It Had to Be You (Chicago Stars Book 1)

Ron cleared his throat “Ms. Somerville posed for the Beau Monde photographs before she inherited the Stars. She certainly had no intention of embarrassing either the team or the NFL.”

“Is it true that the commissioner has privately warned her about her behavior?” a female reporter asked.

“That is not true,” Ron replied. “She hasn’t spoken with the commissioner.”

Only because she hadn’t returned his phone calls, Phoebe thought unhappily as she sat in silence between Ron and Wally Hampton, the Stars’ public relations director. The press conference was going even worse than she had anticipated. Not only had the local media shown up, but the national as well, hot on the trail of a terrific human interest story.

So many reporters had wanted to take part in the press conference that they had been forced to use the empty practice field. She, Ron, and Wally were seated near the fifty yard line behind a small table draped with a blue cloth bearing the Stars’ logo. Some of the press members stood, while others had taken seats on wooden benches that had been set up for them.

At first all the questions had been centered around Bert’s will, but it hadn’t taken them long to move on. So far, they had questioned Ron’s management skills, Dan’s coaching, and Phoebe’s morals. Ron and Wally Hampton were answering all of the questions, even those addressed directly to her.

An overweight male reporter with bad skin and a scraggly beard stood. Wally Hampton whispered to her that he represented a sleazy tabloid. “Phoebe, are you going to do any more nudie shots?”

Wally interceded. “Ms. Somerville is much too busy with the Stars for any other outside activities.”

The man scratched his chin beneath his beard. “This isn’t the first time you’ve taken off your clothes for the public, is it?”

“Ms. Somerville’s work for the great artist Arturo Flores is well-known,” Ron said stiffly.

The tabloid reporter was interrupted by a local sports columnist. “There’s been a lot of criticism of Coach Calebow recently, especially with so many turnovers every game. Some people think he’s juggling his starters around too much. The players are starting to complain that they’re being overworked and that he’s taking the fun out of the game. For whatever reason, the team hasn’t looked good yet this season. Any plans for changes?”

“None at all,” Ron said. “It’s still early and we’re making adjustments.” He went on to praise Dan’s coaching abilities, and she wondered what would happen when the press learned that Dan had been suspended. Ron seemed to believe they could pass it off as a bad case of the flu, but she didn’t think it would be that easy. What Ron had done was definitely illegal, and Dan was probably already on the phone to his lawyers.

She told herself not to think of his sneers and insults, but it was hard to put them out of her mind. Maybe it was all for the best that he had shown her so clearly what kind of person he was. Now she was forced to face the fact that she had been letting herself fall in love with the wrong man.

The obnoxious tabloid reporter was speaking again, an unpleasant leer on his face. “What about Coach Calebow’s performance off the field, Phoebe? How’s that?”

The other reporters shot him disgusted glances, but Phoebe wasn’t fooled. Sooner or later they would have gotten around to asking the same thing. They would just have been more polite in their phrasing.

“Coach Calebow has a fine record—”

Phoebe couldn’t take any more, and she put her hand on Ron’s sleeve to stop him. “I’ll answer this one.” She leaned into the microphone. “Are you asking me to rate Coach Calebow’s performance as a lover? Is that what your question means?”

For a moment the reporter looked taken aback by the directness of her attack, but then he gave an unctuous grin. “Sure, Phoebe. Tell it like it is.”

“All right then. For the record, he’s a terrific lover.” She paused while the astonished reporters stared at her. “So is Coach Tally Archer, Bobby Tom Denton, Jim Biederot, Webster Greer, all of the running backs, and most of the offensive and defensive line. Now does that cover everyone in the organization I’m rumored to be sleeping with? I wouldn’t want to leave anyone out.”

The press corps laughed, but she wasn’t done yet. Although she was shaking inside, she gazed directly at the obnoxious reporter and smiled. “By the way. If I remember correctly, you, sir, were a small disappointment.”

The members of the press roared. If Phoebe hadn’t won them over, she had at least proved that she wasn’t quite as dumb as they thought.

The condominium Bert had kept for his mistresses was one of twenty luxury units set into a wooded area on the fringes of Naperville, which was located on the western edge of DuPage County. The attractive two-story beige brick unit was topped by a wood-shingled mansard roof. A pair of graceful Palladian windows sat on each side of an impressive set of double front doors inset with long ovals of leaded glass. Brass coach lamps glimmered in the six o’clock sun as Phoebe parked the car in the garage and walked into the house.

The interior was pleasantly decorated in soft shades of aqua, pearl gray, and white, giving the rooms a light, tropical feel. The kitchen opened out onto a sun room for informal eating, and a cathedral ceiling made the small living room seem spacious.

