Willow in Bloom

by Victoria Pade

  Willow took a few more steps to the side of the old wooden building and nodded in the direction of the long stretch of stairs that ran up its side to the second floor. “This is home, too. I live in the apartment upstairs,” she informed him. Then, surprising herself, she said, “Would you like to see it?”

  The minute the words were out she doubted their wisdom. But Tyler didn’t hesitate to take her up on it.

  “I probably should have checked it out before I hired you on as my decorator,” he teased. “But better late than never.”

  Willow still wasn’t sure this had been the best idea as she led Tyler up the stairs, but she was so happy he’d accepted the invitation that it didn’t seem to make any difference. She just kept thinking that maybe he’d wanted the evening to go on a little longer, too, and that that was a good sign.

  Passing through the door from the outside landing put them in her kitchen—a big, warm country kitchen painted white, but accented in the colors of autumn, with a round pedestal table at its heart and four cane-back chairs pushed in around it.

  “Would you like some coffee or tea or a drink or a soda?” she offered as Tyler came in behind her and closed the door.

  “No, thanks. Just your company will be enough.”

  Willow wondered if simple, flirtatious statements like that gave other women the same warm rush they gave her. But one way or another his comment did give her a warm rush.

  She just didn’t know what to say in response, and that left her stammering slightly. “Oh. Okay. Well. As you can tell, this is the kitchen,” she said, hating that she sounded so nervous. “And on the other side of that half counter is the living room. We can sit in there if you want.”

  “That’d be nice,” he said, an edge of amusement in his tone.

  He waited for her to lead the way into the other large, open room, and Willow did just that.

  “There isn’t much to see from here,” she continued. “Two bedrooms and a bath are through that archway. Well, two baths, actually. There’s a tiny bathroom in my bedroom, but the main one is there in the hall. In case…” Was she actually suggesting he go to the bathroom? Tension had taken her too far.

  But Tyler didn’t seem to think anything of it. He only glanced in that direction before taking in her russet-colored plaid sofa and matching love seat, her claw-footed oak coffee table, the oak entertainment center and the antique desk in the corner where the walls were wainscoted, paneled with tongue-and-groove pine and topped with a hand-carved chair rail.

  “This is very homey,” he concluded. “I like it.”

  Saved, Willow thought, putting some effort into regaining her composure. “It’s small compared to your place, but it serves my purposes,” she said.

  “Do you have a roommate?”

  “No. I moved in here with my grandmother a few years ago, but we lost her to a stroke last month.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Willow nodded, appreciating his condolences. But her grandmother’s death was not something she wanted to talk about, so she motioned toward the seating arrangement and said, “Why don’t you make yourself comfortable.”

  He did, choosing the sofa, where he sat in the middle and rested both arms along the back. He also stretched out his long legs, crossing them at the ankles under the coffee table.

  And Willow had the oddest urge to join him on that couch, to curl up like a cat against his side.

  But she fought the urge and instead sat on the love seat, which stood at a ninety degree angle to the sofa.

  “So how many of those brothers-who-don’t-want-to-pick-out-their-own-socks are there?” Tyler asked then, referring to her earlier comment at the furniture store.

  “Four. Bram, Jared, Ashe and Logan. Bram is the sheriff here, which is fitting, because he’s always felt responsible for looking after and taking care of everyone. It’s what he did—along with my grandmother and my great-grandfather—after our parents died.”

  And Willow wasn’t sure why she’d offered so much information. Except that seeing Tyler there on her couch and feeling the stirrings she shouldn’t be feeling were causing a renewed tension in her, and maybe she was overcompensating.

  “When did your folks die?” Tyler asked, obviously unaware of the inner turmoil he was unwittingly causing her.

  “When I was sixteen. In a plane crash.”

  “So you’ve lost your parents and now your grandmother, too. What about the great-grandfather you mentioned?”

  “He’s alive and well. Retired, of course, but we’re lucky to still have him. He started the Feed and Grain originally.”

  “Does he live in Black Arrow?”

  “He does. Not far from here. He’d never leave.”

  “Were you born and raised in Black Arrow, or did you come here after the plane crash?”

  “My brothers and I were all born and raised here.”

  “And what gives you that incredible tan skin?” Tyler asked, studying her with an admiration that sent that warm rush through her a second time.

  But she worked to ignore it and merely answered his question. “My skin color comes from Comanche blood on both sides of the family.”

  “So you’re full-blooded Comanche?”

  “No, my grandmother on my dad’s side—the one who just passed away—married a Caucasian man. No one in the family ever met him, because my grandmother married him when she lived in Reno in her younger years, and he died shortly after. But he was white, which means my dad was half-Caucasian. So I’m not completely Native American.”

  “But enough to give you skin like smooth sandstone.”

  Skin that she could feel blushing yet again.

  Maybe Tyler saw it, because he smiled a small, secret smile before he said, “And are all of these brothers of yours older?”

  “All of them,” Willow confirmed.

  “How was that—growing up with four older brothers?” he asked, that secret smile broadening just enough to give a hint of that dimple in his left cheek.

