Love's Deception (23 page)

Sometime later, she felt a hand on her face.
Probably Danny waking me up to get him cereal,
she thought. But she felt so tired. It couldn’t be time to get up yet. “Catherine,” Ty whispered. “We’re home.”

Her eyes flew open at the sound of his voice. His hand slid across her neck as she sat upright. She looked out the truck’s window at her barn, and the nightmare came back to her like the crashing surf. Ava stuck in the fence, the colic, a trip to the vet. The respite from her worries while she slept had been far too short.

Ty pulled his hand out of hers and opened the door. “I’ll unhook the trailer,” he said, then left her alone in the cab. Cat dropped her head into her hands and listened to the rattle of the trailer chains by the tailgate.

When Ty opened her door and offered his hand, his voice came out soft and gentle. “Come on, Catherine, let’s get you into bed.”

It was nearing midnight, but the light was on in her mother’s room. Cat followed Ty into the house and they walked through the family room where Danny slept on the couch. “I’ll go check on my mom,” Cat said quietly.

“I’ll get Danny into bed.” Ty scooped the boy into his arms and followed her upstairs.

When she finished talking to her mom, Ty sat waiting at the bottom of the steps. He stood and opened his arms as Cat reached him. “Are you going to be okay tonight? If you want, I can stay here.”

If I want,
she thought to herself.
What I want is to stay in your arms all night long. To be there if the vet calls to tell me Ava needs to be put down. To not be alone
. Cat took a deep breath. “I’ll be fine. But thank you, Ty. I never could have made it through today without you. You’re my hero.” She smiled up at him.

He kissed her tenderly. “Will you call me if anything happens tonight?”

“Yeah, I will.”

He moved to leave. “I locked the other doors, and Danny’s in his bed. You try to get some sleep, Catherine. I’ll see you tomorrow before church.”

Ty locked the door behind him, and Cat heard his truck engine rev before he backed out of her driveway. She took the home phone and her cell phone with her to bed that night and fell asleep expecting one of them to ring at any moment.

Twenty
-
Six

Cat awoke to the sound of the TV in the family room. Half awake, she rolled over and looked at the clock. She stopped breathing at the sight of both phones lying on her nightstand. Had the veterinary hospital tried to reach her during the night? She bolted upright and checked. No missed calls.

She had programmed the vet’s number into her cell, so one touch of a button and she waited while it rang. Since it was Sunday, she had to leave a message with the paging service for the vet on call.

Cat pulled on a pair of jeans and stuffed the cell phone into her pocket. She had all the horses fed by the time the vet got back to her. Although Ava was showing improvement, she was still under close observation and needing occasional tranquilizers. They had kept her sedated constantly until around six in the morning. After that, she’d made it nearly two hours without any sedation. According to the vet, the next several hours would be the turning point. The mare would either continue to improve, or if what they’d witnessed was a fluke, she’d begin struggling again.

When Cat went into her mother’s room to give her the report, she stopped short. It appeared as if her mother had aged a year overnight. Her face looked haggard and the tone of her voice conveyed her discouragement. The worry had taken its toll.

Trying to muster more courage than she felt, Cat said, “Mom, don’t lose hope. She made it through the night and they said she might be turning the corner. It sounds like she’s definitely improved.”

Her mom let out a sigh. “I hope you’re right. I guess time will tell. I’ve just never seen her like that before. It scared me.”

It scared Cat too, but she didn’t want to admit that to her mother, at least not right then. She forced a smile. “I think Ava will be fine. She’ll be back here before you know it.”

Truth be told, Cat didn’t know what the day would bring with her mother’s horse. Consequently, she spent the morning cleaning stalls and getting food set out for the evening feeding, hoping to free up some time for a trip to the vet’s if necessary. That left her rushing into the house to get ready for church without a moment to spare.

Ty appeared on her doorstep while Cat was in the shower, so Danny let him in. Sally didn’t have the strength to attempt church today, leaving Cat and Danny free to ride in Ty’s truck. She couldn’t place her finger on it, but something was up with him. He wore a slight frown and seemed nervous, perhaps, or agitated—definitely not his usual happy self. At first, she attributed it to lack of sleep. They’d both gone to bed late last night. But she’d known him to be sleep deprived before, and it never seemed to affect his mood.

Ty pulled into the church parking lot and turned off the truck. “I’ve got to leave right after church is over to catch my flight. Is that okay?”

Cat smiled at him and squeezed his arm. “Sure, but as I recall, it’s usually you we’re waiting for after church.”