“Molly? Peg?” Phoebe crouched down to pet Pooh, who was delirious with joy at her return. When there was no answer, she and the poodle went upstairs.

Her aqua and white bedroom held bleached oak furniture and a wide expanse of windows. She had been uncomfortable sleeping in the king-sized bed that dominated the room and had replaced it with a queen from the guest room at the estate. After tossing her linen jacket down on the puffy spread, she walked into the closet, where she changed into a pair of jeans and a Stars’ T-shirt.

Neither Molly nor Peg had returned by the time Phoebe carried the whole wheat roll and pasta salad she found in the refrigerator out to the sun room. She padded across the pearl gray tiles in her sweat socks and sat on one of the white filigreed iron chairs that rested in front of a matching glass-topped table. A comfortable love seat upholstered in aqua and white peonies provided a cozy seating area at the end of the room.

She rubbed her toes along Pooh’s back as she toyed with her salad. For once in her life she wasn’t having any difficulty keeping off the extra five pounds that wanted to settle on her hips. Maybe because the blues were getting a firmer grip on her every day. She missed Viktor and her friends. She missed the gallery openings. She wanted a flat chest and a different childhood. She wanted a nice husband and a baby. She wanted Dan Calebow. Not the real man who had verbally attacked her that morning, but the funny, tender man she had imagined him to be the night they had made love.

Her uncharacteristic plunge into self-pity was interrupted by the sound of the front door opening and closing. Pooh yipped and rushed out to investigate. Phoebe heard the rustle of packages, a soft greeting to Pooh, and then the sound of footsteps going upstairs. Pushing aside her salad, she made her way to the foyer in time to look through the sidelights and see Peg Kowalski’s white Toyota pulling out of the drive.

She went upstairs and knocked on Molly’s door. When there was no answer, she pushed it open anyway.

The bed was littered with sacks from the teenagers’ dream stores: The Gap, Benetton, The Limited. Pooh, lying in the middle of the rubble, was watching as Molly pulled an assortment of clothes from the sacks.

Molly looked up at her, and for a few seconds, Phoebe thought she saw guilt reflected in her sister’s small features. Then the old sullenness came back.

“Mrs. Kowalski took me shopping for school clothes. She has a teenage granddaughter, so she knew all the best stores.”

Phoebe knew the best stores, too, but whenever she had suggested they shop, Molly had refused. “I can see that.” Swallowing her disappointment, she took a seat on the side of the bed.

Molly reached out to stroke Pooh. Phoebe had realized several weeks ago that Dan had been right about her sister’s affection for the dog, but she hadn’t commented on it “Let me see what you bought.”

For a while Molly behaved like a normal teenager. As she whipped out a denim jacket, ribbed sweaters, stonewashed jeans, and T-shirts, her eyes glowed with excitement. Phoebe couldn’t fault Peg’s taste. She’d helped Molly put together a perfect teenage girl’s wardrobe.

“Have you thought about getting your ears pierced?”

“Could I?”

“I don’t know why not. Think about it.”

“I want to,” Molly replied without hesitation.

“All right, then. We’ll go on Friday.” She refolded a pair of jeans and spoke carefully. “You haven’t said much about school. How’s it going?”

Each time Phoebe had asked the question in the past two weeks, Molly had refused to respond with anything more than monosyllables. Now her expression grew stony.

“How do you think? I hate it. Even the advanced classes are easy.”

“Your classes were easy at Crayton, too.”

“Public school is full of cretins.”

“When you registered, your counselor mentioned that the English department uses student tutors in the writing lab. Why don’t you volunteer?”

“Why should I?”

“Sometimes it feels good to help other people.” When Molly failed to respond, Phoebe continued her cautious probing. “At least you get to go to school with boys.”

Molly became very busy picking at the tag on a pair of jeans. Phoebe tried again. “What’s it like?”

“What do you mean?”

“Going to school with boys.”

“They’re big show-offs. And they’re disgusting in the lunchroom.”

“What about the boys in the advanced classes? Are they show-offs, too?”

“Some of them, I suppose. But a lot of them are nerds.”

Phoebe suppressed a smile. “I’ve always liked nerds. There’s nothing sexier in a man than intelligence. Of course, there is something to be said for dumb and cute.”

Molly giggled, and for a few moments the barriers between them dissolved. “The boy who has a locker next to mine has long hair. He’s really loud and obnoxious, always making guitar noises, but he’s kind of cute, too.”

“Is he?”

“He’s in my advanced English class, but he’s having trouble keeping up.”

“Maybe you could offer to help him out.”

“He doesn’t even know who I am.” Molly shoved a sack out of the way, her face clouding. “Nobody likes me. All the girls are bitches. If you’re not a Pom Pom and you don’t have the right clothes, they won’t even talk to you.”

