Chapter 6
Winnie pulled up to the beautiful red-brick Academy, a twinge of nervousness singing through her. She hadn’t even started at Signs for Success yet, and it felt a little strange to be coming to a faculty party and potluck.
She got out and moved to the back of her sedan, where she popped the trunk. The brownies she’d spent last night making sat there, and she smiled down at them. She’d made a huge sheet pan of them, doing a different flavor in each quadrant.
She’d put big chocolate chunks in the mint brownies, which she then frosted with icing she’d tinted a lovely light green.
She’d done a vanilla cake batter and swirled it with the brownies and topped that with apple-pie spices and a drizzle of white chocolate.
She’d put Rolo chunks in a third corner, and they definitely looked the messiest. Winnie frowned at them, wondering what she could do to make them look more appetizing for future events.
The caramel usually oozed out of the candy and kind of left little craters through the brownie surfaces, which were delicious but not that pretty.
In the fourth corner, she had gone for a German-chocolate variety, and the coconut-walnut frosting made her forget about the little Rolo disaster she had going on next to it.
Lacy had texted her to say they were expecting up to two dozen people, which included custodians, groundskeepers, her and Mitch, of course, and the few other professors that they had there.
She said they were inviting any students and Resident Assistants to come eat as well, and that brought the total up.
Each quadrant held sixteen brownies, and Winnie wasn’t worried that someone wouldn’t get what they wanted. She wasn’t sure what she was worried about at all, only that she couldn’t seem to reach down and pick up the brownies and turn toward the building.
In the end, the fact that she’d done many things here in Three Rivers that were new for her gave her the courage to tuck her car keys in her pocket, check for her phone, and then reach for the brownies.
She got them out and managed to close the trunk, and then she walked across the parking lot and through the front door of the main building, which had been propped open.
A sign in the foyer pointed her straight back, which she did, and she exited out the back doors after she went past the big lecture hall where Lacy said she’d be teaching beginning sign language on Tuesday and Thursday evenings.
She found the group under several tent shades in the courtyard, the fountain bubbling merrily behind them.
Her eyes roamed the group even as she moved closer, and she found Ty standing off to her left, positioned with Jacob and another man Winnie hadn’t met yet. Her nerves doubled, and once again, she didn’t know why. She’d known he was going to be here.
Maybe not looking so cowboy-country-boy-dreamy in those dark denim jeans and a short-sleeved shirt the color of pale pink cotton candy. Her mouth watered, and she quickly looked toward the main group, the image of Ty’s white cowboy hat and oh-so-sexy beard burned into her mind’s eye.
Lacy Glover turned her way and dropped the hand that she’d been resting protectively on her pregnant belly. Winnie’s mind blanked and she couldn’t remember when Lacy was due, though it had to be in the next three or four months.
“Oh, wow, these look incredible,” Lacy said, her eyes on the huge tray in Winnie’s hands. “When you said you had a knack for baking, you weren’t kidding.”
“I didn’t say I had a knack for baking,” Winnie said with a light laugh. “I said I enjoyed it. I just hope these won’t poison anyone.”
Lacy gestured her forward. “Bring them down here. Let’s make sure they stay in the shade.”
Winnie went with Lacy, because she knew the woman would then take her around and introduce her to everyone.
She slid the tray onto the end of the table in the shade, and not two seconds later, Mitch himself arrived and wrapped one arm around her shoulders and squeezed her.
He signed something with his free hand that Winnie didn’t quite catch because she was looking up at his face instead of at his hands.
He wore a smile as wide as the sky, and he’d grown his beard longer in the last few months since she’d seen him.
“I’m sorry, say again?” she said, signing as she spoke.
I’m only gonna eat brownies for dinner, Mitch said. He laughed, and Lacy and Winnie joined in.
“We’re just waiting for a couple more people,” Lacy said. “And then we’ll do our welcome and we’ll eat.” She nodded toward a couple of others standing over near the fire pit, which roared with flames and made everything feel charming and homey.
“This is our office manager,” Lacy said. “Geraldine Maude. She goes by Dina.”
“Hello,” Winnie said, remembering to sign as she did. Besides Lacy, she was the only hearing instructor here at Signs for Success, and she knew she needed to do sign language for everyone else.
She met Fletcher Palmer, who taught specialty sign language classes, specifically in agriculture and finance.
