Meant to Be Mine (A Porter Family Novel Book #2) (38 page)

“I did,” she said. “Once. And once was enough.”

He held her gaze for a searing second, then stalked from the room.

Celia remained rooted to the spot, self-righteous in her certainty that she’d done the right thing. And so happy about it that she covered her eyes with her palms and wept.

Ty was not a man given to anger. But Celia had made him angry. Wildly angry.

He drove his truck out of town in search of open space. One turn onto a remote country road that went nowhere led him to another road to another. His pulse beat his veins. A headache pounded his skull.

He couldn’t believe that Tawny had screwed him over by telling Celia about that kiss. Why would she have done that? And why hadn’t Celia believed him when he’d told her the truth? If Celia would have listened to him and trusted him, he could have rescued the situation.

But no. She’d go to the grave before she’d trust him. She’d rather be unhappy. She’d rather he be unhappy. She’d rather do
anything
than take a chance on trusting him.

He couldn’t defend himself against the past because he had made a huge mistake in Vegas. He’d admitted it to her and apologized. He wasn’t a perfect man, and he’d even agree that she could do better than him.

On the other hand, he wasn’t the same man he’d been in Vegas.

Whenever Celia started acting like he was, it made him crazy. He had no way to prove her wrong. How could he prove her wrong unless she let him prove it?

He raked his hair back with an unsteady hand.

He couldn’t have her. She’d told him so in every possible way since the day they’d had lunch in Oregon—

His phone buzzed. A text.

Are you still able
to pick up Addie from school today?

He almost threw the phone out the window. Should he curse her every which way to sundown for expecting him to pick Addie up today? Or should he curse her for expecting him not to, like some deadbeat dad too selfish to remember his responsibilities to his child?

He held his body rigid against the rage rising inside him. Drove. Checked the time. Threw the truck into park and typed a message back to her.

I’ll pick her up from school
like I always do. I’m trustworthy
.

Once Ty got Addie back to Celia’s house and gave her the food Celia had set out—what kid wanted to eat an organic rice cake and a banana as an after-school snack?—they went into her room just like they always did so she could give him princess lessons.

She started in on a story about Rapunzel.

It took him a while to register it when the room went silent. He’d been staring at the wall, stewing. He looked to Addie and took in the sight of her thin frame and sweet face.

“What’s the matter, Daddy?”

“Nothing. I just zoned out for a second. Sorry about that. Go on.”

“I’m still hungry,” she whined.

“Okay, let’s go get you something else to eat.” They went to the kitchen, and he gave her at least five food options and three drink options.

She kept wrinkling her nose and shaking her head and saying, “I don’t want that. Is there anything else?”

Addie usually behaved like a prize student for Ty. Today she complained nonstop. Nothing would please her. As time passed, Ty’s patience stretched tighter and tighter.

When he heard Celia let herself into the house, he pushed to his feet, hiding a wince when pain ran up his injured leg. “Addie, I have a lot of stuff I need to do today. Your mom’s here, so I’m going to take off.”

“But—”

“I’ll see you tomorrow after school.” He and Addie walked into the hallway and came face to face with Celia.

She immediately turned her attention to Addie. “Hi!” she said, pretending to be the most cheerful person alive.

“Good day at work?” he asked, making a stab at friendliness in front of Addie.

“Mmm hmm.” She avoided looking at him.

Blind, stubborn woman! She was so wrong. And also so beautiful it made his gut churn. He desperately wanted her . . . everything about her and everything she represented.

“What have you all been up to?” Celia asked Addie.

“I ate my snack, but it tasted yucky.”

Ty said nothing. An ice cream sundae would have tasted yucky to Addie today.

“Then we played in my room,” Addie said.

“Great!”

Addie looked back and forth between the two of them.

“Well. Thanks for bringing Addie home.” Celia’s gaze stopped on his face for a moment, then crossed by. “I appreciate it.”

