Folding Hearts (Mitchell Family #2)(45)
Author: Jennifer Foor

Her little fingers were moving for him to grab her and that is exactly what he did. I couldn’t look over at Van and her mother, in fact I couldn’t even look at Ty’s parents, who had turned around with the happiest look on their faces. I knew Ty was ecstatic. Bella had chose him. It was as if she knew all along he would be her daddy.

It was beautiful.

Chapter 24

Tyler

There are moments in life where you just know you will never forget. That day when Izzy called me ‘Daddy’ in front of the entire church congregation was one of those moments. She chose me on her own. I didn’t even have to ask her mother first. Izzy knew that I was her daddy and that I loved her more than anything.

Van and her mother let out a simultaneous gasp when they heard it. It’s funny how things happen at the precise moment when you don’t want them to. I myself didn’t care that they heard it, but Miranda looked mortified that it happened in front of so many people. She had been judged her whole life and tried to stay out of the spot light. She had no idea that her beauty made that impossible.

So I had this plan where I was going to ask Miranda to marry me with Izzy holding a sign asking if I could be her daddy, but since she was already calling me it, my plan went to shit. I ended up having more time to get a new plan, because the ring wasn’t ready in two weeks. It actually took five.

Van went home that weekend and kept her promise about telling the family that Miranda and I were involved. For the first week Miranda freaked out whenever someone from home called. As the time passed, she realized that we were in the clear. Colt and Van’s wedding was only five weeks away. Miranda and I had been living together for over two months and every day got better than the one before it. I had to sneak out on my lunch break one day to pick up her ring. I took it out of my pocket a million times to stare at it. I had the jeweler add a circle of diamonds around the single solitaire stone. It changed the look of the ring completely and I was pleased with how it turned out.

I remember the night I asked her, like it was just yesterday. Miranda had to work that day, so we rode in together. The ride home I was so quiet and she sensed that something was up, but I wasn’t about to blow my surprise. She kept at it though, driving me completely insane. She knew me so well and I hated that I had a secret, but was super excited about it too.

When we finally got home we walked over to get Izzy from my mother’s. Of course she came running out to me. “Daddy.”

“There’s my girl.” I gave her big kisses before giving her to Miranda. Sometimes she didn’t even want to give Mommy kisses. I felt kind of bad about that.

I hadn’t told my parents that the ring was ready, so they had no way of knowing that I was planning on popping the question. They kept inviting us to eat dinner with them. I gave them weird looks and tried to signal that it was a special night, but they kept insisting.

While my mother and Miranda worked on getting dinner ready, I found a piece of paper and wrote down the exact words I had thought of using. I was so nervous and the sweat was rolling down my face, even though it wasn’t hot in the room at all. Izzy was being so ornery and I hoped that she would help me with my plan, in fact she was the biggest part of it.

I could hardly eat dinner, due to the fact that my stomach was in knots. I had never considered that she might say ‘no’. My family kept watching me at the dinner table asking what the hell was wrong, but I insisted I was fine.

I waited for the ladies to get dinner cleaned up. The waiting was so hard. Izzy was getting tired and my parents had a show they watched so I needed to get the show on the road. Miranda walked in and sat down across from me. I took a deep breath as my mother sat next to her. I had no idea what they were talking about, because I think my heart was beating so hard that it was preventing me from hearing.

“Izzy, come here to Daddy.” Saying that was never going to get old. I reached my hands out for her. I gave her the folded piece of paper. “Give this to Mommy.”

She walked the paper over to Miranda perfectly and I giggled when she came running right back to me, as if she knew my next move. Miranda opened the paper and looked confused.

The piece of paper read : Daddy wants to know if we can change our names to Mitchell?

I put the ring on Izzy’s thumb and told her to take it to her Mommy. She looked down at it and walked it over to her.

“Here.” Izzy said like a little angel.

I got down on one knee in front of Miranda. “I know this is sudden, but please be my wife. I want this to be forever. I want us to be a family.”

Miranda was shaking and crying. My mother rubbed her back. I just sat there waiting for her to answer. The suspense was killing me. She finally nodded her head. “Yes, I will marry you.”

I slid that ring on her finger and kissed it. “Then I guess we are getting married.”

“I guess this is why you were acting so weird earlier?” She asked.

“I was sweating bullets.”

My dad walked up and hugged Miranda. “Welcome to the family darling, even though you were already a part of it.”

She gave my mother a big hug and I noticed that even my mother had tears in her eyes. I couldn’t believe that they loved Miranda so much. Bella was clapping even though she had no idea what had just happened.

For the next two weeks Miranda walked around glowing, but the closer it got to us having to go to Kentucky, she started to get tense. One night she was really in rare form. Everything I did and said couldn’t relax her.

“Baby what is wrong?” I grabbed her into my arms.

“I don’t want to be away from you Ty. I am so scared to face them. They are going to try everything to break us up. They aren’t going to care about this ring or what it stands for.”

I hated that she was so sad. I looked over to my sleeping little girl, yes my little girl, and thought about being away from them. I closed my eyes and tried to remain calm. “Let’s just get married. We can apply for a license tomorrow and get it taken care of before we go to Kentucky. If we are married they can’t tear us apart.”

“Are you sure? I don’t want to force you into it.”

“Baby, I love you and our little girl. The sooner you have my last name, the better.”

She wrapped her arms around me. “I love you so much Ty.”

“Since we are talking about it, I want to know your take on my adopting Izzy. She needs to have my name Miranda. I want to be her only daddy. How do we get him to sign off on that without your family finding out?”