He seemed to relax a notch. “I guess you’re right. I’ll make sure not to fall into the missionaries’ snare this week. But now that I’m baptized, I’m certain they won’t find me nearly as interesting to talk to.”

She laughed as they climbed out of the truck. Ty made a point of locking his doors, something she’d never seen him worry about before. He held both her hand and Danny’s as they hustled through the drizzle into the meetinghouse. The bishopric gave Ty a warm welcome as they walked through the foyer, and in the chapel Cat smiled as she again felt curious eyes aimed at her and Ty.

Sacrament meeting passed too quickly, and he unwrapped his arm from around her shoulder. With everything that had happened in the last twenty-four hours, she hoped she was ready to teach Sunday School. Ty surprised her by attending her class.

She found herself in awe of the transformation she saw in him. Clearly, he had been studying his scriptures. He offered insightful comments and asked the kids engaging questions pertaining to the lesson, all of which couldn’t have come in a more timely fashion. Cat felt as if only half of her brain was present. The other half couldn’t stop worrying about her mother and Ava.

The bell rang, dismissing everyone for the third hour of church. When only Ty and Cat remained in the classroom, he blocked the exit. “Cat, will you walk out to my truck with me?” he asked seriously. “I want to have a few minutes alone with you before I leave . . . to talk.”

She stopped erasing the chalkboard and glanced at him, wondering why he seemed so nervous. “All right, let me drop this chalk and eraser at the library on the way out.”

In silence, he followed her to the library and out the door. The drizzle of rain had never let up. He unlocked the passenger door and helped her in. He almost seemed to be taking his time as he walked around the front of the truck to his door. Once he was seated behind the wheel, Ty took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I had a great weekend, Cat. And I wish I didn’t have to fly out this afternoon.”

“I wish you didn’t either.”

“I’ll be back, though. Our Portland office offered me a senior manager position starting in February. So I’ll be moving up here.”

She gasped. He had mentioned trying to get a job in Portland, but she didn’t realize he had done anything about it. “Ty, that’s great. But you don’t seem very happy. Isn’t that what you want?”

“Yes, it’s definitely what I want. But I realize there’s something I want even more. I’ve thought a lot about where my life is going lately. I’ve always loved my profession. The thrill of chasing down a new client and signing them on. The satisfaction of seeing every number on a worksheet or tax return tie out exactly. But it’s not enough for me anymore. I’m tired of living alone. Tired of not being needed by anyone. I see you with Danny, and it makes me wish I was a father. I want somebody waiting at home for me.

“Working with the young men in my ward has opened my eyes to a different way of life than what I grew up with, and if I do have children someday, I want to raise them in the Church. I don’t want my kids floating through high school like I did. I want them to have goals and standards. I want them to have a reason to do what’s right. And then, hopefully, they won’t try all the dumb stuff I did as a teen.”

Ty paused for a minute and Cat watched him look through the blurred windshield and into the steady rainfall. Before she could say anything, he glanced back at her and continued. “But what I want more than anything is you. I’ve never met anyone like you in my entire life. You’ve held my heart captive since the first time I saw you on the side of the road, dripping blood from your hand with your head still held so high that nobody would dare try to defy you. I know I might be jumping the gun on this, but with everything that’s happening, I can’t wait. Catherine” —Ty paused to reach across her and open the glove compartment— “will you marry me?” He pulled a diamond ring made of white gold from a black velvet jewelry box and offered it to her.

Cat held the beautiful ring and sat in stunned silence. This was, quite possibly, the most she’d heard him say in one sitting. But before she could formulate a coherent sentence, he launched into another speech. “Catherine, if I’m moving too fast, I’ll back off. But I don’t want you to feel like you have to get a job—unless, of course, it’s something you want to do. Then I won’t stand in your way. I don’t want you to have to leave your mom to go to work right now, especially with her health the way it is. She needs you. Not to mention, if I was Danny, I’d want my mom at home with me.” Ty pulled out his wallet and handed her a VISA card. “When I had that copy of your tax return, I took the liberty to add you as a joint cardholder on my account. You can use that for whatever you need and I’ll take care of it.”

Cat raised her eyebrows and smiled. “So you’re asking me to marry you for your money?”

Ty laughed. “It’s ironic you should say that. But no, I’m asking you because I love you and want to spend every day of my life with you. You’re all I can think about, Cat. Hopefully you’ll want to marry me for a better reason than my money, but the suspense is killing me. Right now I’d settle for just a yes.”

