Payoff Pitch (Philadelphia Patriots) (31 page)

Cristina had soon figured out that Noah and Teddy had virtually stopped talking. Teddy had vowed to ignore the thinly disguised gloating, but after the housekeeper’s nasty treatment of the sweet, ever-friendly Poodles, her fuse had started to burn.

“You shouldn’t be surprised,” Cristina said. “I made it clear what I thought about you and Mr. Noah. I won’t apologize for being glad that your little affair is over and done with.”

Coming from Cristina, the words hurt even more. The housekeeper knew Noah very well after all these years, so her confidence that he had no more interest in Teddy was shattering to hear.

“Why do you dislike me so much, Cristina?” Teddy forced a casual air as she poured herself a mug of coffee. “You sometimes act like I’m a threat to you and I don’t understand why. I know you said Noah looked at me differently, but I still don’t get it.”

Teddy had finally if reluctantly come to the conclusion that Cristina was in love with Noah. But surely she wasn’t delusional enough to think that there would ever be a relationship between her and her boss? Cristina acted way more like a mother hen to Noah than any kind of seductress, and Noah had always treated his housekeeper warmly but professionally.

The older woman leaned against the granite counter, her palms on the surface and her arms stiff. She looked great, as always, in a tailored floral blouse and black capris. “I like my life,” she said in a softer tone. “Mr. Noah has always been wonderful to me. I couldn’t ask for anything more than to keep working for him—perhaps for the rest of my life, God willing.” She paused briefly. “You want to know why?”

“Because he’s nice and pays really well, I presume,” Teddy said. “God knows he’s been generous with me. I don’t want to lose my job here either.”

“Yes, but it’s different for me. You, you’re not going to be a dog walker all your life, are you? No, you’re probably going to be a lawyer someday. You have a wonderful future to look forward to, and you have many options.” Cristina said the words with no trace of rancor. In fact, her attitude had changed quickly from surly to almost placid. Like she’d finally decided Teddy was no longer a threat.

“But me?” she continued. “Me, I grew up dirt poor in the Philippines. We had nothing but the roof over our heads, and sometimes not even that. So, to have this…” She spread her arms and pivoted to gaze around the massive, top-of-the-line kitchen. “To live like this, with a kind and generous man who respects me and helps me with everything—well, I can only say that I’m sure there is no one luckier in this world than Cristina Mercado.”

Teddy couldn’t help but feel respect. “But you work hard for what you get, too.”

“Of course. That’s my job. But there is nothing I wouldn’t do for Noah Cade.
Nothing
.” She poured herself a cup of coffee and sat down at the kitchen table. She eyed Teddy for a long, considering moment and then waved her over.

Surprised—shocked, really—Teddy joined her.

“Let me tell you about my youngest sister,” Cristina said. “Her name is Felicia. Years ago, she moved to Manila and got a job as a hotel maid. But then she had the bad luck of marrying a man who was not what he seemed to be—actually, he was a criminal as far as I’m concerned. This cruel man beat her so much. One day, he beat her so badly that she lost the baby she was carrying.”

Teddy felt sick. The exact same thing had happened to Cristina. “I’m so sorry.”

Cristina’s dark eyes filled with pain, but her voice remained steady. “When Felicia got out of the hospital, she fled to a shelter and called me. She begged me to help her come here. To America. To Baltimore, so she could be with me. She was afraid that if she didn’t leave the country, her husband would find her and kill her.”

Teddy leaned forward on her elbows. “Did she come?”

“Oh, yes. I had saved enough money for her ticket. But that’s not the point of my story. The most important thing is not what I did, but what
Mr. Noah
did for her. He took Felicia into our home—his home, I mean—and told her she could stay as long as she needed to. He helped me with money to buy her clothes and other things she needed, and he helped get her into English classes. After she settled in and got some confidence back, he even got her a good job working in a warehouse through his connections to a local businessman.”

“Did she come with you to Philadelphia when Noah moved here?”

“No,” Cristina said with a chuckle—a rarity for the dour housekeeper. “Felicia enjoys her job there. But also, it wasn’t long before she met a man at work and, well, my sister is very beautiful, so it was no surprise that something like that would happen. She said she couldn’t leave her Sam, and he couldn’t leave Baltimore. And now they’re married, and I’m going to be an auntie in September.”

