Willow in Bloom

by Victoria Pade

  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.

  They recovered fairly quickly, though, and then pounced on her like hungry tigers attacking fresh meat.

  Still, it served her purposes.

  By the time Willow left she had several new outfits, with shoes to match. She also had chopsticklike things to put in her hair—if she could twist it up the way the salesgirl had shown her—plus mascara, blush and a lipstick that was not quite as dark as the one she’d worn in Tulsa, but a good color for her just the same.

  She didn’t even care that the clothes wouldn’t fit soon and would probably be out of style when she could wear them again. She was only thinking of the here and now, and here and now she wanted a few things that would make her feel more like Wyla.

  With bags in hand, she returned to the Feed and Grain, made sure everything was going smoothly, and went up to her apartment to change so she would be ready well in advance of six o’clock. She didn’t want Tyler guessing that she’d done all this just for a simple evening of picking out tables. He might suspect how eager she was to see him again, and she definitely didn’t want that.

  She didn’t even want to admit it to herself.

  Truthfully, she didn’t know what she hoped would come of this plan to let him get to know her. It wasn’t as if she had some fantasy that he would spontaneously regain his memory, pull her into his arms and pledge his undying love for her on the spot.

  She guessed what she was really after was just recollection, plus an amiable relationship with him, so that then she could make up her mind about whether or not to tell him he was going to be a father.

  That seemed reasonable enough.

  But if Tyler remembering her and feeling friendly toward her were all she wanted, why had she been counting the hours until she got to see him again? Why was her stomach aflutter at the simple prospect? Why had she bought a push-up bra, of all things?

  Maybe it was just ego, she thought as she stepped out of her second shower of the day and dried off.

  Certainly her ego had taken a hit when she realized that Tyler had forgotten her. And even now, knowing that a medical condition had caused his lapse in memory, there was still a residual bruise to her self-esteem.

  It wasn’t rational. But in spite of pointing out that irrationality to herself, in spite of telling herself she wasn’t the only thing he’d forgotten, Willow still felt bad that he had forgotten her and that night in Tulsa. Somehow it seemed as if she and their night together should have made such an indelible impression that not even a concussion and a coma could have wiped them out.

  So ego was probably at the root of her eagerness to see him again, she decided. Just plain ego. Which meant that she was more eager for him to see her than for her to see him, and not so attracted to him that she couldn’t wait to be with him again.

  “And you’re a big fat liar,” she said to her reflection in the mirror when she went to take stock of how she looked. She’d foregone wearing the push-up bra, but had put on a slightly low-cut, figure-hugging white V-neck T-shirt and the formfitting navy blue slacks she’d bought earlier.

  Okay, so this whole mini-makeover and her eagerness to see Tyler again were not merely bandages to her self-esteem, she conceded as she delved into the mysteries of mascara and blush. She was attracted to the man. Why else would she have gotten carried away in Tulsa?

  But it didn’t mean anything. It didn’t mean she thought they were going to end up together or anything. It didn’t even mean that that was what she wanted.

  It just meant that he was a terrific looking guy who made her feel like a woman.

  Who made her feel like a woman…

  That thought hung in her mind as if it had some special magic.

  Was it also possible that feeling like a woman around Tyler Chadwick played a role in this whole eagerness thing?

  Maybe.

  And that possibility made something else occur to her.

  Her great-grandfather, George WhiteBear—an old Native American who still practiced many of the old traditions—always claimed to have visions. And he’d told her not long ago that she would blossom and bloom during the brightest of midnights.

  After finding out she was pregnant, she’d assumed that the pregnancy was the blossoming and blooming. But now she wondered if it might have meant something else, too. If it might have meant that
she would finally be blossoming and blooming into womanhood.

  And maybe this whole thing with Tyler was a part of that. Maybe it was her first real chance to relinquish the tomboyishness that had been a natural result of growing up with four brothers. Maybe Tyler was giving her an excuse to finally step out into the world as a woman.

  “Or maybe he just has the best face, body and butt you’ve ever seen,” she exclaimed to her reflection in the mirror.

