Victoria Pade - Willow in Bloom p.02

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 carrying, 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 parents—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 believed 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.

And when she had, she found papers inside: a long letter and several documents.

A very important, very informative letter and very interesting documents.

Important enough, informative enough, interesting enough for Willow to make that call to her brother in a hurry.



Willow paced as Bram sat at her kitchen table and read what she’d found under Gloria’s mattress forty-five minutes earlier. Each time she passed by him she tried to gauge his reaction, and she could tell he was as shocked as she had been.

“So it wasn’t the way Gloria always claimed it was,” Bram said when he finally finished the long letter and laid it on the table beside the documents, which included Gloria’s marriage license and a deed to a property in Washington, D.C.

The letter was written to Gloria’s sons. But it hadn’t been in an envelope, and when Willow had unfolded the sheets, she’d realized at first glance that what her grandmother had written to her late father and her uncle was important enough to be read immediately. Even if it wasn’t originally intended for her or for Bram.

“Gloria got married in Reno during that time she was there, hoping to break away from Black Arrow and her Comanche heritage,” Willow said, as if her brother needed it explained. “But the Teddy Colton she married didn’t die there shortly after the wedding and before anyone could meet him—the way she told everyone he had. They got married and had one night together, and then Gloria discovered the invitation to his wedding to another woman, and she left him sleeping in the hotel room. She thought he would come after her, tell her he loved her, and that of course he would break it off with the other woman. But instead he didn’t come after her at all. He went ahead and married the other woman as planned.”

“Which makes him a bigamist.”

“And broke Gloria’s heart. So she came back to Black Arrow. But it wasn’t until she was home again that she realized she was pregnant,” Willow continued.

“And when she did realize she was pregnant she hired a private investigator to find Teddy Colton to tell him?” Bram muttered.

“Right.” Willow confirmed it as if she were the expert, when in fact they were merely rehashing what had been in the letter they’d both read. “By then Teddy Colton had gone through with the second marriage, to this Kay person, and he didn’t want anyone to know about Gloria or the pregnancy—which would have come out if he’d divorced Gloria and had to re-marry Kay.”

“So instead he paid Gloria off.”

“By setting up a trust fund and signing over to her the deed to a piece of property in Washington, D.C. In Georgetown, specifically.”

“And the crux of it,” Bram said, as if he were just seeing it for himself, “is that Dad and Uncle Thomas—”

“And all of us kids—”

“Are the legitimate heirs of Teddy Colton, while any kids or grandkids he had with Kay—”

“Might have thought they were the heirs, but aren’t, because Teddy Colton’s Reno wedding to Gloria was never dissolved. So his subsequent marriage to Kay wasn’t legal or valid, and any kids or grandkids coming out of that union—”

“Are illegitimate,” Bram concluded. “Wow.”

“Wow is right,” Willow agreed.

“Plus there’s an inheritance,” Bram said, as if the wheels of his brain were turning smoothly again after the shock of what he’d read in the letter. “And coincidentally, there’s someone in town nosing around asking questions about us.”

“Maybe part of the interest in us involves this deed,” Willow suggested.

“I think it’s possible,” Bram agreed. Then, as if he’d just realized Willow was still pacing, he said, “Would you sit down? You’re making me dizzy.”

Willow did as he’d suggested, taking the chair across from him. “So what do you think is going on, Bram?”

“I’d say we’ve found proof of what Rand Colton was here looking for last month. That we are connected to this other branch of the Coltons. That we’re the legitimate heirs of Teddy Colton. And that we seem to have inherited some sort of trust fund and some property in Georgetown.”

“I meant does all this have anything to do with the fire and newspaper office break-in and this other supposed guy asking about us around town?”

“Maybe,” her brother said noncommittally. “One thing is for sure, though—this could change some lives. Maybe lives of people who don’t want them changed. Or it could take something away from someone who doesn’t want to lose it. Until we know exactly what’s going on, I’m thinking that it would be a good idea for all of us to be a little extra careful.”

“And to put these documents and the letter somewhere safe,” Willow added.

“After we show it to Uncle Thomas. Plus we’d better let all the grandchildren know, too, so they can be on guard in case there’s any move made against any of us.”

“Do you really think we’re in danger?” Willow asked worriedly.

Bram shrugged. “I don’t know, Will. I don’t know what the D.C. property is worth or how much whoever wants it wants it—if that’s what’s going on here. I don’t know what these other Coltons might be worried about losing to us, either. I do know that I’m taking the letter and the documents right now, showing it to Uncle Thomas and then locking it away at the bank so it’s not here, putting you in possible jeopardy.”

For once Willow was happy with the protective tendencies of one of her brothers. “You won’t get any argument from me,” she declared. “So, are you going to contact Rand Colton and see what he has to say about this?”

“He left me a few numbers where he could be reached. But I think first we’d better just let the immediate family know what’s going on and find out who this guy is who’s asking questions about us now. And if he had anything to do with the break-in and the fire.”

“Do you have any other leads?”

“Not about anyone else who looks suspicious. But I have heard that there’s someone staying in a trailer outside of town, and I’m about to check that out.”

Bram gathered up the deed and the pages of Gloria’s letter to her sons, obviously preparing to leave.

As he did, Willow said, “Do you think this is what Gloria meant just before she died when she told you to find the truth?”

“Could be. But she wrote the letter so long ago—right after Dad and Uncle Thomas were born, it looks like—that it’s hard to know if there was something else she wanted uncovered. Something that’s happened since then.”

“I think this is it,” Willow said. “I think when she realized Teddy Colton wasn’t going to be a part of her life, or Dad’s or Uncle Thomas’s, she decided to keep all that a secret—to avoid the shame and humiliation. But she must have written the letter so that someday her sons would know what really went on. So they would know their complete heritage.”

“It’s possible. But imagine making up that story about her husband dying.”

Willow had no problem imagining it. She knew exactly what it was like to get caught up in a moment the way the young Gloria had. To give in to an overwhelming spark of passion with a handsome, charming man who could sweep a woman off her feet.

And Willow also knew what it was to feel horrified by what she’d done when it was over. To worry about what kind of response she was going to meet from her family, her friends, her whole community when they learned she was going to be a single mother…

“Will? Are you okay? You’re really pale all of a sudden.”

Willow yanked herself back to the present and came up with a quick excuse. “I was busy going through things and I forgot to have lunch.”

“Well, eat something now. I’d better get over to Uncle Thomas with this stuff so he can take a look at it before I have it locked up for safekeeping. Thanks for doing this.”

“I’m just glad I found something. I didn’t think I was going to.”

Bram reminded her to keep her doors locked, said goodbye and left.

Willow stayed sitting at her kitchen table, still struck by the similarities between the path her grandmother’s life had taken and the path hers had.

“So you really would understand,” she whispered, feeling somehow comforted by the knowledge that she wasn’t the only one who had gotten carried away by an overpowering attraction to a man and done something she would never have otherwise. Something she was embarrassed by. Something she’d paid dearly for.

But her grandmother had survived and ended up with two wonderful sons and eleven grandchildren who loved her.

“So maybe it will all work out for me, too,” Willow said.

And in her hopes for that she remembered she had a date tonight with the overpoweringly attractive man who had gotten her into all this in the first place, and she still needed to shower, shampoo her hair and get dressed.

Which she headed to her own bedroom to do, feeling just a little less shame than she had before.

