It Had to Be You (Chicago Stars #1)(85)

“How do you plan to do that?”

“I’ll tell you how. One day— Any day I happen to choose. Any hour. Any time. Any place. I’m going to look at you, and I’m going to say one word.”

“One word?”

“I’m going to say now. Just that one word. Now. And when you hear that word, it means you stop doing whatever you’re doing, and you follow me to wherever I choose to take you. And when we get there, that body of yours becomes my own personal playpen. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

He waited for her to explode, but he should have known she wouldn’t let him off so easily. Phoebe knew almost as much about playing games as he did.

“I think so,” she said thoughtfully. “Let me see if I’ve got this straight. You’re telling me that, because you didn’t make it to the mountaintop, so to speak, I owe you a debt. When you look at me and you say now, I’m supposed to turn into your love slave. Do I have it right?”

“Yep.” The sadness had faded from his eyes, and he was definitely beginning to enjoy himself.

“No matter what I’m doing.”

“No matter what.”

“No matter where you choose to take me.”

“A broom closet, if I’ve a mind to. It’s completely up to me.” He was playing with fire and actually anticipating the moment it would flame out of control.

“If I’m at work?” she inquired with remarkable calm.

“There’s a fifty-fifty chance that’s exactly where you’ll be.”

“In a meeting?”

“You lift that curvy little butt of yours right out of the chair and follow me.”

“In a meeting with the commissioner?”

“You say, ‘I’m sorry, Mr. Commissioner, but I believe I have a case of the stomach flu coming on, so will you excuse me. And Coach Calebow, could you come with me just in case I happen to faint in the hall and need somebody to pick me up?’ “

“I see.” She looked thoughtful. “What if I’m doing an interview with—oh, let’s say, Frank Gifford?”

“Frank’s a good guy. I’m sure he’ll understand.”

The explosion was going to come any second now. He knew it.

She crinkled her forehead. “I just want to make absolutely certain I’ve got this right. You say now, and I’m supposed to turn into your— How was it you put it? Your personal playpen?”

“That’s what I said.” He braced himself.

“Playpen.”

“Yep.”

She took a deep breath and smiled. “Cool.”

Stunned, he watched her slip through the door. When it shut, he threw back his head and laughed. She’d done it. She’d gotten him again.





18


Molly had just walked in the door from school the next afternoon when the phone rang. She heard Peg moving about in the laundry room as she set her book bag on the kitchen counter and picked up the receiver. “Hello.”

“Hi there, Miz Molly. It’s Dan Calebow.”

She smiled. “Hello, Coach Calebow.”

“Say, I’ve got a little problem here, and I thought you might like to help me out.”

“If I can.”

“Now that’s exactly what I like about you, Miz Molly. You have a cooperative nature, in contrast with another woman I could name, whose entire mission in life seems to be making things tough for a guy.”

Molly decided he was talking about Phoebe.

“I was thinking about dropping by your house for an hour or so tonight with a couple of gen-u-ine Chicago pizzas. But you know how Phoebe is. She’d probably refuse to let me in the door if I asked her straight out, and even if she said it was okay, you’ve seen how she likes to pick fights with me. So I figure things would go a lot better if you’d invite me over. That way Phoebe’d have to be polite.”

“Well, I don’t know. Phoebe and I . . .”

“Is she still smackin’ you? ’cause if she is, I’m gonna have some words with her.”

Molly caught her bottom lip between her teeth and murmured, “She doesn’t hit me anymore.”

“You don’t say.”

There was a long pause. Molly picked at the corner of a lavender spiral notebook that had fallen out of her book bag. “You know I wasn’t telling the truth about that, don’t you?”

“You weren’t?”

“She wouldn’t— Phoebe wouldn’t ever hit anybody.”

The coach murmured something that sounded like, “Don’t count on it.”

“Pardon me?”

“Nothing. You go on with what you were saying.”

Molly wasn’t ready to comment further about her relationship with Phoebe. It was too confusing. Sometimes Phoebe acted as if she really liked her, but how could that be when Molly wasn’t even nice to her? More and more lately she’d wanted to be nice, but then she’d remember that her father had loved only Phoebe, and any good feelings she had toward her older sister evaporated. She did like Coach Calebow, however. He was funny and nice, and he’d made the kids at school notice her. She and Jeff talked every day at their lockers.

“I’d like it if you’d stop by tonight,” she said. “But I don’t want to be in the way.”