Teddy grinned with relief. “That’s awesome. You must be so happy for her.”

Cristina smiled. “Of course. We both owe so much to Mr. Noah. Felicia adores him. She swears that she’s going to name her first son after him. Noah Samuel Barrino will be his name.”

“That’s a great name, and I agree that Noah is a kind and wonderful man.” Though it wasn’t surprising, it warmed her to hear more evidence that Noah was as good a guy as she’d always thought him to be. Still, Teddy couldn’t help wondering what this particular story had to do with Cristina’s steadfast resentment toward her.

The housekeeper nodded, her eyes actually turning a bit moist. “I don’t know what I’d do if I couldn’t take care of him anymore. It’s crazy, I know, but I can’t even think about losing this job—losing
him
.”

“Well, why would you worry about that, Cristina? Noah obviously thinks the world of you.”

“Yes, but things change, don’t they? Life moves on. Mr. Noah might not always need me.”

She’s worried about being replaced by a wife. It had happened before to her.

But what were the odds that Noah would get rid of his housekeeper if and when he got married? She thought they were pretty darn long from everything she’d seen.

“I get your concern, but you must know that Noah is devoted to you.”

Cristina gave a fatalistic shrug. “Yes, but he must get married someday, no? A truly wonderful man like him? Yes, he must. And maybe then he won’t need me anymore. Maybe I would just be…in the way.” She heaved a little sigh. “He’s never kept anyone around for very long, but he’s getting older and someday he will find the right one.” Her eyes locked on Teddy’s. “I really thought it might be you.”

Teddy gaped at her. Man, she was doing that so much lately she would probably start catching flies in her mouth.

“I knew right away that you were different,” Cristina continued. “Any woman with eyes could see that.”

“So, that’s why you’re relieved that things went south between Noah and me. Because I’m no longer a threat to your future.” Teddy thought she should be angry with Cristina but instead felt a kind of sadness for her. The woman’s opportunities in life were fairly limited and pretty much dependent on her employer. The way Cristina looked at the world, every woman in Noah’s life posed a potential serious threat. That was a pretty awful way to have to live.

The housekeeper nodded. “But I’m not sure what’s going to happen now. He is so troubled. So unsettled these days.”

Tell me about it.
“Yes, I see that.”

“He told me that he might even decide to quit baseball. Retire.”

“Because of his injuries?” Teddy said.
Or because he wants to take his place in the Baron executive offices?

“Yes. Actually, I think that would make me happy, as long as he is content with his decision. After all, he would be home so much more. And we would move to Dallas. I’ve never been to Texas, but I think I would like it. Winter must be easier there, don’t you think?”

Teddy really didn’t want to talk about the weather or the horrifying prospect of Noah packing up and heading for Dallas. Anyway, the conversation had gone from strange to weird, as far as she was concerned. It was time to get going. But at least now she knew exactly where she stood with Cristina.

Threat. Threat removed.

Simple as that.

Still, just thinking in those terms made Teddy ache inside. Though there was probably no future in the cards for her and Noah, it hurt like hell to have somebody else shove that awful reality in her face.

She dredged up a smile. “Well, I’m really glad we had this talk, Cristina. Hopefully, we can get along better now—for however long we’re together here.”

Cristina gave her a look that Teddy simply couldn’t read. “Perhaps.”

After that enigmatic response, the housekeeper got up and went off toward her suite, leaving Teddy alone—and lonely—at the table.

Noah barely noticed the scorching morning sun beating down. He’d prepared for it, wearing an old, floppy hat and slathering sun block on every inch of exposed skin. Besides, his dark tan—courtesy of countless hours in the sun at spring training—offered its own sort of protection.

He had a line in the water, slowly trolling about thirty feet from the pristine lake’s shoreline in his buddy’s twelve-foot boat. Even though nothing was biting, he hadn’t bothered to change the lure since he’d dropped it in. As much as he enjoyed fishing, his escape today had little to do with any desire to pull in a nice walleye or two. He just needed to get away. Away from the team. Away from his house. Away from the big city.

