Winnie Without You in It
WINNIE
Without you in it
Saint Francis Hospital, Tulsa
"The worst distance isn't measured in miles—it's measured in silences you can't bridge."
– Unknown
***
The waiting room had become my prison.
It was a purgatory of beige walls, fluorescent lights humming their incessant drone, and chairs upholstered in some scratchy material designed to prevent comfort.
I'd been here for ten hours. Ten hours since they'd wheeled Pops through those double doors, his weathered hand squeezing mine one last time before the anesthesiologist inserted the IV that made his fierce eyes go glassy and vacant.
Ten hours of watching that digital board above the nurse's station, waiting for IN PROGRESS to change to anything—RECOVERY, ICU, even COMPLICATIONS would be better than this endless, suffocating unknown.
The clock on the wall ticked forward with cruel precision: 2:17 AM.
The hospital at night was a different beast—quieter, lonelier.
The daytime bustle was replaced by a skeletal crew of night nurses moving like ghosts through dimmed corridors.
Somewhere down the hall, a monitor beeped steadily.
A phone rang at the nurse's station. Life continuing, indifferent to my falling apart.
Cassie had left around midnight after I'd practically shoved her out the door.
She had work in four hours—opening the bar, bills to pay, a life that couldn't pause indefinitely for my crisis.
She'd fought me on it, of course, that stubborn loyalty that made her family even when blood said otherwise. But eventually, she'd relented.
"Text me the second he's out," she'd whispered against my hair. "I don't care what time. And eat something, Win. You look like a ghost."
She'd pressed a crumpled twenty into my palm for the vending machines, kissed my forehead, and left me in this fluorescent tomb with my spiraling thoughts and a burnt coffee that tasted like liquid despair.
I couldn't eat. Couldn't sleep, though my body screamed for it. I just sat, staring at my phone like it held answers. Like maybe if I willed it hard enough, the universe would give me something to hold onto.
Four days.
Ninety-six hours since Beau had kissed me goodbye at the airport. His touch lingering on my cheek, his voice steady with promises he hadn't kept.
Which left the other option: he was avoiding me.
Maybe Dallas had swallowed him whole. Maybe his family had reminded him who he really was—a Sterling, not some ranch hand playing cowboy for a summer fling with a girl who smelled like hay and had dirt permanently under her nails.
Maybe he'd looked at that skyline from his penthouse and realized Oklahoma was just a detour.
A rustic adventure he could tell at cocktail parties.
Remember that time I slummed it in the heartland?
The thought made my chest ache, but I'd been holding it together. Fine, I'd kept telling myself. That mantra Jamesons lived by. We survived. We adapted. We didn't need anyone else because needing meant weakness.
But sitting here, ten hours into Pops' surgery, staring at a digital board that refused to update, the armor cracked.
I'd drafted a hundred texts. Deleted them all.
Miss you so much I can't breathe. Too raw.
Where the hell are you? Too angry.
Pops fell. It's bad. I need you. Too vulnerable. Too much like admitting I couldn't carry this alone.
At 2:17 AM, watching that clock tick forward, I stopped caring about pride.
My hands trembled as I opened his contact—Beau Sterling, the photo from the Rusty Spur where he was mid-laugh, black Stetson tilted back. It hurt to look at. I hit call before I could spiral into second-guessing.
It rang. Once. Twice.
My heart hammered against my ribs, each ring an eternity.
Three times—of course he's not answering, it's 2 AM, he's probably asleep or ignoring you or—
"Winnie?"
His voice crashed through, rough and startled and so achingly familiar that my breath caught.
But beneath it—background noise. Not the quiet of a bedroom or the sterile hum of a hospital.
Music. Jazz, sultry and low. The clink of glasses. Muted conversation and laughter—the kind that belonged to cocktail parties, to Dallas penthouses, to a world I'd never fit into.
"Beau." His name came out strangled. All my carefully rehearsed words evaporated.
"God, Winnie—I'm so sorry. I know I should've called sooner.
My phone was—things here have been—" He was stumbling, words tripping over each other in a way I'd rarely heard from smooth-talking Beau Sterling.
Beneath the apologies, I heard exhaustion.
Strain. Something frayed and breaking. "I wanted to call. Every day I wanted to, but—"
"Where are you?" The question slipped out sharper than I meant, all the hurt I'd been swallowing for four days bleeding through.
A pause. Too long. The jazz swelled behind him, someone laughed—bright, feminine, effortless—and my stomach twisted.
"I'm... in Dallas. Still. At my parents' penthouse. There's been... a situation. With Dad, with the company. It's complicated, Win."
Dallas. Still. Four days of radio silence, and he was at a party—a party—while I was falling apart in a hospital hallway.
"Complicated," I repeated, the word tasting bitter.
"Right. Complicated. Well, Pops fell yesterday.
In the barn. His knee—the one with the replacement—gave out.
Complete ligament tear, displaced fracture.
He's been in surgery for ten hours, Beau.
Ten hours. And they're saying eighteen thousand for the surgery alone, plus PT, and I—" The words choked off, tears burning my eyes.
"I don't have enough. Elise's check isn't enough.
And I'm sitting here trying to figure out how to save him, and you're..."
"Jesus, Winnie—" The background noise shifted abruptly, like he was moving—a door opening, closing, muffling the party sounds to a dull throb. "Is he okay? Is he going to—"
"I don't know!" The shout tore out, loud enough that the night nurse looked up sharply.
