Chapter 39
Winnie hummed to herself to calm her nerves as she made the turn, deftly following Ty onto the highway that ran east and west. They’d been in a three-car caravan from her parents’ house for the last couple of hours.
She was still twenty-five minutes from her house, but to get to the hobby farm Ty had purchased, they had to turn here and go down the highway toward Amarillo for about three miles.
Then he made another right turn onto the property, and Winnie’s sedan bumped over the dirt road just fine.
It had been a whirlwind of a week, with plenty of crying from both Daddy and Taylor, but Winnie noted that her mother had never once protested again. She didn’t have to pull Winnie aside and tell her that she was secretly thrilled about the developments happening for Winnie to know it was true.
“And now,” Winnie said to herself, because Ty had his truck and she had her car, and her parents had insisted on bringing their minivan. “We just need to figure out where they’re going to live.”
She almost hoped it would be here on Ty’s property. He’d said the smaller, single-level house was move-in ready, and she had lain in his arms on a blanket in her parents’ backyard and worried that they would displace him off of his own property.
He said he didn’t mind at all if it would get them to move here and make her happy.
She’d talked with her parents about them getting their own little apartment closer to the hospital and doctor’s appointments, where Daddy could just walk and Momma could buy groceries from a shop a half-block away. No car needed.
She’d talked about her parents living in the spare bedroom at Winnie’s house, where Ty had been all this time.
Any of those solutions would work, and Winnie’s parents were planning on staying with her for at least a couple of nights, until her father’s first appointment.
She honestly wasn’t sure if she could handle much more than that, though she wanted to be able to.
Ty came to a stop outside the cute little farmhouse, and Winnie pulled in beside him. Pure goodness flowed through her, along with a sense of calmness and peace. She got out of the car and joined Ty at the front corner of his truck.
“This place is amazing, Ty,” she said, because she had never seen it in person.
“This is just one of the houses.” He slung his arm around her.
“I’ve had a couple of service people in,” he said.
“The plumber, and the heating and air-conditioning guy, and they say it’s ready.
I had the septic tank pumped, and since it’s only a half-mile off the road and we’re moving into summer, I don’t think I need to do any asphalt or concrete yet. ”
Winnie looked at him. “I can’t believe you’re willing to let my parents stay here.”
“I’m okay with it,” Ty said, and he pressed a kiss to her forehead. “What about us?”
“What do you mean—what about us?”
“I mean, I know you said you didn’t want to get engaged before six months—that it felt too fast and all that—and I’m fine with that, but there’s a lot of things we haven’t talked about, and one of those is a family. Do you want kids, Winnie?”
“Yes,” she whispered. “I think I’m good with kids.”
“I think you’d be a phenomenal mother.”
Winnie turned into Ty and fiddled with his collar, something she did when nerves ran rampant through her, and she didn’t know how to contain them. Ty seemed to know it, and he simply let her do so until she was brave enough to look up at him and vocalize her thoughts.
“We won’t know much about my daddy’s surgery until Tuesday, but a full recovery could be six months or more.”
“Winnie….” Ty drew a breath and blew it all out.
“I’m worried about them living here and keeping you off your own property.”
“There’s another house,” he said.
“Yeah, but it’s not move-in ready.”
“I had the same plumber and heating guy check it out,” he said. “They’ve made a few repairs, and I’m on Trap’s schedule to make sure that everything is up to code, and he’s going to replace the front and back decks. And then, honestly, Winnie, everything’s just cosmetic.”
“But you’ve told me you don’t want to live in a construction zone,” she said.
“I can get painters out pretty quick,” he said. “And I bet I can replace the flooring next week with a few phone calls. I’m not going to do any of the work myself.”
Winnie turned toward the house and nodded. Ty put his hand on her face, sending a zing of attraction through her as he guided her eyes back to his.
“Win, I’m not going to do any of the work, and that’s something you’ve worried about too. So maybe I just make a few more phone calls and accelerate the remodel. I could still be on the property in a month.”
“In the other house,” she said.
“In the other house,” he confirmed. “And your parents really can stay here right now—tonight.”
