Chapter 10 #2
Winnie lifted her chin and kept smiling. “Thanks. It’s great to be seen by you.” She peered over the seats and into the back of the truck. “Where’s that picnic basket?”
“Right behind you, sweetheart.” Ty eased away from the curb, waved once again at her neighbor, and headed out of the neighborhood. He went back toward the little white church on the south side of town, and then took the highway that led away from Three Rivers.
“How far to this ‘quiet place’?” she asked.
“Fifteen or twenty minutes.”
“Perfect,” she said. “Let’s do the one-minute game.”
“The what?” He looked over to her with a blank look on his face.
Winnie settled into her seat and looked at all the buttons on the dashboard. “Where’s the one to turn on my seat heater?”
“I got you,” he said, and he reached over and pressed a button for her.
“The one-minute game is something my parents made us do on road trips,” Winnie said. “They’d give us a topic, and we’d have to talk about it for sixty seconds. Our thoughts, our feelings, whatever we wanted to say.” She watched his reaction. “No judgment, of course.”
“No judgment,” he said. “So who’s going to set the topic?”
“I’ll give you yours, and you can give me mine.” Winnie swallowed, not quite sure where this would go. “You can go first if you want.”
“Sixty seconds is a long time,” Ty said.
“We can make it the thirty-second game,” Winnie said.
“Does it have to be the truth?” he asked.
“Oh, my word.” Winnie rolled her eyes. “Or—what do you say? For the love of eight seconds?” She gave him a glare. “For the love of eight seconds, Ty. Just say whatever you want.”
“I just want to know the rules of the game,” he said, his voice a touch darker now. “So I can play it right.”
“It’s not a game, Ty. It’s just talking.”
“Well, that can be hard for some people.” He drove in silence for a couple of beats, then released his tight grip on the wheel and exhaled. “But I want to…talk to you.”
Winnie lifted her chin for a new reason now. “I’ve been told I talk too much. I don’t mean to be so extra.”
“You’re not extra,” he said. “Or if you are, I don’t mind it.”
“Okay.” Winnie took a deep breath and tried to give the oxygen a moment to settle into each brain cell. “Well, I’d kind of like to start with what the pastor talked about today. Hopes. Dreams. What are your hopes and dreams?”
Ty sighed, rolled his right shoulder, and looked out his side window. “Going straight in, I see.”
“Surely you have some hopes and dreams,” she said.
“You said you’d go first.”
“But it should be a question from you,” she said.
“Fine.” He shot her another dark look. “Do you like Three Rivers?”
“Yeah,” she said, ignoring his attitude. “First, I really like the clinic here. My boss is great, and my co-workers are easy to trade shifts with, that kind of thing. They’re fun.” She smiled and noted that Ty slowed the truck and made a right turn off the highway.
They now drove down a gravel road that turned to dirt, and Ty’s truck handled it like a champ.
“I think Three Rivers is beautiful in the summer and fall, and it’s not been too bad in the winter either—we get way more snow in Oklahoma for sure—and I have a cute little house. The cats like it here, and it’s a good buffer for me to Redwood.”
“And that’s where you’re from?”
“Mm hm,” she said, though he wasn’t supposed to get to ask follow-up questions. “There are a lot of good restaurants in town too, and I don’t know. When I take my evening walk, I just feel good here, you know?”
“Yeah,” Ty said. “Three Rivers has some magic to it.”
She waited, and when he didn’t ask her something else, she grinned at him. “When you’re done, you have to tell me.”
“More rules I didn’t know,” he shot back at her. “I’m done.”
“Okay.” She sat up a little straighter. “Your hopes and dreams.”
He looked at her out of the corner of his eye, barely moving his head as he did. “Fine. I have some money saved from my time in the rodeo, but I can’t just do nothing all day. So I like working at Lone Star and the orchards, but I think I’d like my own place.”
“Like a ranch?”
“I can’t run a ranch, no.” Ty shook his head. “Nothing like a whole ranch. I was thinking more along the lines of a hobby farm. I have a few friends who have their own farms. They feed their animals, and grow big gardens, and sell their excess alfalfa. I think—well, I think I could do that. Maybe.”
“Why wouldn’t you be able to?”
