Chapter 6 #2
“He said he’s been looking forward to the smoked turkey all week,” Winnie said. “Come on, I want some of the steak from Shiloh Ridge after you bragged about having it last night.” She threw him the flirtiest look she could muster and went to join the food line.
“Did Taylor go home today?” he asked, clearly right behind her.
Every muscle in Winnie’s body tightened at the mention of her sister’s name, and then it released just as quickly. “Yes,” she said. “Thank goodness. Although I think she and Burt are really going to try to stay in touch.”
Ty chuckled. “Well, that’ll be something.”
Winnie glanced over her shoulder to him. “Is he not a nice guy?”
“It depends on what you mean by nice guy,” Ty said. “He’s a good worker and a good farrier. He just…goes with a lot of women.”
Winnie’s heartbeat skipped. “I’ve heard the same thing about rodeo cowboys.”
Ty didn’t exactly gasp, but his intake of breath made a sharp, if low, sound. She looked at him and their eyes locked.
“I’m from Oklahoma,” she said with a shrug. “Plenty of rodeos there.”
“Well, blanket statements are rarely true,” he practically growled. “I didn’t say all farriers dated a lot. I said Burt Hallahan did.”
“Well, my sister does too,” Winnie said. “Maybe they’ll be perfect for each other.”
“Maybe,” Tyson said.
“Are you saying you never dated anyone while you rode the rodeo circuit?” Winnie reached the end of the table and picked up a plate.
“I dated plenty,” he said. “I mean, enough.” He coughed a couple of times. “I’ve had a few girlfriends.”
“Anyone serious?” Winnie reached for the tongs and put a healthy pile of green salad on her plate.
“Yeah, my last girlfriend was pretty serious,” he said. “I figured I’d probably marry her, but she cut me as soon as I couldn’t ride anymore.”
Winnie swung her attention back to him, though the whole-wheat rolls in the basket next to the salad made her mouth water. “She broke up with you when you got injured?”
“Yep.” Ty did not reach for the salad tongs. “I haven’t been out with anyone since I’ve been back home.”
“Well….” Winnie trailed off, not quite sure what to say. She exhaled in a tight burst. “Had you asked her to marry you yet?”
“No,” Ty said. “But Jenn and I were together about two years, and we’d definitely talked about getting married.” His dark eyes glared holes in her. “You’re holding up the line, sweetheart.”
Embarrassment flooded Winnie’s cheeks, and she quickly grabbed a roll and moved down to the potatoes.
“What about you?” Ty asked, and Winnie inwardly cringed, though she’d opened this door. “Have you ever had a real serious relationship? Tell someone you love them?”
“Yes,” Winnie whispered.
Ty leaned closer. “I didn’t hear you, sweetheart.”
“Yes,” she said louder, lightning striking through her body as all of her memories of Carver stormed back to life. “I’ve been engaged—just once. It didn’t work out.”
“Engaged?” The level of surprise in Ty’s voice pitched it up. “Wow.” He chuckled. “I don’t know what I was expecting, but it wasn’t that.”
“You don’t think someone would like me enough to want to marry me?” She threw him a smile that pinched against her cheeks.
“No, of course not,” he said. “It’s not that—I just….”
Winnie took a couple of beef kebabs, and then moved down and added two slices of smoked turkey to her plate, all while Ty tried to figure out what to say.
When she reached the end of the table, where she ladled some gravy over her turkey and then turned to face Ty, she said, “This isn’t good party conversation. We don’t have to talk about it right now.”
“Is he why you left Oklahoma?” he asked.
Winnie’s eyes widened, and Ty seemed to get the message without her having to say anything. He frowned. “I’m really sorry, Winnie.”
“Like I said, it’s not good party conversation.” She turned away, scanning the tables for somewhere to sit. She’d literally just met everyone here, and she could admit she was looking for a table with two seats.
“There,” Ty said. “Next to Jacob.” And he led the way to a table in the corner, where Jacob sat with a male RA named Redd and the nighttime custodian, an older man named Mark.
Ty sat next to Jacob and asked, “Can we sit here?”
Jacob nodded and grinned first at Ty and then at Winnie.
Ty signed and said, “I live with Jacob. Did you know that?” He moved with a graceful, fluid motion, but his signs did seem a little hesitant.
“Yes,” Winnie said, and she smiled over to Jacob. “Now tell me—is he a clean roommate, or is he messy?”
Jacob laughed and said, Ty’s a neat freak.
Winnie looked at Ty. “Ah-ha. Good information.”
“I am not a neat freak,” Ty said. “I just think things have their place, and that’s where they should go.”
Jacob laughed again, and Winnie couldn’t stop smiling. “Sounds like a neat freak to me,” she said.
“I better watch my job,” Mark said, and he signed and spoke too. Winnie looked at him, because she hadn’t realized that he could also hear. “Sometimes I don’t think I’m as neat as I should be.”
Oh, you’re fine, Jacob said, and they settled in to eat their dinner. There wasn’t tons of conversation in a Deaf meal while people used utensils to eat instead of their hands to talk, but Winnie really enjoyed the camaraderie that came with simply being with another person.
She really wanted her date with Ty, and after she finished her dinner, she leaned over to him and said, “I’m going to go get the brownies. Do you want me to get you some?”
“I want one of everything, sweetheart.” He ducked his head toward hers, and their eyes met again. The whole world fell away from Winnie in that moment. If she just tilted her head a little bit more, and Ty moved another eight inches, she could kiss him.
Panic flooded through her, because when Carver had left, she’d never thought she’d be whole again. She thought she’d never feel anything for a man again, and yet, there she sat at a nine-foot round table with a cream-colored tablecloth on it, imagining kissing Tyson Greene.
“What are you doing tomorrow night after your brother gets engaged?” she asked.
Ty blinked at her. “I don’t rightly know.”
“Do you have a family obligation? Surely he’ll want to go out with his fiancée alone.”
“Yeah, I think they’re planning on doing something by themselves,” Ty said.
So Winnie tiptoed her fingers across the table and down Ty’s arm. She tapped his wrist a couple of times. “Maybe you’re not free for lunch, but maybe you’re free for dinner.”
Ty slid his hand back and curled his fingers around hers. Everything tight inside Winnie sighed away at the warmth and comfort of holding hands with him.
“Are we ready for a Saturday night date?” he asked. “Lunch is more casual, and I didn’t want there to be a lot of pressure.”
“I think we could at least try,” Winnie said.
Ty nodded. “All right. Let me talk to my brother, so I don’t have to cancel again, and I’ll let you know what time.”
She nodded, and then gently slipped her hand out of his and stood. “I’m going to get brownies for the table,” she said, and she left to do that. A new measure of happiness threaded through her, something that Winnie could barely believe.
She picked up a plate and loaded four of each type of brownie onto it before returning to the table.
She set it down in the middle, and then returned to get the little dessert plates, one for each of them.
She passed those out, and as she retook her seat, Ty nudged her phone a little bit closer to her.
“You got a message,” he said.
Her heart did a cartwheel—perhaps it was Taylor saying something about how Burt had already broken up with her, or maybe she’d met a cowboy at a gas station on the way home and had a date with him that night.
But she saw the message was from Ty, and it said, Bryan said I’ll be done by 3:30, and that puts me back in town around five. How about dinner at six?
She looked up and found him watching her with the same intensity on his face that he always wore while doing his physical therapy, even while at a New Year’s Eve party with his friends or at a summer dance on a blind date.
A smile crossed her face. “Six is great for me.” Then she reached out and picked up the mint brownie, declaring, “Let’s do a taste test, and you guys can tell me which one you like the most.”