Meant to Be Mine (A Porter Family Novel Book #2) (40 page)

When Howard Sanders answered his front door in response to Ty’s knock, he did nothing but study Ty for a good long while. Gloating lit his old eyes. “Ty.”

“Howard.”

Like he had all the time in the world, Howard brought a pipe to his mouth and took a long draw.

“Do you know why I’m here?” Ty asked.

“I believe I do.”

“Can I come in?”

“Surely.”

Ty followed Howard into a dim room that smelled like leather and tobacco. Both men sat. Howard reclined to puff on his pipe. Ty sat upright, intently focused on Howard. “You bought Cream or Sugar.”

“I did.”

“And not because you want to go into the donut business.”

“No.”

Ty remembered the day Howard had come into the bakery. The older man had watched him and Celia together. Then and there, Howard must have discovered Ty’s weakness.

“You have something I want,” Howard said. “You have Jim’s land.”

“And now you have something I want.”

“Yes.” Howard extended the hand with the pipe to rest along the arm of his chair. “What should we do about this dilemma?”

“Make me an offer.”

Howard’s face had so many lines it looked like tree bark. The lines deepened as one edge of his mouth tipped into a smile. “An even trade.”

Jim’s land was worth far more than the value of Cream or Sugar. Not only that, but Ty needed that land to raise rodeo stock. Without his bull riding, without Celia, his plan to enlarge his farm was all he had left.

“All’s fair in love and war.” Howard’s smile grew.

Ty wanted to snap the older man’s neck. Pain flicked along a muscle in his jaw.

“The donut shop for the land,” Howard said. “That’s my offer.”

A sudden chill ran along the back of Ty’s neck, his shoulders, and down his upper arms. He sensed God strongly, just like he did every night when he pulled out the bottle of Vicodin. Every night so far, God had stopped him from taking any.

Maybe God was using this situation to test his commitment to Celia—

No, he realized. God already knew the depth of his commitment to Celia. God was using this situation to prove the depth of his commitment to Celia to
him
. He could remember asking God,
Show me who I am
.

His heart drummed as understanding dawned.

God was answering his prayer. All this time, he’d doubted whether he was good enough or trustworthy enough for Celia. His track record stunk. His past actions betrayed him. Celia might never give him another chance to do the right thing. But God . . . God was offering him that chance now.

Almost six years after his greatest regret, God had presented him with a miracle opportunity to do what he should have done in Vegas.

To love her.

“Well?” Howard demanded. “What’s your answer?”

C
elia!”

Celia lifted her head. “Donetta?” She was in her bedroom at the gingerbread house in the process of changing out of her church clothes.

“I’m coming up your front walk.” The older woman’s voice sailed in through the open windows.

Donetta had never once paid Celia a visit at home. Frankly, after the terrible news about Cream or Sugar, Celia didn’t know if she could take another meeting with Donetta. “Be right there.”

She pulled on a pair of skinny jeans because for the first time since she’d moved to Holley, the day’s temperature merited jeans.

“Waiting at your door!” Donetta called.

“Just a sec.” She selected a white tank and, over that, a tunic-style purple top.

She peeked in on Addie. After church, Meg and Bo had taken them to lunch before returning them home just ten minutes ago. Addie lay tummy-down on the carpet of her room, engrossed by a game on her tablet computer.

Celia opened her front door. “Hi.”

Donetta bustled in wearing her navy Keds, high-waisted pants, and a Rangers T-shirt. The Rangers had made it into the postseason,
so Donetta now dressed in Ranger wear every day of the week. “I have news.” She waved Celia into the living room.

They settled in front of the picture window in the chairs that faced one another. Drizzle fell over the view of the front lawn, quieting everything, causing Celia’s plants to nod beneath the weight of the water.

“News?” Celia asked.

“Two important pieces of news. The first one I promised him I wouldn’t tell. . . .”

At the mention of the word
him
, Celia’s heart jolted. She knew exactly who Donetta meant.

Donetta blew out a breath. “After we met the first time, remember how I called you back about the job at Cream or Sugar? I told you that Jerry and I had reconsidered and that we’d decided to pay you double?”

Celia nodded.

“Well. I sort of lied about that last part.” She tipped her head to the side. “Not sort of. I did lie. Jerry and I didn’t increase your salary. Ty did.”

Wait.
What
what what?

“He’s been paying half your salary since the day you came to work at Cream or Sugar. He wanted to make sure you could afford to take the job there.”

She’d run into Ty right after her initial interview with Donetta. He’d taken her to get snow cones. Her mind raced back in time. She hadn’t spoken to him or anyone, however, about her desire to work at the bakery. “I never told him about the job offer at Cream or Sug—”

“He came into the shop the same day you did, asking whether you’d been in about the position. He figured it out, honey.”

In that mysterious way Ty had of understanding her, he’d found out about the interview and he’d . . . he’d offered to pay half her salary? That amounted to a great deal of money. Money he’d never mentioned to her. Even when she’d been breaking up with him, he hadn’t said a word about it. Why hadn’t he thrown it in her face?
It would have made her feel two inches tall. Instead, even over the past days when he’d been so angry, he’d continued to pay half her income?

