Match Me if You Can (14 page)

Annabelle might be ignoring him, but she giggled with the children, cast magic spells, arbitrated disputes, and let Princess Pilar see what fairy godmothers wore under their gowns. He was more than a little interested himself. Unfortunately, this particular fairy godmother wore gray drawstring shorts instead of the bright red thong that would have been his choice. But, hey, that was just him.

Before long, he forgot about the phone calls he needed to make and concentrated on getting good pictures of the girls. He had to admit they were cute. Some of them were shy and needed encouragement. Others were big talkers. A couple of the four-year-olds wanted Annabelle to sit on the throne so they could perch in her lap. A few had her stand next to them. She made them laugh—made him smile—and by the time they’d gotten to the end of the photos, he’d decided to forgive her. What the hell. Everybody deserved a second chance. First he’d give her the lecture of her life, then he’d take her back on probation.

Photos done, she set off to help Hannah, who was supervising a game of pin the kiss on the frog. Since Hannah wasn’t making anyone wear a blindfold, it didn’t look like much of a game to him, but maybe he was missing something. Phoebe and Molly, in the meantime, had started a treasure hunt.

Pippi popped up at his side and tried to frisk him for his backup phone, but he distracted her with an open pot of green eye shadow.

“Pippi! How did you get into that?” Molly shrieked a few minutes later.

He busied himself with the camera and pretended not to see the hard, suspicious look Phoebe shot at him.

Molly gathered the girls under a shady tree and entertained them with a story she seemed to be making up on the spot called
Daphne and the Princess Party.
She incorporated all the girls’ names and even added a frog named Prince Heath who specialized in taking magical pictures. Now that he’d decided to forgive Annabelle, he relaxed enough to enjoy watching her. She sat cross-legged in the grass, her billowing skirts enveloping the children around her. She laughed when they did, clapped her hands, and, in general, acted pretty much like a kid herself.

While the tables were set up for refreshments, he was put in charge of the dragon piñata. “Don’t make them wear blindfolds,” Hannah whispered. “It scares them.”

So he didn’t. He let them whack away to their hearts’ content, and when the piñata refused to break, took a swing at the sucker himself and finished it off. Goodies flew. He supervised the distribution and did a damn good job of it, too. Nobody got hurt, nobody cried, so maybe he wasn’t entirely clueless about kids.

The refreshments arrived in a sea of pink. Pink punch. Sandwiches made with pink bread, a castle cake complete with pink-frosted ice-cream-cone turrets and a chunk conspicuously missing from the pink drawbridge, undoubtedly the work of young Andrew Calebow. Molly slipped him a beer.

“You’re an angel of mercy,” he said.

“I don’t know what we’d have done without you.”

“It was fun.” Well, the last twenty minutes anyway, when there’d been some action with the piñata and at least a faint potential for bloodshed.

“Princesses!” Phoebe called from the cake table. “I know we all want to thank our fairy godmother for taking time out of her busy schedule to be with us today. Princess Molly, we loved your story so much, and Princess Hannah, everyone appreciated all the hugs you gave out.” Her voice dropped to that coo he’d come to dread. “As for Prince Heath …We’re so glad he could help us with the piñata. Who knew his talent for battering things would come in so handy?”

“Brother…,” Molly muttered. “She really does hate your guts.”

Half an hour later, a group of tired princesses headed home with giant goody bags stuffed full of treats for themselves, as well as for their brothers and sisters.

“It was a very nice party,” Hannah said from the front step as the bus disappeared. “I was worried.”

Phoebe looped her arm around her daughter’s shoulders and kissed the top of her head, just behind her tiara. “You made everybody feel right at home.”

And what about me? Heath wanted to say. He couldn’t see that he’d gained an inch of ground with her, even though he’d cleared tables, taken photos, and dealt with the piñata, all without making a single phone call
or
catching one lousy inning of the Sox game.

Annabelle braced her hand on the porch railing and wiggled out of her fairy godmother dress. “I’m afraid it has some grass stains and a punch spill, so I don’t know if you’ll be able to use it again.”

“One Halloween was enough,” Molly replied.

“Thanks so much, Annabelle.” Phoebe gave her the genuine smile she didn’t offer him. “You were a perfect fairy godmother.”

“I loved every minute. How are the twins feeling?”

“Sulky. I checked on them half an hour ago. They’re upset about missing the party.”

“I don’t blame them. It was quite a party.”

A cell rang. He automatically reached into his pocket, forgetting for an instant that he’d turned off his phone. He came up empty.
What…?

“Hey, babe…,” Molly spoke into her own cell. “Yes, we survived, no thanks to you and Dan. Luckily, your valiant agent came to our rescue …Yes, really.”

He slapped his pockets. Where the hell was his BlackBerry?

