by Becky Wade
Chapter Twenty-three
In the magical way he had, Ty made everything better. He strode into the living room, took in the situation with one sweeping glance, then gave Celia a look that caused her to laugh so hard that tears overran her eyes.
“Rotten luck,” he said, when she’d finally gotten herself under control. “Both the men in your life injured in the same summer.”
“As if you’re one of the men in my life. Conceited as ever.”
“I feel sorry for Danny. You’re not much of a nurse.”
“I beg your pardon! I’m a perfectly good nurse.”
“You flushed my Vicodin down the toilet.”
“Your Vicodin deserved to be flushed down the toilet!”
Betty shuffled into the living room, and Ty broke all land and speed records at winning her undying devotion.
He made a trip to Danny’s hotel to pay the bill and bring back Danny’s suitcase. Then, when Betty refused to let him buy take-out dinner for them all, Ty set the table, filled their drinks, and transported Betty’s tuna casserole into the dining room as if he were carrying Cleopatra on a litter.
Danny didn’t feel up to joining them for the meal. Nonetheless, Ty convinced him to don a shirt and settled the older man at the table on a chair they’d padded with a comforter. “How you doing?” Ty’s big hand kept a grip on Danny’s shoulder, steadying him. “All right?”
“Hanging in there, Ty.”
“Can I do anything to make your chair more comfortable?”
Danny shook his head, face bleak with the discomfort Celia knew he must be suffering.
Betty started hiccuping.
Ty placed a paper napkin in Danny’s lap. “I’d really like to see you eat something, man. Can you do that for me?”
“I don’t know. Stomach’s not too steady at the moment.”
“Just give it a try.”
Then the four of them—the-marriage-in-name-only couple and the reason-why-you-shouldn’t-date-online couple—started in on the food.
As grateful as Celia was for the above-and-beyond generosity Betty had shown them all, she had a hard time getting the tuna casserole down. It was not good. Or maybe even edible.
Halfway through dinner Danny began to nod off again, his upper body slumping forward. With his bull rider’s fast reflexes, Ty shot a hand out and caught Danny in the chest before he could land face-down in his food. Carefully, he propped Danny up. Danny’s breath snicked, then fell into a snoring pattern now familiar to them all.
Ty resumed his own seat. “So, Betty?”
“Yes?”
“How are you feeling about your date with Rip Van Winkle here?” He nodded at Danny. “Best date ever?”
Celia burst out laughing.
Betty giggled into her napkin. “Maybe the most memorable.”
“Tell it to me straight,” Ty said. “You want to marry Danny, don’t you?”
Celia had to hand it to him. He was irredeemable, but in the best possible way.
Another round of giggles from Betty. “No, Ty. I don’t want to marry him.”
Snore snore snore.
“You sure? Consider the advantages, Betty: He’s laid back. Not difficult to entertain.”
Betty shook her head, her ample cheeks pink with amusement.
“It seems,” Celia said to Ty, “that the old broken pelvis routine has failed to win Betty’s heart.”
“Poor guy, missing out on a lady as pretty as Betty.”
Betty looked back and forth between them. “How did you two say you know each other?”
“We’re friends,” Celia answered, “from long ago.”
“You’re not dating one another?”
“No,” Celia answered quickly. Ty said nothing.
“Do you have a boyfriend?” Betty asked Celia.
She shifted uneasily. “I don’t.”
“What about you, Ty? Do you have a girlfriend?”
Blue eyes blazed as he looked across the table at Celia. “I’d like to have one.”
In the awkward silence Celia could hear a cat under the table, rhythmically cleaning its fur.
Betty angled herself toward Celia. “I happen to know a few nice young men your age.”
Celia set down her fork and placed her hands in her lap. “You do?”
“One’s a friend’s son. He owns the mechanic shop.”
Behind Betty, Ty caught Celia’s gaze and shook his head with threatening slowness.
“And then there’s the new high school principal. He’s divorced with seven kids, but all the kids live in Alabama with their mother.”
