Meant to Be Mine (A Porter Family Novel Book #2) (33 page)

He’d said,
“Tawny’
s dating a pediatrician
.
”

Which somewhat implied, didn’t it, that if Tawny ever stopped dating her pediatrician, then everything might change? Caution tugged at Celia’s shirttail.

It’s
fine
, she assured herself.
Don’t worry about it. It
’s all fine
.

T
eenaged kids ordinarily hid their boyfriends or girlfriends from their parents. In Ty and Celia’s case, the reverse applied. They hid their boyfriend/girlfriend status from their child.

The three of them sat around Celia’s dining room table Thursday night eating healthy organic pasta with lots of vegetables in it, laughing and talking.

For Addie’s sake, Ty did his best to pretend not to have a crush on her mother. As he looked across the table at Celia, her eyes sparkling, her hair held back by a headband, then looked to Addie, her small face smiling, her calm voice telling them stories about kindergarten, he couldn’t remember a dinner he’d enjoyed more. His memory reached back over dinners with his bull-riding buddies, celebration dinners after winning events, fancy romantic dinners with women, holiday dinners with his family.

None held a candle to this.

Once they’d cleaned up the meal, he sat next to Addie while she showed him how little she needed his help with her math homework. That done, she picked up a book her teacher had sent home to read aloud. The story, about a girl named Jane and her dog, struck him as really lame. But Addie read it perfectly.

Celia took over for Addie’s bath, then for the very first time, gave him the honor of putting Addie to bed.

“And that,” he said, closing the third of three books he’d read to her, “is the last one you’re allowed, right?”

Some kids might have tried to fib, but Addie just looked at him in her serious way and nodded. She wore a nightgown with an orange-haired mermaid on the front. Thanks to all the princess lessons he’d had, he recognized the mermaid as Ariel, wife of Eric.

“You’re going to tell me a story, right?” Addie asked.

“Uh . . . is that what happens next with your mom?” Celia had only told him about the books.

“Yes.”

“Then I’ll do my best.”

He adjusted the pillows behind his back and crossed his boots at the ankles. She handed him her glasses. He set them on the nightstand, switched off the lamp, then lifted the covers so that she could scoot underneath and lie with her head on her pillow.

“Didn’t Mommy look pretty tonight?”

“She sure did.”

“She’s really good at cooking, too.”

“Yep, she is.”

“Did you know that Mom took me over to Mr. Neill’s house one time to play with Tanner and Tyson?”

The news caused his breath to still in his lungs. “No, I didn’t know that.”

“And did you know that they came here one time?”

“No.”

“Well, they did.” Addie gave him a meaningful look. She pulled a little white blanket close to her chest. “You can start the story now.”

He’d never been a jealous person. But a drought usually ends with a flood. And Addie’s words had brought down the most powerful flood of possessiveness. It all but turned him mute.

“Go on, Daddy.”

“I . . .” He had to work to concentrate his thoughts. “I could tell you the story of the Alamo.”

She wrinkled her nose. “Hmm?”

“The story of the Texas revolution. Jim Bowie? Davy Crockett?”

“That sounds nice, Daddy.” She placed her hand on his elbow and patted. “But would it be okay if you told me a princess story? I like princess stories at bedtime.”

“Oh. Sure.” He scratched the side of his head. “There was this princess named . . .”

“Belle?”

“Belle,” he agreed. “And she liked being a princess because it was fun to be famous and rich.”

Addie looked up at him out of the corners of her eyes, doubtful.

“The prince was, uh, nice, and they had fun doing stuff that was . . . fun.” What in the world was he supposed to say? He’d hadn’t made up a story since high school English, and he’d been bad at it then.

“You’re supposed to tell me about all the princess’s good works.”

“What kind of good works?”

“Feeding the poor, protecting the environment, helping orphans.”

Celia! If he hadn’t wanted to strangle her for toying with Neill, he’d have laughed out loud. “How about saving an animal? Is that good with you?”