Cat couldn’t deny his words had touched her heart. “Danny loves you,” she began.

“I love him too. I’ll do my best to be a good father to him.”

She smiled. “It must be your lucky day, because I only marry for love, not money. And I do love you. So yes, Ty, I will marry you.” She slid the ring onto her finger.

Ty ran his hand through his hair and let out a sigh. He leaned across the seat and gently held her face while he kissed her. “Catherine, I love you more than anything. What a relief to hear you say yes. Even after what you told me in your sleep, I was still scared you’d find a reason to turn me down.”

She pulled away. “What
did
I tell you in my sleep?”

He smiled, not answering right away and obviously enjoying having the upper hand with this turn in the conversation. “Well, as I recall, I asked you why you didn’t wake me that night. You said you felt safe and you didn’t want me to leave. So I said if you’d marry me, I wouldn’t have to leave.”

When he stopped talking, Cat turned sideways in the seat and said, “And what . . . then what did I say?”

“You said something like ‘Maybe I will.’ That got me thinking I had a chance, so I wanted to ask you when you were awake and see what the real answer would be.”

Cat felt her face turn red. “Oh. Well, I never know what I’m going to say in my sleep. I suppose you’ll have to get used to hearing crazy things if we’re going to get married.”

Ty laughed. “I look forward to it.”

She watched him pick up her left hand and admire the ring on her finger. “Ty, when is this wedding going to happen?”

“Whenever you want. You name the time and place and I’ll be there.”

Cat sat in silence. She thought fondly of the temple, but since she was sealed to Eric, that wasn’t a possibility for her and Ty. There was no one else she’d rather have perform the ceremony than Bishop Blake, and there was no reason to wait, especially considering her mother’s failing health.

Ty interrupted Cat’s musings. “If we get married by December 31, you probably won’t owe that last estimated tax payment you’re worried about. I’ll bet I’ve already had enough withheld from my paychecks to cover our tax liability if we file a joint return.”

Cat suppressed a laugh, feeling a lightness in her heart that hadn’t been there in years. What an intriguing man she would be marrying. “That’s quite a proposition. I never would have thought of my taxes when picking a wedding date,” she teased.

A sheepish grin spread across Ty’s face. “I guess that’s what you get for agreeing to marry a CPA. I’m afraid analyzing every decision from a financial perspective is a bad habit I’ve picked up. But believe me, I do have other reasons for wanting to marry you sooner, rather than later.”

“I love you, Ty.” She leaned over to kiss him.

With his face inches from hers, he looked at her with those penetrating blue eyes. “How about right before Christmas?” he asked. “I don’t need a fancy wedding, and waking up with you in my arms would be the best Christmas present I can think of.”

Cat’s heart raced in her chest. Being this near him made her feel completely safe, yet her heart fluttered. “I could do Christmas,” she breathed out.

Ty leaned back, smiling. “Good.” He glanced at his watch, then growled under his breath. “I don’t want to leave you.”

“When will I see you next?”

“I’ll check on airline tickets and try to get up here the second weekend of December.” Ty sighed. “Church is almost over. We’d better get Danny and go.”

They ran hand in hand through the rain into the building. “By the way, do you like the ring? Because if you don’t, I can get you a different one,” Ty said holding the door open.

“It’s beautiful. I love it. And it fits perfectly. How did you know what size to get?”

He smiled proudly. “I took your CTR ring off your finger when you were asleep.”

“Is there anything else I missed when I was asleep?”

He laughed. “No, that about covers it.”

Danny darted out of his classroom waving a picture of Jesus he had colored. “Ty, look what I made for you.”

Ty took the picture and smiled at it. “Thanks, little buddy. That’s good coloring.” Cat met her friend Clarka’s gaze as she stood down the hall with her group of Primary kids. Clarka threw up her hand in a friendly wave. Too bad there wasn’t time to share the good news with her. Cat would have to call her.

She let out a deep sigh as she walked down the squeaky clean hall of the clinic. The faint smell of antiseptic hung in the air. Ava had been given a clean bill of health yesterday. Cat’s trailer waited in the loading area. The only thing left was the bill. “Cat Lewis, to pick up Ava,” she told the receptionist.

“Here’s your invoice. All I need is for you to sign here, acknowledging that you’ve picked her up.”

Cat took the pen and signed on the line. “How much do I owe you?”

The receptionist looked over the invoice. “It’s already been paid.”

“Are you sure? By whom?”

“The night your horse came in, Ty Bradford left a credit card number on file. He authorized the charge this morning by phone. So you’re good to go.”