“Yep.” He kissed Addie and left.

“What’s the matter with you and Daddy?” he heard Addie ask Celia as he walked away.

He drove straight to a bar called Deep in the Heart. It smelled like beer, peanuts, and cigarettes. Most of the lighting came from the neon signs on the walls. He ordered a shot. After he’d thrown it back, he clunked down his glass. Despair shifted through him. He ordered another.

Music filled the interior of Deep in the Heart, but it couldn’t touch the darkness in his head. People spoke to him: the bartender, locals he knew, a stranger or two. He said the expected things. Felt no better. Ordered more shots.

No telling how much time had passed when Bo sat on the bar stool next to him. “I heard you were here.”

Ty wanted to tell him off. His older brother. If he’d been more like Bo, Celia would have loved him back. Honorable Bo, who always said and did the right things. Always had, since they were kids. Bo’d been the one helping his father with the horses; Ty had been the one jumping off a cliff into shallow water.

Now Bo had what he deserved: a wife he loved and a home and a career. And Ty had what he deserved: nothing.

He wished Jake had come. Jake was at least as screwed up as he was.

When the room started tilting, Ty swore viciously.

Bo didn’t lecture. He just waited until Ty was finally forced to make a choice between the lesser of two evils: leave the bar or vomit. Ty picked leave. Bo helped Ty into his truck, drove him home, and got him settled in his horrible dark house.

Ty lay alone on his bed with his wrist covering his eyes, feeling like he wanted to puke, his head spinning like he was on a carousel.

He hated his house. Why was it so quiet? Why was it so brown?

Why didn’t Celia live here with him?

Celia
. He squeezed shut his eyes as bitter pain whipped him.

Hours later, Ty slid his eyes open. The only light came from the open doorway to his master bathroom. His ears picked up no sound.

He pushed to sitting and wheezed. It all came back to him, the
physical misery of his hangover plus all the things Celia had said to him. The fact that she couldn’t trust him.

He hissed every piece of profanity he knew as he limped into the bathroom.

Bo had left a note for him on the counter saying that he and Meg were staying the night in his guest bedroom and to wake them if he needed anything or if they could help him.

No, they could not help him.

Ty pushed the note into the trash and jerked open the drawers one by one, searching. Wait . . . he remembered now. It wasn’t in the drawers. He’d tossed it into the cabinet.

He opened the cabinet door. Over on the side, next to his spare change, rested a white paper sack with a receipt stapled to it. It had been there since before the first time Celia had dumped his pills. He tore away the sack and let it fall.

A prescription bottle of Vicodin.

He squinted down at it in his hand. His mouth watered, he wanted the pills so badly. Two or three wouldn’t hurt. They’d dull everything he was thinking and feeling.

“I don’t trust you not to
break my heart again
.
”
Celia’s words swam through his brain.
“I can’t risk it. I can’
t risk Addie having to live through that
.
”

Was she wrong? He wanted her to be wrong, wanted to be someone she and Addie could trust. Had he really changed?

Or was he as weak and as faithless as she claimed him to be?

C
elia woke before dawn the next morning, overcome with the need to bake something fattening. She did her best to squelch the urge and go back to sleep. Gloomy thoughts and depressing feelings prevented that from happening, so she forced herself from bed.

Striving for a healthy emotional outlet that didn’t involve sugar, she took herself to her front yard. She stood in the dewy grass in bare feet, watering her plants and pulling weeds while five a.m. darkness sank around her like an anchor. She noted with numb detachment that her caladiums were coming along nicely. Flourishing.

When she finally reentered her house, she faced many productive options. She could catch up with things online. Finalize ideas for an anniversary cake a local couple had ordered. Do laundry. Iron . . .

She marched into her kitchen and stirred together the most wicked oatmeal walnut chocolate-chunk cookies she could muster. As soon as she pulled them from the oven, she stood over the tray and scooped the most deformed one onto a napkin. Since nobody else would want this particular cookie, she’d do it a favor and eat it.

