Loving Ashe

Episode 37

Gareth’s disappearance and eventual return to the set created enough of a stir to bring attention to the movie he and Isobel were filming. It brought fans far and wide to Nashville to catch sight of the two stars outside Base Camp or on location along Music Row.

Searches for Alabama Rain spiked, as did the sales of Conley Brennan’s songs. It was a win-win situation for everyone, including Ashe’s production company, which, together with Cookie Brennan, reaped profits from the sales of Conley’s music and related merchandise.

For Thanksgiving, Ashe suggested that he and Riley share the making of the ultimate shepherd’s pie, a slightly different spin on his mother’s recipe. Together they came up with slow-roasted smoked, spiced lamb with caramelized onions and cheddar that was a hit during Thanksgiving dinner along with the dishes everyone else brought, especially when paired with they all claimed was the holy grail of ales, 5 AM Red Ale.

The following day, she and Ashe spent hours with her nephews, who came to the condo first before they all went to the park to play until their nanny arrived to take the children home. It was a bittersweet time, though the triplets didn’t seem to mind not being at home, and made friends with Ben and Lindsay’s little girl, Natalie, who was around the same age. She charmed the boys with her bright red hair and her love of trains instead of dolls.

For the Christmas holidays, Tessa stayed at Riley’s apartment to keep Miss Bailey company while Riley and Ashe flew to London where he showed her his favorite places. Though he still kept a small two-bedroom apartment in Hackney, one bedroom rented by a friend who worked as an accountant for a local firm, they stayed at Claridge’s hotel while they were in London. They went to plays and met his old friends in pubs, at street fairs and in Hyde Park. Ashe also took her to the usual tourist spots like the London Eye, Notting Hill and the Tower of London, though Riley preferred the days they spent in the various museums. After five days in the city, they traveled to Reeth to spend Christmas at his parents’ home, first meeting them in Grassington in time for the Dickens Christmas Fair. Though it was nerve-wracking at first and she found it hard to understand what everyone was saying, Riley enjoyed herself. She fell in love with the Dales where Ashe took her walking each morning. Each night, just before bed, Riley found herself crossing off items on her checklist. 3

Visit Brontë country—check. See the sights of London—check. Get scared silly at the London Dungeon, courtesy of Ashe’s friends—check (though this wasn’t as large a checkmark as the rest). Charm the pants off Ashe’s parents—check. Fall in love with Rowan, his cheeky niece, whom she knew the triplets would surely get on well with—triple check. Watch Ashe shovel manure—no way. 2

Riley made the objection herself when his father brought it up, reminding Ashe one morning after breakfast that it was time for him to pay his keep and shovel manure for the locals. And when she voiced her disapproval, his parents stared at her, shock written on their faces. At first, Riley thought she’d offended them, but after a beat, they all looked at each other before bursting into fits of laughter, as if it were a joke played on her all this time.

“I’d never let Ashe do such a thing with thee round, lass. Why does tha think he brought thee?” his father said, or at least, that was what Riley thought he said. Their accents were so thick that Riley figured, sooner or later, she’d have to invest in a dictionary. 4

Even Ashe was speaking more like his parents. He’d already called her ‘lass’ more times than she could count, said ‘nowt’ instead of ‘nothing’ and once, she absolutely refused to talk to him for a full morning when she thought he called her a cunt when he meant ‘couldn’t’. That was the problem when a Yorkshireman couldn’t be bothered to pronounce the letter ‘d’ properly, though she figured it out eventually.

STORY CONTINUES BELOW

“You’re glowing,” she said one day as they walked along the Dales with Rowan sitting on his shoulders.

“This place grounds me. It’s like a recalibration every year—sometimes twice a year. But it’s this lass here,” he said, grinning as he glanced at Rowan, “who grounds me the most. Don’t you, me li’l monkey?”

“But I’m no’ a monkey, Uncle,” she protested though it had been an endearment she loved to hear.

Ashe laughed, lowering her from his shoulder and carrying her under one arm as she squealed in delight. “Indeed, you are…me li’l monkey!”

Rowan lived with her father, William Emerson, and his parents, two houses away from the Hunters. William had grown up with Ashe and Hazel, and he and his parents shared childrearing duties with the Hunters. He and Rowan had dinner with the Hunters every day that Ashe was home, and she learned later on that this was the usual arrangement between families. Rowan’s mother was gone, but she would always have her father and her two sets of grandparents around, and when Ashe had the time, her uncle too. They did video-chats, which made Ashe’s absence less painful to the child, for at least she got to see her uncle every week, even if he was far away.