“Yes.”

“So Cowgirl Princess Belle had this ranch called the Lazy B. She realized that the . . . armadillos that lived on the ranch kept getting eaten by mountain lions or run over by Ford trucks.”

Addie giggled. “You’re not supposed to talk about animals getting run over.”

“Our secret?”

“Okay.”

“Close your eyes.” She did. “So Belle called the prince on her cell phone and told him to take care of the problem—”

“No.” Her eyes flashed open. “No, no, no. In the bedtime stories, the princesses always take care of their own problems.”

“They do, do they?” Telling.

“Yes.”

“Okay, then. Uh . . . Belle strapped on some six-shooters and saddled up her horse.”

“What was her horse’s name?”

“Whitey?”

Addie gave a soft smile. “I love Whitey.”

“I love you,” he said.

She studied him for a moment in the dimness. “I love you, too, Daddy.”

His chest ached with emotion. “Where were we?”

“She’d saddled up Whitey.”

“Right, and then she rode around her ranch until she found the mountain lion. She took out one of her six-shooters and—”

“Used it to scare him into a cage,” she cut in. “A safe one.”

“Oh.”

“So she could give him to a zoo.”

“If you say so. And then she put some signs next to the road outside her ranch. One had a picture of an armadillo on it and said
Armadillo Crossing
. The other one told everybody they had to drive at just ten miles an hour. This made the locals mad, but she was really pretty, so they put up with it. She saved the armadillos. The end.” Quiet followed. “How’d I do?”

“It was good for your first try.”

He stayed with her for the next ten minutes, holding her hand and watching her fall asleep.

He found Celia sitting at the kitchen table, peering at her laptop. He scooped her up with one arm. She screeched. He swung her legs up and hooked them over his other arm as he carried her into the living room.

“Your knee, Ty!”

“I’m carrying you with my arms, not my knee.”

“The extra weight!”

“What extra weight? You can’t weigh more than five pounds.”

“People will see us!”

“Who? Neill?” He jerked the curtains over her living room windows, then lowered onto the sofa with her in his arms. She climbed
off his lap but didn’t go far. Tucking her feet beneath her, she leaned a shoulder into the sofa back and faced him. He extended an arm along the top of the sofa and toyed with the hem of her shirtsleeve. She wore the gold necklace with the dangling
C
that always made him want to kiss the spot beneath it.

Had he only thought her pretty before? Now he couldn’t take his eyes off of her when they were in a room together. She’d become gorgeous to him. “Addie told me that you’ve gone over to Neill’s house and that he’s come here.”

She had the nerve to look amused. “And?”

“I’m jealous. Do you like him?”

“As a neighbor and a friend. But who knows? I may come to feel more for him in time.”

“Celia,” he threatened.

She grinned.

“The only person I want you to feel more for,” he said, “is me.”

She leaned forward and pressed a quick kiss to his lips.

Their hands met between them, and he played with her fingers while he studied her clear green eyes. Her house made him dizzy with all its crazy colors. Tonight it smelled like tomato sauce. And he’d never felt more at home anywhere in the world. “I could spend all the rest of my nights just like this.”

“Looking deeply into my eyes?”

“Looking deeply into your eyes,” he confirmed.

He was not a good man, not the man he wanted to be. He didn’t view himself as what Celia deserved in a husband. None of that had changed.

A better man wouldn’t have kissed Celia that day in Cream or Sugar’s kitchen. But a better man hadn’t been there that day. He’d been there. And the power of that one kiss had all but changed the course of his life.

Now that he’d kissed her, he planned to keep her. To play every advantage he had. Use every ounce of skill with women he possessed. All of which proved his selfishness and, at times, weighed him with guilt.

As a result, he was determined to make this relationship worth her while. He’d sacrifice much for her. He’d do anything she asked of him. He’d pay any price, except one.

The price of giving her up.

Ty and Jake sat on Jake’s sofa, an open bag of Fritos between them. Friday night football filled the jumbo TV screen in HD.

