Intercepted by Love: Part Six: A Football Romance (The Quarterback's Heart Book 6)

P
lease read
Intercepted by Love
: Part One
,
Intercepted by Love: Part Two
,
Intercepted by Love: Part Three
,
Intercepted by Love: Part Four
, and
Intercepted by Love: Part Five
first.

Victory should be sweet for pro quarterback, Cade Prescott. He’s won the Super Bowl MVP, has a baby on the way, and is marrying the love of his life, librarian Andie Wales.

Raised by foster parents, Cade yearns to be part of a real family. Unfortunately, his mother is running from the law, and Andie refuses to plan the wedding unless her future mother-in-law is included.

Will Cade and Andie’s special day result in reconciliation or utter ruin?

C
opyright
© 2015 by Rachelle Ayala

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission from the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real events or real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

All trademarks belong to their respective holders and are used without permission under trademark fair use.

Cover design by Rachelle Ayala Publishing, LLC

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http://rachelleayala.me/author-bio/contact/

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“
H
ow’s my birthday girl
?” Cade Prescott silenced the alarm clock and placed his hand over the pregnant belly of his fiancée, Andie Wales. Sunlight streamed through the lacy curtains of their cottage in the woods outside of Itasca, New York, the small college town where he’d met Andie the year before.

She mumbled and groaned as she rolled toward the side of their waterbed. “Have to pee.”

“Can I give you your birthday kiss?” He rubbed her abdomen. “Or give our little Bonnie a kiss?”

Andie was more than eight months pregnant with their little girl and almost ready to pop. Of course, he knew better than to make any comments about her size or explosive potential. After all, he was in training to be a good husband.

“After I pee.” She threw his hand from her body and swung her legs off the side of the bed.

“Let me help you.” Undaunted, he sprang from the bed and grabbed her hands, pulling her to her feet.

“Oh, come on, Cade.” Andie twisted to get out of his grip. “I can at least pee by myself.”

“I know that, but you’ve been on bedrest for over twelve weeks.” He followed her to the bathroom, trying not to worry. Now that she was past the danger zone, her doctor had allowed her to get out of bed and move around.

Andie hobbled to the toilet and pulled up her nightgown. “Can you shut the door?”

“You sure you won’t fall in there?” He closed the door, leaving a crack. “Make sure to use the handrails.”

“I’m pregnant, not disabled. Sheesh.”

Was it his imagination, or was his usually amiable and easygoing Andie turning into a grouch?

Cade popped a breath mint and tried to recall the tips he’d read in a men’s magazine for dealing with pregnant women.
Don’t give her advice. Don’t treat her like glass. Don’t point out how big she is. And above all, don’t complain.

“You’re doing great,” he said, hoping he didn’t sound like an insincere labor coach.

Her only answer was the sound of her tinkling, followed by a flush.

So, she wasn’t the bubbly sweetheart he’d met a year ago. She’d been on bedrest since the end of January when she went into premature labor and hadn’t been able to attend the Super Bowl where he’d thrown the game winning pass and had been named Most Valuable Player.

Two months had gone by since he’d proposed to her over video conferencing, witnessed by the entire stadium and TV watching audience. Two months of bedrest for Andie, and two months of interviews, endorsements, and disrupting the sleepy university town with news vans and media. Cameras followed him from Andie’s parents’ home, to the rescue shelter he volunteered at, and to the stroke rehabilitation center her father worked out at. He’d caused so many traffic jams, the mayor of Itasca had kindly requested him to find a place outside of town in a gated community up in the hills, which suited him and Andie just fine, since they were finally out from under her parents’ noses.

The bathroom door opened and Andie blinked at him, finally smiling. “All yours.”

“Why, thank you.” Cade looped her into his arms and kissed her. “Happy Birthday.”

“Mmm ….” She kissed him back, but kept her mouth closed. “Morning breath.”

“Morning breath? I popped a mint while you were in there.”

“Not yours, mine.” She covered her mouth and dove back into the bathroom for her toothbrush.

