Willow in Bloom
Victoria Pade
One night of wild, unbridled passion left Willow Colton pregnant–and impossibly in love with rodeo megastar Tyler Chadwick. Still, she'd never dreamed of seeing the charming cowboy again.But when he showed up at her store with amnesia, she decided–right or wrong–to keep their baby a secret and to see if no-strings-attached love could blossom between them.After his early retirement from rodeo, Tyler was suddenly drawn to the town of Black Arrow–and hoped his mysterious feelings had to do with the woman who haunted his now-clouded dreams. For he was intent on finding the woman who stirred his deepest desires…and his memory.
COMANCHE BLOOD
Discover a proud, passionate clan of men and women who will risk everything for love, family and honor.
Willow Colton:
She hasn’t told a soul about her “predicament,” but soon she won’t be able to hide her secret from her family…or the man responsible for her condition!
Tyler Chadwick:
One bad fall and his rodeo career was over. All he’s left with is a shadowy memory of a woman who touched his heart as no other lady had. He must find her….
Gloria WhiteBear:
Will the secret past of the Oklahoma Coltons’ matriarch come back to haunt her grandchildren?
Jesse Colton:
His latest assignment could unlock the mystery of his family’s past and be the steely agent’s key to finding true love.
Dear Reader,
Have you ever been so excited after reading a book that you’re bursting to talk about it with others? That’s exactly how I feel after reading many of the superb stories that the talented authors from Silhouette Special Edition deliver time and again. And I’m delighted to tell you about Readers’ Ring, our exciting new book club. These books are designed to help you get others together to discuss the brilliant and involving romance novels you come back for month after month.
Bestselling author Sherryl Woods launches the promotion with Ryan’s Place (#1489), in which the oldest son of THE DEVANEYS learns that he was abandoned by his parents and separated from his brothers—a shocking discovery that only a truly strong woman could help him get through! Be sure to check out the discussion questions at the end of the novel to help jump-start reading group discussions.
Also, don’t miss the other five keepers we’re offering this month: Willow in Bloom by Victoria Pade (#1490); Big Sky Cowboy by Jennifer Mikels (#1491); Mac’s Bedside Manner by Marie Ferrarella (#1492); Hers To Protect by Penny Richards (#1493); and The Come-Back Cowboy by Jodi O’Donnell (#1494).
Please send me your comments about the Readers’ Ring and what you like or dislike about what you’re seeing in the line.
Happy reading!
Karen Taylor Richman,
Senior Editor
Willow in Bloom
Victoria Pade
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
VICTORIA PADE
is a bestselling author of both historical and contemporary romance fiction, and mother of two energetic daughters, Cori and Erin. Although she enjoys her chosen career as a novelist, she occasionally laments that she has never traveled farther from her Colorado home than Disneyland, instead spending all her spare time plugging away at her computer. She takes breaks from writing by indulging in her favorite hobby—eating chocolate.
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter One
“Willow, there’s a guy… Willow? Are you sleepin’?”
Willow Colton woke with a start, dropping the bottle of vitamins in her hand. It rolled across her desk and she grabbed it in a hurry, hiding it in her lap as she tried to appear as if she hadn’t just dozed off reading the label.
“Sleeping? No, I’m not sleeping. Why would I be sleeping in the middle of the day?” she said guiltily.
“Sure looked like you were sleepin’,” Carl said, as if he still thought so but couldn’t quite believe it himself.
Of course, there was good reason not to believe it. Willow ran Black Arrow Feed and Grain, the store her great-grandfather had founded, and she ordinarily put in longer and harder hours than anyone. Without napping in her office at the rear of the store.
But things were different these days.
“What were you saying when you came in?” she asked, changing the subject before it got to be a bigger deal than she wanted it to be. “That there’s a guy…”
Carl’s expression let her know he was suspicious, but he had no choice other than to concede. “There’s a guy out here who wants to open a new account. Says he’s the one bought the old Harris place.”
“Ah,” Willow said as she struggled to fight off the logy feeling of the impromptu snooze, hoping her desk blotter hadn’t left an imprint on her face. “Ask him to wait just a few minutes and I’ll be right with him. Please,” she added, as if it would make this whole thing better.
“Sure,” Carl replied, but his tone had a quizzical edge. And he sent her a curious glance over his shoulder as he left her office.
When he’d closed the door behind him, Willow deflated slightly, hoping she’d dodged the bullet and convinced her store manager that she hadn’t been sleeping on the job.
She also tried to ignore the urge to put her head back on her desk so she could sleep again.
The fatigue was part of it, she knew now. The doctor she’d sneaked into Tulsa to see had assured her of that, so it didn’t worry her anymore. But it was a nuisance. Especially when it interfered with work.
Work she needed to get back to.
With that in mind, she opened the left-hand drawer and slipped the vitamin bottle into it, closing it again with a resounding bang and making a mental note to take the vitamins upstairs to her apartment at the end of the day.
Then she stood and went to the tiny bathroom connected to the office to make sure she didn’t look like she’d just gotten out of bed. That wouldn’t do with a new customer. Or the old ones, for that matter.
The bathroom was barely that—a toilet and a sink crammed into a space the size of a closet. Willow had to avail herself of the facilities before she could even look in the mirror.
It was another of the current nuisances—her bladder seemed to have shrunk to the size of an acorn, and she spent every day hoping no one noticed how much more frequently she was having to go.
When she was finished, she stood at the sink and washed her hands, finally checking herself in the mirror.
She was glad to see there wasn’t any evidence that she had dozed off. No imprints of desk accessories and no puffiness around her gray eyes.
Thank heaven for small favors. And maybe she really had been able to convince Carl that she hadn’t been napping.
She was also glad to see that the now-usual morning pallor of her skin was gone, too. The Native American half of her bloodline had contributed a healthy looking reddish-brown complexion, but these days Willow started out nauseous and almost as pale as the O’Flannery sisters she’d gone to high school with. Not that there hadn’t been a time during adolescence when she hadn’t longed for the O’Flannerys’ alabaster skin. But adulthood had brought with it an appreciation of her own heritage and all that went with it, including her color.
Plus she didn’t want anything to give away her secret.
One well-arched eyebrow needed some smoothing, but not a strand of her long black hair had come free of the braid that fell to the middle of her back like a thick rope. Her lips were a natural pink that she’d only once added color to, and she had come to rue that occasion and the havoc it was wreaking on her life, so she’d thrown the lipstick away. But she did apply a little gloss just to keep her lips moist.
Her nap hadn’t wrinkled her clothes—her blue jeans were fine and so was the plain blue, crew-neck T-shirt she wore tucked into them. As glad as she was that there were no signs of her nap, she was even more relieved that there was no evidence of the pregnancy, either. Her stomach was still as flat as ever. All in all, she judged herself presentable enough to meet her new customer.
If only she could stay awake through the meeting.
Hoping to aid that, she slapped her cheeks a little, the way they did in the movies to make people regain consciousness. It didn’t help the feeling that she needed more sleep, but it did add color to her face, and that was a good thing. As good as it was going to get, she decided, leaving the bathroom to get back to business.
For a split second when she reentered her office, she forgot she’d put the telltale vitamins in her drawer, and felt a rush of panic at the thought that she might have left them out where someone could see them.
One glance at her desktop reminded her that she’d stashed them. So she crossed to the door that led to the sales room, opening it to greet the person she’d kept waiting.
Never in her wildest dreams would she have guessed who that person would be.
In fact, at first she thought she was seeing things.
She blinked, shook her head slightly and took a second look.
But she wasn’t seeing things.
It was him.
It was him!
Her head began to spin.
Her breath caught in her throat.