And hoping fervently that what she’d done in Tulsa in June didn’t reverberate through generations the way her grandmother’s night of passion seemed to have.

Chapter Five

Willow could already hear the carnival music playing in the distance when eight o’clock came and there were three sharp raps on her apartment door.

She didn’t hesitate to open it. She was too excited at the prospect of seeing Tyler to prolong the anticipation any longer than necessary.

And there he stood, decked out and looking too good to believe.

Silver-toed snakeskin boots. Tight blue jeans and a belt with a World Champion buckle. A crisp white Western shirt detailed with blue-and-black points over each breast pocket. Spiky hair and a clean-shaven face.

“Hi,” she said, with just a hint of awe in her voice as the scent of his aftershave wafted to her and she peered into eyes so green they hardly seemed real.

“Hi to you, too,” he answered, taking a slow tour of her own sandals, navy-blue Capri pants, lighter blue tank top with bra straps, and hair twisted into the kind of knot the salesgirl had demonstrated the day before, held in place by the chopsticks.

When he’d taken full stock of Willow he said, “You look better every time I see you.”

He had no way of knowing how unusual compliments like that were to her. Or how they turned her insides to mush.

Willow felt as if she were beaming again. “Thank you. You’re not too shabby yourself.”

That last part had sounded much more like what one of her brothers would have said than any way for a woman to compliment a man. She wished she could reclaim the words and think of something more feminine, more coy, to say.

But it was too late for that, so she opted for getting past her blunder, and said, “Would you like to come in or shall we just go?”

Tyler nodded over his shoulder in the direction of the carnival music. “Sounds like they’ve started without us. How ’bout we just go?”

Right answer. Because Willow was a little afraid that if she got him inside her apartment she might not want to leave again.

“Okay,” she agreed, taking her keys and stepping out onto the landing beside Tyler.

“Shall we walk or drive?” he asked as he followed her down the wooden steps.

“I’m fine with walking if you are. It’s only about a mile from here, on the edge of town. It’ll only take us about twenty minutes to get there.”

“Then let’s do that.”

They made small talk along the way, mainly about Tyler’s new furniture—how it looked and if it worked for him.

Tyler assured her it was all perfect.

“I spent most of the day at my new desk,” he said. “Not working, but trying to.”

Willow was confused. “The desk was distracting?”

He leaned over to confide in her ear, “No, thinking about you was.”

The devilish smile that went with the confidence sent small shivers of delight running up and down Willow’s spine. But they’d reached the carnival by then, and Tyler stepped ahead of her to pay the entrance fee and buy tickets for the games and rides, so she had a moment to get some control over her response.

Which was a good thing, because she was worried she might be grinning like an idiot, and didn’t want him to see it.

The carnival was a big draw not only for people from Black Arrow but for folks from surrounding communities. It pulled in so many people that the crowd was nearly shoulder to shoulder and the noise level was deafening.

Willow was only too happy to see the mass of humanity, though. It allowed her a degree of anonymity. She saw people she knew and they saw her, but for the most part it was only to wave and holler a hello.

On the other hand, there were times when she caught sight of one of her brothers or cousins, and then she did her best to duck or to lure Tyler out of harm’s way.

It didn’t make for a relaxing evening, but she counted herself lucky each time she managed it.

And she was very lucky all evening, as she and Tyler rode the Ferris wheel and the merry-go-round and the Tilt-A-Whirl, as they went through the haunted house and the tent that displayed the two-headed snake, the biggest fruits and vegetables purportedly ever grown, and one of Elvis’s guitars, among other novelties and oddities.

They also played chuck-a-luck. Tried their hand at the cakewalk. Threw baseballs at the paddle bar to try to drop the mayor into the four-foot pool of water he sat suspended over. And Tyler won Willow three stuffed animals and a bud vase by shooting wooden ducks with a pellet gun.

At ten the piped-in carnival music was turned off, and they wandered to the bandstand for the music competition. Groups and single singers, young and old, were competing for a first prize of fifty dollars. Willow knew some of them, but not all.

The acts varied from polka music to heavy metal and techno, and anything in between, including a girl who sang Patsy Cline songs almost as well as Patsy Cline herself.

Willow and Tyler both got into the spirit of the competition. At the end of each performance, they whistled and clapped and cheered, until the Patsy Cline singer was given first prize and sang one last song—“Sweet Dreams”—which the crowd was calling for.

By then the carnival was winding down, booths were closing, food vendors were cleaning up, and it was time to leave.

Even though Willow wasn’t actually ready to call it a night with Tyler, they joined the stream of people leaving the carnival grounds, weaving among the cars and trucks parked beyond the entrance.

As they reached the first block of houses in town again, Willow spotted Bram. His patrol car was parked, blue and red lights flashing, near a car with what looked like a rental agency sticker on the bumper. He was standing with a man Willow had never seen before, studying his driver’s license in the glow of a flashlight.

The man fit the description Bram had given her of whoever it was who’d been asking questions about them around town, and Willow felt a sudden sense of concern for her brother’s safety rather than the desire to hide from him the way she had from her other brothers and cousins during the evening.

“That’s Bram. My brother,” she told Tyler.

“That’s right, you said he was the sheriff. Looks like he’s working tonight.”

Willow couldn’t merely walk on by, not after the conversation she and Bram had had over the inheritance just hours before, and she came to a stop several feet away.

Tyler apparently noted her concern, because he said, “He seems to know what he’s doing.”

“For what usually goes on around here, he does. But there are some unusual things happening lately that we’re thinking are aimed specifically at our family, and that guy looks like he might be the one Bram suspects of doing them.”

“Don’t you think your brother can handle him?”

“I suppose. I just can’t keep from wondering if he really knows what he’s facing, if that’s the guy.”

“It’s probably not a good idea for us to distract him. But we can stay here and keep an eye on him if you want. Then if things look like they’re getting out of hand, I can help him out. Would that make you feel better?”

“Yes, it would,” Willow answered. And even though she never took her eyes off Bram and the stranger he was talking to, she mentally chalked up big points for Tyler for his kindness, his consideration, his sensitivity to her feelings.

She liked this man, she decided on the spot. And despite the consequences of what she’d done in Tulsa, at least she’d done it with a guy who seemed to be a genuinely nice person.

Just then Bram handed the stranger back his license, said something to him and then watched the man return to the rental car and leave.

Only then did Willow breathe easily again.

But once relief had settled in, she was left with a dilemma.

Particularly when Bram glanced her way and saw them.

There was no ducking out now. Bram would think that was strange, and no doubt so would Tyler.

But Willow would just about rather eat worms than introduce the two of them.

Then Tyler leaned over and murmured, “Shouldn’t we say hello?”

Of course they should. But he didn’t know what he was asking of her or what he was getting himself into. One of her brothers catching her out with a man? And her dressed…well, like a woman? This could be more trouble than the stranger, even if the stranger was the person who had set fire to the town hall and broken into the newspaper office.

But what could she say?

“I guess there doesn’t seem to be any way out of it,” she said in an unenthusiastic voice.

Bram waited for them to come to him, standing beside his patrol car, one fist on each hip and his eyes narrowing on Tyler as they approached.

“Hi.” Willow greeted him without enthusiasm.

“Hey, Will,” her brother answered, suspicion ringing in his tone as he looked from Tyler to her and back again.

“Tyler, this is my oldest brother, Bram. Bram, this is Tyler Chadwick. He just moved into the old Harris place.”

Tyler held out his hand.

But Bram didn’t rush to take it.

