Willow in Bloom

by Victoria Pade

  “So you saw her in her pajamas,” Willow said teasingly to hide the fact that it raised a hint of jealousy in her.

  “Walked into that one, didn’t I?”

  “Why yes, you did.”

  “It’d be more incriminating if I’d seen her without the pajamas, though.”

  “True. It would have been worse if you’d said she had a frog tattoo somewhere not in plain sight.”

  But since the subject seemed to have been brought up, Willow seized the opportunity to pursue a question that had been niggling her.

  “You said that first time we talked in my office that you’d probably met more than your fair share of women on the rodeo circuit. I’ve been wondering ever since if that meant you had rodeo groupies.”

  His dimple flashed again. “One or two,” he answered, letting her know it was an understatement.

  “So many that they’re hard to remember, I’ll bet.” But she was hoping that wasn’t really the case.

  “There’s too many people hanging around every rodeo to remember them all. Even without a concussion. But if you’re askin’ if I had my way with too many women to remember, the answer is not anymore.”

  Not as good an answer as no.

  “Not anymore?” Willow repeated.

  “At the start, Brick and I were pretty young, and having women throw themselves at us, well, it was every boy’s dream. I have to admit we did some playin’.”

  “But only at the start?”

  “Only until we wised up and realized we were tired of shallow relationships.”

  “So how many unshallow relationships have you had?”

  “A couple.”

  “Two?”

  “Two that were long-term.”

  “Did either of them get you close to marriage?” She already knew he’d never been married; he’d told her that in Tulsa.

  “The first one broke up after four years because I wasn’t ready to settle down.”

  “And the second one?”

  “I was engaged to her, so that must mean I was close to getting married.”

  “What happened?”

  “Every time we’d so much as talk about setting a date we’d go into weeks of arguments rather than actually doing it. We finally figured out that neither of us was sure enough we wanted to spend the rest of our lives together to get married at all. And once you figure that out after you’ve already gotten close it’s hard to just go back to dating. We ended up going our separate ways.”

  “Do you think you’ll ever want to get married? Or have a family?”

  “Sure,” he answered, easily enough to sound convincing and relieve some of the anxiety that had been unconsciously building in Willow. “Why do you think I bought such a big house? My folks were happy and in love with each other right to the end. I’d like that for myself.”

  Something was going through his mind, though, because suddenly his expression turned slightly serious, slightly ruminative, and he seemed to look more intently at her. But Willow couldn’t tell what he was thinking.

  Then he said, “I guess sometimes it’s just hard to know who the right person might be.”

  “Oh, I don’t know. I’ve seen two of my brothers find the right people in just the last few months, and when it happened they knew.”

  Tyler nodded, but Willow still had the impression something was confusing him.

  But after a moment he let go of it and smiled at her in a softer, sexier way before he said, “I know I like being with you.”

  “Because I’m one of the guys?” she joked. It was something she’d heard too much in the past.

  “One of the guys? Not hardly.”

  His porch light had come on automatically at dusk, and in its soft glow he held her eyes with his. And in them she saw that he meant what he said, that unlike all but one other man she’d ever known, he viewed her only as a woman and that it didn’t cross his mind to consider her one of the boys.

  Then he raised his fingertips to her cheek, caressing it as if he couldn’t believe how smooth it was before he slid his hand to her chin to tilt it just so.

  He closed the distance between them and pressed his mouth to hers in a kiss that was warm and soft and gentle. And only a prelude.

  A prelude to a deeper kiss. To his arms coming around her and pulling her near enough to feel the hard wall of his chest. Near enough for her to wrap her arms around him as his lips parted and urged hers to part, too.

  A small portion of her wondered at how easily she could be swept up in that kiss. But mostly she just let herself go. She let her lips open, and welcomed his tongue with her own. She let her hands fill themselves with the ebb and flow of the honed muscles of his back. She let her head fall back, indulged in the clean scent of his aftershave and let her engorged breasts nudge his pectorals as she felt her nipples harden through the sheer lace of her bra and the light fabric of her sundress. She let everything about him engulf her just the way it had that night in Tulsa, when nothing had mattered but this—being in his arms and feeling the way he made her feel.

  But just then a sudden gust of wind swept in, bringing with it a cloud of dust to pummel them and interrupt what might have gone further than it should have.

  Tyler ended the kiss abruptly, shielding her from the barrage as best as he could. “Let’s go in,” he suggested in a voice deep with passion.

  But Willow knew that wasn’t wise. If they went in they would surely take up where they’d left off, and that might not be the best idea. Even if it was what she wanted all the way down to her toes.

  “I should be going,” she said instead. “It’s getting late.”

  Tyler didn’t argue, he just went on trying to shelter her from the wind whipping all around them as they stood and went to her truck.

  He opened the door for her, and Willow got in in a hurry, before she lost her resolve.

  But once she was safely behind the closed door and Tyler was leaning in through the open window she felt such a reluctance to go that she found herself inclined to tempt fate just to make sure she would see him again as soon as possible.