Now Phoebe understood what had motivated the shopping spree. “I’m sure all the girls aren’t that way. You just have to find the right group. It’ll take time.”

“I don’t care about them! You told me that I only had to stay a semester, and then I’m leaving.”

Defeated, Phoebe rose from the side of the bed. “Enjoy your new clothes. I wish we could have gone shopping together. I would have liked that.”

Maybe she imagined it, but she thought she saw a flash of uncertainty cross her sister’s face.

* * *

Just before bedtime that night, Phoebe clipped Pooh’s fuchsia leash to her collar and led her outside for a walk. After the danger of Manhattan’s streets, she loved this quiet residential area where she had the freedom to walk at night without worrying about becoming a statistic.

The town houses butted up against an area of wooded parkland. A paved bicycle path lit by an occasional streetlamp ran along the fringe. She loved the dense quiet, the loamy smell of the woods, and the crispness in the night air that announced the end of summer.

Pooh trotted ahead, sometimes stopping to poke her nose at a pile of acorns or beneath a clump of dry leaves, occasionally squatting to leave her mark on a particularly blissful spot. Phoebe’s sneakers squeaked on the sidewalk, and the fleecy sweatshirt she wore was warm and cozy. For a few moments she let everything unpleasant slip away and enjoyed the night quiet.

Her sense of well-being was broken by the sound of a car turning into her court. She watched it slow down in front of her condo, then begin to pull into her driveway only to come to a stop as the headlights caught her. The driver immediately backed the car and drove toward her. Even before the vehicle stopped at the curb, she saw that it was a red Ferrari.

She tensed as Dan unfolded from the car and came toward her. He was wearing his glasses, and he’d thrown a Stars’ windbreaker over a plum-colored shirt and jeans. Pooh began barking and straining at the end of her leash to get to him.

She tried to brace herself for what was certain to be another painful encounter, but it had been a difficult, exhausting day, and she didn’t have many resources left.

He looked down at the fluffy white poodle trying to lasso his ankles with her leash. “Hey there, dawg.”

“Her name is Pooh.”

“Uh-huh. I guess it’s just one of those words I don’t like to use too often. Like ‘snookums’.” The breeze rumpled his dark blond hair as he took her in from sweatshirt to sneakers. “You look different. Cute.”

She’d been called many things, but never cute. “What do you want?”

“How about a little meaningless chitchat for starters? Nice evening, isn’t it?”

She couldn’t let herself be pulled into whatever game he was playing, so she tugged on Pooh’s leash and began walking. He fell into step next to her, adjusting his long stride to accommodate her shorter one.

“Weather’s real nice. It’s still hot during the day, but at night, you can tell fall’s coming.”

She said nothing.

“This is a real pretty area.”

She continued walking.

“You know, you might think about contributing a little something to this conversation.”

“We bimbos don’t think.”

He stuffed his hands into his pockets and said quietly, “Phoebe, I’m sorry. My temper got the best of me. That’s no excuse, I know, but it’s the truth. If anybody’s a bimbo, it’s me.”

She had expected anger, not regret, but his attack that morning had wounded her too deeply, and she said nothing.

“It seems I’m always apologizing to you for something. It’s been like that from the beginning, hasn’t it?”

“I guess we’re oil and water.”

He ducked beneath a tree branch that dipped too low over the path. “I’d say we’re more like gasoline and a blowtorch.”

“Either way, I think we should try to avoid each other as much as possible.” She stopped near one of the streetlamps. “I can’t do anything about the suspension, you know. Ron refuses to lift it, and I won’t countermand his orders.”

“You know you’re violating my contract.”

“I know.”

“The last thing you need right now is a lawsuit.”

“I know that, too.”

“How about we make a deal?”

“What kind of deal?”

“You keep me company next Saturday afternoon, and I keep my lawyers away from you.”

That was the last thing she’d expected.

“I’m going to fly south for a couple of days to Gulf Shores. We call it the Redneck Riviera, and I have a place on the beach there. When I get back, I’ll have some spare time on my hands. That big old house. Nothing to do. There’s a local art show on Saturday, and since I know how much you like art, I thought we might check it out.”

She stared at him. “Are you telling me you’re not going to fight this suspension?”

“That’s what I’m telling you.”

“Why?”

“I’ve got my reasons, and they’re private.”

“I won’t tell.”

“Don’t push it, Phoebe.”

“Please. I want to know.”

He sighed and she thought she saw something that looked very much like guilt flash across his features. “If you repeat this, I’ll call you ten different kinds of a liar.”

“I won’t repeat it.”

“The suspension is going to hurt the team, and I don’t like that. It’ll take a miracle for us to win this Sunday, and it’ll be tough to recover from one and four. But I’m not fighting it because Ron finally did the right thing. I was way out of line. I just never expected him to call me on it.”