Her knees buckled right out from under her.
“Whoa! Hold on there.”
He reached out to catch her, but Willow landed with a shoulder against the doorjamb and managed to keep from falling without his help. Barely.
“I…I must have tripped,” she muttered, in the weakest voice she’d ever heard come out of her mouth.
“You sure there isn’t somethin’ wrong with you today, Willow?” Carl asked from where he stood beside the man who had caused her shock. “Are you sick?”
“I’m fine,” she insisted. “Just fine.”
She eased herself away from the jamb, willing her knees to hold her as she did.
“You sure?” Carl persisted.
“I’m sure,” she lied, knowing all the while that she was anything but fine.
“If you say so,” her store manager muttered. Again disbelief rang in his tone, but he let it drop and said, “This here’s Tyler Chadwick. Like I told you, he just bought the Harris place.”
“I know who he is,” Willow answered, wishing for more strength to her still breathy voice as she looked up into the face that had haunted her for the last two months. The face she hadn’t been sure she’d ever see again. The face she hadn’t been sure she wanted to see again.
“And this here’s Willow Colton,” Carl said to conclude the introductions. “She runs things ’round here, and it’s her needs to tell you if you can open an account or not.”
Willow… He knows me as Wyla….
But Tyler Chadwick didn’t so much as blink an eye at the discrepancy. In fact, he smiled a perfectly open smile and said, “Pleased to meet you.”
As if he’d never met her before.
Was he kidding? He’d been quite a tease, as she recalled, so maybe he was just putting her on.
But something about the way he was looking at her, at the blankness in his expression, said he wasn’t kidding at all. That he didn’t remember her.
“Wyla…” she said under her breath, to jolt his memory.
“Wyla?” he repeated. “Or Willow? Did I hear wrong?”
“Wyla?” Carl echoed, overhearing Tyler’s response. “Her name’s Willow.” Then to Willow he said, “What’s goin’ on with you today?”
Willow didn’t answer that because she couldn’t. She just stood there, staring at Tyler Chadwick.
And it was Tyler Chadwick. For a moment she had entertained the idea that maybe this man was just someone who looked remarkably like him. And happened to have the same name.
But of course, that was crazy. This was definitely the Tyler Chadwick she knew. Granted, she’d spent just a short time with him, but it had been a memorable time. He was a memorable man.
He wasn’t terribly tall—only about five feet ten, a scant three inches taller than she was. But it was an impressive five ten of hard muscles honed from making his living riding bucking broncos on the rodeo circuit.
There wasn’t an ounce of fat on that body, made up of broad shoulders, narrow waist and hips, and biceps and thighs that bulged beneath his tan-colored shirt and jeans respectively.
And even if any of that had changed in the last two months, his face hadn’t. It was still handsome enough to make the birds stop singing in the trees just to get a look at him when he walked by.
He had light-brown hair cut short on the sides and left sort of haphazardly spiky on top; a sharp chiseled jaw; a supple mouth Adonis would have envied; a thin, straight nose; deep-set eyes that were so vibrant a green they looked more like emeralds beneath slightly bushy brows and a full, square forehead.
And when he smiled—even just a little—he had one dimple, one deep crease in the middle of his left cheek, that made him look mischievous and dashing and deliciously dangerous all at once.
Oh no, she wasn’t mistaken. This was Tyler Chadwick. The one and only Tyler Chadwick. The unmistakable Tyler Chadwick.
He wasn’t someone she could forget.
Which, unfortunately, didn’t seem to be something he could say about her.
Unless maybe he thought she might be embarrassed if anyone found out she already knew him and how, and he was trying to spare her that by pretending they were just meeting for the first time…?
That must be it, she concluded.
“Why don’t you come into the office,” Willow suggested, thinking that once they were alone he would let her know he was merely being considerate of her feelings by making it seem as if he didn’t already have intimate knowledge of her.
Tyler shot a glance at Carl and said, “Thanks for your help.” Then he turned those oh-so-striking green eyes back on Willow.
She got lost in them for a moment before she realized he wasn’t looking meaningfully into her face, he was merely waiting for her to move out of the doorway so they could go into her office.
“This way,” she said unnecessarily, mentally yanking herself into line as she turned to go back the way she’d come.
She heard the click of his boot heels behind her, but he didn’t close the door to allow them privacy.
“Oh, we should have shut the door,” she said, as if it had just occurred to her.
“Okay.”
He backtracked to do that, then joined her at her desk.
Willow pointed to one of the visitors chairs and took her own seat on the opposite side of the gray metal desk before she said, “Okay, the coast is clear.”
Tyler smiled that dimpled smile, but his brows pulled together in a show of confusion. “The coast is clear for what? Talkin’ money?”
If he was playing dumb, this was taking it too far.
Or did he really not remember her?
She searched his glorious green eyes for any sign of recognition.
But it honestly wasn’t there. Not a hint of it. Not one iota. Not so much as an indication that he thought she looked vaguely familiar, and was trying to figure out where he’d seen her before.
How was that possible?
He hadn’t been drinking that night. Even though they’d met in a blues club where liquor was flowing like water, he’d been ordering ginger ale. So she knew alcohol wasn’t to blame.
But then it occurred to her that not only did Tyler know her as Wyla—the nickname her old friend Becky Lindstrom had called her all through college and used that night—but Willow had also looked considerably different.
Thanks to Becky’s makeover, her hair had been loose and her face had been made up—complete with lipstick. And she’d been wearing one of Becky’s dresses—a form-fitting little red number Willow would never have had the courage to buy, let alone wear at any other time.
She definitely hadn’t looked the way she did today. Or any other day or night before or after that fateful evening she’d met Tyler Chadwick.
So maybe that was the problem. Maybe without the face paint, with her hair tied back, dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, introduced to him by another name, and in an entirely different setting, she looked so different that he just wasn’t putting two and two together.
And maybe if she helped with that two and two he might see past the surface and add it all up.
With that in mind, she said, “So are you on hiatus from rodeo riding?”
“That’s right, you said you know who I am, didn’t you? You follow the circuit?” he asked.
“No, but I saw you ride in Tulsa in June. Mid-June. On a Friday night…” Of course, when she and Becky had met him in that bar much later that evening they’d pretended they hadn’t seen the rodeo and didn’t know who he was. Just to give him a hard time.
So that wasn’t much of a hint.
“There was a packed crowd that night,” he was saying as Willow worked to pay attention. “Standing room only. You must have had your tickets a long while in advance. Was that your first time?”
“Yes.” For the rodeo. And only the second for what came later that night….
“It was my next-to-last,” he said quietly, soberly.
Willow sensed that she’d hit on a sore subject. “Did you retire?” she asked, using the term facetiously, since he was hardly retirement age.
But all he said in answer was, “Something like that.”
It was clear he didn’t want to talk about it, and because it wasn’t getting her any nearer her goal, anyway, she didn’t pursue it. Instead she decided to try a different tack.
“I suppose you must have met a lot of people along the way.”
“Probably more than my fair share.”
“A lot of women.”
He smiled wryly. “Probably more than my fair share.”
Willow acknowledged that with a raise of her chin, but began to give in to the inevitable thought she’d been trying to avoid—that she had been just one of many. That that night, so unlike anything she had ever done in her life, had been so commonplace to him that he didn’t even remember it.
“So you got around pretty good, did you?” she heard herself say before she even knew she was going to. In a very accusatory tone.
“I didn’t have a different woman every night of the week, if that’s what you’re asking, no. But what does that have to do with opening an account for feed?”
Good question.
Willow had to think fast to come up with an answer.
“I was just wondering if you’d settled down with a wife or a girlfriend who would also be on the account.”