“Wanna talk to Daddy!” Pippi squealed, reaching for Molly’s phone.

“Hold on a minute. Pip wants to say hi.”

Molly lowered the phone to her daughter’s ear. Heath headed for the backyard. Damn it! She couldn’t possibly have stolen two of them in one afternoon. It must have fallen out of his pocket when he was running around with the piñata.

He looked under the tree, in the grass, everywhere he could think of, and came up empty. She’d picked his pocket when he’d crouched down to talk to her.

“Are you missing something?” Phoebe cooed, coming up behind him. “A heart, perhaps?”

“My BlackBerry.”

“I haven’t seen it. But if I find it, I’ll be sure to let you know right away.” She spoke with all kinds of sincerity, but he suspected if she found it she’d toss it in her swimming pool.

“Much appreciated,” he said.

Annabelle and Molly had returned to the backyard, but Pippi seemed to have gone off with Hannah. “I’m exhausted,” Molly said, “and I’m used to being around kids. Poor Annabelle.”

“I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.” Studiously ignoring him, Annabelle began gathering up the paper plates.

Phoebe waved her off. “Leave everything. My cleaning service is coming by soon. While they work, I’m going to put my feet up and recover. I haven’t started the new book for the book club, and I have to make up for not finishing the last one.”

“That book was a stinker,” Annabelle said. “I don’t know what Krystal was thinking of when she chose it.”

Heath’s ears pricked up. Annabelle and Phoebe were in a book club together? What other interesting secrets was she hiding from him?

Molly yawned and stretched. “I like Sharon’s idea of giving the guys a book of their own to read when we go on our retreat. Last year, whenever they weren’t in the lake or with us, they were rehashing old games. I don’t care what they say. That’s just got to get boring after a while.”

Every cell in Heath’s body went on full alert.

“Don’t let Darnell choose,” Phoebe said. “He’s hung up on Márquez now, and I can’t see the rest of the men getting too excited about
One Hundred Years of Solitude
.”

There was only one Darnell they could be talking about, and that was Darnell Pruitt, the Stars’ All Pro former offensive tackle. Heath’s mind raced. What kind of book club had Annabelle gotten herself involved in?

Even more important…Exactly how was he going to use this to his advantage?

A
nnabelle collected a few more paper plates, even though Phoebe had told her not to bother. She dreaded the idea of being closed up in the car with Heath for the ride home. Phoebe scooped a dab of pink icing from the mangled castle cake and popped it in her mouth. “Dan and I are both looking forward to the retreat at the campground. We love any excuse to go to Wind Lake. Molly definitely lucked out when she married a man with his own resort.”

“With training camp coming up, it’ll be the last break any of us have for a long time.” Molly turned to Annabelle. “I almost forgot. We had a cancellation on one of the cottages. You and Janine can share it, since you’re both singles, or would you rather keep your room at the B&B?”

Annabelle thought it over. Although she’d never been to the Wind Lake Campground, she knew it had both a Victorian bed-and-breakfast and a number of small cottages. “I guess I’d—”

“The cottage for sure,” Heath said. “Apparently Annabelle hasn’t gotten around to mentioning that she ordered me to go with her.”

Annabelle turned to stare at him.

Phoebe’s finger froze in the cake icing. “You’re coming on the retreat?”

Annabelle spotted a small pulse beating at the base of his neck. He loved this. She could expose him with only a few words, but he was an adrenaline junky, and he’d thrown the dice. “I’ve never been able to turn down a bet,” he said. “She thinks I can’t go an entire weekend without my cell.”

“You can barely make it through dinner,” Molly muttered.

“I’ll expect an apology from both of you after I’ve proved exactly how wrong you are.”

Molly’s and Phoebe’s expressions were equally quizzical as they turned to Annabelle. Her wounded pride demanded she punish him. Right now. She deserved her pound of flesh for the cold-blooded way he’d fired her.

An awkward pause fell. He watched her, waited, the pulse at the base of his neck marking the passing seconds.

“He’ll fold.” She forced a smile. “Everybody knows it but him.”

“Interesting.” Molly refrained from saying more, although Annabelle knew she wanted to.

Twenty minutes later, she and Heath were heading back toward the city, the silence in the car as thick as the castle cake’s pink frosting, but not nearly as sweet. He’d done better than she’d expected with the girls. He’d listened respectfully to Hannah’s concerns, and Pippi adored him. Annabelle had been surprised how many times she’d looked over to see him crouched down talking to her.

Heath finally broke the silence. “I’d already made up my mind to rehire you before I heard about the retreat.”

“Oh, I believe you,” she said, using sarcasm to hide her hurt.

“I mean it.”

“Whatever lets you sleep at night.”

“Okay, Annabelle. Unload. Get it all out. Everything you’ve been saving up all afternoon.”

