It had to be you | Page 4

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 alternative 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.

"Bert surely did love the game," Calebow continued, "and he was a good man to work
for."

"I'm certain he was." Each prolonged syllable she uttered was a breathlessly delivered
promise of sexual debauchery, a promise Viktor knew all too well Phoebe had no
intention of keeping.

He realized how nervous she was when she turned and held her arms out to him.
Guessing correctly that she wanted Pooh as a distraction device, he stepped forward, but
just as she took the animal, a maintenance truck that had entered the cemetery backfired,
startling the poodle.

Pooh gave a yap and leapt free of her arms. The dog had been restrained too long, and she
began a wild dash through the crowd, yapping shrilly, her tail wagging so wildly the
pom-pom looked as if it might fly off at any moment and whistle through the air like
Oddjob's hat.

"Pooh!" Phoebe cried, taking off after her just as the small white dog bumped against the
slender metal legs that supported a towering arrangement of gladiolus.

Phoebe wasn't the most athletic of creatures under