Feeble. Oh, was that feeble.
But it was the best she could do on the spot.
And he didn’t really buy it. She could see the doubt in his expression.
But he went along with it, anyway.
“No, there’s just me. I’ll be the only one on the account. Shouldn’t you be writing something down?”
Willow felt even more stupid—if that were possible—because he was right, she hadn’t so much as taken out a piece of paper or a pencil.
She did that now, filling in his name at the top of the form she used.
“You’ll have to give me the formal address. I know the Harris place, but I don’t know the numbers off the top of my head,” she said, trying hard to sound businesslike to counteract her total unprofessionalism up to that point.
Tyler rattled off the route number and zip code, and as Willow wrote those down, too, she worked to come up with more questions or conversation that might spur his memory without seeming completely inappropriate.
But she couldn’t think of anything, and instead just asked the usual things about his finances, references, and about how much feed and grain he thought he’d be needing per month.
And then the form was finished and all that was left was for him to sign it to authorize her to run a credit check on him.
When he’d done that, he stood. “Guess that takes care of it then.”
A sudden feeling of panic rushed through Willow at the thought that he was on the verge of leaving and she hadn’t made any headway whatsoever in getting him to remember her.
“So did you end up taking home all the prize money that weekend in Tulsa?” she asked in a last-ditch effort, hoping any mention of Tulsa or that weekend might spur something in him.
But it just seemed to dampen his mood again. “No, only Friday’s purse. The competition you must have seen,” he said, once more sounding as if he didn’t want to talk about it.
And maybe that was the problem, Willow thought. Maybe losing the following two days had caused him to block out the entire weekend. Her included.
Not that that made it any more heartening as she finally gave in and admitted she was failing miserably at making him remember her.
“You’ll let me know once you get the credit report and okay the account, so I can put in an order?” he asked as he made his way to the office door with Willow following him this time.
“I’ll be in touch,” she assured him, unable to keep her own dismay out of her voice.
Apparently he heard it, because he tossed her a small frown. But he didn’t question it. He just said, “I’ll be lookin’ forward to hearing from you. And to doing business with you.”
Willow could only manage a nod, at which point he headed down the main aisle and left the store.
And as she stood in her office doorway again and watched him go, she couldn’t quite believe what had just happened.
The one man she’d done something totally outrageous and uncharacteristic with, the one time in her life she’d ever done anything totally outrageous and uncharacteristic at all, had just strolled in, apparently without a single memory of ever even having met her.
And she didn’t know what to do about it.
It was so humiliating.
So humiliating that she wished that night they’d spent together could be left a secret she could carry with her to her grave, so no one would ever be the wiser. So her humiliation would never be known.
She wished she could steer clear of Tyler Chadwick for the rest of her life, in spite of those eyes and that face and that body.
And as she retreated back into her office and closed the door once again, she considered doing just that—steering clear of Tyler Chadwick for the rest of her life.
But she wasn’t sure that was the right thing to do. Even if he was the kind of creep who spent the night with a woman and then forgot all about it. All about her.
Because even if he was that kind of creep, even if he didn’t remember having met her, it didn’t change the fact that he had. That he’d done much, much more than just meet her.
It didn’t change the fact that she was now pregnant with his baby.
Chapter Two
“I’m sitting on my front porch with my feet up on the railing, drinking a steaming cup of coffee and watchin’ the sun rise. How’s that compare to a smelly motel room, a stale Danish and a cup of weak, lukewarm swill that’s supposed to pass for a cup a’ joe?”
“Mornin’, big brother,” the voice on the other end of the phone said when Tyler had finished his lengthy greeting. “Tryin’ to make me jealous, are you?”
“Yup.”
“Well, it’s workin’. This room smells like mildew, my complimentary continental breakfast is a muffin you could play hardball with, and I think the coffee was made yesterday.”
“And I wish I was there,” Tyler added, slightly under his breath.
Brick didn’t comment on that, and Tyler knew his younger brother didn’t know what to say to it.
But Brick didn’t let much silence lapse before he used Tyler’s utterance as a segue. “How’re you feeling?”
“Okay. The headaches are still comin’ but they’re fewer and farther between, and the pills help when they do hit.”
“That’s something. What about the other? Are things clearin’ up on that front?”
“No. That’s the same.”
“And you haven’t found your mystery woman to help?”
His mystery woman. The woman he’d met at a blues club and spent that last night with. Whoever she was…
“If I have found my mystery woman it hasn’t helped,” Tyler said with a laugh to lighten the tone. “No, seriously, I’ve only met one woman—someone named Willow Colton. She runs the feed and grain store here and she isn’t my mystery woman.”
“Because she didn’t spark anything? You know what the doctors said about your theory that—”
“Not only because she didn’t spark anything. She recognized me from Tulsa in June because she was at the rodeo Friday afternoon and saw me ride.”
“So she’s not the one.”
“And she didn’t spark anything, so, no, she’s not the one,” Tyler said definitively.
But talking about Willow Colton brought her to Tyler’s mind. Vividly to mind. Something that had been happening every time he turned around since meeting her the day before.
She might not be his mystery woman, but she’d certainly struck a note with him. Of course, that shouldn’t have come as any surprise. After all, she was beautiful, so she would have struck a note with anyone. Beautiful with shiny licorice-black hair and skin as smooth as satin. High, broad cheekbones; a sweet little nose. Full, luscious lips the color of Colorado’s red rocks. And those eyes—luminous, ethereal, pale, pale dove-gray—those eyes could mesmerize a man….
“You’re probably right.” Brick’s voice broke into Tyler’s wandering thoughts. “Not only isn’t Miss Feed and Grain your mystery woman if she was at the rodeo, but if she’d been with you that night she’d have said it.”
“That’s what I’m figuring, too. Besides, I don’t care what the doctors or anyone else say, I think I’ll know her when I see her. I just feel it in my gut.”
Brick didn’t comment on that, either. He didn’t have to. They’d had this conversation a dozen times in the last two months, and Tyler knew his brother thought he had just gone a little crazy in response to an unwanted life change. He also knew that in many ways Brick was merely humoring him, figuring he’d come to his senses eventually.
But Brick did look on the bright side. “Well, one way or another, that pull you felt to Black Arrow landed you a nice piece of property. If nothin’ else, maybe fate was planting that seed to get you where you were meant to go.”
“So when are you comin’ to stay awhile?”
“You miss me. Admit it, you really miss me,” Brick goaded.
“Yeah, I miss all that snoring and snortin’ you do in your sleep every night,” Tyler countered facetiously, when in truth he did miss his brother. Not only had they shared a bedroom their entire growing up years, but since they’d left home to follow the rodeo circuit they’d rarely been apart.
But Tyler knew there was no way he’d ever live it down if he admitted that he actually did miss Brick.
“I’ll be there the weekend after next,” his brother said in answer to his question. “And don’t go thinkin’ I’ll be able to recognize the mystery woman if we come across her, either, because I keep tellin’ you that I didn’t so much as cast her a glance before I left you with her in that bar. I was too tired to think straight that night.”
“Yeah, yeah, I’ve heard it before.”
“I just wish to hell I’d made you come back to the room with me instead of leaving you there. Then maybe you wouldn’t have still been thinkin’ about her the next day and you wouldn’t have been distracted and—”
“We all get dealt our own hand, little brother, and that was mine,” Tyler said in answer to the suddenly serious tone Brick had taken.
“Yeah, well, still and all—”
“Still and all nothin’. Things happen the way they’re supposed to happen.” Whether it’s easy to understand or cope with or not.
Tyler heard the sound of a knock on his brother’s motel room door just before Brick said, “That’s the guys.”
