“Baby keeping you up all night?” Todd slapped his back while they were dressing in the locker room.
“He’s doing okay.”
“I mean, that baby just looks so much like you—he’s a spitting image.”
“Yep.” Since when had Todd seen the baby? It wasn’t as if they had had time to make baby announcements. In any case, Cade had no time to banter. He was in a hurry to visit his mother at the rehab facility she had been transferred to.
“Who would have thought, out of all the guys she did the rumpty-tumpty with, you’d be the winner?” Todd sighed exaggeratedly. “Hit the jackpot.”
Cade pulled on his pants and tucked his shirt in. “Love to chat, but I gotta go.”
“Sure seems like you’ve got everything going your way. Baby boy, devoted girlfriend, even your mother drug free and overjoyed to be a grandmother, oh, and starting position on Saturday.”
“Yep.” Cade pulled on his socks and slipped into his shoes. “See you tomorrow.”
“Hey, I’ve got an idea. The guys, we want to do a baby shower for you. Knock back a few beers and do a diaper collection. How about this Saturday after the game?”
“Uh, it’s really not necessary.” Cade closed his locker and picked up his gym bag. “I appreciate the sentiment.”
“Nah, really.” Todd shut his locker and hooked his arm over Cade’s shoulder. “Now that your baby’s doing well, even though he was almost two months premature, we ought to celebrate. Shouldn’t we, guys?” Todd called to the other teammates in the locker room. “I say baby shower for Cade after the game. My place.”
“Sure, let’s do it,” Todd’s buddy, Steve Sanderson said. “Guys only. Make sure you bring the little guy.”
“Yeah, show him off.” Todd clapped his hands. “It’s not every day our starting quarterback clones himself. Don’t y’all think that baby looks just like Cade? Except for the mouth part. Sorry, bud, he must have gotten Rox’s mouth.”
“Lucky kid,” Sanderson said. “Rox has a hot mouth.”
“That’s enough,” Cade growled. “You got a problem with me, bite me. Leave my baby and his mother out of it.”
“Oh, but we love you, your baby, and his mother.” Todd clamped his arm tighter around Cade’s shoulder. “Such an interesting combination of blood groups, how your blood type is O and the baby’s a B?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Cade flung Todd’s hand from his shoulder and strode toward the exit.
“Maybe you’re not as lucky as you want us to think. I smell a fish, Cade Prescott, and I’m getting to the bottom of this, one way or another.”
* * *
“Hey, Andie, remember me? Sylvia?” A woman’s voice called from the intercom later that afternoon. “The boss sent me to give his regards. He hopes you can come back to work soon.”
Sylvia was the admin at Andie’s job with Silver Studios. Andie dimly remembered she was supposed to be friends with Sylvia. And then there was the news that she, Andie, was supposed to be an actress in training. How exciting!
She opened the door and greeted the admin. “Come in, this is my mother, Pam, and Cade’s baby, Bret.”
Sylvia greeted Pam and exclaimed at the cuteness of little Bret. She turned to Andie with sparkling eyes.
“Do you recognize me?” she said, twirling her colorful dress. Half of it was bright, dazzling kente cloth fabric with orange, pink, green, and black geometric zigzags, and the other half was Japanese-style full of cranes, suns, and cherry blossoms in white and red over a turquoise background.
The colors clashed but complimented Sylvia’s light brown skin. Andie, with her pale milky complexion, would be washed out in the cacophony of colors.
“That is an interesting combination,” Andie’s mother said, probably to buy time for Andie to recall her friend.
Sylvia looked to be African-American, but her eyes were narrow and slanted, and her hair was black and glossy, pressed straight. A memory of her telling Andie she was a hafu or halfie, biracial, surfaced from the depths of her mind, and an image of Sylvia wearing half a kimono grabbed Andie’s attention.
“I do remember you,” she said. “You have half a kimono. It’s coming back. I work with you and some guy who’s Chinese and wears Israeli clothes?”
“Yes!” Sylvia grabbed Andie’s hands and jumped up and down. “That would be Leroy Chan. You guys are writing the script for the movie about King David and his wives.”
