“And I’m sure whoever you’re going out with tonight likes you more than you think.”
Ty thought of how Winnie had tapped her fingers down his arm at last night’s potluck party. Bursts of fire erupted on his skin at the mere memory of her touch. He’d held her hand for only a few moments, and it had been the highlight of the last twelve months. Heck, the highlight of his life since he’d returned to Three Rivers.
“I just feel like everyone else has gone so far,” he said. “And I’m way back at the beginning, and I have miles to go.”
“Until what?” Momma asked.
“I don’t know,” Ty said. “That’s the hardest part. I don’t even know.” He faced her, and he caught the caring, kind look in her eyes. “Do you think I could ever work my own farm? Like, maybe what Finn has. Like, hobby-sized. Or just somewhere I can keep Jupiter, so I don’t have to drive out here to see him, and I don’t have to worryabout my roommate calling me a neat-freak, and I could just—I have plenty of money.”
Momma smiled at him and quickly reached up and wiped her eye. Ty hated making her cry, but honestly, everything he’d asked had come from his heart.
“Of course you could work your own farm, Ty.” She smiled at him with everything maternal in her. “And it’s okay to be a neat-freak.”
“It just makes me feel in control of something,” Ty said. “Anyway, I have to go. I told Winnie I’d pick her up at six.”
Momma’s face lit up. “Winnie? Winona Landry?”
Ty rolled his eyes and aimed his gaze heavenward. “Dear Lord, I’ve made a mistake. Please bless my mother not to make a big deal out of this, and bless her to not repeat anything she’s learned today to anyone else in town.”
He lowered his eyes and hooked them into his mother’s. “Please, Momma.”
“You’re taking her to the Glover wedding,’ Momma said. “Everyone in town is going to see you there.”
“Yeah, well, Colt is taking Fawn,” Ty said. “It could be a throwaway date. There’s nothing to gossip about.” He took a couple of steps away and glanced over his shoulder. “Besides, Bryan is getting married, so won’t that keep the ladies buzzing for a while without them talking about me?”
“No one can predict what the ladies will find interesting,” Momma said.
Ty chuckled and headed out, the drive back to his shared apartment taking no time at all as he thought about everything he’d told his mother, about his date with Winnie that night, and about the upcoming wedding.
He showered, shaved his beard up nice and trim, and stepped into clean clothes. He pulled on a pair of cowboy boots with insoles that helped with his limp, and tucked his wallet in his back pocket before shrugging into his leather jacket.
Jacob wasn’t home, and Ty quickly texted him.I’m going out with Winnie tonight. I should be home by midnight, but I’ll keep you updated if anything changes.
I’m at Mitch and Lacy’s, Jacob said.I think I’m going to stay the night here. Let me know if you need anything.
Will do.
Tyson headed out again, glad he had someone besides his siblings or parents to check-in with. He could’ve done the same thing with Colt or Trap, or even Conrad or Wilder or JJ. He’d learned on the circuit to make sure someone knew where he was and who he was with, just in case anything went wrong.
It was something his daddy had taught him from his days of riding in the rodeo, and Ty had kept the habit alive even now.
He’d already looked up Winnie’s address, and she lived in a cute little part of town called Old Town. It sat just north of the main river that ran through town, and he checked her address one more time before heading out.
He arrived in front of a perfect white-sided house only twelve minutes later. His headlights shone against the closed door of the one-car garage, and he swept his gaze across the lit windows and kept yard.
He glanced at the clock and found he’d arrived a couple of minutes early. His pulse bounced against the back of his throat as he warred with himself about what to do. In the end, he found it less creepy to just go ring the doorbell, rather than park in her driveway, truck idling, until precisely six o’clock.
So Ty dropped to the ground, slammed his door nice and loud, and made his way up Winnie’s front sidewalk, his cowboy boots ringing like gunshots through the quiet neighborhood.
Let the ladies start talking, he thought as he climbed the steps and rang the doorbell.
8
Winnie flinched with theping-ding-dongof the doorbell. Every time that happened, she got thrown back in time to when Carver had rung her bell, waited on the front steps of a house very much like this one, and told her terrible, awful, no-good things.
“It’s not Carver,” she told herself, though her pulse had already driven her adrenaline toward the roof. “You’re not in that house anymore. You don’t even live in Oklahoma.”
She looked into her own eyes in the mirror in her bathroom, ran her fingers through her loose curls one more time, and marched herself out of the bedroom and on down the hall.
