Meant to Be Mine (A Porter Family Novel Book #2) (22 page)

“But Ty doesn’t love her.”

“I think he does.”

“And maybe
he
even thinks he does. But he doesn’t.”

“Meg,” Celia said, skeptical.

“Bo thinks that Ty’s been faithful to you since the day you married.”

The statement took Celia by such complete surprise that she gawked for a few moments. “Is this
Ty
Porter
we’re talking about?”

Meg raised an eyebrow, a faint smile on her lips.

“We were married almost six years ago. He—he adores women and they adore him. I’m sure—I mean, that is . . . I’m certain that he’s had dates and girlfriends in every city he’s traveled to. That’s a lot of . . . cities.”

“Bo knows him pretty well. That’s all I’m saying.”

Since Vegas, Ty hadn’t had any girlfriend long enough or public enough to register on his Wikipedia profile, true. But Celia had never imagined, never expected, that he’d remained faithful to her. That just flat-out could not be right. Bo didn’t know his brother as well as he thought he did.

Meg glanced at her watch. “I hate to leave, but I have an appointment back at Whispering Creek.” She met Celia’s gaze squarely. “Will you be all right?”

“I’ll be fine.”

Meg gathered up her purse, and they made their way to the door.

“Thank you for the latte and for coming, Meg.”

“Caffeine and a friend have always done wonders for me.”

“It was like you had ESP or something. You came at the exact moment I needed you.”

Meg had walked onto the porch. At Celia’s words, she turned.

“What is it?” Celia asked.

“God has often used other people to help me through difficult patches. It means a lot to me to think that He might have used me just now to do the same for you.”

“Oh.”

“Will you come to church with Bo and me on Sunday?”

Celia hadn’t attended church in more than a decade. She’d likely be smitten by lightning the second she set foot in the building. However, she was feeling so mushy and appreciative toward Meg that if Meg had asked her to scale Everest, she’d have rushed out to buy hiking gear. “Sure.”

“Perfect! I’ll text you the details.”

Celia stood on the porch, waving as Meg drove away. So far this morning she’d delivered a child to kindergarten, had a breakdown, and been rescued from her breakdown by a girlfriend.

Now the time had come, for better or for worse, to find herself a job.

C
elia spent the rest of the week job hunting. And also trying to avoid Ty, a man disinclined to be avoided.

Hard to say which pursuit she enjoyed less.

She continued to rise at dawn and pour her concerns into baking. During Addie’s kindergarten hours she combed the newspapers and Internet in search of companies in need of employees with her credentials and experience. She sent out resumes electronically and by mail. Answered listings with phone calls. Communicated with headhunters.

The job openings she’d come across so far either paid too little or were offered by restaurants that expected her to work nights and weekends. Addie went to school during the day. If she worked all night and all weekend, when would she see her child?

Midmorning on Friday, Celia bowed to a self-destructive urge and visited her online checking account. She stared at the numbers on the screen with desolation and no small amount of panic. Eventually her eyes unfocused and the digits went blurry. Her remaining balance had whittled to an amount that terrified her.

Maybe she’d been stupidly prideful to refuse the credit cards Ty had offered her. If it came down to it and she needed money in order to put food in Addie’s mouth, Ty would help her, she knew.
But the thought of taking anything more from him caused her whole body to cringe. She’d managed to provide for Addie and herself all this time.

Needing air, she shoved her chair away from the dining room table she’d commandeered as a makeshift office. Pushing her keys into the pocket of her shorts, she struck off toward Holley’s old town square on foot. No need to drive. The heat could hardly do any more damage to her mood or her curls.

Since moving to Holley, she’d been consumed first with house renovation and then with her job search. She’d yet to visit the historic heart of the town.

She followed the slightly uneven sidewalks past one stately Victorian after another until she found herself standing at one of the square’s four corners. The scene reminded her of a set from a Western movie. A beige stone courthouse, dreamt up by an architect who’d possessed both flair and an affection for clock towers, dominated the center. A street paved with bricks framed the courthouse, and storefronts framed the street. Some of the old buildings were tall, some narrow, some flat-fronted, some decorated with scrollwork, some painted gray or green. A wide sidewalk, almost a boardwalk, ran in front of the collection of shops, businesses, and eateries. The people strolling on it were shaded by overhangs, awnings, and porches as varied as the buildings they protruded from. Baskets of flowers hung from each of the light posts, trailing vines of English ivy.

Celia browsed through Carrie’s Corner first, a gift shop that smelled like the apple pie candle flickering near the register. Next, she window-shopped at a country-and-western home furnishings store. Long family-style tables covered with red-and-white-checked tablecloths filled the interior of a barbecue restaurant called Taste of Texas.

In no establishment did she spend a single penny, of course. She hadn’t even brought her wallet.

