Chapter 20
Ty had no less than forty-eight messages waiting for him on his phone.
He’d silenced it in the barn at Lone Star after letting his parents and his friends know that he was fine, safe, and sheltered.
His mother also had his pin, and all she had to do was look at her map app and see that he lay on Winnie’s bean bag, kissing her.
Of course, she couldn’t really see that, and Ty wasn’t even sure how often his mother checked on him. But with a dust storm having just blown through town and him ignoring his phone for the past hour and a half, he figured she might be looking.
He couldn’t bring himself to care in that moment, because kissing Winnie was unlike anything he’d ever done before.
Ty had ridden two-ton bulls successfully.
He’d bungee-jumped off bridges and flown all over the world, but absolutely nothing compared to holding Winnie in his arms and kissing her, and kissing her, and kissing her.
He couldn’t quite get himself to stop, and he wondered what he’d been so nervous about. He certainly remembered how to kiss a woman, and Winnie sure did kiss him back like she was enjoying herself.
She ran her fingers through his hair and down the sides of his face, and Ty felt so cherished and like he really mattered.
He finally found the willpower to pull away, but he kept his eyes closed and simply listened with his good ear to Winnie breathing in and out. Her breath came a little quicker, and then she sighed as she tucked herself against his chest again.
A moment later, the timer on the oven sounded, and Ty groaned as he rolled away from her and pushed himself up. Getting off a bean bag was no small feat for Ty, but as it was Winnie’s preferred place to lounge in her house—and it was quite comfortable while he was in it—Ty didn’t dare complain.
Instead, he ignored the protests of his body as he limped into the kitchen, silenced the timer, and pulled the fish fillets out of the oven.
He’d set the risotto in a pot of water and turned the heat on, hoping it would boil.
It hadn’t quite gotten to that yet, but a few bubbles popped on the surface.
Ty turned up the heat and then opened Winnie’s fridge.
He pulled out her sour cream, some milk, and the bottle of lemon juice, and then moved over to her spice cabinet, where he dug around for several long moments.
The lid on the pot clanged and jiggled, and he turned toward it and turned the heat off underneath the risotto.
All he had to do now was empty it into a bowl and it would be ready to eat. The fillets rested while he found the bottle of dill and put together a quick sauce for the fish.
“Are we eating out there, sweetheart?” he called.
“No,” Winnie said with a sigh.
He got out plates and silverware before she joined him.
“Let’s eat at the table like real human beings.”
He smiled at her. “Today’s been a weird day for sure, and it’ll be nice to do something normal.”
Ty handed her the plates, and she moved over to the table and started to set it.
“I need to text my momma real quick.” He whisked his phone up from where he’d left it on the counter. “Yeah, she’s called twice.”
He held his fingerprint to the screen and saw that she’d texted a few times as well, the last one saying, Oh, I can see you’re over on Goose Creek Lane. I don’t know whose house that is, but I’m assuming Winnie’s?
Yeah, I’m at Winnie’s, he said. We’re both fine and safe. We’re about to eat dinner. Do you need me to call?
No, his mother said. I just wanted to make sure you were okay. Libby and Paul were here saying you hadn’t checked in on your rancher’s text string for a couple of hours, and they didn’t know where you were. Henry said you’d left the moment you could.
Yeah, Ty said. Winnie was at a training at the hospital in Amarillo and had to ride the storm out in her car in the parking lot.
Oh my goodness, Momma said. Is she okay?
Yeah, she’s all right, but her car got pushed around a little bit, and we had to leave it there. So we’re gonna have to figure that out tomorrow.
There’s a lot to figure out tomorrow, Momma said.
I think the dust storm hit hardest on the southern side of town, at least according to Libby.
She’s saying that JJ and the Glovers and the Rhineharts are reporting a lot of damage.
We were at Bowman’s Breeds, of course, and we didn’t have a whole lot.
Some fences compromised, and one of Libby’s cowboy cabins lost a window.
What about Courage Reins? Ty asked. They have that huge front wall of windows.
Yeah, they lost several too, Momma said. But they knew about the dust storm, and they’d moved everything out of the foyer and closed all the doors.
I’m going to eat, Ty said. And then I’ll check in with everyone. I hope I didn’t worry you.
I could see where you were, Momma said. Say hi to Winnie for me.
