Chapter 22
“It’s right up here,” Ty said, and he glanced over to Winnie, who rode in the passenger seat of his truck. She’d been ready when he’d pulled into her driveway to pick her up, and they’d made the almost hour-long drive to Lone Star together.
She’d perked up after he’d driven through the Java Hut to get coffee, but then her mother had texted and she’d fallen into her phone.
She looked up now, the cutest little frown between her eyes. “It’s not a bad drive,” she said. “When there’s not a dust storm.” She smiled, erasing all the cares from her expression.
Ty wondered if she realized that she’d shown them to him, as Winnie definitely broadcast more sunshine than anything else.
“I don’t know what we’ll have to do here today. I usually work until about two,” he said. “And Finn said Sam would be calling or texting when he got to your car.”
“That’s right,” Winnie said. “I told him just to take it to that little mechanic shop on the south side of town—the one that Link’s momma used to own?”
“Yeah,” Ty said. “It’s only a few minutes from you, and I’m sure they’ll take good care of it.”
She reached over, and he gladly gave her his hand. “Thanks for helping me so much with that.”
“Of course.” Ty put on his blinker and eased off the brake. “What’s going on in Oklahoma?”
Winnie sighed and sighed and sighed. She sighed for so long, Ty was sure she’d run out of air, and he glanced over to her, his adrenaline kicking a nervous beat through him.
“That bad, huh?”
“It’s just my daddy,” she said.
“That’s all I get?” Ty asked when she didn’t go on. “Just your daddy?”
She turned toward him then, and Ty knew immediately that he would not be able to hear this whole story before he had to report for work. Winnie was more talkative than him, but the same could be said for almost any human being on the planet.
The truth was, she processed things as she spoke, while Ty internalized everything first. He liked listening to her talk, and he could ask an occasional question or just affirm what she’d said, and she kept going.
In the end, Winnie worked things out in her own mind, and Ty was perfectly happy to be her sounding board when she needed it.
“He’s diabetic, right?”
“Okay,” Ty said, though he hadn’t known that.
“But he doesn’t take care of himself. He doesn’t regulate his insulin the way he should.
So then his hands and feet fall asleep. Then my mother texts me and wants to know what we should do about it, because apparently all physical therapists know how to diagnose and deal with every problem dealing with diabetes. ”
Her frustration poured from her in waves, and she even rolled her eyes. Ty simply gave her the kindest smile he could.
“I’ve told them a thousand times I’m not a doctor, and he needs to go to the doctor, and he needs to manage his blood sugar levels.
Anyway.” She waved her other hand like all of this was trivial.
“The real problem is his back. He’s had some disc problems for a while.
One was broken. He had some nerve issues because of that, and of course, the diabetes doesn’t help that. ”
“Of course it doesn’t,” Ty said as the huge boarding stable came into view. The gate was closed today, and a man stood there. “Hey, that’s Caldwell. Remember—he was the one who I stayed with during the dust storm?”
“Oh, right,” Winnie said, brightening.
Ty pulled up and rolled his window down. Caldwell approached, a clipboard in his hand. “Howdy, Caldwell. Henry said you guys needed some extra help today, and I brought Winnie. He and Angel knew about it.”
Caldwell looked down at his clipboard. “Yeah, I’ve got you and Winnie working inside today, at the southwest stable. Stable C?”
“Sure,” Ty said, as he had worked there before.
“Henry and Angel want everything taken out of the tack room. They want it cleaned and reorganized, and then they want all hallways swept clean and all outdoor doors checked on stalls one through ten. We want to make sure all the locks still work, that none of the hinges were blasted with sand, and we want to make sure that the horses have easy outside exits. So if there’s debris and other things that need to be cleaned up, that has to be done. ”
“Yes, sir,” Ty said.
“Your team lead over Stable C today is Burt Hallahan. Do you know Burt?”
“Oh, we know Burt,” Winnie said, practically singing the words. “He went out with my sister for a little bit.”
Caldwell leaned in the window and blinked at Winnie.
“Okay. You check in with him when you’re done, and he’ll let you know what else—if anything—needs to be done today.
Henry and Angel are hoping to have everyone out of here by noon.
I guess Henry’s going to his daddy’s place to help clean up some fences. ”
“Yeah,” Ty said. “Three Rivers Ranch.” He glanced over to Winnie and briefly met her eye. “We may go out there too.”
He hadn’t committed on the group text, because he’d really worn himself out with everything that had happened on the day of the dust storm, and then all day yesterday working at Conrad’s farm, and then Tate and Clara Jean’s produce plantation.
He honestly hadn’t been sure he’d be able to make it to work today, but when Winnie had found out before they’d even left the orchards that the physical therapy clinic would be closed today, she’d volunteered to come with him.