Willow had seen the tactic before. It was a way her brothers let someone she introduced to them know they weren’t being immediately accepted, and that they’d better realize the fact.

Not until Tyler might have been considering withdrawing his hand, did Bram actually shake it.

“Tyler,” he said.

“Nice to meet you,” Tyler responded, in what surely must have been a lie.

“Been to the carnival?” Bram asked then, the question sounding as if it were for Willow, though his eyes were still leveled on Tyler.

“As a matter of fact, we were,” Willow said, biting back a Sherlock Holmes gibe because she didn’t want to make this situation worse than it was.

In fact, in an attempt to ease some of the tension in any way she could, she said, “That guy you were just with looked like the man you were talking about earlier. The one who’s asking about us. Was that him?”

After another long moment, Bram finally took his sights off Tyler. But then, as if he were really seeing Willow for the first time, he didn’t answer her question. Instead, surprise registered in the arch of his brows and the widening of his eyes.

“Well, look at you,” he said, without any approval whatsoever in his tone.

And Willow suddenly felt as if she’d forgotten to put on any clothes at all.

But she wasn’t about to let that show, so she said, “Thanks,” purposely misconstruing the comment as a compliment, and pretending to take it in stride. She hoped Tyler wouldn’t realize her brother couldn’t believe she was dressed differently than Bram had ever seen her before. Plus she’d learned from experience that not making a big deal out of something one of her brothers was trying to goad her about was the best way to handle it.

Bram gave her the same hard stare he’d given Tyler, but Willow ignored it and reminded him of what she’d asked before. “The guy you had pulled over? Is he the stranger in town?”

Bram shot Tyler another sideways glance. “Apparently not the only one.”

“Tyler isn’t a stranger in town. He’s a new resident. And the only thing he’s been asking about is opening an account at the store.”

“So you’re the one Carl told me about. You and Willow had dinner last night, didn’t you?”

“We did,” Tyler confirmed readily. And to Willow’s amazement he only sounded amused by this whole thing. He was completely undaunted by her brother. He stood his ground like a rock.

Which might or might not make things harder for him, Willow knew.

So once more she attempted to get her brother’s attention refocused. “The other guy, Bram,” she reminded him a second time. “Who was he?”

After another pause, Bram slid his gaze back to her. “His name is Kenny Randolph. I was out looking for the trailer I’d heard someone was staying in, like I told you, and I spotted the rental car, too. He was just getting in it, so I thought I’d follow him, see what he was up to.”

“And what was he up to?”

“Nothing much. He drove around awhile, then went to the carnival. I pulled him over when he came out, just to get his name. Now that I have it I’ll check him out, see if he has a record. Probably put in a call to Rand Colton, see if he knows anything about him.”

“So you do think he’s the one who’s been nosing around about us?”

“From the accounts I’ve had, I’d say he is, yeah.”

“Did you ask him what he’s doing in Black Arrow?”

“I did. He wasn’t forthcoming. In fact, he has a smart mouth. He didn’t answer me, just asked if it was a crime to stay around here.”

“That was all you got out of him?”

“After some prodding he said that he was between jobs. Looking for work. I asked what kind of work he did, and all he said was ‘this and that’—with an attitude. And you know there’s all kinds of work around here now—farmers need hired hands for the harvest coming up. If the man truly wanted work, he’d have it. Plus he knows me by name. Seemed to want me to know that. Something is going on with him. I’d bet on it.”

“But without much evidence from the break-in or the fire, you can’t really connect him to them,” Willow suggested.

“Or even bring him in for any serious questioning,” Bram confirmed. “But I can keep an eye on him.”

That last was said with a pointed glare at Tyler, obviously warning him that that was exactly what Bram intended to do to him, too.

But when Willow hazarded a glance at Tyler, she found him still unperturbed. In fact, his mouth was curved in a small smile that seemed to say bring it on.

And again Willow tried to distract her brother.

“Did you tell the rest of the family about the letter and the documents?” she asked, too desperate to consider if she should be mentioning them in front of Tyler.

“Yeah. And I showed them to Thomas,” Bram answered.

“And then you took care of them?”

“Of the documents and the letter. Locked away safe and sound.”

“And everyone knows to be careful?”

“Yep.” Once more Bram aimed his gaze at Tyler. “They better.”

Willow rolled her eyes, but neither of the men saw it because they were staring each other down.

“We’d better let you get back to work,” she said to her brother then.

Tyler took her lead and said, “Glad we met.”

“Uh-huh,” Bram answered curtly. Dismissing Tyler by turning to Willow, he said, “Make sure you’re careful, too.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“I do worry about you.”

“Well, stop it.”

Bram just shook his head.

Willow said good-night, then headed for the Feed and Grain again, Tyler at her side.

“So that’s one of your brothers,” he said when they were out of Bram’s earshot, but still under his scrutiny as he watched them go.

“I told you my brothers could be intimidating.”

Tyler grinned. “Who said I was intimidated?”

She had to admit that he hadn’t seemed to be. Not in the slightest. “I’m just saying that…” She didn’t know what she was saying, so she murmured, “I’m sorry that Bram wasn’t friendlier.”

“No big deal. If you were my sister I’d be doing the same thing.”

Willow was inclined to point out that she wasn’t his sister, though. Especially since she was a little worried that that might be how Tyler was thinking of her, since he hadn’t so much as tried to hold her hand all evening. But she refrained, and just relaxed and enjoyed the comfortable, quiet walk with him.

She still didn’t want to end their time together when they reached the Feed and Grain, so as they neared the outside staircase to her apartment she said, “I made some fresh lemonade today. Would you like a glass?”

“I would,” he answered, as if he’d had no intention of calling it a night yet, anyway. “It’s so nice out, why don’t we have it sitting on the steps?”

“Okay,” Willow agreed, liking that idea.

She had to make a pit stop in the bathroom again—one of many she’d made throughout the evening. She hoped he didn’t know enough about pregnancy to guess that that was what was causing it. But whether he did or not, she wanted to be able to slip away without him knowing that’s where she was headed, so she said, “Why don’t you stay out here and enjoy the stars, and I’ll pour the lemonade?”

“Okay,” he echoed, and when they made it to the top of the stairs he sat down with his back resting against the railing.

“I’ll just be a minute,” Willow said as she let herself into the apartment.

Once there, she deposited the stuffed animals and the bud vase on the kitchen table, then she speeded through her bathroom visit and pouring the lemonade.

She managed to be back with Tyler within minutes, but even so the sight of him struck her anew, as if it had been months. His handsome features were bathed in milky moonlight, and she couldn’t believe how terrific looking he was. Or that a man like him had been attracted to her once upon a time.

“Cheers,” she said, after she’d handed him his lemonade and joined him on the top step.

“Cheers,” he repeated, touching his glass to hers.

For once she was glad the landing was so narrow, because it allowed them to be separated by mere inches. And if he wasn’t going to touch her—which she knew was for the best, but regretted just the same—at least she could be close enough to feel the power and presence that emanated from him.

“Tell me how you got to own the Feed and Grain,” he said after he’d tasted his lemonade and judged it good.

“It’s been in the family a long time. My great-grandfather started it and passed it down to my grandmother when he retired. I worked here as a teenager, then left for college in Tulsa, and when I came back, Gloria, my grandmother, passed the day-to-day operations over to me.” After a sip of her own lemonade, Willow said, “What about you? How did you choose rodeo as a career?”

