It Had to Be You (Chicago Stars Book 1)

“Here we are, Miss Somerville.”

The Buick Park Avenue left the highway for a two-lane service road marked with a blue and white wooden sign that read Stars Drive. Annette Miles, the driver who had picked Phoebe up at O’Hare, had been Bert’s secretary for several years. She was in her late forties, overweight, with short, graying hair. Although polite, she wasn’t particularly communicative, and there had been little conversation between them.

Phoebe was tired from having gotten up at dawn to catch her early flight and she felt tense about what lay ahead. Trying to relax, she gazed out the passenger window at the wooded landscape. Stands of oak, walnut, maple, and pine lay on both sides of the service road, and through a gap in the trees to her right, she could glimpse a cyclone fence.

“What’s over there?”

“A regulation-size grass practice field, along with a seventy-yard field. The trees keep the area private from the gawkers.” She passed a turnoff with a rectangular blue and white sign marking a delivery entrance. “Your father bought this land from the Catholic church in 1980. There used to be a monastery here. The complex isn’t fancy—not like the Cowboys’ or Forty-Niners’ facilities—but it’s functional, and the Midwest Sports Dome isn’t far away. There was a lot of controversy when the dome was put in, but it’s brought a great deal of money into DuPage County.”

The road curved to the right and up a gentle incline toward an architecturally unimpressive two-story, L-shaped building made of gray glass and steel. Its most pleasant aspect was the way the glass reflected the surrounding trees, softening the building’s utilitarian look.

Annette pointed toward a paved lot marked for reserved parking. “I had your father’s car brought over from the house as you asked. It’s parked by the side entrance. Normally you’ll want to use it, but today I’ll take you in through the lobby.”

She pulled into the visitor’s space closest to the front entrance and turned off the engine. Phoebe got out. As she approached the building, she found herself wishing she’d brought Pooh along as a security blanket instead of leaving her with Viktor. She caught sight of her reflection in the double glass doors. This outfit, a pearl gray trouser suit, was the closest thing she had to business attire. She wore an indigo silk shell beneath the short jacket and matching indigo sandals fastened with delicate gold chain T-straps. Her hair curved in sleek blond sickles away from her face. The only frivolity she had permitted herself was a purple and white wooden panda pin on her lapel. And her rhinestone sunglasses.

Annette opened one of the double glass doors for her. Each door held the team logo of three interlocking gold stars in a sky blue circle. Pushing her sunglasses to the top of her head, Phoebe stepped inside her father’s world.

The semicircular lobby, predictably carpeted in sky blue, held gold vinyl chairs and a curved white reception desk with blue and gold stripes. A trophy case sat at one end, along with citations, posters, and a framed display of all the NFL team logos.

Annette gestured toward a chair. “Would you wait here for just a moment?”

“Of course.” Phoebe removed her sunglasses and tucked them in her purse. Barely a minute passed before a man came rushing out of the left hallway.

“Miss Somerville. Welcome.”

She stared at him.

He was adorable, a short, bookish Tom Cruise with a friendly, deferential expression that went a long way toward settling her nervous stomach. Although he was probably close to her own age, he looked so boyish that he seemed like a teenager. She took the hand he offered and gazed into a pair of glorious Cruise-blue eyes that were on the same level as her own.

“I’m sure you must be tired from your flight.” He had the thickest fringe of lashes she had ever seen on a man. “I’m sorry that you haven’t had a chance to rest before being plunged into all this.”

His voice was soft, his manner so sympathetic, that she experienced her first ray of hope since Dan Calebow had blackmailed her. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad after all.

“I’m fine,” she reassured him.

“Are you certain? I know there are a number of people waiting to see you, but I’ll do my best to put them off if you’d like.”

She wanted to tie a bow around him and put him under her Christmas tree. Her internal radar wasn’t sending out any warning signals telling her to vamp him, something that generally happened when she was around good-looking men. His small stature and friendly manner were keeping her from feeling threatened.

She lowered her voice so only he could hear. “Why don’t you just stick by my side instead? I have a feeling I’m going to need a friendly face.”

“I’ll be happy to.” They exchanged smiles and she had a comforting sense of connection with him, as if they’d known each other for years.

He led her through an archway into a den of offices decorated with commemorative footballs, pennants, and team cups stuffed with pencils. As they passed through, he introduced her to a number of men, most of whom wore blue polo shirts bearing the Stars’ logo and all of whom seemed to have titles: director, manager, assistant.

