Chapter 21
JONAH
The next evening, I head home after a long day shoeing stock horses at one of the ranches.
It’s strange walking into my home and not finding it empty, so I balk at the sight of Winnie sitting on the couch, papers spread around her, phone in hand.
Her hair is pulled back from her face, and she’s wearing what I imagine must be her version of loungewear.
Her sweatshirt is bright pink and she has on a pair of matching microscopic shorts.
She’s so engrossed in whatever she’s reading that she doesn’t look up when I enter. I watch as she frowns at one of the papers and then sighs deeply. Whatever it is, she’s clearly stressed out.
“Hey, everything okay?” I ask.
“Jonah? When did you get here?” She rubs her eyes.
“I just got home. What’s all this?” I nod towards the pile of paper.
“I’m looking at my parents’ lawsuit. Now that we’re married and I have my trust fund money, I need to deal with this.
I’ve been avoiding it, because well…” She trails off and wraps her arms around her midsection, like she’s trying to comfort herself.
I want to reach out and offer her some of my own, but I don’t.
Winnie isn’t some damsel in distress and I’m not capable of saving her.
I’ve done what I can by marrying her, mostly because it benefited me as well, and that’s enough.
“How bad is it?” I ask instead. “You didn’t give me many specifics when we talked about it before.”
“Oh, it’s bad.” Winnie walks me through each of the things they’re suing her for, most of which hinge on trying to prove that she’s in breach of an employment contract with them. “I can fight most of this though,” she says. “I just need a good lawyer.”
It strikes me that Winnie is far shrewder than she appears. She clearly understands this lawsuit and the implications of it, and how to defend herself.
Finding a lawyer is something I can actually help with, though. Finally. “There are two law offices in the area. Everyone agrees that Shelley Stern is the best. She’s a shark, and listens to her clients from what I hear. So you could try her.”
“Thanks, Jonah. I’ll give her a call in the morning, I guess.” She flops back against the couch.
“What will you do with yourself after all of this is concluded?” I ask. I offered to help her figure that part out, and I meant it.
“I don’t know. I guess I could get a job, but I’ve never done anything other than pageants and social media,” Winnie says. “My resume would be two lines, and that’s it. Who would want to hire me?”
“Winnie. Come on. Any business in the area looking for a marketing manager would hire you.”
“I want to do something that I love,” she pouts.
I sigh. “Well, that’s not how the real world works. We can’t always love our work.”
“Do you love being a farrier?”
“Yes. But that’s not the point.”
She flicks a brow up at me. “Kinda is. Look, is it so wrong for me to want a job I’ll actually enjoy? I just want to finally, finally get to do something I love. Something that is just for me.”
Her words strike a chord within me and I feel myself soften towards her. I know exactly what she means.
“I get it. Music is that thing for me. The thing I enjoy more than anything else. But it’s not going to pay my bills, so I found something else that fulfills me nearly as much which will.”
Winnie trails a finger along the back of the couch and thinks for a moment. “Do you ever wish music could pay those bills, though? Do you want to tour or put out albums?”
“You tell me. You’re the one who has actually made money performing. How is it, being up on stage and making money that way?”
She makes a face. “Awful, if I’m being honest. There was a time when I loved, uh, when I loved pageants.
” Her voice cracks on the word. “A time when it was all I ever wanted to do. But the pressure ruined it for me. I worry I’ll never enjoy it again.
Without that pressure there though…I supposed it could be enjoyable. ”
“I sure hope so, because the money you gave me is going to help me put out an album,” I admit. “I don’t want to be famous from it or anything, and I enjoy my job as a farrier but…making money from my music has always been a dream. In an ideal world, I’d get to do both.”
“Really?” She perks up, a sunny smile overtaking her face. “Jonah, that’s great! I’m so happy for you.”
I feel my face start to heat under her smile, and I mentally kick myself. I need to stop acting like a lovesick fool around her. I already know nothing good can come of that.
“Thanks. I need to find a band to record it with and book studio space, so not much is happening yet.”
“Well, if you need someone on the keys, let me know. I took lessons until I was at least nine,” Winnie says, clearly joking.
“Are you as good at the piano as you are at baton twirling?”
“Even worse,” she says, grinning still.
And damn me, I can’t help it, but I grin right back.
Winnie decides to shower before dinner, and I watch her walk to the bathroom, my eyes glued to her back.
I like the look of her in lounge clothes more than I expected—a lot more.
My house is small, and from where I’m sitting in the living room, I hear her turn the water on.
I imagine her undoing the zipper on her sweatshirt and slipping it off her shoulders.
Her tiny pink shorts would come off next, leaving her completely bare.
In my fucking house. Barely twenty feet away from me. I groan and try to erase the image of her in my mind, but I hear the shower door close, and all I can think about is her hair getting damp, her face flushing in the heat, and the water running over her slick body.
I feel myself thicken in my pants, and I tug at the crotch of my jeans, trying to hide it.
Winnie won’t necessarily be in there for a long time.
Despite how enthusiastically she kissed me back at the Horseshoe the other night—and at our wedding, too—she probably doesn’t want to walk out of the shower and find me at half-mast.
I try to think about anything other than her wet, naked body.
Then, I hear a soft sound that distracts me.
It’s faint, and I can barely make it out over the sound of the shower.
But it sounds like someone is singing, in a beautiful mezzo-soprano.
I get up off the couch and stand by the bathroom door, feeling like a creep but needing to know where the sound is coming from.
I press my ear to the door and can tell that it’s Winnie. Not a speaker or a phone. It’s my wife. She’s singing “Over the Rainbow,” à la Judy Garland, and her voice strokes over the notes smoothly.
But when she gets to the line where Judy wonders why she can’t fly over the rainbow as well, she can’t seem to finish it. She trails off, almost like she’s too afraid—or too sad—to finish the phrase.
It’s clear that Winnie’s talent isn’t baton twirling. It’s this. It’s singing. For some reason she lied about it to me, and I’m determined to find out why.