“I love your morning breath.” Cade nuzzled the back of her neck while she turned on her electric toothbrush. He couldn’t help running his hands over her belly, reassured that his baby girl grew inside. “We’re running out of time to get hitched before Bonnie’s born.”

“Oh, no. Not that again.” Andie rinsed her mouth. “Have you gotten in touch with your mother yet?”

“I hired a private investigator, you know that.”

His mother, Barbara Prescott, was wanted by the law for grand theft and extortion, and Andie was refusing to plan the wedding until they’d heard from her.

“Any news?” Andie twisted her long, red hair into a bun and secured it with a clip.

“If I had news, I would have told you.” A plume of irritation swarmed over his scalp. All he wanted was to finally have the family he’d always yearned for and to settle down. None of this uncertainty still left with the baby possibly showing up before they were married.

Andie squinched her nose at him. “You’ll regret it if your mom isn’t part of the wedding.”

“She was barely part of my life, and she made her own choice, running off with the loot.” Cade crossed his arms and felt his muscles tighten. This argument had been going on way too long. His mother had been addicted to heroin and had left him in a slew of foster homes growing up while she flitted in and out of his life at her convenience.

“She might get tired of running,” Andie said. “I think she’ll want to come back for the wedding and to meet this little one.” She patted her abdomen. “I can’t wait to meet our little Bonnie Blue.”

“How’d you know she’ll have blue eyes?” Cade blinked his baby blues and wrapped his arms around his fiancée. “I want our little Bonnie to be legal.”

He’d already had an illegitimate son, a darling boy named Bret who was born eight months ago to Roxanne Cash, a fashion designer who’d pulled off a scheme to extort money by pretending the baby was the son of another man. It was a long story, but Roxanne had taken a plea bargain and signed away her parental rights, and Andie had started adoption proceedings.

“You and my mom are rushing me.” Andie pouted, her cuteness almost making him forget they were having an argument, okay, a discussion. “She keeps pushing me to look for wedding gowns and shoving maternity wedding catalogs at me.”

“You don’t need a wedding dress.” He eyed her perfect shape, ripe with his child growing inside. This was his dream come true, to have the woman he loved bearing a child for him. What more could any man want? Certainly not a designer wedding dress and a big to-do.

“Oh, I doubt you’d want me to get married naked.” Andie chuckled. She turned on the water to heat up the shower. “Feels so good to be on my feet again.”

“Any contractions?”

“None at all. Strange. Seems like all that stress was for nothing.” Andie stretched and yawned.

It was all Cade could do not to grab her melon ball boobs, a benefit of pregnancy. He shifted his sweatpants and focused on the argument, er discussion. “We should at least go together to apply for the marriage license. Your divorce has been final for two months already.” Not that he was counting—scratch that, of course he’d been counting.

“There’s no rush.” Andie enunciated as if he were a toddler. “Don’t you think I have enough to deal with? This pregnancy, Bret, my father’s rehabilitation?”

Andie’s father was recovering from the stroke he’d suffered a year ago. His speech was much improved from before, and he was in physical therapy to regain his ability to walk. A year ago, Andie’s family didn’t have the finances for her father’s rehab, especially the high tech robotics needed to help him walk again, but with Cade being the Super Bowl MVP, a foundation had caught up with his story and come up with the funds in exchange for Cade being a spokesperson for them.

“All true, but Bonnie could be born any minute.” Cade stuck to his guns. “We just have to go to the county clerk’s together to apply for a license and wait twenty-four hours.”

Andie’s lips flattened, and she drew her eyebrows together. “That won’t do. I’m the only granddaughter in my family. My aunts and uncles will kill me if I don’t have a wedding. Besides, Mom and Dad want to give me away together. It doesn’t have to be a big production, but I’ve always dreamed of a wedding on the shores of Canandaigua Lake.”

“You should have told me earlier.” Cade wiped his hair, shaking his head. “We need to reserve the location months ahead of time.”

