Meant to Be Mine (A Porter Family Novel Book #2) (7 page)

Once, he stopped for gas, but he couldn’t stomach lunch. Or dinner, either, as the hours crept by.

His brother Bo had gotten married almost two years ago, but he and his wife, Meg, hadn’t started a family yet. At the rate his brother Jake was going, he’d never marry. The idea of his sister, Dru, as anyone’s wife or mother was laughable. Like him and his brothers, Dru had joined the Marines. She’d been shipped overseas, and there was no telling the amount of damage she was bringing down on America’s enemies.

All of that made Addie the Porter family’s first grandchild. Ty knew his mom and dad well enough to know they’d have sold everything they had to love and care for a granddaughter. They’d have wanted to rock her when she was a baby, spoil her, and show pictures of her to all their friends. That’s what grandparents did, right? Instead, they’d gotten this handed to them, same as he had.

Worse, he was largely to blame.

The sky darkened. A storm rolled over the ocean, each lightning flash brightened the gray water and the white tips of the waves.

For five and a half years, he’d known himself to be the guilty party in his short relationship with Celia. But now it turned out that she’d done something to him, too. She’d hidden his child from him.

He remembered how hoarse her voice had sounded that morning in Las Vegas when she’d said
“I’ll never forgive you for this
.
”
The fact that she hadn’t told him about Addie proved that she’d meant every word.

He understood now why she’d taken the Porter surname. She’d come back from Vegas pregnant. She’d known her child would one day grow old enough to understand about illegitimacy, and she’d wanted that child to know she’d been conceived within marriage.

It suddenly made sense to him, too, why Celia worked for the university’s cafeteria. She hadn’t been able to risk starting her own bakery, because she’d had a child to take care of. She’d needed a steady paycheck and health insurance.

The miles passed beneath his truck’s tires, silence thick inside the cab. Why hadn’t he searched for Celia years ago? Why had she let her bitterness toward him steal Addie’s chance at having a father? Why hadn’t either one of them taken care of birth control in Vegas? Why hadn’t he ended the relationship more gently?

He pulled the truck onto the shoulder of the highway. The dark and lonely view spread outward for miles without a single sign of human life. Full of anger, his spirit swept empty by wind, he began to pray. It was not a pretty prayer. Rugged, unfinished sentences dead-ended into half-formed thoughts. He tried to ask God for help, to make something good out of a lousy situation, to calm him down, to forgive him and Celia.

Ty had grown up going to church. Even though he hadn’t attended a single worship service since the night he’d married Celia, he still believed in God. Still prayed.

This particular prayer, though? He sensed that it did nothing. It made him feel no better.

Frowning, he U-turned the truck and headed back toward Corvallis.

Whenever he’d imagined the kids he might one day have, he’d imagined boys. He and his brothers had all been tall, strong kids, and that’s the kind of kid he’d expected to have.

Addie was nothing like the picture in his mind. She was small and delicate, colorful. She didn’t look like him. She looked a little like his sister, yes. But more than anyone, she looked like Celia.

At Addie’s age, he’d been daring, bent on finding trouble, and willing to do any dumb thing to make people laugh. Addie had struck him as the opposite: polite, calm, serious.

It could be that she wasn’t his. Before going hog-wild inside his head, he should have waited for the paternity test to come back.

Except, no. He rubbed his thumb against the steering wheel. Addie might not look like him or act like him, but his gut told him what the paternity test would reveal. His gut told him he’d had a good reason for spending the whole day on the rough side of crazy.

She needed to tell Addie.

Celia stood in the shower late that night, her head bowed, hot water pouring over her. She felt like she’d been crying for hours—that spent, fragile, exhausted feeling. But she hadn’t been crying. What had happened was too terrible for tears.

After Ty had left, Celia had sat on her sofa in her familiar spot, the spot where she watched TV at night after Addie went to bed. She’d clenched a pillow to her abdomen, bent her legs up, and stayed that way, frozen with dread, shaking.