Lacy did the intermediate and advanced sign language classes, and she kept getting introduced as, “Winnie is going to be taking over the beginning classes for me on Tuesdays and Thursdays.”
She shook hands and swept her lips across a couple of cheeks. She met their full-time custodian and the nighttime part-time custodian, and then Lacy’s brother, Jacob, who did all the groundskeeping.
“And I think you probably know Tyson already,” Lacy said.
Winnie had been glancing at him from the moment she’d stepped outside. She wanted to maintain her cool, professional demeanor, but she couldn’t stop the smile that spread across her whole face. “Yeah, I know Ty.”
“Winnie’s my physical therapist,” he said.
She tilted her head a couple of inches, trying to get a better read on him.
“She basically tortures me a couple times a week,” he said, his smile kicking up further on the right than it did on the left.
Winnie giggled and shook her head. “That’s not true.” She glanced over to Lacy. “He only comes in a couple of times a month now.”
Lacy grinned at them and then turned when Mitch put his hand on her arm. Mitch signed something, but he spoke so fast and Winnie only caught a couple of words—begin and starving.
She nodded and said, “All right, you guys, we’re going to go ahead and get started.” She moved through the crowd, and Mitch helped her stand up on the edge of the fountain. She raised both hands above her head and waved her arms while she called, “All right, everyone.”
It took a moment for the message to be conveyed through the crowd, because Deaf people couldn’t hear her calling, and they had to see her to know she wanted to talk to them.
She signed much slower than Mitch, and she spoke aloud everything she said as well, bridging the gap between hearing and Deaf perfectly.
“Welcome to the Signs for Success potluck party.” She grinned and started to clap. Winnie joined in with the others.
“Mitch and I love a good party, and we want to foster a sense of family here at the academy. If it’s not obvious, I’m going to have a baby at the end of March, and I’ll miss the end of this winter semester, and we will not be running classes in the summer.
“Mitch wants to continue the community classes, so some of you will be staying with us, but our students and Resident Assistants will likely be leaving for a couple of months. We’ll make sure we know who’s coming back for the fall before this little rascal is born.”
She put both hands on her belly and gazed down at it with such love that Winnie’s heart sighed.
She wanted children too, and she glanced over to Tyson.
He stood a few feet from her, not too close as to be too personal, and not so far as to be cold.
He wore an unreadable expression, of course, though Winnie was normally pretty good at telling what others were thinking or feeling anyway.
“Mitch has steak from Shiloh Ridge, and we’ve done steak kebabs and beef tips with gravy.
Jacob made his famous scalloped potatoes, and we have smoked turkey breast that Mitch helped his uncle Ward do up at Shiloh Ridge as well.
Thank you to everyone who brought something to go with the food, and we’ll go ahead and start with a prayer. ”
She scanned the crowd and then looked at Mitch. He got up on the fountain wall too and swept off his cowboy hat.
“Mitch is going to say it,” Lacy said, and more movement went through the crowd—including at Winnie’s side, as Ty reached up and pulled his cowboy hat as well.
Mitch pressed his to his chest with his forearm, pressed his eyes closed, and bowed his head before he started to sign.
Lacy dictated it, and Winnie simply let the feelings of speaking with the Lord flow through her.
She didn’t need to know so much what was said, but how she felt about it, and when the crowd murmured “Amen,” she quickly added her voice to the sentiment.
At a normal party, chatter would break out immediately after the “Amen,” but at a party where the large majority of people there were Deaf, silence prevailed.
Winnie turned toward Ty and signed. I think me and you are the only people who speak here.
He blinked at her and said, “I’ve taken a few months of beginning sign language. I’m not really sure what you said.”
Winnie grinned at him and moved a little bit closer. “I think we’re the only hearing people here—me, you, and Lacy,” she said.
Ty glanced around. “Yeah, I think you’re right.” He shifted his feet and adjusted his cowboy hat on his head again. “You’re doing beginning sign language on Tuesdays and Thursdays?”
“Yeah,” she said. “Seven to eight-thirty.”
He nodded and pressed his lips into a tight line. “Yeah, that’s when it was last semester too. I’m thinking I better retake it.”
“Did Lacy pass you up to Intermediate?” Winnie asked.
“Yeah,” Ty said, and he watched as Jacob said something to one of the RAs. “But I only caught about half of what he just said.”