“You cornered me,” she replied. “And, let’s be honest. Once she got to know you, she’d have dumped you. You’re way too high maintenance.”
Portia’s eyes had widened like butterfly wings. She studied Annabelle more closely. Then she got a little twitchy. She uncrossed the legs she’d crossed, crossed them again. Her top foot—the one in the navy sling-back—began tapping away. “I’m sure Annabelle has learned by now to be more careful with her background checks.”
Annabelle pretended surprise. “I was supposed to check Heath’s background?”
“Not Heath’s background,” Portia retorted. “The women!”
Heath fought a smile. “Annabelle is baiting you. I’ve learned it’s best to ignore her.”
Now Portia looked genuinely rattled. Annabelle almost felt sorry for her as she watched the navy sling-back move faster and faster.
Heath, in the meantime, made a sprint for the goal line. “Here’s the way it’s going to be, ladies. I made a mistake by not signing contracts with a shorter term, but it’s a mistake I’m correcting right now. You each have one shot left. That’s it.”
The sling-back froze. “When you say one shot…”
“One introduction each,” Heath said firmly.
Portia twisted in her chair, knocking the Kate Spade handbag over with her heel. “That’s not realistic.”
“Work with it.”
“Are you sure you really want to get married?” Annabelle said. “Because, if you do, maybe you should think about the possibility—more than a possibility, in my judgment, but I’m trying to be diplomatic …Have you thought about the possibility that you’re the one who’s sabotaging this process, not us?”
Portia shot her a warning look. “Sabotage is a strong word. I’m sure what Annabelle means to say is that—”
“What Annabelle means to say”—she rose from her chair—“is that we introduced you to some terrific women, but you only gave one of them a chance. The wrong one—again, only my opinion. We’re not magicians, Heath. We have to work with flesh-and-blood human beings, not some fantasy woman you’ve conjured in your mind.”
Portia plastered a phony smile on her face and rushed to save the sinking ship. “I hear what you’re saying, Heath. You’re not satisfied with the service you’ve been getting from Power Matches. You want us to vet the candidates more carefully, and that’s certainly a reasonable request. I can’t speak for Miss Granger, but I promise that I’ll proceed more conservatively from now on.”
“Very conservatively,” he said. “You have one introduction. The same goes for you, Annabelle. After that, I’m calling it quits.”
Portia’s plastic smile melted at the edges. “But your contract runs into October. It’s only mid-August.”
“Save your breath,” Annabelle said. “Heath wants an excuse to fire us. He doesn’t believe in failure, and if he fires us, he can transfer the blame.”
“Fire us?” Portia looked sick.
“It’ll be a new experience for you,” Annabelle said glumly. “Fortunately for me, I’ve had practice.”
Portia pulled herself back together. “I know this has been frustrating, but it’s frustrating for everyone who goes through the process. You deserve results, and you’ll get them, but only with a little patience.”
“I’ve been patient for months,” he said. “That’s long enough.”
Annabelle looked into his proud stubborn face and couldn’t keep silent. “Are you going to take ownership for any part of the problem?”
He met her gaze dead-on. “Absolutely. That’s what I’m doing right now. I told you I was looking for someone extraordinary, and if I’d thought it would be easy to find her, I’d have done it myself.” He rose from the corner of the desk. “Take as long as you need to come up with your last introduction. And believe me, nobody hopes that one of you gets it right more than I do.”
He made his way to the door, then stood back to let them out, his head outlined against the sign for the Beau Vista Trailer Park hanging on the wall behind him.
Annabelle retrieved her purse and gave him her most dignified nod, but she was fuming as she left his office, definitely in no mood to share an elevator with Portia, so she moved quickly through the lobby to the elevator bank.
As it turned out, she had no need to rush.
Portia slowed her steps as she watched Annabelle disappear. Bodie’s office lay just ahead on her right. When she’d walked past it earlier, she’d forced herself not to look in, but she’d known he was there. She could feel him through her skin. Even during that horrible meeting with Heath when she’d most needed to keep her wits, she’d felt him.
All last night she’d lain awake reliving the horrible things he’d said to her. Maybe she could have forgiven the lies he’d told her about his upbringing, but she could never forgive the rest. Who did he think he was to psychoanalyze her? The only thing wrong with her was him. Maybe she’d been a little depressed before she met him, but it hadn’t been significant. Last night he’d made her feel like a failure, and she wouldn’t let anyone do that to her.