“And we disagree on which wife is the favorite.”
“Exactly. You have to come back to work and meet everyone again. Mr. Silver will be so pleased.”
“Uh, I’m not sure Andie’s ready,” her mother cut in. “She still gets headaches and dizzy spells.”
“Oh, Mom, I’m okay. I can’t stay around here all day trying to remember. I just have to go and see. Maybe more stuff will pop into my mind, and I can capture them.”
“I’ll drive you there and bring you back,” Sylvia said. “In fact, I can pick you up every day. Are you coming to Ronaldo’s party this Sunday? We’ll go as twins, or mirror-twins.”
Andie glanced at the colorful outfit. “I’ll look terrible with all those bright colors. Look at me, I don’t even have a tan.”
“You’ll look great. Who says you have to walk around wearing pastels and shades of gray?” Sylvia turned Andie around and around. “Look how bright red your hair is. We’ll jump out of a cake together. Let’s go shopping. Mr. Silver said I can take you out and we don’t have to go back to work.”
Who could resist Sylvia’s enthusiasm? Certainly not Andie. She turned to her mother. “Are you okay with watching Bret or …”
“Go, go.” Her mother smiled. “It’s good for you to have friends. Maybe your memory will return as you go back to your normal environment.”
“Except doesn’t Declan work there too? I don’t really want to play that role of concubine.”
“Oh, that?” Sylvia flipped her hair and wagged her head. “Leroy changed it. He thinks it’s demeaning to you. No, you’re Michal now. He’s rewritten the script. While you were in the coma, he came by and borrowed your Michal’s Window book. Now he agrees with you about Michal and David being true lovers forever. We can swing by and pick up the script if you want to read it.”
“I get to be Michal?” Andie sucked in a breath and clasped her hands together. This was her dream come true. “I love to be Michal. I live, breathe, and dream Michal.”
“Girl, you’re a star now, and you need a new wardrobe. What are we waiting for?” Sylvia bumped Andie’s hip. “Let’s go shopping.”
“I can’t believe this is happening. Dad will be so proud of me.” Andie hugged her mother and kissed the top of Bret’s head.
“Are you going to be okay?” Andie’s mother sounded reluctant to let her go. “If you’re at all tired or feel disoriented, call me right away. The nurse went over symptoms, let me copy them down for Sylvia to watch for.”
“Mom, you worry too much. I feel great.” Andie’s heart and lungs expanded with a surge of adrenaline and excitement. “I’m starting to remember. Declan was right. He said I’d dreamed of being an actress and that he got me the opportunity.”
“Did you forget how he was just here calling you names?” Her mother corralled her.
“No, I didn’t. But he gets that way when he’s jealous. I’m not going to let him stop me from my dreams. Playing Michal is a dream come true—especially if the script’s written from my most favorite book in the world.”
“The Bible?” her mother reminded.
Ugh, almost. “Yes, sure,” she said. After all, Michal’s Window was loosely based off the Bible story, even if the author extended it with additional characters and questionable scenes.
“Great, then what are we waiting for?” Sylvia squealed. “Let’s celebrate!”
“Remember, no drinking. You’ve had a brain injury,” her mother reminded, as Andie pulled on her sneakers and bounded down the driveway with Sylvia.
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Chapter Eleven
Cade took his mother by the hand and led her down the pathway of the beachfront rehab facility. His gut and chest fumed and churned to yell at her and lecture her for ruining her life and leaving his son unattended.
But the look on her hangdog face and the way her shoulders slumped to the ground stopped him. The important thing was she’d agreed to stay at the rehab facility.
They walked across the sand, and he set the beach chairs down facing the water, close enough so that the edge of the surf lapped at their feet. He’d stay out here as long as it took to get answers.
“I’m sorry about what happened,” Barb started as she dug her toes into the damp sand. “I shouldn’t have left Bret alone.”
“How did you score the drugs? That’s what I want to know.”
She shrugged and chewed on her lower lip.
Cade knew better than to push, so he stretched his legs and squished sand between his toes. The lapping of the water, rhythmically back and forth, the churn and bubbles calmed his breathing.
