Susan Phillips - It Had To Be You

"Stuff happens." He'd wanted to do this right, so he'd told her they needed to talk and asked her to meet him downtown for dinner at Gordon, which was her favorite restaurant. When she'd refused and told him to come to her office instead, he'd figured she knew what was on his mind and just wanted to get it over with.

She snatched a pack of cigarettes from the middle of the conference table. "That incident at your house last night was appalling. I hope she keeps her mouth shut."

"She prob'ly will."

Valerie gave a cynical laugh. "My entire life flashed in front of me when I realized what had happened."

"I imagine hers flashed in front of her, too, when I was draggin' her into the woods. Unlike you, she didn't know I wasn't really going to hurt her."

"You did manage to calm her down?"

"We talked some."

She inhaled deeply on the cigarette she had just lit and made her first not-so-delicate probe. "It's going to put a damper on any seduction plans you have for her."

"Believe me, Val, the only plans I have for Phoebe are to stay as far away from her as I can."

He meant it, too. He was furious with himself for letting things go so far with Phoebe. He should never have kissed her, and he promised himself he wouldn't ever get carried away like that again. Finally, he had his priorities straight.

Val regarded him warily. "Then what's this about?"

He knew she wasn't going to like what he had to say, and he spoke softly. "I've met someone."

She was cool, he'd give her that, and if he hadn't known her better, he would have believed she was unaffected by his news. "Anyone I know?"

"No. She's a nursery school teacher." Val wouldn't understand if he told her he hadn't yet asked Sharon out for a formal date, but after last night's incident, he knew he couldn't indulge in any more sex games with his ex-wife, not when he was getting ready to launch a serious courtship.

"How long have you and this nursery school teacher been seeing each other?" She took a quick, angry drag.

"Not long."

"And she, of course, is everything I wasn't." Her mouth tightened as she stabbed out her cigarette in the ashtray.

Valerie had a good-sized ego and she didn't usually give in to petulance, but he understood that he was hurting her. "I'm sure she's not as smart as you, Valerie. Not as sexy, either. But the thing of it is, she's real good with kids."

"I see. She's passed your Mother Goose audition." She gave him a bright, hard smile. "Actually, Dan, I'm glad this came up because I've been wanting to talk to you about the same thing."

"What do you mean?"

"Our arrangement isn't working for me."

He feigned surprise. "You want to break it off?"

"I'm sorry, but, yes. I just didn't know how to bring it up without hurting you."

He jumped up from his chair and gave her a little of the outrage he knew she needed to hear. "Who is he? Have you got another man, Val?"

"It was inevitable, Dan. So let's not have any scenes."

He looked down. Shoved his foot around in the carpet pile for a little bit. "Damn, Valerie, you sure know how to cut a man down to size. I don't know why I even try to have the last word with you. Here I came over to break it off with you, and all the time you were getting ready to dump me."

She regarded him suspiciously, trying to see if he was putting her on, but he kept the same sincere expression on his face he'd used in Sunday's postgame interviews when he talked about how well the Broncos had played and how friggin' much they'd deserved to win.

She gave the conference table a brisk thump with her fingertips and stood. "Well, then, I guess there isn't anything more to say."

"I guess not."

As he looked down at her, the good times came back instead of the bad. Most of them had taken place in bed, but he supposed that was more than a lot of divorced couples could say. He wasn't sure who moved first, but the next thing he knew they had their arms around each other.

"Take care of yourself, y'hear?" he said.

"Have a good life," she whispered back.

Twenty minutes later as he pulled into the parking lot at the Sunny Days Nursery School, he was no longer thinking about Valerie. Instead, he was frowning into his rear-view mirror. The gray van that had been following him looked like the same one he'd seen behind him a couple of times last week. It had a crumpled right fender. If he had a reporter on his tail, why the cloak-and-dagger stuff? He tried to see the driver as the van passed by the nursery school entrance, but the windows were tinted.

Shrugging off the incident, he parked his Ferrari and walked into the low brick building, smiling as he heard the various noises of the school: squeals of laughter, off-key singing, chairs scraping. He was due in Wheaton in half an hour to speak at a Rotary luncheon, but he couldn't resist stopping off for a few minutes. Maybe it would clear out his confusion over what had happened with Phoebe last night.

