Read Susan Elizabeth Phillips It Had to Be You Online Free
IT HAD TO Exist YOU
By
Susan Elizabeth Phillips
Contents
Chapter ane
Chapter 2
Chapter three
Chapter 4
Chapter v
Chapter vi
Chapter vii
Chapter 8
Chapter ix
Affiliate x
Chapter 11
Affiliate 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter xv
Chapter sixteen
Chapter 17
Affiliate 18
Affiliate 19
Affiliate twenty
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Affiliate 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' caput 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 bullpen's mound. So why is he drawn to the shameless sexpot similar a estrus-seeking missile? And why does Dan's adept ol' male child charm go out cosmopolitan Phoebe feeling awkward, tongue-tied and frightened to death?
Suddenly in that location's more than than simply a championship at pale. Because passion's the name of this game—and ii stubborn people are playing for keeps!
"A DAZZLING Vox IN
CONTEMPORARY WOMEN'S FICTION"
Linda Barlow, writer of Leaves of Fortune
"Sentinel SUSAN ELIZABETH PHILLIPS GO PLACES!"
LaVyrle Spencer
ISBN 0-380-77683-ix
This is a piece of work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the production of the author'south imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to bodily events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and across the intent of either the author or the publisher.
AVON BOOKS, INC.
1350 Artery of the Americas
New York, New York 10019
Copyright © 1994 by Susan Elizabeth Phillips
Embrace fine art past Paul Stinson
Author photo by Ron Stewart Portraiture
Published past organization with the author
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 93-91031
ISBN: 0-380-77683-nine
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 United statesA.
To Steven Axelrod,
who's been around from the start with a good head,
a strong shoulder, and a high tolerance for crazy authors.
This one had to exist yours.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book would not have been possible without the gracious assistance of the Chicago Bears' organisation. A special thanks to Barbara Allen for opening doors and answering questions. Get 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 cheers to my husband, Pecker Phillips, who, since my writing career began, has planned golf game tournaments, designed computers, and spent the by year managing a professional football team. This book truly would non have been possible without his assist.
Susan Elizabeth Phillips c/o Avon Books
1350 Avenue of the Americas
New York, New York 10019
Chapter one
^ »
Phoebe Somerville outraged everyone by bringing a French poodle and a Hungarian lover to her father's funeral. She sabbatum 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-center sunglasses shielding her eyes. It was hard for the mourners to determine 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'southward ash blond hair, artfully streaked with platinum, swooped down over i eye like Marilyn Monroe'southward in The Vii Year Itch. Her moist, full lips, painted a succulent shade of peony pinkish, 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 gilt metallic bustier beneath was more advisable to a stone concert than a funeral. And the slim skirt, belted with loops of gold chain (one of which sported a dangling fig leafage) was slit at the side to the centre of her shapely thigh.
This was the first time Phoebe had been back in Chicago since she'd run away when she was xviii, so only a few of the mourners present had ever met Bert Somerville's dissipated daughter. From the stories they'd heard, however, none of them were surprised that Bert had disinherited her. What male parent would want to pass on his manor to a daughter who'd been the mistress of a human more than than forty years her senior, even if that man had been the noted Spanish painter, Arturo Flores? And and then there was the embarrassment of the paintings. To someone similar 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 earth hadn't softened his judgment.
Phoebe had a slender waist and slim, shapely legs, only her breasts and hips were plump and womanly, a throwback to an almost forgotten time when women had looked similar women. She had a bad daughter's trunk, the sort of body that, even at 30-three, could merely likewise have been displayed with a staple through the navel equally 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 nearly the organisation of her features, although it was difficult to say exactly what since her nose was straight, her rima oris well formed, and her jaw potent. Perhaps information technology was the outrageously sexy tiny black mole that saturday high on her cheekbone. Or peradventure it was her eyes. Those who had seen them before she'd slipped on her rhinestone sunglasses had noted the style they tilted upward at the corners, too exotic, somehow, to fit with the remainder of her face. Arturo Flores had frequently exaggerated those bister eyes, sometimes painting them larger than her hips, sometimes superimposing them over her wonderful breasts.
Throughout the funeral, Phoebe seemed cool and equanimous, 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'south western suburbs, didn't provide any relief from the heat. A dark green awning 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 attention, and much of the well-dressed crowd was standing in the sun, where they'd begun to wilt, non just from the humidity but also from the overpowering scent of almost a hu
ndred floral arrangements. Luckily, the ceremony had been short, and since there was no reception after, 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 instead of their ain.
The shiny black casket rested above the footing on a light-green carpet that had been laid directly in front of the identify where Phoebe was sitting between her 15-year-old one-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 x years before.
When the anniversary ended, Phoebe cradled the white poodle in her arms and rose to her anxiety, stepping into a shaft of sunlight that sparked the aureate metallic threads of her bustier and fix the rhinestone frames of her cat's-eye sunglasses afire. The effect was unnecessarily dramatic for a woman who was already quite dramatic plenty.
Reed Chandler, Bert'southward thirty-five-year-old nephew, got upward from his chair next to her and walked over to identify a flower on the casket. Phoebe'southward half sister Molly followed cocky-consciously. Reed gave every appearance of being grief-stricken, although it was an open surreptitious 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 utilize? She hadn't been able to win her father's love while he was live, and now she could finally give upwardly the effort. She reached out to requite a comforting affect to the immature one-half sister who was such a stranger to her, but Molly pulled away, but equally 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 rapidly turned away from him, and in a breathless, slightly croaking voice that fit her chicky-smash trunk almost besides perfectly, she addressed those around her.
