Meant to Be Mine (A Porter Family Novel Book #2) Page 9

  They sat inside the car for ten minutes, examining everything, talking about each detail. Afterward, as Celia went through the evening routine of making dinner, cleaning up after dinner, and giving Addie a bath, her brain kept trying to grasp the fact that Ty had given—given?—her a car. She didn’t know what to do with this information. It didn’t fit inside the compartment marked Bad Guy that she’d stuffed Ty into.

  The phone rang as Celia was brushing the tangles from Addie’s wet hair. Addie rushed to answer it, her Ariel nightgown billowing behind her.

  “If it’s Ty, I’d like to speak to him when you’re done,” Celia called after her.

  It was Ty. And from what Celia heard, most of their long conversation revolved around the Prius and the boy at day care who’d gotten into trouble for biting his friends.

  “Mommy wants to talk to you,” Addie said to him at last. “. . . Okay, ’bye. Thank you for the car. ’Bye.” She extended the phone to Celia.

  Celia took it and pressed it against her chest. “Go brush your teeth and start picking out books. I’ll be right behind you.”

  Addie headed off, and Celia let herself outside and retreated to the far corner of the garden. A misting rain fell, dampening her hair, the bridge of her nose, her shoulders. She moved under a tree limb. “Ty?”

  “Hey.”

  “I came home from work tonight and found a key on my doorknob.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “The key came with a car.”

  “Huh.”

  Based on the background noise, Celia guessed he was already at the arena in Denver. “Am I right in thinking that you’ve given us a car?”

  “I asked Addie yesterday if there was anything she needed. She seemed pretty sure about the answer.”

  Celia’s shoulders sagged. “Well, children can be dramatic. I think we’ve . . . we’ve been doing fine without a car.”

  “The bus working out for you?”

  “Um,” she said faintly, finding it hard to drum up enthusiasm, “the public transportation in Corvallis is perfectly adequate.”

  He snorted. “Really?”

  Celia pressed her fingertips into her forehead. “The car was a nice gesture, Ty. But honestly. I can’t keep it.” She was a single mother used to doing everything for herself. “I don’t feel comfortable accepting that kind of a gift.” Least of all, from you.

  “I’m not taking it back,” Ty answered. “It’s a free country, though, so if you want to walk by the car every day on your way to the bus, then you’re welcome to.”

  She considered taking up her old nervous habit of picking at her cuticles. “If I were—hypothetically, you understand—to accept the car, what would I owe you in return?”

  A pause that crackled with static and distant voices filled the line. “Nothing.”

  “C’mon, Ty. The car has to be a bribe. I need to know the terms.”

  “No terms. It’s a gift, free and clear.”

  “I can’t believe you’d just give us a car.”

  “Listen, I must owe you a fortune in unpaid child support, right? So if you have to, consider the car a down payment on that.”

  “How about you cut me a check for the child support?”

  “How about you thank me for the car?”

  Her tongue and mouth froze.

  “Still hate me?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  He laughed.

  Her animosity seemed to provide him with no end of amusement. “Do you still hate me?” she asked.

  “Sure do. Nice talking to you, sweet one.” Click.

  “Don’t call me that!” she growled into the silence.

  It would indulge her vindictive side to scorn the Prius and leave it sitting in the parking lot. It really would. But what would Addie think? The way Addie had looked earlier, when they’d been sitting in the car together! Addie clearly believed that she herself had procured a car for her mother. How could Celia now tell Addie that she’d decided to reject the Prius?

  You see, Addie, this is my chance to shove something back in Ty’s face the way that he once shoved the love and intimacy I offered him back in my face. Do you understand? No? Well, Addie, your mother is too proud to ever, ever, ever accept anything from anyone.

  It figured that Ty wasn’t wearing a helmet.

  Some of the cowboys had enough sense, at least, to wear head protection while riding seventeen-hundred-pound bulls. Ty wasn’t in that group.