The night before they were to return to London, en route to St. Bart’s, Riley realized just how much she was going to miss the place and the people who kept Ashe grounded. This was a house where not a single smartphone was permitted during mealtimes, a rule Ashe’s mother had set a long time ago. Thinking about how his family kept him connected to what was real, to those things and those people who mattered, she wondered what grounded her.

Was it the city where she lived now, New York, with its never-ending energy that she tapped into to fuel her soul—and where she and Ashe would continue to nurture their growing relationship? Was it the people who came to the Library Cafe in search of authentic cappuccinos and espressos and even the elusive flat white, hard to find in New York City for so long?

Was it her relationship with Paige and Clint, though currently strained, that had held her together all those years when she had abandoned old friends while trying to hide her addiction and had been too ashamed to contact them after she had gotten out of rehab? Or was it her love for the triplets, who had given her hope that one day she’d have children of her own, boys and girls who would call her ‘Mama’ as the triplets did Paige?

Was it Ashe, the man who had given her a reason to trust again after years of disguising her unhappiness, first with drugs and later on with fake smiles that hid the question that plagued her the most—was she worth loving at all? Or was it all of the above combined with her past, forming a safety net sturdy enough to catch her when she fell and help her bounce back again?

“Is anything wrong?” Ashe asked, bringing his arms around her from behind, his chin lightly resting on her shoulder. They were in his old bedroom, and she was in the midst of packing up her luggage, trying to figure out where to sneak in the little souvenirs she’d bought. These had been mostly hand-made by the residents themselves, and she’d found them in the Swaledale Museum or the tiny shops she and Ashe stopped at whenever they were in town, usually after an hour or two at the pub.

“I was just thinking how this place keeps you together. You’re just Ashe—the son, the uncle, the friend, the local boy who made good. The man who managed to escape the chore of shoveling manure because he brought his girlfriend over to meet the parents.”

“And your man, I hope?”

“Of course.”

“It is true that underneath all that I am, I’m just a Yorkshire lad, and yes, I did bring you here so I would be exempt from shit shoveling duties,” he said, grinning. “But whenever I start to believe I’m as important as other people think I am, there’s nothing like the Dales to remind me of how little I count compared to the rest of the world.”

“And you’re too self-deprecating for your own good.”

“One day, my looks will disappear and what then? All that will be left of the film star will be whatever’s playing on TV late at night, on cable, streaming or wherever—even looping GIFs of me walking naked across the screen. But viewers will only see that character and not the person that I am. There are no cameras here, Riley, so what you see now without the lights, the reflectors or the cameras is what you get—just a man who loves his family, his home, his niece, and a lass named Riley.”

The way he said her name made Riley giddy. She spun around to face him. “Well, I am certainly not complaining about this attractive man behind the film star.”

“Good. I’ve got nothing to complain about either, from where I stand,” he said, bringing her closer and touching the tip of his nose to hers. “And I’m quite pleased you were brave enough to face my parents, and show them how you felt about your man shoveling manure on a cold day.”

“That’s only because I didn’t want you coming to bed smelling of sheep shit. Next time, I’ll let them at you and then I’ll even film you and put it up online,” she laughed as she pulled away. “Your nose is cold, by the way.”

“Don’t you dare put anything up online, lass,” he chuckled, nuzzling his nose against hers. “And it’s not just my nose that’s cold. Yours is, too. Seriously, do you want me to turn up the thermostat? We Yorkshire folk are quite hardy. Though I think it’s time we dive under the covers and keep each other warm a much better way—”

“And fall out of bed like we did that last time?”

“It’s either falling out of bed or being too noisy we’ll wake up the neighbors,” he chuckled. “Take your pick.”

They were in his old bedroom, where the bed was much smaller than what they were used to though she wasn’t complaining about that at all.

Riley loved sleeping in his arms, even if one night she rolled off the bed after a whispery round of sex and landed on the floor with a thump and a yelp. They laughed so hard they woke up Ashe’s parents down the hall.

“Let’s not and say we did,” she said snuggling deeper into his arms. “But as much as I love being here, I can’t wait to go somewhere warm where all I’ll be wearing is a bikini. I just don’t know if I’m ready for the sight of you in Speedos.” 1

“Don’t worry. I don’t do Speedos,” Ashe said, squeezing her bottom playfully. “Still, I wouldn’t count on that bikini either, Riley-I-am.”

“And why not?”

Ashe laughed. “Because where we’re going, petal, you won’t need one.”