“It’s only April.” Andie shrugged. “If you had contacted your mother by now, we could have moved forward to setting a date.”

The baby was due in May. With the way Andie was dragging her feet, Bonnie would be born before they were married. This thing about his mother was unreasonable. After all, she’d left no forwarding address. Both she and his brother, Donnie, had disappeared after stealing the big bag of chips from the FBI. There was no way they’d waltz into a wedding on the shores of Canandaigua Lake, and Andie knew it.

Cade leaned forward, getting into his darling fiancée’s face. “I’m thinking there’s another reason why you want to delay the wedding and it has nothing to do with my mother. Is this some sort of rebellion thing against your mother and her church? You know how important it is for me to have Bonnie be legal. I was born out of wedlock and relegated to foster homes.”

Andie’s nostrils flared and a fierce blush colored her face. “You know full well this has nothing to do with you. There’s no way we’re sending Bonnie to a foster home. Maybe you don’t see it, but your mother was always kind to me, and I care about her. She’s out there somewhere, and if we invited her, she’d be here.”

Was Andie naïve or what? Oh, right. She was. Her parents were still together. She lived with them even while working at the library. She’d been sheltered by a religious mother and an intellectual father.

Cade clenched his teeth and swallowed, closing his eyes. Patience. Patience. She meant well. That was one of the things he loved about her—hoping for the best and believing the good in everyone.

“I’d like my mother to attend, too,” he said. “In fact, I’m going to miss the mother-son dance as much as anyone, but sweetheart, I know Barbara Prescott. She may mean well, and she may care about you, or me, or Bret, but she’ll never, ever put anyone in front of her survival. Ever.”

That had always been true. His mother was a heroin addict. She’d gotten pregnant at a young age and gave up her baby to the system when Cade was born with a cleft palate. For a living, she’d blackmailed Dick Davis, Cade’s biological father, who was married to a wealthy socialite, Dinah Silver. Sure, she did befriend Andie when she was new in town, but if push ever came to shove, Barb Prescott would save her own skin. No one else’s.

Andie must have felt his anguish, because she stepped forward and wrapped her arms around his waist. Her softness lowered his blood pressure, a little, but he couldn’t help the overwhelming sense of loss from swamping him. She was right. He’d never have a normal life, much less a normal wedding. There would be no mother-son dance, no grandmother at Bonnie’s baptism, no baby shower, no birthday parties with her presiding as the matriarch of the Prescott clan.

“Let’s not argue about this,” Andie said, hugging him tight. “Even if we don’t know where she is, I bet she’s following your social media. Maybe she’ll make contact under a fake name.”

“We can’t wait forever.” He stroked the side of her cheek, loving every bit of her. “I can’t wait to make you mine.”

“I already am, Cade, whether we have the piece of paper or not.” She flashed him a tentative smile. “I think you’d regret it if you didn’t give her a chance.”

“I wish she’d regret disappearing and absconding with all the money. If only she’d turned in the chips to the FBI, she could have come off as the hero. I’m disappointed.”

“As am I.”

“We have to have the wedding and the honeymoon before the end of July when training camp starts. You know I can’t take vacation once that happens.”

The prime time for professional players to take vacation was after the Super Bowl and before training camp. Some players spent June in conditioning camp, and he owed it to his team to get himself back in playing shape especially after these few months as a celebrity.

The creases between Andie’s eyebrows deepened and she twisted her lips. “Does it have to be this year?”

Her words punched the breath from him. Why was she dragging her feet? Wasn’t she in love with him? Didn’t they have a baby coming? Didn’t they already have a son, Bret, whom she was adopting?

A zinging chill snaked its way down his spine, and he couldn’t shake the suspicion. This had nothing to do with his mother disappearing. After all, she could very well stay away forever. Was Andie going to wait two years, three? Ten?

He blew out a breath and focused on her jewel green eyes. “What’s really going on here? What’s the real reason you won’t set a date?”

Without answering him, she stripped and stepped into the shower.