Match Me if You Can (26 page)

Annabelle opened the door. She wore a V-necked striped top and a blue mini that did great things for her legs. “I should have issued my ultimatum sooner,” he said. “You definitely know how to deliver under pressure.”

“I thought you’d like her.”

“Did she call you yet?”

Annabelle nodded but didn’t say more, and he tensed. Maybe the date hadn’t gone as well as he thought. Delaney was a blue blood. What if she’d caught too strong a whiff of the trailer park?

“I talked with her a few minutes ago,” Annabelle finally said. “She’s smitten. Congratulations.”

“Really?” His instincts had been on target. “That’s great. Let’s celebrate. How about a beer?”

Annabelle didn’t move. “It’s…not a good time.”

She glanced over her shoulder, and that’s when it hit him. She wasn’t alone. He took in her fresh lip gloss and the blue mini. His good mood fizzled. Who did she have with her?

He gazed over the top of her head, but the front room was empty. Which didn’t mean the same thing was true of her bedroom…He fought the urge to charge past her and see for himself. “No problem,” he said stiffly. “I’ll talk to you next week.”

But instead of walking away, he stood there. Finally she nodded and shut the door.

Five minutes ago he’d been on top of the world. Now he wanted to kick something. He headed down the sidewalk and climbed into his car, but it wasn’t until he edged out of his parking space that his headlights caught the vehicle across the street. Earlier, he’d been too preoccupied to notice, but he wasn’t preoccupied now.

The last time he’d seen that bright red Porsche, it had been parked at Stars headquarters.

A
nnabelle trudged into the kitchen. Dean was sitting at the table, a Coke in one hand, a deck of cards in the other. “It’s your deal,” he said.

“I don’t feel like playing anymore.”

“You’re no fun tonight.” He tossed down the cards.

“Like you’re a barrel of laughs?” Kevin had sprained an ankle in Sunday’s game, so Dean had taken over in the second quarter and thrown four interceptions before the final whistle. The press was all over him, which was why he’d decided to hide out at her place for a while.

Water dripped from the sink faucet, its irritating
plunk plunk
getting on her nerves. She’d known Delaney and Heath would be a match. The enticing combination of Delaney’s appearance, her tomboyish athleticism, and her impeccable pedigree had predictably knocked Heath off his feet. And Delaney’d always had a weakness for macho men.

Annabelle had met Delaney twenty-one years ago at summer camp, and they’d become best friends, even though Delaney was two years younger. After their camp days had ended, they’d seen less of each other, mainly meeting in Chicago when Annabelle had visited Nana. During college, they’d drifted apart, only to reconnect a few years ago. Now they met every few months for lunch, no longer best friends, but friendly acquaintances with a shared history. For weeks now, Annabelle had been thinking about how perfect Delaney and Heath were for each other, so why had she waited so long to introduce them?

Because she’d known how perfect they’d be for each other.

She gazed over at Dean, who was tossing popcorn kernels in the air and catching them in his mouth. If only his passing game had been as accurate. She turned off the dripping faucet then slumped down at the table, a kindred soul in depression.

The refrigerator’s compressor clicked off, and the kitchen fell quiet except for the ticktock of the daisy wall clock and the soft plop of popcorn finding its target.

“Do you want to make out?” she said glumly.

He coughed up a kernel. “No!”

“You don’t have to look so outraged.”

His chair banged back down on all four legs. “It’d be like making out with my sister.”

“You haven’t got a sister.”

“No, but I’ve got an imagination.”

“Fine. I didn’t want to anyway. I was just making conversation.”

“You were just trying to distract yourself because you’ve fallen in love with the wrong guy.”

“You’re so full of it.”

“I heard Heath’s voice at the door.”

“Business.”

“Whatever gets you through the day.” He pushed the popcorn bowl back from the edge of the table. “I’m glad you didn’t let him in. It’s bad enough having Bodie tail me. He won’t give up.”

“It’s been over two months. I can’t believe you still haven’t found an agent. Or have you? No, never mind, I’d just tell Heath, and I don’t want to be in the middle.”

“You’re not in the middle. You’re on his side.” He tilted back in the chair again. “So why didn’t you take advantage of this golden opportunity to make him jealous and ask him in?”