“Pretty much the way you ended up in the feed and grain business. My dad competed some and got my brother and me doing it early on. Not the bronc riding. He started us out with roping competitions mostly, calf roping as a team. Just being around the circuit put us on the sidelines watching the other events, and the older we got, the more we wanted to try our luck at it.”

“And were you lucky at it? I mean, before the accident that ended things for you?”

“I’d say I was. It takes skill to compete, but it takes a lot of luck, too. It’d be hard to consider myself unlucky to have won three World Champion buckles in my career.”

“Three?” she parroted, impressed.

“I was going for four when I got thrown.”

“It seems like a punishing way to make a living.” Willow had been amazed by what a brutal beating most of the riders had taken at the rodeo she’d seen that day before she’d met him.

“It’s a tough sport,” Tyler conceded.

“Had you been hurt before that last fall that gave you amnesia?”

Tyler laughed. “Once or twice.”

“Meaning a lot.”

“I’ve had some broken bones. Some sprains. Some dislocated knees and shoulders and elbows. Goes with the territory.”

“Do you miss it?”

He laughed again, this time wryly. “So damn much I could spit. But I’ll get over it. There’re gettin’ to be more and more redeeming qualities to being here, now.”

He said that pointedly, his eyes on her and a small smile on his face that sent a rain of something sparkly throughout her being.

Then he added, “For instance, I have a couple of apple trees right out my back door that I’ve never had before. And if I could find somebody with the know-how, I could have fresh apple pie one of these days, since they’re chock-full of fruit.”

This time it was Willow who laughed. “Is that a hint?”

Tyler grinned. “It is if you can make pie.”

“As a matter of fact I can. Crust and all.”

“I’d do the picking and the peeling. And maybe even throw a couple of steaks on the barbecue that we could have before we eat the pie.”

“Are you asking me to your place for dinner?”

He grinned a wickedly delicious grin. “Guess I am. Are you free tomorrow night?”

Willow was sure a more experienced woman would have played harder to get. But not only wasn’t she that experienced, she was also pregnant. A pregnant woman who wanted nothing more than for the father of her baby to like her enough so that when she told him the news he wouldn’t completely freak out.

“I’m free tomorrow night,” she said.

“Think you’ll feel like makin’ a pie?”

“Maybe.” That was as coy as Willow knew how to be. “As long as I don’t have to climb a ladder and pick the apples first.”

He nudged her shoulder with his own. “Why? Are you afraid of heights?”

“No, of ladders. I don’t like ladders.”

He laughed. “I promise I’ll have all the apples picked by the time you get there.”

“And peeled, don’t forget. That was part of the deal. Then soak them in some apple juice in the refrigerator.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

With their plans for the next night firmly in place and the hour getting late and their lemonade long gone from glasses that had found their way to the landing behind them, that seemed to bring the evening to a close.

“I’d better take off and let you rest up for the pie baking,” Tyler said then.

Willow didn’t agree or disagree. She knew it was time for him to go. She just didn’t want him to.

“Tonight was fun,” Tyler added.

“For me, too.”

“Thanks for the lemonade.”

“Thanks for the carnival prizes.”

“Sure,” he said with another smile, but this one seemed so sexy Willow was hoping he didn’t stand up right away and expect her to, too, because her knees were a little weak.

But he didn’t stand up. He stayed where he was, looking into her face, into her eyes.

Willow didn’t mind. She was enjoying the view of him too much herself. Of the carved planes of his oh-so-masculine face.

And suddenly she knew he was going to kiss her. She didn’t know how she knew it, but she did. It was as if it was just in the air between them. The perfect way, the only way, to end this night.

Then he did. He leaned in and pressed his lips to hers in a kiss that was soft and sexy and all too short.

And when it was over, without moving away, he closed his eyes as if he were trying to distinguish a certain flavor, and in a low, intimate voice said, “Hmm. I’ve never kissed a boy, but I don’t think that’s what it’s like.”

“Excuse me?”

“Your brother called you Will—a boy’s name. But you’re definitely a girl.”

Tyler opened his eyes and studied her face. “And you’re too pretty to be a boy, too,” he added. “Way, way too pretty.”

Then he got to his feet in one lithe, graceful movement and went down the stairs with a bit of a hop to his step.

“Come out to the ranch whenever you’re ready tomorrow,” he said as he did, without looking back.

Then he reached the sidewalk and disappeared around the building.

And still Willow was sitting on the landing, feeling the heat that lingered on her mouth from his kiss, and the warmth that swelled inside her at the idea that he thought she was pretty.

Too pretty to be a boy.

Too pretty to be called Will.

And to her, at that moment, there were very few prizes in the world—carnival or otherwise—better than that.

Chapter Six

“Hey.”

Willow looked up from reading her menu, surprised to see Bram at the restaurant the next day, when she was expecting the love of his life instead.

“Hi.” Willow answered, with a question in her tone.

“Jenna had a home visit to do this morning and it’s taking longer than she expected. She tried calling you at the store, but they said you’d already left, so she sent me to tell you she’ll be here a little late,” Bram explained as he pulled out the chair across from Willow and sat down.

“Okay.”

Willow waited for the other shoe to drop. All morning at the store she’d been expecting her brother to show up, to talk about the previous night and meeting Tyler and what she was doing with him. She figured Bram had just been detained for some reason and had come to grill her now.

But that wasn’t the topic he brought up.

“I’ve been looking into this Kenny Randolph character,” he said instead.

Willow didn’t breathe a sigh of relief. She knew that even if Tyler wasn’t the first subject of conversation, her brother would get around to him. And even though she wanted to say Oh, you’re not fooling me, just get it over with, she didn’t.

She said, “Did you find out anything?”

“Randolph has a record. Mostly minor stuff in California. Petty theft. Vandalism. Two drunk-and-disorderlies.”

“So he isn’t an upstanding citizen.”

“I could tell that just by his attitude toward me. But no, he isn’t an upstanding citizen. I also called Rand Colton first thing this morning. He said he’d never heard of Kenny Randolph and didn’t know anything about him. I wasn’t sure I believed him until he offered to look into it himself, and called me back about half an hour ago. It seems that Kenny Randolph may have been hired by someone named Graham Colton.”

“And Graham Colton is…?”

“Rand’s uncle—one of two of Teddy Colton’s sons by that Kay woman he was engaged to and ended up marrying after his fling with Gloria in Reno.”

“The two sons who have thought all their lives they were legitimate and now find they aren’t.”

“Right. The two sons who also thought they were Teddy Colton’s legal heirs up until now. Rand Colton says that’s no big deal to his father, Joe, because he’s made his own way just fine. But it’s a different story with Graham. Rand didn’t say anything against him, but he was hedging. He did say that Graham Colton always has money problems and that finding out he’s not Teddy Colton’s heir and that there’s even one Colton holding—”

“The property in Washington, D.C.?”

“The property in Washington D.C.” Bram nodded. “Anyways, Graham finding out he’s not Teddy Colton’s heir, and that there’s even one Colton holding he won’t have claim to, is likely a very big deal to Graham.”

“A big enough deal to hire some thug to come here and ask questions about us and break into the newspaper office and set fire to the town hall?”