No, Ty mouthed.
“He sounds . . . interesting.”
No! Ty mouthed.
“You’re very pretty, and your uncle had nothing but good things to say about you. You’ll have no problem finding someone special. If you’d like me to call either of the men I just mentioned, let me know.”
“I still don’t think Danny will agree to leave,” Betty said.
Celia and Ty had helped clean the kitchen. They’d loaded Danny’s stuff in the trunk of the Prius and prepared its passenger seat by reclining it to a hospital bed angle and placing borrowed pillows along its length.
“Oh, he’ll agree,” Ty said. “Celia, do you want to get the car’s air conditioner going?”
“Sure.” She and Ty spent some time thanking Betty, then Celia walked from the house to the car and cranked the cold air. Peering through the front windshield, she waited.
After a few minutes, Ty emerged from Betty’s house carrying Uncle Danny in his arms. She could tell by Ty’s face that he was saying something joking to distract Danny, who had his jaw clenched. Ty had shattered his leg this past summer. He still wore a brace beneath his jeans. There was no way he should be carrying something as heavy as Danny. Yet he wasn’t even hurrying. He was moving with utter care to make sure he didn’t jolt her uncle.
Something inside Celia’s chest dropped with a hollow thump as realization expanded within her. Oh, God. Bo had been right about Ty, hadn’t he? Ty had never been the villain she’d wanted him to be. He had honor. He was a tarnished knight, yes, but he was a knight. He’d come to Hugo to rescue her. He was carrying her uncle. And she suspected that he had been faithful to her all the years of their marriage.
She ran around to open the passenger-side door. Ty laid Danny on the seat and Celia did what she could, repositioning his pillows, buckling his seat belt for him. She sensed that she ought to say something encouraging to Danny, but her revelation had cleaved her in half. All she managed was a pat on his hand.
She and Ty circled to the driver’s side. “I’m driving you guys home, sweet one.”
She paused. “But you have your truck.”
“We have Danny’s car, too. It’s parked in the hotel lot.”
“Oh. Right.”
“I’ll get my family to come back with me tomorrow. We’ll return Betty’s pillows and drive the other cars back to Holley.”
“That’s a lot of trouble.”
“Nah, we’re Texans. We like driving our trucks on two-lane roads with nothing to look at but fields.”
Since she had no better plan, she climbed into the backseat behind Ty and next to Danny’s laid-out upper torso.
“Man, this car is small.” Ty slid the driver’s seat back until it touched her kneecaps. “Is this a Hot Wheel?”
When he flicked on the car’s headlights, they illuminated Betty and her breeze-stirred muumuu. She stood on her porch waving, and her two cats frowned at them through the living room window as they pulled away.
Ty glanced across at Danny. “I’m going to drive really carefully. Just relax, and we’ll be there in no time.”
“’Kay.”
“What kind of music would you like?”
“Got any Beach Boys?”
“Yep.” Ty pulled a CD case of the Beach Boys’ greatest hits from the door pocket.
“Where did that come from?” Celia asked.
Ty slid the CD
into the player. “When I was at the hotel earlier, to get your stuff, Danny, I checked your car. Figured some music might help the drive go by faster.”
The wistful strains of “Surfer Girl” filled the interior.
“Dude,” Danny breathed gratefully. “That’s righteous of you, brother.”
Hugo was so small that before Celia had buckled her seat belt, they were out of it. Ten minutes after that, and right at the tail end of “Kokomo,” Danny conked out again.
“What are your plans for Danny once we reach Holley?” Ty asked. “We can’t take him to his place. He needs care.”
“I was thinking I’d take him to my house.”
“And put him where?”
“In Addie’s room? Addie can move in with me.”
“But you work. You’ll be gone most of the day.”
Celia swallowed. He had a point.
“I told my mom what happened with Danny. She wants him to stay with them while he’s recovering. She and Danny are buddies.”