“Unloading is the prerogative of equals. Lowly employees like myself pucker their lips and kiss the sweet spot.”

“You were out of line, and you know it. This thing with Phoebe never gets any better. I thought I might be able to change that.”

“Whatever.”

He shot into the left lane. “Do you want me to bow out? I can call Molly in the morning and tell her that something’s come up. Is that what you want me to do?”

“Like I have any choice if I want to keep you as a client.”

“Okay, let me make it easy for you. Regardless of what you decide, you’re rehired. One way or another, our contract still holds.”

She let him see she wasn’t impressed with his offer. “And I can just imagine how cooperative you’d be if I refused to take you on the retreat.”

“What do you want from me?”

“I want you to be honest. Look me in the eye and admit that you didn’t have the slightest intention of rehiring me until you heard about the retreat.”

“Yeah, you’re right.” He didn’t look her in the eye, but at least he was being honest. “I wasn’t going to forgive you. And you know why? Because I’m a ruthless son of a bitch.”

“Fine. You can come with me.”

A
nnabelle spent the next few days feeling pissy. She tried to chalk her mood up to getting her period, but she wasn’t as good at self-deception as she used to be. Heath’s cold-blooded behavior had left her feeling bruised, betrayed, and just plain mad. One mistake, and he’d written her off. If it weren’t for the Wind Lake retreat, she’d never have seen him again. She was totally expendable, another one of his worker bees.

On Tuesday he left a terse voice message. “Portia has someone she wants me to meet at eight-thirty on Thursday evening. Set me up with one of your introductions at eight so we can kill two birds with one stone.”

Finally, she put the anger where it belonged, on her own shoulders. He wasn’t to blame for those sexual images that wanted to burn themselves into her brain when her guard was down. To him, this was business. She was the one who’d let it become personal, and if she forgot that again, she deserved the consequences.

On Thursday evening before she headed to Sienna’s for the next round of introductions, she met her newest client at Earwax. Ray Fiedler had been referred by a relative of one of Nana’s oldest friends, and Annabelle had sent him on his first date the night before with a Loyola faculty member she’d met during her campus cruising. “We had a nice time and everything,” Ray said after they’d settled around one of Earwax’s wooden tables, which was painted like the wheel of a circus wagon, “but Carole’s not really my physical type.”

“How do you mean?” Annabelle drew her eyes away from the ominous beginnings of his comb-over. She knew the answer, but she wanted to make him say it.

“She’s…I mean, she’s a really nice woman. A lot of people don’t get my jokes. It’s just that I like women who are…more fit.”

“I’m not sure I understand.”

“Carole’s a little overweight.”

She took a sip of her cappuccino and studied the red-and-gold wooden dragon on the wall rather than the extra twenty pounds that hung around what used to be Ray Fiedler’s waistline.

He wasn’t stupid. “I know I’m not exactly Mr. Buff myself, but I work out.”

Annabelle fought the urge to reach across the table and smack him in the head. Still, this type of challenge was part of what she liked about being a matchmaker. “You usually date thin women, then?”

“They don’t have to be beauty queens, but the women I’ve dated have been pretty nice looking.”

Annabelle pretended to look thoughtful. “I’m a little confused. When we first talked, you gave me the impression that you hadn’t dated in a long time.”

“Well, I haven’t, but…”

She let him squirm for a few moments. A kid with multiple piercings passed their table followed by a pair of soccer moms. “So this weight thing is really important to you? More important than personality or intelligence?”

He looked as if she’d asked a trick question. “I just had somebody a little …different in mind.”

And don’t we all?
Annabelle thought. The Fourth of July weekend was coming up, and she had no date, no prospects for a date, and no plans beyond starting her exercise program again and trying not to brood about the Wind Lake book club retreat. Ray fiddled with his spoon, and her annoyance with him faded. He was a decent guy, just clueless.

“Maybe you’re not a love match,” she said, “but I’ll tell you the same thing I told Carole last night when she expressed a few misgivings. You have a common background, and you enjoyed each other’s company. I think that justifies another date, regardless of your current lack of physical attraction. If nothing else, you could end up with a friend.”

A few beats passed before he got it. “What do you mean misgivings? She doesn’t want to see me again?”

“She has a few doubts, just like you do.”

His hand flew to his head. “It’s because of my hair, isn’t it? That’s all women care about. They see a guy who’s losing his hair, and they don’t want to give him the time of day.”

“Women are less influenced by a receding hairline or a few extra pounds than men assume. Do you know what’s most important to women as far as male physical appearance goes?”

“Height? Hey, I’m almost five-ten.”

“Not height. Studies show that good grooming is most important to women. They value cleanliness and neatness more than anything else.” She paused. “And good haircuts are very important to women.”

“She didn’t like my haircut?”

