It Had to Be You Read online

  IT HAD TO BE YOU

  By

  Susan Elizabeth Phillips

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  EPILOGUE

  TWO HEARTS COLLIDE

  The Windy City isn't quite ready for Phoebe Somerville—the trendy, outrageous and curvaceous New York knockout who has just inherited the Chicago Stars football team. And Phoebe is definitely not prepared for the Stars' head coach Dan Calebo—an Alabama-born former gridiron legend and blond barbarian.

  Calebo is everything Phoebe abhors—a sexist, jock taskmaster with a one-track mind. The beautiful new boss is everything Dan despises—a meddling bimbo who doesn't know pigskin from a pitcher's mound. So why is he drawn to the shameless sexpot like a heat-seeking missile? And why does Dan's good ol' boy charm leave cosmopolitan Phoebe feeling awkward, tongue-tied and frightened to death?

  Suddenly there's more than just a championship at stake. Because passion's the name of this game—and two stubborn people are playing for keeps!

  "A DAZZLING VOICE IN

  CONTEMPORARY WOMEN'S FICTION"

  Linda Barlow, author of Leaves of Fortune

  "WATCH SUSAN ELIZABETH PHILLIPS GO PLACES!"

  LaVyrle Spencer

  ISBN 0-380-77683-9

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of either the author or the publisher.

  AVON BOOKS, INC.

  1350 Avenue of the Americas

  New York, New York 10019

  Copyright © 1994 by Susan Elizabeth Phillips

  Cover art by Paul Stinson

  Author photo by Ron Stewart Portraiture

  Published by arrangement with the author

  Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 93-91031

  ISBN: 0-380-77683-9

  www.avonbooks.com/romance

  AVON TRADEMARK REG. U.S. PAT. OFF. AND IN OTHER COUNTRIES, MARCA REG1STRADA, HECHO EN U.S.A.

  Printed in the U.S.A.

  To Steven Axelrod,

  who's been around from the beginning with a good head,

  a strong shoulder, and a high tolerance for crazy authors.

  This one had to be yours.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  This book would not have been possible without the gracious assistance of the Chicago Bears' organization. A special thanks to Barbara Allen for opening doors and answering questions. Go Bears!

  I am also deeply indebted to the following people and organizations:

  The National Football League

  The Dallas Cowboys' and Denver Broncos' organizations

  The public relations staff at the Pontiac Silverdome and the Houston Astrodome

  Linda Barlow, Mary Lynn Baxter, Jayne Ann Krentz, Jimmie Morel, John Roscich, and Katherine Stone, for brainstorming, answering questions, providing perspective, and, in general, bailing me out of trouble

  The wonderful reference librarians at Nichols Library Claire Zion, for years of guidance and support

  The people at Avon Books, especially my enthusiastic and helpful editor, Lisa Wager.

  A special thank you to my husband, Bill Phillips, who, since my writing career began, has planned golf tournaments, designed computers, and spent the past year managing a professional football team. This book truly would not have been possible without his help.

  Susan Elizabeth Phillips c/o Avon Books

  1350 Avenue of the Americas

  New York, New York 10019

  Chapter 1

  ^ »

  Phoebe Somerville outraged everyone by bringing a French poodle and a Hungarian lover to her father's funeral. She sat at the gravesite like a fifties movie queen with the small white poodle perched in her lap and a pair of rhinestone-studded cat's-eye sunglasses shielding her eyes. It was difficult for the mourners to decide who looked more out of place—the perfectly clipped poodle sporting a pair of matching peach satin ear bows, Phoebe's unbelievably handsome Hungarian with his long, beaded ponytail, or Phoebe herself.