Bram shrugged. “Rand didn’t state that outright, but like I said, he alluded to the possibility. He says the party line he tapped into revealed that Graham Colton just hired Randolph to disprove that we have any claim to anything. But you have to figure breaking into the newspaper office would have given whoever did it covert access to old newspapers that might have announced Gloria’s wedding to Teddy Colton—something Graham Colton could be hoping isn’t a matter of public knowledge. And a fire at the town hall could have destroyed Dad’s and Uncle Thomas’s original birth certificates—”

“And the main proof that they were Teddy Colton’s sons and therefore his legal heirs.”

“Exactly.”

“Is this Washington property so valuable it’s worth going to all this trouble?” Willow asked.

“Your guess is as good as mine. But it’s something else we should find out. For now, though, I’m more concerned with this Kenny Randolph guy. And you.”

Here it comes, Willow thought, convinced her brother was changing the subject to Tyler.

But again she was mistaken.

“I don’t know how, but word has leaked out around town that you found proof of an inheritance,” Bram said.

It took Willow a moment to realize they were still talking about family matters and hadn’t switched to Tyler, after all. But when she did realize it, she said, “The gossip is spreading already?”

“Somebody must have overheard something somewhere along the line. I warned the family to keep it under their hats, and I doubt if any of them let this out—”

“But maybe someone got wind of it at the bank when you had the papers locked up,” Willow postulated.

“That’s what I’m figuring, too. Anyway, however it happened, two separate people have asked me about the inheritance this morning and mentioned you in the process, and the fact that you found it in Gloria’s things in the apartment.”

“Great,” Willow said facetiously.

“Yeah. So I was thinking maybe you ought to come out to my place and stay until I get this whole thing under some kind of control.”

Willow appreciated his concern. But she wasn’t about to do that. Her pregnancy wouldn’t be a secret for long if she were in close proximity to her brother every morning. Besides the fact that there would be no way she could see Tyler or make any headway with him.

“Thanks, but I’ll be all right at the apartment,” she said. “I’ll just be careful.”

Bram scowled at her disapprovingly. “I knew you wouldn’t listen to reason.”

“There’s no reason to believe Randolph will even be privy to town gossip, or that he’ll think I still have the letter and the documents if he is. I’ll be careful, but I’m not going to let the possibility drive me out of my home.”

“I’m trying to keep tabs on Randolph, but I don’t have the manpower to watch his every move. It would be a lot easier if you’d just agree to get out of harm’s way.”

“I’m not in harm’s way. If it was someone at the bank who found all this out and spread the word, then they’ve probably also spread the word that the papers are all locked up tight in the vault and nowhere near me or the apartment anymore.”

“I made that clear to the folks I talked to this morning, but that isn’t the juiciest part of the story, Willow. It may not be repeated.”

“I’ll be fine,” she reiterated. “I jammed chairs under the doorknobs last night before I went to bed, and I’ll keep doing that. But I’m not leaving the apartment.”

Bram gave her a hard stare, as if that might change her mind. But Willow held her ground.

“Lord, you’re stubborn,” he said after a moment.

“I had some good teachers.”

A small silence fell then and Willow was sure Bram was finally going to bring up Tyler, so she braced herself.

But he merely got up from the table.

“Here comes Jenna,” he said with a nod toward the restaurant door. “I’ll leave you two to your lunch. But be careful, Will. I mean it.”

“I will,” she assured him, stunned that he was leaving without so much as a mention of the night before or of Tyler.

How could that be?

But that’s the way it was, because her brother headed for the door to meet Jenna as she came in. He exchanged a few words with her, touched her hand and gave her a small kiss before continuing on outside, as if the previous evening had never happened.

“I’m so sorry I’m late,” Jenna said in greeting as she took the chair Bram had just vacated.

Willow was a little slow on the uptake, wondering what her brother had up his sleeve. But then she said, “It’s okay. Bram was just filling me in on this whole Colton-heirs thing.”

“He’s worried about you,” Jenna said.

“I know. But I’ll be fine.”

Their waitress was a teenage girl they both knew well, and after asking about her family, Jenna ordered the tuna melt special.

Willow ordered a bowl of soup and prayed the smell of tuna fish from across the table wouldn’t set off her stomach again.

“What’s this I hear about you and the new guy in town?” Jenna said when the waitress had left them alone.

So that was why Bram hadn’t said anything about Tyler. He’d sent Jenna to do it, probably figuring Willow would be more candid with her.

“What are you hearing?” Willow asked, debating about whether or not to be honest with Jenna. On the one hand Jenna was her best friend and she was dying to tell her everything. On the other hand, Jenna was seriously involved with Bram and might relay it all to him. And that was something Willow couldn’t have happen.

“I heard you were picking out furniture with him the night before last, and Bram said you were together after the carnival last night.”

Both things were true and had been witnessed by other people. Willow could hardly deny them, so she acted as if it was no big deal. “Sounds like you heard right.” But she knew that had seemed too defensive, and resolved to curb her tone.

“I understand his name is Tyler,” Jenna said, like a teenager hungry for information about her friend’s juicy new romance.

“That’s right. Tyler Chadwick. He bought the old Harris place.”

“And is it a coincidence that he was a rodeo rider in Tulsa in June, and that you had a fling with a rodeo rider in Tulsa in June?”

Maybe it was better to have friends who didn’t listen to what she said.

Not long after that night in Tulsa, Willow had complained to Jenna that she was smothering under the overprotectiveness of her brothers. Jenna had suggested she break free a little, that she go a little wild, and Willow had confided that she already had. But she hadn’t given Jenna any details. Or any idea of the consequences of that night. She’d only said she’d already gone a little wild. With a rodeo rider. In Tulsa. In June.

“How did you know Tyler was a rodeo rider?” Willow asked, rather than answering her friend’s question.

Jenna made a face. “Don’t get mad, but since Bram heard you were with him at the furniture store the other night he’s been asking around about him.”

“Uh-huh.” No surprise there.

“I didn’t tell him that you had had a fling with a rodeo rider, or where or when, so you don’t have to worry that I’ve blown your cover—if you have a cover. But I have to know—is it just an incredible coincidence?” Jenna persisted.

Willow still wasn’t sure how much to let her friend in on.

But wanting to tell someone something got the better of her. Willow segued into the topic by saying, “I don’t want Bram or the rest of my brothers doing their usual routine.”

“And scaring the guy off. I don’t blame you.”

“If I tell you, you have to promise me you won’t tell Bram. Under any circumstances.”

“Hey, I’m on your side when it comes to this. Your brothers, Bram included, are big pains in the neck about you having a life of your own. Especially a life that involves the opposite sex. And I know it. I’ve already gone round and round with Bram about this new guy. Bram wanted to get your brothers together and go have a talk with him first thing this morning, and I wouldn’t let him. I didn’t even let him call your other brothers about it, and I threatened him with extinction if he so much as said a contrary word to you about this.”

So Bram hadn’t said anything at all.

“You can tell me anything,” Jenna continued. “I won’t let out even a nugget of it to incite your big lug siblings.”

Their lunches were served then, allowing Willow a moment to consider what her friend had said.

She knew Jenna well enough to know she wouldn’t be playing secret spy for Willow’s brothers even if she was in love with one of them.

But still, once their waitress had left them alone again, Willow said, “You’d have to give me your solemn oath not to repeat anything I told you. I know my brothers, and just my being interested in a man is always disastrous.”

“I’ll go you one better. Not only will I keep any information to myself, but I’ll try to convince Bram that you’re just showing a new customer around a little. That it’s good business. And if necessary, I’ll keep him in line by threatening him again.”

