Chapter 2
“Three Rivers Ranch is really far out here,” Winona Landry said, peering through the dark night ahead of her. It hadn’t seemed that far when she’d driven out for the New Year’s Eve dance, and she told herself that was because she hadn’t been alone on the way out.
She huffed, her fingers tightening on the wheel. It was just like Taylor to bail on her for a handsome face and a sexy cowboy hat. “Honestly, did you think your sister had changed that much?”
Yes, yes, she had. Winnie thought the best of people, and she was still learning that not everyone could be trusted, that not everyone told the truth, and that not everyone was nice. Her own sister included.
She glanced at her infotainment screen as a text popped up. The sound came a moment later, covering up the low warble of the radio she had on to keep her company on the long drive back to town.
Tyson Greene flashed on the screen, and a blue button sat there that said READ ALOUD.
Winnie reached out and tapped it, her pulse picking up the pace as her mind fired questions at her. Was Tyson all right? Why would he be texting her? He’d never done that before, despite her giving him her number and telling him to text about anything that came up between their therapy sessions.
The cowboy remained as elusive as ever, even if he’d improved by leaps and bounds since Winnie had started working with him six months ago.
He never smiled. He barely said hello, and at least eighty percent of the time, he didn’t say good-bye at all.
Still, he kept coming back, and his work outside of their sessions showed, because he’d only gotten straighter, stronger, and more square since she’d taken over his treatment.
Winnie pushed against the pride flowing through her. It wasn’t her doing the work, but him, and she did try to praise him at any opportunity. “The problem is,” she said aloud. “That only seems to irritate him further.”
The text didn’t play, and Winnie checked the road in front of her again, found no one, and reached to tap the button again. Her finger landed right this time, and the car said, “Message from Tyson Greene. What are you doing a week from Saturday? My friend is getting married and I need a date.”
Without thinking, Winnie lifted her foot from the gas pedal and pressed on the brake. The car began to slow, obviously taking its cue from her mind. Before she knew it, she’d come to a stop right there in the middle of the highway leading south to Three Rivers.
She’d become friends with Libby Jackson, who owned and operated Three Rivers Ranch, after the woman had hurt herself during the harvest season.
She’d been coming to Winnie to regain the full range of motion in her right shoulder, and she’d extended the invite to the New Year’s Eve party Winnie and Taylor had attended tonight.
Winnie had been in town for a little over six months now, and about four months ago, she’d made a personal pact with herself to say yes to anything she got invited to. The Town Council needed volunteers at the first aid station at the summer dances?
Winnie said yes.
Her co-worker wanted to trade shifts?
Winnie said yes.
Her mentor at the clinic wanted her to go out for appetizers and drinks with him and his wife?
Winnie said yes.
So when Libby had asked if she’d like to attend the party, Winnie had, once again, said yes.
She picked up her phone from its riding spot in the cup holder. She should’ve known Ty would be at the party tonight; he was friends with every cowboy in town, having grown up here. “Practically at Three Rivers Ranch itself,” she muttered.
She’d seen his mother’s training facility, right there on the left-hand side of the road at the ranch. Of course, the handsome-hot cowboy who could barely tolerate her would be at tonight’s ringing in of the New Year.
He hadn’t looked happy to be there, and she’d actually wondered if he’d made a personal pact the way she had, and said yes to things simply to feel like he was part of a community, part of something bigger than himself, not forgotten in the billions of people in the world.
The words her car had read to her shone on the screen. What are you doing a week from Saturday? My friend is getting married and I need a date.
The text honestly represented Ty to a T. Blunt, straight to the point, no wasted words.
Winnie looked up as a pair of headlights approached her. To her great horror, the car began to slow, and the truck came to a stop with the two driver’s windows lined up. The man across from her flipped on his interior light, and she rolled her window down halfway.
“Are you okay?” he asked. His wife rode in the passenger seat, and they both wore concern in their eyes.
“Yes.” She held up her phone. “I got a strange text is all.”
The man blinked at her like she’d lost her mind.
Humiliation painted its way through all of her internal organs. “I’m fine,” she said. “Thanks for stopping to check.” She rolled up her window and lifted her foot from the brake.
The car inched forward, and Winnie got herself going again. She drove home with the music on low and her mind running on high. A half-hour later, she pulled into her garage, tapped the button to close it behind her, and waited for the door to shut all the way before she got out of her sedan.