Celia skipped over a law office. She walked through Mrs. Tiggy Winkles, a lunch spot doubling as an antique store. She lingered inside the cool of The Bookery, which contained not only shelves
lined with books but also leather chairs cozied up next to decorative lamps spilling light. Next came a place where kids could paint pottery. Then—

Celia came to a sudden stop. A large picture window had been set into an off-white storefront and painted with the words
Cream or Sugar
in gold cursive. Through the glass, Celia could make out what looked like a bakery display case.

Like the rest of her generation, Celia had a healthy fondness for coffee shops. Unlike the rest, she didn’t often go inside them. For one thing, she couldn’t afford the expensive drinks and pastries they served. But there was another, more subtle reason.

It hurt her to go inside.

Somewhere during her middle school years, she’d hit on the idea of owning and running her own bakery one day. It had become her dearest dream.

She’d gotten a degree in Nutrition and Food Service Systems, then nabbed a job as a sous chef after graduation. Her plan had been to work just long enough to save the money she needed in order to cover her bakery’s start-up costs. While she’d been putting money aside, she’d researched the industry. Tested recipes. Spoken to men and women who owned their own shops.

She’d done all that, anyway, right up until the day of her positive pregnancy test. She’d set aside her imaginary coffee shop and turned her attention to the realities of life, knowing that nothing about her future would ever be what she’d envisioned.

A deeply buried piece of her hadn’t forgotten it, though. Whenever she saw a coffee shop or, more rarely, ventured inside one, her heart would ache. Old pain, familiar and bearable. She had Addie, after all, and Addie was worth a hundred of her own dreams. But she still carried around a sore spot for the coffee shop her younger, more naïve self had once longed for.

Someone had taped a piece of paper to the bottom corner of Cream or Sugar’s window. It read
Help Wanted
.

Cars trundled by on the street. People walked past. Celia remained motionless, hope battling against her common sense. The
owners might just need a floor sweeper. And even if they didn’t, the job likely wouldn’t pay enough to support Addie.

She glanced down at herself anyway. Did she look presentable enough to inquire about the position? Yes, but just. She had on her airy white peasant top with the blue stitching around the neck. Tangerine shorts, fitted to above the knee. Her trusty T-strap leather sandals that she preferred to think of as “character filled” rather than just old.

She scooted out of sight and removed her headband, her anklet, and all of her bracelets except one. After stashing everything in her pockets, she finger fluffed her hair.

She let herself into Cream or Sugar’s interior: a long, narrow space brimming with the smell of fried dough and coffee. An old-fashioned bar, like the kind a 1950s soda shop might have had, protruded from the wall on the left, ran in front of four swiveling round stools bolted to the floor, then turned and became a display case that continued to the back. The wood floors were fabulous, but the walls were dingy white and decorated with cheaply framed prints of glazed donuts.

A woman who looked to be about sixty stood behind the counter making change for a ruddy-faced man holding a white paper sack. A mother and her two young daughters chatted at a table halfway back. The girls’ mouths were mustached with chocolate.

Celia moved deeper into the shop. The display case held four varieties of donuts. Glazed. Glazed with chocolate and sprinkles. Jelly. And cinnamon-sugar cake. Beyond that, just some Texas sheet cake and a tray containing chocolate chip and M&M cookies. Two glass pots of coffee, one with a brown handle and one with an orange sat side by side on a simple hot plate behind the counter. No espresso machine.

Cream or Sugar appeared to be more of a run-in-and-run-out donut shop than the kind of bakery Celia had first supposed. For one thing, there were no scones.

The woman behind the counter and her male customer launched into a conversation about mosquitoes.

Celia laced her hands in front of her and waited, self-conscious.

More talk of mosquitoes. Speculation that last winter had not been cold enough to kill them all off. Celia couldn’t imagine the weather here becoming chilly enough to merit a sweater, much less cold enough to kill mosquitoes.

“Can I help you, honey?” the woman asked, raising her voice. Both she and her customer turned toward Celia.

“Yes. I saw the
Help Wanted
sign out front. I came in to ask about the position.”

They studied her for a long and awkward moment. The man gave Celia a pleasant smile, then murmured something about getting back to work and left with his paper sack. The woman continued to size Celia up. In no hurry, apparently, to fill the air with speech.

Celia approached the stretch of the counter near the register. “I’m Celia Porter.”

The woman’s brows rose. “Ty’s wife?”

Wow. This town really was small and Ty really was famous here. “Yes.”

“And you’re looking for work?”

“I am.”

“I’m Donetta Clark. My husband and I own the place.”

“Nice to meet you.”

“Come and sit down.” Donetta gestured to the built-in stools.