“Because running a farm is a lot of physical labor,” he said. “And sometimes, after a really busy day of walking, I need to ice my hip and take a lot of painkillers.” He looked over to her fully, lightning and thunder in his expression.
“Sure, but you could hire in help.”
Ty sighed. “Yeah.” The truck slowed again, and Winnie switched her attention out the windshield instead of scrutinizing Ty. “I just know I can’t live in that apartment forever. Heck, I’d like to be out by summertime.”
“Really? That soon?”
Ty came to a stop and nodded. “Eagle Bear Lake. I’m going to turn around and back in.
” He started doing that while Winnie gazed at the rippling water in front of her.
“The name is kind of interesting, because there was a pair of eagles who used to nest here, like, forty years ago. So it used to be called just Eagle Lake. Then, someone saw a bear, and now it’s Eagle Bear Lake. ”
Winnie smiled at him. “It’s simple. I like it.” She exhaled, wondering if they could just picnic from the front seats of the truck. “It’s really windy, cowboy.”
“I have a couple of blankets.” He stopped talking as he got the truck where he wanted it, got out and collected the picnic basket, and then opened her door. “Ready?”
“Yes, sir.” She dropped to the ground beside him, and she stayed out of the way as he lowered the tailgate, slid their lunch inside, and then unfolded a single-step step-stool. He gripped the side of the truck as he put his right foot on it, and he half-pulled, half-pushed himself up the step.
He grunted as he did it, but Winnie stayed silent and still. Ty made it into the bed of the truck, and he knelt down to help her up. Nerves ran through her body, because while Winnie took her evening walks, they were more like strolls.
She managed it, and then found that Ty had created a nest in the back of his truck. A nest of blankets and pillows, and she sank onto a perfectly purple one with a wide smile. “This is great.”
He toed the basket over to her and sat down beside her. “Okay, let’s see what we’ve got in this thing.” He took the red-checkered cloth off and spread it over her legs.
She grinned harder.
“Chicken croissant,” he said, handing her a golden crescent croissant in a zipper bag. “Red grapes. Sliced caramel apples.”
He handed her each item as he pulled it out of the basket, and when he gave her an oatmeal chocolate chip cookie as big as her face, she asked, “Where did you get all of this?”
“I made it,” he said simply.
Winnie stared at him as he settled next to her and opened his chicken croissant sandwich. “You made it?” She looked down at the cookie. “All of it?”
“I mean, I bought the grapes,” he said. “And the apple—but I cut that up myself.”
“When?” she asked. “I mean, we were out until forever last night.”
Ty grinned at her. “Forever? I kept you out until forever?” He shook his head and lifted his sandwich. “And you don’t sound happy about it.” He took a bite of his croissant, his grin making him so stinking handsome.
“I’m happy about it,” Winnie said, looking down at her lap covered with that red-checkered cloth. She picked up her baggie of sliced caramel apples. “I had a great time last night.”
“Good,” Ty said. “Because so did I. Good enough to make chicken salad and cookies this morning, stop by the grocery store for a picnic basket, and still make it to church on time.”
Winnie lifted her gaze to meet his, and Ty leaned toward her. She pulled in a breath and let her eyes drift closed. Ty’s soft beard brushed her cheek as he pressed his to hers.
“You sure are pretty, Winnie,” he whispered. “Sorry I made the game so hard, but thanks for coming on this picnic with me.”
He retreated then, leaving Winnie’s body buzzing with want. He sighed and popped a grape into his mouth. “I love this lake,” he said. “It’s out of the way, and there’s no services, so not many people use it.”
Winnie bit her apple slice in half and looked out at the lake too. “It can’t be very deep.”
“Nope,” Ty said. “And it sometimes dries up in the summer. It’s a great thinking spot.”
She leaned her head against his shoulder, glad when he lifted his arm and brought her closer to his side, tucking her next to him before he took another bite of his croissant.
Winnie felt like something as simple as a picnic had made her whole world brighter. Ty had rescued her from so many things…including herself, and she hoped their relationship would continue to develop into something beautiful and lasting and real.
Please let it be real this time, she prayed. Because I don’t know how I’ll survive if it’s not.