Willow in Bloom (6 page)

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 ap
pearing 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.

T
yler'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 thinking 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.

Thinking about it.

Wanting to do it…

Maybe that fall from the horse had knocked more screws loose than anyone had realized.

He wished his brother were there to talk it out with him. But not only was Brick
not
there, Tyler hadn't been able to get hold of him since he'd started trying early this morning.

But he knew even without talking to his brother that Brick would be glad to hear he was attracted to someone else. To someone in the here and now. Someone who was more than a memory he couldn't grasp.

Tyler knew his brother thought that trying to find his mystery woman was foolhardy. And he also knew that Brick was worried about the pull Tyler felt to someone he'd spent only one night with. Someone who hadn't left him so much as a phone number or an address where he could reach her again.

But Brick didn't understand the attraction Tyler felt. The pull he couldn't explain.

The draw, the pull that should have been keeping him from wanting to kiss Willow Colton and wasn't.

So what was he doing? Tyler asked himself. Juggling women? Because that wasn't something he'd ever done.

He knew guys—particularly guys on the rodeo circuit—who did that. Who never turned down a willing woman in any town they were in at any given time.

But that wasn't Tyler. Or Brick, for that matter. It was too complicated. Too dangerous. Too sleazy.

Yet here Tyler was, intent on finding one woman,
but spending time with an entirely different woman. Wasn't that sleazy?

But what was the alternative?

Either give up the quest for the mystery woman or give up seeing Willow.

Tyler shook his head. He couldn't give up his quest for the mystery woman. He had too many hopes that finding her would mean getting back his memory, too.

But he also couldn't stand the thought of not seeing Willow.

Which put him right back where he'd started: was he being fair to her?

He thought seriously about that. Very seriously, because he wanted to do right by her.

But the more he considered exactly what he was doing with Willow, the more he decided it wasn't altogether unfair to her. It wasn't as if they'd embarked on a grand romance or a serious involvement. They were just getting to know each other. And there was nothing fair or unfair about that. It wasn't as if he'd asked her for a commitment of some kind. It wasn't as if she couldn't be seeing other guys. And he
wasn't
seeing other women.

He was just looking for one.

Okay, no matter what kind of spin he put on it, it wasn't a really stellar thing to be doing.

But he had to do it.

Because at this point, he couldn't make himself give up either seeing Willow or keeping an eye out for the mystery woman.

But maybe what he could do, he decided, was be careful. And considerate of Willow's feelings.

He could work damn hard to make sure that things between them didn't go too far, while he tried to figure out who the mystery woman was.

But until he did, maybe he could just go with the flow.

He knew that would be what Brick would say. Brick would tell him to enjoy Willow, and if, in the process, he found the mystery woman, then just deal with that development when it happened.

If
it happened.

And if it didn't happen?

Then maybe he wasn't meant to find the mystery woman again.

Coming to that conclusion on his own surprised Tyler, because it was the first time he'd seriously thought he might be okay with the possibility.

Which Brick would consider a step forward.

And maybe that was something.

Because it occurred to Tyler that while he still wanted to find the mystery woman, while he still hoped finding her would fill that gap in his memory, it didn't seem like the be-all and end-all the way it had before meeting Willow.

And that felt good. It felt freeing.

He just had to be extra cautious and not let that freedom go to his head.

Because what he wasn't free to do was hurt Willow.

Under any circumstances.

 

Willow knew it was irrational, but somehow she felt that as long as her grandmother's bedroom stayed intact and undisturbed, it was almost as if Gloria wasn't gone.

So in the weeks since her death, Willow had not so much as opened the door.

But now she had no choice. She'd promised Bram she would finally go through their grandmother's things, and that was what she had to do.

It wasn't easy.

Especially after a particularly bad morning of nausea.

Or maybe the nausea had been worse this morning because of the stress of knowing what she had to do today, what she'd begged off work in the store to do today.

Either way, as Willow stood at the entrance to her grandmother's bedroom, her stomach clenched. She could feel the tension in the back of her neck, and she suffered a fresh wave of shame, as if going into Gloria's former sanctuary would reveal to her grandmother what she'd done in Tulsa and the results of that rash act.

But Willow was resigned to the fact that she had to do it, so she took hold of the doorknob and went in.

The room was small and spare, and Willow was greeted with Gloria's scent—vanilla and lilacs.

That made it seem as if her grandmother was somehow with her, and suddenly not coming into this room, feeling ashamed of herself for the baby she was car
rying, all seemed silly. As silly as it would have been not to confide in her grandmother if Gloria were still alive. Because in this room Willow felt the same kind of unconditional love, the same kind of warmth and acceptance she'd always had from her grandmother.

“Hi, Gloria,” she said out loud, hearing the relief in her own voice. “I have to go through your stuff,” she said then, as if her grandmother really were there and needed to be warned. “Those weird things that started happening just before your first stroke are still going on, and we need to figure out why. So Bram wants me to see if you left any clues in here.”

It was odd, but having said that, Willow actually felt as if she had permission to do what she'd come for, and so she began.

The room held only a single bed, a night table, a few bookshelves and a dresser, plus an easy chair with a floor lamp behind it, where Gloria had liked to sit and read.

The dresser seemed like a good place to start, so that was where Willow went.

There was a gallery of framed family photographs on top of the bureau. Pictures of Gloria as a young woman with her twin sons—Trevor, who was Willow's father, and Willow's uncle Thomas.

There were also pictures of Willow's parents, of Uncle Thomas and Aunt Alice, of Willow and her brothers, and of all six of Thomas and Alice's kids, too. Plus there were photographs of Gloria's own par
ents—together when her mother was alive, and more recent ones of George alone.

It was a nice array, and even though Willow had seen them all more times than she could count, she still spent a few minutes looking at them before she started her search through the dresser drawers.

When nothing of any particular interest showed up there she moved on to the closet. Then the nightstand. Then the bookshelves. She looked under the bed and under the chair, and essentially left no stone unturned.

But two and a half hours later she didn't know anything more than she had initially.

She hated to call Bram and tell him that there was nothing among their grandmother's things that would explain why a stranger suddenly had an interest in them or why that stranger might have set fire to the town hall and broken into the newspaper office. But that seemed like what she'd come to.

Except that for no reason she understood, she felt as if she shouldn't rush into it. That she shouldn't give up yet, in spite of having searched the entire room.

She knew what her great-grandfather would say about it. He would say that Gloria herself was whispering to Willow's subconscious, telling her to keep going.

Willow just didn't know what else to do.

“So Gloria, if there's something in here we should know about, where is it?” she said aloud, thinking that her great-grandfather would be pleased that she be
lieved in the spirit of her grandmother enough to talk to her.

And that was when Willow remembered something out of the blue.

She remembered her grandmother making a joke once or twice about hiding her fortune under her mattress.

Of course, no one had taken it seriously. They all knew Gloria didn't
have
a fortune.

But recalling her words, Willow began to wonder if maybe hiding things under the mattress had not been a joke, after all.

It probably had, she thought as she stood at the foot of the bed. But there was no harm in removing the quilt Gloria had made by hand. Or the blankets and sheets. No harm in turning the mattress just in case.

And that was where Willow found it—a lockbox tucked into a portion of the box springs that looked as if it had been cut away for just that purpose.

Willow hadn't come across any unaccounted-for keys, so she brought the box with her to the kitchen, where she used a hammer and screwdriver to break the lock.