Getting Lucky (The Portland Pioneers Book 2) (4 page)

He’d been mildly disappointed that Maggie hadn’t shown an ounce of recognition when he’d so obviously flashed his Pioneers business cards, but right now, he was praying that Hannah was
not
a baseball fan. If she realized he was rich and famous too, she might do something crazy, like climb over the counter, and he definitely wasn’t in a mood to fend off an overly enthusiastic woman tonight.

Correction, Noah realized as he looked at her, an overly enthusiastic
girl
. Because Hannah couldn’t have been any older than twenty. Even before Tabitha had soured him for other women and he’d been hit in the head with a fucking fastball, Hannah would have been too young for him, but before his mid-life crisis, he might have enjoyed looking.

The truth was, Noah was kind of embarrassed by that guy.

“You’re Noah Fox?” Hannah asked and the squeak of her voice increased the pressure that gripped his skull in a seemingly permanent vise. It had been a long drive down from Portland. He’d been fighting the headache off all day, and the frustration at not finding Tabitha at the Café and now this too young, too eager girl were trying to deliver the knockout blow.

“Guilty as charged.” To Noah, smiling was almost as natural as breathing, but his friend Izzy had told him once that his smile tended to make women do crazy things, so he purposefully kept his face as stern as he could.

“I’ve been watching you on TV for years,” Hannah gushed. “I’m a huge Pioneers fan. Imagine Noah Fox staying right here in Sand Point. This is
amazing
.”

“Amazing,” Noah enthused weakly.

“I’m going to give you our best room. It’s a really nice suite,” Hannah said as she shot him a not-at-all-disguised come hither glance from under her lashes, no doubt envisioning a whole list of excuses she could produce for showing up unannounced at his room. “How long are you staying?”

Noah hesitated. “A week,” he said, nearly bracing for her reaction.

“Oh my god,
a week
,” she squealed. “What are you planning on doing here?” He would have protested more at the annoying questions, but she was also still typing away at her computer. He hoped she was actually checking him in and not posting on Facebook that Noah Fox was in Sand Point for the next seven days.

“I’m visiting someone,” he finally confessed when she looked up at him with the most expectant look he’d seen yet in her big brown eyes.

Noah could tell she was dying to ask who it was, but he had to give her credit for swallowing the question. He pulled out his credit card and slid it next to the driver’s license, with the hope that being proactive would speed up this whole process. The headache was pulling at him and if he didn’t get some dark and quiet soon, he was really going to regret it for the next twelve hours or so.

She shot him another sly glance. “Wow, an American Express black card. I’ve never seen one of these before,” she said. “I’m working two jobs right now to save up for college,” Hannah prattled, tossing her hair over one shoulder, “here and at the Sand Point Café.”

Great. That meant between staying at the hotel and holding Maggie to her promise, he was going to be seeing a lot of Hannah over the next week.

He said it before he could change his mind. “I’m here to see Maggie King,” he said casually. “Do you know her?”

Hannah gaped. “Of course, of course I do. She owns the Café.” Her voice dropped and he couldn’t miss the hint of jealousy there. “She’s
really
pretty, isn’t she?”

Noah honestly hadn’t cared whether Maggie was pretty or not. She’d looked like a less-expensive, lower-maintenance version of Tabitha, with curvier cheeks and lighter eyes, but of course that still meant she was a knockout.

He’d thrown out that bit about Maggie to hopefully let Hannah know he was off-the-market, at least for this week, so he had to play along. “She’s gorgeous,” he said with as much enthusiasm as he could muster with his head pounding the way it was.

Hannah didn’t even bother to hide her disappointment. “Oh, well, here’s your key,” she said with a quiver of her lower lip. “Do you need a second copy?”

He didn’t, but he’d set up the idea so it made sense to follow it through. “Yes,” he replied decisively.