  “I hope I won’t be sorry for this. If you agree, I hope you won’t be sorry for this, either. But we’re having a barbecue tomorrow night. A family get-together, and everyone will be there—”

  “Translation—all of your brothers?”

  “Right. Even Jared is coming in from Texas for it. Anyway, if you’re feeling brave, would you like to come as my guest?”

  “Sure,” Tyler said without a qualm.

  “You don’t want to think it over?”

  He smiled. “I’m willing to wade through a few brothers to be with you.”

  “Good answer,” she said, meaning it.

  “What time shall I pick you up?”

  “Six? It’ll be at the family ranch. Actually, it’s Bram’s place.”

  “The sheriff.”

  “Right.”

  “Shall I wear a suit of armor?”

  “Do you have one?”

  He laughed again. “No, but I could see about renting one if you think I’ll need it.”

  “Maybe they’ll just play nice, since it’ll be a family get-together and you’ll be an invited guest. At least that’s what I’m hoping.”

  “Me, too,” Tyler said with yet another laugh. Then he aimed a warm, heart-meltingly devilish smile at her and said, “I’ll see you at six.”

  He leaned in through the window and kissed her again, this time quickly, but with enough heat to light fires inside her.

  And when he’d ended that one, it took Willow a moment to open her eyes and lower her chin in acceptance that that’s all there was.

  “Drive safe,” he ordered her, straightening up and stepping away from her truck.

  She could manage only a nod in response, so lost was she in trying to remember why she’d opted for going home, when what she wanted was to be back on that porch swing in his arms, being carried away by his kisses.

  But she started the eng
ine and put the truck in gear, waving as she drove off.

  Into the twilight with the taste of Tyler still on her lips, the feel of his arms still around her.

  And his baby within her to complicate it all unbelievably.

  Chapter Seven

  Tyler didn’t ordinarily hang out at truck stops. But that was where he was the next afternoon. Sitting in his own truck, parked outside the dinerlike facade of the restaurant there.

  For the first time since he’d moved to Black Arrow and been asking around, a conversation he’d had with a female clerk at the grocery store had garnered him the name of her roommate—a local woman who had been in Tulsa in mid-June.

  Candy Wood.

  She was a waitress at the truck stop just to the east of town, and, like the mystery woman, she apparently hadn’t been to the rodeo. She’d been in Tulsa to collect her belongings after a breakup with a boyfriend. Which, it seemed to Tyler, could also have led to a rash act like spending the night with a guy she’d met in a blues club.

  So, armed with this information, Tyler had left the grocery store and gone directly to the truck stop, thinking the whole way, This could be it….

  And yet, now that he was there, in close proximity to the person who might be the mystery woman, he didn’t rush inside.

  It wasn’t as simple as he’d expected it to be.

  Or maybe it wasn’t as simple as it would have been a week ago. Before he’d met Willow.

  His brother had thought he was crazy to make a major life decision based on what was little more than a hunch that if he settled in Black Arrow he’d come across the mystery woman again. Now that that might actually happen, and Tyler was reluctant to take the last few steps to potentially bring it about, Brick would think he was even crazier.

  But he was definitely reluctant.

  Because he wasn’t sure what would happen if Candy Wood was the mystery woman.

  Of course, what he was hoping would happen was that one sight of her would instantly bring back his memory—not only his memory of her and the night he’d spent with her, but of everything else he’d lost of that time frame shortly before the fall.

  But what concerned him was what else might happen.

  He’d felt driven to find the mystery woman, to know what there was about her that had left him so distracted on that ride the next day that he’d ended up cutting short his whole career. He’d had the sense that there had been an instant bond between them. An attraction so strong, so powerful, it was unlike anything he’d ever experienced. Unlike anything he might ever find again. He’d had the sense that whatever had happened that night before the ride, with the mystery woman, was important enough to pursue.

  But it was that very possibility that was tearing him up now. Because now there was Willow.

  And while a few days earlier, when he’d thought that as much as he liked Willow, it would never be completely all right if he didn’t find the mystery woman, now he wasn’t so sure about that. He wasn’t so sure Brick had been wrong when he’d said Tyler was putting too much weight on finding a woman he’d spent only one night with.

  In fact, as Tyler sat there, watching other people go in and out of the restaurant, he wasn’t so sure he even wanted to find the mystery woman. Not if it meant ruining things with Willow.

  After all, wasn’t there something to be said for a flesh and blood woman? A woman with luminous eyes and skin like satin and sugar-sweet lips?

  There was. There was a lot to be said for it. A lot to be said for Willow. For a woman as nice as Willow. As fun and funny as Willow. As kind and considerate as Willow. As deep-down sexy as Willow.

  Certainly there was a lot more to be said for her than for a phantom woman who could easily be left in the mists of a memory too elusive to grasp.

  “So let go of that other night and that other woman,” he suggested to himself.

  But even with his hand on the key, and with the intention of starting the engine and driving away, Tyler couldn’t make himself do that, either.