  Phoebe's ash blond hair, artfully streaked with platinum, swooped down over one eye like Marilyn Monroe's in The Seven Year Itch. Her moist, full lips, painted a delicious shade of peony pink, were slightly parted as she gazed toward the shiny black casket that held what was left of Bert Somerville. She wore an ivory suit with a silky, quilted jacket, but the outrageous gold metallic bustier beneath was more appropriate to a rock concert than a funeral. And the slim skirt, belted with loops of gold chain (one of which sported a dangling fig leaf) was slit at the side to the middle of her shapely thigh.

  This was the first time Phoebe had been back in Chicago since she'd run away when she was eighteen, so only a few of the mourners present had ever met Bert Somerville's prodigal daughter. From the stories they'd heard, however, none of them were surprised that Bert had disinherited her. What father would want to pass on his estate to a daughter who'd been the mistress of a man more than forty years her senior, even if that man had been the noted Spanish painter, Arturo Flores? And then there was the embarrassment of the paintings. To someone like Bert Somerville, naked pictures were naked pictures, and the fact that the dozens of abstract nudes Flores had executed of Phoebe now graced the walls of museums all over the world hadn't softened his judgment.

  Phoebe had a slender waist and slim, shapely legs, but her breasts and hips were plump and womanly, a throwback to an almost forgotten time when women had looked like women. She had a bad girl's body, the sort of body that, even at thirty-three, could just as well have been displayed with a staple through the navel as hanging on a museum wall. It was a bimbo's body—never mind that the brain inside was highly intelligent, since Phoebe was the sort of woman who was seldom judged by anything except appearances.

  Her face wasn't any more conventional than her body. There was something off-kilter about the arrangement of her features, although it was difficult to say exactly what since her nose was straight, her mouth well formed, and her jaw strong. Perhaps it was the outrageously sexy tiny black mole that sat high on her cheekbone. Or maybe it was her eyes. Those who had seen them before she'd slipped on her rhinestone sunglasses had noted the way they tilted upward at the corners, too exotic, somehow, to fit with the rest of her face. Arturo Flores had frequently exaggerated those amber eyes, sometimes painting them larger than her hips, sometimes superimposing them over her wonderful breasts.

  Throughout the funeral, Phoebe seemed cool and composed, despite the fact that the July air was heavy with humidity. Even the rushing waters of the nearby DuPage River, which ran through several of Chicago's western suburbs, didn't provide any relief from the heat. A dark green canopy shaded both the gravesite and the rows of chairs set up for the dignitaries in a semicircle around the black ebony casket, but the canopy wasn't large enough to shelter everyone attending, and much of the well-dressed crowd was standing in the sun, where they'd begun to wilt, not only from the humidity but also from the overpowering scent of nearly a
hundred floral arrangements. Luckily, the ceremony had been short, and since there was no reception afterward, they could soon head for their favorite watering holes to cool off and secretly rejoice in the fact that Bert Somerville's number had come up instead of their own.

  The shiny black casket rested above the ground on a green carpet that had been laid directly in front of the place where Phoebe was sitting between her fifteen-year-old half sister, Molly, and her cousin Reed Chandler. The polished lid held a star-shaped floral spray of white roses embellished with sky blue and gold ribbons, the colors of the Chicago Stars, the National Football League franchise Bert had bought ten years earlier.

  When the ceremony ended, Phoebe cradled the white poodle in her arms and rose to her feet, stepping into a shaft of sunlight that sparked the gold metallic threads of her bustier and set the rhinestone frames of her cat's-eye sunglasses afire. The effect was unnecessarily dramatic for a woman who was already quite dramatic enough.

  Reed Chandler, Bert's thirty-five-year-old nephew, got up from his chair next to her and walked over to place a flower on the casket. Phoebe's half sister Molly followed self-consciously. Reed gave every appearance of being grief-stricken, although it was an open secret that he would inherit his uncle's football team. Phoebe dutifully placed her own flower on her father's coffin and refused to let the old bitterness return. What was the use? She hadn't been able to win her father's love while he was alive, and now she could finally give up the effort. She reached out to give a comforting touch to the young half sister who was such a stranger to her, but Molly pulled away, just as she always did whenever Phoebe tried to get close to her.

