Willow in Bloom Read Free

Shouldn’t you be writing something down?”
    Willow felt even more stupid—if that were possible—because he was right, she hadn’t so much as taken out a piece of paper or a pencil.
    She did that now, filling in his name at the top of the form she used.
    â€œYou’ll have to give me the formal address. I know the Harris place, but I don’t know the numbers off the top of my head,” she said, trying hard to sound businesslike to counteract her total unprofessionalism up to that point.
    Tyler rattled off the route number and zip code, and as Willow wrote those down, too, she worked to come up with more questions or conversation that might spur his memory without seeming completely inappropriate.
    But she couldn’t think of anything, and instead just asked the usual things about his finances, references, and about how much feed and grain he thought he’d be needing per month.
    And then the form was finished and all that was left was for him to sign it to authorize her to run a credit check on him.
    When he’d done that, he stood. “Guess that takes care of it then.”
    A sudden feeling of panic rushed through Willow at the thought that he was on the verge of leaving and she hadn’t made any headway whatsoever in getting him to remember her.
    â€œSo did you end up taking home all the prize money that weekend in Tulsa?” she asked in a last-ditch effort, hoping any mention of Tulsa or that weekend might spur something in him.
    But it just seemed to dampen his mood again. “No,only Friday’s purse. The competition you must have seen,” he said, once more sounding as if he didn’t want to talk about it.
    And maybe that was the problem, Willow thought. Maybe losing the following two days had caused him to block out the entire weekend. Her included.
    Not that that made it any more heartening as she finally gave in and admitted she was failing miserably at making him remember her.
    â€œYou’ll let me know once you get the credit report and okay the account, so I can put in an order?” he asked as he made his way to the office door with Willow following him this time.
    â€œI’ll be in touch,” she assured him, unable to keep her own dismay out of her voice.
    Apparently he heard it, because he tossed her a small frown. But he didn’t question it. He just said, “I’ll be lookin’ forward to hearing from you. And to doing business with you.”
    Willow could only manage a nod, at which point he headed down the main aisle and left the store.
    And as she stood in her office doorway again and watched him go, she couldn’t quite believe what had just happened.
    The one man she’d done something totally outrageous and uncharacteristic with, the one time in her life she’d ever done anything totally outrageous and uncharacteristic at all, had just strolled in, apparently without a single memory of ever even having met her.
    And she didn’t know what to do about it.
    It was so humiliating.
    So humiliating that she wished that night they’d spent together could be left a secret she could carry with her to her grave, so no one would ever be the wiser. So her humiliation would never be known.
    She wished she could steer clear of Tyler Chadwick for the rest of her life, in spite of those eyes and that face and that body.
    And as she retreated back into her office and closed the door once again, she considered doing just that—steering clear of Tyler Chadwick for the rest of her life.
    But she wasn’t sure that was the right thing to do. Even if he was the kind of creep who spent the night with a woman and then forgot all about it. All about her.
    Because even if he was that kind of creep, even if he didn’t remember having met her, it didn’t change the fact that he had. That he’d done much, much more than just meet her.
    It didn’t change the fact that she was now pregnant with his