Willow in Bloom Read Free Page A

baby.

Chapter Two
    â€œI ’m sitting on my front porch with my feet up on the railing, drinking a steaming cup of coffee and watchin’ the sun rise. How’s that compare to a smelly motel room, a stale Danish and a cup of weak, lukewarm swill that’s supposed to pass for a cup a’ joe?”
    â€œMornin’, big brother,” the voice on the other end of the phone said when Tyler had finished his lengthy greeting. “Tryin’ to make me jealous, are you?”
    â€œYup.”
    â€œWell, it’s workin’. This room smells like mildew, my complimentary continental breakfast is a muffin you could play hardball with, and I think the coffee was made yesterday.”
    â€œAnd I wish I was there,” Tyler added, slightly under his breath.
    Brick didn’t comment on that, and Tyler knew his younger brother didn’t know what to say to it.
    But Brick didn’t let much silence lapse before he used Tyler’s utterance as a segue. “How’re you feeling?”
    â€œOkay. The headaches are still comin’ but they’re fewer and farther between, and the pills help when they do hit.”
    â€œThat’s something. What about the other? Are things clearin’ up on that front?”
    â€œNo. That’s the same.”
    â€œAnd you haven’t found your mystery woman to help?”
    His mystery woman. The woman he’d met at a blues club and spent that last night with. Whoever she was…
    â€œIf I have found my mystery woman it hasn’t helped,” Tyler said with a laugh to lighten the tone. “No, seriously, I’ve only met one woman—someone named Willow Colton. She runs the feed and grain store here and she isn’t my mystery woman.”
    â€œBecause she didn’t spark anything? You know what the doctors said about your theory that—”
    â€œNot only because she didn’t spark anything. She recognized me from Tulsa in June because she was at the rodeo Friday afternoon and saw me ride.”
    â€œSo she’s not the one.”
    â€œ And she didn’t spark anything, so, no, she’s not the one,” Tyler said definitively.
    But talking about Willow Colton brought her to Tyler’s mind. Vividly to mind. Something that had been happening every time he turned around since meeting her the day before.
    She might not be his mystery woman, but she’d certainly struck a note with him. Of course, that shouldn’t have come as any surprise. After all, she was beautiful, so she would have struck a note with anyone. Beautiful with shiny licorice-black hair and skin as smooth as satin. High, broad cheekbones; a sweet little nose. Full, luscious lips the color of Colorado’s red rocks. And those eyes—luminous, ethereal, pale, pale dove-gray—those eyes could mesmerize a man….
    â€œYou’re probably right.” Brick’s voice broke into Tyler’s wandering thoughts. “Not only isn’t Miss Feed and Grain your mystery woman if she was at the rodeo, but if she’d been with you that night she’d have said it.”
    â€œThat’s what I’m figuring, too. Besides, I don’t care what the doctors or anyone else say, I think I’ll know her when I see her. I just feel it in my gut.”
    Brick didn’t comment on that, either. He didn’t have to. They’d had this conversation a dozen times in the last two months, and Tyler knew his brother thought he had just gone a little crazy in response to an unwanted life change. He also knew that in many ways Brick was merely humoring him, figuring he’d come to his senses eventually.
    But Brick did look on the bright side. “Well, one way or another, that pull you felt to Black Arrow landed you a nice piece of property. If nothin’ else,maybe fate was planting that seed to get you where you were meant to go.”
    â€œSo when are you comin’ to stay awhile?”
    â€œYou miss