Hot, nutty dough filled her mouth. She chewed—stopped.

It didn’t taste right. In fact, it tasted wrong.

She spit the bite back into her napkin, then tossed the napkin in the trash and contemplated her batch. What had she done? As
she went back over the steps she’d taken when making her dough, it hit her. She’d left out eggs.

Eggs! A bedrock ingredient. She’d been baking since middle school. Omitting eggs was a novice move. The sort of mistake a ten-year-old might make.

Today was
not
her day. Disgusted and devoid of the mental relief she usually found through baking, she dumped all the cookies in the trash.

After showering, she dressed in a peasant top and canary yellow shorts. She bypassed her boots and donned her trusty leather sandals. Then she sat in her living room watching early morning news coverage of weather, traffic, and DFW homicides while fiercely trying to think of anything except . . .

Him
.

She delivered Addie to kindergarten, then parked her Prius back at the gingerbread house and covered the short distance to the square on foot.

American-made trucks passed by her, as did the cars the yuppies owned: SUVs, Volvos, a Lexus. Shade from wide-reaching pecan and elm trees graced both her and the stately Victorians. When she reached the now-familiar square, her gaze took in the hodgepodge of establishments. Each unique in color, brick, or awning, all equally sure of themselves after having survived so long. The courthouse stood in its central location like an elegantly dressed officer ready for duty. The light posts faithfully supported their baskets of blooms.

The word
home
came over her like a
twang
on a guitar string, reverberating physically. The girl who’d moved from state to state all her life had finally found home in a most unusual place. Not in the lushly green northwest. But here. In this funny little Texan town that didn’t have a farmers’ market and smelled like barbecued brisket.

She made her way toward Cream or Sugar, uncertain whether Holley felt like home because of the place itself or because
he
lived here. If
he
lived in Thailand, she might right at this moment be
strolling through downtown Bangkok experiencing the very same mystifying sense of belonging.

She skirted behind Cream or Sugar and let herself in the back. Within minutes, she’d dressed, washed up, and busied herself frosting sheet cake alongside Jerry.

Celia studied him, the man with the Hulk exterior and the marshmallow interior. “What do you like best about being married to Donetta, Jerry?”

He considered the answer for a while. “She’s good in bed.”

On this particular day, Celia had not expected to smile. But she did smile at Jerry, and it felt like a sentimental gift. “I see.”

From the front room, Celia could hear Donetta calling out, “Ya’ll come back now!” then launching into a tirade aimed at a customer who’d had the bad judgment to voice the word
Yankees
.

“There’s something else,” Jerry said. “About Donetta.”

“Yes?”

“She interrupts, and she tells tall tales more than her share. But I know her heart. It’s a good heart. Donetta’s . . . my person. Do you know what I mean?”

“I’m not sure.” But deep down, she
did
know.

“We’ve shared a life, Donetta and me. We’ve got kids and grandkids. She’s the closest friend I have on this earth. I’ve been married to her for two-thirds of my life. And I only pray that the good Lord takes me first. Because I don’t want to live one day without her.”

“Oh, Jerry.” Emotion lifted within Celia. It was the longest speech she’d ever heard him make.

“I know what folks mean when they say their wife is their better half.”

“I think you’re the better half.”

“No, Celia. It’s Donetta. It’s always been her.”

As she’d requested, Ty did not return to Cream or Sugar. When she arrived at the gingerbread house to relieve him late in the afternoon, he looked hung over and like he hadn’t slept. However
rotten he’d been feeling, though, he hadn’t let it stop him from taking care of Addie.

The same the next day, Friday. He looked like a wreck, but Addie had been able to count on him.

Each evening Celia spent long periods of time in prayer. It hadn’t occurred to her to distance herself from God or blame Him the way she’d done in the past. Her decision to renew her relationship with God was the one thing she knew for sure she’d gotten right. Plus, she simply needed Him too much. Her growing faith brought her the only sense of steadiness or peace she had left.