Unlike his more casually dressed coworkers, her new ally wore a pin-striped charcoal suit, starched white shirt with French cuffs, burgundy rep tie, and polished cordovan wing tips.

“You haven’t told me your name.”

“Gosh.” He slapped his forehead with the heel of his hand and grinned, producing a charming set of dimples. “I’ve been so nervous about meeting you I forgot. I’m Ron McDermitt, Miss Somerville.”

“Please, Ron, call me Phoebe.”

“I’d be honored.”

They walked through a busy area of staff desks separated by partitions, then turned the corner into the longer back wing of the building. It was decorated as unimaginatively as the lobby: blue carpet, white walls covered with photographs, and team posters in simple chrome frames.

He glanced at his watch and frowned. “We’re due in Steve Kovak’s office now. He’s the director of player personnel, and he wants to get the contracts signed as soon as possible.”

“Coach Calebow made these contracts sound like life and death.”

“They are, Phoebe. For the Stars, anyway.” He stopped in front of a door that bore a small brass placard announcing it as the office of the director of player personnel. “Last season, this team had one of the worst records in the league. The fans have deserted us, and we’ve been playing in a stadium that’s barely half-full. If we lose Bobby Tom Denton, there’ll be even more empty seats.”

“You’re telling me I’d better sign or else.”

“Oh, no. You’re the owner. I can advise you, but it’s your team, and you make the final decision.”

He spoke so earnestly that she wanted to throw her arms around him and give him a big smacker right on his cute little mouth. Instead, she walked through the door he had opened for her.

Steve Kovak was a weathered veteran of decades of gridiron warfare. Dressed in his shirtsleeves, he had thinning brown hair, a lantern jaw, and a ruddy complexion. Phoebe found him thoroughly terrifying, and as they were introduced, she wished she weren’t wearing slacks.

Since she couldn’t flash her legs, she let her jacket fall open as she took a seat across from his desk. “I understand I need to sign some contracts.”

“Affirmative.” He pulled his eyes away from her breasts and pushed a sheaf of papers toward her. She extracted a pair of reading glasses with leopard-spotted frames from her purse and slipped them on.

The door opened behind her and she tensed. She didn’t need to turn her head to know who had come in; there was something in the air. Perhaps it was the subtle citrus scent she had noticed when he had been in her apartment, perhaps simply the atmospheric turbulence of excessive macho. The idea that she still remembered what he smelled like scared her, and she let her jacket fall open a bit farther.

“Real glad to see you could make it, Miz Somerville.” A distinct edge of sarcasm undercut his Alabama drawl. Until now, she’d never found Southern accents particularly attractive, but she was forced to admit there was definitely something seductive about those elongated vowels.

She kept her eyes on the papers she was studying. “Make nice, Mr. Calebow, or I’ll sic Pooh on you.” Before he could respond, her head shot up from Bobby Tom Denton’s contact. “Eight million dollars? You’re giving this man $8 million dollars to catch a football! I thought this team was in financial trouble?”

Dan leaned against the wall to her left, crossed his arms and tucked his fingers under the armpits of the blue Stars’ polo shirt he wore with a pair of gray slacks. “Good wide-outs don’t come cheap. You’ll notice that’s for four years.”

She was still trying to get her breath back. “This is an obscene amount of money.”

“He’s worth every penny,” Steve Kovak retorted. “Your father approved this contract, by the way.”

“Before or after he died?”

Dan smiled. Instinctively, Phoebe looked over at the only man in the room she trusted for confirmation that her father had, indeed, known about this outrageous contract. Ron nodded.

Kovak’s chair squeaked as he turned toward Dan, effectively shutting her out of the discussion. “Do you know that the Colts only paid Johnny Unitas ten thousand dollars a year? And that was after he’d led them to two championships.”

These men were definitely crazy, and she decided she would be the voice of sanity. “Then why don’t you get rid of Bobby Tom Denton and hire this Unitas person? You could triple the Colts’ offer and still be a few million ahead.”

Dan Calebow laughed. Dipping his head, he kept his arms crossed as his chest began to shake. Steve Kovak stared at her with an expression that fell someplace between shock and abject horror.

Her eyes darted to Ron, who had a gentle smile on his face. “What did I say wrong?” she asked.

Leaning forward, he patted her hand and whispered, “Johnny Unitas is retired now. He’s—uh—about sixty. And he was a quarterback.”

“Oh.”

“But if he were still playing and—uh—younger, that might have been an excellent suggestion.”

“Thank you,” she replied with dignity.

Head still dipped, Dan wiped his eyes with his thumbs. “Johnny Unitas. Jay-zus . . .”