When anxiety would no longer let her sit, she’d bolted into the kitchen and made brownies from scratch. Full sugar. Full butter. Baking had always been her therapy. In some mysterious way, the creative activity of her hands usually helped Celia order her thoughts. As soon as the brownies had come out of the oven, she’d told herself she’d just eat one of the crimped-looking edge pieces that nobody else would want. She’d ended up eating five of them.

After Addie had returned home, she and Uncle Danny had entertained her at a frantic pace, overcompensating and helpless to stop themselves. Let’s go to a movie! Uncle Danny had treated them. Feed the ducks! Walk around the pond! Go eat pizza followed by ice cream! Uncle Danny again treated them. The stress and the food had made Celia’s chocolate-stuffed stomach roil.

Three times during the afternoon and evening, Addie had asked about Ty, who’d clearly dazzled her with his handsomeness and similarities to Prince Charming. Celia had employed her usual evasive tactics. She’d finally gotten Addie to bed forty-five minutes later than usual. Then she’d spent thirty minutes explaining to Uncle Danny about Ty and their past.

She turned in the shower, feeling the water pressure shift to her other side. Her arms crossed and wrapped around herself.

That stupid bracelet! Why had she even worn it to lunch? She couldn’t believe she’d been so careless, dropping it without noticing. She didn’t understand why Ty had bothered to return it or how he’d found her address.

The bracelet was a little thing she’d purchased years ago, one of many inexpensive bracelets in her jewelry drawer, worth nothing. And yet dropping it and leaving it behind—that small mistake—had been the key that had unlocked a predicament that might cost her everything: Addie, her baby, her greatest love.

If that happened, what would her life be worth?

It’s not right
, a voice inside seemed to whisper,
for you to base your identity on your child
. It wasn’t the first time this idea had occurred to her. Building her life on the foundation of her daughter might not, in the end, be the healthiest thing for Addie or for herself. And yet, was it really so bad? To love a child so much?

She groaned, lifting her face and using her hands to slick away water and wet hair. She should have told Ty about Addie from the beginning. If she’d been braver, better, and more noble, he could have been a part of Addie’s life from the start.

Because she’d excluded him, he’d thrown the threat of lawyers
and a custody battle at her—two things that sent fear down to the bottom of her soul.

She needed to tell Addie. In fact, she needed to tell Addie
tomorrow
that Ty was her father. That way, Addie would have a few days to get used to the idea before she’d need to face Ty again.

Nothing within Celia wanted to share Addie. Nothing. And yet she needed to tell her little girl, because she knew with one hundred percent certainty what the paternity test would prove.

W
asn’t it nice of that man to bring you your bracelet?” Addie asked the next morning.

Celia’s mood sank. She’d vowed to herself that she’d tell Addie about Ty the very next time Addie asked about him. Instead, ten reasons why she should procrastinate sprang to Celia’s mind. First and foremost, she didn’t have much time. Riding the bus to day care and then to her job took ages. She’d planned to arrive at the bus stop on the road in fifteen minutes, and the walk there would take ten.

Tonight would be better . . .

No. She’d vowed to herself.
Vowed
that she’d tell Addie when Addie asked. Carefully, she set her spoon in her bowl.

“How did you used to know him years ago?” Addie took a bite of cereal, milk dribbling off her spoon into her bowl. She wore her teal glasses, and Celia had already combed her hair and clipped it back on one side with a barrette. She had on a pink-and-green-striped Hanna Andersson play dress that Celia’d found at the secondhand clothing shop in town.

Without warning, emotion tightened Celia’s throat. Her baby.
Her
baby. She scooted her chair closer to Addie’s and held out her hands palms up.

Addie turned to face Celia so that the tips of their knees touched. She placed her little girl hands into Celia’s adult hands.

Celia looked down, remembering how she’d held those hands when they’d belonged to a newborn. They’d been the size of walnuts then, the fingers curled in tightly. She could still feel the way those baby fingers had clutched her index finger, with fierce need, as if Addie had understood just how much she depended on Celia’s care.

