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"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.
Chapter 12
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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.
"Hey there, Miz Somerville." Her $8-million man gave her a grin that was nearly as wide as the black Stetson on his head. His stylishly frayed and faded jeans molded to his runner's legs, and his snakeskin cowboy boots had been perfectly broken in so that they were neither too new nor too run-down. Viktor would have been impressed.
Bobby Tom said, "I was worried you might not be here."
"I told you I'd come."
He pushed the brim of his hat back with his thumb. "You're going to be on the sidelines during the first quarter tomorrow, aren't you?"
She nibbled the corner of her lip. "Actually, Bobby Tom, I'm having some second thoughts."
"Hold on, now. I can see you and me need to have a serious conversation." One of his nimble, receiver's hands clasped her arm and gently steered her toward the bar. She could have protested, but she wasn't looking forward to an evening in a strange hotel room without even Pooh to keep her company.
The hotel bar was quiet and dark, and they settled in a small banquette in the corner, where Bobby Tom ordered a beer. "You look like the white wine type," he said. "How 'bout one of those fancy chardonnays."
Phoebe would have loved a chardonnay but she wasn't sure she liked being classified as a "white wine type," so she requested a margarita. The waitress, who'd been gazing at Bobby Tom with hungry eyes, went off to fill their orders.
"Are you allowed to drink the night before a game?"
"We're allowed to do just about anything as long as we give the team all we've got the next day. Drinkin' and curfew are the only two things the coach isn't real strict about. We're supposed to be in our rooms by eleven, but Coach was pretty much a hell-raiser in his playing days, and he knows we all have our own ways of blowin' off steam." Bobby Tom chuckled. "He's sort of a legend."
Phoebe told herself not to ask, but when it came to Dan Calebow, her curiosity seemed to have no bounds. "What do you mean? What kind of legend?"
"Well, some of the stories about him aren't fit for female ears, but I guess everybody knows how much he hated curfews. See, the coach only needs a couple of hours sleep at night, and when he was playin', he couldn't stand the idea of being cooped up in his room at eleven o'clock. Said it wound him up too tight for the game. So what he mostly did was slide in his room for bed check and then sneak out afterward for some serious partying. The coaches found out about it, of course. They fined him, benched him; none of it did any good, because he'd still be out closing down the bars. Finally, he told them if they didn't like it, they'd could either shoot him or trade him, but he wasn't gonna change. The only bad game he had his entire first season was when they put a guard outside his room. The next day, he threw five interceptions. After that, the coaches stopped bothering him about it. 'Course he settled down a little bit when he got older."
