Match Me If You Can (Chicago Stars #6)(115)

Heath hung up on God’s gift to the NFL, hit the button to unlock his car, and set off for the Loop and Birdcage Press. The book club meeting wasn’t scheduled until one, which gave him time to cover an extra base.

“I spoke with Molly this morning.” Annabelle’s former fiancé surveyed Heath’s unshaven jaw and mismatched outfit from behind her desk in the marketing department of Molly’s publishing company. “I hurt Annabelle more than enough. Did you have to dump on her, too?”

Rosemary wasn’t the most attractive woman Heath had ever seen, but she was well dressed and dignified. Way too dignified. Completely the wrong person for Annabelle. What the hell had she been thinking? “I didn’t set out to dump on her.”

“I’m sure you thought you were doing her a huge favor when you proposed,” Rosemary drawled. Then she proceeded to blister Heath with a way too insightful lecture on male insensitivity, exactly what he didn’t need to hear right now. He escaped as quickly as he could.

As he made his way back to his car, he saw that half a dozen more calls had come in, none of them from the person he wanted to talk to. He tore the parking ticket off his windshield and headed for the Ike. By the time he reached the expressway, his stomach was a mass of knots. He told himself she’d come home sooner or later, that this wasn’t an emergency. But nothing could still his sense of urgency. She was in pain because of him—suffering from his stupidity—and that was intolerable.

He hit a traffic backup on the East West Tollway and didn’t reach the Calebow house until one-fifteen. He scanned the cars lining the driveway for an ugly green Crown Victoria, but Annabelle’s car was MIA. Maybe she’d ridden with somebody else. But as he rang the bell, he couldn’t shake off a sense of foreboding.

The door swung open, and he gazed down at Pippi Tucker. Stumpy blond pigtails stuck out on each side of her head, and she held a menagerie of stuffed animals against her flat chest. “Pwince! I didn’t go to preschool today ’cause my school got busted water pies.”

“Is that right? Is, uh, Annabelle here?”

“I been playing with Hannah’s stuffed animals. Hannah’s at school. She don’t have busted water pies. Can I see your phone?”

“Pip?” Phoebe appeared in the hallway. She wore black slacks and a purple turtleneck draped with a blue and yellow paper lei. She took in Heath’s unkempt appearance through a pair of rimless half glasses. “I hope the police caught whoever mugged you.”

Pippi hopped up and down. “Pwince is here!”

“I see.” Phoebe set her hand on the child’s shoulder without taking her eyes off Heath. “Did you come all the way out here to gloat? I wish I were a big enough person to congratulate you on your new client, but I’m not.”

He wedged past her into the foyer. “Is Annabelle here?”

She pulled off her glasses. “Go ahead. Tell me all the ways you plan to bankrupt me.”

“I don’t see her car.”

Her cat’s eyes narrowed. “You’ve talked to Dean, right?”

“Yeah, but he didn’t know where Annabelle was.” Grilling Phoebe was a waste of time, and he headed for the living room, which was spacious and rustic, with exposed beams and a loft. The book club had gathered in a nook beneath it, all of them except Annabelle. Even casually dressed and draped in paper leis, they were an intimidating bunch of women, and as he crossed the room, he felt their eyes on him like hypodermics. “Where is she? And don’t tell me you don’t know.”

Molly uncrossed her legs and rose. “We do know, and we’ve been ordered to keep our mouths shut. Annabelle wants time to herself.”

“She just thinks she does. I have to talk to her.”

Gwen regarded him over her enormous stomach like a hostile Buddha. “Are you planning to give her more reasons she should marry a man who doesn’t love her?”

“It’s not like that.” He gritted his teeth. “I do love her. I love her with all my frickin’ heart, but I can’t convince her of that if somebody won’t tell me where the hell she’s gone.”

He hadn’t meant to sound so angry, and Charmaine took offense. “When did you have this miraculous realization?”

“Last night. A blue woman and a bottle of scotch opened my eyes. Now where is she?”

“We’re not going to tell you,” said Krystal.

Janine glared at him. “If she calls, we’ll relay your message. And we’ll also tell her we don’t like your attitude.”

“I’ll relay my own damned message,” he retorted.

“Not even the great Heath Champion can bulldoze his way through this.” Molly’s quiet stubbornness sent a chill up his spine. “Annabelle will contact you in her own way and in her own time. Or maybe not. That’s up to her. I know it goes against your nature, but you’ll have to be patient. She’s calling the shots now.”

“It’s not as though you won’t be busy,” Lady Evil drawled from behind him. “Now that Dean has turned his back on the goodwill of the woman who holds his contract—”

He spun on her. “I don’t give a damn about Dean right now, Phoebe, and here’s a news flash. Some things in life are more important than football.”