Without God, her life would go back to tasting like the ill-fated oatmeal chocolate-chunk cookies she’d made the other morning. She’d come to understand that God was the most integral ingredient to her life recipe; He was the egg.

Meg began to call and come by to check on Celia more frequently than before. Celia didn’t know what to tell her, so she told her nothing. Words seemed superfluous, anyway. She could see in Meg’s compassionate face that Meg knew exactly what was going on.

Celia slid the
Give Peace
a Chance
charm off her key ring and let it fall from her fingers into the garbage for the final time.

The weekend came. Ty made it easy for her to avoid him. He didn’t text. Didn’t call. She kept checking her phone, half dreading and half desperate for contact from him. Her brain and her heart continued to face off like bitter enemies.

Addie asked a hundred times on Saturday when she’d next be able to see Daddy and ride Whitey. Celia knew that Ty would be glad to take Addie out riding. In order to set that up, though, Celia would have to communicate with him. The prospect made her turn chicken.

On Sunday Celia and Addie attended church, then spent the afternoon visiting Danny. He’d healed enough to return to his
own home, but he still couldn’t get around easily. Celia helped him maneuver from his walker to a dining room chair, then placed a slice of cinnamon-swirl coffee cake and a mug of freshly made coffee in front of him. “For you.”

He took a sip, his eyes rolling upward toward the ceiling. “It’s heaven, C.” He tucked into the cake. “And this! You have
got
to let me sell this online at my store. Like seriously.” He held a bite of coffee cake aloft on his fork. “If I could feed this to an eligible woman, she’d be putty in my hands.”

“The right woman for you will come along one day. I just know it.” Celia squeezed his shoulder. “Until then, and always, you’ll have Addie and me.”

“You’re the two best girls in the world.”

“Hardly. But at least we’re yours, Uncle Danny. And no matter what, we have each other.”

The entire time Celia sat across from him, listening to him plan his next dating move, thoughts of Ty suffocated her.

Did Ty truly love her, the way he said that he did? He’d certainly looked earnest when he’d told her he wanted to be her husband. Had he been telling the truth when he’d said that Tawny had been the one to kiss him and that he’d pulled away? Would he start dating Tawny now that Celia had rejected him?

Addie asked Celia a hundred more times when she’d be able to see Daddy and ride Whitey.

That evening, after Celia had tucked Addie into bed, she walked the rooms of the house the same way she’d been walking them since the day she’d ended things with Ty—like a ghost. Aimless and miserable. Missing him.

Before they’d started kissing, she’d at least had him in her life. He’d been her friend and her supporter. He’d believed in her. She dearly wished she could go back to that. That she couldn’t left her with a nagging, unrelenting sense that she’d lost something irreplaceable.

Before he’d stopped coming to Cream or Sugar, she’d thought that the baking had been the best part of the job. Now she realized that it had been him.
He’d
been the best part.

Suddenly, all of it was gone. Not just the kissing, but all of it. She was left with a man whose only role in her life was to collect her daughter from school.

She regretted everything. Everything she’d lost, hurting him, breaking up with him. Yet she continued to stand by her reasons. As agonizing as it was, as much as she cried in the shower each morning and into her pillow each night, as much as she physically yearned for him, she still believed she’d made the right choice. In the end, even if Ty fancied himself in love with her, even if Tawny had been the one to kiss Ty, Celia couldn’t make herself believe that he was capable of staying true to her for a lifetime.

She pulled out a dining room chair, and sat at the table where she and Ty had eaten dinner and laughed and given each other heated looks when Addie wasn’t paying attention.

God? I feel like the most
untrusting, unforgiving woman alive. I broke up with Ty to
protect Addie and myself. Do you understand? I think I
did the right thing. I think. Did I?

No sense of answer or direction.

You’re not really making yourself
clear.