Hannah shot him an almost mournful look, and Noah congratulated himself for defusing that situation without having to turn anyone down straight out. No doubt Maggie wouldn’t be too thrilled at the insinuation, when in reality they didn’t know each other at all, but he’d gotten the distinct impression she’d been having a little fun at his expense earlier.

You must not know her as well as I thought you did.

Oh, in just about every daydream he had, he really wished he
didn’t
know Tabitha as well as he had; he wished he was ugly as a baboon with a huge beer belly and limp noodles for arms and that Tabitha hadn’t taken one look at him and decided he’d make a perfect new toy.

It was humiliating to think he’d been picked up, used, and then dropped like everything he had to offer was worthless.

It was even more humiliating that over a year later, he was still trying to get over it.

“Here you go,” Hannah shoved the cards over the counter and he scooped them up, along with his ID and his credit card. His phone buzzed in his pocket again, more insistently this time, and Noah gave Hannah a polite smile of dismissal and grabbed his bag from the floor.

Heading over to the elevator, he pulled his phone from his pocket and scrolled through a number of annoyed texts from his best friend and the second baseman for the Portland Pioneers, Jack Bennett. It sounded like he’d just discovered that Noah had left town—which meant Izzy, Jack’s girlfriend and the only one who’d known Noah was driving to Sand Point, had finally capitulated and confessed the truth.

He was impressed that Iz had held out as long as she had. Jack was like a dog with a bone when there was something he wanted, and she had a definite disadvantage because they were both so crazy in love with each other. Noah would have hated being around them normally, a little annoyed and jealous of the seeming effortless connection they’d formed—the kind of relationship he himself wanted so badly—but he knew that in Jack and Izzy’s case it hadn’t been effortless at all. Izzy had been the Pioneers’ sideline reporter last season and it was highly discouraged for reporters to date players.

Of course, that hadn’t exactly dissuaded Tabitha. She’d taken one look at Noah and even though he’d thought at first it was all
his
idea for them to hook up, he now realized that he’d been seriously, professionally played. And that just pissed him off.

That didn’t mean he couldn’t be happy for Jack and Izzy and he was, he really was. They were good friends, too, good enough to graciously and selflessly include him in their plans even when he was probably the worst third wheel in history.

Noah glanced down at the phone.

Where the hell did you go?

The almost-polite tone (when it came to Jack) disintegrated even further as the texts progressed.

I can’t believe you left right before Thanksgiving. I thought you were coming to our house.

The “our house” in that particular message said it all, Noah thought darkly as the elevator opened onto the third floor. He wasn’t about to intrude on Jack and Izzy’s first Thanksgiving as a couple. He’d never thought of himself as particularly masochistic and he wasn’t about to subject them—and
himself—
to that. Besides, if he needed a place to go for the holiday, he could have always driven farther down, to San Diego, and visited his mom and her husband and their two little girls. But even though he loved his mom and didn’t mind the man she’d married, their home felt nothing like his home.

You’d better have a damn good explanation. You know it’s only a matter of time before Izzy confesses.

He knew the precise text when this prediction came to pass.

This is the fucking stupidest thing you’ve ever done. I can’t believe you went down there to find her
.

Normally a text message was relatively devoid of all vocal connotation, but Noah could practically hear the disdain dripping from his best friend’s voice when he said
her
. After all, Jack was pretty much the only guy on the team that had seen right through Tabitha’s charm and he’d done his level best to warn Noah away from her. Noah hadn’t listened, though. He’d been caught in the web of lust and then love and he hadn’t been able to see Tabitha for who she really was.

He and Jack had fought a lot over Tabitha and he regretted that almost more than anything else. Jack was a good guy, the best friend a guy could have, and in Noah’s darkest moments, when he remembered what he’d said to him over a
woman
, the humiliation and regret were almost too much to stomach.

