“All right,” Jerry said good-naturedly. “I know we haven’t looked at any places yet, Tyson, but you’d given me a short list from the website that I sent you.”
“Yeah,” Ty said, unsure of what he might say next.
“Well, I followed up with a couple of them late yesterday, after the dust storm, and unfortunately your number-one pick has decided to withdraw their listing from the market for right now.”
The breath left Ty’s body, and he slumped back into his seat. “Was that the one out there on the western side of town?” he asked. “Kind of in that last neighborhood before you get down near the crop-dusting hangars?”
“That’s the one,” Jerry said. “Apparently they took a lot of damage, and they don’t want to sell it for cheap because of that. So they’re going to take some time to get it fixed up first.”
“Well, how long is it going to take?” Ty asked.
“They didn’t give me a timeline,” Jerry said. “Apparently her niece is living there right now, and they’re not even in town, so they might not be doing anything with it for a while.”
“Sure, okay,” Ty said. “What about the other places?”
“Everybody has a lot going on right now,” he said. “So nobody wanted to show this weekend, but I got you a couple of showings for next Saturday, if you’re interested.”
“I am,” Ty said, and he swung his attention back to Winnie, lifting his eyebrows at her. She gave him an encouraging nod, and Ty recognized how pleased her approval made him.
“Great,” Jerry said. “All I can go on is what we’ve been talking about, so it’ll be nice to go out and do some actual showing. It always gives me a better idea of what you’re looking for, so don’t be discouraged if the first property we walk onto isn’t exactly what you want. It gives me a better idea, and then I can keep looking.”
“Okay,” Ty said.
“It’s a great time to be looking, too, Tyson. It’s a buyer’s market,”Jerry said. “Pricing is down, and people who’ve had enough of their farms and ranches are looking to get off before spring.”
“Perfect,” Ty said. “Thanks so much.”
“Yeah, I’ll send you the time and address of the first showing, unless you’d rather meet at my office.”
Ty didn’t see why he needed to do that. In fact, he’d never been to Jerry’s office. After Finn had given him the man’s number, Ty had texted the man, and Jerry called him. They’d talked for a good twenty or thirty minutes while Jerry wrote down all of Ty’s preferences, and then they’d been texting since.
“You can just text me where to meet you,” Ty said. “And we’ll be there.”
“Sounds great,” Jerry said. “I’ll talk to you soon.”
“Yeah, thanks.”
The call ended, and Ty turned off the truck.
“That’s very exciting, cowboy,” Winnie said. “Some showings next weekend.”
“Yeah,” Ty said, trying to muster up his enthusiasm for such a thing. “I guess we’ll see.” He slid out of the truck and met Winnie at the front corner of it.
As they walked toward the south stable, he reflected on everything that had happened in the last month. He was thrilled he didn’t have to go through the clean-up around town alone and feeling more and more like himself now that he had Winnie in his life. He’d taken some big steps forward in his love life, in his personal life by looking for a new house of his own, and in his spiritual life by going back to church and letting the Holy Spirit guide him and direct him more than ever.
Ty wasn’t sure that life would ever be perfect, and he knew he never would be. But all of that felt more manageable now, with Winnie’s arm linked through his, than it ever had before.And maybe,he thought.Life doesn’t have to be perfect for me to be perfectly happy.
They reached the stable’s entrance, and Ty reached to open the door. “Dear Lord,” he prayed right out loud. “Bless us that today willbe easy, and that Winnie’s car will get back to Three Rivers without incident, and that we can enjoy spending time together, even if the work is dirty.”
“Amen,” Winnie said, grinning at him.
He held the door for her and gestured for her to go first. “Now, come on,” he said. “Today’s your lucky day, because you get to meet some of my favorite horses on the planet.”
23
Winnie grinned at the black and white horse Ty had just cooed at. Yes,cooed. The cowboy had never spoke as softly as he did when working with horses, and she stepped up to his side and ran her hand down the horse’s nose.
“So you’re Matilda, huh? Ty talks about you all the time. Did you know?”