  Reed returned to her side, and Phoebe instinctively recoiled. Despite all the charity boards he now served on, she couldn't forget what a bully he had been as a child. She quickly turned away from him, and in a breathless, slightly husky voice that fit her chicky-boom body almost too perfectly, she addressed those around her.

  "So nice of you to attend. Especially in this awful heat. Viktor, sweetie, would you take Pooh?"

  She held out the small white poodle to Viktor Szabo, who was driving the women crazy, not just because of his exotic good looks, but because there was something hauntingly familiar about this gorgeous hunk of a Hungarian. A few of them correctly identified him as the model who posed, hair undone, oiled muscles bulging, and zipper open, in a national advertising campaign for men's jeans.

  Viktor took the dog from her. "Of course, my darling," he replied in an accent that, although noticeable, was less pronounced than that of any of the Gabor sisters, who had lived in the States many decades longer than he had.

  "My pet," Phoebe purred, not at Pooh, but at Viktor.

  Privately Viktor thought Phoebe was pushing it a bit, but he was Hungarian and inclined to be pessimistic, so he blew a kiss in her direction and regarded her soulfully while he settled the poodle in his arms and arranged his posture best to display his perfectly sculpted body. Occasionally he moved his head so that the light caught the sparkle of silver beads discreetly woven into the dramatic ponytail that fell a quarter of the way down his back.

  Phoebe extended a slim-fingered hand whose long, peony-pink nails were tipped with crescents of white toward the portly U.S. Senator who had approached her and regarded him as if he were a particularly delectable piece of beefcake. "Senator, thank you so much for coming. I know how busy you must be, and you're a perfect honey."

  The senator's plump, gray-haired wife shot Phoebe a suspicious look, but when Phoebe turned to greet her, the woman was surprised at the warmth and friendliness in her smile. Later, she would notice that Phoebe Somerville seemed more relaxed with the women than the men. Curious for such an obvious, sexpot. But then it was a strange family.

  Bert Somerville had a history of marrying Las Vegas showgirls. The first of them, Phoebe's mother, had died years before while trying to give birth to the son Bert craved. His third wife, Molly's mother, had lost her life in a small plane accident thirteen years earlier on the way to Aspen, where she was planning to celebrate her divorce. Only Bert's second wife was still living, and she wouldn't have walked across the street to attend his funeral, let alone fly in from Reno.

  Tully Archer, the venerable defensive coordinator of the Chicago Stars, left Reed's side and approached Phoebe. With his white hair, grizzled eyebrows, and red-veined nose, he looked like a beardless Santa Claus.

  "Terrible thing, Miss Somerville. Terrible." He cleared his throat with a rhythmic hut-hut. "Don't believe we've met. Unusual not to have met Bert's daughter, all the years we've known each other. Bert and I go way back, and I'm going to miss him. Not that the two of us always agreed on things. He could be damned stubborn. But, still, we go way back."

  He continued shaking her hand and rambling on without ever making eye contact with her. Anyone who didn't follow football might have wondered how someone who seemed on the verge of senility could possibly coach a professional football team, but those who had seen him work never made the mistake of underestimating his coaching abilities.

  He loved to talk, however, and when he showed no intention of running out of words, Phoebe interrupted. "And aren't you just a dear to say so, Mr. Archer. An absolute sugarplum."

  Tully Archer had been called many things in his life, but he had never been called a sugarplum, and the appellation left him temporarily speechless, which might have been what she intended because she immediately turned away only to see a regiment of monster men lined up to offer their condolences.