Ty tapped out of the string and saw that he had over seventy messages from his ranching friends now. A slip of guilt moved through him, but he flipped the phone over and left it on the counter.
“How’s everyone?” Winnie asked.
“They’re okay,” he said. “I’ll go through my ranching texts after we eat.” He pushed the dip across the counter where Winnie picked it up.
“You can just put that halibut on the table too,” he said. “And I’ll get the risotto out.”
He went about doing that while Winnie put salt and pepper on the table and started to brew coffee. They sat down together—Ty with his back to the wall, and Winnie with her back to the kitchen—and he looked across the table to her.
“Can we pray?”
They’d not prayed together previously, but he reached for her hand at the same time she extended hers across the table. “Yes. I’d like that.”
Ty had taken his cowboy hat off when they’d arrived, so he simply bowed his head and squeezed Winnie’s fingers in his.
“Dear Lord,” he said. “We’re grateful to be safe in Winnie’s home tonight.
We’re grateful for emergency systems that work and rescue operations and communities that can come together in times of crisis.
Please bless us that we’ll have willing hearts and strong hands for anyone who may need help rebuilding.
And bless any who have lost something today in the dust storm, that it will be restored according to Thy will.
We’re grateful for this good food, and ask Thee that it will bless our bodies and do us good and keep us strong and healthy.
We pray for these things in Thy name. Amen. ”
“Amen,” Winnie repeated.
When Ty raised his eyes to hers this time, something shifted between them yet again.
He wasn’t sure if it was because they’d just been through something scary, or because he’d finally cooked for her, or because he’d kissed her, or because they’d prayed together for the first time, but the connection he felt with Winnie seemed to lengthen and strengthen at the same time, driving deep into his heart and binding him to her.
“What do you think I should do about my car?” she asked.
“I can call Link’s momma in the morning,” Ty said. “She used to own the mechanic shop only about a half-mile from here, and maybe she’ll know some small towing companies that won’t be inundated with work.”
“So will there be lots of cars like mine?” she said. “There were all those ones on the side of the road. Is it because they stopped running in the storm?”
“Sometimes the debris can do that,” he said. “Get all up in the engine and clog it, especially if the cars were running at the time. Yours wasn’t, so I can’t imagine that that will be a problem for you. We’ve just got to get it to a body shop and get it fixed.”
Winnie nodded. “And you can take me to work in the morning? I have to be there at eight.”
“Yeah,” he said. “I don’t work tomorrow, except for the dog training, and I can show up to that whenever I want. It’s usually not until nine anyway.”
Ty used his fork and slid a piece of halibut across the tray to Winnie’s plate. “This is just Parmesan risotto, sweetheart. It doesn’t have mushrooms or peas or anything gross in it.” He smiled at her, and she reached for the spoon and served herself some risotto.
“It smells amazing,” she said. “And how did you make this sauce?”
“Just a little sour cream and milk, lemon and dill,” he said. “It’s perfect with fish.”
He took the remaining fish fillet and a couple of healthy spoonfuls of risotto, then doused his halibut in the dill sauce before he took his first bite. “So tell me how you grew up in Oklahoma without ever having a dust storm.”
Winnie took a bite of her fish too, her eyes glittering as she looked at him. She swallowed and said, “I don’t know. We’ve just never had one. How many have you been in?”
“I think that was my third one,” Ty said.
“The first was when I was a little boy—eight or nine—and then we had another one, I think when I was a junior in high school? Maybe a sophomore. We were at school when it came through, and they herded us all into the gym, and we had to sit in there for a couple of hours, and our parents had to come check us out. They didn’t run the bus. ”
“Wow,” Winnie said.
“We had our own bus out to Three Rivers anyway,” he said. “Squire bought it—Libby’s father?”
“Yeah?”
He nodded. “Yeah, my daddy drove it sometimes. There were a lot of kids that lived out on the ranch, and since my parents worked out there, that was the easiest place for us to go after school. Heck, we all worked the ranch.”
“Did you, Ty?”
He nodded. “Every day. I worked at either Three Rivers, my momma’s boarding facility, or Courage Reins.”
“No wonder you like horses so much.” Winnie smiled at him, and Ty returned it.
“Sometimes I think humans don’t deserve horses,” he said. “They’ll do anything we ask of them, and they never quit, and they’re always happy to see us.”
“Cats are like that,” Winnie said.