Annabelle gave him a wide smile. “Isn’t that cool? A haircut can be fixed so easily. Here’s the name of a stylist who gives great men’s cuts.” She slid the business card across the table. “You’ve got everything else together, so this will be easy.”

It hadn’t occurred to him that he might be the one getting rejected, and his competitive instincts came into play. By the time they left the coffee shop, he’d begrudgingly agreed to both the haircut and to meeting Carole again. Annabelle told herself she was getting good at this, and she shouldn’t let her mother or her troubles with Heath Champion plant all those seeds of doubt.

She entered Sienna’s in a better mood, but things went to hell quickly. Heath hadn’t arrived, and the De Paul harpist she’d arranged for him to meet called to say she’d cut her leg and was heading for the emergency room. She’d barely hung up before Heath called. “The plane’s late,” he said. “I’m on the ground at O’Hare, but we’re waiting for a gate to open up.”

She told him about the harpist and then, because he sounded tired, suggested he postpone his Power Matches date.

“Tempting, but I’d better not,” he said. “Portia’s really high on this one. A gate’s opening up now, so I shouldn’t be too late. Hold the fort till I get there.”

“All right.”

Annabelle chatted with the bartender until Portia’s candidate arrived. Her eyes widened. No wonder Powers had been enthusiastic. She was the most beautiful woman Annabelle had ever seen…

T
he next morning Annabelle returned from her semiannual morning run to see Portia Powers standing on her porch. They’d never met, but Annabelle recognized her from her Web site photograph. Only as she came closer, however, did she realize this was the same woman she’d seen standing in front of Sienna’s the night she’d introduced Heath to Barrie. Powers wore a silky black blouse crisscrossed at her small waist, shocking pink slacks, and retro black patent leather heels. Her inky hair was beautifully cut, the kind of hair that moved with the slightest toss of the head, and her skin flawless. As for her body …She obviously only ate on government holidays.

“Don’t you dare pull another trick like you did last night,” Portia said the minute Annabelle’s running shoes hit the porch steps. She oozed the brittle sort of beauty that always made Annabelle feel dumpy, but especially this morning in her baggy shorts and a sweaty orange T-shirt that said
BILL’S HEATING AND

COOLING
.

“Good morning to you, too.” Annabelle pulled the key from her shorts pocket, unlocked the door, and stepped aside to let Powers enter.

Portia took in the reception area and Annabelle’s office with a single disdainful glance. “Do not ever…
ever
…take it upon yourself to get rid of one of my candidates before Heath has had a chance to meet her.”

Annabelle closed the door. “You sent a bad candidate.”

Powers pointed one manicured finger in the direction of Annabelle’s sweat-beaded forehead. “That was for him to decide, not you.”

Annabelle ignored the fingernail pistol. “I’m sure you know how he feels about wasting time.”

Portia threw up her hand. “Can you really be this incompetent? Claudia Reeshman is the top model in Chicago. She’s beautiful. She’s intelligent. There are a million men who’d like a shot at her.”

“That may be true, but she seems to have some serious emotional problems.” A fairly obvious drug habit topped the list, although Annabelle wouldn’t make any accusations she couldn’t prove. “She started crying before her first drink arrived.”

“Everyone has a bad day now and then.” Powers draped a hand on her hip, a feminine pose, but she made it look as aggressive as a karate chop. “I’ve worked all month trying to talk her into meeting Heath. I finally get her to agree, and what do you do? You decide he’s not going to
like
her, and you send her home.”

“Claudia was going through more than a bad day,” Annabelle countered. “She’s an emotional train wreck.”

“I don’t care if she was rolling on the floor barking like a dog. What you did was stupid and underhanded.”

Annabelle had dealt with strong personalities all her life, and she wasn’t going to back down from this one, even with sweat dripping in her eyes and
BILL’S HEATING AND COOLING
sticking to her chest. “Heath’s been clear about what he expects.”

“I’d say the sexiest, most sought after woman in Chicago exceeds his expectations.”

“He wants more than beauty in a wife.”

“Oh, please. When it comes to men like Heath, cup size wins over IQ any time.”

They were getting nowhere, so Annabelle did her best to sound professional instead of pissed off. “This whole process would be easier for both of us if we could work together.”

Portia looked as if Annabelle had offered her a big bag of fatty junk food. “I have strict qualifications for my trainees, Ms. Granger. You don’t fit any of them.”

“Now that’s just bitchy.” Annabelle stalked to the door. “From now on, take your grievances right to Heath.”

“Oh, believe me, I will. And I can’t wait to hear what he has to say about this one.”

W
hat the hell were you thinking?” Heath bellowed into the phone a few hours later, not exactly yelling, but coming close. “I just found out you blew off Claudia Reeshman?”

“And?” Annabelle took a vicious jab at the notepad next to her kitchen phone with a lollipop pen.