She shook her head slowly, dizzily. She’d received the call from Donetta telling her they’d decided to increase her hourly wage the day after she’d first attended church. “I thought . . .”

“You thought what?”

“It seems silly now. I thought at the time, the day you called me, that God had done it. That He’d made it possible for me to work at Cream or Sugar.”

“God
did
do it, Celia. He just didn’t use Jerry and me. He used Ty.”

Celia lifted her hands to her cheeks. She peered at Donetta with round eyes.

“I told Ty I wouldn’t tell you. I’m breaking my promise to him, because I think it’s for the greater good.”

Celia couldn’t find words.

“Don’t go getting faint on me now,” Donetta ordered. “There’s more, so take your hands off your face.”

Celia dropped her arms.

“Now you’re gaping like a catfish.”

Celia clicked her lips together.

“That was only the first piece of news. Here’s the second. I got a call from Howard Sanders a few minutes ago.”

It took Celia a moment to pull up the name. “The man who competed with Ty for Jim’s land?”

“Apparently so. I didn’t know anything about the land until today.”

Celia couldn’t fathom what Howard Sanders had to do with anything.

“Howard is the person who bought Cream or Sugar, Celia, and I just learned
why
he bought it. He bought it because he still wants the land.”

Celia’s ribs constricted around her racing heart. “I don’t understand what the bakery has to do with the land. The land is Ty’s now, and he’ll never sell it. Ever since his bull riding ended, he’s
been planning to raise rodeo stock. The way he explained it to me, he needs both his land and the new piece of land to do that.”

“Howard told me that he visited you and Ty at Cream or Sugar one day.”

“Yes.”

“Howard must have heard the rumors about the two of you. He came to the shop to see for himself. Howard’s observant, honey. He must have recognized that Ty loved you.” Donetta’s expression gentled. “Howard saw that the person Ty loved, in turn loved the bakery.”

A tremor dashed down Celia’s spine.

“Howard bought Cream or Sugar so that he could use it as a bargaining chip, Celia. He met with Ty last night and offered him an even exchange. The bakery for the land.”

Celia rushed to her feet. “No.”

Donetta regarded her levelly.

“And Ty?” Her voice shook. “Ty turned down Howard’s offer. Right?”

“No, honey. He didn’t. He traded his land for the bakery. For you.”

“He couldn’t have!”

“He did. That’s why Howard called me, to explain that the bakery had already changed ownership.”

Celia took off, frantically searching for her purse and her car keys. She dashed through all the rooms once and had to go back through them a second time before locating her purse and keys where they always sat, on the entry table.

Donetta stood in the foyer. “I’ll stay here and watch Addie.”

“Thank you.”

Celia ducked into Addie’s room. “I have to leave for a bit, but Donetta’s here.”

“Uh-huh.” Addie hardly even lifted her head.

Halfway across the front porch, Celia realized she wore no shoes. She detoured to her closet, pushed her feet into her cowgirl boots, then rushed past Donetta to her Prius.

“Go get your man, honey!” Donetta called after her, one fist in the air. “Go get your man!”

As she drove to Ty’s, the shaking in Celia’s hands pervaded to the deepest regions of her.
What had Ty done?

He’d called her a coward the day of their fight. She’d thought him wrong at the time. She’d viewed her actions as smart. But the brutal truth? Loving him did terrify her.

Being hurt by him again terrified her.

Forgiving him terrified her.

She’d been using her inability to trust him like a breastplate to protect her heart.

She
had
been a coward. But Ty? Ty was not.

In this part of Texas, he was famously brave for his willingness to climb onto the backs of wild bulls. But that didn’t cover the half of it. He’d put himself out there that day in the upstairs office by telling her plainly how he felt about her. And now, if Donetta could be believed, he’d gone and proved it by sacrificing his future for her sake.

He needed that land for his own dream. What had he done?

Halfway up the long private drive that led to Ty’s house, she met a truck coming the other way. Jake.

They stopped, both rolling down their windows.

He looked at her with his black Stetson low and his scar painfully obvious.

She was so addled, she had no faculty for small talk.

After a tense moment of quiet, his expression relaxed a degree. “He’s not in the house. He’s repairing a broken section of fence. You’ll have to walk to get there.”

“I don’t mind.”

He explained where to find Ty.

“Thank you, Jake.”

He tipped his hat to her and she continued on. The Porter Family Help Squad. To the rescue with her house renovations, bakery renovations, Uncle Danny. To the rescue even now.

She parked and headed into the fields. She had no umbrella. The
light rain seeped into her hair and steadily wet her top, heavying it. Tromping over grass dried by summer’s heat, she cut diagonally toward the faraway fence line. The ground eventually leveled into a wide upper pasture. She could no longer see Ty’s house or barn. Trees speckled the land. A cool breeze swept against her, pushed by the low and scudding pewter clouds.

From a distance, she saw him.

