Meant to Be Mine (A Porter Family Novel Book #2) (4 page)

“I’m almost five.”

“—for all the four-year-old girls
who
’re about to turn five
in the land. Aurora invited the girls to come to the castle, dress in gowns and wear high heels, and have their hair done up with jewels or sparkly butterfly clasps or tiaras.”

Addie relaxed down into her covers.

“Or, if the girls preferred jeans and sweatshirts, then that was fine, too. Aurora respects individuality. All the girls were allowed to go into the fabulous castle gardens and pick flowers and make themselves bouquets.”

“Servants,” Addie murmured.

“Quite right. The girls picked the flowers and then the servants, who were all treated very well and paid excellent salaries and given medical insurance, made them into the most beautiful bouquets you’ve ever seen. Aurora, being as gracious and generous as we know her to be, also invited the boys of the kingdom to the ball so the small princesses would have partners to dance with.”

Celia could sense sleep overtaking Addie by degrees. “When the boys and girls arrived at the ball, they couldn’t believe their eyes. They drank hot chocolate from fountains and punch from wishing wells. A banquet table held the most delicious food they’d ever tasted. Blackberry scones, shortbread cookies.” Celia sighed. “Orange muffins. Chocolate chip croissants. Pecan bars. Pumpkin walnut bread . . .” Oops. Somewhere along the line her storytelling had morphed into her own fantasy.

She peeked at Addie, whose chest rose and fell smoothly. Addie’s lips were parted, fingers still. Trusting.

Well. To heck with the ache in her lungs she was going to have later. Because as Celia stared down at her child, her great love, her eyes insisted on filling with tears.

She was only one person, fallible. Not good enough or wise enough to be this child’s mother. Yet that’s exactly the sacred honor she’d been given. This role of hers humbled her every day, because even though she wasn’t good enough or wise enough, she dearly wanted to be.

She was the only parent Addie had.

Ty spent half the night lying on his side thinking about Celia, the other half dreaming about her.

As soon as he woke, he made his way to the hotel gym and ran on the treadmill. No matter how fast he pounded the track, his thoughts remained fixed on Celia—exactly as they had been since the moment he’d caught sight of that dumb pink chapel.

Frustrated, he returned to his hotel room. Since his buddies
were still sleeping off the partying they’d done the night before, he took his computer to the first coffee shop the lobby offered, grabbed a breakfast sandwich and orange juice, and settled into a corner booth.

After a minute or two of searching the Internet, he found a website that claimed it could locate people. Ty typed in
Celia Park
and his last known address for her,
Corvallis, Oregon
, then hit Enter.

Her information came right up.

Ty stared at the screen. Had it really been that easy to find her? She still lived in Corvallis, which didn’t surprise him. What did surprise him was that the website listed her name as Celia Park Porter.

She used his last name? He furrowed his brow. He’d have expected her to toss the Porter name on the dirt, grind her heel into it, and spit on it over and over.

Maybe the fact that she’d kept his name meant that she didn’t completely hate his guts. . . .

No. She definitely did hate his guts. The simplest answer was that she’d kept his name because, technically, the two of them were still married. It probably made things easier for her from a legal standpoint.

For long moments he studied her name and the ten digits of her phone number. No street address.

He added her contact information to his phone.

The memory of what he’d done to her still had the power to turn his heart to cold steel. Since the moment he’d woken up in bed with her that morning, he’d bitterly regretted his actions in Vegas. Yet he’d never contacted her to tell her so, and she’d certainly never contacted him.

He had a few days of vacation in front of him. He’d planned to go home to Holley, Texas. Instead, he’d travel to Oregon and meet with Celia. He needed to settle things between them, because after all this time, he was finally ready to move on with his life. More than that, he
wanted
to move on. Wanted it with the same forceful determination that had taken him to the top of the world of bull riding.

Those who knew him—who’d watched him ride a string of champion bulls, who’d read his book or seen the documentary about him—understood one thing: Ty Porter went after what he wanted.