The doorway to Sharon's classroom was open, and as he looked inside, his chest swelled. They were baking cookies! Right then, he was ready to drop down on his knees and propose marriage. What he wouldn't have given when he was a kid to have baked cookies with his mother. Unfortunately, she had been too busy getting drunk. Not that he blamed her. Living with a bastard like his father would have driven anyone to drink.

Sharon glanced up from the big mixing bowl and dropped the spoon she had been holding as she spotted him. Her face flooded with color. He smiled as he saw what a mess she was.

Her curly red hair had flour in it, and a streak of blue food coloring decorated her cheek. If he owned Cosmopolitan magazine, he'd have put her on the cover, just like that. In his mind, Sharon, with her pixie's face and freckled nose, was a lot more alluring than those big-breasted blondes in sequins and Spandex.

An image of Phoebe Somerville flashed through his mind, but he pushed it away. He wasn't going to let lust interfere with a search for his children's mother.

Sharon fumbled for the wooden spoon she had dropped. "Oh, uh-Hi. Come in."

Her nervousness appealed to him. It was nice being with a woman who wasn't used to being with a man like him. "I just stopped by for a minute to see how my pal Robert was doing with his broken arm."

"Robert, somebody's here to see you."

A cute little black kid in shorts and a T-shirt came rushing over to show off his cast. Dan admired the signatures on it, including his own, which was somewhat the worse for wear.

"Do you know Michael?" the child finally said.

In a town like Chicago, there was no doubt which Michael he meant, not even when the question came from a four-year-old.

"Sure. He lets me play basketball with him at his house sometimes."

"I bet he beats you real bad."

"Naw. He's afraid of me."

"Michael's not afraid of anybody," the child said solemnly.

So much for trying to make jokes about Jordan, even after his retirement. "You're right. He beats me real bad."

Robert led Dan over to the table to admire his cookies, and before long some of the other children had claimed his attention. They were so cute he couldn't get enough of them. Kids tickled him, maybe because he liked a lot of the same things they did: eating cookies, watching cartoons on TV, generally messin' around. Even though he was running late, he couldn't bring himself to leave.

Sharon, in the meantime, had spilled a measuring cup of sugar and just dropped an egg. He grabbed a paper towel to help her clean it up and saw that she was blushing again. He liked that curly red hair of hers and the way it was always flying all over the place.

"I seem to have the dropsies today," she stammered.

"That's one of those words you're not supposed to use around quarterbacks. Even retired ones."

It took her a few seconds to get the point, but then she smiled.

"You've got food coloring on your cheek."

"I'm such a mess." She dipped her head and rubbed her cheek with her shoulder, so that she ended up with food coloring in two places instead of one. "Honestly, I don't look like this all the time."

"Don't apologize. You look great."

"Ethan took my sprinkles," a little girl wailed.

Sharon immediately turned her attention to the child who was tugging on her slacks with messy fingers. This was something else he liked about her. Even when she was talking to an adult, the children were her first priority. He watched with admiration as she negotiated a settlement that would have done a diplomat proud.

"They could use you in the Middle East."

She smiled. "I think I'd better stick to sprinkles."

He glanced down at his watch. "I've got to go. I'm making a speech five minutes ago. My schedule's pretty crazy right now, but when things loosen up, let's go out to dinner. You like Italian?"

She had turned red again. "I-Yes, Italian's fine."

"Good. I'll call you."

"Okay." She seemed vaguely stunned.

Impulsively, he leaned forward and brushed her mouth with a quick kiss. On the way out to the parking lot, he smiled and licked his lips.

Maybe it was his imagination, but he thought he tasted vanilla.

Phoebe ran into Bobby Tom Denton in the hotel lobby at eight-thirty on Saturday evening. Although she had just arrived in Portland on a commercial flight from O'Hare, the Stars had been there since noon because NFL rules stated that visiting teams had to be in the city in which they were playing twenty-four hours before kick-off. She knew from an earlier glance at the schedule that the players had been in a meeting until 8:00 p.m. and were now free until their eleven o'clock curfew.