enough that there was a place for her to work there.
“Miss Janie is dying,” he said. “I need someone to live with us and help me take care of her.”
Her heart went out to her foster mother but going back would mean returning to the pain of being an outcast who seemed to have no place in any world. Being a foster kid set her apart from the rich kids for sure. Coming from the background that she had before Miss Janie took her in, she wasn’t accepted by the middle-class kids, either. Although she loved Miss Janie and appreciated her for taking her in and giving her a decent home, that couldn’t make up for the feelings of rejection she associated with that area of Texas.
“I have a job. Hire someone else.”
His big blue eyes bored into her brown ones without blinking. He wore his hair shaggier these days and kept a little scruff on his face. Apparently, he had not gone into the military like his dad had expected him to do.
“I don’t want anyone else,” he said. “Miss Janie wants her girls to come home, to be with her these last days. I’ve spent a lot of money and resources tracking you down. You could have at least put a return address on those damn Christmas cards.”
“Why would I do that?” she asked. “The government stopped paying her when I had my eighteenth birthday. And I’m not responsible for what money you’ve spent. That’s on you, not me. Tell Miss Janie hello for me.” That she didn’t want Miss Janie to be disappointed in her decisions wasn’t any of his business.
“You can take care of strangers but not the woman who gave you a fit place to live?” he asked.
There it was. He’d finally played the you-owe-her foster card. She clamped her jaw shut so tightly that it ached, but at least she wasn’t spewing out a line of swear words so hot that they would set the lobby on fire.
“And what happens when she’s gone? I might not be able to get this job back,” she said through clenched teeth. “Did you think of that?”
“Why are you so angry?” Noah asked.
“Have you forgotten about the screened porch at Miss Janie’s house?” she threw back at him.
“I’m sorry about that, Teresa. I really did like you, and”—he stumbled over the words—“it was only a few stolen kisses, but if my mama or my father had found out, they would have killed me. You know my parents . . . the General . . . they would have thought making out with you at Miss Janie’s house was disrespectful of her hospitality.”
He blinked and looked down at his hands. “I need help, and Miss Janie wants you girls to come home. She cries for you and Kayla and asks me every single day if I’ve found you. I’ll pay you twice as much as you make here, plus you’ll have room and board and only have to take care of one patient.”
For any other person she might have jumped on the offer, but this was Noah, the boy she’d fallen in love with at fourteen and had never really gotten over.
“How long has she been sick?” she asked.
“A couple of years ago she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. The disease has been taking over pretty fast, but until last June she was able to manage with a little help from her neighbor Sam. She said she was fine, but then Sam called to say she was forgetting how to get home from the grocery store and even church. I talked to her doctor and decided it was time for me to come take care of her.” Noah’s voice cracked toward the end of the explanation.
“Did she really ask for me?” Teresa asked.
“She keeps begging for her girls to come home,” Noah answered. “When I found out you were a nurse’s aide, I figured that it would take care of two things. She would be pleased that one of her girls came home, and she knows you so she wouldn’t mind you helping her.”
“Why didn’t you ask Kayla?” Teresa asked.
Kayla was a year younger than Teresa. Kayla had been a wild card from the beginning, and when Teresa left, Kayla still had a year to go before the government tossed her out into the harsh world.
“I can’t find her, and chances are that she doesn’t have the training you do,” Noah answered. “I’ve got to get back. Sam is staying