"So prissy of yous 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 merely because of his exotic good looks, only because there was something hauntingly familiar near this gorgeous hunk of a Hungarian. A few of them correctly identified him as the model who posed, hair undone, oiled muscles bulging, and attachment open, in a national advert campaign for men'south jeans.
Viktor took the dog from her. "Of form, 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 usa 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, merely he was Hungarian and inclined to be pessimistic, so he blew a osculation in her direction and regarded her soulfully while he settled the poodle in his arms and arranged his posture all-time 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 fashion downward his back.
Phoebe extended a slim-fingered paw whose long, peony-pinkish 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, thanks then much for coming. I know how busy yous must exist, and you lot're a perfect honey."
The senator's plump, gray-haired wife shot Phoebe a suspicious await, but when Phoebe turned to greet her, the woman was surprised at the warmth and friendliness in her smile. Later on, she would notice that Phoebe Somerville seemed more than relaxed with the women than the men. Curious for such an obvious, sexpot. But so information technology was a foreign family.
Bert Somerville had a history of marrying Las Vegas showgirls. The outset of them, Phoebe's female parent, had died years earlier while trying to give nascence to the son Bert craved. His 3rd wife, Molly's mother, had lost her life in a pocket-sized plane blow xiii years earlier on the way to Aspen, where she was planning to gloat her divorce. But Bert'south second wife was however living, and she wouldn't have walked across the street to nourish his funeral, let alone wing 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 cerise-veined olfactory organ, he looked like a beardless Santa Claus.
"Terrible thing, Miss Somerville. Terrible." He cleared his throat with a rhythmic hut-hut. "Don't believe nosotros've met. Unusual not to have met Bert's girl, all the years we've known each other. Bert and I go way back, and I'grand going to miss him. Not that the two of the states always agreed on things. He could be damned stubborn. Just, notwithstanding, we become way back."
He continued shaking her hand and rambling on without e'er making middle contact with her. Anyone who didn't follow football might have wondered how someone who seemed on the verge of senility could mayhap coach a professional person football game squad, merely 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 yous just a dear to say so, Mr. Archer. An accented sugarplum."
Tully Archer had been called many things in his life, only he had never been chosen 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 upward to offering their condolences.
In shoes the size of tramp steamers, they shifted uneasily from ane 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 canticle to begin playing at any moment, and their freakish, oversized bodies were blimp into sky bluish team blazers and gray trousers. Chaplet of perspiration from the midday estrus glimmered on skin that ranged in color from a glistening bluish-black to a suntanned white. Like plantation slaves, the National Football game League's Chicago Stars had come to pay homage to the man who owned them.
A slit-eyed, neckless human who looked every bit if he should be leading a riot at a maximum security prison house stepped upwardly. He kept his optics so firmly stock-still on Phoebe'south face that it was obvious he was forcing himself not to allow his gaze drift lower to her spectacular breasts. "I'grand Elvis Crenshaw, olfactory organ guard. Existent sorry about Mr. Somerville."
Phoebe accepted his condolences. The nose guard moved on, glancing curiously at Viktor Szabo as he passed.
Viktor, who stood merely 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 pocket-size white poodle cradled in his arms instead of an Uzi. Yet, he could tell the pose was working because nearly every woman in the oversupply was watching him. Now, if he could only catch the attention of that sexy creature with the marvelous derriere, his solar day would be perfect.
Unfortunately, the sexy creature with the marvelous derriere had stopped in front end of Phoebe and had eyes simply for her.
"Miz Somerville, I'grand Dan Calebow, caput 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 and then he was Hungarian, and what did he know.
Phoebe was Viktor's best friend in the entire globe, and he would take washed annihilation for her, a devotion he was proving by agreeing to act out this macabre charade every bit her lover. At this moment, withal, he wanted naught more than to whisk her abroad from harm. She didn't seem to understand that she was playing with fire by toying with that hot-blooded man. Or possibly she did. When Phoebe felt cornered, she could haul an entire army of defensive weapons into action, and seldom were any of them wisely called.
Dan Calebow hadn't spared Viktor a glance, so it wasn't difficult for the Hungarian to categorize him as i of those maddening men who was completely close-minded on the bailiwick of an altern
ative lifestyle. A pity, simply 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 5 years agone to accept up coaching. In midseason last fall Bert had fired the Stars' caput charabanc 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 human being who carried himself with the authority of someone who had no patience for self-doubt. A bit taller than Viktor'due south own half-dozen feet, he was more muscular than almost professional quarterbacks. He had a high, wide forehead and a strong nose with a small-scale bump at the bridge. His bottom lip was slightly fuller than his meridian, and a sparse white scar marked the point midway between his mouth and chin. Only his most fascinating feature wasn't either that interesting oral cavity, 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'k real sorry about Bert," Calebow said, his Alabama boyhood still axiomatic in his speech. "Nosotros 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 normally shift effectually so much, so he knew she was rattled. Not that she'd allow anyone see information technology. Phoebe had a reputation as a sexpot to uphold.
Viktor's attention returned to the Stars' head charabanc. He remembered reading that Dan Calebow had been nicknamed "Ice" during his playing days because of his chilling lack of pity for his opponent. He couldn't blame Phoebe for beingness unsettled in his presence. This homo was formidable.
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