He was going to Corvallis, Oregon.

T
he phone rang, startling Celia. She’d been deep in her own head, plotting schemes that might pluck her and Addie from financial ruin while watering her backyard primroses. She angled the spray from the hose toward her daisies as she stepped onto her tiny brick patio. Grabbing the phone off the table, she punched the Answer button. “Hello?”

“Celia?” A male voice.

“Yes?”

“It’s Ty Porter.”

Her heart faltered, then started to race.

“Celia?”

Patter patter patter
. The sound of the spray hitting the flowers drew her attention.
Patter
patter patter
. She was drowning her daisies.

“Celia?”

“I’m here.” She forced the words past her lips. “One moment.” Frenzied, she pressed the phone to her chest, dropped the hose, and bent to twist off the spigot. She raced the few steps to the back sliding door, which she’d left open to the living room. Leaning inside, she tried to look and listen over the deafening sounds of her body’s panic. She could neither see nor hear Addie, which
meant she must still be playing in her room exactly as she liked to do when they returned home on Friday afternoons.

Celia stepped back onto the patio, slid the door fully closed, then retreated to the furthest corner of her backyard in hopes of giving herself added secrecy.

Ty. Calling her.
Why?
The reality of him on the other end of the line stirred up countless images, angers, and an ocean of resentment. She shoved all that away, because the only thing she could afford to think about at the moment was how to make him go away. She brought the phone to her ear. “I’m here.”

“It’s been a long time.”

She didn’t know if he meant the time that had passed since she’d answered the phone or the years that had come and gone since Vegas. “Yes.”

A pause.

Celia swallowed painfully.

“I’m in Corvallis,” he said.

Her stomach dropped like an elevator whose cable had been cut.

“I’d like to speak to you,” he continued. “I hoped . . . well, I was hoping I could take you out to lunch so that we could talk.”

That voice. Calm and assured with a Texas accent. She’d forgotten the sound of it long ago, but hearing it again . . . hearing it caused her to remember the details of it forcefully.

“Celia? Do you think that would be okay? For us to meet?”

She tried to decide how best to convince him to leave.

“I know it’s a shock to hear from me. I’m sorry about that. I could call back later.”

“No.” Goodness, she didn’t want that.

“All right,” he answered. “So. Lunch?”

“No. I have nothing to say to you.”

“Maybe not, but I have several things I’d like to say to you.”

“Look . . .” She pressed her teeth into her bottom lip. “If you’ve come because you want a divorce, you should have saved yourself the trip. Are you on your cell phone?” She twisted her wrist and confirmed that her phone had captured his number.

“Yes.”

“I’ll text my attorney’s name and number to you. You can have the documents sent there, and I’ll sign them.”

This time, it was Ty who waited a few beats to speak. “Are you planning to divorce me without ever seeing me again?”

“Yes.” She’d expected him to contact her about a divorce in the weeks and months after Vegas. He hadn’t—which had always struck her as an odd mystery. She’d allowed herself to check his Wikipedia profile only twice during the years of silence. Both times the details published there had confirmed what her lack of divorce papers inferred. He had not married anyone else. Nor had he linked himself—at least not publically—to a girlfriend.

“I came here to talk with you, Celia. In person.”

“That’s not necessary.”

“It is to me.”

“No. I’m not going to meet with you. There’s no reason for us to see each other or even stand in the same room together ever again.”

“Hey, Celia, think you can speak more plainly?” She could hear the smile in his lazy, teasing tone. “Tell it to me straight?”

A vein near the base of her neck throbbed.

A tapping sound brought Celia’s attention up and to the side. Addie peered at her through her bedroom window. She knocked her knuckles against the window again, making more of the tapping sound, then waved.

Celia waved back as fear poured down her spine like ice water.

“I’ve driven a long way to see you,” Ty was saying.

Addie held up a Snow White doll and pointed to the outfit she’d dressed her in.