Her hands were trembling as she stopped inside his office door. He was on the phone, his massive frame tilted back in his chair. As he spotted her, his face broke into a smile, and he dropped his feet to the floor.
“Let me call you back, Jimmie …Yeah, sounds good. We’ll get together.” He set the phone aside and rose. “Hey, babe…Are you still talking to me?”
His silly, hopeful grin made her falter. Instead of looking dangerous, he looked like a kid who’d spotted a new bike sitting on his front porch. She turned away to compose herself and came face-to-face with a wall of memorabilia. She took in a pair of framed magazine covers, some team pictures from his playing days, newspaper clippings. But it was a black-and-white photo that caught her attention. The photographer had captured Bodie with his helmet tilted back on his head, chin strap dangling, a scrap of turf caught in the corner of his face mask. His eyes shone with triumph, and his radiant grin owned the world. She bit her lip and made herself turn back to confront him. “I’m breaking it off, Bodie.”
He came around the side of the desk, his smile fading. “Don’t do this, sweetheart.”
“You couldn’t have been more wrong about me.” She forced herself to say the words that would keep her safe. “I love my life. I have money and a beautiful home, a successful business. I have friends—good, dear friends.” Her voice caught. “I love my life. Every part of it. Except the part that involves you.”
“Don’t, babe.” He reached toward her with one of his gentle, meat hook hands, not touching her, a gesture of entreaty. “You’re a fighter,” he said softly. “Have the guts to fight for us.”
She steeled herself against the pain. “It was a fling, Bodie. An amusement. Now it’s over.”
Her lips had begun to tremble, just like a child’s, and she didn’t wait for him to respond. She turned away…left his office…rode numbly down to the street in the elevator. Two pretty young things passed her as she stepped outside. One of them pointed toward her feet, and the other laughed.
Portia brushed past them, blinking back tears, suffocating. A red double-decker tour bus crawled by, the guide quoting Carl Sandburg in a booming, overly dramatic voice that felt like fingernails scraping the chalkboard of her skin.
“Stormy, husky brawling…City of the big shoulders: They tell me you are wicked, and I believe them…”
Portia swiped at her eyes and picked up her step. She had work to do. Work would fix everything.
Sherman’s air-conditioning was on the fritz, and Annabelle’s appearance had degenerated into a mass of curls and wrinkles by the time she got home from the meeting with Heath, but she didn’t go inside right away. Instead, she stayed in the car with the windows rolled down and braced herself for the next step. He was only giving her one more introduction. That meant she couldn’t put it off any longer. Even so, it took all her willpower to pull her cell from her purse and make the call.<
br />
“Delaney, hi. It’s Annabelle. Yes, I know. It’s been ages…”
We’re poor as church mice,” Delaney Lightfield told Heath the night of their first official date, a mere three days after they’d been introduced. “But we still maintain appearances. And thanks to Uncle Eldred’s influence, I have a great sales job at the Lyric Opera.”
She relayed this information with a charming, self-deprecating laugh that made Heath smile. At twenty-nine, Delaney reminded him of a blond, more athletic Audrey Hepburn. She wore a sleeveless navy cotton sweater dress with a strand of pearls that had belonged to her great-grandmother. She’d grown up in Lake Forest and graduated from Smith. She was an expert skier and a competent tennis player. She golfed, rode horseback, and spoke four languages. Although several decades of outdated business practices had depleted the Lightfield railroad fortune and forced the sale of the family’s summer house in Bar Harbor, Maine, she liked the challenge of making it on her own. She loved to cook and confessed that she sometimes wished she’d gone to culinary school. The woman of his dreams had finally appeared.
As the evening progressed, he switched from beer to wine, reminded himself to watch his language, and made it a point to mention the new Fauvist exhibit at the Art Institute. After dinner, he drove her back to the apartment she shared with two roommates and gave her a gentleman’s kiss on the cheek. As he drove away, the faint scent of French lavender lingered in the car. He grabbed his cell to phone Annabelle, but he was too revved to go home. He wanted to talk to her in person. Singing along with the radio in his off-key baritone, he headed for Wicker Park.
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.
Annabelle 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.”
Delaney 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 Delan
ey 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.
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