I lowered my voice, but it still shook. "He's sixty-eight.
He might not walk right again. And I'm here alone trying to do math that doesn't add up.
" I sucked in a breath. "And you're at a party. So where are you, really?"
Another pause, heavier this time. When he spoke, his voice was quieter, weighted with something I couldn't name.
"My penthouse. The one I had before... before Oklahoma. My parents threw some dinner thing tonight—investors, board members. I couldn't get out of it without raising questions." He exhaled hard. "Winnie, there's something I need to tell you. About why I stayed. Why I couldn't call."
My blood turned to ice. "What did you do?"
"My parents—they knew. About the ranch. The debts.
" His words came faster now, ripping off a bandage.
"My dad had people investigate when he sent me there.
Financial records, medical bills. They know Pops owes on the mortgage, the equipment loans, that knee surgery from two years ago that's still in collections.
Twenty-five thousand in medical debt alone, Win. "
I couldn't breathe. "How do you know that? Those are private—"
"My dad has resources. He dug it all up and presented it to me as leverage." His voice cracked. "He made me an offer. A deal."
"What kind of deal?" The words came out flat, dead.
"Come back to Dallas. Work at Sterling Industries—real work, shadow him, prove to investors I'm serious.
" He swallowed loud enough for me to hear.
"If I do that, he clears everything. Every debt.
Pays off Pops' surgery—past and present.
And he'll set up a trust fund for you. One million dollars, Winnie. For the ranch. To make it sustainable."
One million dollars. The number hung in the air like a noose.
"So you sold us," I said quietly.
"No—Winnie, that's not—"
"You sold us. Sold me. To your dad. For money." My voice rose, trembling with rage and grief. "You made a deal about my life, my ranch, without asking me. Without even telling me until I dragged it out of you four days later."
"I'm trying to save you!" His voice broke, raw and desperate. "Don't you see? If I say no, those debts don't disappear. Pops' surgery—you just said you don't have enough. What happens then? You lose everything Nana built because I was too selfish to—"
"To what? Sacrifice yourself on the altar of Sterling Industries?" I was pacing now, phone pressed so hard to my ear it hurt. "You think I need your dad's blood money? That I can't figure this out on my own?"
"You shouldn't have to!" He shouted it, and I heard something shatter in the background—glass, maybe. "You've been carrying everything alone since you were twelve, Winnie. But I can fix this. I can give you the life you deserve—"
"Without you in it," I finished. "That's the trade, right? Your freedom for my security. You play dutiful son in Dallas, I get a million-dollar consolation prize, and we both pretend the last three months meant nothing."
"It meant everything." His voice cracked completely. "Winnie, it meant—you mean—God, I'm doing this because I—"
"Don't." I cut him off, tears streaming hot and unstoppable. "Don't you dare say you love me while you're negotiating the terms of leaving. Love doesn't make deals, Beau. Love doesn't hide for four days because it's 'complicated.' Love shows up. It fights."
"I am fighting. For you. For us—"
"There is no us!" The words ripped out, gutting me. "Because you chose. Four days ago when you landed in Dallas. You chose Sterling Industries, the penthouse parties, the life you always belonged to. And I get it. That's who you are."
"That's not fair—"
"No, what's not fair is you deciding for me!" I shouted, ignoring the nurse's glare. "I didn't ask for your dad's money. We've survived this long on grit and Jameson stubbornness, and we'll survive this too. Without Sterling charity."
"Winnie, please—" His voice was wrecked. "I miss you. Every second I'm here, I miss you so much it's like someone carved out my chest. I'm breaking here, Win. And I thought—if I could just fix the money part, then maybe—"
"Maybe what? You could leave guilt-free?" My voice dropped to a whisper, broken. "I miss you too, Beau. So much I can barely function. But missing you doesn't change what you did. You hid. Made decisions for me. And now you're asking me to what—be grateful?"
"I'm asking you to let me help."
"By leaving."
"By making sure you're okay when I do."
The truth landed like a punch. When, not if. He'd already decided.
"I called you tonight," I said quietly, all the fight draining out, "because I was terrified.
Because I felt so alone I could barely breathe.
But you weren't there. You were at a party, making deals I never asked for.
And now I'm realizing—you're never going to be there.
Not really. Because Dallas will always pull harder than I ever could. "
"That's not true—"
"Isn't it?" I slid down the wall, exhaustion crashing over me. "You're there. I'm here. And there's a million-dollar price tag on the distance."
"Winnie—" His voice broke on my name.
"I have to go," I whispered. "Pops might be out soon."
"Wait—please don't hang up. We can figure this out—"
"There's nothing to figure out. You made your choice." I closed my eyes. "Goodbye, Beau."
"Winnie, I lo—"
I hung up.
The words I love echoed in the dead air, unfinished and unbearable. I stared at the phone, then let it clatter to the floor as sobs clawed up my throat. I buried my face in my knees, shoulders heaving.
Footsteps approached—soft, cautious. The night nurse crouched beside me. "Honey? Your grandfather's out of surgery. He's in recovery. Doctor wants to talk to you."
I looked up, vision blurred. "Is he okay?"
"He made it through. Come on."
As I followed her down the fluorescent corridor, phone abandoned on the floor, I felt the crack in my chest widen into a chasm.
Pops had survived. But something in me—something bright and hopeful I'd carried since a blue-eyed city boy showed up at my ranch—had died on that call.
And in Dallas, I knew Beau was breaking too.