Completely irritated now, she swung her legs toward him while she whipped off her glasses and jabbed them at the unsigned contracts. “Did you make money like this when you were playing?”

He looked over at her, his eyes still moist. “Starting quarterbacks do a little better than that after they’ve been around for awhile.”

“Better than $8 million?”

“Yep.”

She slapped the contracts down on the desk. “Fine. Then why don’t you sign this!” Rising to her feet, she stalked out.

She was halfway down the hall before she realized she had no place to go. An empty office lay off to her left. She stepped inside and shut the door, wishing she’d held her temper. Once again, she’d let her tongue take control of her brain.

Tucking her glasses into the pocket of her jacket, she walked to the floor-to-ceiling bank of windows that ran behind the desk and looked out over two empty practice fields. What did she know about wide-outs and $8 million contracts? She could converse with art lovers in four different languages, but that wasn’t any use to her now.

The door opened behind her.

“Are you all right?” Ron inquired softly.

“I’m fine.” As she turned, she saw the concern in his eyes.

“You have to understand about them. About football.”

“I hate the game. I don’t want to understand.”

“I’m afraid you’ll have to if you’re going to be part of this.” He gave her a sad smile. “They take no prisoners. Pro football is the most exclusive boys’ club in the world.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s closed to outsiders. There are secret passwords and elaborate rituals that only they can understand. None of the rules are written down, and if you have to ask what they are, you can’t belong. It’s a closed society. No women allowed. And no men who don’t measure up.”

She walked away from the window to one of the file cabinets and regarded him curiously. “Are you talking about yourself?”

He gave an embarrassed laugh. “It’s painfully obvious, isn’t it? I’m thirty-four years old. I tell everyone I’m five feet ten, but I’m barely five-eight. And I’m still trying to make the team. It’s been that way all my life.”

“How could it still be important to you?”

“It just is. When I was a kid, I couldn’t think about anything else. I read about football, dreamed about it, went to every game I could—playground, high school, the pros, it didn’t matter. I loved the patterns of the game—its rhythms and lack of moral ambiguity. I even loved its violence because somehow it seemed safe—no mushroom clouds, no litter of dead bodies when it was over. I did everything but play. I was too small, too clumsy. Maybe I just wanted it too bad, but I could never hold on to the ball.”

He slipped a hand into the pocket of his trousers. “My senior year of high school, I was a National Merit Scholar and I’d been accepted at Yale. But I would have given it all up in a second if I could have been on the team. If, just once, I could have carried the ball into the end zone.”

She understood his yearning even if she couldn’t understand his passion for football. How could this sweet, gentle man have such an unhealthy obsession?

She nodded her head toward the papers he was carrying. “You want me to sign those, don’t you?”

He came closer, his eyes gleaming with excitement. “All I can do is advise you, but I think this team has an exciting future. Dan’s temperamental and demanding. Sometimes he’s too hard on the players, but he’s still a great coach, and we have a lot of young talent. I know these contracts represent a fortune, but in football, championships make money. I think it’s a good long-term investment.”

She snatched the papers from him and quickly scrawled her name in the places he indicated. When she was done, she felt dizzy knowing that she had just given away millions of dollars. Still, it would ultimately be Reed’s problem, so why should she worry?

The door opened and Dan came in. He saw the pen in her hand as she returned the contracts to Ron, who gave him a brief affirming nod.

Dan seemed to visibly relax. “Why don’t you take those back to Steve now, Ronald?”

Ron nodded and left the room before she could stop him. The office felt measurably smaller as the door once again closed and they were alone. She had felt safe with Ron, but now something dangerous sizzled in the air.

As Dan walked behind the desk and took a seat, she realized this was his office. Unlike other parts of this building, this room had no ego-inflating wall of commendations and photographs. Utilitarian steel bookcases and file cabinets stood on one side opposite a well-worn couch. The desk and the credenza behind it were cluttered, but not disorganized. A television occupied the far corner along with a VCR. She averted her eyes from an ugly hole in the wallboard that looked as if it might have been made with a fist.

She waited for him to start pulling empty beer cans out of the drawers and crushing them in his fists, but he nodded toward one of the blue and chrome side chairs. She took a seat on the couch instead because it was farther away.

The chair squeaked as he leaned back. “I already had lunch, so you don’t need to look so scared. I’m not going to eat you up.”

She lifted her chin and gave him a smoky smile. “That’s too bad, Coach. I was hoping you were hungry.”

