Willow in Bloom

by Victoria Pade

  “—don’t have them—”

  The arm pressed harder, squeezing off her airway even more. “Don’t be stupid. Just tell me where they are.”

  Tiny flickers of light flashed before her eyes and she thought she was going to pass out.

  “—locked away…bank—”

  There was pressure in her head. Ringing in her ears. Pain behind her eyes.

  “Please…” she said as strongly as she could. “I can’t breathe.”

  Then all at once something exploded behind her with a jolt that knocked her forward, free of the vice-like arm.

  Willow gasped for breath, belatedly realizing that the man hadn’t just released her, that there was more going on.

  She turned and found Tyler pinning the man to her kitchen floor, one knee in the middle of his back, one hand wrenching up on the arm that had been around her neck, his other hand pressing the man’s face into her linoleum.

  “Are you all right?” Tyler demanded of her, his tone intense.

  “I think so,” she said in a feeble, raspy voice.

  “Then get your brother over here before I make this guy sorry he was ever born.”

  The man was Kenny Randolph. Willow recognized him from the night she’d seen Bram talking to him after the carnival.

  Once she’d called her brother, Tyler insisted she wait for Bram outside, where she was safe, while he kept Randolph restrained in her kitchen.

  Bram and two of his deputies arrived fifteen minutes after her call. As the deputies went up to her apartment, Bram stayed with Willow, making sure she was all right and then asking what had happened.

  Willow kept her arms wrapped around herself the whole time she gave her statement. It was the only way she could keep her hands from shaking, and she didn’t want her brother to see that they were.

  Then the deputies brought Randolph out, followed close behind by Tyler, and as Bram helped to put Randolph in one of the patrol cars, Tyler joined Willow.

  Without a word he enveloped her in his strong arms and pressed her head to his chest, apparently not caring what his actions might set off in her brother.

  And at that moment Willow didn’t care, either.

  She just let herself drink in the comfort of Tyler’s big, solid body, because that hug was exactly what she needed.

  “Are you okay?” he asked quietly, his breath a tiny gust in her hair.

  “Thanks to you.”

  “I came upstairs and couldn’t figure out why you hadn’t turned on a light. Then, just as I got to the screen door, I saw you. You and that son of a…that guy.”

  “It’s a good thing we didn’t go in together,” she said, her cheek still pressed to his pectorals.

  “Your place is pretty torn up. He must have been ransacking it for a while before we got there,” Tyler said, as if to warn her before she saw the place lighted.

  “He was looking for something—documents I found the other day, which my grandmother left. We’ve inherited a trust fund and some sort of property in Washington, D.C., and he wanted the papers to prove it. He wanted me to hand them over to him. But I didn’t have them to give him. Bram took them to put in the safe at the bank.”

  “Word leaked that you’d found the deed, but not that the papers were out of your hands, which was just what I was afraid of.”

  It was Bram’s voice filling in that detail. He was close enough to have heard them talking, even though Willow hadn’t known her brother had rejoined them.

  She didn’t want to leave Tyler’s arms, but she raised her head from his chest anyway and moved away from him.

  And when she did she found her brother with a dark scowl on his face, whether because of the events of the evening or because of Tyler, she couldn’t be sure.

  “That’s why I wanted you to come to my place to stay,” Bram added.

  “At least you have him in custody now,” Willow reasoned. “Maybe you’ll be able to get to the bottom of everything else.”

  Bram still didn’t look happy.

  But even so he angled his gaze toward Tyler and said, “Thanks for doing what you did.”

  Tyler waved it off as if he hadn’t done anything. “I’m just glad I was here.”

  It didn’t seem as if Bram wanted to go quite that far. Instead he looked at Willow again and said, “You’d better come home with me. Your place is a wreck.”

  Willow shook her head, thinking as she had when her brother had wanted her to stay with him before that her morning sickness would be a dead giveaway if she did. “The real danger is over. I’ll be fine here. But how did Randolph get in?”

  “Through the back door to the store. Looks like he jimmied open the lock with a crowbar. One of my men boarded it up. We’ll have to get it fixed in the morning. But that’s another reason not to stay here tonight.”

  Willow still wouldn’t agree, and with Kenny Randolph and both deputies waiting for him, Bram couldn’t argue for long. He finally had to concede.

  “I’ll send a patrol car by here every twenty minutes all night long,” he said then. “But if you get nervous, just call and I’ll come get you.”

  “I will,” she assured him, without much conviction.

  Bram thanked Tyler again and left, but not without a backward glance at the two of them, as if he wasn’t any more pleased to be leaving Willow alone with Tyler than to be leaving her alone at all.

  Once they had watched Bram and the deputies drive off, Tyler said, “Come on. I’ll help you clean up.”

  Willow knew she should decline the offer. Tyler had done enough. But since the last thing she wanted was to go up to that apartment by herself, she said a simple, “Thanks,” of her own and led the way back up the stairs.

  She was surprised to find herself reluctant to go in when she got to the landing, though. Suddenly she had a flash of what had happened, of stepping through the door and being grabbed from behind.