  If he didn’t go into that truck stop and come face-to-face with the person who could be the mystery woman, he knew he’d be left wondering. Forever wondering if Candy Wood was the woman he’d moved to Black Arrow to find. Forever wondering if meeting her face-to-face would have brought back his memory.

  No, he knew he had to go inside.

  Whether he wanted to or not.

  So, without much enthusiasm, Tyler pulled his keys from the ignition and finally got out of the truck.

  The restaurant was bustling when he went in, and he was glad about that. It allowed him some anonymity as he glanced around the place, surreptitiously scanning the name tags each waitress wore until he located one that said Candy.

  She was working the counter, and when a spot there opened up, Tyler took it.

  She didn’t come to wait on him immediately, so Tyler got the chance to get a good look at her before she saw him.

  She was cute, but in a brassy sort of way. Her hair was aggressively blond and cut almost as short as a man’s. Her eyes were big and brown, but shaded with too much blue shadow. She had full cheeks that were highlighted with slightly too much blush, and she wore lipstick as pink as bubble gum.

  But she also had a nice smile and a body made for sin, and Tyler could see why so many of her customers were intent on flirting with her.

  She approached him then, coffeepot in hand, and asked if he wanted a cup to start. He said he did, watching her all the while.

  Her eyes were more on what she was doing than on him—or anyone else, for that matter—so it didn’t strike him as strange that she didn’t have any kind of instant recognition of him even if she was the mystery woman.

  And Tyler was glad, because it gave him the opportunity to go on studying her, since no bells had gone off for him yet. In fact, she didn’t seem familiar to him at all, and he didn’t have a sudden return of any other memories, either.

  She took his order, looking at the pad she wrote it on rather than him, and then left to jam the paper onto the wheel that hung from the top of the window opening into the kitchen.

  Then she went on to tend to her other customers, and Tyler continued to study her.

  He tried hard to see something he recognized in the angle of her head when she turned it a certain way. To figure out if her laugh was familiar when she responded to something another waitress said. He tried hard to know if he’d ever seen that walk before, or anything else about her, for that matter.

  But there wasn’t so much as a glimmer of memory, and by the time she brought him his club sandwich, he decided maybe he ought to engage her in conversation to get her to actually take a look at him in case she might recognize him.

  “You wouldn’t have been in Tulsa recently, would you?” he asked as if she did look familiar to him.

  She finally glanced at his face. “As a matter of fact I was,” she said curiously. “I was there in June.”

  “Me, too. Did you get to see the rodeo that was there then?” he asked, testing.

  “I’m not into the cowboy thing.”

  “Ah. So what did you do there for fun?”

  “Nothing much.”

  “You didn’t even get one night out on the town? Say, at a blues club?” he prompted, even though it was becoming clear she didn’t know him.

  “I hate blues.”

  “And I don’t look like anyone you might have met when you were there?” he persisted, just to be sure.

  “I didn’t meet anyone there. I was with friends. And no, you don’t look like anyone I know,” she said decisively.

  Decisively enough to convince him.

  So she wasn’t the mystery woman.

  Tyler nodded. “My mistake.”

  “That’s okay. People are always thinkin’ I’m somebody else,” she said facetiously, as if it was a common pickup line.

  Then she left him to his food and his thoughts.

  It was strange, but if this had happened a week ago he probably would ha
ve come away from it feeling discouraged, dejected, and defeated.

  But now he only felt relieved.

  More than relieved, he actually felt good. Lighthearted and free. He felt as if he’d dodged a bullet.

  So what was he doing, chasing shadows when he didn’t really want to catch them? he asked himself.

  Okay, so he’d based the biggest decision of his life on the idea that meeting the mystery woman had been his destiny, and that it was still part of that destiny to find her again, to be with her.

  But what if that wasn’t the case? What if Willow was his destiny instead? What if his whole hunch about coming to Black Arrow was really destiny leading him to her?

  It was a surprisingly nice thought.

  Except for one thing.

  He’d also been convinced that finding the mystery woman would help him get his memory back. And if he stopped trying to find the mystery woman altogether, it also meant that he would be giving up the hope that the mystery woman would fill that gap for him.

  And that wasn’t something he was ready to do.

  On the other hand, what if he stopped actively looking for the mystery woman? What if he really did leave it up to fate and let himself relax about it?

  Hell, Brick and the doctors, too, had thought he’d be better off to do that from the start, to take the pressure off himself and just let things run their course. They’d thought he’d have a chance of regaining his memory by doing that alone.

  So what if he gave in to that theory?

  That felt okay, too. Maybe not quite as good as he’d felt when he’d realized Candy Wood wasn’t the mystery woman, but pretty good all the same.

  Because if he just left the future to fate, if he just let things run their course—including anything to do with the mystery woman—then he could also let things run their course with Willow.

  And if fate or destiny put the mystery woman in his path again? He’d just see where things stood with Willow when it happened, and how he felt about her, how he might feel about the mystery woman. And he’d just play it by ear.

  But in the meantime he wasn’t going to put himself through any more of the kind of misery he’d felt coming to this truck stop, he decided. He wasn’t going to do any more asking around about women who might have been in Tulsa in June.