She entered her house to a brightly lit kitchen, because she always left those lights on if she’d be gone after dark. Rocky, her gray and white cat, said, “Mrow,” and then, “Mrow,” and then, “Mrrrrrow.”
The cat wove through her legs, begging for a pat, and Winnie bent down to stroke him absently. “Where’s Salmon, huh?”
She wasn’t surprised her black cat hadn’t come to greet her; he never did. She’d find him in his cat palace, or asleep on her bed, or judging her from atop her grandmother’s china cabinet.
She noted Taylor had not returned to the house, and she wondered if her sister would come stumbling in at three o’clock in the morning or not at all.
“She’s going home on Friday,” she told Rocky. And it couldn’t come fast enough.
She straightened and looked at her phone as if it were a foreign object that had fallen to earth from outer space. Winnie already knew she wasn’t doing anything a week from Saturday, but she tapped to get to her calendar, just to check.
She’d spoken to Wilder Glover about Tyson tonight, and she rolled her neck, her stomach mimicking the side-to-side movement. “Idiot,” she muttered to herself. Wilder had said he was “good friends” with Ty, but he was the one who’d suggested Ty take her to the wedding.
Winnie hadn’t even known there was a wedding next weekend.
Can you call me? Winnie typed out the words and sent them to Ty. It had been a while since he’d texted, and she wasn’t surprised her message sat there, unread and unanswered.
Winnie went into her bedroom, Rocky hot on her heels, and she methodically pulled the pins out of her hair, washed her face, and brushed her teeth. She shed her party clothes and slipped into a soft pair of pajamas that testified of her love of reading, the color purple, and hot tea.
She sighed, a round of tears pressing into her eyes for a reason she couldn’t name.
Perhaps the fact that her own sister had abandoned her at the dance.
Maybe because she didn’t want Ty to think she’d been fishing for a date when she’d talked to Wilder about him.
Maybe because he’d asked her out, and she didn’t know if she could—or should—keep her personal pact and say yes.
Sinking to her knees at her bedside, Winnie bowed her head and let herself cry for several long moments. She didn’t vocalize anything, but she believed God could hear the prayers in her heart, and tonight, that would have to be good enough.
The following morning, Winnie’s phone rang just as she stepped through her sliding back door and onto the deck. She carried a plate with a rewarmed chocolate croissant in one hand and her morning cup of pomegranate tea in the other, and she couldn’t fish her phone out of her pocket immediately.
She did manage to get the croissant on the table and her hand in her pocket by the second ring.
“Tyson Greene,” she breathed out. Then she cleared her throat, lifted her head, and swiped on the call. “Hello?”
“Hey,” he said, and oh, that word could’ve just as easily been categorized as a bark.
Winnie waited, because he had initiated this conversation with that two-line text last night. Along the edge of her backyard, the river bubbled, filling the air with the cheery sound of running water that had won her over the first time she’d looked at this house.
“You wanted me to call?” he asked.
“You want to go to your friend’s wedding with me?”
“Well, I can’t go alone.”
Winnie sat down and lifted her tea to her lips. She blew gently on it as she watched the squirrels in her backyard run up the oak tree. “Why not?” she finally asked. “Lots of people go to weddings alone.”
Nothing came through the line at all, but Winnie imagined him growling, because it would fit his personality perfectly.
“All my friends have dates,” he finally said, his voice one flat monotone. “And I don’t want to go alone. If you have plans—”
“I don’t have plans.” Winnie’s heartbeat zoomed through her body, making her head spin.
“So you just don’t want to go with me.”
“I’m a little surprised you want to go with me,” she said.
“Why—I mean, why’s that? Why wouldn’t I want to go with you?”
Winnie tried to hear the ingenuine quality in his tone, but she couldn’t. He seemed honestly confused, and that only added to her confusion. She cocked her head and took a sip of her tea as a blue bird landed on her bird feeder.
A smile spread across her face. “Do you like bird-watching?”
“Bird-watching?” Ty repeated. “No. Who likes bird-watching?”
Winnie’s smile faltered. “I do.”
“I mean, yeah, of course. Bird-watching.” He cleared his throat. “It’s fine. Well, I have to get to work—”
“Why did you ask me?” she asked.