And someone like you,he said.You’re new to town,so of course people are curious about you. And I’m not new to town, so everyone knows everything about me from the time I was born, and they feel—like, I don’t know—protective of me. At least that’s how my momma explains it. I just find it annoying.
Cry me a river, cowboy,Winnie said.I left my small Oklahoma town because everyone there knew every single thing about me, and I couldn’t stand the way they looked at me.
Ty sensed a story there, and his memory flashed back to earlier that day, when she’d said she had something to tell him, and then her sister had interrupted her. He wanted to press her, but at the same time he didn’t. Instead, he said,I’d love to hear about it when we finally get to go to lunch together.
Then, fearing she might never go to lunch with him if shethought she had to tell him something she didn’t want to talk about, he added,Or whenever you want to tell me. It doesn’t have to be the first time we go out.
Okay,she said.We’ll see how it goes.
Does the reason you left Oklahoma have anything to do with why you won’t wear dresses?he asked. That little tidbit had intrigued him more than anything else she’d said.
Yes, they’re related,Winnie said.And maybe if we can figure out how to get along, I’ll tell you about it.
I think we’ve been getting along pretty great over text.
Well, let’s see how we do in person, cowboy. Now my cats are demanding dinner. And I have to make the dessert for the party tomorrow night, and then I’ll be back if you want to text some more.
Ty’s smile widened by the second. He’d forgotten that Winnie was going to start as a sign language instructor atSigns for Success. She was supposed to begin in the fall semester, but her workload at the physical therapy clinic had been too much, and she’d asked Mitch and Lacy if she could postpone her assignment. They’d made things work with Lacy taking on the beginner classes that Winnie was supposed to teach.
Ty had been really grateful, because he wasn’t sure if he could see Winnie at the physical therapy office and in his beginning sign language classes. He’d graduated out of that one now, though, to the Intermediate ASL class, so she wouldn’t have to be his therapistandhis teacher.
“And hopefully your girlfriend,” he whispered to himself as he turned his attention back to his phone.
I’ll be around later if you want to chat. At least tell me what you’re making for dessert, because that’s the best part of any meal.
She didn’t answer right away, and Ty got up to do his walking exercises, because while he’d been on a vacation schedule at the orchards and the boarding stable, his healing never took a day off, and he suddenly wanted to become as whole and as strong as possible…for Winnie.
6
Winnie pulled up to the beautiful red-brick Academy, a twinge of nervousness singing through her. She hadn’t even started atSigns for Successyet, and it felt a little strange to be coming to a faculty party and potluck.
She got out and moved to the back of her sedan, where she popped the trunk. The brownies she’d spent last night making sat there, and she smiled down at them. She’d made a huge sheet pan of them, doing a different flavor in each quadrant.
She’d put big chocolate chunks in the mint brownies, which she then frosted with icing she’d tinted a lovely light green.
She’d done a vanilla cake batter and swirled it with the brownies and topped that with apple-pie spices and a drizzle of white chocolate.
She’d put Rolo chunks in a third corner, and they definitely looked the messiest. Winnie frowned at them, wondering what she could do to make them look more appetizing for future events. The caramel usually oozed out of the candy and kind of left little craters through the brownie surfaces, which were delicious but notthat pretty.
In the fourth corner, she had gone for a German-chocolate variety, and the coconut-walnut frosting made her forget about the little Rolo disaster she had going on next to it.
Lacy had texted her to say they were expecting up to two dozen people, which included custodians, groundskeepers, her and Mitch, of course, and the few other professors that they had there. She said they were inviting any students and Resident Assistants to come eat as well, and that brought the total up.
Each quadrant held sixteen brownies, and Winnie wasn’t worried that someone wouldn’t get what they wanted. She wasn’t sure what she was worried about at all, only that she couldn’t seem to reach down and pick up the brownies and turn toward the building.
In the end, the fact that she’d done many things here in Three Rivers that were new for her gave her the courage to tuck her car keys in her pocket, check for her phone, and then reach for the brownies. She got them out and managed to close the trunk, and then she walked across the parking lot and through the front door of the main building, which had been propped open.
A sign in the foyer pointed her straight back, which she did, and she exited out the back doors after she went past the big lecture hall where Lacy said she’d be teaching beginning sign language on Tuesday and Thursday evenings.
She found the group under several tent shades in the courtyard, the fountain bubbling merrily behind them.
Her eyes roamed the group even as she moved closer, and she found Ty standing off to her left, positioned with Jacob and another man Winnie hadn’t met yet. Her nerves doubled, and once again, she didn’t know why. She’d known he was going to be here.
Maybe not looking so cowboy-country-boy-dreamy in those dark denim jeans and a short-sleeved shirt the color of pale pink cotton candy. Her mouth watered, and she quickly looked toward the main group, the image of Ty’s white cowboy hat and oh-so-sexy beard burned into her mind’s eye.
Lacy Glover turned her way and dropped the hand that she’dbeen resting protectively on her pregnant belly. Winnie’s mind blanked and she couldn’t remember when Lacy was due, though it had to be in the next three or four months.
“Oh, wow, these look incredible,” Lacy said, her eyes on the huge tray in Winnie’s hands. “When you said you had a knack for baking, you weren’t kidding.”
