“Yeah, but it’s not move-in ready.”
“I had the same plumber and heating guy check it out,” he said. “They’ve made a few repairs, and I’m on Trap’s schedule to make sure that everything is up to code, and he’s going to replace the front and back decks. And then, honestly, Winnie, everything’s just cosmetic.”
“But you’ve told me you don’t want to live in a construction zone,” she said.
“I can get painters out pretty quick,” he said. “And I bet I can replace the flooring next week with a few phone calls. I’m not going to do any of the work myself.”
Winnie turned toward the house and nodded. Ty put his hand on her face, sending a zing of attraction through her as he guided her eyes back to his.
“Win, I’m not going to do any of the work, and that’s something you’ve worried about too. So maybe I just make a few more phone calls and accelerate the remodel. I could still be on the property in a month.”
“In the other house,” she said.
“In the other house,” he confirmed. “And your parents really can stay here rightnow—tonight.”
Winnie’s nerves shook at her, and the sound of tires over gravel told her that her parents had arrived behind them.
“Let’s see what they want to do,” she said.
They pulled in and parked, and both Momma and Daddy got out, with Daddy hemming and hawing and grunting and groaning with every move he made. Winnie had snapped at him in the past couple of weeks, asking if he made those noises if he was by himself, and that she bet he didn’t. “So stop being dramatic,” she’d told him. But Daddy was Daddy, and he wasn’t going to change now.
“This is it?” Momma asked, her voice touched with awe. “Ty, this is a nice house.”
“It’s three bedrooms and two baths,” he said. “Just like what you’ve got in Oklahoma. It’s a single level. But I’m afraid this is what the land looks like. There’s no yard or anything.”
They’d left Lucky in Redwood with Taylor, though she’d refused to come out of her bedroom and bid them farewell. She was not happy with the changes, and Winnie had left her a notebook page filled with names and numbers of people who could come mow the lawn and walk the dog, so she could continue to pursue her sugar-daddy lifestyle. It angered Winnie that she had to enable her sister in such ways, but if she didn’t, she feared her parents would return to Redwood to a dilapidated house full of dog feces and wild vines.
“The whole property is twelve acres,” Ty said, gesturing right and then left. “If you go left, down the road here and around a couple of corners, that’s where the other house is. It’s actually off another road, and it’s where the main barns and stables will be. This house over here, I envision as either a mother-in-law apartment, a guest house, or, if we ever get to the point where we need cowboys to live here and work, they could live in this cabin.”
“Are you going to plant?” Daddy asked.
“Just a garden over at the main place,” Ty said. “And probably not this year. This year I’m going to focus on getting the house where it needs to be so that I can live there comfortably, and all of the farm buildings accessible.”
Momma and Daddy both looked at him and then back to the house.
“After that, I’ll probably plant a garden next year,” Ty said.
“Ty is a very good cook,” Winnie said, and she linked her arm through his simply to be closer to him.
They still had a lot to talk about, as Winnie did not want to get married in the winter. As far from February as she could get would be best, and that was August or September. And with May on the horizon, she wasn’t sure she could put a wedding together that fast.
Of course you can,she told herself.What do you need?
With Momma and Daddy here, she’d only need her brother and his wife to come and Taylor to make an appearance. She was sure she could book one of the little chapels in town, and maybe Willa Glover to officiate, and then Winnie would simply need something to wear. She knew where to buy jumpsuits that complimented the shortness in her torso and the extra curve in her hips, and she’d seen them in white. Or maybe she’d be married in purple.
Or scrubs,she thought, and she giggled to herself.
Ty looked at her, his eyebrows raised. “What are you laughing about?”
“Nothing,” she said. “Come see the house, Momma. I haven’t even seen it myself.”
“We run on a well here,” Ty said as Winnie moved with her mother toward the house. “But everything’s plumbed, and you’ve got hot water in the house. I just had it all checked.”
He led the way up the wide staircase with only three steps to the front door, and the moment he opened it, Winnie realized why he had fallen in love with this place and purchased it.
It simply felt like home, something invisible but tangible welcoming them onto the property and into the house.
“This is a laminate hardwood,” Ty said, scuffing his boot across the floor. “It’s more gray than I like, but my momma put down a rug, and this is a new couch.”