  Maybe her fear showed on her face, because as she stood there staring at the door rather than going through it, Tyler took her hand and said, “It’s okay now, but let’s go in together, anyway.” And then he opened the screen and went in first.

  In the commotion, Willow hadn’t realized just what a mess her apartment was. But that initial glance around shocked her.

  The ice cream had opened when she’d dropped it, splattering everywhere and then melting into a puddle. Cupboard doors were open and shelves spilled their contents. Drawers were pulled completely out of their slots. Her pantry looked as if it had suffered an avalanche.

  And apparently that was only the beginning, because when she looked out into the living room she could see furniture upturned, pillows and cushions everywhere, tables tossed aside, lamps on their sides on the floor, even one curtain rod pulled from the wall and left hanging at half-mast.

  Again Tyler must have seen how overwhelmed she was, because he squeezed her hand and said, “It looks worse than it is. We’ll get it all put back together in no time.”

  Then he let go of her, high-stepped over the debris in the kitchen and went into the living room to prove it by setting to work righting her sofa and replacing the cushions.

  It still took Willow a moment to gather her wits, but when she finally did she started on the ice cream mess. When that was cleaned up she went on to replacing drawers and what was in them.

  She moved as if through a haze, trying not to think about the stranger who had been in her apartment, who had gone through her things, who had terrified her. And before too long she and Tyler managed to do exactly what he’d promised—they’d put the place back together.

  The only problem was that once that was finished Willow was left with the prospect of Tyler leaving. Of really being alone there.

  And she realized that her brother had been right, it wasn’t a good thing.

  “I don’t have any ice cream to offer, but would you like a glass of iced tea?” she said then, feebly looking for any excuse to get Tyler to stay a little longer.

  “No, that’s
okay. I’m not thirsty. But I am worrying about leaving you tonight.”

  Willow laughed a small, uncertain laugh. “I’m worrying a little about that myself.”

  “Why don’t I stay then? On the couch,” he was quick to add. “I know I’d feel a lot better.”

  So would she. And while she knew she should decline that offer, too, she thought that under the unusual circumstances of the evening, maybe just this once she could admit to her own temporary weakness and give in to what would make her feel better, as well.

  “Would you hate that a lot?” she asked with a small smile.

  “Sleeping on your couch? I’ve slept in worse places. And to tell you the truth, I don’t see myself resting if I’m not here tonight.”

  “Then I’m going to take you up on it,” she confessed.

  “Good.”

  His smile showed his relief, and Willow was sure he had no ulterior motives.

  “I even think I have a pair of Logan’s pajama bottoms. He spent a few nights here when his place was being painted, and left them,” she said, going to the hall closet for those and for bedding to make up the sofa.

  She felt relieved, too, to know Tyler would be there. It was just that the idea of it, of Tyler being right outside her bedroom door all night long, made her feel other things, too. Especially when she began to think about him taking off his clothes.

  About him being in nothing but the pajama bottoms.

  Right outside her bedroom door.

  All night long.

  Then something hot and sparkling kicked up in the pit of her stomach to go with the relief.

  “You can change in the bathroom,” she told him as she finished with the couch, trying to keep her mind off the image of him undressing.

  Tyler took the pajama bottoms into the other room, and as he did Willow put some effort into getting a grip on herself.

  The best thing to do, she decided, was to get ready for bed as if this were no big deal, say a fast good-night and get to sleep as quickly as possible.

  So, while Tyler was in the bathroom, she went into her bedroom.

  Oversize T-shirts were what she ordinarily slept in. Plain, sexless T-shirts. She didn’t own anything else. So that was what she yanked on over her head.

  Then she brushed her hair to free it of the tangles it had gathered in her tussle with Kenny Randolph, and added a short terry-cloth bathrobe she cinched at the waist—also plain and completely unsexy.

  No chance of Tyler thinking she wanted to seduce him, she concluded after a glance in the mirror.

  And that was good, because she didn’t want to seduce him.

  Although she was having trouble not thinking about how blissful it had been when he’d joined her outside earlier tonight and held her in his arms. Or how nice it would be to have him do it again…

  “Are you decent?” she called through the closed bedroom door.

  “Decent,” he confirmed from the living room.

  Willow went out there, bracing herself for that first sight of him.

  But even preparation didn’t help.

  Because there he was, in only the baggy pajama bottoms, his upper half bare. And that flat stomach, that hard-muscled chest, those broad shoulders were too glorious a sight not to admire. Not to want to reach out and touch.

  “Are you all set out here?” she asked in a voice left weak from that one glimpse of him.

  “I think so,” he answered.

  She thought he was being very careful not to look below her chin.

  “I’m usually up pretty early, so I can wake you anytime you want.”

  “Whenever you get up is fine. I don’t have a time clock to punch.”

  “Okay. Well. I should probably say good-night.”

  Tyler agreed with a tilt of his chin. But he didn’t merely stand there. He took her hand much as he had earlier and said, “I’ll walk you to your door.”

  Willow laughed at that. “You’d better. Look what happens when you don’t. Bad guys pop out at me from the shadows.”