Winnie’s nerves shook at her, and the sound of tires over gravel told her that her parents had arrived behind them.
“Let’s see what they want to do,” she said.
They pulled in and parked, and both Momma and Daddy got out, with Daddy hemming and hawing and grunting and groaning with every move he made.
Winnie had snapped at him in the past couple of weeks, asking if he made those noises if he was by himself, and that she bet he didn’t.
“So stop being dramatic,” she’d told him.
But Daddy was Daddy, and he wasn’t going to change now.
“This is it?” Momma asked, her voice touched with awe. “Ty, this is a nice house.”
“It’s three bedrooms and two baths,” he said. “Just like what you’ve got in Oklahoma. It’s a single level. But I’m afraid this is what the land looks like. There’s no yard or anything.”
They’d left Lucky in Redwood with Taylor, though she’d refused to come out of her bedroom and bid them farewell.
She was not happy with the changes, and Winnie had left her a notebook page filled with names and numbers of people who could come mow the lawn and walk the dog, so she could continue to pursue her sugar-daddy lifestyle.
It angered Winnie that she had to enable her sister in such ways, but if she didn’t, she feared her parents would return to Redwood to a dilapidated house full of dog feces and wild vines.
“The whole property is twelve acres,” Ty said, gesturing right and then left.
“If you go left, down the road here and around a couple of corners, that’s where the other house is.
It’s actually off another road, and it’s where the main barns and stables will be.
This house over here, I envision as either a mother-in-law apartment, a guest house, or, if we ever get to the point where we need cowboys to live here and work, they could live in this cabin. ”
“Are you going to plant?” Daddy asked.
“Just a garden over at the main place,” Ty said. “And probably not this year. This year I’m going to focus on getting the house where it needs to be so that I can live there comfortably, and all of the farm buildings accessible.”
Momma and Daddy both looked at him and then back to the house.
“After that, I’ll probably plant a garden next year,” Ty said.
“Ty is a very good cook,” Winnie said, and she linked her arm through his simply to be closer to him.
They still had a lot to talk about, as Winnie did not want to get married in the winter. As far from February as she could get would be best, and that was August or September. And with May on the horizon, she wasn’t sure she could put a wedding together that fast.
Of course you can, she told herself. What do you need?
With Momma and Daddy here, she’d only need her brother and his wife to come and Taylor to make an appearance.
She was sure she could book one of the little chapels in town, and maybe Willa Glover to officiate, and then Winnie would simply need something to wear.
She knew where to buy jumpsuits that complimented the shortness in her torso and the extra curve in her hips, and she’d seen them in white. Or maybe she’d be married in purple.
Or scrubs, she thought, and she giggled to herself.
Ty looked at her, his eyebrows raised. “What are you laughing about?”
“Nothing,” she said. “Come see the house, Momma. I haven’t even seen it myself.”
“We run on a well here,” Ty said as Winnie moved with her mother toward the house. “But everything’s plumbed, and you’ve got hot water in the house. I just had it all checked.”
He led the way up the wide staircase with only three steps to the front door, and the moment he opened it, Winnie realized why he had fallen in love with this place and purchased it.
It simply felt like home, something invisible but tangible welcoming them onto the property and into the house.
“This is a laminate hardwood,” Ty said, scuffing his boot across the floor. “It’s more gray than I like, but my momma put down a rug, and this is a new couch.”
He indicated the full-sized couch against the window at the front of the house.
He didn’t have a love seat, but a recliner faced a TV mounted to the wall in front of them.
The kitchen—clean, with white appliances—held a six-person dining room table, and a single back door that was almost entirely made of glass.
“Bedrooms and baths down there,” he said. “And there’s no laundry room, but there is a laundry closet.” He took a few steps and opened an accordion door to reveal a stackable washer and dryer.
“It’s everything you’d need, and two of the bedrooms are empty. So if there’s stuff that you want to bring and store, I’m sure we can make another trip up to Redwood.”
Momma disappeared into other rooms, though when Winnie wandered after her, she found them empty, save for the last one in the corner that connected to the second bathroom and made an ensuite. Ty had put a king-size bed there with fresh linens and two nightstands with lamps.