He lifted a fallen plank into place, then went to work with a hammer.

He was soaked. His jeans had gone dark with water and his gray T-shirt had plastered to his body, revealing every tendon and muscle beneath.

Her mouth went dry with trepidation, but she did not slow. She kept on, accompanied by the sound of raindrops pattering against the earth.

When she’d neared to within ten paces, Ty’s face jerked up.

They both paused, gazes locking. Gradually, Ty straightened to face her, his features hardening with defensiveness.

My God
, she called out within her mind. She loved Ty, and she’d injured him. He was mad at her and, what’s worse, she deserved his anger. “Why?” she asked him.

He said nothing. Rain trickled down him in rivulets.

“Did you trade your land for the bakery?”

He tossed the hammer aside. “I did.”

“Ty,” she choked. “Why?”

With both hands, he raked his hair back from a face that had been weathered by grief since their breakup. His water-darkened hair only made the brilliant blue of his eyes more pronounced.

“Maybe it’s not too late to get the land back.” She planted her boots. “If you go to Howard or the title company right now and say you’ve changed your mind, maybe—”

“I haven’t changed my mind.”

“I want you to go right now! And I want you to do whatever you have to do to stop the deal.”

“You can’t always get what you want, Celia.”

She flinched. “I
know
you care about that land—”

“I don’t.”

“Yes you do.”

“I don’t,” he growled. “Not if having it means you can’t have the bakery.”

Tears gathered on her lashes. Truly, she couldn’t stand that he’d done this for her. “And I don’t want the bakery if it means you can’t have the land.”

“Too bad, because you’re going to keep it.” He advanced toward her, predatory. “In fact, you’re going to run the place because you own it now.”

“You mean,
you
own it now.”

“You,” he insisted, coming even closer.

“Dictator!”

“Forest fairy.”

“Showboat.”

“I hate that nickname.”

“Showboat!”

“Sweet one,” he murmured roughly. He stopped only a foot away.

“What are you going to do now, Ty? Without the land?”

“I don’t know.”

“Why did you make the trade?”

“You know why. Why did you come all the way out here in this weather to find me?”

“You know why,” she said faintly.

“I’d like you to spell it out.”

Her courage faltered. Did she dare trust him with it all? Was she really going to put her life and Addie’s life in this man’s hands?

All at once and very clearly, she understood that, yes. Yes, she was.

“I love you, Ty.”

Moments passed, excruciating, while he stared at her—doing and saying nothing.

Perhaps she needed to try again, louder. “I love you—”

He swept her into his arms and kissed her with fiery possession.
One of his hands clasped the back of her head. His other bound her against him.

Water. The smell of a storm. Spiraling pleasure.

He pulled back just enough to look down into her face. “I love you,” he said. Then they were kissing again, laughing breathlessly, kissing, gasping for air. Just like when Jerry had told her that Donetta was his person—Ty was hers. Her person. He was too handsome, too strong-willed, too wealthy, too daring, and otherwise not ideal. But he was, most definitely, her person.

He lowered her feet fully to the ground.

“I’m sorry about the things I said to you when we fought.” She rested her palms against his chest. “It’s no excuse, but I was scared.”

“I won’t let you down.”

“If you ever do, I’ll hurt you, Ty. I mean,
really
hurt you. Kill you dead. Physically.”

“I might be wrong, but weren’t you just in the middle of apologizing to me?”

“Yes. I was.” After having been so pious about withholding forgiveness, it was humbling to be the one in need of it. “Will you forgive me?”

His half smile revealed his dimple.
Oh
, that smile. She hadn’t seen it in days and days. It seemed as though she’d had to swim across a hostile ocean to see it again. She’d swim countless more oceans for the glory of that smile.

“I forgive you, Celia. See how easy that was? Try.”

“I forgive you, Ty.” And all through her, like the clear chime of a bell, the truth of it reverberated. She’d forgiven him, and it felt like freedom.

“I
forgive
you,” Ty said.

“
I
forgive you.”

“Good, ’cause I forgive
you
.”

They said it back and forth, grinning, emphasizing different words in the sentence.

“Not too painful, huh?” He pressed a featherweight kiss against her forehead.

“Oh, it’s painful all right. But it’s probably good for me to keep on practicing forgiveness if we’re going to be a couple.”

“Oh, we’re
going
to be a couple.”

“Addie will be thrilled.”

“She’ll say she told us so.”

He took hold of her hands, his fingers strong and warm, then brought their joined hands up behind his neck.

She saw them then the way that God did. Though neither she nor Ty had viewed their first wedding as something to be valued, God had. He respected marriages—even ones entered into rashly in Las Vegas wedding chapels. She could suddenly grasp that He’d had a plan for rescuing and repairing their marriage all along. When they hadn’t cared, He had. When they’d given up, He hadn’t. The bracelet she’d dropped back at that restaurant in Corvallis had seemed at the time like an unlucky coincidence. Now that left-behind bracelet didn’t seem like a coincidence at all. It seemed like divine intervention.