  In shoes the size of tramp steamers, they shifted uneasily from one foot to the other. Thousands of pounds of beef on the hoof with thighs like battering rams, they had thick, monstrous necks rooted in bulging shoulders. Their hands were clasped like grappling hooks in front of them as if they expected the national anthem to begin playing at any moment, and their freakish, oversized bodies were stuffed into sky blue team blazers and gray trousers. Beads of perspiration from the midday heat glimmered on skin that ranged in color from a glistening blue-black to a suntanned white. Like plantation slaves, the National Football League's Chicago Stars had come to pay homage to the man who owned them.

  A slit-eyed, neckless man who looked as if he should be leading a riot at a maximum security prison stepped up. He kept his eyes so firmly fixed on Phoebe's face that it was obvious he was forcing himself not to let his gaze drift lower to her spectacular breasts. "I'm Elvis Crenshaw, nose guard. Real sorry about Mr. Somerville."

  Phoebe accepted his condolences. The nose guard moved on, glancing curiously at Viktor Szabo as he passed.

  Viktor, who stood only a few feet from Phoebe, had struck his Rambo pose, a feat not all that easy to carry off considering the fact that he had a small white poodle cradled in his arms instead of an Uzi. Still, he could tell the pose was working because nearly every woman in the crowd was watching him. Now, if he could only catch the attention of that sexy creature with the marvelous derriere, his day would be perfect.

  Unfortunately, the sexy creature with the marvelous derriere had stopped in front of Phoebe and had eyes only for her.

  "Miz Somerville, I'm Dan Calebow, head coach of the Stars."

  "Well, hel-lo, Mr. Calebow," Phoebe crooned in a voice that sounded to Viktor like a peculiar cross between Bette Midler and Bette Davis, but then he was Hungarian, and what did he know.

  Phoebe was Viktor's best friend in the entire world, and he would have done anything for her, a devotion he was proving by agreeing to act out this macabre charade as her lover. At this moment, however, he wanted nothing more than to whisk her away from harm. She didn't seem to understand that she was playing with fire by toying with that hot-blooded man. Or maybe she did. When Phoebe felt cornered, she could haul an entire army of defensive weapons into action, and seldom were any of them wisely chosen.

  Dan Calebow hadn't spared Viktor a glance, so it wasn't difficult for the Hungarian to categorize him as one of those maddening men who was completely close-minded on the subject of an alte
rnative lifestyle. A pity, but an attitude Viktor accepted with his characteristic good nature.

  Phoebe might not recognize Dan Calebow, but Viktor followed American football and knew that Calebow had been one of the NFL's most explosive and controversial quarterbacks until he had retired five years ago to take up coaching. In midseason last fall Bert had fired the Stars' head coach and hired Dan, who had been working for the rival Chicago Bears' organization, to fill the position.

  Calebow was a big, blond lion of a man who carried himself with the authority of someone who had no patience for self-doubt. A bit taller than Viktor's own six feet, he was more muscular than most professional quarterbacks. He had a high, broad forehead and a strong nose with a small bump at the bridge. His bottom lip was slightly fuller than his top, and a thin white scar marked the point midway between his mouth and chin. But his most fascinating feature wasn't either that interesting mouth, his thick tawny hair, or the macho chin scar. Instead, it was a pair of predatory sea-green eyes, which were, at that moment, surveying his poor Phoebe with such intensity that Viktor half expected her skin to begin steaming.

  "I'm real sorry about Bert," Calebow said, his Alabama boyhood still evident in his speech. "We surely are going to miss him."

  "How kind of you to say so, Mr. Calebow."

  A faintly exotic cadence had been added to the husky undertones of Phoebe's speech, and Viktor realized she had introduced Kathleen Turner to her repertoire of sexy female voices. She didn't usually shift around so much, so he knew she was rattled. Not that she'd let anyone see it. Phoebe had a reputation as a sexpot to uphold.

  Viktor's attention returned to the Stars' head coach. He remembered reading that Dan Calebow had been nicknamed "Ice" during his playing days because of his chilling lack of compassion for his opponent. He couldn't blame Phoebe for being unsettled in his presence. This man was formidable.