Ty would much rather have spent the evening with Celia and Addie, but Celia only let him come over to her house at night occasionally. Two nights in a row was a no-go.

So here he sat, next to Jake. Which was a whole lot worse than sitting with Celia and a long shot better than sitting in his stupid house by himself.

The Cowboys completed a long pass and both of the brothers clapped. All of the Porter siblings had put in time watching football together over the years. Now Dru was overseas and Bo spent most of his free time staring at his wife like she was made of gold. That left him and Jake. Since Jake never had much to say, watching football was pretty quiet.

A person would never guess, looking at where Jake lived, that its owner had earned a small fortune training racehorses. Jake owned a unit in an industrial building that had been chopped into lofts and renovated a couple of years back. The TV was his only luxury. The rest of the loft reminded Ty of the Marine barracks he’d spent years living in. Bare and plain.

Ty extended his legs onto the leather ottoman, crossing the bad one over the good.

“How’s the knee?” Jake asked.

“Getting better.”

“You ever figure out why you came off that bull?”

“No. Never could.” A while back, Ty had asked Jake to take a look at one of the videos of his ride on Meteor. Jake had a good eye for the details of bull riding. He’d done a little rodeoing himself in high school, and he’d followed Ty’s entire career. More than once
Jake had been able to tell Ty when bad habits were creeping into his form. The video, though, had stumped Jake just as it had Ty.

That he hadn’t discovered the reason for his fall still bothered Ty. He tried not to visit YouTube anymore, but a couple of nights a week, he found himself at the site anyway, watching the clips.

Commercials came on. Jake rattled Fritos in his hand, then tilted his head back to funnel them into his mouth. “You ever think that sometimes there is no logical reason for something?”

“No.”

“Then why’d you come off that bull?”

Ty answered with silence.

“It’s not always possible—” Jake paused for a long moment—“to make sense of things.”

Ty knew that Jake had plenty in his own life he’d probably like to make sense of. He’d lived through an explosion that had killed three of his men in front of his eyes.

“You’re saying that my fall off Meteor was just random chance.”

“Or karma. Or the universe kicking your butt. Who knows?”

“The universe? I don’t believe in
the universe
. Do you?”

Jake shrugged, his jaw hard. “I don’t really believe in anything anymore.”

“God?” Ty asked.

“No.”

Ty drew his brows together. That was troubling.

Jake turned back to the TV.

The Porter kids had grown up in church. They’d racked up summers at VBS. Gone to church camp. Jake had turned grim after his accident, but Ty hadn’t realized he’d become so cynical that he no longer believed in God.

Since the night Celia had flushed his Vicodin, Ty had been praying. What’s more, it seemed to him that God had been listening and answering.

Jake took up another handful of Fritos. “I don’t think we always get to understand the things that happen to us. That’s all.”

Maybe not. But in his case, Ty refused to accept that the uni
verse or karma had caused his fall. He could believe, maybe, that God had caused it.

He scowled at the football game. Could he? Could he believe that God had caused his fall? The idea hadn’t occurred to him until this minute. If he accepted that God might have had a hand in his accident, he’d have to accept that God didn’t mind letting his knee get crushed, and that God didn’t mind ending the career he’d lived for.

Ty watched the rest of the game with Jake, then headed home to a house that welcomed him like a coffin.

He sat down at his desk and woke his office computer. Something about one of the YouTube videos chewed at the back of his memory, unsettling him. He pulled up the clip.

Right as he was coming off Meteor, he thought he saw something. He paused it and rewound it. Watched it over and over again, seven times in a row.

Technically, there was nothing to see. And yet his subconscious kept picking up on something. A strange play of light. Just enough to make him remember how, right when he’d come unseated, he’d felt as if he’d been pulled off by hands.

God’s hands? An angel’s hands?

Closing his eyes, he remembered back to the days before his fall. He’d been going through the motions, pushing through the feeling that he should quit.