“Thank you,” I said, and taking the card, walked past the three utterly astonished girls.
7
Willow
All of us turned around to watch him leave.
“Who the hell, was that?” Sandra asked in a dazed voice.
Someone released a breath while I quickly began to shut down my computer for the night. To be honest I felt pretty dazed myself. Who the hell was he? And what was he doing in a small town like Folsom? The address he had given was from the most exclusive part of town though.
“Did you guys hear his voice?” Victoria asked. “How could anyone’s voice be that low … and deep?”
“And smooth,” Helen added. “Hell, when he spoke it felt like someone was pouring warm honey down my back.”
I couldn’t have agreed more. There was a lot of honey still running down my own back.
Sandra came to her senses suddenly, because she dropped her plastic bag, and ran to the door for a glimpse of him.
I slipped my heels off my feet. They were already killing me and I’d had them on for less than half an hour. No way was I wearing them.
“Damn!” Sandra turned around, disappointed. “He’s already disappeared.”
I lifted the shoes up. “I want to talk about these.”
“What was his name?” Sandra demanded, completely ignoring the issue of my shoes.
“Caleb Wolfe,” I replied with a little sigh.
“Whoa! Even his name is sexy,” Helen breathed.
“Who was he buying the flowers for?” Sandra asked.
“How would I know that?” I replied.
“He didn’t mention it?” she prodded.
“Nope.”
“Why on earth didn’t you ask? You usually do.”
“Well, since it’s Valentine’s Day I thought it would be a given he’d be buying it for a girlfriend, or sweetheart?”
“No!” She shook her head decisively. “It could be for his mom, or aunt, or sister, and that would make me very happy.”
“What are you planning to do, make a move?” Helen asked.
“Of course. Have you ever seen a man that hot? I could lick him for days”
“I have,” Victoria piped up. “My Arthur. All that construction has built him into a beast.”
Oh great. We were in for another night listening to how great Victoria and Arthur’s sex life was. I raised the shoes up again. “I’m not wearing these. They’re going to hurt. I’m going in my Converses.”
That immediately grabbed Sandra’s attention. “Are you joking? How the hell are you going to go to a bar on Valentine’s Day wearing those?”
“If I have to put these on then I’m not going,” I said, and from my expression she knew that I was serious.
With a sigh, she yielded. I locked the shop and we bundled into a cab and we were on our way to the bubbling town center.
A little while later, with a cocktail in hand, I was perched on a stool at the bar.
Victoria and Helen had from the moment we arrived, headed over to a couple of guys seated in a booth, and asked to join their party. Thank God Sandra was not ready to get that friendly yet.
“What happens now?” I asked.
“We wait,” she said, and took another long drink of her sangria before setting it down on the counter.
“For what?”
“For someone hot to come up to us.”
I was amused. “And what if they’re not hot?”
“We ignore them,” she replied with a bright smile, but then the smile faltered when her gaze once again fell to my shoes and her expression turned to one of distaste. “Or you can take them. I’m sure that they’ll mostly be coming up to you,”
With a little laugh, I lifted my glass once again for another sip and let my eyes wander around the bar. But I was not really seeing anything. In my mind I could still see Caleb Wolfe’s breathtakingly translucent-blue eyes … so light I, at first, thought that it was a trick of the light. But then he moved and I could see it wasn’t. His eyes were truly that beautiful. Every time I’d raised my head, I would see him watching me intently, so more than once I had stared straight into those unnerving depths.
It was weird but something about him made me feel… safe. I never felt that with other men. And he had ordered my favorite flower. Most men have never even heard of a flower called Red Magic Daylily.
“What if he’s the one?” I realized with a start that I’d spoken the words aloud. Given the lively chatter in the bar, and the music playing through the speakers, I hoped Sandra wouldn’t have heard me, but it was not the case.
She immediately whirled her head around. “Who? What are you talking about?”
“You know how I’ve always said that deep inside, something feels missing? As though I lost someone or something, and I’ve been waiting for him/it to come back?”
“‘Yeah?”
“‘Well I was just thinking. Wouldn’t it be awesome if that Caleb Wolfe was the one? That missing person … the one I’ve been waiting for.”