Smiles had asked Hailey to dance with him. When he had been praying about it, God had let him know that it would mean a great deal to her. When he’d texted her, she had called crying and said absolutely she would, and thanked him profusely for thinking of her and not forgetting that she was part of the family too. Smiles hatedthat she felt like that at all, and she’d been going through a very rough time in the last year.
So he received her into his arms easily and held her close for just a few bars. When the song ended, he said, “Thank you for dancing with me, so I didn’t have to be alone.”
She nodded and swiped at her eyes quickly, and when Smiles looked up, he found more than one person watching them. He’d gotten used to all the eyes, but he knew others didn’t carry it as well as he did.
The audience started to clap, and Smiles joined in with them, hurrying back to his seat beside his parents. Among other tall, broad-shouldered men, Smiles didn’t stand out so much, and relief coursed through him when everyone sat down once more.
He had other single cowboys here at the wedding who he could hang out with after the ceremony, including Trap and Colt and Tyson, and he let his heartstrings sing as Judge pronounced Wilder and Savannah man and wife. He whooped and threw his cowboy hat in the air with everyone else as Wilder bent her back and kissed her.
He could be happy for his cousin, even though Wilder had everything Smiles wanted, because he’d kept the spotlight where it belonged—and that was on Wilder.
As Wilder and Savannah lifted their hands in wedded bliss, and the Glovers shattered the sky with applause, Smiles stood still and thanked God for personal revelation and a very, very good mother.
37
Winnie did her best to hold back her own emotions. Her calendar notification had just gone off for Wilder’s wedding, and she had a right to be upset that she wasn’t there with Ty. Not only that, but she enjoyed Wilder and Savannah and all the cowboys who Ty spent his time with. It was exactly the kind of community Winnie wanted in her life, and she hated that she was still in Oklahoma.
Her father had come home from the hospital fairly quickly, but he needed surgery. Winnie had already endured a dozen conversations about how he could possibly recover on his own here in Redwood without her. Of course it could be done, while Winnie would literally have to quit her job and leave Three Rivers to do what her parents wanted her to do.
Her great sense of duty and loyalty warred with her heart, and Winnie had been searching for a solution to her problem for days now. She was happy in Three Rivers, something she thought she’d never accomplish again, and she was steadily falling in love with Ty and didn’t want to give up her relationship with him either.
But didn’t she need to honor her mother and father? Her hearttold her she should, and she’d started making phone calls to back surgeons in Three Rivers. She actually had an appointment in another week or so with one of them. She just hadn’t told her parents that yet.
She first had to figure out how to get them to agree to move to Three Rivers and live with her. Taylor could maintain the house here, doing whatever it was that Taylor did, and Winnie would be able to continue her life in Three Rivers, getting to know Ty and solidifying her friendships with everyone there.
It felt like a good solution, but she knew it would be a fight. Not only with her momma and daddy, but with Taylor too. She wanted all the benefits of being the baby in the family without having any responsibility whatsoever.
Winnie had spent the beginning of the week being angry, but she didn’t have it inside her anymore. She couldn’t change Taylor, and all she could do was pray that her parents would see reason. She had a single-level, three-bedroom house that they could easily move into.
They didn’t have to give up everything here in Redwood, and Winnie saw this as a short-term solution that might be the next six to twelve months of her life, and she’d done much harder things for much longer than that. She could do this too.
She’d need to get supper started soon, but she sent a text to Ty, hoping he might have a moment during the changeover from ceremony to wedding dinner to respond. She’d texted him that morning too, telling him she wished she could be there at the wedding and asking him who he was going to sit by.
He’d replied withColt and Trapand nothing else. She’d asked who they had invited to the wedding, as she knew none of the cowboys liked to go by themselves. After all, that was how she’d gotten her start with Ty, and she fully expected Travis and Colt, Jacob and Jake, and any other single cowboy to have a date.
But Ty hadn’t answered.
Winnie had, once upon a time, thought about getting cameras in her house for her cats, but she’d never done it. Ty was a saint, andhe’d been taking care of them and staying at her place since the moment she left town, and she hoped they weren’t the reason he hadn’t answered her.
She didn’t truly think they would be, because Salmon and Rocky loved Ty.
As much as you do….
She paused there, her thoughts scattering for a moment. Did she love Ty? In a lot of ways, Winnie absolutely did, but in others, she knew she needed more time with him to truly get to know him and be all the way in love with him.
Winnie let her fond feelings flow through her, choosing them over being anxious and worried about his silence.
I’m sure the wedding is amazing. Send me some pictures when you get a minute.
With that, Winnie put her phone away, because she couldn’t bear the thought of sending another text and not getting an answer yet again. She knew he was busy, and he would reply when he could. At least that was what she told herself as she pushed herself off the couch and went to start dinner.
Winnie woke the next morning,her eyes feeling crusty and puffy and a certain vein of misery streaming through her that she hadn’t felt in a very long time. Since the morning after Carver had stood on her parents’ front doorstep and told her that he couldn’t marry her, in fact.
She’d been staying here in her childhood home then too, and she could remember the awful, sick feeling in her stomach and the absolute unhappiness that came with it.
This time, it wasn’t because her fiancé had ended their relationship one week before they were set to be married, but because her current boyfriend had not texted her back yesterday.
Yes, Wilder and Savannah had had an afternoon wedding with afull dinner afterward, but certainly Ty would have been home by nine o’clock and could have texted.