  “I think you’re guessing how it was,” she said, not intending it to sound so coy.

  “I’m guessing it was tough. I know that if my brother and I had had a younger sister we would have teased her unmercifully.”

  “Unmercifully.”

  “And we would have been vigilant about keeping guys from coming anywhere near her.”

  “Vigilant.”

  Tyler’s smile widened even more as he looked over both shoulders in mock fear. “So should I be worried about one of them popping out of the woodwork to scare me away?”

  Willow laughed. “I wouldn’t be surprised.” Although it was on the tip of her tongue to say that her brothers had only ever scared away suitors, so if Tyler wasn’t one of those, he was safe.

  But she didn’t say that, because she liked the allusion he’d made that a suitor was actually what he was.

  Instead she said, “Carl is good friends with all of my brothers and has probably already alerted the troops that I was seeing you tonight. So, seriously, don’t be shocked if one or more of them puts some effort into meeting you to check you out.”

  That was a friendly warning, just as she’d intended it to be. But Tyler didn’t seem perturbed.

  “Great. I’d like to meet them,” was all he said.

  “You might not feel that way once you do.”

  “Why? I like their sister. Why wouldn’t I like them?”

  That tripled the warm rush running through her. Especially since the comment wasn’t offhand, but it was said with a bit of innuendo that made it carry more weight.

  Still, Willow felt obliged to let him know what he might be in for. “My brothers can be pretty intimidating.”

  “More intimidating than a bucking bronco or a wild bull?”

  “Maybe. You never had to ride four at once, did you?”

  He laughed, still unfazed. “Are you telling me that you have four redneck brothers who might jump me for taking their sister out to dinner?”

  �
��Well, only three of them are actually in town, and I wouldn’t consider them rednecks, no. They’d never jump you, either. But like I said, don’t be too shocked if the three who are around here arrange to cross your path.”

  “I think I can handle that.”

  But maybe he wasn’t as sure as he sounded, because he chose that moment to stand and say, “I should probably call it a night now, though. It’s getting late.”

  Willow felt a surge of disappointment. But she could hardly tell him she didn’t want him to go, so she stood, too.

  Tyler retraced his steps through the kitchen to the outside door, pausing once he had his hand on the knob. By then Willow had joined him to see him out.

  But he didn’t leave immediately. Instead he turned to look at her again. “So what do folks around here do for entertainment on Friday nights?” he asked.

  Willow shrugged. “A couple of things. The movie house is usually busy. So is the Wild and Wooly—that’s a bar that has live music on Friday and Saturday nights. Although more people go there on Saturday night than Friday. And now and then there’s something else going on—for instance, maybe you didn’t see the flyers up around town, but there’s a carnival being set up about a mile outside the city limits. That’ll be a big draw.”

  “A carnival, huh? Would you care to go with me?”

  Another woman would probably have seen that coming. But Willow hadn’t. Particularly not when she’d thought the mention of her brothers had sent Tyler running like many before him.

  “Are you asking me out on a date?” she heard herself say before she realized she was going to.

  “Why do you sound so surprised? That’s what tonight felt like even if that isn’t what you wanted to call it last night.”

  She hadn’t wanted to call tonight a date because she hadn’t been too sure he’d go if she had. And because she wasn’t altogether comfortable being the one to do the asking.

  But this time she wasn’t doing the asking. He was.

  And she was entirely too happy about it.

  She tried to keep her enthusiasm out of her voice. “That would be nice,” she said simply. “But I can’t promise my brothers won’t be there.”

  Tyler only smiled a confident smile and leaned slightly forward to confide, “I’m okay with brothers. Even three or four of them.”

  That made Willow smile, too. Probably more widely than she should have.

  “All right.”

  “I’ll pick you up around eight—how’s that?”

  “Fine.”

  Was she beaming? She felt as if she were. And nothing she did could keep that big grin off her face.

  Except that suddenly something in the air between them changed, turning more intimate somehow. And Willow’s grin relaxed as she began to think about kissing again.

  Only unlike the previous evening, she was not thinking about what it had been like to have him kiss her in Tulsa that night in June.

  She was thinking about Tyler kissing her now.

  She was wanting Tyler to kiss her now.

  She was thinking that maybe he was thinking and wanting the same thing…

  On its own, her chin tilted slightly. On their own her eyes went to his. Warm, emerald-green eyes that seemed to wrap her in their gaze. That seemed to come a little closer. A little closer still.

  And Willow waited.

  She held her breath.

  She felt as if her blood had stopped flowing in her veins.

  She thought time might actually be standing still.

  And she was so sure he was going to kiss her….

  But he didn’t.

  He pulled back, stood straight again and said, “Thanks for your help with the furniture.”

  It took Willow a moment to come to her senses before she could grasp what he was saying, that he was saying anything at all and not kissing her.

  But when she did she put a valiant effort into appearing as if she hadn’t been anticipating more than that.

  “I was happy to do it,” she said, sounding overly bright, overly solicitous. Then she added, “Thanks for dinner.”