Exactly what she’d been wondering herself except, really, what was the point? She was sick of deception, sick of keeping her guard up. She’d only invented her crush to keep from losing Heath as a client, and she no longer had to worry about that.

“I didn’t feel like it.”

For all his dumb-jock ways, Dean was smart as a whip, and she didn’t like the way he was looking at her, so she frowned at him. “Are you wearing makeup?”

“Tinted sunblock on my chin. I’ve got a zit.”

“It sucks being a teenager.”

“If you’d invited him in, I’d have nibbled on your neck and everything.”

With a sigh, she picked up the deck of cards and began to shuffle. “My deal.”

D
elaney stayed by Heath’s side as he spent halftime traveling between the skyboxes at the Midwest Sports Dome to press the flesh of the city’s movers and shakers. While he attended the Stars game, text messages were arriving from all over the country updating him on his other clients’ games. He’d been working the phones on and off since early morning, talking to wives, parents, and girlfriends—even Caleb Crenshaw’s grandmother—letting everybody know he was on the job. He glanced at his Black-Berry and saw a message from Bodie, who was at Lambeau Field with Sean. So far, their rookie fullback was having a great year.

Heath had been seeing Delaney for a month, although he’d been traveling so much they’d only gone out five times. Still, they talked nearly every day, and he already knew he’d found the woman he’d been searching for. This afternoon Delaney wore a black V-neck sweater, her great-grandmother’s pearls, and a trendy pair of jeans perfectly cut to fit her tall, thin figure. To his surprise, she broke away from his side and headed for Jerry Pierce, a ruddy-faced man in his early sixties and the head of one of Chicago’s largest brokerage firms.

She greeted Jerry with a hug that spoke of long familiarity. “How’s Mandy doing?”

“In her fifth month. We have our fingers crossed.”

“She’ll make it full term this time, I just know it. You and Carol are going to be the best grandparents.”

Heath and Jerry played in the same charity Pro Am every year, but Heath hadn’t known Jerry had a daughter, let alone that she suffered problem pregnancies. This was the kind of thing Delaney kept on top of, right along with knowing where to find the last remaining bottle of a 2002 Shotfire Ridge
cuvée
and why it was worth the effort to locate it. Even though he was a beer man, he admired her expertise, and he’d been making an effort to appreciate the vino. Football seemed to be one of the few areas where she wasn’t knowledgeable, preferring more genteel sports, but she’d been making an effort to learn more.

Jerry shook Heath’s hand. “Robillard’s finally looking like himself this week,” the older man said. “How come you haven’t signed that boy yet?”

“Dean believes in taking his time.”

“If he signs with anybody else, he’s a fool,” Delaney said loyally. “Heath is the best.”

Jerry turned out to be an opera buff, another thing Heath hadn’t known, and the conversation drifted to the Lyric. “Heath’s a country music fan.” Delaney’s voice held a sweetly tolerant note. “I’m determined to convert him.”

Heath glanced around the skybox, looking for Annabelle. She usually came to Stars games with Molly or one of the others, and he’d been sure he’d run into her, but no luck so far. As Delaney went on about
Don Giovanni,
Heath remembered one evening in between introductions when Annabelle had sung every word to Alan Jackson’s “It’s Five O’Clock Somewhere.” But then Annabelle knew all kinds of useless information. Like the fact that only people with a special enzyme in their body got smelly pee when they ate asparagus, which, he had to admit, was interesting.

The door of the skybox opened, and Phoebe came in wearing the team colors, a figure-molding pale aqua knit dress with a gold scarf tossed around her neck. Heath excused himself from Jerry and guided Delaney over to introduce her.

“It’s a pleasure,” Delaney said with obvious sincerity.

“Annabelle’s told me so much about you,” Phoebe replied with a smile.

He let the women chat without worrying about Delaney saying the wrong thing. She never did, and everybody but Bodie liked her. Not that Bodie disliked her. He just didn’t think Heath should marry her.
“I’ll admit the two of you look good on paper,”
he’d said last week,
“but you don’t ever relax around her. You’re not yourself.”