  Celia had put Addie to sleep an hour ago, caught up on e-mail and household stuff, and now sat in her TV-watching spot on the sofa. She hadn’t seen Ty do his thing since Vegas, and she’d intended never to watch him ride bulls again. Yet here she was.

  The camera zoomed in on a shot of Ty sitting on a bull inside the chute, trying to get his grip on the rope before the gate opened and the bull lunged free. He wore a black hat and black shirt, a protective vest covered with his sponsors’ logos, and leather chaps over his jeans and boots. He’d be attempting to ride a beast named Pummeler. He kept adjusting his glove, testing and retesting his hold while the bull beneath him writhed, head-butted the fence, and generally looked wild.

  Very unkindly, Celia found herself rooting for Pummeler. “Buck him off,” she muttered, “and dent his arrogance.”

  At Ty’s nod, the gate swung open. Pummeler sprang into the arena, kicking, twisting, launching himself into the air, and spinning all at the same time.

  No human should have been able to stay on him. But Ty did, one arm high, his balance and strength jaw-dropping. When the buzzer sounded after eight seconds, he let the bull’s momentum vault him into the air and landed easily on his feet. The crowd roared.

  Once Pummeler had disappeared down the passage where all the bulls disappeared, Ty lifted his hat, smiled at the crowd, and turned in a circle to acknowledge their support. The down-home commentators with the chicken-fried-steak accents called him a “fan favorite” and a “three-time world champion” and “third in the season’s standings.”

  “Nice try, Pummeler.” Celia shook her head and fast-forwarded.

  Ty rode again and stayed on again.

  Unfortunately, no one would be denting Ty’s arrogance tonight.

  The next morning—a precious sleep-in Saturday morning—Celia woke to a voice whispering into her ear canal.

  “Mommy? Mommy are you awake? Time to get up, Mom. I’m ready to watch the bull riding.”

  Celia groaned and covered her head with her pillow. The voice and the child proved persistent.

  Ten minutes later, Celia had positioned Addie in the armchair facing the TV while the Bull Riders Professional Circuit played. Celia whipped up some apple-walnut whole-grain pancakes and delivered them to Addie on a tray. Addie ate without ever lifting her gaze from the rodeo. The two times Ty rode, Addie pressed her fists together in front of her chest and held her breath. Each time Ty stayed on, Addie threw her arms into the air in a move that reminded Celia of a football referee signaling a touchdown.

  Later, when it came time for them to head to Uncle Danny’s, Celia and Addie piled into the Prius instead of walking to the bus stop. At Celia’s first attempt to start the car, it came to life, the dashboard illuminating, the hybrid’s system purring with remarkable quiet. She cut a look at Addie in her booster seat in the back.

  Addie grinned and gave her a thumbs-up.

  Celia drew herself tall in the driver’s seat and angled her jaw determinedly. It didn’t come naturally to her, the humility required to receive a gift as costly as a car. In order to accept it, she’d had to tell herself Ty owed her the Prius and twenty more like it for the mental and emotional anguish he’d caused her.

  She steered them smoothly toward the road without so much as a single mention of pride or of shoving anything into anyone’s face.

  True to his word, Ty called Addie every night. Each evening between six and eight the phone would ring, Addie would race to answer it, and Addie and Ty would chat. One week of this turned into two, then three
, then four.

  At Addie’s insistence, Celia purchased a map of the United States and tacked it to the wall near the laundry room. Each time Ty traveled to a bull-riding event, mother and daughter would find the place on the map and stick a pin in it.

  Celia kept expecting him to forget to call. She was even prepared to send him a text message reminding him of his oversight, but he never gave her the chance. No matter Ty’s whereabouts, he faithfully called the little girl who waited so eagerly to talk to him.

  Celia herself? The opposite of eager to talk to him. She communicated with him solely through text, and then only if necessary. On Sundays, when Addie and Ty had Skype conversations, Celia went to extreme lengths not to be captured by her computer’s camera. She hunkered beneath the table and reached up with her fingertips to move the cursor while Addie gave her weird looks.

