The Foster Girls #4: Willow

Chapter 4: Decker

I pulled up on my Harley to the cottage. Using the key, I walked in and found that it was, indeed, uninhabited. There was nothing to indicate she'd ever been here, and the car was in the garage, clearly not being used.

She'd left her cards on the counter, so I pocketed those and put them in my wallet.

I locked the house back up and got back on my bike. I rumbled into town, parking by the florist where Byron told me she lived.

The bell jangled as I walked in and a nice woman in her mid-sixties greeted me. "Hello! Can I help you?"

"Yes. I'm looking for Willow Masen."

"And you are?"

Unreal. In the city, I never went unrecognized. "I'm Decker Masen, her husband."

At that, the woman stiffened slightly. "Does she know you're looking for her?"

When was the last time I'd been questioned? "Do you know where she is?"

For a long minute, she stared at me, right in the eyes. "Excuse me a moment."

She went in the back and I knew she was calling Willow. Two minutes later, she came back. "Go to the Coffee Shop. Three doors down across the street."

When I walked up to the Coffee Shop, a man was standing outside the door. He wasn't as tall as I was, but he was definitely just as bulky.

"You Masen?"

"Yeah. You are?"

"Going to find out why you're here."

"Is Willow here?"

"She never said she was married, which makes me think she maybe doesn't want to be. And I don't know if you're a threat or not or if maybe she's running from you."

"No threat to her," I leaned into him slightly, "at all."

Just like the lady at the flower shop did, this man looked me in the eye for a minute.

"You come in, and ask her if she wants to talk. If she says no, you leave. If you don't leave, I'll help you leave."

I nodded. Then I walked past him into the shop and saw her behind the counter. She was speaking to an older woman who had her hands on Willow's shoulders, then the woman nodded in my direction and Willow turned to me.

Her eyes were huge, her face, as always, giving everything away.

And what it told me was that I had decimated her and ground the shattered pieces to dust.

"Sweetheart," I said softly, without thinking, so much regret underlying my words it felt like it'd choke me.

I watched as she flinched as if I'd hit her.

She turned to the woman next to her, said something quietly and the woman nodded. Willow came from behind the counter, stalked past me, and out the door. I followed her out until she turned into an alley.

Stopping suddenly, she spun to face me but wouldn't look at my face. "What are you doing here?"

Without thinking, I reached out to tuck a stray curl that had escaped her ponytail. She jolted away violently before I could make contact and I dropped my hand. "Don't touch me," she hissed.

God, Decker, I love how you touch me.

"You weren't returning calls or texts, and your housekeeper said you weren't living at your house any more."

"I didn't want to be in touch with any of your people. And I didn't want to live in your house."

"It's your house. I wanted you to have a place on the beach like you always wanted."

She huffed an unamused laugh. "I don't want a house on the beach. What I always wanted was a husband and a home to live in together. I do not want a guilt offering."

"Sweetheart, it's not –"

Her eyes closed and she stomped her foot. "Stop calling me that! It meant something to me when I thought I meant something to you. Now that I know the truth, you have no right to call me anything. So you've seen that I'm OK, now you can leave and never come back."

I reached for my wallet. "I want you to use the AMEX and your debit card. I'll also make arrangements for your rent to be paid."

My sweet, gentle wife slapped my hand away. "You don't get it! I wanted one thing from you and it wasn't your money. You gave what I wanted to someone else, so now you have nothing that I want. If you want to do something for me, leave me alone, but keep your cards, keep your house and your money and don't you dare pay my rent. You wanted no part of me except a signed marriage license to save your company. So great! Mission accomplished. Have a good life with your girlfriend, but at least give me the courtesy of not having to see you and stay out of my life. And stop using money to try to buy me things because you feel guilty."

"You're my wife," I snapped at her. "I need to make sure you're provided for."

Her eyes filled with tears and she finally met my eyes. "I'm not your wife. You made that very clear three weeks ago, right after you'd spent the whole night inside of me. So let's not pretend that I'm anything more than just a signature on a line or some meaningless fuck."

"You are not some meaningless fuck, Willow."

She blinked back her tears, her eyes wounded. "Let's not play games, here. Can you just leave?"

"I'll leave for now, but I'm going to stay in the cottage for the weekend, and we're going to have dinner tonight and talk."

"I'm busy tonight."

I felt my gut tighten. "You have a date?"

"It's really none of your business."

"Cancel your plans. We need to talk."

"No."

"Willow, I want to explain some things to you."

Her eyes close as if she's in pain, and when she finally looks up at me, her eyes are dull, dead. "No explanations are needed. You've already made everything perfectly clear."

I think back to the first time I saw Willow. I was at a bar, waiting for Nurie, feeling the pressure of the looming deadline to be married, and I looked over at the little blonde-brunette sitting to my left. It was a Saturday night, prime hookup night, and the bar was upscale, so all the women there were in tight black dresses and mile-high heels, their make-up and hair flawless and perfect.

But Willow was sitting there, hair in a messy bun, no make-up save for some shiny pink lip gloss and wearing a tight T-shirt, jeans and...high-top chucks. In neon yellow. There was no reason...and every reason...to notice her in a sea of shiny fish, but my boy sat up and howled.

She caught me staring at her and held my eyes for longer than was socially acceptable. Her cheeks pinkened, her lips parted and I leaned toward her without thinking about it. But she beat me to the punch with her softly spoken words.

"You have the most beautiful eyes I've ever seen."

Her words to me. Pure Willow. She threw that out at me, not flirting, not coy, not trying to get a compliment in return – she just saw something she liked and called it out. I couldn't help smiling at her, and strangely enough, it was a genuine smile, one I rarely gave anyone.

She smiled back, absolutely beaming in response to my smile.

"What's your name?" I asked, holding my hand out to her. She grasped it in her tiny hand with a firm grip. Nothing tentative about this girl.

"Willow," she said back. Willow. Of course this tiny, ethereal creature would have a delicate name.

I'd find out over the next several weeks that she had the heart of a lion.

A heart I knew I'd shattered as she stood in front of me now. She thought I'd made everything clear a few weeks ago when I'd told her why I'd married her and why I was setting her up in a house two hours away for the next three years. I thought I'd made it clear, too.

Except nothing had seemed clear ever since the moment I'd seen her in that bar.