Match Me if You Can (13 page)

She leaned against the trunk of the elm and tried not to cry.

H
eath was furious. He didn’t like looking foolish under any circumstances, but especially not in front of Phoebe Calebow. Yet here he was, completely out of his element. If the party had involved teenagers, he’d have been fine. He liked teenagers. He knew how to talk to them. But little kids—little female kids—were a mystery to him.

His anger against Annabelle grew. She thought putting one over on him was funny, but nothing involving Phoebe amused him. Where business was concerned, he didn’t play games. Annabelle knew that, but she’d decided to test him, and he’d had to cut her off at the knees. He wouldn’t let it bother him, either. Sentiment and second-guessing were for losers.

He focused on the Calebows’ backyard with its swimming pool, climbing trees, and open stretch of well-used yard, all of it designed for a large family. This afternoon, pink filmy crap hung from the trees, around the flagstone patio, and over the jungle gym. It also festooned tiny tables where pink balloons bobbed in the breeze above the back of each small chair. Glittery dresses like the one Pippi Tucker wore spilled from pink cardboard cartons, and a battered pink wagon held a pile of plastic slippers. Fake pink jewels decorated a throne-shaped chair sitting in the middle of the patio. Only the green dragon piñata dangling from the branch of a maple tree had escaped the pink plague.

He’d always been comfortable in his body, but now he felt awkward and out of place. He glanced toward the swimming pool and experienced a flicker of hope. In a pool, he’d be right at home. Unfortunately, the iron gate was padlocked. Apparently Molly and Phoebe had decided supervising so many little kids around water was too dangerous, but he’d have supervised the damn kids. He liked danger. If he’d gotten lucky, one of the little buggers would have gone under for a while, and he could have saved her from drowning. That would have caught Phoebe’s attention.

The Stars’ owner stood behind the farthest of the little tables, setting out some kind of cardboard whoogees. Like everybody else, she had one of those frickin’ pink crowns on her head, and he regarded her with a profound sense of personal insult. Team owners should wear Stetsons or go bareheaded. No other options.

Phoebe chose that moment to look up. Her eyes widened in surprise, and she dropped one of the cardboard whoogees. “Heath?”

“Hey, Phoebe.”

“Well. And isn’t this special?” She snatched up the—whatever-the-hell they were. “As much as I’d love to climb into the trenches with you for another round of mud wrestling, I’m a little busy now.”

“Annabelle thought you could use some help.”

“And you’re it? I don’t think so.”

He arranged his mouth in his most disarming smile. “I’ll admit I’m a little out of my element, but if you point me in the right direction, I’ll give it my best.”

Instead of charming her, he’d made her suspicious, and her face assumed its customary distrustful expression. Before she could interrogate him, however, an army of little girls charged around the corner. Some of them held hands, others walked by themselves. They came in different shapes, different colors, and one of them was crying.

“New places can be scary,” he heard Hannah say, “but everybody here is very, very nice. And if you get really scared, come and tell me. I’ll take you for a walk. Also, if you need to go to the potty, I’ll show you where it is. Our doggie is all locked up so she can’t jump on anybody. And if you see a bee, tell one of the grown-ups.”

This must be what Molly had meant when she’d said that Hannah got emotionally involved.

Molly stepped toward the pink cardboard boxes. “Every princess needs a beautiful gown, and here are yours.” A few of the bolder girls rushed forward.

Phoebe thrust the whoogees in his hand. “Put one of these at each place. And you’d better not charge me for it.” She hurried away to help.

Annabelle was nowhere to be seen. He’d come down on her hard, and he wasn’t surprised that she needed time to recover. He ignored an unpleasant twinge in his gut. She’d brought this on herself when she’d crossed the line. He studied the whoogees, pink cardboard starbursts glued to the ends of wooden dowels. His mood grew gloomier. They must be magic wands. What the hell did magic wands have to do with helping girls learn math and science? He’d been good at both. He could have helped them with math and science. Weren’t these girls supposed to be building skills? Screw magic wands. He’d have handed out some fucking calculators.

He tossed the wands on the table and looked around for Annabelle, but she still hadn’t appeared, which was starting to bother him. Even though he’d needed to sack her, he didn’t want to destroy her. High-pitched screams emerged from the gown boxes. Although the girls looked like an army, there were only fifteen or so of them. Something brushed his leg, and he gazed down into the face of Pippi Tucker. The theme from
Jaws
raced through his head.

The three-year-old’s gown was the color of Pepto-Bismol, her eyes green gumballs of innocence. Only the rakish tilt of the pink tiara in her blond curls hinted at a desperado’s heart. She held out a tiara she was clutching in her grubby little fist. “You gotta wear a crown.”

“Not in this lifetime.” He gave her a ministare, enough to get his point across without making her scream for her mother.

Her small, pale eyebrows shot together just like her father’s when he spotted a safety blitz.