“I used to bring you down to the beach and dip your feet in the water,” his mother said. Her eyes were glazed, staring into the sunset. “You’d squeal and laugh. Your feet kicking like little paddles.”
Since when had his foster parents allowed his junkie mother to take him on outings? Cade hunched and unhunched his stiff shoulders to relax the sore muscles. He wasn’t going to let her anywhere near Bret until she was completely clean—maybe an impossibility given the heavy addictive nature of heroin.
“You were adorable, smiling at me with that big gap in your mouth. It was my fault you were born that way. I took drugs you know.”
Duh! Cade let out a grunt. He’d been told that story already—born both drunk and high—then going through withdrawal. Thankfully he had no memory of it. It was a way for his foster parents to lecture him to stay away from drugs.
It had worked. He’d also stayed away from his mother, refused to see her—refused her gifts—and ran away from the one foster family who’d tried to push him to spend time with her. He’d been eight or nine when that happened, right after the drug talk.
“I’ve never taken drugs.” Cade let the water bury his feet.
“I’m glad. Smack is like the devil. He never leaves you nor forsakes you. He’s always hooking his finger around every corner with his fake promises, but he always lets you down.”
“I’ll say. You OD’d. Where’d you get the stuff?”
“I don’t know.” Barb kicked her feet in the advancing tide.
“So, let me understand. The syringe and the powder just magically appeared, and you decided to take a break near the garbage cans?”
“Something like that. Bret was napping.”
“He wasn’t when I got home. His diaper was soaked, and he was sweating up a storm.”
Barbara hefted herself from the beach chair and splashed toward the ocean until the water was up to her hips, wetting her shorts. Her shoulders heaved, and she covered her face as she let out a feral wail.
Anger roiled in Cade’s gut, and he clenched his fists. He wasn’t the cuddly, comforting type of guy. Not the way he grew up, emotionally closed, bounced from foster home to foster home. Let her suffer and burn in guilt. She deserved it.
He waited as the tide advanced. The thing about addicts, they were these poor, pathetic people, sucking up your sympathy, making promises they never kept. Emotional vampires.
The tide surged and water trailed underneath the chairs as the sun descended in a display of sheer beauty. Cade picked up the chairs and moved them, then strode through the surf to where his mother stood, up to her waist in seawater.
He dragged her back as a wave crested and slammed into her chest. “Let’s go. You’re obviously not going to tell me where you got the drugs. Bret’s not enough of an incentive for you to quit, just like I was never enough.”
“That’s not true.” She jerked her arm from him and headed deeper toward the breaking waves.
“Oh, no you don’t.” Cade caught her and lifted her with his arms around her waist. “You’re not quitting on me now. Despite everything, I love you, and I’m not letting you destroy my life all over again.”
She grabbed onto him, her arms around his neck and sobbed into his shoulder. “I don’t deserve you. I never did anything to deserve you or the house you bought me or you letting me into your life.”
“Well, you got me whether you want me or not. I’ve accepted it. The drug will always be more important to you than me or anyone else. If I have to keep you under twenty-four hour guard, I will. No one is going to give you drugs again, not while I’m alive.”
“Put me down, and let me go.” She kicked her legs, even as she held onto him. “I’ve ruined your life enough as it is.”
“You should have thought about that before you opened your legs for my father, whoever he is. Too late now. I’m stuck to you because you’re the only mother I have.”
He left the beach chairs and carried his mother through dry sand and back to her room while she wept, her tears wetting his shirt.
“It’s my fault you never got adopted,” she sputtered as he set her on her bed, wet clothes and all. “I never signed the papers. You could have grown up the son of a Beverly Hills surgeon—your first foster mother. She wanted you badly, and she loved you, but I was too selfish. I couldn’t let you go.”
“It’s okay, Mom. I’m glad I didn’t grow up rich and entitled and turn into an ass like my buddy, Ronaldo.”
Barb ran her finger over his upper lip, tracing the cleft palate scar. “She did a great job. After you, she took in another child born with a cleft and adopted him.”
He held his mother’s face and examined the harsh life etched in every line and wrinkle. She’d sold herself short. “You were voted most likely to succeed in high school.”