  But as she ran a brush through her hair and carefully applied the new lipstick, she decided she was eager to see him for all those reasons.

  Yes, Tyler Chadwick was a drop-dead gorgeous guy. Yes, he had a body to die for. Yes, she’d liked him in Tulsa and had been attracted enough to him to sleep with him.

  But her ego had taken a blow when he hadn’t remembered her—no matter what the reason—and she would like it if she could stir that memory.

  And yes, it was time for her to break free of her tomboy persona and finally become the woman she was, too. It was probably long past time for that.

  “I never thought furniture shopping could be so complicated,” she said facetiously to herself.

  But then, since meeting Tyler Chadwick, everything seemed to have gotten more complicated.

  And she wasn’t too sure if it would ever get uncomplicated again. In fact, she didn’t know how it could when, in less than seven months, she would bring a baby into the picture.

  But that prospect and the even greater complications it would bring were not things she could think about right now. So she put them on a back burner mentally.

  No, right now she had enough to deal with—beginning with this evening. And that was what she had to focus on.

  First things first.

  So Willow took a deep breath and gave herself a final once-over in the mirror, deciding she hadn’t done too bad a job at feminizing herself, while still maintaining a semblance of her own style.

  And since that was the case, and she was determined to take things one step at a time, she slipped her feet into a pair of sandals and left her apartment, heading down the staircase that led into the store.

  “Willow? Is that you?”

  Carl was bringing a sack of chicken chow from the storeroom as she came down the steps.

  “Of course it’s me,” she said, as if the question were ridiculous.

  “Doesn’t look like you,” he countered.

  “Good,” she said defiantly, offering no explanations as she went straight to her office, hopefully to get the tension she was suddenly overwhelmed with to ease up before Tyler got there.

  Tyler Chadwick who was only incidental to her blossoming and blooming as a woman, she assured herself.

  Although thinking of the incredible Tyler Chadwick as incidental to anything was a little hard to buy….

  Willow was watching for Tyler when he walked through the Feed and Grain’s front door.

  Unfortunately, it was exactly when Carl was about to walk out of it.

  “Sorry, Tyler, but we’re closed. Can you come back tomorrow?” Carl said in greeting.

  “That’s okay. I’m not here to buy anything. I’m here for Willow,” Tyler informed him matter-of-factly.

  It gave Carl pause, though. He looked from Tyler to Willow, and then his eyes widened as if the light had just dawned.

  And if Willow had had any hope of her brothers not finding out immediately that she was spending the evening with Tyler Chadwick, that hope flew out the window right then and there. She had no doubt that Bram would be hearing about this within the next fifteen minutes, and word would spread from there to her other brothers.

  But somehow she didn’t care.

  One glance at Tyler made everything else seem to fade into unimportance. Even the tension she felt about being with him again, about the course she’d set for herself, about everything that was going on, took a back seat to how happy she was that this moment she’d thought so much about, looked so forward to, had arrived.

  Carl muttered a simple, “Oh,” in response to the news that Tyler was there to see Willow. “Well, have a nice evening,” he added, then left. But not without another confused glance at Willow—a glance she ignored.

  Then Carl was gone, and Tyler turned his full attention to her.

  “Hi,” he said with a mile-wide grin that convinced her he was genuinely glad to see her.

  “Hi,” Willow answered, her voice more breathy than she would have liked.

  She was standing in front of the checkout counter, only a few feet from where he’d stopped just inside the door. So she had a clear view of him.

  She couldn’t be sure, but she thought he might have dressed up a little for tonight, too. He had on a sunny yellow Western shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, a pair of tan twill jeans that fit him just the way jeans were meant to, and cowboy boots that made him a full five inches taller than she was.

  His hair was clean and spiky, his face was freshly shaved, and he smelled as wonderful as mountain air after a spring rain.

  All in all it was a heady package, and for a long moment Willow just drank it in.

  Much the way he seemed to be drinking in the sight of her.

  “You look good tonight. Too good for furniture shopping,” he said then, the appreciation in his voice and in his expression crystal clear.

