Meant to Be Mine (A Porter Family Novel Book #2) Read online

  Celia grabbed up her sandals, then went in search of her purse. She struggled to hold back her tears but couldn’t manage it. They tumbled over her lashes and raced in hot streaks down her face.

  She would be returning to her life in Oregon, and Ty would be returning to his life in Texas, because he did not love her. Despite the vows they’d spoken and the things they’d done in the king-sized bed, he didn’t want to be married to her. He wanted to marry Tawny, a person he’d known since childhood and had been dating for two years. Two years!

  Celia had been living at such a high level of euphoria for the past few days, the fall back to reality was steep and the impact crushing.

  Where was her purse? He’d said so many beautiful things to her! His kisses . . . What was she going to do? The way he’d made her feel. She couldn’t stand to lose him—yes she could. And would. He was a cheater! Where’s my purse? The tender way he’d looked at her. The laughter. It had all been a lie. And even so, she loved him. She’d put herself and her feelings out there, and he’d chosen someone else.

  She spotted her purse and pushed its strap over her shoulder. After shoving the tears from her cheeks, she looked back at Ty one last time.

  He hadn’t moved. He still stood framed by the window, beautiful in his masculinity.

  She’d been dating him four days, and he’d managed to betray her worse than anyone had over the whole course of her life. “Do you want a divorce, Ty? Because I believe an annulment is out of the question.”

  “I’m not thinking that far ahead yet.”

  “Just so you know?”

  “Yes?”

  “I’ll never forgive you for this.”

  His expression remained uncompromising. He nodded once, a taut motion. She could tell that he hadn’t expected her to forgive him. He just wanted her gone.

  She couldn’t breathe. Desperate to get away from him, from this room, from her own disgrace, she moved to the door. Yanked it open.

  Celia did not look back as she strode down the hallway toward the elevators. She never wanted to see Ty Porter’s face again.

  Not for as long as she lived.

  Chapter Three

  The Present

  The limo Ty had rented smelled like cologne and puffed-up expectations. He leaned back against the leather seat at the rear of the car, his arms outstretched along the top of the black leather upholstery, one boot resting on the opposite knee.

  Four of his high school buddies rode inside the car with him. One was about to get married, so the rest had traveled to Vegas for a bachelor party. The guys were amped about the night to come. The sights and sounds. The drinking and gambling.

  Their excitement did nothing for Ty except make him feel years older than the others. It took a lot to stir his adrenaline these days. He rode bulls. An evening in Vegas, a city he’d visited so many times he’d grown bored with it, left him with a chest full of emptiness.

  He angled his attention out one of the limo’s tinted side windows and watched without really seeing as the city passed by. The days were long in Nevada in May. Even though they were on their way to dinner, the sun had only dropped halfway to the horizon.

  An ugly pink color caught his eye. His body tensed. Sitting forward, he squinted at the view. A pink building with a white picket fence. A ridiculous carriage hooked to a fake horse.

  “Can you stop?” he called to the driver. “Would you mind pulling over for a second?”

  The driver eased the car to the side so that the traffic behind them could pass.

  “What’s up, man?”

  Ty glanced at his friends, who were looking at him with curiosity. “Nothing.” He focused back on the chapel. “I just remember seeing this place once. Years ago.” Astroturf still covered the yard. The tacky gazebo-thing stood. Even the Luv Shack billboard remained, though it had faded.

  “Doesn’t look like much.”

  “No.” Through their eyes, it probably looked like the least interesting building in Vegas. And yet, what Vegas could not do, what little could do for him these days, this chapel had just done. It had jolted his cynical body and sent his heart beating with hard, fierce strokes.

  He hadn’t seen the Luv Shack since that long-ago night. He hadn’t done anything special to avoid the place during his trips to Vegas, he just hadn’t had a reason to search it out. Why bother to visit a place sure to bring up bad memories?

  The memories aren’t all bad, his conscience reminded him. Are they?

  Celia.

  He could still picture her exactly. The mellow green eyes with the long lashes. Delicate nose. Perfect skin even without makeup. Short slim body, with just the right amount of curve. Curly brown hair that had a hint of red in it when the sun hit it right.

  Way back when he’d first met her his sophomore year in high school, he’d thought she looked like a little forest fairy that had stumbled into Plano East.

  His vision took in every detail of the chapel. It surprised him, how much coming here meant.

  “Ready to head on?” a buddy asked.

  “Not yet.” Pieces of the days he and Celia had spent together that December came back to him. The night they’d come to the Luv Shack together, she’d looked as hot as anything in that silver handkerchief she’d called a dress. She’d smelled like lemons. She’d looked at him with tenderness while they said their vows. They’d laughed all the way through their lame wedding photography session.

