Willow in Bloom (5 page)

So ego was probably at the root of her eagerness to see him again, she decided. Just plain ego. Which meant that she was more eager for him to see her than for her to see him, and not so attracted to him that she couldn't wait to be with him again.

“And you're a big fat liar,” she said to her reflection in the mirror when she went to take stock of how she looked. She'd foregone wearing the push-up bra,
but had put on a slightly low-cut, figure-hugging white V-neck T-shirt and the formfitting navy blue slacks she'd bought earlier.

Okay, so this whole mini-makeover and her eagerness to see Tyler again were not merely bandages to her self-esteem, she conceded as she delved into the mysteries of mascara and blush. She
was
attracted to the man. Why else would she have gotten carried away in Tulsa?

But it didn't mean anything. It didn't mean she thought they were going to end up together or anything. It didn't even mean that that was what she wanted.

It just meant that he was a terrific looking guy who made her feel like a woman.

Who made her feel like a woman…

That thought hung in her mind as if it had some special magic.

Was it also possible that feeling like a woman around Tyler Chadwick played a role in this whole eagerness thing?

Maybe.

And that possibility made something else occur to her.

Her great-grandfather, George WhiteBear—an old Native American who still practiced many of the old traditions—always claimed to have visions. And he'd told her not long ago that she would blossom and bloom during the brightest of midnights.

After finding out she was pregnant, she'd assumed
that the pregnancy was the blossoming and blooming. But now she wondered if it might have meant something else, too. If it might have meant that she would finally be blossoming and blooming into womanhood.

And maybe this whole thing with Tyler was a part of that. Maybe it was her first real chance to relinquish the tomboyishness that had been a natural result of growing up with four brothers. Maybe Tyler was giving her an excuse to finally step out into the world as a woman.

“Or maybe he just has the best face, body and butt you've ever seen,” she exclaimed to her reflection in the mirror.

But as she ran a brush through her hair and carefully applied the new lipstick, she decided she was eager to see him for all those reasons.

Yes, Tyler Chadwick was a drop-dead gorgeous guy. Yes, he had a body to die for. Yes, she'd liked him in Tulsa and had been attracted enough to him to sleep with him.

But her ego had taken a blow when he hadn't remembered her—no matter what the reason—and she would like it if she could stir that memory.

And yes, it was time for her to break free of her tomboy persona and finally become the woman she was, too. It was probably long past time for that.

“I never thought furniture shopping could be so complicated,” she said facetiously to herself.

But then, since meeting Tyler Chadwick, everything seemed to have gotten more complicated.

And she wasn't too sure if it would ever get uncomplicated again. In fact, she didn't know how it could when, in less than seven months, she would bring a baby into the picture.

But that prospect and the even greater complications it would bring were not things she could think about right now. So she put them on a back burner mentally.

No, right now she had enough to deal with—beginning with this evening. And that was what she had to focus on.

First things first.

So Willow took a deep breath and gave herself a final once-over in the mirror, deciding she hadn't done too bad a job at feminizing herself, while still maintaining a semblance of her own style.

And since that was the case, and she was determined to take things one step at a time, she slipped her feet into a pair of sandals and left her apartment, heading down the staircase that led into the store.

“Willow? Is that you?”

Carl was bringing a sack of chicken chow from the storeroom as she came down the steps.

“Of course it's me,” she said, as if the question were ridiculous.

“Doesn't look like you,” he countered.

“Good,” she said defiantly, offering no explanations as she went straight to her office, hopefully to get the tension she was suddenly overwhelmed with to ease up before Tyler got there.

Tyler Chadwick who was only incidental to her
blossoming and blooming as a woman, she assured herself.

Although thinking of the incredible Tyler Chadwick as incidental to anything was a little hard to buy….

 

Willow was watching for Tyler when he walked through the Feed and Grain's front door.

Unfortunately, it was exactly when Carl was about to walk out of it.

“Sorry, Tyler, but we're closed. Can you come back tomorrow?” Carl said in greeting.

“That's okay. I'm not here to buy anything. I'm here for Willow,” Tyler informed him matter-of-factly.

It gave Carl pause, though. He looked from Tyler to Willow, and then his eyes widened as if the light had just dawned.

And if Willow had had any hope of her brothers not finding out immediately that she was spending the evening with Tyler Chadwick, that hope flew out the window right then and there. She had no doubt that Bram would be hearing about this within the next fifteen minutes, and word would spread from there to her other brothers.

But somehow she didn't care.

One glance at Tyler made everything else seem to fade into unimportance. Even the tension she felt about being with him again, about the course she'd set for herself, about everything that was going on, took a back seat to how happy she was that this moment
she'd thought so much about, looked so forward to, had arrived.

Carl muttered a simple, “Oh,” in response to the news that Tyler was there to see Willow. “Well, have a nice evening,” he added, then left. But not without another confused glance at Willow—a glance she ignored.