Donetta had dressed her pear-shaped body in beige clamdiggers and a white T-shirt that had a red capital
T
outlined by blue on its front. Tiny baseballs hung from her ears, also decorated with the
T
. White pom-pom socks peeked out the heels of her navy Keds.

Celia balanced her rear on one of the round padded seats and tried for good upper-body posture.

“Do you have any experience working in a shop like this?” Donetta asked.

Celia detailed her college degree, her stint as a sous chef, her years in cafeteria administration at the university.

Donetta listened, hazel eyes shrewd. She sported shoulder-length brown hair and bangs with an array of frosted-blond strands feath
ered about her face. The blond streaks brought to mind store-bought coloring kits, the kind that came complete with a cap punctured with holes.

“Oregon State University did you say?”

“Yes,” Celia answered, “I attended there and then—”

“My cousin’s son went to college in that part of the country. He turned into a real tree hugger. Lives with his wife and kids now in one of those houses that’s powered by the sun. They nearly froze to death last January.”

“Oh.”

Donetta leaned a generous hip against the display case. “Honey, I think you’re overqualified for the job here.”

“What kind of help are you looking for?”

“Someone to work from around nine in the morning until closing at four. We had a young man working here, but he up and quit a week ago.”

“That’s too bad—”

“He ran off to Lampasas after some woman who sells hair extensions. He will—mark my words—spend the rest of his life sitting at one of those kiosks in the mall trying to interest shoppers in fake ponytails and the like.”

Celia nodded, commiserating.

“Anyhow. Jerry and I get here at four every morning to make donuts. We open at six and we like to pull out by ten. We have season tickets to the Rangers, and some of the home games start at one. You better believe we like to be sitting in our seats fifteen minutes before game time with our Ranger dogs, our sodas, and our nachos.”

“Sure. I understand.” Celia was not a baseball fan. Or really a fan of any sport at all. Except, mayhap, bull riding.

“We’ve been running this place for twenty years, and we’re gettin’ real close to retirement. I might not look it, but I’m sixty-two years old.”

Celia widened her eyes with faux surprise.

“It’s true. Jerry and I have ten grandkids. At this point in our lives, we don’t want our work interfering with our baseball.”

Two more customers entered, and Celia waited while Donetta served them donuts and Styrofoam cups of coffee. “Ya’ll come back now.”

The door wheezed shut behind them.

“So, like I said,” Donetta said, straightening the handles of the coffee pitchers until they were in line, “we need someone we can trust to mind the shop for us till closing at four. We’re open Monday through Friday, plus a half day on Saturdays.”

The mother and her two daughters rose from their table and stopped to exchange pleasantries with Donetta.

Celia did the math in her head, adding the hours the job amounted to. Close to forty per week, in day shifts that lined up well with Addie’s school schedule. She didn’t particularly want to work on Saturdays, but nothing came without compromise. If she could bring Addie along on Saturdays, then she could roll with it.

Her gaze traveled over the shop, seeing not so much what it was but what it could be with her influence. She already itched to buy paint and donate a Sunday to covering the walls with a new color. She could bake pastries at home and bring them in for customers to sample. If she hunted online, she might be able to find an espresso machine. . . .

Everything hinged on the pay. Below the level of the counter, Celia crossed her fingers.

She’d worked out a bare-bones budget this past week. Taxes, food, utilities, phone, Internet, gas, insurance, credit card payments, clothing for Addie. She knew exactly how much she needed to earn to cover the basics. To have any hope of paying off her debts, she’d need additional income. She’d been toying with the idea of baking and selling custom cakes in her free time.

“Ya’ll come back now,” Donetta called as the mother shepherded the girls out the door.

“How’s the job sound?” Donetta asked Celia.

“So far so good.”

“Here’s why I said you’re overqualified. I paid the hair extension salesman minimum wage. Seeing as how you’re Ty’s wife and
experienced and all, I could up that a little.” Donetta named an hourly salary that was just over half of what Celia needed. “Sorry, hon. That’s the best I can do.”

Celia kept her face impassive. Inside, though, her hopes crashed. Could she possibly work out a way to support Addie on that amount?

Fruitless. She already knew she couldn’t do it.

Her common sense had warned her that the pay would be too little. People who worked behind counters at cash registers did not make a lucrative hourly wage. Hope, though, was a funny thing. She had a practical personality. But sometimes, like years ago in Vegas with Ty, when she wanted something enough, her hope dared to reach too high. Occasionally it still managed to convince her logic that there might be a chance when there was no chance.

“I’d really like to work here,” Celia said quietly. “Truly, I would. But I’m afraid that you were right, that maybe I am—”

“Overqualified?”

“Yes.” She swallowed against a foolish wad of emotion.

“I figured.” Donetta scooted a note pad and pen in her direction. “Write down your number, and I’ll let you know if I hear about any jobs around here that would be right for you.”