Page 23 of Courageous Demands

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WILLOW

Willow stared at her phone – so full of hurt, shock, and hope.

When Ruth Kendall told her two days ago to ‘go buy something a tramp would wear on a street corner’ – Willow had nearly gotten up from the table and walked out until she heard the reasoning behind it. That had been an enlightening conversation that changed everything.

“Look, men are very simple to understand. They want comfort, love, to feel safe, warm, and welcome – and then comes part two. You need to get his attention, knock his world off his axis, stop the charging bull in his tracks and then feed him.”

“How is this supposed to work, he’s not going to…”

“Catch him at work. To Alec, his work is mentally ‘safe’ to him and something he does all the time. Work is not a threat to his emotional well-being. It’s a challenge. Secondly, you need him to stop his brain from processing what is going on and you need those two seconds, young lady, before Alec deems you a threat.”

“How am I supposed to do all of that within a matter of minutes?”

“That is what the lingerie is for,” Ruth Kendall smirked and tapped her head. “Men rule the roost – but only because the helpless little hens let them. Use your brain and circumvent things.”

Willow looked at the two shrewd faces watching her with a new set of eyes. Alec’s mother didn’t hate her; she hated what had happened and wanted things to change for her son. She was protecting him like a mother bear watching over her cub. Ruth Kendall was a formidable opponent and knew everyone in this town – and was choosing to be her ally, to help her friend and bring the two of them together.

“You aren’t going to lie,” Ruth began simply. “Men hate liars, and it shuts them down immediately… but we’re going to be clever. You’ll call 9-1-1 and tell them that you are a young lady with heart problems.”

“That’s brilliant.”

“That’s so wrong,” Willow balked. “I’m taking aid from someone else who might need it and…”

“You are a young lady – with problems of the heart – so it’s not a lie,” Ruth said firmly, looking at her. “Be dressed in a hot little number showing a lot of skin because men love looking at women. I don’t care if they are thirteen with their first…”

“Ruth!” Mary protested, looking utterly shocked.

“Ha!” Ruth exclaimed, laughing and pointing at Alec’s mother. “She just proved my point. I was going to say ‘whiskers,’ but we all know that men think with their trousers from the moment they go into puberty until their ticker stops. If you give a man privacy, two magazines, and enough time, they are going to look at the boobs – every single time because they cannot help it. It’s programmed in their DNA, and because we know that hard fact… we win.”

“How?”

“I thought you were supposed to be smart?” Ruth said haughtily, smiled, and leaned forward. “You do the phone call, be in your lingerie, and when he gets there… you’ve got maybe three minutes to look helpless, say all the things he wants to hear whether you think them or not, and then offer him cookies.”

“Cookies do not make relationships work.”

“Girl, pump your man full of sugar and let it work. Ever heard the term ‘Age before Beauty’? Helloooo?” Ruth snapped. “There’s a reason. I know how to work what I’ve got because I’ve made a lot of mistakes over the years. Age trumps beauty every single time because the lot of you is naïve but think you know it all. Oh, you are learning, but you know diddlysquat until you are in your thirties. It takes men even longer to mature and get their acts together.”

Willow sat back in her chair and stared at the two women. She wasn’t quite sure if she should be insulted – or take lessons from the two geniuses before her. Obviously, she needed to think differently and could learn a lot from these two who were taking her under their wing.

“Comfort zone, look sexy yet vulnerable, and lots of sugar,” she whispered, dumbstruck at the simplicity of such a thing… and how hard it was going to be to manage this. Alec was never going to fall for any of this. He was going to get mad at her for manipulating him and never talk to her again.

“Or carbs,” Ruth shrugged. “Warm, fresh baked bread works. Tiramisu, lasagna, spaghetti, pizza— there’s a reason Italians have a reputation as excellent lovers – Latinos, too. Let me just say that I’m really glad my huevos expired years ago.”

Willow let out a nervous laugh as Ruth leaned closer.

“Now, if you decide Alec isn’t the one for you and you want something a little more exciting, let me tell you about…”

Mary Beckett’s eyes got wide as she grabbed her friend by the arm, giving her a piercing stare that wasn’t hard to misunderstand.

“Shut up, Ruth,” the woman hissed angrily. “I want grandbabies, and Alec never got over her. We’re helping, not telling her how to take another lover.”

“Just do what I said,” Ruth said confidently, reaching over the table to pat her hand. “And I also recommend that you two start having lunches, getting together, and mend this bridge between you both. If you are going to be family someday, you’ll need to get along.”

Willow smiled nervously at her phone, still in shock that all of it had worked. Maybe there was something to the two women’s suggestions – and so far, things were happening. What felt as hopeless as moving one of the Moai from its rooted spot on Easter Island now felt manageable.

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