  He ushered her to the bedroom door, facing her when they got there, looking down into her eyes.

  “Thanks for a nice night,” he joked, as if this were a normal ending to a normal evening.

  “Sure,” she joked back.

  “It’s the most excitement I’ve had since I quit rodeoing.”

  “That was my plan.”

  He grinned on only the dimpled side. “So this was all just for my entertainment?”

  “It was.”

  “I always like a girl full of surprises.”

  “Oh, I hope so,” she heard herself say before she realized she was going to.

  But in the spirit of their teasing banter Tyler didn’t seem to have any inclination how much she meant that.

  He just went on looking into her eyes, drawing her into the emerald-green depths of his and warming her to her toes.

  Then he leaned forward and kissed her. Chastely. With their bodies still far apart, only their lips meeting.

  It was sweet that he was being so conscientious, so considerate. But Willow wanted more. She needed more.

  It was as if the scare of the earlier hours had left her hovering somewhere inside herself, and Tyler alone could bring her out again, bring her to life. If only he would go back to treating her like a flesh and blood woman.

  Almost on their own her hands went to his neck. His strong, thick neck. Pulling him slightly nearer and deepening the kiss herself.

  Deepening it so much that Tyler got the message and wrapped his arms around her as if something inside him had finally been unleashed, too, and he couldn’t refrain from enfolding her in that embrace, from pulling her closer still so that she was pressed against him the way she wanted to be.

  But it was only a moment before he stopped kissing her so he could look into her face once more, into her eyes, as if to be sure he was reading her signals right.

  His question showed only in the lifting of his eyebrows, but she knew what he was thinking. That she’d stopped things between them the night before because she didn’t want them to move too fast. Yet here they were, almost instantly picking up where they’d left off, with passion ready to erupt all over again.

  She thought about the wisdom of letting this go further as she looked back up at his amazingly handsome face, as she ran her fingertips along his cheek and dipped one into that crease that made it so distinctive.

  And while she knew she’d kept that passion from finding completion the previous night because she’d thought that the real Willow wouldn’t go as far as making love with Tyler, she now thought that when she was with him the real Willow was different than she’d ever been before. That she was part old Willow and part Wyla. And this new Willow she’d become wanted too badly to make love with him to deny herself.

  So all she did was smile. A small smile that answered that questioning arch of his eyebrows. That let him know that tonight she wouldn’t stop anything.

  “You’re sure?” he asked anyway.

  She nodded.

  And that was all the go-ahead he needed.

  He kissed her again, but this time it was an eager kiss as lips relaxed and parted. One kiss turned into two, into three, awakening a hunger in Willow that seemed to have been waiting just below the surface since that night in Tulsa all those weeks ago. A hunger that had been reawakened the previous evening and was now full and intense.

  She let her hands go from Tyler’s neck to his back, losing herself in the feel of power kept in check. In the feel of that strong back bending to her will.

  He deserted her mouth to kiss her neck, and his breath against her skin was warm and soft before he reclaimed her mouth with lips parted farther still. He sent his tongue to fence with hers, and she met his every thrust with a gleeful parry of her own.

  She loved the smell of him. The clean scent of his skin and his aftershave mingling.

  She loved the feel of his skin. Silk over steel.

  She loved the feel of his
big hands on her, too. Holding her. Rubbing her back. Kneading it the way she longed for him to knead her oh-so-engorged breasts. Caressing it in a way that soothed, that adored, that aroused.

  He looped his arm under hers and took her shoulder in his hand from behind, using his biceps to raise her arm. The sleeves of her T-shirt and robe fell away. And then somehow he had her robe untied and he slipped it off, leaving it to fall at her feet on the hall floor.

  He held her hand in his and took her into the bedroom, where the lamp on the nightstand lent a faint, milky glow.

  Willow wished she were wearing something more enticing than her plain white T-shirt, and in the hopes of adding even just a hint of allure, she moved to turn off the light.

  But Tyler stopped her, pulling her back with him onto the bed.

  “I want to see you.”

  As with times before, it was a small thing. But knowing he couldn’t care less about what she was wearing, that he found her enticing and alluring all on her own, did wonders for Willow. She clamped her arms around his neck and smiled up at him, knowing all the more that she wanted him.

  He kissed her again then. As softly, as tenderly as the first time, and yet with a new depth that made everything inside her stand up and take notice.

  Everything inside her and her nipples, too, as they hardened into tight kernels of yearning, crying out for his attention.

  But from that moment on Tyler anticipated her every want, her every need. No sooner was she struck by the urge to have his hand on her breast than Tyler did exactly that—first on the outside of her T-shirt and then underneath it, gifting her with the glory of his naked touch.

  No sooner did she crave the freedom of being without any barriers between them than he slipped her T-shirt off, looking down at her as if she were the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen as he shucked the pajama bottoms and allowed her the view of him in all his tumescent magnificence.

  Magnificence that made her glad the light was on, that made her lose all inhibitions, all self-consciousness when she realized how much of an effect she was having on him. When she began to revel in the sight of chiseled muscles, taut tendons and pure masculine perfection.