  Each weekend Celia screened the televised rodeo coverage. An interest in bull riding went against her will, her ideological principles, and her status as someone who’d completed higher education. On top of that, Ty was a bull rider, so she’d have preferred to dislike bull riding. The more of it she watched, however, the more she feared that she, a Pacific Northwest–loving girl, had an intrinsic flaw. In the way that Uncle Danny had a weakness for Eastern European women, Celia had a small and guilty weakness for—for . . .

  Cowboys.

  Shameful! She could scarcely admit it to herself.

  Even more upsetting? Her weakness appeared to center on a particular cowboy with sky blue eyes and a double serving of charm.

  As the weeks passed and she saw a few of the riders sustain injuries, she began to root with a little less pep for the bulls Ty rode. Just a little. But still. It was hard to maintain complete loathing for a man who called her daughter every evening.

  Partial loathing she managed.

  In her more mature moments, Celia understood that she ought to be grateful for the current situation. Ty had gone, which meant she didn’t have to see him in person and didn’t have to split Addie’s custody between them. Even though he wasn’t physically present, however, his influence began to permeate everything.

  Ty and Holley, Texas, had become Addie’s two favorite topics of conversation. Celia would be telling Addie a bedtime story, and Addie would suddenly ask, “Mommy? Did you know that they have a fall parade in Holley?” Then, wistfully, “I sure would like to live there.” At the dinner table Celia would ask Addie about her day, and Addie would say, “It was good. Mom? What do you think it would feel like to ride a bull?” They’d be driving to work in the morning and Addie would sigh. “I bet they have good teachers in Texas. It would be really, really fun to go to kindergarten in Holley. The kids there are so lucky.”

  Addie’s talk about Ty, their phone calls, their Skyping, and the map of the USA were more than enough to bear. But Celia was also treated to one other constant reminder of Ty: the cowgirl boots.

  Addie refused to wear any other pair of shoes. Since babyhood, Celia had dressed her in Scandinavian style. She’d raked eBay and consignment shops for nubby little knitted hats. Thick patterned tights. Mittens in the winter. Combed cotton dresses with polka dots or stripes or bold colored prints. Sweaters. Mary Janes.

  The cowgirl boots ruined Addie’s Denmark vibe. But Addie, who’d always been mild, insisted on them. And Celia, who’d always purported that children should be free to express their own creative style, pretended to be gracious about the boots when what she really wanted was to have her daughter all to herself again.

  Her life and Addie’s life had changed. It choked Celia up every time she thought about it—but no matter how it tangled her emotions, how it made her lungs squeeze, how powerless it rendered her—there was no going back to the way it had been before Ty, when their family had been a safe, snug circle of two.

  She sensed her control slipping away. The more it slipped, the more the space within—the one which God had once occupied—grew. The more the hole grew, the more she sought to find her everything in Addie. And the more she tried to find her everything in Addie, the more she realized that Addie didn’t need her as much as Addie once had.

  Celia wanted joy for her child. She did. Without doubt, Ty’s involvement in Addie’s life appeared to bring Addie joy. It both pleased and hurt Celia to see that joy. Ty already had so much. She’d only ever had Addie. Why, she sometimes wondered, had she been asked to relinquish some of her sole treasure to a man who was already so outrageously blessed?

  Chapter Eight

  One commonplace Wednesday evening in late June, a knock sounded on Celia’s door.

  She set aside the wooden spoon she’d been using to brown ground turkey for spaghetti sauce and went to answer it. She swung the door open, expecting to see her neighbor returning Addie from the playdate the two moms had arranged for their girls.

  Instead, Ty stood on her front step, filling up the space with his impressive height.

  Celia’s motion stuttered to a stop. The bane of her existence, here unexpectedly and in the flesh.

  Ty took in the sight of her, a mix of challenge and enjoyment in his eyes. “Hi.”

  “Hello.” Celia realized she was wearing the tight yellow tank she’d changed into hurriedly after work and wouldn’t have worn in public without a peasant shirt over it. The rest of her attire consisted of an old pair of shorts and a dish towel on her shoulder.