Then Carl was gone, and Tyler turned his full attention to her.

“Hi,” he said with a mile-wide grin that convinced her he was genuinely glad to see her.

“Hi,” Willow answered, her voice more breathy than she would have liked.

She was standing in front of the checkout counter, only a few feet from where he'd stopped just inside the door. So she had a clear view of him.

She couldn't be sure, but she thought he might have dressed up a little for tonight, too. He had on a sunny yellow Western shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, a pair of tan twill jeans that fit him just the way jeans were meant to, and cowboy boots that made him a full five inches taller than she was.

His hair was clean and spiky, his face was freshly shaved, and he smelled as wonderful as mountain air after a spring rain.

All in all it was a heady package, and for a long moment Willow just drank it in.

Much the way he seemed to be drinking in the sight of her.

“You look good tonight. Too good for furniture
shopping,” he said then, the appreciation in his voice and in his expression crystal clear.

“Thank you,” Willow murmured, fighting yet another of those rare blushes. But it pleased her no end that he'd noticed, that he liked what he saw, and that he was giving her a compliment any man might give a woman, and doing it without the shock Carl had shown. Without the shock her brothers would have shown if they'd been there.

But as much as it pleased her, it also embarrassed her. Wanting to get past it as soon as possible, she said, “How's your head?”

“Fine. No headaches today.”

“So you're up for some shopping?”

“As soon as you can get away,” Tyler confirmed.

“Oh, I can get away. I just need to lock the door when we leave.”

“Great. Then let's do it.”

A tiny shiver of remembered delight ran up her spine at the thought of “doing it” with him, and Willow was glad it was not a response he could see.

But thoughts like that were the last thing she needed, and she willed herself to keep her mind on the straight and narrow.

“We can walk just about everywhere, unless you don't feel like it,” Willow said as Tyler opened the store's door again and waited for her to join him.

He chuckled slightly as she went out. “I'm fully recovered from the fall, if that's what you mean,” he informed her. “I was pretty banged up for a while,
but I'm known for bouncin' back fast. I just get these damn—uh, these headaches now and then, but it isn't as if I'm weak or anything.”

Willow shot him a glance as he followed her out onto the sidewalk, realizing that her comment had been silly. All anyone had to do was look at the hard muscles that bulged against his shirt, at the thick thighs encased in his pant legs, at the robust health that emanated from him, to know he was more than capable of walking miles.

“Okay, then we'll walk,” she said simply.

“Good. And maybe after we do the shopping and have dinner, you can give me the nickel tour of Main Street. I was thinking that you were just the person to give me the ins and outs of how Black Arrow works.”

“Sure, I'd be happy to,” she said, thrilled to know that he had thought of a way to prolong their time together before it had even begun.

The furniture store was only about three blocks farther down Main Street, and Willow and Tyler were the only customers when they got there.

As they shopped, they settled easily into a routine. Tyler told Willow in general terms what he needed—a coffee table, a kitchen set, a couple of chairs for his living room, and a desk and chair for his den—and then he basically left it to her to choose the pieces.

“This is what
I
like,” she said at one point. “But is it what
you
like?”

They were standing in front of a pair of overstuffed chairs upholstered in a light-brown fabric imprinted
with a pattern that looked like duck feet, and she thought it would go well with his sofa.

Tyler only laughed at her question. “You're talking to a guy who went from home to hotel and motel rooms and a furnished apartment. If it doesn't have any stains or holes, it looks good to me.”

“You're as bad as my brothers. They won't even pick out their own socks,” Willow said, rolling her eyes.

But she made Tyler at least sit in the chairs before they were added to the order that was to be delivered to him the following day.

Closing time had come and gone when they finally finished, and Tyler left it to Willow to choose where to have dinner, too. But that wasn't because he didn't know anything about food. It was because, being new to town, he didn't know what their options were.

They ended up at the Pizza Parlor, a small restaurant complete with checkered tablecloths, candles in Chianti bottles and a jukebox that kept the noise level too high to talk about much more than what other restaurants and take-out places Tyler might want to try in the future.

It was dark when they'd polished off their pizza and stepped back out onto Main Street.

Streetlamps had come on to keep the town's primary thoroughfare brightly lit, and already there was a sleepy quality to Black Arrow.

Willow was glad that she and Tyler were nearly the only people on the street as they strolled along, so that
she could point out where Tyler would need to go to renew his driver's license or to mail a package, where to get the best deal on new tires for his truck or to have his dry cleaning done.

She also peppered her advice with little details about the owners and operators of the businesses around town, including some tidbits of gossip.

And then they'd come full circle, back to the Feed and Grain, and she discovered in herself a full-blown disappointment that it brought the evening to a natural conclusion.

“I'll take you home if you tell me where home is,” Tyler offered when they approached the store.

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.