Willow in Bloom. Victoria Pade
well-arched eyebrow needed some smoothing, but not a strand of her long black hair had come free of the braid that fell to the middle of her back like a thick rope. Her lips were a natural pink that she’d only once added color to, and she had come to rue that occasion and the havoc it was wreaking on her life, so she’d thrown the lipstick away. But she did apply a little gloss just to keep her lips moist.
Her nap hadn’t wrinkled her clothes—her blue jeans were fine and so was the plain blue, crew-neck T-shirt she wore tucked into them. As glad as she was that there were no signs of her nap, she was even more relieved that there was no evidence of the pregnancy, either. Her stomach was still as flat as ever. All in all, she judged herself presentable enough to meet her new customer.
If only she could stay awake through the meeting.
Hoping to aid that, she slapped her cheeks a little, the way they did in the movies to make people regain consciousness. It didn’t help the feeling that she needed more sleep, but it did add color to her face, and that was a good thing. As good as it was going to get, she decided, leaving the bathroom to get back to business.
For a split second when she reentered her office, she forgot she’d put the telltale vitamins in her drawer, and felt a rush of panic at the thought that she might have left them out where someone could see them.
One glance at her desktop reminded her that she’d stashed them. So she crossed to the door that led to the sales room, opening it to greet the person she’d kept waiting.
Never in her wildest dreams would she have guessed who that person would be.
In fact, at first she thought she was seeing things.
She blinked, shook her head slightly and took a second look.
But she wasn’t seeing things.
It was him.
It was him!
Her head began to spin.
Her breath caught in her throat.
Her knees buckled right out from under her.
“Whoa! Hold on there.”
He reached out to catch her, but Willow landed with a shoulder against the doorjamb and managed to keep from falling without his help. Barely.
“I…I must have tripped,” she muttered, in the weakest voice she’d ever heard come out of her mouth.
“You sure there isn’t somethin’ wrong with you today, Willow?” Carl asked from where he stood beside the man who had caused her shock. “Are you sick?”
“I’m fine,” she insisted. “Just fine.”
She eased herself away from the jamb, willing her knees to hold her as she did.
“You sure?” Carl persisted.
“I’m sure,” she lied, knowing all the while that she was anything but fine.
“If you say so,” her store manager muttered. Again disbelief rang in his tone, but he let it drop and said, “This here’s Tyler Chadwick. Like I told you, he just bought the Harris place.”
“I know who he is,” Willow answered, wishing for more strength to her still breathy voice as she looked up into the face that had haunted her for the last two months. The face she hadn’t been sure she’d ever see again. The face she hadn’t been sure she wanted to see again.
“And this here’s Willow Colton,” Carl said to conclude the introductions. “She runs things ’round here, and it’s her needs to tell you if you can open an account or not.”
Willow… He knows me as Wyla….
But Tyler Chadwick didn’t so much as blink an eye at the discrepancy. In fact, he smiled a perfectly open smile and said, “Pleased to meet you.”
As if he’d never met her before.
Was he kidding? He’d been quite a tease, as she recalled, so maybe he was just putting her on.
But something about the way he was looking at her, at the blankness in his expression, said he wasn’t kidding at all. That he didn’t remember her.
“Wyla…” she said under her breath, to jolt his memory.
“Wyla?” he repeated. “Or Willow? Did I hear wrong?”
“Wyla?” Carl echoed, overhearing Tyler’s response. “Her name’s Willow.” Then to Willow he said, “What’s goin’ on with you today?”
Willow didn’t answer that because she couldn’t. She just stood there, staring at Tyler Chadwick.
And it was Tyler Chadwick. For a moment she had entertained the idea that maybe this man was just someone who looked remarkably like him. And happened to have the same name.
But of course, that was crazy. This was definitely the Tyler Chadwick she knew. Granted, she’d spent just a short time with him, but it had been a memorable time. He was a memorable man.
He wasn’t terribly tall—only about five feet ten, a scant three inches taller than she was. But it was an impressive five ten of hard muscles honed from making his living riding bucking broncos on the rodeo circuit.
There wasn’t an ounce of fat on that body, made up of broad shoulders, narrow waist and hips, and biceps and thighs that bulged beneath his tan-colored shirt and jeans respectively.
And even if any of that had changed in the last two months, his face hadn’t. It was still handsome enough to make the birds stop singing in the trees just to get a look at him when he walked by.
He had light-brown hair cut short on the sides and left sort of haphazardly spiky on top; a sharp chiseled jaw; a supple mouth Adonis would have envied; a thin, straight nose; deep-set eyes that were so vibrant a green they looked more like emeralds beneath slightly bushy brows and a full, square forehead.
And when he smiled—even just a little—he had one dimple, one deep crease in the middle of his left cheek, that made him look mischievous and dashing and deliciously dangerous all at once.
Oh no, she wasn’t mistaken. This was Tyler Chadwick. The one and only Tyler Chadwick. The unmistakable Tyler Chadwick.
He wasn’t someone she could forget.
Which, unfortunately, didn’t seem to be something he could say about her.
Unless maybe he thought she might be embarrassed if anyone found out she already knew him and how, and he was trying to spare her that by pretending they were just meeting for the first time…?
That must be it, she concluded.
“Why don’t you come into the office,” Willow suggested, thinking that once they were alone he would let her know he was merely being considerate of her feelings by making it seem as if he didn’t already have intimate knowledge of her.
Tyler shot a glance at Carl and said, “Thanks for your help.” Then he turned those oh-so-striking green eyes back on Willow.
She got lost in them for a moment before she realized he wasn’t looking meaningfully into her face, he was merely waiting for her to move out of the doorway so they could go into her office.
“This way,” she said unnecessarily, mentally yanking herself into line as she turned to go back the way she’d come.
She heard the click of his boot heels behind her, but he didn’t close the door to allow them privacy.
“Oh, we should have shut the door,” she said, as if it had just occurred to her.
“Okay.”
He backtracked to do that, then joined her at her desk.
Willow pointed to one of the visitors chairs and took her own seat on the opposite side of the gray metal desk before she said, “Okay, the coast is clear.”
Tyler