Noah unlocked his door and let it shut behind him, flicking on the light. It was pretty standard, as hotel rooms went, with a king bed dominating the center of the room, covered with a generic flowered bedspread. An oak-veneered dresser and desk sat opposite the bed, and he said a small prayer of thanks that the TV was a modern flat screen model. The bathroom was as standard as the rest—but at least, Noah thought with a wry smile, the shower curtain was mold-free and there weren’t any bugs on the floor. He’d stayed in better rooms, and he’d definitely stayed in worse.

Still, if this was the “nicest” room the Sand Point Hotel had, he was a freaking monk. He had to give Hannah a little credit, she’d had a backbone after all, though when he saw her again he’d have to warn her. Some guys might not have the same sense of humor about her little bait-and-switch.

He threw his bag on the bed and flopped down next to it. The mattress wasn’t even horrible, Noah thought as he pulled out his phone and clicked through Jack’s texts again. A new one had joined the rest. It was from Izzy.

Sorry I folded. Don’t take what he says too seriously. He’s just worried about you.

Noah let the phone slip through his fingers to the bedspread and closed his eyes against the harsh overhead light. That was almost the very worst—and the very best. Jack didn’t trust that he wouldn’t take one look at Tabitha and beg her to take him back.

As if he hadn’t done enough begging. Those were occasions he only remembered in his darkest moments, and unfortunately it felt like so much of the last few months had practically been pitch black.

His head ached and Noah rolled over, pressing his face against a pillow, gritting teeth against the nauseous pitch and roll of his stomach. He hated when the headache developed into a migraine. That meant he’d have to take something, and the pain pills made him feel weak and vulnerable. But anything was better than spending the night crouched over the toilet.

Noah forced himself upright and carefully, cautiously sorted through his bag, finding the pain pills Dr. Singh had prescribed. He turned the light off as he walked towards the bathroom and in the dark, filled a glass with water and let two of the pills wash down his throat.

The only light left in the room was filtering in from the parking lot below, and Noah hesitated for a moment at the window, staring out from the space between the curtains before he viciously jerked the two halves closed and let himself fall into bed and into the black void.

Maggie had had better mornings.

She’d slept like crap, tossing and turning all night, upset by Cal’s proposition and still mad that he’d had the nerve to suggest it in the first place. It had been nearly painful dragging her tired, sorry ass out of her warm bed at 5 AM when the alarm had gone off. It had never been fun
waking up so early, but she’d gotten used to it and loved working at the Café enough that it was a sacrifice she was willing to make.

Then she’d gotten to the Café and Rosa Ruiz, her other cook, had confronted Maggie with the bad news that the exhaust fan system above the large grill top wouldn’t turn on. Without the fan, they couldn’t use the grill, and that was potentially a major blow to the Café’s business.

Even though it was only 5:30 in the morning, Maggie’s first call had been to Cal. He was an early riser anyway, she’d justified as the phone had rung and rung, and besides, he didn’t deserve to sleep in after making her own good night’s sleep impossible. But Cal hadn’t answered that first call, or the second, or returned any of her voicemails or texts.

It was now 7 AM, and instead of running smoothly as mornings at Café normally did, with orders coming in and coming out of the kitchen, she and Rosa were reduced to cooking over two portable burners she only kept for emergencies and on the off-chance she decided to get into catering. It had seemed foolish to buy the burners a year ago, especially when money was tight, but Maggie was beyond thankful she had. Otherwise she’d have had to shut the doors this morning and the entire day would be one big loss.

The Café wasn’t in a horrible financial state, but it was just precarious enough that she couldn’t really afford to lose an entire day of income.

Still, the two burners weren’t nearly enough to handle the influx of orders, and Maggie knew that if so many of her unusually patient regulars hadn’t been out in the dining room, the situation would have been worse. As it was, she’d noticed the harried looks on Hannah and Janice’s faces as they dropped off order tickets and Maggie, flipping a pancake onto a plate, gritted her teeth. She had to get the fan fixed. Maybe they could make it through breakfast hobbled like this, but not lunch.