He smiled. “I’m glad I met you when I was thirty-seven instead of seventeen.”

“Why is that?”

“Because I’m a lot smarter now than I was then, and you’re exactly the kind of female my mama warned me about.”

“Smart mama.”

“You been a man-killer all your life, or is it something that happened recently?”

“I bagged my first one when I was only eight. A Cub scout named Kenny.”

“Eight years old.” He gave an admiring whistle. “I don’t even want to contemplate what you were doing to the male population by the time you were seventeen.”

“It wasn’t a pretty sight.” Playing games with this man was nerve-racking, and she searched for a way to change the subject. Remembering the empty practice fields, she nodded toward the window.

“Why aren’t the players practicing? I thought you were losing.”

“It’s Tuesday. That’s the only day of the week players have off. A lot of them use it to make community appearances, speak at luncheons, that sort of thing. The coaches do, too. Last Tuesday, for example, I spent the afternoon taping a public service announcement for United Way at a nursery school the county operates.”

“I see.”

The bantering had disappeared, and he was all business as he slid a manila file folder across the desk toward her. “These are résumés of the three men Steve Kovak and I think are best qualified for the general manager’s job, along with our comments. Why don’t you look this over tonight? You can let us make the final decision, or you might want to talk with Reed.”

“As long as I’m the owner, Coach, I’ll be making my own decisions.”

“Fine. But you need to move quickly.”

She picked up the folder. “What about the current general manager? Has he been fired?”

“Not yet.”

When he didn’t say anything more, her stomach sank. She couldn’t imagine anything worse than firing someone, even a person she didn’t know. “I’m not firing him! I like my men alive and kicking.”

“Normally it’d be the owner’s job, but I figured you’d feel that way so I asked Steve to take care of it for you. He’s probably talking to him now.”

Phoebe gave a sigh of relief.

Dan insisted on showing her around the facilities, and their tour of the two-story, L-shaped building took much of the next hour. She was surprised by the number of classrooms she saw and mentioned this to Dan.

“Meetings and watching film make up part of most practice days,” he explained. “Players have to learn the game plan. They get critiqued and hear scouting reports. Football’s more than sweat.”

“I’ll take your word for it.”

The coaches’ conference room had a chalkboard at one end, which was scrawled with words like King, Joker, Jay-hawk, as well as some diagrams. The weight room smelled like rubber and had an elephant-sized Toledo scale, while the tiny video lab held floor-to-ceiling shelves stacked with expensive, high-tech equipment.

“Why do you need so much film equipment?”

“A lot of coaching involves watching films. We have our own camera crew, and they shoot every game from three different angles. In the NFL, each team has to send their last three game films to their next opponent exactly one week before they play.”

She looked through a set of windows into the training room, the only truly orderly area she’d seen on her tour. The walls were lined with cabinets. There were padded benches, several stainless steel whirlpools, a Gatorade dispenser, a red plastic barrel marked “Infectious Waste,” and a table that held dozens of rolls of tape in foot-high stacks.

She pointed toward them. “Why so much?”

“The players have to be taped before each practice, usually twice a day. We use a lot.”

“That must take a long time.”

“We have five tapers at training camp, three during the season.”

They moved on. She noticed that the few women they met visibly perked up when they spotted Dan, while the men greeted him with varying degrees of deference. She remembered what Ron had told her about the boys’ club and realized that Dan was its president.

In the veterans’ locker room, the open lockers were piled with shoes, socks, T-shirts, and pads. Some of the players had taped family snapshots to their lockers. There was a soft drink-dispensing machine at one end, along with several telephones and wooden pigeonholes stuffed with fan mail.

After she promised him she would report back by ten the next morning, Dan left her in the lobby. She was so relieved to have gotten away from him without suffering any major injuries that she had already pulled the keys Annette Miles had given her to Bert’s Cadillac from her purse before she remembered that she hadn’t thanked Ron for helping her today. She also wanted to ask his advice on choosing the new general manager.

As she headed toward the wing that held the Stars’ management, a stocky man carrying camera equipment came toward her.

“Excuse me. Where can I find Ron’s office?”

“Ron?” He looked puzzled.

“Ron McDermitt.”

“Oh, you mean Ronald. Last door at the end.”

She walked down the corridor, but when she reached the end, she decided she’d gotten the instructions wrong because this door held a brass placard marked “General Manager.” Puzzled, she stared at it.

And then her heart gave a sickening thud. She flew into a small antechamber, which held a secretary’s desk and some chairs. The phone was ringing with all buttons flashing, but no one was there. She experienced a few mad seconds of hope that Ron was some kind of assistant, but that hope died when she rushed over to the doorway of the inner office.