Celia remembered when those hands had belonged to a big-eyed, angel-faced toddler with two inch-long pigtails. Addie’s hands had been stubby and soft at that age, with dents for knuckles and nails that Celia had carefully clipped and sometimes painted pale pink with sparkles.

Over the years, Celia had held Addie’s hand whenever she’d needed shots. She’d held Addie’s hand each time she’d graduated to a new class at day care and they’d walked into the new room together, both of them uncertain about trusting the new teacher. She held Addie’s hand when they watched a movie together, when they went on nature walks, whenever Addie needed silent reassurance.

She’d held Addie’s hand every single day of Addie’s life, because she’d been here.

Every day. Keeping Addie safe from harm.

Where had Ty been?

He’s been exactly where you banished him,
Celia
.

And now that he’d come back, she found herself powerless to protect Addie from him. She could only hope that he would never do or say anything to damage her child.

When she met Addie’s gaze, a sheen of tears fuzzed her vision. “I love you.”

“I love you, too, Mommy.” Addie, ever intuitive, stared back at her somberly, a twist of worry in her expression.

“You asked how I knew Ty years ago.”

Addie nodded.

Briefly, Celia told her how they’d met in high school and then again a few years after college. “We . . .” She sought to breathe in
air and courage. “We fell in love”—she had, anyway—“and we got married.”

Addie’s green eyes, the same color as Celia’s, went wide.

“Ty’s last name is Porter. The same as yours and mine. Ty Porter.”

She waited, giving Addie time to process. She didn’t know if Addie would be able to connect the dots with only that information or not.

“He’s my daddy.”

Smart Addie. Celia released a quivering exhale. “Yes.”

“I thought so.”

“You did? Why?”

“Because he’s what I dreamed my daddy would look like.”

Tenderness pierced Celia. She wanted to say,
You can’t trust
his looks, Addie. Unlike in fairy tales, handsome men aren’
t always heroes.

“And,” Addie continued, “you lost your bracelet and he found you so he could give it back, Mom. Just like—”

“Prince Charming and Cinderella.”

“Yes.”

Again, the things Celia wanted to say jammed up inside her.
He
’s not Prince Charming! Don’t be foolish like I
was and fall for his dumb grin and his sparkling
eyes and his stupidly perfect body
. Instead, she asked, “Do you have any questions for me?”

Addie thought it over while the smell of coffee hung in the air. Outside, a car engine started as someone prepared to leave for work.

“Where does he live?” Addie asked.

“He lives in a town called Holley in Texas. But he travels a lot. He’s a bull rider.”

“A what?”

“A bull rider, which means he rides on bulls . . . you know, big cows? With horns? He rides them in rodeos.” This was another thing that would mean nothing to Addie since she’d never been to a rodeo. “And he competes against other men to see, um, who can stay on the longest and who rides them the best.” Her words sounded ridiculous to her, which was Ty’s fault for having such a
ridiculous career. He was a grown man who regularly climbed on top of huge unbroken animals. No one should be able to earn a living doing something so farfetched.

“And he doesn’t live here with us because you didn’t get along good?”

Within the last year, Addie had asked a few times about her father. Celia reiterated now what she’d tried to articulate then. “Right. We didn’t get along very well . . . after our wedding. That’s why I live here, and he lives other places.”

“Why didn’t he ever come see me?”

Celia swallowed. “He would have, except he . . . he didn’t know that you were his daughter until yesterday.”

Addie’s forehead furrowed with concern.

Celia would never want Addie to think that Ty hadn’t been involved in her life because he didn’t care about her, so even if Addie got angry with her, she needed to try to get this part right. “This is hard to explain, but after you were born, I loved you so much that I wanted to take care of you all by myself. You know how it’s hard to share sometimes?”

“Yes.”

“Well, it was hard for me to share you with Ty.”

“But you always tell me to share.”

“Right. That’s why I think I made a mistake. I should have told Ty about you. He wanted to be here for you. He wanted to know you.”

Addie weighed Celia’s words.