And away from Teddy, too?

He shook off that wayward thought and focused once more on his line. A change of scenery had almost always worked for him back in Texas, his mind settling down whenever he headed to his quiet cabin on Lake Jackson. But then again, back there he’d never had this kind of life-changing decision facing him, had he?

He hoped that some fresher air and greener vistas would get his brain working again, because for the last couple of days all it had done was spin uselessly in his head. He knew there wasn’t much point stewing about anything until he got the results from the MRI, but that hadn’t stopped him. As much as he had no desire to be the public face of the oil and gas companies in their pissing contest with the anti-fracking crowd, he didn’t relish the thought of letting his family down either. He and his father had their differences—plenty of them. But in the end they were Cades, and Cades stuck together when the chips were down.

That historic and inflexible mantra had been drilled into him and Levi when they were growing up on the ranch and in Dallas. Besides, it wasn’t like he hated his family—the opposite, in fact, was true. He’d just always charted his own course and had expected to for several more years.

Then there was the bigger issue. Did he really want to be the next CEO of Baron Energy? That question—once just a distant prospect that he knew he would eventually have to deal with—had now suddenly become real and pressing as age crept up on his father and on him, too. Noah knew that if he made the wrong choice now, it was more than possible that he might be putting up a hell of a roadblock in terms of having any future with the company.

And, as he’d been forcefully reminded this morning, he could never ignore how Teddy Quinn had hurtled into his life and knocked his once-reliable compass out of kilter. She was stubborn and dogmatic and sometimes annoying. But he loved every minute he spent with her, even when she was being a pain in the ass. As pissed off as he was at her for the way she’d lectured him as they drove to the vet’s, he’d hardly been able to keep his hands off her whenever she came to the house. But he knew that if he acted on the desire he still felt for her, and if she wound up letting him carry her up to his bed, it would screw with his head so bad that he was liable to make his decision with his cock, not his brain. So, he’d reluctantly steered clear of her as much as he could.

But then she’d shown up at the crack of dawn this morning, looking pretty and sad and like she wanted more than anything for him to take her into his arms. But once again they’d verbally circled each other like a pair of UFC fighters looking to launch the first strike. The brief encounter had been awkward and full of unspoken messages. When Teddy said she almost wished she could go with him to the Poconos, Noah had frozen for a second or two. Then his reaction had been pure, defensive instinct—to raise an eyebrow and throw the ball back into her court. What he might have done if she hadn’t quickly backed away, he’d never know.

All he’d known for sure was that, for a moment, he’d wanted Teddy to jump into his car and come with him, running away from all their problems. He’d wanted it as much as he’d ever wanted anything from a woman.

And, God help him, he still did.

Even though Teddy was a hundred fifty miles away, she could hear her father’s sigh and feel his disappointed reaction through the telephone line, loud and clear. “You think he’ll do it?” he asked.

She’d just filled him in on what Adam Cade was pressuring Noah to do. She’d hesitated to tell him, knowing how much her father admired Noah. But a few seconds into the phone call he’d figured out that something was bugging her and had skillfully persevered until he’d wormed the whole story from her. She’d always found it kind of freaky that her father invariably called when she was upset about something, as if he had some kind of Dad ESP.

“I don’t know what he’s going to do,” she said, squeezing her cell phone between her ear and her shoulder. She groped for her debit card as she stood in line at Starbucks, having just finished up some research at the university library. “I don’t think he really wants to, but he obviously feels a very strong sense of obligation to his father and brother.”

“Well, that’s an admirable quality, isn’t it? Family counts for a lot if a person’s got any sense.”

She almost dropped her phone. “Sure, but come on, Dad. You can’t think it’s okay for Noah to front a pro-fracking campaign.”

Her father snorted. “Well, I wish the hell he wouldn’t, but I’ll bet the pressure on the poor guy is pretty intense. That’s all I’m saying, honey.”

Teddy had no doubt on that score. She’d seen how haunted Noah had looked yesterday morning as he prepared to escape to go fishing. “You got that right,” she said as she swiped the card and entered her PIN. “He’s feeling a lot of pressure for sure.”