  “My pleasure,” he responded, as if it really had been.

  Again his eyes locked on to hers.

  And again thoughts of him kissing her flashed through Willow’s mind.

  But only fleetingly, before Tyler glanced away and opened the door.

  “Tomorrow night. Eight o’clock,” he repeated.

  “I’ll be here.”

  “I’ll be looking forward to it.”

  Then he said good-night and so did she, and he left.

  And Willow felt considerably deflated as that disappointment that had begun when he’d started to leave grew to even greater proportions.

  But it was for the best that he hadn’t kissed her, she told herself.

  She’d jumped into bed with him in Tulsa without a second thought, and jumping into anything else with him now was not what she wanted to do.

  She wanted him to get to know the real Willow Colton, and the real Willow Colton would not have been falling into the arms of a man she’d just met, a man she’d asked out in the first place. A man she’d just gone shopping with, the way any two friends might.

  “So it was for the best that he didn’t kiss you,” she said aloud, as if thinking it hadn’t been enough to convince her, and maybe hearing it would be.

  But it wasn’t.

  Because as she padded off to her bedroom, she still didn’t feel convinced.

  She just felt unkissed.

  Chapter Four

  Tyler’s new furniture was delivered first thing the following morning, and by eleven he was sitting at his desk in the den trying to figure out how much feed to order from Willow.

  But he was having trouble concentrating.

  No matter how hard he tried, he just couldn’t seem to keep his mind on Willow’s feed. Instead, it was Willow herself he kept thinking about.

  He’d had a great time with her the night before. And for him, having a great time shopping was nothing less than a miracle.

  But actually, it had been Willow who had done the shopping, and he’d mostly just watched her. Which was why he’d had such a good time.

  She’d taken pains to study each piece of furniture, and that had given him the chance to study her. To watch the signs of approval or disapproval, of pleasure or displeasure, play across that flawless face, brighten those dove-gray eyes, turn the corners of her full lips up or down.

  That he’d liked.

  He’d liked all the views of her as she’d taken in all the views of the furniture. The back view of that terrific tush, which had just the right amount of curve to it. The side view of breasts that were not too big, not too small. The full-on front view of long legs, curvy hips and narrow waist.

  That he’d liked.

  He’d also liked watching her try out the furniture. The way she’d sat so gingerly in one of the overstuffed chairs, then wiggled around a little until she was as cozy as she might be sitting in it on a cold winter’s night in front of a fire.

  He’d definitely liked that.

  Oh, yeah, shopping with Willow was a whole lot better than shopping any other way he’d ever been shopping before. And it had set the stage for the rest of the evening. For dinner with her. For walking around town with her. For going up to her apartment with her. It had all been more fun because he’d been with her.

  Because what he really liked was Willow.

  And that was pretty much the rub.

  He’d come to Black Arrow to find something he’d lost—his mystery woman and the memories that went with her. And he wasn’t doing that if he was with Willow.

  Sure, he was getting out when he was with her. He was meeting other people, seeing faces in the distance—any one of whom might be the woman he was looking for, the woman who could jog his memory and bring everything back for him.

  But the problem was that when he was with Willow he was with Willow. So completely that he wasn’t thinki
ng about anyone else, wasn’t noticing anything else and certainly wasn’t focusing elsewhere.

  Which meant that, even if he did come across his mystery woman while he was out with Willow, his mystery woman might not register the way he hoped she would. The way she might if he came face-to-face with her without Willow.

  So being out with Willow could actually be detrimental to his goal.

  But still he’d asked to see her tonight.

  Because there he’d been the night before, in Willow’s living room, knowing it was getting late and he should leave, but not wanting to. Not wanting their time together to end. Not wanting to go without knowing when he might see her again.

  And out had popped the words to make sure he would see her again. Tonight.

  But ever since then he’d been wondering what the hell he was doing.

  Spending time with Willow was time not spent looking for his mystery woman. Which was the main reason he’d come to Black Arrow in the first place.

  Plus he wasn’t sure if he was being unfair to Willow when he was supposed to be looking for his mystery woman. When he hadn’t given up the ghost of his mystery woman. When Willow didn’t know there was a mystery woman…

  Tyler raised his arms into the air and stretched until his back cracked, realizing he wasn’t doing anything productive by staring at the figures he’d put on paper. Figures he wasn’t even sure were right, since the entire time he’d been trying to work through them, his mind had been on other things.

  Like the way Willow’s coal-black hair fell around her shoulders in a silken curtain. Like how much he wanted to run his hands through that hair. How much he’d wanted to find out for himself if it felt as smooth and sleek as it looked. How much he’d wanted to play with it, bury his face in it….

  Maybe his mind had been more than half on other things. Things like how much he’d wanted to cup her lovely face in his palms. To bring her closer. Close enough to get a better idea of how sweet she smelled. Close enough to kiss her good-night…

  And what had he been doing, even considering kissing her good-night? he demanded of himself. If he was on the lookout for another woman he sure as hell shouldn’t have been thinking about kissing Willow.

  But that’s what he’d been doing.