Still Willow hesitated, concerned about Jenna’s connection to Bram. But in the end she decided that she didn’t necessarily have to tell Jenna everything, but maybe it would be all right to tell her a little.

“I’m trusting you,” Willow warned.

“You can,” Jenna assured her.

“Okay, then yes, Tyler is the guy I met in Tulsa in June.”

“And he moved here to be with you?”

“Not exactly.” Willow tasted her soup and tried not to breathe too deeply as the odor of warm tuna fish wafted to her. “He doesn’t even remember me,” she confessed.

Jenna stopped short of raising half her sandwich to her mouth, and her expression reflected both curiosity and alarm. “He doesn’t remember you?”

“I know. It sounds bad, doesn’t it? But there’s actually a medical explanation for it.” Willow told her about the rodeo accident and Tyler’s amnesia.

“I know from a neuropsychology class I took in nursing school that the memory functions of the brain can be complicated. Does he have any other problems that way?” her friend asked worriedly.

“I don’t think so. I believe the only other problem he has is that he gets really severe headaches.”

Jenna frowned once more. “So you met him in Tulsa and had your fling with him, and now he’s moved to Black Arrow and you’re seeing him again, but he doesn’t know he even met you before, let alone that the two of you had a fling in Tulsa?”

“Right. And I’m kind of glad he doesn’t.”

“Why?” It sounded as if Jenna really couldn’t believe that.

“Because in Tulsa he didn’t even know my right name. Becky has always called me Wyla, and that was how she introduced me to Tyler. And that night Wyla was a whole lot different than the real me. I decided that if Tyler can’t remember Wyla I might as well use that to my advantage and see if I can get him to like Willow.”

“So you do want him to like you?”

“Well, yeah.”

What Willow didn’t want was to look at the oil that glistened on the surface of the melted cheese that dripped out of the side of that tuna sandwich, and when she did she felt her stomach do its now-familiar lurch.

She took a long drink of water to wash back her gorge and raised her gaze to Jenna’s face again.

But this time Jenna’s expression was different. This time Willow had the sense that her friend had realized more than she wanted her to.

“Are you okay?” Jenna asked, sounding more like a nurse now than a friend.

“Sure.”

“You don’t look well all of a sudden. Is something about this food bothering you?”

“Tuna. I’m not big on it.”

“Since when? I’ve seen you eat tuna before.”

“The soup is good, though,” Willow said, rather than answer Jenna’s question. “Want a bite?”

“No, thanks.”

Instead Jenna studied her intently for a moment before she said, “Carl has been reporting to Bram that he thinks something’s wrong with your health.”

“So I hear,” Willow said, as if it were ridiculous.

“And Bram said you told him you’d had a touch of the flu. I was going to ask you about that. But now that I think about what Carl told Bram…”

Time seemed to stand still for Willow. Not only was Jenna a woman, but she was a nurse, too. She was trained to pay attention to symptoms and what they meant. And Willow suddenly felt as if she had Pregnant written in neon across her forehead.

Maybe she wasn’t too far off, because Jenna’s eyes widened to the size of saucers and she leaned across the table to whisper, “Are you pregnant?”

Willow didn’t know what to do. She was torn between panic that her secret was out even to that extent, and the deep need to not carry that secret alone anymore.

And given that and the fact that she’d already trusted Jenna as far as she had, she finally went the rest of the way and nodded her head. Just once. And almost imperceptibly.

“Oh, wow,” Jenna breathed. “And this guy is the fa—”

“Shh!” Willow glanced covertly from side to side to make sure no one might have overheard. Then she stared hard at Jenna and said, “Remember, you promised. You can’t tell anyone.”

“I know. I won’t. But Willow…”

“I know. It’s a mess.”

“And he doesn’t remember…anything?”

“Nothing.”

It seemed to take Jenna a moment to digest this news and its repercussions, because she just stared into the distance with a perplexed expression on her face. Then she refocused her attention on Willow.

“Are you hoping that spending time with him will make him remember you?”

Jenna had always been very perceptive. “Eventually, yes, that would probably help.”

“Probably help?”

“Okay, it would help a lot. But since things are the way they are now, I’d rather he didn’t remember me right away. At least not before he’s gotten to know me as myself.”

Jenna’s brow wrinkled in bewilderment. “This really is—”

“A mess. I know it only too well. I’m just trying to work it out.”

“Do you think he likes you? The way he did in Tulsa?”

Willow shrugged. “I made the first couple of moves—I personally delivered his credit account acceptance and volunteered to help him pick out furniture. But it was his idea to go out last night. And tonight I’m going to his house for dinner—his idea, too.”

“That’s good. And have there been any more…flings?”

“No,” Willow said, as if it were the furthest thing from her mind when, in fact, each night since Tyler had walked back into her life she’d tossed and turned with the craving to do just that. And it certainly wasn’t getting easier since he’d kissed her. The kiss had been like a sample to whet the appetite, leaving her wanting so much more…

“Since you’ve been spending this time together has he seemed to remember you at all?” Jenna asked, breaking into Willow’s wandering thoughts.

She shook her head. “No.”

“What if he never does? Will you tell him? About Tulsa and about this?” Jenna’s eyes dropped to Willow’s waist.

“I don’t know. I’m just playing everything by ear right now.”

“What about the baby?” Jenna only mouthed the last word.

“What about it?”

“Do you want it? Are you prepared to raise it alone?”

“Yes, I want it. It was a huge shock, of course. And at first I was just freaked out. But when I got a little more used to the idea I knew I couldn’t do anything else.”

“And if you have to raise it alone?” Jenna repeated.

Willow’s stomach lurched again, but this time nausea and tuna melts had nothing to do with it. “I guess that’s what I’ll do.”

“Do you want this guy to offer to marry you?”

“Oh, I don’t know about that,” Willow said quickly, her tone edged with panic at just the thought. “Right now I’m only thinking about getting to a point where maybe I can tell Tyler. If I decide I want to. I haven’t thought beyond that.” Which was true. It was all too easy to think beyond the simple kiss they’d shared since he’d been in Black Arrow. But to think beyond telling him they’d met in Tulsa and that as a result of it she was pregnant? That was a leap too big for her to make just yet.

“And your brothers,” Jenna said ominously, as if she’d just remembered that complication.

“My brothers,” Willow echoed, with an equal dose of dread.

“That could be bad.”

“There’s no could be about it. It will be bad.”

The look on Jenna’s face let Willow know her friend agreed. “I’ll do whatever I can with Bram,” she offered, but she didn’t sound convinced that anything she might do would help.

“Thanks. But remember, for now he can’t know anything. Not anything.”

“Don’t worry, I know that. This Tyler guy might not live through the wrath of the Colton brothers if they knew what was really going on. And we want to give him at least the chance to step up and do the right thing. If that’s what you want,” Jenna was quick to add. “But no matter what, you know I’ll do whatever I can to help if you need me.”

“Thanks,” Willow said again, hoping she wouldn’t need her friend’s help and that everything would work itself out.

One way or another.



Chris Isaak music was playing again when Willow arrived at Tyler’s place after work that evening. After work and a quick dash up to her apartment to shower and change her clothes.

Willow could see Tyler coming down the stairs inside just as she was climbing the porch steps, since the front door was open and she could see through the screen. Bare feet first. Big, perfectly arched feet that turned out slightly and seemed more intimate a sight than she should be having of him in spite of what they’d shared two months before.

Then came his long, jean-clad legs and hips, and more skin. He didn’t have a shirt on! Willow’s mouth went instantly dry at the view of his flat stomach rising into the broad V of his muscular chest and shoulders.