  What had happened between them the next morning . . .

  His muscles tightened. “Okay, we can head on. I’m good.” Although he wasn’t.

  The car moved forward, and Ty ignored the urge to crane his head so that he could keep the chapel in sight. He let it go.

  His friends stared at him.

  He lifted a shoulder, as if his interest in the Luv Shack had been nothing but an impulse. “Thanks for stopping.”

  “Sure.”

  “Now let’s get to the restaurant so I can buy you boys a round.”

  That got them back talking, trading insults, chuckling. He joined in with his voice, but inside of him a wind had begun to howl.

  Celia sat at her kitchen table and considered sobbing. The benefit of sobbing was that it felt good in the short term. The drawback was that it left you with nothing but an ache in the lungs in the long term.

  Her old laptop rested on the surface of the kitchen table, her bank’s website open and displaying a list of her checking account withdrawals. A stack of bills sat beside the computer, alongside a calculator and note pad with frantic numbers in columns. The matte darkness of an eleven o’clock mid-May night filled the rectangles of her kitchen windows.

  She didn’t have enough in her account. Again. With a shuddering breath, she knuckled her eye sockets.

  The stress of owing money she didn’t have and couldn’t pay back had been fraying her more and more over the past six months. She’d been pressing through because that’s what she did. In fact, that pretty much summed up her identity: Celia, a woman who put one foot in front of the other and pressed through no matter how drained or overwhelmed.

  This, though. This money thing truly had her worried. Her “press through” strategy was burning like a piece of paper held too close to the flame.

  This past month she’d carefully watched the spending of every single dollar. She’d cut coupons and avoided extras, thinking that if she slashed spending, she could perhaps begin to pay off her credit card.

  Then today her car’s transmission had gone out, effectively jamming her scorched piece of paper straight into the fire.

  Her car’s age had begun to show four years back, but she’d been sticking Band-Aids on it because it was paid for and she couldn’t afford a new-to-her car or a lease. The mechanic had told her today that a new transmission would cost fifteen hundred dollars.

  Fifteen hundred!

  Misery burned her throat from the inside. She couldn’t put any more money on the credit card. She’d hit her limit already. And she refuse
d to get another card. The interest on the one she had was already killing her, not to mention the mental weight of carrying around debt.

  What was she going to do? She couldn’t stand to ask Uncle Danny or her parents or older brother for money. Her parents were currently living in Scotland, her brother in Boston. They all viewed her as independent and admirable.

  She’d have to make do without a car. Lots of people got around by bike or bus. Right? Her mind wheeled, trying to imagine how she could make it work.

  She shut down her computer and stared without seeing at the wall opposite her. Self-doubt reared up and turned on her with biting teeth, just as it always did at her lowest moments.

  Maybe she shouldn’t have rented this apartment. Five years ago, when she’d decided on this little place, it had seemed so affordable, so perfect with its central pool and fenced yard the size of a cereal box. She surveyed the happy paint colors that surrounded her, the bright patterns, the vintage flea market finds—each choice made lovingly over time.

  Maybe she shouldn’t have taken the job at the university, working in cafeteria administration. She’d simply wanted something with good hours and health insurance, but perhaps longer hours and a higher income would have been the better course. That route would have allowed her to provide better financially—

  “Mommy?”

  Celia swiveled toward the sound. “Sweetheart?”

  Her daughter, Addie, stood in the doorway that led from the living room to the hallway, wearing her Rapunzel pajamas and holding the small ivory blanket she’d had since she was a baby.

  “What are you doing awake?”

  “Couldn’t sleep.” Addie held one eye closed and one eye slitted against the light. Her dark blond hair, straight as a board and cut in a long bob, stood up in a matted section near her crown.

  “Come give me a hug.” Celia stretched out her arms and, when Addie reached her, pulled her onto her lap. Addie nestled against her exactly the way she’d been nestling against Celia since birth: one side of Addie’s face flat against Celia’s upper chest, Celia’s chin resting on the top of Addie’s head, Addie’s hands holding her blanket, Celia’s arms holding Addie’s slender weight. Celia inhaled the strawberries-and-cream scent of Addie’s shampoo. “Is your stomach hurting?”

  “Yeah. I think I need my tea.”

  “Chamomile?”

  “Mmm hmm.”

  “Okay, I’ll get you some.” Celia deposited Addie on the chair and got the teakettle going. Addie’s acid reflux occasionally flared up late at night. Had it not been for the reflux, her child would be sleeping soundly and her bank account would be in order. The cost of the tests Addie’s gastroenterologist had ordered, including one where they admitted Addie to the hospital, put her under anesthesia, and then looked around her esophagus and stomach with a scope, had more than wiped out Celia’s savings.

