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.
Chapter Two
“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.”
“And 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?”
“Okay. The headaches are still comin’ but they’re fewer and farther between, and the pills help when they do hit.”
“That’s something. What about the other? Are things clearin’ up on that front?”
“No. That’s the same.”
“And 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…
“If 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.”
“Because she didn’t spark anything? You know what the doctors said about your theory that—”
“Not 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.”
“So she’s not the one.”
“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….
“You’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.”
“That’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.”
“So when are you comin’ to stay awhile?”
“You miss me. Admit it, you really miss me,” Brick goaded.
“Yeah, I miss all that snoring and snortin’ you do in your sleep every night,” Tyler countered facetiously, when in truth he did miss his brother. Not only had they shared a bedroom their entire growing up years, but since they’d left home to follow the rodeo circuit they’d rarely been apart.
But Tyler knew there was no way he’d ever live it down if he admitted that he actually did miss Brick.
“I’ll be there the weekend after next,” his brother said in answer to his question. “And don’t go thinkin’ I’ll be able to recognize the mystery woman if we come across her, either, because I keep tellin’ you that I didn’t so much as cast her a glance before I left you with her in that bar. I was too tired to think straight that night.”
“Yeah, yeah, I’ve heard it before.”
“I just wish to hell I’d made you come back to the room with me instead of leaving you there. Then maybe you wouldn’t have still been thinkin’ about her the next day and you wouldn’t have been distracted and—”
“We all get dealt our own hand, little brother, and that was mine,” Tyler said in answer to the suddenly serious tone Brick had taken.
“Yeah, well, still and all—”
“Still and all nothin’. Things happen the way they’re supposed to happen.” Whether it’s easy to understand or cope with or not.
Tyler heard the sound of a knock on his brother’s motel room door just before Brick said, “That’s the guys.”
“Headin’ out for a real breakfast,” Tyler added, knowing the routine well himself. And suffering a terrible pang not to be a part of it anymore.
But he didn’t let it sound in his voice. He made sure to seem upbeat. “You better get goin’ or they’ll leave you behind. I just wanted to wish you luck on your ride tonight. Let me know how you do.”
Brick wasn’t as good at hiding his feelings. His voice echoed with sadness. “You know I will. Talk to you later.”
“Talk to you later,” Tyler answered. Then he pushed the button to disconnect the call, and set his cordless phone on the planked floor of his front porch.
“Damn,” he muttered to himself, weathering the fresh surge of sorrow that flooded through him.
But things were the way they were, he reminded himself. They couldn’t be changed, and pining for what used to be, for what might have been if only, didn’t help anything. He needed to look to the positives, not the negatives.
Like the fact that he was now the owner of this ranch and had a home of his own.
Like the fact that even if it was sooner than he’d planned, this was still the life he and Brick had always talked about having when they were ready to throw in the towel on bronc busting.
Like the fact that Black Arrow was a nice, quiet town full of friendly people.
People like Willow Colton.
Willow Colton whose legs went on for miles, whose tight body couldn’t have been better proportioned, and whose breasts were just the right size to fit into a man’s hands….
Tyler knew what his brother would say about Willow Colton if he saw her. Brick would say, “Who needs a mystery woman when there’s a flesh and blood woman like Willow Colton?”