“Sequoia,” the woman said, looking over to the second girl. “Come on back over here.” Her eyes landed on Wilder and held.
He wasn’t sure what prompted him to detour to the right instead of walking straight out. Perhaps the way the woman looked at him—part defiance in her expression and part desperation. She had long brown hair with streaks of blonde in it, and the dark depth of her eyes made Wilder’s heart boom like a big drum in his chest.
He walked over to her and the two little girls, realizing they were twins. “Howdy,” he said in the most pleasant voice he could muster while looking at such a beautiful woman. He certainly didn’t know what to do with a crying child, but he reached up and started to pull one of the long-stemmed roses out of the arrangement.
He looked at Sequoia, the little girl who wasn’t throwing a tantrum. “Would you like a flower, sweetheart?”
She looked at him with wide, somber eyes and nodded.
“Careful. They’ve got thorns. You can pinch here, okay? Then you won’t get stuck.” He smiled at her, his eyes grazing past her mother. “What about you, honey? You want to stand up, dry your tears, and have a flower?”
He plucked another rose out of the vase and held it while the sniffling girl got to her feet.
The woman straightened too, and fire blazed in her eyes now. “She really shouldn’t be rewarded for bad behavior.”
Wilder looked at her, completely awestruck, his thoughts and words abandoning him.
“Her just wanted a flower, Mama,” Sequoia said, and her mother gave her a look that said,Hush up, now.
Wilder knew, because he was one of the older Glovers, and he’d seen that look on plenty of his aunt’s and uncle’s faces.
Wilder offered the rose to the woman. “How about you take it, then? When you think she’s earned it, you can give it to her.”
The woman wore a dubious look, but she took the rose from him. With his hand free, Wilder reached out and smoothed thegirl’s hair back. “You’ll be good for your momma now, okay? Next time I see her, I want her to tell me that you earned that rose and lots more.”
He gave her a grin, glad when the little girl nodded. “I’ve got to get these to my cousin,” he said. “He’s proposing to his girlfriend today.” He looked to the woman, almost desperate to ask her name and number, but not quite knowing how. He nodded and turned to leave the flower shop.
He found Maryann standing there, watching it all. He nodded at her at the same time he heard the little girl say, “I’m sorry, Mama.”
The shop owner put her hand on Wilder’s forearm and said, “You’re a good man, Wilder Glover.”
He paused and looked over her shoulder, where he found the little girl hugging her mother around the waist while her momma patted her back.
“Nah,” he said. “It was just a rose.”
He left the shop, hoping Gun and Camila wouldn’t actually count the roses. “It’s not like twenty-four would make a better proposal than twenty-two,” he muttered to himself.
He replayed the scenario with the woman and her twins on the way back to the ranch. But this time he changed the ending, creating a fantasy where he got her name, her number, and had a date with her on Friday night.
Maybe he didn’t need to develop more patience. Maybe he needed to be more like the other young men in his family who’d found love.
Maybe he needed to be bolder and braver and ask out a lot of women the wayMitch had.
Or say what was exactly in his heart, the way Link had with his wife Misty.
Or be the type of cowboy who could kiss on the first date, the way Gun had.
As frustration and unhappiness coiled inside him, Wilder pushed away the thoughts that he needed to be more like someone else.
He didn’t want to be anyone else. He wanted to be Wilder Glover and have that be good enough.
30
Savannah Calloway watched the cowboy with the deep red roses leave the flower shop, torn between running after him to thank him and staying in the shop until he’d driven away. She patted Gallery’s back, her heart now melting butter after her daughter had apologized.
But really, she’d asked the girls to stop touching things over an hour ago, when they were at the grocery store. She’d told them they could each have one thing, and if they asked for a second, she’d put back the first.
For the most part, the twins were well-behaved, but every time she got them back from her ex-husband, she had to re-acclimate them toherrules,herexpectations, andhervalues.