Celia gave her a thumbs-up and a demented trying-to-look-normal smile.

“If you need time to get used to the idea of seeing me, I get it. I can wait. I’m in no rush . . .”

Celia turned away from Addie, pretending that her attention had been caught by the pear tree.

“. . . but I’m not leaving until I speak with you.”

“Anything we need to say to each other can be said through our lawyers.”

“I disagree.”

At any moment Addie might pull open the sliding door and rush into the backyard. Celia’s gaze darted to Addie’s window. Empty.

If she couldn’t convince Ty to go away over the phone—and it appeared she couldn’t—then she’d be better off not drawing this out. She’d simply do what she had to do to get him gone. “I’ll meet you tomorrow at noon.” Behind her, she heard the familiar whoosh of the screen door moving along its track.

“Where?” he asked.

“A restaurant called Jana’s. Downtown.” Before he could say another word or hear another word, especially one called out by a child, she disconnected the call.

“What’s up, ladies?”

Looking over her shoulder, Celia watched Uncle Danny let himself into her apartment using his own key. “Hi, Uncle Danny.”

“How is everybody?”

“I’m cool,” Addie answered, in their customary way. “You cool?”

Danny went to where Addie sat on the floor beside the coffee table, coloring. He gave her a fist bump. “I’m cool, Addie Potaddie. Can’t complain.” He looked to Celia. “What about you, C? You’re looking a little tense there, sister.”

“What, me?” She’d worked herself into a
serious
state of agitation since Ty’s phone call the night before. “Nope. I’m fine.”

“All right then.” He winked at her. “Doing laundry?”

“Yep.” She’d been watching TV, folding clothes, and keeping up a conversation with Addie. In fact, ever since yesterday evening she’d been maniacally multitasking. It was a coping mechanism motivated by the desire to cover thoughts that went something like,
Ty Porter
has reentered my life—What am I going to do
about this?—How can I get rid of him?
over and over again.

Uncle Danny assumed a cross-legged position on the floor next
to Addie. He asked her about her coloring book, then picked up a crayon and went to work on the page opposite hers.

Sweet, sweet man. When she’d told him that some friends had invited her out to lunch today—though Ty wasn’t a friend and she didn’t expect to eat a bite—he’d immediately volunteered to watch Addie for her.

She folded two of Addie’s shirts and laid them on top of Addie’s clean clothes pile, then reached into the laundry basket for more.

Danny looked just the way one would expect the owner of an online surf shop to look. He wore his graying blond hair in long wavy layers. He had on a faded blue, white, and red Baja hoodie, a shark-tooth necklace made from a leather thong, board shorts, and well-worn brown Reef flip-flops.

He was not, however, an ordinary fifty-six-year-old bachelor surfer dude. He was
her
fifty-six-year-old bachelor surfer dude.

As soon as she’d moved to Oregon for college, her parents had followed her father’s work overseas. They hadn’t lived in America since. When Uncle Danny, her mother’s younger brother, had learned that Celia was expecting a baby, he’d been overtaken by a sudden urge to live in Oregon. He’d purchased a small mid-century modern house in Corvallis and settled into it with his antique surfboard collection and Beach Boys records.

Before his relocation to Corvallis, he’d been Celia’s favorite relative. But over the past years he’d become much more: her friend, the only person she trusted to baby-sit Addie, the one who tended to her flowers and collected her mail when she left town, the person whose mellow personality always reassured her that things would turn out fine.

“How did the Party Of Eight group go last night?” She added folded clothes to her pile.

Danny was constantly testing new dating methods and singles’ websites. Privately, Celia blamed his lack of success on his predilection for well-coiffed Eastern European women. What hope did he have of finding that breed in Corvallis, much less getting one to the altar?

“The women were so old, C. Which would have been cool if they’d had a good vibe, you know? But they were really square. And American.”

“We do, you realize, live in America.”

