Chapter 19 #2
Since she trusted him, she did, and she felt the moment her bumper released from the truck next to her and broke free.
The car almost lurched away from her, and Winnie once again applied the brake.
When it didn’t fall apart around her, she pulled the sedan back into the space straight, stopping when Ty held up his hand for her to do so.
She got out again and went around the front, and he nodded to her bumper. “It’s dragging on the ground, sweetheart.”
Yes, she could see that. “We could take it off, and maybe I could drive back to Three Rivers.”
“We don’t know what damage has been done to the engine,” he said.
Winnie didn’t want to argue with him, but having her car an hour away—unable to be driven—didn’t seem like a barrel of fun either.
“I can get you to work and back,” he said. “I don’t even have to work tomorrow.”
Winnie nodded, pressed her lips together, and went to get her bag. She collected that, her water bottle, and her purse, and she let Ty help her into the passenger seat of his truck.
“Was there a lot of damage at Lone Star?” she asked once he’d gotten behind the wheel and started to leave the hospital parking lot.
“Yeah, a bit,” Ty said. “But Henry and Angel sent everyone home. They said we all have loved ones that we wanted to check on, and they wanted us to be home safe before dark. They said they’ll start working on an assessment today, and we’ll all get texts tomorrow.”
“But you don’t work there tomorrow, right?”
“I can if they need me to,” he said. “And they know that.”
Winnie nodded, though she really did just want Ty to be able to rest. He’d told her that Thursdays were his recovery days and that he also used Thursday to run a lot of his errands, get groceries, and fill his freezer with food for the next couple of weeks.
She liked that he knew how to cook, and he’d said he would make dinner for her one night.
As Ty left Amarillo, Winnie realized there was hardly anyone on the road. “Is it safe for us to be out?”
“It would be better if we weren’t,” Ty said. “After stuff like this, they call for everyone to stay off the streets if they can, to make it easier for emergency crews and rescue personnel to get where they need to go.”
“Oh,” Winnie said.
They started down the highway that led between Three Rivers and Amarillo, and Winnie counted fourteen cars that had been abandoned on that highway before she and Ty passed the sign that said, Welcome to Three Rivers.
Neither of them had said much at all, and Winnie felt like a washrag that had been wrung out. When Ty should have turned right to go to her house, he continued straight.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
“We’re going to go back to my place and get something to eat,” he said. “I’ll cook it up at your house.”
“Okay.” She nodded once again, unable to get her voice to do much more.
Several minutes later, he pulled into the parking lot at an apartment complex and put the truck in park. “You want to come in with me? Are you okay here?”
Ty watched her with nothing but concern in his expression, and Winnie could admit she felt a little bit numb. Minutes seemed to be flowing by like water, and she had no memories of how Ty had navigated them here.
“I can wait here,” she said.
Ty nodded, got out of the truck—but left it running—and headed around the back of his apartment building. Until this moment, Winnie had not realized where he lived, and she now acknowledged that he’d been coming to her all this time.
They spent evenings at her house, if they weren’t eating at a restaurant, and they’d been busy the last couple of weekends with weddings and birthday parties.
Ty came back out with a taller plastic container stacked on top of a smaller one. He opened the door and handed it to her, and Winnie took the frozen food into her lap, seeing a couple of big gallon-sized Ziploc bags, and then some fillets of halibut wrapped in paper.
“Wow,” she said. “What is this?”
“Parmesan risotto,” he said. “Halibut fillets. I can put them in the oven. They’re pretty fast and easy.”
She nodded, starting to feel more like herself by the time Ty pulled into her driveway. Winnie now wanted nothing more than to tell him everything that had happened while she’d been in the car alone.
At the same time, not much had happened at all. She’d sat there worried and afraid, listening to cowboys sing and the wind howl.
In the house, she fed the cats while Ty put dinner together, and then they both ended up in the bean bag. Winnie curled into Ty’s chest, exactly where she wanted to be.
“Were you scared?” she asked him.
“Yes,” he said. “I was supposed to meet my team lead in the administration building, and the guy I was with wouldn’t let me go. He said it was too far and that I wouldn’t make it.”
Winnie pursed her lips, irritated that someone didn’t think Ty could do anything he wanted to do.
“Do you think you could have made it?” she asked.
“I honestly don’t know,” Ty said. “My station was clear across the ranch, so I just went with Caldwell and checked in with his team lead.”
“I’m glad,” she said. “You wouldn’t have wanted to be in such a hurry that you fell.”
“Exactly.” He stroked his hand down her hair. “I was mostly just really worried about you, and I was really glad I got in touch with you before you started driving.”
Winnie thought of those abandoned cars on the side of the highway. She wondered where the people had gone, and a shiver ran down her arms.
“I shared my pin with you too,” Ty said. “But I don’t think you accepted it.”
“Oh, right.” She reached for her phone in her pocket and then realized she didn’t have it. “I don’t really know where my phone is right now.”
“It’s probably still in your bag,” he said. “You want me to go get it?”
His body shifted, and Winnie tensed and held on to him. “No, stay,” she whispered. She pulled away from him slightly and looked up at him.
“I don’t know what I would have done today without you,” she said. “I’ve been thinking about it a lot, and it made me realize I’m all alone here, except for you.”
“I mean, kind of,” he said. “You’ve got coworkers and neighbors, and you know people in town.”
“Yeah,” she said. “Maybe I just want you to be the one to take care of me.”
His eyes dropped to her mouth, as they’d done on many occasions before. “And I want to take care of you.”
Ty had not kissed her yet, and they had not talked about when he might be ready to do so.
Winnie reached up and cradled his face in her hand, about to ask him what he thought, when he leaned down and touched his lips to hers.
Winnie’s whole world turned sideways all over again, but for a completely different and much better reason than before.
She kissed him back almost hungrily, and he matched her stroke for stroke, until it seemed the storm between them blew out and his touch became sweeter and softer.
Winnie liked all sides of Ty: the grumpy ones, the intense ones, the romantic side, and the sweet side that said things like, I want to take care of you.
So she didn’t much care how he kissed her, as long as he didn’t stop.