“Headin’ out for a real breakfast,” Tyler added, knowing the routine well himself. And suffering a terrible pang not to be a part of it anymore.
But he didn’t let it sound in his voice. He made sure to seem upbeat. “You better get goin’ or they’ll leave you behind. I just wanted to wish you luck on your ride tonight. Let me know how you do.”
Brick wasn’t as good at hiding his feelings. His voice echoed with sadness. “You know I will. Talk to you later.”
“Talk to you later,” Tyler answered. Then he pushed the button to disconnect the call, and set his cordless phone on the planked floor of his front porch.
“Damn,” he muttered to himself, weathering the fresh surge of sorrow that flooded through him.
But things were the way they were, he reminded himself. They couldn’t be changed, and pining for what used to be, for what might have been if only, didn’t help anything. He needed to look to the positives, not the negatives.
Like the fact that he was now the owner of this ranch and had a home of his own.
Like the fact that even if it was sooner than he’d planned, this was still the life he and Brick had always talked about having when they were ready to throw in the towel on bronc busting.
Like the fact that Black Arrow was a nice, quiet town full of friendly people.
People like Willow Colton.
Willow Colton whose legs went on for miles, whose tight body couldn’t have been better proportioned, and whose breasts were just the right size to fit into a man’s hands….
Tyler knew what his brother would say about Willow Colton if he saw her. Brick would say, “Who needs a mystery woman when there’s a flesh and blood woman like Willow Colton?”
But Brick didn’t understand what was going on inside Tyler over his mystery woman.
Hell, Tyler didn’t understand it himself.
He just knew there was something pushing him to find her. And maybe to find that part of himself that he’d lost in the process.
And he didn’t think he could rest until he did.
Even if he was having trouble getting that image of Miss Feed and Grain out of his head.
Even if he was looking forward to seeing her again more than he wanted to.
No, his mystery woman was like lost pages in a book he just had to finish, and until he figured out who she was, he was damn sure not starting up anything with anyone else.
Not even a woman with pale dove-gray eyes that seemed to haunt him.
Because no matter how much that might be the case, those pale-gray eyes didn’t haunt him as much as that gap his mystery woman had left.
And he was all about filling that gap.
Willow hadn’t slept much the night before, which didn’t help her fatigue. But even feeling more tired than usual, she was at no risk of falling asleep at her desk the way she had on Tuesday. The same thoughts that had kept her awake until the wee hours of the morning kept her adrenaline level high through Wednesday.
Tyler Chadwick was on her mind. Tyler Chadwick and the predicament she was in.
Not that Tyler and her predicament had been far from her thoughts at any point in the two months before this. But since he’d walked into her life again nearly twenty-four hours ago, she had been completely incapable of thinking about anything else.
She also hadn’t been able to stop asking herself the same two questions—how could he have forgotten her, and how could he have forgotten their night together?
It was just so awful to think that he had.
She wasn’t proud of what she’d done in Tulsa. In fact, she’d been ashamed of herself. Spending the night with someone she’d just met in a club? That was definitely a first. And a last.
But it was as if something had snapped in her in June.
It hadn’t been easy growing up with four older brothers. Four very protective older brothers. But since Willow had been out on her own, running the Feed and Grain, one or another of her brothers was at her side every time she turned around. Watching over her to the point where she felt as if she were being stalked by her own family.
She’d tried talking to them, reasoning with them, letting them know she wasn’t doing anything even remotely dangerous and that they did not need to take turns becoming her ever-present guardians.
But no sooner had she given that lecture than there they were again. Just checking in with her, they said.
Until, finally, Willow had thought she might explode.
She’d known if she didn’t get away from them for a while she was going to lose her temper and say things that would hurt their feelings. And she didn’t want that.
So Willow had called her friend Becky Lindstrom in Tulsa and taken her up on her repeated request for Willow to visit.
Just for a week. A week of rest and relaxation, with no brothers looking over her shoulder every minute. That’s all it was supposed to be. That’s all it was.
Until Friday.
Friday night when she knew her week was at an end and she had to go back to Black Arrow, back to four brothers who couldn’t leave her alone.
Just the thought of that had left her feeling the need to go a little wild. To cut loose one last time before she went back. To get out and do something she wouldn’t do at home. To be someone besides a person with four brothers who seemed to need to keep her in a velvet cage.
So, on their way home from an afternoon at the rodeo that was passing through Tulsa at the time, Willow had confided her feelings to Becky.
Becky had embraced the idea with a vengeance. A night on the town. Just the two of them. Kicking up their heels.
Becky had reveled in the free hand to make Willow over. To doll her up in a way Willow never got dolled up. To transform her into a new woman.
No jeans.
No T-shirts or flannels.
No practical shoes.
No braided hair.
Becky had loaned Willow a slinky, strapless red dress that fit every inch of the few inches it covered like a second skin.
Spike-heeled shoes had gone with it, but Becky hadn’t stopped at merely outfitting Willow. She’d also played beauty shop with Willow’s hair, with makeup Willow never wore, with perfume and lipstick that were the finishing touches that turned everyday Willow Colton into exotic Wyla and made her feel truly like a different person.
Out on the town.
Nightclubbing.
And that’s where Willow had met Tyler Chadwick. At a blues club.
She and Becky had recognized him from the rodeo earlier in the evening. He was one of the bronco riders. The drop-dead gorgeous bronco rider with the derriere to die for. The one who had won.
By that time, Becky had had enough champagne to lower all her inhibitions, and she’d suggested they invite him to join them.
Willow, who had been feeling no pain herself, hadn’t put up too much of a fight.
“Just don’t let him know we know who he is,” Becky had whispered to Willow before leaving their table. “He’ll get a swelled head if he thinks we think he’s somebody.”
And that’s how it had happened.
Tyler Chadwick had taken them up on the offer and joined them.
But from the minute he sat down, his focus had been on Willow.
Or actually, on Wyla.
Becky hadn’t minded. Not long after it had become clear that Tyler Chadwick preferred Willow, another man had begun to show an interest in Becky, and she’d gone to sit at the bar with him, leaving Willow and Tyler alone.
Wyla and Tyler.
Which was when Willow had discovered that her new Wyla persona could be quite a flirt.
And not only that, she could be coy and cute and coquettish, too.
She could even be sexy.
It had all seemed innocent enough. It had been Wyla doing it, not her. Wyla who was laughing that high-pitched laugh. Wyla who was putting her hand on Tyler’s arm. Wyla who was drinking so much champagne…
It wasn’t completely clear in Willow’s mind how she’d gone from that innocent flirtation in the bar to Tyler Chadwick’s room in the hotel next door. But that was where she’d ended up. In the suite he and his brother were sharing, because of some glitch in their reservation that had upgraded them.
Which meant that he had a bedroom to himself.
A bedroom in which he and Willow—Wyla—had had a wild night of passion.
Mindless passion, as Willow’s head had been filled only with thoughts of Tyler Chadwick and all he was doing to her that made her feel so, so good.
So, so unlike herself.
So unlike herself that after a second round of love-making just after the sun had come up, when Tyler had fallen asleep again, she hadn’t been able to believe what she’d done.
It wasn’t merely uncharacteristic behavior. It was complete insanity.
And while Tyler still slept, Willow—and she had been Willow again by then—had dressed at record speed and slipped out of that hotel room, out of that hotel and into a cab, putting that night and Tyler Chadwick behind her.
Which was exactly where she intended to leave them. Forever.
Then she’d missed her period.
At first she’d thought it was just stress, but when she’d begun to have some very odd symptoms that couldn’t have been stress-related she’d had to entertain the possibility that something else was going on.