She snorted and rolled her eyes.
“You can still succeed, starting now, one day at a time. But if you don’t, I’ll still love you. I won’t cut you off. I won’t leave you nor forsake you, because dammit, I’m better than Uncle Smack. And I’m not making fake promises. This. Me. Bret. Andie. You. Family. This is where the buck stops, and nothing else is important.”
“What did I do to deserve you?”
He kissed her forehead. “You kept me when you were pregnant. Now you’re stuck with me.”
* * *
“You know what I like about you?” Sylvia said to Andie as she flipped through the clothes rack at We the People, a trendy store full of hipster and Bohemian clothes.
“Isn’t this expensive thrift shop clothes?” Andie eyed the distressed jeans and scarf edged tops.
Sylvia giggled. “As I was saying, what I like about you is you’re so fresh. I can’t say fresh off the boat, because you’re like what, an Anglo? But yeah, you’re kind of FOBish, in a white girl sense.”
“You mean dorky and nerdy, but in a nice way.” Andie held a daisy lace dress, completely see through except for the built in pink bikini bottom and top. “How’s this going to keep you warm?”
“That dress is so you. Innocent and sexy, very feminine. Try it on.”
“Uh, it’s like wearing a bikini with a lace sheath. Oh look, there’s no back, it’s just the bra strap.”
“That’s not a bra strap, silly. It’s part of the top, see the triangles that cover your boobs and the spaghetti shoulder straps? This is the band that holds it together. You don’t wear a bra underneath.”
“But hot pink under white lace? Everyone will think it’s my underwear.” Andie eyed the intricate daisies and the label declaring it a Venice column lace, whatever that was.
“Exactly the point. Sexy and innocent at the same time. Cade’s eyes will pop out of his head,” Sylvia exclaimed. “Believe me, ever since you swung into town, all the groupies and models in LA haven’t been able to turn his head. You’re all he sees and wants.”
“Are you sure this won’t portray a slutty image?” Andie tried to hi
de the blush on her face with the dress. She had no idea what Cade had seen or hadn’t.
“Absolutely not. Trust me.” Sylvia took the dress and draped it in front of her. “You’ve got to wear this to the party.”
“I thought we’d be twins,” Andie protested.
“Voila!” Sylvia grabbed a black Venice column lace dress complete with red hot bikini bottom and triangular top. She waggled her eyebrows. “You’re the angel and I’m el diablo. Ha, ha, ha.”
“And we’re jumping out of a cake? Why?”
“Because it’s more fun that way.” Sylvia patted her behind. “Seriously, Cade will cream in his pants.”
Andie wanted to ask Sylvia how she knew what Cade would do in his pants and whether she’d ever seen them together, but that would be admitting she didn’t remember any of their hot dates—if they’d had any. Cade seemed so sweet and respectful. It was hard to imagine a clean cut guy like him lusting after a woman wearing hardly any clothes.
“Okay, let’s try these on.” Andie looked through the tags for her size. “You’re so much slimmer than me. I better take a ten and a twelve.”
“Get out of here, girl. You’re no bigger than a six.”
“Trust me, I know my measurements.” Andie tapped her head. “I might have forgotten a lot, but I’m no model and my ribs don’t stick out.”
“Good, because he’ll have such a time licking the frosting off of you.” Sylvia twirled with the black lace number and disappeared into the dressing room.
Andie wished she had Sylvia’s confidence on exactly what Cade would like or not, but she’d been fishing in her mind all day, and for the life of her, she couldn’t recall how they’d met, why their dogs got along so well, or why he, a pro football player with hordes of prettier and sexier women, would proclaim to love her, a small town librarian with an obsession with ancient history.
Chapter Twelve
Cade needed some alone time with Andie, but as soon as he got home, he rushed in to check on Pam and the baby. She was in the kitchen, and Bret was sleeping in his battery-powered swing with a dog on either side. The baby must have sensed his presence because as soon as the dogs perked up, so did Bret.
Intercepted by Love: Part Four: A Football Romance (Playing the Field Book 4) Page 6