“Hi,” she said in a hurry when he neared the bottom step. His head was down as he dried his hair with a towel, so he hadn’t seen her. But she was afraid that might change in an instant and he’d catch her gawking at him.

Up came his chin at the sound of her voice. His hands stopped rubbing abruptly, and the surprise on his handsome, whisker-shadowed face was replaced with a smile that radiated pleasure, without a bit of embarrassment that he’d been found half-dressed.

“There’s my traveling pie maker!” he said with a grin as he came to the screen.

“I was just about to knock.”

“I probably wouldn’t have heard it over the music, anyway. Come on in,” he invited, pushing the screen open for her.

He smelled of soap and shampoo as she passed in front of him, carrying the paper grocery sack full of the things she needed for the pie.

“Am I too early?” she asked.

“Nah. I’m running late. Once I got started picking fruit I hated to stop. I haven’t even done any peeling yet, but I thought I could do that while you put the crust together or whatever you do before you need the apples.”

“Okay.”

He had draped the towel around his neck and was hanging on to the ends with each hand before he remembered his manners. “Here, what was I thinkin’. Let me take that bag,” he said, reaching for it.

“It isn’t heavy,” Willow assured him.

But he took it anyway, indulging in a long look at her when he had.

“I feel ashamed to have you baking pie lookin’ so good,” he said then, referring to the light-blue sundress she had on.

Willow had worried that it might be not quite right for what they had planned. But knowing she wouldn’t be seeing anyone else—especially her brothers—had made her feel more free to wear the first dress she’d worn in Black Arrow since the Easter Sunday she was eleven.

“It’s cool. I thought that would be a good idea if I was going to be in the kitchen with the oven on on a ninety-degree day.”

“Makes sense to me,” he said with a slight nod of his handsome head.

Then, after another moment of gazing at her appreciatively, he seemed to notice the music that was still blaring.

“Let me turn this down.”

He went into the living room, taking the sack with him, and lowered the volume on his stereo.

“I like Chris Isaak, too,” Willow said when she’d followed him into the other room and the sound was low enough for him to hear her.

“I was actually never a big fan before, but something about it since the accident has been so appealing I play it all the time now.”

That struck a note with Willow. The night they’d spent together in Tulsa, Chris Isaak music had been playing loudly enough in the room next door for them to hear it through the walls. Willow had thought of it as wonderful background music. But when she’d heard it coming from Tyler’s stereo the other day, it hadn’t occurred to her that somewhere in Tyler’s subconscious he might be connecting the music to their night together.

To her, maybe.

And if he was, then his newfound fondness for it was a positive sign….

“Want to get to work, or sit and enjoy the music until I finish shaving and dressing?” he asked then.

“I can get to work.”

“You’re the boss,” he assured her, pointing his chin in the direction of the kitchen.

Willow led the way, finding a whole bushel of apples waiting for her on the kitchen table she’d helped him choose.

“I don’t think we need quite this many,” she informed him with a laugh.

“I was thinking you might want to take the rest home. Pass them out to your friends or customers or something. I have about twenty more bushels in the barn that I don’t know what I’m going to do with, and there’s still more on the trees.”

“Mrs. Harris was known for her apple every-things—pies, bread, cakes, butter, sauce. I guess now we know why.”

“Maybe I’ll have to see if I can get them sold at the grocery store.”

Tyler put the bag on the table and lowered the bushel basket to one of the four kitchen chairs. As he did, Willow was treated to the tensing muscles of his incredible naked back. It sent a ripple of something sensual and very feminine through her, and she recalled Jenna’s question at lunch about whether they’d had any more flings. Willow wanted to have one right now!

But she tamped down the idea and dragged her eyes upward just as he turned to face her again.

“Can I get you a glass of iced tea to start?”

“Iced tea sounds good. But why don’t you go on with what you need to do and I’ll pour it myself?” Because the sooner he put on a shirt, the better.

“If you’re sure,” he agreed. “Glasses are in the cupboard above and to the left of the sink. Tea’s in the fridge. You can pour two glasses and I’ll be back before the ice melts.”

“Okay.” And maybe in the meantime she could get herself under control.

He had to pass by her to leave the kitchen and as he did he paused to give her the once-over again, this time giving some extra study to her hair. She’d pulled it into a clip at her crown to keep it out of her face, out of the pie, and to keep her neck cool.

Tyler seemed to like it, because he tweaked a curl and murmured, “I’m glad you’re here.”

Then he impulsively kissed her bare shoulder.

The sensual ripple of moments before turned all glittery and gold, and left Willow in a haze of delight as Tyler left the kitchen.

“Get a grip,” she muttered to herself when she was alone. Moving to the cupboard, she found two glasses, then headed to the refrigerator for iced tea.

True to his word, Tyler was back again while cubes still bobbed in his glass. His clean hair was freshly spiked; his face was free of five o’clock shadow. He had on a white T-shirt tucked into his jeans, and a hint of aftershave added a heady sensuousness to the previous scent of soap and shampoo.

But Willow reminded herself that being seduced by the way he looked and the way he smelled was not on tonight’s agenda, and she tried to ignore the effects he was having on her.

She had begun to cut butter into the flour when Tyler joined her at the table to peel the apples.

They worked well together, exchanging small talk as they got the pie together and into the oven. Then they put steaks on the barbecue in the backyard and tossed a salad to go with them.

Willow was mildly surprised by how smoothly it all went. By how easily they settled into compatible conversation about Black Arrow and its citizens, about apples and trees and Tyler’s plans for herding cattle rather than horses, about starting up a small dairy and having his brother join him in business when Brick was ready to leave rodeoing behind, too.

Before she knew it, dinner was done, the mess was cleaned and they’d eaten pie—only one slice for her but two for Tyler—and he was suggesting they sit on the porch to watch the sunset.

Willow didn’t have to think twice about accepting, because she was nowhere near ready to say good-night to him. Instead she agreed that sounded like a good idea, and out they went onto the porch.

There was a single chair she could have chosen to sit on, but instead she went directly to the porch swing, which hung by chains from the roof above.

She didn’t know whether Tyler would join her there or not, and decided it was probably better if he didn’t, because as the evening progressed she was finding him more and more appealing, more and more attractive, more and more irresistible.

But when he did join her on the swing—sitting close enough to her that his thigh ran the length of hers—she was inordinately pleased.

They were just in time, too, because the sun was setting in a mellow, cotton-candy glow.

They watched in relative silence, and that was nice, too. But when full darkness had fallen Willow began to wonder if she should say good-night and go home then. Even though she still didn’t want to.

Maybe Tyler read her mind, because just as she was about to suggest it he angled himself in the swing so he could look at her, leaving an arm along the swing back so he could fiddle with a strand of her hair. And any notion she’d had of ending the evening was chased away.

“If you listen real close you’ll hear the symphony that came with this place,” he said then.

“You have your own private symphony?” Willow asked, playing along.

“Yes, ma’am. Ducks in the mornings and frogs in the evenings. Listen.”

Willow had been so intent on the sunset, on having Tyler close beside her, on the heat and the sense of power that emanated from him, that she hadn’t been paying attention to the sounds around them. But once she did she heard just what Tyler had been talking about—a rhythmic croaking in the distance.

It made her think of beer commercials, and she laughed. “Not too melodic.”