Pregnancy.
She’d actually passed out cold in the doctor’s office when her worst fear was confirmed.
And then she’d come to and cried. Sobbed. Right in front of the doctor.
That had caused the doctor to talk about alternatives if she didn’t want the child, which had made Willow cry all the harder.
“Alternatives? I don’t have any alternatives,” she’d wailed.
But by the time she’d returned to Black Arrow that night she’d thought about the alternatives the doctor had laid out for her and she’d known she couldn’t choose any of them. This was her baby and she was going to have it, raise it, love it.
She just didn’t know anything else.
She didn’t know how she was going to have and raise a child alone.
She didn’t know how she was going to tell her brothers.
She didn’t know what they were going to do when she did.
She didn’t know whether or not she should find Tyler Chadwick and tell him.
Only now he’d found her.
He just didn’t know it.
Willow slumped in her desk chair like a wilting flower.
The father of her baby was a man who obviously had had so many one-night stands with so many different women that he didn’t even remember the women he’d had them with.
It kept coming back to that.
Back to what Willow had thought the previous day—that he was the worst kind of creep.
But he hadn’t seemed like a creep that night in Tulsa.
She’d thought he was the nicest guy she’d ever met.
He’d made her laugh. He’d put her at ease. He’d made her feel good about herself. He’d made her feel free. Free from being the little sister to Bram and Ashe and Jared and Logan.
Which had been exactly what she’d needed.
It had just been so wonderful it had all apparently gone to her head.
“But that was then and this is now,” she said to herself as she crossed her arms on her desk and laid her head on them to rest.
And as much as she wished she could just forget about Tyler Chadwick and that night, the way he apparently had, she couldn’t.
So what was she going to do? she asked herself.
One thing that she definitely couldn’t see herself doing was marching up to him and announcing out of the blue that, whether he remembered it or not, they’d slept together and that she was pregnant as a result.
But what if she gave him more of a chance to remember her? What if she did what she could to spend some time with him? To let him get to know her? To see more of her?
Maybe something about the sound of her voice or the way she looked at just the right angle would make him remember her and that night together.
Surely somewhere in his brain there was some image of her that could be brought back to the surface.
And then…
And then…
She didn’t know what then.
But at least it was a first step. It was something to do.
And she needed to do something. Something that could give her a clue as to where to go from here.
Because not only had Willow been knocked for a loop when she found out she was pregnant, she didn’t have the faintest idea what to do about breaking the news to her brothers, or whether or not to tell the baby’s father, or what to expect his reaction would be if she did, or what to do about her entire future.
But getting the baby’s father to remember the baby’s mother seemed like a logical beginning.
She just hoped that her initial impression of Tyler as a genuinely nice guy had had some validity to it and that he wasn’t really the jerk she’d decided he was the day before. That maybe along the way he’d tell her she reminded him of someone he’d once encountered, and she would learn that he hadn’t forgotten her at all, that he just hadn’t connected the dots and realized that she and Wyla were the same person.
It was a hope she tried hard to hang on to even though she was very much afraid the odds were against her.
But still it was a whole lot better to hope that his not knowing her had a simple, believable explanation than to accept what seemed more likely—that he’d spent an entire night making love to her and now didn’t remember who she was.
Willow had the perfect excuse to see Tyler again, and once she’d closed up the Feed and Grain for the day she decided to use it.
But not before making a stop in the apartment above the store.
The apartment had been her grandmother’s, but Willow had moved into it with Gloria when Willow had taken over the running of the Feed and Grain. Now that her grandmother had passed away she lived there alone.
And she never climbed the stairs at the back of the store without wishing she would still find her grandmother there to greet her.
But she was learning to weather those moments, and tonight, when she had, she made a beeline for her own bedroom to change her clothes.
Only as she stood in her closet, trying to figure out what to change into that might give Tyler a hint as to who she was, did it occur to her that all of her things were basically the same—jeans and tops.
She had a couple of pairs of slacks she wore to church, and a plain, simple black dress that she wore with a matching jacket to funerals and, without the jacket, to weddings. But that was about it. And because she knew she’d feel overdressed if she wore her Sunday slacks—besides the fact that it would no doubt raise eyebrows and questions if anyone who knew her saw her—the closest she could come to Wyla-wear was a red V-neck T-shirt with a clean pair of jeans.
She did unbraid her hair, though, brushing it and letting it fall free the way she’d worn it that night. And although lip gloss was all she owned in the way of makeup, she made a mental note to buy herself a few cosmetics as soon as possible to aid her cause.
Then she locked up the apartment and used the outside stairs to go down to her old blue pickup truck, wishing she had a better, sexier vehicle, too.
But there wasn’t anything to be done about it, and so she climbed behind the wheel, started the engine and pulled away from the curb, feeling more anxious than she could ever remember having felt before.
Willow was familiar with all the farms and ranches around Black Arrow. It had been her job at the Feed and Grain to make deliveries after school as soon as she’d been old enough to drive. So she knew exactly where she was going.
The former Harris place was south of town about four miles. She’d gone all through school with the Harrises’ only child, Samantha. But she and Willow hadn’t been friends. Samantha had been a very girly girl—worlds apart from tomboy Willow.
As she turned off the main road onto the private drive she could see the house in the distance. It was a two-story frame, painted white and trimmed in black, with a steep black roof.
The house had a nice front porch—that was what Willow had always liked best about it. The porch was bordered with a spindled railing that looked beautiful at Christmas, decorated with lights and evergreen boughs.
But August was not the time for that, and other than a wicker rocker and a chair swing hanging from chains, the porch itself was littered with several moving boxes apparently waiting to be thrown out.
No lights shone through the windows, but since it was only seven o’clock and there was still an abundance of summer daylight, Willow didn’t think that was a sign that no one was home. Besides, there was a big white truck parked in the drive, so she assumed Tyler was there.
She parked beside the truck and cut her engine, taking a deep breath to bolster her courage and wishing—as she had so many times since June—that things hadn’t taken the turn they had.
But wishing didn’t make any of it go away, so she picked up the file she’d brought with her as her excuse, and got out of the truck to climb the five steps onto the porch.
The front door was open, and through the screen door she could hear music playing. Softly.
She recognized the singer. Chris Isaak. He was one of her favorites, and she hoped that maybe he was one of Tyler’s favorites, too, and the fact that they shared similar musical tastes was a good sign.
She knocked on the screen’s frame, feeling her tension level increase with each rap.
Nothing stirred in response. Chris Isaak just went on singing about the wicked things people do.
Maybe she hadn’t knocked loud enough to be heard over the music. She tried again with more force.
“Hold on,” she heard Tyler call, his unmistakable baritone sounding as if it were coming from the living room to the right of the front door.
Then he came into sight from that direction.
He had on a white T-shirt, a pair of jeans with a tear in the knee, and he was in his stocking feet.
He was hardly dressed for company, yet he still looked good enough to make Willow recall one of the reasons she’d been so swept off her feet by him in Tulsa. The man exuded a raw sensuality that made the woman in her sit up and take notice.
She, on the other hand, didn’t seem to have the same effect on him. The way he squinted his eyes against the light made it look as if he’d been sleeping.
“I’m sorry if I disturbed you,” Willow said, as that thought occurred to her.
“No, no, it’s okay,” he assured her, blinking a few times as if fighting to keep his eyes open. “I just had one of these headaches I get, and the pills for them knock me out.”
“Maybe I should come back another time.”
He waved away that notion with one big, blunt-fingered hand. “Nah. It’s fine. Headache’s gone.”
He pinched the bridge of his nose and then took his hand away and finally seemed to really look at her.