“They were into stuff like cross-stitch and reading. Not one of them would have wanted to go mountain biking or rock climbing with me.”

A fault Celia knew he’d have overlooked if they’d been highly made-up or from a place like Belarus. “That’s a shame.”

“I’m chatting with a woman, though, on one of the sites who seems pretty interested. Might be promising.”

“What is her name and where is she from?”

“Olga from the Ukraine.” He smiled and lifted his eyebrows a few times. “You good on time?”

She was slated to meet Ty in half an hour. “I’m good.” Since Uncle Danny didn’t typically heed anything as pedestrian as the Pacific Time Zone, Celia always asked him to arrive for baby-sitting gigs, family dinners, and Addie’s school programs thirty minutes prior to when she actually needed him there. He’d arrive about twenty-five minutes past her requested time, and they’d all end up happy.

“I’m glad you’re going out to lunch with friends,” Danny said. “You should do it more often.”

She dug the final pieces of clothing from the hamper, folded them, and stacked them. “It should be fun.”

“Go ahead and take my car.” He knew about her toasted transmission.

“You sure?”

“Sure, I’m sure. I wanted to take Addie on a bike ride, anyway. I already got my bike out of the trunk.” Danny hitched a third-wheel attachment to the back of his bike whenever he and Addie went on rides. “I thought we’d head to Woodland Meadow Park.”

The route to Woodland Meadow would take them in a direction opposite the downtown location of Jana’s restaurant. “Sounds good.”

Celia went to the kitchen and double-checked her preparations. “Everything’s here for your lunch when you’re ready.”

“Great. Thanks.”

Celia would have liked to peek at her appearance again before heading out, but she squashed the compulsion. She ordinarily took no more than fifteen minutes to shower, dress, and do her hair and makeup. Today she’d returned to her bathroom repeatedly and ended up spending most of the morning in front of the mirror fussing over herself.

It went against all that was holy, but she
knew
Ty would look handsome. As much as she wished she were above the petty need to look attractive in front of the man who’d dumped her—she wasn’t. Perhaps that particular need was unavoidable, hardwired into the female heart.

She swooped up Danny’s keys, then kissed Addie on the head. “’Bye, Punkie.”

“’Bye, Mom.”

Danny gave her a salute, and she let herself out of her apartment. On the way to the car, she rifled through her purse. Wallet, sunglasses, lip gloss, cell phone. Knife with which to stab Ty in the chest? She had all but the last, unfortunately.

During the five-minute drive to the restaurant, she considered the fact that she didn’t want to stab Ty in the chest, exactly. But close. Long and brutal near-death torture might fit the bill.

She found a parking space without trouble and reached Jana’s at 11:45, just as she’d planned. With so little within her control, she wanted to select the table.

Jana’s provided indoor seating, but Celia chose the sidewalk café. When the hostess invited Celia to take her pick, she moved to a table smack in the middle of all the others and against the front of the restaurant so she’d be sure to see Ty before he saw her.

She slid on her sunglasses and hunkered into her chair like a soldier staking out a position for battle. Above, an awning striped with three shades of yellow jutted outward from the building, casting shade. The flap that ran along the end of it ruffled with the
breeze. Celia tried and failed to soak in the calm of the seventy-five-degree day, with patches of blue sky visible through breaks in the clouds.

She checked her watch, then made herself take sips of the ice water the hostess brought. A couple selected a nearby table. A few singles drifted indoors. A trio of girlfriends arrived, chattering to one another.

Celia still couldn’t make herself accept that Ty was here, in Corvallis. The man she’d once made the disastrous mistake of trusting. Arriving any minute.

This was taking forever. He must be late. She consulted her watch again. Only 11:58.

People walking dogs and shopping drifted by on the sidewalk. Celia searched every face. Repeatedly, memories of Ty pushed their way into her mind, and repeatedly she blocked them. Remembering Ty was a painful exercise she hadn’t allowed herself in years.