  “Thank you,” Willow murmured, fighting yet another of those rare blushes. But it pleased her no end that he’d noticed, that he liked what he saw, and that he was giving her a compliment any man might give a woman, and doing it without the shock Carl had shown. Without the shock her brothers would have shown if they’d been there.

  But as much as it pleased her, it also embarrassed her. Wanting to get past it as soon as possible, she said, “How’s your head?”

  “Fine. No headaches today.”

  “So you’re up for some shopping?”

  “As soon as you can get away,” Tyler confirmed.

  “Oh, I can get away. I just need to lock the door when we leave.”

  “Great. Then let’s do it.”

  A tiny shiver of remembered delight ran up her spine at the thought of “doing it” with him, and Willow was glad it was not a response he could see.

  But thoughts like that were the last thing she needed, and she willed herself to keep her mind on the straight and narrow.

  “We can walk just about everywhere, unless you don’t feel like it,” Willow said as Tyler opened the store’s door again and waited for her to join him.

  He chuckled slightly as she went out. “I’m fully recovered from the fall, if that’s what you mean,” he informed her. “I was pretty banged up for a while, but I’m known for bouncin’ back fast. I just get these damn—uh, these headaches now and then, but it isn’t as if I’m weak or anything.”

  Willow shot him a glance as he followed her out onto the sidewalk, realizing that her comment had been silly. All anyone had to do was look at the hard muscles that bulged against his shirt, at the thick thighs encased in his pant legs, at the robust health that emanated from him, to know he was more than capable of walking miles.

  “Okay, then we’ll walk,” she said simply.

  “Good. And maybe after we do the shopping and have dinner, you can give me the nickel tour of Main Street. I was thinking that you were just the person to give me the ins and outs of how Black Arrow works.”

  “Sure, I’d be happy to,” she said, thrilled to know that he had thought of a way to prolong their time together before it had even begun.

  The furniture store was only about three blocks farther down Main Street, and Willow and Tyler were the only customers when they got there.

  As they shopped, they settled easily into a routine. Tyler told Willow in general terms what he needed—a coffee table, a kitchen set, a couple of chairs for his living room, and a desk and chair for his den—and then he basically left it to her to choose the pieces.

  “This is what I like,” she said at one point. “But is it what you
like?”

  They were standing in front of a pair of overstuffed chairs upholstered in a light-brown fabric imprinted with a pattern that looked like duck feet, and she thought it would go well with his sofa.

  Tyler only laughed at her question. “You’re talking to a guy who went from home to hotel and motel rooms and a furnished apartment. If it doesn’t have any stains or holes, it looks good to me.”

  “You’re as bad as my brothers. They won’t even pick out their own socks,” Willow said, rolling her eyes.

  But she made Tyler at least sit in the chairs before they were added to the order that was to be delivered to him the following day.

  Closing time had come and gone when they finally finished, and Tyler left it to Willow to choose where to have dinner, too. But that wasn’t because he didn’t know anything about food. It was because, being new to town, he didn’t know what their options were.

  They ended up at the Pizza Parlor, a small restaurant complete with checkered tablecloths, candles in Chianti bottles and a jukebox that kept the noise level too high to talk about much more than what other restaurants and take-out places Tyler might want to try in the future.

  It was dark when they’d polished off their pizza and stepped back out onto Main Street.

  Streetlamps had come on to keep the town’s primary thoroughfare brightly lit, and already there was a sleepy quality to Black Arrow.

  Willow was glad that she and Tyler were nearly the only people on the street as they strolled along, so that she could point out where Tyler would need to go to renew his driver’s license or to mail a package, where to get the best deal on new tires for his truck or to have his dry cleaning done.

  She also peppered her advice with little details about the owners and operators of the businesses around town, including some tidbits of gossip.

  And then they’d come full circle, back to the Feed and Grain, and she discovered in herself a full-blown disappointment that it brought the evening to a natural conclusion.

  “I’ll take you home if you tell me where home is,” Tyler offered when they approached the store.