“Willow. Willow Colton. From the feed store,” she stated.
“I know,” he answered. But then he gave her the once-over and smiled that one-sided smile. “You look different than you did yesterday, but I still knew you.”
From yesterday, but not from June…
She tried not to let that bother her.
Tyler stepped back from the doorway. “Come on in.”
Willow hesitated a moment, feeling all the more awkward because she’d awakened him. But in the end she decided that, since she already had, she might as well do what she’d come for.
“If you’re sure.”
“Positive. I’m glad for the company. Gets kind of lonely out here.”
Willow accepted his invitation and went in.
It was cooler inside than out, and the scent of leather was in the air. Maybe from the cowboy boots that stood beside the wide, elegant staircase that faced the door.
Tyler didn’t seem to mind being shoeless in front of her because he didn’t move to put the boots back on. Instead he just closed the door and pointed toward the living room.
“Let’s go in there.”
Willow did, with Tyler following behind.
“Excuse the mess,” he said in reference to the fact that lamps were on the floor rather than on tables, and chairs were in no particular arrangement. The only pieces of furniture that were situated with any sort of purpose were the long leather sofa—likely the source of the scent of the place—and a wide-screen television.
“Please, sit down,” he invited. “Can I get you something to drink? Iced tea?”
“No, thank you,” Willow responded. Her throat felt like the top of a drawstring bag with the ties cinched so tight she didn’t think she could get even liquids down.
She did sit on the couch, though. Hugging one end.
“I just wanted to let you know you’d been approved for an account with us and to bring you over our price lists and policies,” she announced, not sounding nearly as relaxed as he seemed to feel.
“Great. I appreciate that,” he said, joining her on the sofa at the opposite end, as if he were entertaining an insurance salesman.
Willow opened the file folder she was clutching in a white-knuckled grip, and pointed out a few details about special orders and delivery schedules. It didn’t take long, and once she’d finished, she realized she’d exhausted her excuse to be there.
“Maybe I will have that glass of iced tea, after all,” she said, to give herself more of a reason to linger and put into motion her plan to spend time with him.
“Sounds good to me, too,” he said.
“If you’re sure you’re up to it,” she added.
“I’m fine.”
All remnants of his nap had disappeared, and he seemed as awake and energized as ever, so she believed him.
“Can I help?” she asked as he stood.
“You can keep me company, but I think I can manage the pouring myself,” he joked.
Willow got to her feet, too, tagging along.
As she did, her gaze took a dip to his derriere, and she realized her own memory hadn’t done it justice.
But that was the last thing she needed to be thinking about, so she forced her eyes to behave, and made small talk to occupy her mind.
“When I was a teenager my job was to make our deliveries. Mr. Harris would have me come in as far as the living room while he signed the receipt. I’ve never seen the rest of the house, though.”
“I’ll give you the grand tour,” Tyler promised. “But be warned, there isn’t much to see. Before this I lived in a studio apartment, and I was only there when I wasn’t chasing rodeos. So I didn’t have a lot to bring with me to fill this place up.”
They went through a large, empty dining room before they passed under an archway to get to the kitchen. The very white kitchen. Walls, cupboards and appliances were all sterile, hospital white, and there wasn’t a single other color to break the almost blinding, institutional effect.
Apparently that fact wasn’t lost on Tyler. As he went to the refrigerator he said, “You just about need sunglasses in here.”
“Just about,” Willow agreed.
Tyler poured two glasses of iced tea and asked if Willow wanted sugar in hers. When she declined, he handed her one of the glasses and then they set out for the tour of the house.
He was right about there being nothing much to see. There were four bedrooms, three baths and a recreation room upstairs; another bathroom, a den and a library to go with the kitchen, living room and dining room downstairs. But room after room was bare, except for beds in two of the bedrooms, and a few unpacked boxes here and there.
“You weren’t kidding when you said you didn’t bring much with you,” she said as they returned to the living room. Tyler had pointed in the direction of the sofa with his chin, inviting Willow to sit down again.
“I know,” he said with a laugh that transported her back to that night in Tulsa, when they’d both done a lot of laughing and the sound of his deep, full-barreled chuckle had sent a skitter of delight along her spine. Just as it did now.
Then he added, “And I don’t have any idea where to start to furnish the place. Or where to even look for things in Black Arrow.”
“We actually have a furniture store. With some factory-manufactured things and some really nice hand-crafted pieces that folks around town make,” she informed him.
She knew this was a prime opening, but it took a moment of screwing up her courage to take advantage of it. “I’d be happy to go with you, show you where it is, give you my opinion—for what it’s worth.”
“I might just take you up on that. I could definitely use a woman’s advice when it comes to decorating.”
Not many men in Black Arrow thought of her as a woman. It pleased Willow to no end that Tyler did.
But she tried to contain her pleasure. She didn’t want to appear too eager.
“So where are you from?” she asked, changing the subject before she got carried away. And also because when she’d found out she was pregnant she’d realized she’d actually learned next to nothing about him that night in Tulsa, and thought it was time she did.
“I was born and raised in Wyoming,” he answered.
“Is that where your family is?”
“My folks died in a flood up there a few years back. That left only me and my brother, Brick. Brick is still riding the rodeo circuit, and since I bought this place we gave up the apartment we shared in Cheyenne. When he needs a place to stay off the road he’ll come here.”
“Your brother wasn’t ready to retire with you?” Willow asked.
“No. Neither was I, for that matter,” he added with that same regret he’d had in his voice the day before, when they’d talked about this.
“Then why did you?” Willow persisted, hoping he didn’t think she was prying. Even though she was.
Tyler didn’t answer right away. He took a drink of his iced tea and stared into the glass.
And the longer he hesitated, the more she began to worry that he did think she was prying, and didn’t like it.
But then he set his glass on the floor beside the sofa and raised his amazing green eyes to her. “You said you were at Friday’s rodeo in Tulsa. Well, that was my last good ride. On Saturday I got thrown. I landed on my head and ended up with a concussion that put me in a coma for fifteen days. Nobody was too sure I was going to come out of it or, if I did, whether I’d be okay. When I finally did regain consciousness the doctors said no more bronc bustin’. So that was it for me.”
“I’m sorry,” Willow said, because she could see what a blow that news had been to him. But for herself, she felt a strange sense of relief. She’d seen how dangerous what he did was, and the thought of her baby’s father doing it had apparently bothered her more than she’d realized.
“Luckily, I’d been socking away prize and endorsement money for a lot of years,” Tyler continued. “So I bought this place and came here to settle down.”
“How did you end up choosing Black Arrow for that?” she asked, since when she’d told him that fateful June night that this was where she lived, he’d never heard of it before.
Tyler laughed again and inclined his head in a way that made Willow think he was confused by the choice himself.
Then he confirmed that by saying, “I don’t know for sure how I chose Black Arrow. Here’s the thing, the concussion blanked out some of my memory. It left me with some holes. When it came time to pick a place to settle down, Black Arrow popped into my head. I’m pretty sure it’s connected to some other things I’ve forgotten, things I’m trying to remember, but one way or another, something about it just seemed right. Right enough so that I contacted a Realtor here and bought this place sight unseen.”
“You lost your memory?” Willow asked, seizing on that part of what he’d said because it was so vital to her.
“Not all of it. Mostly I’m blank about things that happened in the weeks just before the accident.”
“People, too?”
“Places I’d been, rodeos I’d ridden in, prizes I’d won, a commercial for cowboy hats that I did, and yes, people, too. Friends my brother tells me we spent time with I have no memory of having seen, people I’d just met, people I wish I hadn’t forgotten.”