Maybe because Heath was becoming someone better. Considering the train wreck that passed for Bodie’s current love life, Heath felt safe in ignoring him.

Later, Heath met up with Phoebe in the hallway outside the owner’s skybox. Delaney had just headed off for the ladies’ room, and Heath was chatting with Ron and Sharon McDermitt when the Stars’ owner came around the corner. “Heath, can I steal you away for a minute?”

“I swear to God, whatever it is, I didn’t do it. Tell her, Ron.”

Ron grinned. “You’re on your own, buddy.” He and Sharon disappeared into the skybox.

Heath regarded Phoebe warily. “I knew I should have gotten a booster on my tetanus shot.”

“I might owe you an apology.”

“That’s it. No more beer for me. You’ll never guess what I thought you just said.”

“Pay attention.” She shifted her purse higher on her shoulder. “All I’m trying to say is that I might have jumped to the wrong conclusion when we were at the lake.”

“Which of about a hundred wrong conclusions would that be?” He knew the answer, but she’d lose respect for him if he gave in too easily.

“That you were taking advantage of Annabelle. I hope I’m a big enough person to admit when I’m wrong, but you have to remember that you’ve programmed me to expect the worst. Anyway, every time I see Annabelle she talks about how thrilled she is to be making this match between you and Delaney. Her business is blossoming. And Delaney’s lovely.” She reached up and patted his cheek. “Maybe our little boy is finally growing up.”

He couldn’t believe it. After all these years had he cracked the ice with Phoebe? If so, he owed it all to Delaney.

As Phoebe disappeared into the owner’s skybox, he pulled out his cell so he could share the news with Annabelle, but before he punched in her number, Delaney reappeared. He probably couldn’t have reached Annabelle anyway. Unlike him, she didn’t believe in leaving her phone on.

A
nnabelle had never been a big opera fan, but Delaney had box seats for
Tosca,
and the Lyric’s lavish production was exactly the distraction she needed to take her mind off her mother’s phone call that afternoon. Her family, it seemed, had decided to descend on Chicago next month to help Annabelle celebrate her thirty-second birthday.

“Adam has a conference,”
Kate had said,
“and Doug and Candace want to visit some old friends. Dad and I were planning a trip to St. Louis anyway, so we’ll drive up from there.”

One big, happy family.

Intermission came. “I can’t believe how much I’m enjoying this,” Annabelle said as she bought Delaney a glass of wine.

Unfortunately, her old friend was more interested in talking about Heath than in discussing the trials and tribulations of Tosca’s doomed lovers. “Did I remember to tell you that Heath introduced me to Phoebe Calebow on Saturday? She’s lovely. The whole weekend was fabulous.”

Annabelle didn’t want to hear about it, but Delaney was on a roll.

“I told you that Heath left for the coast yesterday, but I didn’t tell you that he sent flowers again. Unfortunately, more roses, but he’s basically a jock, so how much imagination can you expect?”

Annabelle loved roses, and she didn’t think they were all that unimaginative.

Delaney tugged on her pearls. “Of course, my parents adore him—you know how they are—and my brother thinks he’s the best guy I’ve ever dated.”

Annabelle’s brothers would have liked Heath, too. For all the wrong reasons, but still…

“We’ll have been together five weeks this coming Friday. Annabelle, I think this might be it. He’s as close to perfect as I’ll ever get.” Her smile faded. “Well…Except for that small problem I’ve been telling you about.”

Annabelle slowly released the air she’d been holding in her lungs. “No change?”

Delaney lowered her voice. “I was all over him in the car on Saturday. It was obvious I was getting to him, but he didn’t follow up on it. I know I’m being paranoid—and I’d never say this to anybody else—but are you absolutely sure he’s not gay? There was this guy in college, totally macho, but he turned out to have a boyfriend.”

“I don’t
think
he’s gay,” Annabelle heard herself say.

“No,” Delaney shook her head firmly. “I’m sure he’s not.”

“You’re probably right.”

The bell rang to announce the end of intermission, and Annabelle slithered back to her seat like the miserable snake she was.

R
ain pummeled the window behind Portia’s desk, and a bolt of lightning split the late afternoon sky.