Willow in Bloom

Work she needed to get back to.

With that in mind, she opened the left-hand drawer and slipped the vitamin bottle into it, closing it again with a resounding bang and making a mental note to take the vitamins upstairs to her apartment at the end of the day.

Then she stood and went to the tiny bathroom connected to the office to make sure she didn’t look like she’d just gotten out of bed. That wouldn’t do with a new customer. Or the old ones, for that matter.

The bathroom was barely that—a toilet and a sink crammed into a space the size of a closet. Willow had to avail herself of the facilities before she could even look in the mirror.

It was another of the current nuisances—her bladder seemed to have shrunk to the size of an acorn, and she spent every day hoping no one noticed how much more frequently she was having to go.

When she was finished, she stood at the sink and washed her hands, finally checking herself in the mirror.

She was glad to see there wasn’t any evidence that she had dozed off. No imprints of desk accessories and no puffiness around her gray eyes.

Thank heaven for small favors. And maybe she really had been able to convince Carl that she hadn’t been napping.

She was also glad to see that the now-usual morning pallor of her skin was gone, too. The Native American half of her bloodline had contributed a healthy looking reddish-brown complexion, but these days Willow started out nauseous and almost as pale as the O’Flannery sisters she’d gone to high school with. Not that there hadn’t been a time during adolescence when she hadn’t longed for the O’Flannerys’ alabaster skin. But adulthood had brought with it an appreciation of her own heritage and all that went with it, including her color.

Plus she didn’t want anything to give away her secret.

One well-arched eyebrow needed some smoothing, but not a strand of her long black hair had come free of the braid that fell to the middle of her back like a thick rope. Her lips were a natural pink that she’d only once added color to, and she had come to rue that occasion and the havoc it was wreaking on her life, so she’d thrown the lipstick away. But she did apply a little gloss just to keep her lips moist.

Her nap hadn’t wrinkled her clothes—her blue jeans were fine and so was the plain blue, crew-neck T-shirt she wore tucked into them. As glad as she was that there were no signs of her nap, she was even more relieved that there was no evidence of the pregnancy, either. Her stomach was still as flat as ever. All in all, she judged herself presentable enough to meet her new customer.

If only she could stay awake through the meeting.

Hoping to aid that, she slapped her cheeks a little, the way they did in the movies to make people regain consciousness. It didn’t help the feeling that she needed more sleep, but it did add color to her face, and that was a good thing. As good as it was going to get, she decided, leaving the bathroom to get back to business.

For a split second when she reentered her office, she forgot she’d put the telltale vitamins in her drawer, and felt a rush of panic at the thought that she might have left them out where someone could see them.

One glance at her desktop reminded her that she’d stashed them. So she crossed to the door that led to the sales room, opening it to greet the person she’d kept waiting.

Never in her wildest dreams would she have guessed who that person would be.

In fact, at first she thought she was seeing things.

She blinked, shook her head slightly and took a second look.

But she wasn’t seeing things.

It was him.

It was him!

Her head began to spin.

Her breath caught in her throat.

Her knees buckled right out from under her.

“Whoa! Hold on there.”

He reached out to catch her, but Willow landed with a shoulder against the doorjamb and managed to keep from falling without his help. Barely.

“I…I must have tripped,” she muttered, in the weakest voice she’d ever heard come out of her mouth.

“You sure there isn’t somethin’ wrong with you today, Willow?” Carl asked from where he stood beside the man who had caused her shock. “Are you sick?”

“I’m fine,” she insisted. “Just fine.”

She eased herself away from the jamb, willing her knees to hold her as she did.

“You sure?” Carl persisted.

“I’m sure,” she lied, knowing all the while that she was anything but fine.

“If you say so,” her store manager muttered. Again disbelief rang in his tone, but he let it drop and said, “This here’s Tyler Chadwick. Like I told you, he just bought the Harris place.”

“I know who he is,” Willow answered, wishing for more strength to her still breathy voice as she looked up into the face that had haunted her for the last two months. The face she hadn’t been sure she’d ever see again. The face she hadn’t been sure she wanted to see again.

“And this here’s Willow Colton,” Carl said to conclude the introductions. “She runs things ’round here, and it’s her needs to tell you if you can open an account or not.”

Willow… He knows me as Wyla….

But Tyler Chadwick didn’t so much as blink an eye at the discrepancy. In fact, he smiled a perfectly open smile and said, “Pleased to meet you.”

As if he’d never met her before.

Was he kidding? He’d been quite a tease, as she recalled, so maybe he was just putting her on.

But something about the way he was looking at her, at the blankness in his expression, said he wasn’t kidding at all. That he didn’t remember her.

“Wyla…” she said under her breath, to jolt his memory.

“Wyla?” he repeated. “Or Willow? Did I hear wrong?”

“Wyla?” Carl echoed, overhearing Tyler’s response. “Her name’s Willow.” Then to Willow he said, “What’s goin’ on with you today?”

Willow didn’t answer that because she couldn’t. She just stood there, staring at Tyler Chadwick.

And it was Tyler Chadwick. For a moment she had entertained the idea that maybe this man was just someone who looked remarkably like him. And happened to have the same name.

But of course, that was crazy. This was definitely the Tyler Chadwick she knew. Granted, she’d spent just a short time with him, but it had been a memorable time. He was a memorable man.

He wasn’t terribly tall—only about five feet ten, a scant three inches taller than she was. But it was an impressive five ten of hard muscles honed from making his living riding bucking broncos on the rodeo circuit.

There wasn’t an ounce of fat on that body, made up of broad shoulders, narrow waist and hips, and biceps and thighs that bulged beneath his tan-colored shirt and jeans respectively.

And even if any of that had changed in the last two months, his face hadn’t. It was still handsome enough to make the birds stop singing in the trees just to get a look at him when he walked by.