“They’re asking for you to park near your zone,” Caldwell said. “That way, they don’t have vehicles in the way. And we’ve got parking lots set up, so if you’ll just turn left here at the first road, you’ll find someone down by the Stable C waiting to help you park.”
“Thanks.”
Caldwell moved to open the gate, and Ty eased through it, not at all surprised with how efficient Angel, Henry, and Trevor ran the clean-up at Lone Star. Everything they did was managed down to the second, and they employed a lot of people and trained them with a customer-service-first attitude.
Ty was actually surprised he’d stayed on as long as he had, though he could put a smile on his face and do what someone told him pretty easily. Therefore, he found a man named Marcus waving people into the parking lot, and he did what he said.
Just as he put the truck in park, his phone rang, and Ty glanced over to the screen in his truck while it connected. Winnie watched it too.
When the name Jerry Bozeman popped up on the screen, Ty’s heart went into a spin. “It’s the real estate agent.” He looked over to Winnie as his pulse actually started to throb in his throat.
“I’m going to answer it.”
“All right,” she said. “Do it.”
Ty reached out and touched the screen, gave the call a moment to connect, and then said, “Hey, Jerry, you’re on speaker with me and my girlfriend, Winnie.”
“All right,” Jerry said good-naturedly. “I know we haven’t looked at any places yet, Tyson, but you’d given me a short list from the website that I sent you.”
“Yeah,” Ty said, unsure of what he might say next.
“Well, I followed up with a couple of them late yesterday, after the dust storm, and unfortunately your number-one pick has decided to withdraw their listing from the market for right now.”
The breath left Ty’s body, and he slumped back into his seat. “Was that the one out there on the western side of town?” he asked. “Kind of in that last neighborhood before you get down near the crop-dusting hangars?”
“That’s the one,” Jerry said. “Apparently they took a lot of damage, and they don’t want to sell it for cheap because of that. So they’re going to take some time to get it fixed up first.”
“Well, how long is it going to take?” Ty asked.
“They didn’t give me a timeline,” Jerry said. “Apparently her niece is living there right now, and they’re not even in town, so they might not be doing anything with it for a while.”
“Sure, okay,” Ty said. “What about the other places?”
“Everybody has a lot going on right now,” he said. “So nobody wanted to show this weekend, but I got you a couple of showings for next Saturday, if you’re interested.”
“I am,” Ty said, and he swung his attention back to Winnie, lifting his eyebrows at her. She gave him an encouraging nod, and Ty recognized how pleased her approval made him.
“Great,” Jerry said. “All I can go on is what we’ve been talking about, so it’ll be nice to go out and do some actual showing.
It always gives me a better idea of what you’re looking for, so don’t be discouraged if the first property we walk onto isn’t exactly what you want.
It gives me a better idea, and then I can keep looking. ”
“Okay,” Ty said.
“It’s a great time to be looking, too, Tyson. It’s a buyer’s market,” Jerry said. “Pricing is down, and people who’ve had enough of their farms and ranches are looking to get off before spring.”
“Perfect,” Ty said. “Thanks so much.”
“Yeah, I’ll send you the time and address of the first showing, unless you’d rather meet at my office.”
Ty didn’t see why he needed to do that. In fact, he’d never been to Jerry’s office.
After Finn had given him the man’s number, Ty had texted the man, and Jerry called him.
They’d talked for a good twenty or thirty minutes while Jerry wrote down all of Ty’s preferences, and then they’d been texting since.
“You can just text me where to meet you,” Ty said. “And we’ll be there.”
“Sounds great,” Jerry said. “I’ll talk to you soon.”
“Yeah, thanks.”
The call ended, and Ty turned off the truck.
“That’s very exciting, cowboy,” Winnie said. “Some showings next weekend.”
“Yeah,” Ty said, trying to muster up his enthusiasm for such a thing. “I guess we’ll see.” He slid out of the truck and met Winnie at the front corner of it.
As they walked toward the south stable, he reflected on everything that had happened in the last month.
He was thrilled he didn’t have to go through the clean-up around town alone and feeling more and more like himself now that he had Winnie in his life.
He’d taken some big steps forward in his love life, in his personal life by looking for a new house of his own, and in his spiritual life by going back to church and letting the Holy Spirit guide him and direct him more than ever.
Ty wasn’t sure that life would ever be perfect, and he knew he never would be. But all of that felt more manageable now, with Winnie’s arm linked through his, than it ever had before. And maybe, he thought. Life doesn’t have to be perfect for me to be perfectly happy.
They reached the stable’s entrance, and Ty reached to open the door. “Dear Lord,” he prayed right out loud. “Bless us that today will be easy, and that Winnie’s car will get back to Three Rivers without incident, and that we can enjoy spending time together, even if the work is dirty.”
“Amen,” Winnie said, grinning at him.
He held the door for her and gestured for her to go first. “Now, come on,” he said. “Today’s your lucky day, because you get to meet some of my favorite horses on the planet.”