Chapter 10
JONAH
Winnie’s mouth drops open in surprise at my question. “You noticed I left? It was packed in there and I tried to leave quietly.”
“You don’t exactly blend into a crowd, Winnie.
Not in your pink boots.” And especially not in that flimsy, tantalizingly cut shirt she had on last night, but I leave that part out.
I tried not to notice it at the time and I’m trying real hard not to notice how good she looks right now, too.
Sure, she’s just wearing a sweater, jeans, and a puffy jacket, but the woman is drop-dead gorgeous.
I’ve come to the realization that it doesn’t matter what she wears—she’s a stunner.
“Fine. I’m sorry I left,” she says not meeting my eyes. “But there was a huge crowd there. Why does it matter?”
“I want to know why.”
“Why what?” she asks in an innocent tone.
“Don’t try and evade the question, Winnie. I want to know why you left when it was so clear you enjoyed listening to Jewel’s set, even if it made you emotional. What was it about my performance that sent you running?”
“I just felt like I needed some air, okay? It wasn’t about you specifically. And I thought I’d catch the end of your set but when I came back in the next guy was already playing.”
“I don’t believe you,” I say stubbornly.
“Why not?”
“Because nothing with you is as it seems, and I’m going to figure out what’s going on.”
“Oh, get over yourself,” she says, a note of anger entering her voice. “What I do or who I am is none of your concern. Why are you so interested in me anyways?”
“Because I can’t…” I stop myself from continuing.
I was about to say that I can’t help her unless I know what is wrong, but it’s not my responsibility to help her, and she’s never said she wants any either.
I naturally take on the role of the fixer, but Winnie’s not a horse who needs new shoes or my parents who need help with their bills.
She hasn’t asked me for anything, and my desire to help her is one I need to quash.
Nothing good is going to come from getting tangled up with her.
“Because nothing,” I say. “You don’t have to explain anything to me.”
“Good. And there’s nothing to explain,” she says, finally looking at me and meeting my eyes. “I was fine last night, and I’m fine now. Better than fine, in fact.”
“Sure,” I respond blandly, though I don’t believe her.
Winnie doesn’t say anything else, and just takes a seat by Rosie’s head.
I finish shoeing the horse without another word to Winnie, and she seems intent on ignoring me.
She alternates between reading something on her phone and stroking Rosie on the face.
As soon as I’m done, the two of them disappear into the barn, Winnie’s pink boots clacking and Rosie’s freshly shined hooves clomping beside her.
I find Beau a few minutes later, examining our newest patient.
“Have you come up with a name yet?” I ask when he’s done looking at the horse’s hooves.
“Candice is calling him Fuzz, because of his huge, fuzzy ears.” Beau strokes the spot right between said ears, which are comically large. Fuzz leans into him, clearly at ease with the vet.
“I like it,” I say. “Fuzz is a cute name, and fitting. How’s he doing?”
“Decent, but I think we need to be more aggressive with the canker infection. It hasn’t gotten much better.”
We talk through some options, and Beau decides that a course of steroids will probably help. I’ll also be making some custom impressions for Fuzz to help keep the infected hooves clean and dry while they heal. It will also give him some cushioning for the laminitis, which can be pretty painful.
“How’d Rosie do with her shoes?” he asks while I’m looking at Fuzz’s hooves myself.
“She freaked out at first,” I say, switching to the next hoof. Fuzz is a sweetheart, and despite the amount of pain he must be in, picks his hooves up for me easily and lets me examine him. “If Winnie hadn’t been there to help her calm down, I wouldn’t have been able to do it.”
“How’d she do it?” Beau sounds intrigued.
“She talked to her, let her know that everything would be alright. It seemed like she really understood why Rosie would be so anxious, and connected with it. It surprised me honestly.”
“It shouldn’t have,” Beau says. “Being in pageants isn’t all that different to being a race horse. Winnie knows what it’s like to be expected to perform.”
I chew on that for a moment. “I guess you’re right. I never really thought of it that way.”
“She’s more complicated than you might think, Jonah,” Beau says, and I can tell he feels protective over Winnie. “Pageants might seem shallow but there’s a lot of pressure.”
“Right. Lots of pressure to look good in a dress and smile. Must be awful.”
“You try walking around in heels,” Beau lobs back. “I’m sure neither of us would make it further than three feet.”
I start to laugh, unable to resist imagining serious, shy Beau trying to balance in heels, with me next to him.
“Hey, it’s a good image, man. I’ll give you that,” I say through peals of laughter. “We’d fall flat on our asses I’m sure of it.”
Beau dissolves into laughter as well, and Fuzz snorts and then nudges my arm, clearly wanting in on the fun. I give him a scratch and a treat from my pocket. My chest feels light, for the first time in months.
“Thanks, man,” I say. “I needed that.”
“Tough week?”
“Something like that. More like a tough month. My mom…” I trail off, unsure of how to explain it.
“She doing okay still?”
“Yeah, she’s got a scan next month, but she feels pretty good. It’s these fucking bills, man. Her insurance wouldn’t cover everything and they’re drowning. Which is why I’m working six days a week and have taken on work from three more ranches.”
“Let me know how the scan goes.” Beau’s face is serious.
I nod.
He claps me on the shoulder. “And I’m always here if you need to talk, okay? Candice and I know what it’s like.”
The Wilsons lost their grandparents a few years ago.
Their grandma was really sick, and their grandfather passed away shortly after her out of sheer grief.
It was expensive and I know they used a lot of the money for the barn on care for her.
It was all worth it to keep her comfortable at the end, but it put a financial strain on things here.
I pack my things up at the barn and say my goodbyes to everyone, except for Winnie, who is nowhere to be found.
I drive over to my parents’ house, and the entire way, I think about what Beau said to me about pageants coming with a lot of pressure.
From the outside it all looks effortless, but I guess that’s the point.
Maybe I was too quick to judge Winnie—too quick to write her off.
I pull into my parents driveway and before I get out of my car, I grab my phone and do a quick google search.
Maybe if I watch one of Winnie’s old pageants online I’ll see the amount of pressure she was under.
And I find that I desperately want to understand who she is—she might look polished and elegant, but something else is going on there.
I type in Winnie and the word pageant. Without her last name, there’s nothing else I can do.
And as it turns out, nothing else is needed. The search returns hundreds of hits, most of which seem to be recent articles about her.
Miss Alabama Still Missing
Parents Abandoned by Pageant Queen Daughter
Winnie Grant: Missing Person, or Simply a Quitter?
I click on that last article and give it a read through.
What I find leaves me with more questions than answers.
Before she left Alabama, she posted online saying she was quitting both pageants and social media, and would return online when she was ready.
Her parents have countered this, and claim that they think foul play was involved in her disappearance.
Either way, Winnie’s been lying to me. Her parents are not happy for her to be here, and things are not, as she put it earlier, “better than fine.” It’s obvious she’s in Star Mountain of her own free will, but why? She seems like she’s on the run from something.
And try as I might, I can’t help but want to get to the bottom of it. I clench my hands into fists, and imagine all of the things she might be afraid of. Maybe she’s running from an ex-boyfriend. Maybe she’s hiding from the law.
I snort and shake my head. I’m letting my imagination get away from me, when the simplest answer is usually it—Winnie just wanted a new life, like so many of us do, and she chose her friend’s home town to make it in. That wouldn’t explain the haunted look on her face, though.
I climb out of my truck and walk towards my parents’ house. Whatever is hounding Winnie is weighing on me, but she’s the least of my problems. I need to find a way to tackle my mom’s medical debt more aggressively. Saving Winnie isn’t my job. It can’t be. Not when I’m needed here.