She finally smiled. “I don’t believe it. You actually called him Ron.”

“It slipped out, so don’t count on it happening again.” He began walking. “And don’t think I’ve changed my opinion about him just because he finally showed some gumption. The jury’s still out as far as I’m concerned. Now what about Saturday?”

She hesitated. “Why, Dan? We’ve already agreed that we don’t mix well.”

“I’m not siccing my lawyers on you. Isn’t that a good enough reason?”

They had reached the end of the cul-de-sac. As they came around the curve, she gathered her courage. “I’m not a toy. You can’t use me to amuse yourself and then toss me away when you’re done.”

His voice was surprisingly soft. “Then why do you act like one?”

Although he sounded more puzzled than accusatory, the hurt came back, and she picked up her stride.

He stayed with her. “You can’t have it both ways. You can’t flirt with everything in pants, wear clothes that look like they’ve been shrink-wrapped on your body, then expect people to treat you like you’re Mother Teresa.”

Because she knew there was truth in what he was saying, she stopped walking and turned to confront him. “I don’t need a lecture from you. And since you’re into personal assessment, maybe you should consider looking in the mirror and figuring out why you can’t control your temper.”

He stuffed his hands in his pockets. “I already know the answer to that one. And I’m not talking to you about it, so don’t even let yourself get warmed up to ask.”

“Then you shouldn’t ask me why I act like a— The way I do.”

He gave her a long, searching look. “I don’t understand you. You’re not like any woman I’ve ever met, except I keep thinking you’re exactly like so many of the women I’ve met, and that’s when I get into trouble.”

Even as she gazed at him standing in a pool of golden light with the wind rustling his hair, she could hear the creak of the paddle wheel fan overhead. “I’m not going to bed with you again.” She spoke softly. “That was a terrible mistake.”

“I know.”

She wished he hadn’t agreed so quickly. “I don’t think Saturday is a good idea.”

He refused to be brushed off. “It’s a great idea. You like art, and we’ll be out in public, so we won’t be able to paw each other.”

“That’s not what I meant!”

He grinned and chucked her under the chin, looking much too pleased with himself. “Pick you up at noon, hot stuff.”

As he walked away from her toward his car, she raised her voice. “Don’t you call me hot stuff!”

“Sorry.” He opened the door and slid inside. “Hot stuff, ma’am.”

She stood beneath the streetlamp and watched him drive away. It was only an art show, she thought. What harm could there be?

Ray Hardesty could see Phoebe’s blond hair shining in the streetlight from his vantage point on the hillside that ran behind the luxury condos. He had parked his van on a narrow road that led to a small residential development, and now he set the binoculars down on the seat. The rumors were true, he thought. Calebow had something personal going with the Stars’ new owner.

He was storing up information about Dan Calebow like nuts for winter, ready to be drawn out if he had to use it, but so far Calebow was screwing himself over. The Stars had won only a single game since the season opener, and all their turnovers made them look like a college team. With each loss, Ray felt a little better. Maybe Calebow was going to get himself fired for incompetence.

He waited until the Stars’ coach had driven away before he drove home himself. Ellen met him at the door and right away started fussing over him. He walked past her without a word, heading into the den, where he locked the door, slumped down in his favorite chair, and lit a cigarette.

The small room was paneled in knotty pine, although hardly any of it was visible because every foot of wall space was covered with memorabilia: action photographs of Ray Junior, trophies, jerseys tacked up with pushpins, framed certificates, and newspaper stories. When he was in here, Ray sometimes pretended all these honors belonged to him. For the past few months he’d even been sleeping on the old couch under the room’s only window.

He sucked on his cigarette and coughed. The spasms were lasting longer all the time and his heart had been kicking up again, but he wasn’t going to die yet. Not until he’d made Calebow pay. He wanted the Stars to lose every game. He wanted the whole world to know that bastard had made the biggest mistake of his life when he’d cut Ray Junior. Then maybe Ray could go back to some of his old hangouts and have a few drinks with his buddies. Just once before he died, he wanted to feel like a big shot again.

Ray got up from his chair and walked over to the built-in cupboards, where he pulled out the whiskey bottle he kept behind some boxes. He unscrewed the top and took a swig, then he carried the bottle over to the couch. As he sat, he picked up the gun he’d left on the end table when he’d gotten home from working the auto show at the Midwest Sports Dome yesterday.

The Dome’s empty tonight, he thought, but tomorrow night they had a religious crusade coming in. The next night, it was some nigger rap group. He hated working concerts, but other than that, he liked being a security guard at the dome. Especially on Sunday afternoons when the Stars were losing.

Taking another swig, he stroked the gun in his lap and listened to the crowd call out his name.

Hardesty!

Hardesty!

Hardesty!