“I’m sorry,” Celia said softly and with painful honesty. She’d taught Addie to say she was sorry, and Celia tried to practice what she preached. “Can you forgive me?”

Addie regarded her with all the goodness contained in her young heart. “Yes, Mommy.”

“Thank you.” Celia pulled her into a hug and pressed a kiss onto the top of her head.

“Does he want to see me now?” Addie asked quietly.

“Yes.”

“When?”

“Very soon.”

“Is he mad at you?”

“He’s a little bit mad.”

“Do you think he’ll forgive you?”

“Yes, I think he will.” Truthfully, though, she had no such expectation.

Two hours later, Celia received a text from Ty while at work.

I’ve arranged the paternity testing. It only involves
a cheek swab. Can you take Addie in and have
it done today?

She didn’t have a car. But she did have several sweet co-workers who’d probably let her borrow their car during her lunch break.
Yes
,
she wrote back.
I think so
.

He replied with the address of a medical office in town.

Celia couldn’t tell Addie that her father required a DNA test to prove his paternity because he didn’t trust her mother. Instead, she decided she’d use words like
routine
test
,
formality
, and
required by our health insurance company
to explain the cheek swab to Addie. So long as needles weren’t involved, she fully expected Addie to shrug and go along with the test, none the wiser. Kids were accustomed to not understanding things.

Three days after the cheek swab, Celia received another text from Ty.

Test results came
back. Addie is my daughter. May I pick her up
tomorrow morning?

Celia had zero intention of allowing Ty to take off with her child. For a full minute, she tapped her heel against the floor beneath her desk and tried to decide how to reply.

She finally settled on the truth, phrased politely in hopes that he wouldn’t threaten lawyers again.
I think Addie will feel more
comfortable if the two of you spend time together at
our house with me present.

Tonight?
he texted back.

Celia grimaced.
How about tomorrow evening?

Tomorrow won’t work
for me. How about tonight at seven?

Fine
. Addie, at least, would be happy. She’d been asking Celia questions about Ty nonstop all week.

Do you want to
tell Addie the news?
he asked.

Already have
, she replied.

Ty stood on Celia’s doorstep that night, certain he looked like an idiot. He was a first-time father to a child he didn’t know, holding a box wrapped in shiny pink paper.

He knocked twice, then glanced down at the package. He’d decided to buy Addie a gift a few days ago, just in case the test results came out the way Celia had told him they would. Since he hadn’t trusted the local stores to carry what he wanted in the right brand, he’d called Cavender’s and asked the lady on the phone what size to buy. He’d had the present shipped overnight to his hotel and paid the girl at the gift shop to wrap it for him. She’d put a really curly silly-looking purple bow on top.

Celia answered the door wearing one of her stretchy headbands, cut-off jean shorts, a loose top falling off one shoulder, lots of bracelets, one anklet, and bare feet. “Come on in.”

The apartment smelled like baked chicken tonight and glowed with bright color and light. Every lamp had been turned on, even though sunset was still more than an hour away.

Addie stood next to the end of the sofa, her hands behind her back. Her attention bounced off his face and down to her feet, which were stuck into a pair of pink slippers. She had on a green dress and tights.

“Hi,” Ty said.

“Hello,” she said to her toes.

“How’ve you been?”

She mumbled something.

“Addie.” Celia spoke in the tone used by all mothers. “Ty has asked you a question. Can you look up and answer him?”

Obediently, Addie raised her face. She focused on empty space near his elbow. “I’ve been fine.”

“Good.”

Celia was watching Addie intently, biting her lip. It made Ty uncomfortable. “It’s nice out.” He spotted their backyard. “Would you like to sit outside with me, Addie?”

A pause. She nodded.

She’d been less shy around him the day they’d met, but he understood. It was one thing for a kid to talk with a stranger. Another to talk with a stranger who was also, suddenly, her father.

He led the way toward the backyard. Celia hurried over and opened the sliding glass door for them. Ty motioned for Addie to go before him. When Celia attempted to follow them out, he gave her a warning look.