Match Me If You Can (Chicago Stars #6)(41)

He’d always been comfortable in his body, but now he felt awkward and out of place. He glanced toward the swimming pool and experienced a flicker of hope. In a pool, he’d be right at home. Unfortunately, the iron gate was padlocked. Apparently Molly and Phoebe had decided supervising so many little kids around water was too dangerous, but he’d have supervised the damn kids. He liked danger. If he’d gotten lucky, one of the little buggers would have gone under for a while, and he could have saved her from drowning. That would have caught Phoebe’s attention.

The Stars’ owner stood behind the farthest of the little tables, setting out some kind of cardboard whoogees. Like everybody else, she had one of those frickin’ pink crowns on her head, and he regarded her with a profound sense of personal insult. Team owners should wear Stetsons or go bareheaded. No other options.

Phoebe chose that moment to look up. Her eyes widened in surprise, and she dropped one of the cardboard whoogees. “Heath?”

“Hey, Phoebe.”

“Well. And isn’t this special?” She snatched up the—whatever-the-hell they were. “As much as I’d love to climb into the trenches with you for another round of mud wrestling, I’m a little busy now.”

“Annabelle thought you could use some help.”

“And you’re it? I don’t think so.”

He arranged his mouth in his most disarming smile. “I’ll admit I’m a little out of my element, but if you point me in the right direction, I’ll give it my best.”

Instead of charming her, he’d made her suspicious, and her face assumed its customary distrustful expression. Before she could interrogate him, however, an army of little girls charged around the corner. Some of them held hands, others walked by themselves. They came in different shapes, different colors, and one of them was crying.

“New places can be scary,” he heard Hannah say, “but everybody here is very, very nice. And if you get really scared, come and tell me. I’ll take you for a walk. Also, if you need to go to the potty, I’ll show you where it is. Our doggie is all locked up so she can’t jump on anybody. And if you see a bee, tell one of the grown-ups.”

This must be what Molly had meant when she’d said that Hannah got emotionally involved.

Molly stepped toward the pink cardboard boxes. “Every princess needs a beautiful gown, and here are yours.” A few of the bolder girls rushed forward.

Phoebe thrust the whoogees in his hand. “Put one of these at each place. And you’d better not charge me for it.” She hurried away to help.

Annabelle was nowhere to be seen. He’d come down on her hard, and he wasn’t surprised that she needed time to recover. He ignored an unpleasant twinge in his gut. She’d brought this on herself when she’d crossed the line. He studied the whoogees, pink cardboard starbursts glued to the ends of wooden dowels. His mood grew gloomier. They must be magic wands. What the hell did magic wands have to do with helping girls learn math and science? He’d been good at both. He could have helped them with math and science. Weren’t these girls supposed to be building skills? Screw magic wands. He’d have handed out some f*cking calculators.

He tossed the wands on the table and looked around for Annabelle, but she still hadn’t appeared, which was starting to bother him. Even though he’d needed to sack her, he didn’t want to destroy her. High-pitched screams emerged from the gown boxes. Although the girls looked like an army, there were only fifteen or so of them. Something brushed his leg, and he gazed down into the face of Pippi Tucker. The theme from Jaws raced through his head.

The three-year-old’s gown was the color of Pepto-Bismol, her eyes green gumballs of innocence. Only the rakish tilt of the pink tiara in her blond curls hinted at a desperado’s heart. She held out a tiara she was clutching in her grubby little fist. “You gotta wear a crown.”

“Not in this lifetime.” He gave her a ministare, enough to get his point across without making her scream for her mother.

Her small, pale eyebrows shot together just like her father’s when he spotted a safety blitz.

“Heath!” Molly’s voice emerged from a pool of gowns, sequins, and little girls. “Keep your eye on Pippi till we get everybody dressed, will you?”

“My pleasure.” He looked down at the kid.

The kid looked up at him.

He studied her gumball eyes and pink tiara.

She scratched her arm.

He searched his brain and finally came up with something. “Anybody ever teach you how to use a calculator?”

The squeals emanating from the direction of the gown box grew louder. Pippi tipped her chin to get a better view of him, and her tiara scooted farther back on her head. “You got some bubbles?”

“What?”

“I like bubbles.”

“Uh-huh.”

Her eyes darted to his pockets. “Where’s your phone?”

“Let’s go see how your mother’s doing.”

“I wanna see your phone.”

“Give me back my old one first, and then we’ll talk.”

She grinned. “I luvvvv phones.”

“Tell me about it.”

Last month when he’d dropped by the Tucker house, he’d been left alone with their little adorable for a few minutes. She’d demanded to see his cell. It was a brand-new state-of the-art five-hundred-dollar Motorola equipped with enough peripherals so he could basically run his business from it, but he hadn’t seen the harm. Just as he’d handed it over, however, Kevin had called from the other room asking Heath to look at a piece of game film, and that was the last he’d seen of it.