Winnie nodded, grabbed her bag, and got out of the car. She strode toward the entrance of the building with all the confidence in the world, but when she stepped inside, she paused, her uncertainty coming back.
The building didn’t seem very deep, with another set of doors in front of her that led straight back outside. She could go right or left, down different hallways, and she went to the left when she heard voices coming from that direction.
Winnie wasn’t sure what she could possibly do, but she wore reliable shoes and had willing hands, and she supposed God had made do with a lot less than that in the past.
As she neared, she heard a man talking, but she didn’t recognize the voice. Then a woman said, “No, I think we should send people over here first, and get the orchards cleaned out while we have Colt to help.”
She came to a stop in the doorway and found several people in the tiny conference room, including Ty. A woman stood by a whiteboard, and she wore jeans and a sweatshirt with the Wilde & Organic logo on the front and had her dark—almost pitch-black—hair up in a ponytail. Her eyes switched to Winnie, and everyone in the room turned toward her too.
“Hello,” the woman said at the same time Ty scrambled to get to his feet.
“Hey, you found it,” he said. “Everyone, this is Winnie.” He smiled at her, but Winnie could see the pain in the lines around his eyes. He’d probably been working himself too hard that morning, and Winnie immediately wanted to bring him under her wing, park him on the bean bag at her house, and take care of him the way he had her last night.
“Are you all right?” she whispered, her hand automatically seeking his as he drew closer.
“Yeah, I’m okay.” He took her hand and turned to face his friends at the same time. “You’ve met a few people here—JJ and Finn, for sure—at the wedding and the birthday party.”
“Sure,” Winnie said, smiling at the familiar faces. “Good to see you again.” She nodded at them, her smile firmly stitched in place.
“That’s Tate and Clara Jean up at the front,” he said. “They’re married, and they own this farm and Wilde and Organic. We’re here to help them.”
“Thank you so much for coming,” Clara Jean said, and she rushed forward and gave Winnie a hug.
“And you remember Colt and Conrad,” Ty said when Clara Jean stepped back.
“Yes,” Winnie said. “And Libby’s here too. Hi, Libby.”
“Hi, Winnie,” Libby said, and then everyone’s attention thankfully moved back to the whiteboard. A huge map had been affixed to it, and Clara Jean and Tate had clearly been going over the areas that needed to be cleaned up.
“I think we can probably split up,” Tate said. “And send a crew with Colt over to the orchards, and then a crew with me over to the netting. We’ve got to get that back up over our tomatoes and lettuce and onions.” He looked at Clara Jean with some sense of urgency, and she nodded.
“Winnie and I will go with Colt,” Ty said. “I’m used to running a crew at the orchard, and Winnie is a quick study.”
The rest of them quickly divided themselves, and before Winnie knew it, she led everyone out of the room. Thankfully, Ty stayed right at her side and tugged on her hand to take her further down the hall instead of back toward the door she’d come in. They exited the building on the far end, and the good, rich scent of earth and green growing things filled Winnie’s nose.
“They lost a lot of topsoil,”Ty said.
“Yeah, this ground is terrible.” Colt toed at it as he came up beside them. “Look, you can see tree roots and everything.”
He wore an unhappy expression, and Winnie let him take the lead. Finn had come with them, and the four of them had to get over to the orchards, which took up the northern part of the farm.
“Tate said we can take this golf cart,” Finn said as Colt walked by it.
“Oh, right,” Colt said.
Winnie got in the back and slid over to make room for Ty beside her. Finn and Colt piled in the front, and Colt started to drive them down a well-kept path. Winnie realized as she rode that the farm looked like it had gone through complete upheaval, with bushes with bent branches, more exposed roots, plants broken off at angles, and what she could only describe as debris everywhere—equipment turned on its side, now-empty bags of fertilizer, overturned black trays that had probably held seedlings, and more.
Anything and everything that Winnie could imagine someone needed to grow produce and be a gardener looked like it had been put in a giant bucket, shaken up, and then dumped all over the ground.
She looked over to Ty, pure concern radiating from her. He wore his mouth in a tight line and only met her eyes for a moment before he went back to surveying the damage.
“I feel like a fool,” Finn said.
“What for?” Colt asked.
“This is way worse than I thought,” he said. “Clara Jean said they needed help with ‘a few things,’ but this looks like a tornado came through.”
“That’s because one practically did,” Ty said.
