It Had To Be You

EPILOGUE

Dan walked down the quiet lane and breathed in the fragrant evening air of late May. He caught the scent of rich, damp earth, along with the faint hint of lilacs from the bushes he and Phoebe had planted not long after they were married. Contentment seeped through every pore of his body even though his wife was in a snit, and he knew he was going to hear about it the minute she got him alone.

She got upset about the strangest things. Just because he'd asked a few perfectly innocent questions about that raging hormone who was taking Molly to her high school senior prom was no reason to accuse him of being overly protective. It had been odd starting out his marriage as a stand-in father for a teenage girl, but he knew he'd done a lot better job of it than Bert Somerville. He and Phoebe had secretly rejoiced when Molly had decided to go to Northwestern instead of one of the Ivy League schools. They didn't want her too far from home.

So much had happened these past three years. Ray Hardesty had suffered a fatal heart attack before he could go to trial. Reed Chandler had taken the hint about leaving town, and the last anybody'd heard, he was selling cheap condos on a run-down Florida golf course. There had been weddings: Ron and Sharon, Darnell and Charmaine. He'd be surprised if Valerie and Jason Keane ever got married, but they certainly made an interesting couple. There had been a wrenching funeral when his friend Tully Archer had died of pneumonia. The Stars had lost their first two› Super Bowls and failed to qualify the third year. This year, however, they'd finally won it, and the Lombardi trophy was sitting in the lobby of the Stars Complex to prove it Best of all, he'd become a family man.

He smiled as he remembered that glare Phoebe had shot him over the dinner table tonight when he'd been grilling Molly about her love life. Although he tried to keep it a secret, having his wife in a snit was something he never failed to enjoy. He was a competitive person by nature, and the sheer challenge of seeing how long it took him from the time she started fussing at him to the time he got her naked appealed to his sportsman's nature. So far, his record was eight minutes, and that had been after a serious snit, too-the same night he and Ron had badgered her into signing Bobby Tom's new $10-million contract.

Phoebe loved Bobby Tom-he and Viktor were the twins' godfathers-but she was a real tightwad when it came to big-money contracts. The smartest thing he'd ever done was sic his lawyers on her right after they got married. That had been a battle and a half. Damn but he loved being married to Phoebe!

Not long before his twin daughters were born, Phoebe and Ron had signed an agreement to reorganize the Stars. Unfortunately, that agreement had put an end to all kinds of enjoyable conflicts. Ron was now the Stars' president and the person in charge of day-to-day operations, while Phoebe was proving to be a real whiz at her new job as Director of Finance and Budget.

Under the terms of the agreement, only Ron had the authority to make personnel decisions. Signing over that responsibility had been a wise move on Phoebe's part. She loved crunching numbers, but she didn't have the stomach for the whole business of cutting and trading players. She still liked to poke her nose into Dan's coaching practices, however, especially when one of the players ran whining to her about being benched. On those occasions he took great pleasure in reminding her that he reported only to Ron.

Phoebe was so good-humored that everybody except the sports agents loved working with her. Only when salaries were being negotiated did she get prickly. The whole world knew by now how smart she was, so she couldn't pull off her bimbo scams anymore, and to Dan's embarrassment, she had rapidly earned a reputation as one of the most astute budget directors in the NFL, which didn't mean that he still wasn't planning to hit her with both barrels when his own contract expired this fall. Mrs. Phoebe Somerville Calebow was going to pay through the nose for that diamond choker he planned to slip around her beautiful neck when their next baby was born.

Although they hadn't talked too much about it, both of them knew it would be his last contract with the Stars. The girls were getting older and he was beginning to resent the brutal seven-day workweeks during the season. He already had his eye on a sweet little Division III college right here in DuPage County.

He smiled to himself as he remembered the way Phoebe had looked when he'd kissed her just before he'd slipped from the house for his nightly outing. She'd been sitting cross-legged in the middle of the living room floor, one of his old sweatshirts pulled tight over her big round belly while she played patty-cake with the girls, who kept trying to grab her charm bracelets and tug at her hair. Tonight he was going to pull that sweatshirt right up to her chin and whisper lots of girly things to her belly. He didn't care how much she teased him. He liked having girls, and he was hoping for another one.

He stopped walking and gazed at the farmhouse. The twins were two and a half now, mischievous little blond-haired cherubs who managed to get into nearly as much trouble as their mother. As he thought about them, he could feel his throat closing up, and he was glad nobody was around to witness the tears that gathered in his eyes. He'd always-loved this place, but until Phoebe had settled in with her rhinestone sunglasses and glittery earrings, something had been missing.

Once again he drew a long, contented breath. He had everything he'd dreamed of. A wife he loved with all his heart. Beautiful children. A house in the country. And a dog.

He whistled softly. "Come on, Pooh. Let's go home."