Willow didn’t know exactly what that last part meant. “How could you wish you hadn’t forgotten someone if you’ve forgotten them?”
“It’s kind of like the way it was with Black Arrow. Almost like an itch I can’t reach. Something tells me things were important, but I don’t know why or what or who, and I just keep hoping something will happen to bring it all back. Or at least some of it.”
It was slowly sinking in that it wasn’t only her and their night together that he didn’t recall. That it wasn’t a matter of her being unmemorable or of him having so many one-night stands that they didn’t mean anything to him. She and their night together were a part of a bigger picture. A part of many things that he’d lost.
“So you actually have a medical condition?” she asked, just to have it confirmed.
“A part of the memory portion of my brain was damaged from the concussion and induced a limited amnesia, yes. I know it sounds incredible, but that’s what happened.”
I could tell him, Willow thought. Right now. I could tell him he’s already met me. On that Friday night before his accident. That we were together all night and that was where he heard about Black Arrow.
But would that bring it all back to him? she wondered. Or would it only seem like a story to him? Maybe not even a believable one, since she hadn’t mentioned it before now.
She had no way of knowing.
But what she might have was an opportunity, she thought suddenly. The opportunity to let him get to know her. The real her—Willow. Not the dressed-up, drinking, partying Wyla who had spent the night with him before she even knew him.
And if she used that opportunity to let him get to know the real her, maybe he would like her for who she was.
The idea appealed to her.
It was as if she could erase—at least temporarily—the one thing she’d done that she was most ashamed of. The one thing that gave the absolutely wrong impression of her and of the person she truly was.
It was almost like having a clean slate. For a little while, anyway. And at this point, she thought, she should take what she could get.
So she didn’t tell him that she was one of the people he’d forgotten. That they’d spent the night together in Tulsa. She held her tongue and allowed herself to take advantage of an opportunity that maybe fate had offered her. Instead of telling him anything, she said, “Are the headaches from the concussion?”
“Yeah. The doctors say they’ll probably go away eventually, and they are getting better. But still, when one hits, I’m in a world of hurt.”
“I should go then, and let you rest. You’re probably wiped out after you’ve had one.”
“I’m fine,” he assured her again.
But Willow was so relieved, so thrilled that she hadn’t been just one of many unnoteworthy one-night stands that she almost felt giddy, and she was afraid it might show if she didn’t get out of there.
So she set her glass on the floor, too, and stood. “No, really, I should be going.” Then she screwed up her courage for the second time and said, “But if you want, we could do some furniture shopping tomorrow evening. After I close up the store.”
He stood again, too, pausing to smile down at her as if he liked not only the suggestion, but what he saw, as well. And it did fluttery, feminine things to her insides.
“You’d do that for me?” he asked in a flirty tone she remembered well.
“Sure. Just consider me Black Arrow’s welcoming committee,” she flirted back, surprising herself by how easily she’d fallen into it.
“You wouldn’t mind?”
She wouldn’t have minded even if she didn’t have a secret agenda. “No, honestly, I don’t mind.”
“That would be great, then. I really need a couple of tables—like a coffee table and maybe a kitchen table. I’m sick of standing at the counter to eat.”
“Good. Then it’s a date.”
Why had she said that? She could have kicked herself.
“Not a date date,” she amended in a rush. “I wasn’t asking you out or anything. I mean I’m not coming on to—”
“I know,” he said, stopping her before she made things any worse. Then he leaned slightly forward and confided, “It would have been okay even if you were.”
Willow was not a person who blushed. She’d grown up with four brothers, after all. She would never have survived if she had been overly sensitive. But she could feel her cheeks heating and she didn’t seem to be able to stop it.
And worse yet, she knew he was seeing it because his agile mouth stretched into an amused grin.
Unlike her brothers, he didn’t say anything about it, however. “When’s closing time? I’ll meet you at your store.”
“Six. Closing time is at six,” she managed to reply.
“Maybe after we’re finished shopping I could buy you dinner. As payment for your decorating services.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“How about if I just want to?” he said, a hint of a smile playing at the corners of his mouth.
“I guess that would be okay,” Willow conceded. “Nice, even.”
“Then it is a date.”
He was teasing her. She could see it in the sparkle in his eyes. In that quirk of his lips that let her know he was enjoying himself.
And then, from out of nowhere, Willow had a burst of memory from their night in Tulsa, and what hadn’t been clear in her mind before—how she’d gotten from the blues club to his room—became vivid.
It had started with a kiss. A good-night kiss he’d asked if he could have when he’d walked her outside after the club had closed and they were facing each other just the way they were at this moment. A simple good-night kiss that had lit a fire between them and gone on from there.
And in that instant Willow wondered if, were he to kiss her now, it would be as combustible.
But of course, he wasn’t going to kiss her.
She also knew it absolutely shouldn’t happen, even if it were a possibility. That she shouldn’t let it happen, since she was trying to amend the impression he would have of her if he could remember her.
But still she couldn’t help wondering…
“I’d better go,” she said more forcefully, heading for the front door. “Thanks for the tea.”
“Thanks for bringing the papers out,” he countered, following in her wake.
He reached the door in time to open it for her, and Willow went out onto the porch again, feeling oddly as if she’d just escaped something. Herself, probably.
“See you tomorrow,” she said as she kept on going down the porch steps to her truck.
“I’ll be there at six,” he called after her.
Willow missed the door handle on her first try and had to make a second attempt, hoping he didn’t realize why she was so flustered.
But it wasn’t a good sign that he was grinning again.
Be cool, she advised. Be cool.
Because Wyla would never have blushed or flubbed opening the car door, and Willow didn’t want to be a woman who did, either. She wanted to be smooth and self-confident and sure of herself, the way she had been that night in Tulsa.
The way she had been the first time Tyler had liked her.
That first time that he hadn’t just forgotten, that he actually had a medical reason for not remembering.
Which meant that he wasn’t a creep at all.
And that she wasn’t necessarily forgettable, either.
Chapter Three
“Hey.”
Willow looked up from the paperwork she was doing at her desk the next afternoon to see her oldest brother, Bram, standing in her office doorway.
“Hi,” she replied, setting down her pencil.
“Got a minute to spare for your favorite brother?”
“Sure.”
“I wanted to talk to you.”
“I already told you I didn’t rob that bank, Sheriff,” she joked.
Bram came in, closing the door behind him. “Don’t make fun,” he ordered.
But Willow knew he was only kidding. She and the rest of her brothers were proud of the fact that Bram was Black Arrow’s sheriff, and they’d made him aware of it.
Bram sat in one of the visitors chairs, leaned low in the seat and put his feet up on the corner of her desk.
“Anyone who puts their big clodhoppers up there has hell to pay with me,” Willow warned.
Bram was unperturbed. “Don’t make me come around there and give you a noogie to put you in your place.”
Noogies were what her brothers called it when they put her in a headlock and rubbed their knuckles on her skull.
His threat must have been more effective than hers because he grinned and left his feet where they were, and Willow didn’t do anything about it.
“Met Carl at the gas station last night,” her brother said then.
“Uh-huh.” Willow braced for what she knew was coming, since she’d already had this conversation with two of her other three brothers. Apparently Bram, Ashe and Logan had had breakfast this morning and discussed her, and if Jared hadn’t married and moved to Texas with his new wife, he would have been in the mix, too.
“Carl says something’s wrong with you,” Bram continued. “He thinks you’re sick or something.”
“And you reported it to the other Musketeers over breakfast,” Willow said. “Well, I’m not sick or anything. Just like I told Ashe and Logan when they called.”
But Bram wasn’t going to let it drop that easily. “Carl says he caught you sleeping at your desk. That you’re dragging your tail around here, and that you don’t even have the strength to move a feed sack.”
