Getting Lucky (The Portland Pioneers Book 2) Read Online Free PDF Page A

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