  Addie surveyed the items on the kitchen table. “What’re these?” She fingered the stack of bills.

  Celia never dealt with financial matters around Addie. “Just letters.”

  “Letters about money?”

  “Um,” Celia hedged. Even though she did her best to insulate her daughter, Addie always proved so intuitively, frighteningly smart . . . a soon-to-be kindergartener who could just as easily be polishing off a doctorate in psychology.

  Addie’s brows stitched together in the center. “What’re we going to do about our car?”

  Their breakdown on the way to day care this morning had classified in Addie’s mind as a very big event. “I haven’t decided yet.”

  “Can we fix it?”

  “It can be fixed, yes.” By anyone who has fifteen hundred dollars to spare.

  “If we need help, Uncle Danny will let us borrow his car.”

  “Of course he will.” Celia plopped a tea bag into a teacup from her mis-matched collection. After she’d poured hot-but-not-too-hot water over it, she gave it a drizzle of honey and placed it in front of Addie.

  Addie looked at her in her solemn way.

  Celia took the chair next to Addie’s. “Aren’t you going to drink your tea?”

  “It’s too hot.”

  “No it isn’t. Here. Let me try.” Celia took a test sip.

  Still, Addie regarded her. She blinked, pushed a strand of hair off her forehead, and set her small pink lips. “I’m going to buy you a new car, Mommy.”

  “No, no, Punkie.” Her nickname for Addie had started out as Lil’ Pumpkin Pie then abbreviated into Pumkin’ Pie. Then Punkie Pie or merely Punkie. “Mommy’s going to handle it—”

  “I can do a lemonade stand. ’Member last time? I made lots of money.”

  “Yes, you did.”

  “Or I can sell some of my princesses. I have lots. Maybe—” she chewed her lip—“maybe Tiana? Or, no—I have two Ariels. I could sell one of my Ariels.”

  Addie adored her Disney princesses. That she’d suggest parting with even one pricked Celia’s heart painfully. “That’s so sweet of you, but you don’t need to raise money to buy me a car. In fact, you don’t need to worry about the car or anything else, okay? We’re perfectly fine.”

  “I’m going to buy you a fur-ar.”

  “A fur-ar?”

  “Yes. I’m going to buy you a fur-ar. In red.”

  “A Ferrari?”

  “That’s what I said.”

  Celia chuckled and kissed Addie on the temple, in the exact spot where she’d kissed her one million times before. “I don’t need a Ferrari. I have you.”

  “’Course you need a fur-ar. Our other car is stinky. I’m going to get you a red fur-ar.”

  “Well, I’m going to get you a pink fur-ar. So take that!”

  At last, Addie smiled. Celia grinned back, then watched Addie bend her head to take a cautious sip of tea.

  This child was her world, her soul, her all. Celia’s whole life revolved around this small and serious girl, who was given to worry, who wore glasses, and who had a heart of purest gold.

  Since Addie’s birth, Celia had only had one goal in life. No matter what sacrifice it demanded of her, no matter how hard she had to work or how tired she became—her goal was to provide Addie with the best childhood she possibly could, a childhood of security and love.

  She’d done her all-out best, and her all-out best had still landed them in this situation—unable to pay their bills and as of today, without a car.

  When Addie finished her tea, Celia escorted her to her room and cozied up alongside her in Addie’s narrow twin bed. The glow of the night-light washed the room in a shade three times warmer than darkness.

  “Tell me a story?” Addie closed her eyes and drew her blanket close.

  “Which princess?”

  “Sleeping Beauty, please.”

  Celia herself wasn’t a huge fan of the princess stories. She worried that they set an unrealistic standard of female beauty and that they communicated the ridiculous idea that girls were in need of princes to rescue them. Addie, however, loved them, and Celia understood that sometimes the heart adored what the heart adored. So her strategy had been to put limits on Addie’s princess watching, to compliment the princesses’ internal qualities, and to assure Addie that the princesses could have saved themselves if the princes had been smitten by bad guys.

  She pitched her voice to its calming go-to-sleep tone. “A few years after Aurora married Prince Phillip, she decided to hold a special ball.”

  “Oooh.”

  “The ball would benefit the soup kitchens all across the kingdom. The soup kitchens, of course, fed anyone who was hungry, because Aurora cared very much about taking care of others less fortunate. She decided that the ball would be for all the four-year-old girls in the land—”

  “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.”r />
  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.