Victoria Pade - Willow in Bloom

Thanks to Becky’s makeover, her hair had been loose and her face had been made up—complete with lipstick. And she’d been wearing one of Becky’s dresses—a form-fitting little red number Willow would never have had the courage to buy, let alone wear at any other time.

She definitely hadn’t looked the way she did today. Or any other day or night before or after that fateful evening she’d met Tyler Chadwick.

So maybe that was the problem. Maybe without the face paint, with her hair tied back, dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, introduced to him by another name, and in an entirely different setting, she looked so different that he just wasn’t putting two and two together.

And maybe if she helped with that two and two he might see past the surface and add it all up.

With that in mind, she said, “So are you on hiatus from rodeo riding?”

“That’s right, you said you know who I am, didn’t you? You follow the circuit?” he asked.

“No, but I saw you ride in Tulsa in June. Mid-June. On a Friday night…” Of course, when she and Becky had met him in that bar much later that evening they’d pretended they hadn’t seen the rodeo and didn’t know who he was. Just to give him a hard time.

So that wasn’t much of a hint.

“There was a packed crowd that night,” he was saying as Willow worked to pay attention. “Standing room only. You must have had your tickets a long while in advance. Was that your first time?”

“Yes.” For the rodeo. And only the second for what came later that night….

“It was my next-to-last,” he said quietly, soberly.

Willow sensed that she’d hit on a sore subject. “Did you retire?” she asked, using the term facetiously, since he was hardly retirement age.

But all he said in answer was, “Something like that.”

It was clear he didn’t want to talk about it, and because it wasn’t getting her any nearer her goal, anyway, she didn’t pursue it. Instead she decided to try a different tack.

“I suppose you must have met a lot of people along the way.”

“Probably more than my fair share.”

“A lot of women.”

He smiled wryly. “Probably more than my fair share.”

Willow acknowledged that with a raise of her chin, but began to give in to the inevitable thought she’d been trying to avoid—that she had been just one of many. That that night, so unlike anything she had ever done in her life, had been so commonplace to him that he didn’t even remember it.

“So you got around pretty good, did you?” she heard herself say before she even knew she was going to. In a very accusatory tone.

“I didn’t have a different woman every night of the week, if that’s what you’re asking, no. But what does that have to do with opening an account for feed?”

Good question.

Willow had to think fast to come up with an answer.

“I was just wondering if you’d settled down with a wife or a girlfriend who would also be on the account.”

Feeble. Oh, was that feeble.

But it was the best she could do on the spot.

And he didn’t really buy it. She could see the doubt in his expression.

But he went along with it, anyway.

“No, there’s just me. I’ll be the only one on the account. 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.

“You’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.

“So 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.

“You’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.

“I’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 baby.

“I’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?”

“Mornin’, 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?”

“Yup.”

“Well, 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.”