“Ty! They haven’t even known each other a month.”
“But he’s family, and my parents have empty bedrooms at their place. What do you say?”
“It’s up to Danny.”
“Danny will want to stay with my folks.” He raised his phone and hit speed dial. “My mom’s a great caregiver. Perfect mix of tough love and sweetness.”
Celia tried to protest again, but he was already talking to his mom. His Texas accent filled the car, punctuated by a low laugh at something Nancy had said. When he looked across to check on Danny again, she could see the masculine lines of his profile and the definition in the forearm that held his cell phone.
He clicked off. “It’s all set.”
“Ty, are you sure? That seems like a lot to ask of your mom.”
“I’m sure.”
“Okay. Thank you.”
Celia sat in the dark of the backseat watching Oklahoma give way to Texas, her mind whirling. A knight, indeed. Things that had always mystified her about Ty began to slide into place.
“You’re quiet.” Ty met her gaze in the rearview mirror.
“I’m thinking.”
“About?”
“You.” As his attention returned to the road, she considered him. “I’m going to ask you something, and I want you to be completely honest with me.”
He waited, his head angled slightly in question.
“You haven’t been with any other women since Las Vegas, have you?”
He said nothing. The heavy quiet said a million things.
“You don’t have to confirm it,” Celia said. “I can see now that it’s true. Which makes me ask myself why. Why would you remain faithful to me after a relationship that lasted less than a week and a spur-of-the-moment wedding? I never expected you to be faithful. In fact, I assumed you hadn’t been.”
“Marriage means something to me, Celia. I made a promise to you in front of God. My parents have been married a long time. My grandparents all stayed married until their deaths.”
“All right, but that doesn’t fully explain why you were faithful, does it? There’s more.” The car’s engine hummed. Cars going the opposite direction whizzed by, their headlights sending flashes of illumination through the interior of the Prius, there and gone.
“Look,” he said. “As much as I love spilling my guts, can we have this conversation another time? Your uncle’s lying right beside me.”
Celia raised her voice a notch. “Danny?” No response. “He’s out, Ty. He can’t hear us.”
Ty grunted with frustration.
“I never understood why you didn’t divorce me. Year after year went by, and you never contacted me.”
“I finally did.”
“But why so long? You’d decided to steer clear of other women. So why didn’t you suffer through, I don’t know, just a year of abstinence? Then you could have divorced me and gone back to living your life. A year would have been long enough to give a respectful nod to the institution of marriage. Instead you waited five and a half.”
He exhaled roughly. “I’d rather talk about anything else.” He pushed a hand between the back of his head and his seat. His fingers curled into his hair near the cords of his neck.
It was like that game people played—when you drew close to the thing you were searching for and the leader said, Hotter, you’re getting hotter. Well, Celia believed she was getting very hot. Closer to the truth than she’d ever been. “I think you waited so long because you were punishing yourself. It took you that long to feel that you’d punished yourself enough.”
Silence.
“C’mon, Ty. Blunt honesty. It’s just you, me, and the Beach Boys.”
A long pause. “You’re not a hundred percent wrong,” he said.
No. She was a hundred percent right. All this time, the guy who’d seemed like the quintessential devil-may-care lady’s man had been punishing himself for what he’d done to Tawny and to her in Las Vegas.
She angled herself so she could glimpse more of his face in the mirror. He was scowling out the front windshield with features that may as well have been carved from stone. Shadows pooled beneath his cheekbones.
“What happened in Vegas rocked you, didn’t it? Because you were, and are, good-hearted.”
“No,” he said flatly. “I’m not.”
“Yes. You are.” “I’m no good,” she remembered him saying to her the day she’d arrived in Texas. And the day they had snow cones, “I’m not to be trusted.” At this point it royally offended her—the girl who’d been trying to assure herself of his mean-heartedness for years—that he’d try to confess mean-heartedness to her now. “The gifts are all part of it, too, aren’t they?” She thought back, cataloguing them in her brain. “You brought me my bracelet when I dropped it. Then you jumped at the chance to buy this Prius. You purchased us a house and added us to your insurance. You even tried to convince me to accept credit cards. You felt guilty, and the gifts were all part of your penance.”
