“Yeah, yeah,” Tate said. “Pizza’s here, boys.”
Trap got out of the way as several others came forward to relieve the delivery men of their boxes.
“The darts are ready,” Conrad said as he joined the line.
“And I’ve got Texas trivia,” JJ said. “I think we should start with that.”
“Oh, boy,” Trap laughed. “No one should play trivia with JJ. He’s too good at it.”
“Hey, that’s not true,” JJ said.
But it so was, and Finn started in on a story where he’d played trivia with JJ at one of their family nights and lost spectacularly.
The group had a good laugh. The sense of camaraderie and brotherhood permeated the party. And while Trap might live alone in a small, six-hundred-foot cabin, with his fears and worries over growing and maintaining his daddy’s business and honoring the Walker family name, he sure did love his friends, and he knew they loved him.
42
Winnie bustled around the kitchen, the brownie batter coming together nicely without much thought. Libby had had her baby a few days ago, and they’d named the darling boy Gavin Rusty Jackson.
Misty—Link’s wife—had sent out a call for food and help in the next couple of days, as Libby and Rusty also had a two-and-a-half-year-old little girl, and Libby ran the entirety of Three Rivers Ranch. Winnie had signed up for dessert tonight, and Ty had taken the dinner slot.
She’d actually left work early and beaten him back to her house, where—once she had the brownies in—she’d set a timer and run over to her parents’ house to make sure everything was going well with her momma and daddy.
His surgery was about thirty days old now, and it had been a tremendous success. He’d been pain-free almost from the moment he’d awakened, and Winnie worked with him in physical therapy to continue to strengthen the muscles in his lower back, his core, and his legs. He’d started complaining about the pain in his knee, becausenow that his back wasn’t sending complete agony through his body, he could feel the pain there.
Momma went walking with him every morning, and they’d started with a mile loop that had expanded to two miles. Winnie smiled to herself at the progress her father had exhibited, and she thought they might even be able to go home before Christmas. They were very happy in their upstairs rental, as the young couple who had purchased the house lived in the basement and needed the extra help to pay their mortgage. They had three bedrooms and one bath on the main level, with a boxy living room and a tiny kitchen with just enough space for a table for two—perfect for Momma and Daddy.
Lucky was now living his best life with Ty on his farm, and Trap had finished the remodeling and renovations in the main homestead and moved on to other projects. Everything seemed to be going Winnie’s way, except for the absolutely oppressive June heat that had settled over the Texas Panhandle. She wouldn’t complain about it, because Winnie was exactly where she wanted to be, with exactly who she wanted to be with.
She spread the brownie batter in the pan, then dropped spoonfuls of chocolate-chip cookie dough at random intervals, gently pushing it down into the batter. She slid that into the oven, set a timer for thirty-five minutes, and swiped her keys from the credenza in the living room on her way out the front door.
“All right, guys,” she called to the cats. “I have to go check on Momma and Daddy. Ty should be here soon.”
She left, thinking of his good Southern cooking and how he’d promised to make extra so they could have dinner also. But they had a long drive out to Three Rivers to deliver dinner and dessert to Libby and Rusty, and they’d probably stay and visit for at least a few minutes.
Ty had Juniper on his little farm now, and he’d bought four goats and a few sheep too. Finn ran a little hobby farm as well, and Ty’s next addition would be chickens. He’d been going to Finn’s and Brandon and Lenore’s homestead more and more to get an idea ofhow to take care of the animals and the types of enclosures he needed as he continued to improve his land and start his farm.
Winnie pulled up to her parents’ place and parked behind their minivan. She jogged inside and called, “Hey, I’m just here to check on you,” as she walked into the house without knocking.
“We’re on the back deck,” Momma called, and Winnie walked through the whole house and right out the back sliding door to a tiny deck that had just enough room for the two chairs Momma and Daddy needed. Winnie called a place like this a postage-stamp house, as it sat on a rectangular property, with the house right up against the road, and a decent-sized yard out the back. It was fenced, and every house on the street looked exactly like it.
“See any good birds out here?” Winnie asked, looking toward her mother’s bird feeders.
“Just hummingbirds,” her momma said. “They’re most active in the morning.”
“Sure,” Winnie said, because that did make sense.
Daddy slowly and lazily lifted a glass of sweet tea to his lips.
“How you doing today, Daddy?”
“Pretty good,” he said.
“He bent for his shoe when he should have waited for me,” Momma said.
Winnie could always count on her to rat out Daddy. “Dad, you really can’t be bending and twisting like that,” she said. “Three months, and you’re only in one.”
“I was okay,” Daddy said.