Tyler smiled his lopsided grin, putting that single dimple into his cheek. “Would you like music instead? I turned it off so we could talk, but I could turn it on again.”

“No, this is nice.” And she didn’t want to lose his company for even a moment.

“I knew a girl once who had a thing for frogs,” he said then.

“That sounds very kinky.”

He laughed. “No, I mean she just collected frogs. She had a couple of real ones, plus she had frog figurines and carvings and stuffed animals. She had frogs on her coffee mugs and on a T-shirt. She even had frog-print pajamas.”

“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 engine 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 have 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.

He was going to hope his memory came back on its own, and trust in destiny to take care of the rest.

Candy Wood returned to ask if he wanted anything else, and left his check when he said he didn’t.

And as Tyler paid the bill, he marveled all over again at how relieved he was that she hadn’t turned out to be the mystery woman.

And that was when it struck him that no matter who she turned out to be, if he ever actually did find the mystery woman she would have a very long way to go to compare with Willow.

At least in his eyes.



To say Willow was nervous about taking Tyler to her family barbecue was an understatement. She couldn’t have been more nervous if she were about to undergo brain surgery.

And not only was she stressed about how her brothers might act with Tyler, about how they might treat him, she was also stressed about what to wear.

Normally she would have shown up at something like this in jeans and an oversize T-shirt—completely sexless tomboy clothes.

She didn’t ever want Tyler to see her like that, but she knew that dressing in anything she did want him to see her in would only compound things with her brothers. And in the process, make it worse for Tyler. Not to mention opening the door to a rash of teasing remarks for herself, too.

It was all just so complicated, and there was a part of her that couldn’t help regretting the impulse she’d acted on when she’d invited him to this gathering.

Of course, if she hadn’t acted on that impulse she wouldn’t have been able to see him today, and she wouldn’t have liked that, either.

In any case, depending on what happened between herself and Tyler when it came out that she was pregnant, she wanted some sort of groundwork laid with her family. She wanted them to at least have met him.

But with only fifteen minutes before he picked her up, she didn’t have time to worry, she just had to pick out something to wear and put it on.

Thoughts of Tyler and wanting to wow him prevailed, and she grabbed a pair of white Capri pants and a teal-blue, spandex tank top.

On went the slacks. Then on went the tank top, and she stopped short as she looked at herself in the full-length mirror.

Her breasts had gone up a cup size by the time she’d made it to the doctor to confirm her pregnancy. But almost overnight they seemed to have grown at least one size more. She was nearly voluptuous, and it amazed her.

She took a long look from the front, then turned to the side and stared at herself from that angle, thinking that she could wow just about anybody with those puppies.

It was great.

But it was the last thing she wanted her brothers to notice about her.

Still, she was so thrilled to have a fuller, more womanly body that she just couldn’t make herself take off the tank top. After all, it wouldn’t be long before her middle would be expanding at an even more rapid rate and ruin the effect.

But what she could do was cover up a little, she decided.

So she grabbed a white cotton blouse to wear over the tank top and her wonderful new bustline, leaving the blouse unbuttoned and untucked so there was only the slightest hint of what was underneath.

Then she hurried to apply blush and mascara—hoping her brothers wouldn’t notice that, either—and brushed her hair, leaving it to hang loose and falling over her shoulders so that it, too, camouflaged her new profile.

The doorbell rang as she was putting on lipstick—also lightly—and the butterflies in her stomach took wing all over again.

“Please don’t let this be a disaster,” she said to no one in particular as she went to open the door.

Tyler was standing on the landing outside, and the minute he saw Willow, his handsome, clean-shaven face lit up with a smile that made any risk she was taking seem worth it.

He was dressed simply in cowboy boots, a pair of black jeans and a gray Henley T-shirt with the sleeves pushed up to his elbows. But he couldn’t have looked any better in a tuxedo. The jeans were just tight enough to accentuate the thick-muscled thighs that had no doubt come from years of gripping the sides of bucking broncos, and the T-shirt hugged his broad shoulders, powerful pectorals and beautiful biceps like the caress Willow’s hands were instantly itching to bestow.

“Sorry if I’m late,” he was saying when Willow caught up from the time-delay of looking at him. “I ran some bushels of apples over to the general store on my way.”

“That’s okay, I wasn’t ready myself,” she said, pushing the screen open for him. “Come on in. I just have to grab the batch of brownies I made for dessert and we can go.”

“You look great, by the way,” he said to her back as she went to the counter to get the platter piled with decadent chocolate confections.

The compliment puffed out her chest even more as she spun around to face him again. “You, too,” she said, meaning it.

Tyler held the screen open for her this time, pulling the main door closed behind them as they both stepped out onto the landing.

“Shall we walk or drive to this one?” he asked then.

“Drive. The ranch is about twenty minutes outside of town.”

Tyler’s truck was parked at the curb at the bottom of the steps, and he made sure to open that door for her, too, taking the dish of brownies from her while she got in, and returning them once she had.

She indulged in watching him when he rounded the front of the truck, appreciating the sight of his very straight back and that perfect derriere. That perfect derriere that she’d once seen bare…

But that was the last thing she wanted to be thinking about. Especially since she could feel her nipples hardening in response, and that would never do.

She steadfastly continued to stare out the windshield as he got behind the wheel, willing her mind to keep to a more appropriate path and her nipples to calm down. Which wasn’t easy, since they suddenly seemed so ultrasensitive she thought she could feel every fiber of the tank top against them.

“Where to?” Tyler asked after he’d started the engine and put the truck into gear.

Willow was grateful that he seemed completely unaware of the effect he was having on her, and gave him directions, still without so much as glancing at him.

Luckily, he was busy pulling away from the curb, and didn’t seem to notice that, either.

“Is this barbecue for a special occasion?” he asked as he maneuvered the streets of Black Arrow.

“It’s for my cousin Jesse. He’s an agent with the National Security Agency in Washington, D.C.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“That’s interesting.”

“He’s an interesting guy. And since he’s home for a visit right now we all wanted to get together to see him.”

“So I’m up against four brothers and a cousin?”

“Five cousins. Although one of them is a girl, so she shouldn’t give you any trouble. And my cousin Billy is out of the country.”

“Eight guys are going to want to string me up for being with you?” Tyler said with a chuckle that still sounded undaunted.

If her brothers and her cousins all knew Tyler had gotten her pregnant, that might actually be the case. But since they didn’t, she said, “My brothers can always count on my cousins’ help if they want it, but usually—”

“They don’t need it,” he guessed.

Willow laughed. “Well, no, they don’t usually need it. But what I was going to say was that my cousins don’t have a thing about me actually seeing someone of the opposite sex. In fact, they’ve been known to give my brothers a hard time about always sticking their noses into my business.”

“But it doesn’t help?”

“My brothers just think they’re looking out for their little sister, and no one ever manages to make them see it any differently.”

They’d arrived at the ranch by then, and Tyler found a place to park in front of the patrol car.

“I guess this’ll be interesting,” he said, inclining his head in a kind of shrug. “Any words to the wise before we go in?”

“Don’t touch me.” Not an order she wanted to give, when having Tyler touch her was something she seemed to be craving more and more each time she saw him. “If you even take my hand for some reason or pat my arm they’ll consider it pawing me and be all over you.”

“Okay. No touching.”

“And don’t call me Will.”

“Is that your request or is that a suggestion because of your brothers?”

“Both. They’ll say you’re trying to be one of us when you aren’t one of us, and it’ll tick them off.”