  “I flew in to surprise Addie. Is she here?”

  “Uh . . . she’s a few doors down playing with a friend. She should be back soon.”

  “Can I come in?”

  In answer, Celia grudgingly stepped back and let him pass.

  “How’ve you been, sweet one?”

  “I’ve been fine, showboat.”

  He grinned crookedly. “Showboat?”

  “Yep.” The sizzle of meat on the stove reminded her of her spaghetti sauce. She returned to the kitchen, Ty trailing. “Since you insist on calling me a nickname, I figured it was only fair to respond in kind.” She positioned herself at the stove and went back to work on the ground turkey.

  Ty crossed his muscled arms and leaned a hip against the edge of the countertop. “Was showboat the best you could do? I don’t like it.”

  “Good.”

  “What about Maverick? Adonis?”

  She rolled her eyes.

  “This might be too obvious, but how about Stud?”

  “Believe me. It’s not in the least obvious.”

  “Well, showboat’s no good.”

  She made a scoffing sound. “Tough luck. You don’t get to pick.” To the turkey, she added the onions, bell pepper, and mushrooms she’d sautéed. Then the tomato sauce. She was doing her best to appear unfazed by him, but in truth it was unsettling and surreal to have spent the past several weeks watching him on TV and now have him standing in her kitchen eyeballing her while she cooked.

  “Did you catch any of my bull riding this past month?”

  “I did.”

  “What did you think?”

  “I thought it a shame that you couldn’t squeeze any more sponsorship logos on your vest no matter how much you’d clearly tried. Have you considered plastering a few across your forehead?”

  He released a bark of laughter.

  She couldn’t fully hide her answering smile. “Or maybe your mouth? As a bonus to the rest of us, it might keep you from speaking.”

  “Aw,” he crooned. “Watching me ride gave you a little thing for me, didn’t it, sweet one?”

  She turned a withering look on him. “What kind of a thing?”

  “A burning-love kind of a thing.”

  “Hardly.”

  “Admit it, you missed me while I was gone.”

  “Not in the least.”

  “Still hate me?”

  “Yes.” The child stealer.

  As usual, he seemed to find her rancor pleasing. He popped a piece of French bread into his mouth, looking very satisfied with himself while he chewed. Women everywhere would be willing to
pay a fortune for his bronze-tipped brown hair. It didn’t seem right that God had given it to Ty for free.

  “I’m glad I caught you alone, Celia.”

  “I can’t imagine why.”

  “I’ve been wanting to talk to you again about moving.”

  She slanted her attention toward him. “To Holley?” At his nod, she shook her head. “There’s no point in discussing it further. I’m not moving.”

  “Addie’s been asking me questions about Holley. She’s told me several times that she wants to live there.”

  His words stung Celia, mostly because she knew they were true. “Have you been pressuring her to move to Holley?”

  “No. If I want something, I won’t use Addie to get it. I’ll come directly to you.” He took her measure the way an amused lion might take the measure of a brave prairie dog. “You might be fierce, but you don’t exactly scare me.”

  She stirred the boiling pasta more than it needed to be stirred.

  “Addie wants to move to Holley.”

  “Yes, and next week she might want to move to Japan and the week after that Australia. I don’t let Addie’s whims determine where we live.”

  “Holley’s my home base. If the two of you lived there, it would make life easier for me.”

  “My world doesn’t revolve around what’s easier for you, Ty. I’m all about what’s practical. My job is here.”

  “I’ll find you a job there.”

  “My uncle lives here.”

  “My family lives in Holley. I have a big family, and they’ll all support you.”

  “Our home, Addie’s and mine, is here in Oregon.” She indicated the apartment. “This is where we’ve always lived.”

  He studied her with eyes of the rarest, brightest blue. Another attribute God had unfairly given him. “What if I made it worth your while to move?”

  “Nothing you could offer—”

  “A house of your own? The title in your name? Completely paid off?”