Willow had made a special call to her doctor to ask if it was all right for her to go on lifting the heavy bags of feed and grain that she’d always hoisted without a second thought before. The doctor had advised against it.
“I have the strength. I’m just trying to learn to delegate.”
Bram looked at her as if she were out of her mind.
“I know this comes as a surprise to you,” Willow said, “but I’m not a man. And I might want to have kids someday. Gloria always said I shouldn’t be lifting such heavy things or I was going to strain my insides, and I just thought maybe it was time to take that seriously.”
Bram laughed. “Right. You’re a delicate little daisy.” He was making fun.
“I didn’t say I was a delicate little daisy. But I’m also not one of the guys. And the guys around here can do the lifting. That’s what I pay them for.”
She hadn’t intended for that to come out so brusquely, but it had, and she hoped her brother might just let it pass.
No such luck.
“Geez! Don’t bite my head off,” he exclaimed. “That’s another thing Carl said—you’re not acting like yourself. I can see what he means. Touchy, touchy.”
Willow rolled her eyes.
“Carl says you’re always in the bathroom, and the other day when he came looking for you he was pretty sure you were in there throwing up.”
“Oh for crying out loud, I had the flu,” Willow said, as if it were nothing. “And what’s Carl doing counting how many times I’m in the bathroom?”
Bram ignored her question to ask one of his own. “Why didn’t you call one of us if you were sick?”
“Because I’m a big girl and I can take care of myself,” Willow said, exasperation ringing in her voice.
Her brother stared at her, his forehead creased in a frown, and Willow knew that she was not putting on a convincing defense.
She made a conscious effort to lighten her tone and said, “I appreciate that you care. You and the rest of the guys, and even Carl. But I can’t call you all every time I have a hangnail. I must have caught a bug of some kind, which was here and gone before it was worth talking about.”
“Are you sure?” Bram asked suspiciously.
“I’m positive. I’m fine.” Then Willow decided the best thing to do was to get him talking about something else, so she said, “Is that the only reason you came in here today?”
“No. I was coming in to talk to you anyway, and then I met Carl and he gave me another reason.”
“So what was the first reason?”
Bram went on staring at her for a moment longer, as if he wasn’t sure he should let her throw him off track.
Willow calmly waited him out, afraid that any more attempts to defend herself would be overkill and do more harm than good.
Apparently it worked, because he finally said, “I wanted to know if you’d seen anyone suspicious hanging around, or if you’ve had anybody asking questions about us.”
“Not that I know of. Why?”
“Some people say there’s a tall, skinny guy—homely with dirty brown hair—asking questions about our family.”
Willow shrugged. “That could be a lot of people we know. But no, I haven’t seen anyone fitting that description who we don’t know. Are you thinking this might be the same guy who broke into the newspaper office and set the fire at the town hall?”
Both were recent incidents that Willow knew Bram was investigating.
“Could be,” he answered noncommittally. “The guy is asking about Gloria and any kids or grandkids she might have had. Which brings me to my next point—have you gone through her room yet like I asked you to?”
Bram had been after Willow to do that for weeks now, ever since he’d been contacted by another stranger in town. Rand Colton, a visitor from Washington, D.C., had brought up the possibility that there might be a connection between his family and theirs. It had become Willow’s job to go through Gloria’s things to find out if there was any information their grandmother might have had about it. Willow knew Bram was particularly curious because on her deathbed, Gloria had implored him to find the truth, something he was still trying to figure out the meaning to. She couldn’t help wondering if this stranger had anything to do with that request.
“No, I haven’t gone through her room yet,” Willow admitted somewhat reluctantly. She was embarrassed at how long she’d been dragging her feet about it.
“I know it’s a tough thing to do,” Bram said, showing more understanding than he had about her not wanting to lift feed sacks. “Do you want me to do it?”
“No, I said I would and I will.”
“When?”
“Tomorrow. I’ll do it tomorrow,” she promised, knowing herself well enough to know that if she made a firm commitment she would follow through even though it was something she didn’t want to do.
Bram knew her, too, and didn’t need any further assurance. “Good. You may not find anything important or revealing, but we need to rule out the possibility. And who knows? There might be something up there that will help me figure out what’s going on.”
Willow nodded in spite of the knot her stomach twisted into at the prospect of going into her grandmother’s room, going through her things.
But her brother was satisfied.
Unfortunately, that meant he was ready to return to the previous subject.
“And you’re sure you’re okay?” he said.
“I’m sure. But if I come down with scurvy or rickets or green slime disease, you’ll be the first to know,” she joked, trying to cover up the uneasy feeling she had that her brother suspected the truth.
Bram gave her that hard stare again, but before it went on too long, there was a knock on the door. It opened at about the same time, and a strikingly pretty, blond-haired, blue-eyed head popped through the opening.
“It’s just me.”
“Me” was Jenna Elliot, and Willow saw her brother’s whole being light up instantly.
“Come on in,” Willow invited as Bram yanked his feet off her desk in a hurry and stood.
It didn’t take a genius to see how much he cared for Jenna, who had nursed their grandmother after the first stroke Gloria had suffered in July and gotten involved with Bram in the process.
“I got your message to meet you here,” Jenna said to Bram, her own face beaming with love for him in return.
To Willow, Bram said, “We’re going for coffee. Want to come with us?”
Coffee was the one thing that could make Willow nauseous even after the morning sickness had passed. Even the thought of it raised her gorge.
“Thanks, but I have work I need to finish up. Besides, you know you don’t want me horning in on you guys.”
Neither of them denied it; they merely exchanged a glance that verified that they couldn’t wait to be off alone.
But Jenna also seemed to have an attack of conscience about not really wanting Willow to tag along, because she said, “It seems like I haven’t seen you forever, though, Will. Think we could have lunch? Maybe Saturday?”
“As a matter of fact I’ve hired a few high school kids to come in Saturdays now, so I probably can sneak away for lunch.”
“Oh good. One o’clock at the coffee shop?”
“I’ll be there.”
Bram had stayed out of the exchange to that point. But then he said to Jenna, “Maybe you can get her to tell you what’s going on with her.”
“What’s going on with you?” Jenna asked Willow, surprised.
“Nothing. Carl is imagining things and telling tales out of school about it.”
Jenna looked from Willow to Bram, clearly confused and not thrilled at being put in the middle of whatever was going on between brother and sister.
“I’ll fill you in over our coffee,” Bram promised.
“There’s nothing to fill in,” Willow said.
But neither her brother nor her friend paid much attention to that.
Instead Bram placed a hand at the small of Jenna’s back to steer her toward the door again. “Let me know if you find anything tomorrow,” he said to Willow.
“I will.”
“And I’ll see you on Saturday,” Jenna added.
“One o’clock at the coffee shop.”
“See you later, delicate little daisy,” Bram said then in a near singsong, referring back to his earlier remark about her not lifting grain sacks.
Willow just made a face at him as he ushered Jenna out of the office.
It was difficult for Willow to return to work, because she knew she was about to be the topic of conversation between her brother and her friend, and it wreaked havoc on her concentration. She couldn’t help worrying that the more people thought about and talked about what was going on with her, the greater the chance that someone would guess her secret.
Willow took off work not long after Bram and Jenna left her office. She wanted to do some shopping for herself before her evening of furniture shopping with Tyler.
Ordinarily she bought most of her clothes out of catalogs, so the local boutique was not a place she frequented. In fact, her going into the place was such a change of pace that the owner and the clerk assumed she was there to buy a gift. Neither of them hid their shock very well when she informed them that she was looking for a few things for herself.
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