“Good grief,” he growled. “You’re making me sound like a wuss.”
“You’re not a wuss. And you’re not a criminal. On the other hand, you’re not a saint.”
“No.”
“You did break my heart in Vegas.”
At least a mile went by before he spoke. “I know.”
“But until now, I didn’t fully understand that you were sorry.”
“I told you I was sorry at lunch that day in Corvallis.”
“I didn’t realize then how sorry.”
“Can we talk about something else? Anything? My funeral plans? Cancer?” He gestured toward Danny. “Your uncle is literally lying right here.”
“Okay.” She took a breath. “But first I want you to know that I’m sorry, too. I’m sorry that I didn’t tell you about Addie when I found out that I was pregnant.”
Her words swirled and sank around them. At length, he nodded. “So it’s agreed. We’re both sorry?”
“Yes.”
“Can you ever trust me again?”
Oh my. That was like asking her to jump across a river. A leap too far to dare. “I don’t know. It’s going to take time.”
His steely gaze flicked to the rearview mirror. She read physical desire there, as well as unflinching determination. “I’ve got time.”
Chapter Twenty-four
The next morning, Saturday, Celia fiddled with Cream or Sugar’s display until she’d positioned each donut and cookie to its best advantage. “I think I might go into the kitchen and make something,” she said to Addie as she slid shut the door to the case. It was near eleven, and they’d hit a lull in business. Plus, Celia had been craving walnut tea bread. “Will you be fine out here?”
“Yes.” Addie stood tall on her stool and settled her palms on either side of her beloved cash register.
“Call me when someone comes in, okay? I’ll help you.”
“Sure, Mom.”
Celia made her way into the kitchen and turned her conc
entration to achieving just the right blend of flour, baking powder, baking soda, and cream of tartar. Twice, customers arrived. Celia went to assist Addie, then washed her hands and got back to baking.
She stilled when she heard the shop’s door open a third time.
“You don’t have to come out,” Addie called back to her. “It’s Daddy.”
Sure enough. She recognized both the bass rumble of Ty’s voice and the telltale cascade of tingles that started at the top of her neck and swirled like firework sparks all the way down to her pinkie toes.
When they’d arrived at Ty’s parents’ house last night, Nancy had been waiting to greet them. After transferring Danny to a guest bedroom, they’d gone on to Celia’s, where John had been baby-sitting a sleeping Addie. Celia had said good-bye to Ty with his dad standing there, watching. It had been brief and impersonal and part of her had been glad. She’d needed space from him so she could digest all the things she hadn’t known about him before. And now did.
She combined her dry and wet ingredients while listening to the muted tones of Addie and Ty’s conversation and laughter. Initially, the idea of having to share her child had filled her with selfish worry. Lately, though, the help of Ty and the other Porters had begun to feel like a blessing.
Eventually, Ty strode into Cream or Sugar’s kitchen wearing a black T-shirt and weathered jeans. “Good morning, my darling angel.”
“I’ve no idea who you’re referring to.” Celia didn’t pause in her walnut chopping, though his handsomeness affected her like champagne that had gone straight to her head.
“Addie said something about painting the shop tomorrow.”
“Yes. I sucked up to Donetta so much this morning that she finally agreed to let me paint. I need to get it done before she changes her mind.”
“I’ll call my family and see who can help. . . .” He slowed, his attention on her feet. “Wait. Just. A. Minute. What do you have on?”
She set down her knife and modeled by lifting one heel to the side and then the other. “The boots you gave me.” It was still hotter than the Sahara, so she’d paired the cowgirl boots with her tangerine shorts and a white V-neck T-shirt.
He lifted his gaze to hers. She watched his eyes darken. “You in those boots?”