility, maybe, and sounds less small town, although I don’t know if they do any of the actual manufacturing there. And . . . I sort of really like Pepperidge Farm cookies.”

  He nodded slowly. “I can see that. So, Gray Wolf Outfitters is like the Pepperidge Farm of the sporting goods world.”

  “Yes, exactly. Amazing things come from small towns.”

  “I gotcha.” Josh took another glance at himself in the mirror. “Honestly, this looks great, and I need to go. Thanks, Ashley. You’ve saved my morning.” He took a step past her, paused, kissed her on the cheek, and then continued out the door, waving to Vi as he went.

  Ashley leaned against the wall for a minute before wandering back into the kitchen. “Well, I just made a royal fool of myself,” she said, flopping into a chair. She needed to sweep up the huge pile of hair on the floor, but she needed a minute to whine first.

  “I overheard, dear. And I agree—you did sound a little . . . well, not yourself. But I have to say, it was nice hearing you go all gaga over a nice boy. I imagine it’s been a little while.”

  “I wasn’t going gaga over him,” Ashley protested.

  “You weren’t? Then what would you call that—cookies and factories and all that nonsense?”

  Ashley wrapped her arms around her head and dropped forward onto the table. “Going gaga,” she said.

  “What was that, dear? You have Formica up your nose.”

  Ashley lifted her head. “I was going g
aga.”

  Vi patted her shoulder. “That’s all right. Everyone is a little socially awkward when they meet a very attractive someone of the opposite sex.”

  “And speaking of that, ‘hottie boombalottie’?”

  “Well, could you think of a better way to describe him?”

  Ashley opened her mouth, ready to provide a long and varied list of alternate adjectives, but stopped. “You’re right.”

  “I’m always right, dear, which you should know by now.” Vi braced her hands on the table and pushed herself up. “And his hair looked very nice. You haven’t lost your touch at all.”

  “Thanks, Vi. Did you want that haircut before I clean up?”

  “No, let’s save it until later. I think I need to lie back down down for a bit.”

  Ashley watched Vi shuffle off to her room, then stood and gathered her scissors and the towel. The cut really had looked good. And of course, the guy who got the cut.

  Chapter Four

  Josh climbed into his truck and looked in the rearview mirror before starting the engine. Whenever he got a cut at a barber’s or a salon, he usually ran his hands through his hair before he drove away so he could stand whatever they’d done to him, but he liked how Ashley had fixed it, and he decided to leave it that way. At least until after the interview—she’d know better than he would how he should look.

  He shook his head as he pulled onto the road. He hadn’t meant to unload like that about Melody, but there was something so warm and inviting about Ashley’s house, like stepping into a hug, that he’d found his usual inhibitions stripped away. Not that he kept Melody a secret—like he’d said, he wanted to keep her memory alive by talking about her, but he wasn’t usually quite so open or so vulnerable.

  He’d blame Vi for that and not the intriguing hair stylist.

  It was crazy, but when Ashley had placed her hand on his shoulder, it was like his whole arm was set on fire. He’d flexed his fingers a couple of times just to make sure he still could—it was heat and numbness and fireworks all at the same time. Definitely not what he needed right now when he was supposed to be getting his head in the game for this interview. Any thoughts of Ashley were just going to have to wait until later.