Willow in Bloom. Victoria Pade

about to be the topic of conversation between her brother and her friend, and it wreaked havoc on her concentration. She couldn’t help worrying that the more people thought about and talked about what was going on with her, the greater the chance that someone would guess her secret.

      Willow took off work not long after Bram and Jenna left her office. She wanted to do some shopping for herself before her evening of furniture shopping with Tyler.

      Ordinarily she bought most of her clothes out of catalogs, so the local boutique was not a place she frequented. In fact, her going into the place was such a change of pace that the owner and the clerk assumed she was there to buy a gift. Neither of them hid their shock very well when she informed them that she was looking for a few things for herself.