It Had to Be You (Chicago Stars #1)(53)

Shrugging off the incident, he parked his Ferrari and walked into the low brick building, smiling as he heard the various noises of the school: squeals of laughter, off-key singing, chairs scraping. He was due in Wheaton in half an hour to speak at a Rotary luncheon, but he couldn’t resist stopping off for a few minutes. Maybe it would clear out his confusion over what had happened with Phoebe last night.

The doorway to Sharon’s classroom was open, and as he looked inside, his chest swelled. They were baking cookies! Right then, he was ready to drop down on his knees and propose marriage. What he wouldn’t have given when he was a kid to have baked cookies with his mother. Unfortunately, she had been too busy getting drunk. Not that he blamed her. Living with a bastard like his father would have driven anyone to drink.

Sharon glanced up from the big mixing bowl and dropped the spoon she had been holding as she spotted him. Her face flooded with color. He smiled as he saw what a mess she was.

Her curly red hair had flour in it, and a streak of blue food coloring decorated her cheek. If he owned Cosmopolitan magazine, he’d have put her on the cover, just like that. In his mind, Sharon, with her pixie’s face and freckled nose, was a lot more alluring than those big-breasted blondes in sequins and Spandex.

An image of Phoebe Somerville flashed through his mind, but he pushed it away. He wasn’t going to let lust interfere with a search for his children’s mother.

Sharon fumbled for the wooden spoon she had dropped. “Oh, uh—Hi. Come in.”

Her nervousness appealed to him. It was nice being with a woman who wasn’t used to being with a man like him. “I just stopped by for a minute to see how my pal Robert was doing with his broken arm.”

“Robert, somebody’s here to see you.”

A cute little black kid in shorts and a T-shirt came rushing over to show off his cast. Dan admired the signatures on it, including his own, which was somewhat the worse for wear.

“Do you know Michael?” the child finally said.

In a town like Chicago, there was no doubt which Michael he meant, not even when the question came from a four-year-old.

“Sure. He lets me play basketball with him at his house sometimes.”

“I bet he beats you real bad.”

“Naw. He’s afraid of me.”

“Michael’s not afraid of anybody,” the child said solemnly.

So much for trying to make jokes about Jordan, even after his retirement. “You’re right. He beats me real bad.”

Robert led Dan over to the table to admire his cookies, and before long some of the other children had claimed his attention. They were so cute he couldn’t get enough of them. Kids tickled him, maybe because he liked a lot of the same things they did: eating cookies, watching cartoons on TV, generally messin’ around. Even though he was running late, he couldn’t bring himself to leave.

Sharon, in the meantime, had spilled a measuring cup of sugar and just dropped an egg. He grabbed a paper towel to help her clean it up and saw that she was blushing again. He liked that curly red hair of hers and the way it was always flying all over the place.

“I seem to have the dropsies today,” she stammered.

“That’s one of those words you’re not supposed to use around quarterbacks. Even retired ones.”

It took her a few seconds to get the point, but then she smiled.

“You’ve got food coloring on your cheek.”

“I’m such a mess.” She dipped her head and rubbed her cheek with her shoulder, so that she ended up with food coloring in two places instead of one. “Honestly, I don’t look like this all the time.”

“Don’t apologize. You look great.”

“Ethan took my sprinkles,” a little girl wailed.

Sharon immediately turned her attention to the child who was tugging on her slacks with messy fingers. This was something else he liked about her. Even when she was talking to an adult, the children were her first priority. He watched with admiration as she negotiated a settlement that would have done a diplomat proud.

“They could use you in the Middle East.”

She smiled. “I think I’d better stick to sprinkles.”

He glanced down at his watch. “I’ve got to go. I’m making a speech five minutes ago. My schedule’s pretty crazy right now, but when things loosen up, let’s go out to dinner. You like Italian?”

She had turned red again. “I—Yes, Italian’s fine.”

“Good. I’ll call you.”

“Okay.” She seemed vaguely stunned.

Impulsively, he leaned forward and brushed her mouth with a quick kiss. On the way out to the parking lot, he smiled and licked his lips.

Maybe it was his imagination, but he thought he tasted vanilla.





12


Phoebe ran into Bobby Tom Denton in the hotel lobby at eight-thirty on Saturday evening. Although she had just arrived in Portland on a commercial flight from O’Hare, the Stars had been there since noon because NFL rules stated that visiting teams had to be in the city in which they were playing twenty-four hours before kickoff. She knew from an earlier glance at the schedule that the players had been in a meeting until 8:00 p.m. and were now free until their eleven o’clock curfew.

“Hey there, Miz Somerville.” Her $8-million man gave her a grin that was nearly as wide as the black Stetson on his head. His stylishly frayed and faded jeans molded to his runner’s legs, and his snakeskin cowboy boots had been perfectly broken in so that they were neither too new nor too run-down. Viktor would have been impressed.