Ron sat at the desk, his chair turned away from the door toward the window behind him. He was in his shirtsleeves, elbows propped on the arms of the chair.

She stepped inside cautiously. “Ron?”

He turned. “Hello, Phoebe.”

Her heart almost broke as he gave her a rueful smile. Despite his subdued manner, she permitted herself a flicker of hope. “Have you already—Have you talked with Steve Kovak?”

“Do you want to know if he’s fired me? Yes, he has.” She regarded him with dismay. “I didn’t realize you were the general manager. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I thought you knew.”

“If I had, I would never have let this happen.” Even as she said the words, she remembered her agreement with Dan. Part of that agreement had been her promise to fire the acting general manager.

“It’s all right. Really. It was inevitable.”

“But, Ron . . .”

“I only got the job as assistant GM because my father and Bert were good friends. Your father was never impressed with me, and he would have fired me after six months if Carl Pogue hadn’t gone to bat for me.”

She sank into a chair. “At least someone was behind you.”

“I loved working for Carl. We complemented each other perfectly, which was why Carl didn’t want Bert to fire me.”

“What do you mean?”

“Carl has good football instincts and he’s a strong leader, but he’s not exceptionally intelligent. I had the qualities he lacked—organizational ability, a head for business—but I’m a total failure as a leader. Carl and I had worked it out so that I’d do the planning and strategy work and he’d carry it through.”

“Are you saying you’re the one who was running the team?”

“Oh, no. Carl was in charge.”

“Implementing your ideas.”

“That’s true.”

She rubbed her forehead. “This is terrible.”

“If it’s any consolation, firing me was the proper decision. If a GM in the pros is going to be effective, everyone who works for him—from the office staff right up to the coaches—needs to fear him at least a little bit. The men don’t even respect me, let alone fear me. I’ve got the brains to do the job, but I don’t seem to have the personality. Or maybe I just don’t have the guts.”

“I do.” She straightened in her chair, as surprised as Ron that she had spoken aloud the words she had merely been thinking.

“I beg your pardon.”

Her mind raced. Bert had wanted her to be a figurehead. He had expected her to spend her days sitting in his old office, obediently signing the papers that were put in front of her and doing what she was told. It would never have occurred to him that she might try to learn something about the job.

She had vowed she wasn’t going to play her father’s game, and now she saw a way to fulfill the terms of the will but keep her self-respect. “I have the guts,” she repeated. “I just don’t have the knowledge.”

“What are you saying?”

“So far, the only thing I know about football is how much I hate it. If my father had suspected that Carl Pogue would quit, he would never have let me anywhere near the Stars, not even for a few months. I was trapped into doing this, first by Bert and then by Dan Calebow, but that doesn’t mean I have to do everything their way.”

“I still don’t understand—”

“I need to learn something about running a football team. Even if I’m only going to be in charge for a few months, I want to make my own decisions. But I can’t do that without having a person I trust to advise me.” She gestured toward the papers she still held in her hand. “I don’t know anything about these men.”

“The candidates for the GM job?”

She nodded.

“I’m certain you can trust Dan and Steve to have picked the best qualified.”

“How do I know that?”

“Perhaps your cousin Reed could advise—”

“No!” She forced herself to speak calmly. “Reed and I never got along. I won’t go to him under any circumstances. I need you.”

“I can’t tell you how much your confidence means to me.”

She slumped in the chair. “Unfortunately, I promised Dan I’d get rid of you.”

“His request wasn’t unreasonable. I’ve been doing a dismal job.”

“That’s only because he doesn’t understand what you’re capable of. He doesn’t know you the way I do.”

“I’ve known Dan for several years,” he pointed out gently. “You and I only met two hours ago.”

She had no patience with that sort of logic. “Time isn’t important. I have good instincts about people.”

“Dan Calebow isn’t the sort of man you should think about crossing, and right now, you need him a lot more than you need me. Winning football games is the only thing that counts in his life. I knew that when I convinced Carl to hire him away from the Bears.”

“You’re the one who hired him?”

By now, she knew Ron well enough to anticipate what was coming.

“Oh, no. Bert and Carl made the final decision.”

Based on Ron’s hard work. “I need some time to think.”

“I don’t believe there’s much to think about. You gave Dan your word, didn’t you?”

“I did, but . . .”

“Then that’s that.”

Ron was right about one thing, she thought glumly. She didn’t like the idea of crossing Dan Calebow.