“Heath!” Molly’s voice emerged from a pool of gowns, sequins, and little girls. “Keep your eye on Pippi till we get everybody dressed, will you?”

“My pleasure.” He looked down at the kid.

The kid looked up at him.

He studied her gumball eyes and pink tiara.

She scratched her arm.

He searched his brain and finally came up with something. “Anybody ever teach you how to use a calculator?”

The squeals emanating from the direction of the gown box grew louder. Pippi tipped her chin to get a better view of him, and her tiara scooted farther back on her head. “You got some bubbles?”

“What?”

“I like bubbles.”

“Uh-huh.”

Her eyes darted to his pockets. “Where’s your phone?”

“Let’s go see how your mother’s doing.”

“I wanna see your phone.”

“Give me back my old one first, and then we’ll talk.”

She grinned. “I luvvvv phones.”

“Tell me about it.”

Last month when he’d dropped by the Tucker house, he’d been left alone with their little adorable for a few minutes. She’d demanded to see his cell. It was a brand-new state-of the-art five-hundred-dollar Motorola equipped with enough peripherals so he could basically run his business from it, but he hadn’t seen the harm. Just as he’d handed it over, however, Kevin had called from the other room asking Heath to look at a piece of game film, and that was the last he’d seen of it.

He’d managed to get her alone before he’d left and tried to cross-examine her, but all of a sudden the kid no
hablo
-ed the
inglés.
As a result, he’d lost a couple of dozen important e-mails and the final notes on a new contract. Later, Bodie had said Heath should have just told Kevin what had happened, but Kevin and Molly were starry-eyed when it came to their kids, and Heath couldn’t imagine saying anything they could interpret as criticism of their little darling.

She stomped a foot in the grass. “Wanna see phone
now.
”

“Forget it.”

She screwed up her face. Oh, shit, she was going to cry. He knew from past experience that the tiniest sound of dismay coming from her moppet’s mouth sent Molly’s head spinning. Where the hell was Annabelle? He whipped his hand into his pocket and pulled out his newest cell. “
I’ll
hold it while you look.” He knelt at her side.

She made a grab. “I wanna hold it.”

Heath would never for a moment have let it go—he wasn’t that stupid—but Annabelle chose that particular instant to make her appearance, and he was so surprised by what he saw that he lost track.

A queen of England–size crown nestled in her wild tumble of curls, and she wore a long silvery gown. Shimmering rhinestones sprinkled the fluffy skirt, and a wisp of silver netting framed her bare shoulders. As she walked onto the grass, the sun struck her from every direction, setting her hair on fire and striking sparks in the rhinestones. No wonder the shrieking little girls fell silent. He was fairly awestruck himself.

For a moment, he forgot how pissed he was with her. Although the gown was a costume and the tiara fake, she seemed almost magical, and something inside him didn’t want to look away. Most of the girls were dressed by now, their tiny pink gowns pulled on over shorts and T-shirts. As Annabelle approached them, he spotted her flip-flops peeking from under the hem of her gown. For some weird reason, they seemed just right.

“Greetings, my little beauties,” she trilled, sounding like the good witch in
The Wizard of Oz
. “I’m Annabelle, your fairy godmother. I’m going to ask each of you your name and then cast a magic spell that will turn you into an official princess. Are you ready?”

Their shrill squeals seemed to indicate they were.

“After I do that,” she went on, “I’ll help you make your own magic wand to take home.”

Heath snatched up the wands he’d dumped in a heap and began tossing them among the pots of pink glitter and plastic jewels on the tables. Annabelle moved along the row of little girls, leaned down to ask each child her name, then waved her own wand over the child’s head. “I dub thee Princess Keesha…I dub thee Princess Rose …I dub thee Princess Dominga…I dub thee Princess Victoria Phoebe.”

Damn it!
Heath whirled around, remembering too late that the kid had his phone. He searched the grass where they’d been standing and checked his pockets, but his cell was nowhere to be seen. He turned toward the girls, and there she stood, a pint-size phone felon with empty hands and a crooked pink tiara on her head.

The kid was only three, and hardly any time had passed. How far could she have gone with it? As he considered his next move, Phoebe popped up at his side with a Polaroid camera. “We want a picture of each of the girls sitting on the throne in her costume. Will you take them for free,” she cooed, “or are you going to put a lien on their tooth fairy money?”

“Phoebe, I’m wounded.”

“Not to worry. I doubt you’ll bleed.” She plopped the camera in his hand, and off she went, pink tiara aglitter, ill will oozing from every pore. Great. So far, he’d managed to fire his matchmaker and lose another cell without getting one step closer to repairing his relationship with the Stars’ owner. And the party was just getting started.

Annabelle finished the naming ceremony, then she and Molly guided some of the girls to the tables to decorate their wands while Phoebe and Hannah led the others toward a tray of lipsticks and eye shadows. He had a few minutes before he needed to set up his photo shop, enough time to figure out where a three-year-old could have hidden a phone.

A trill of laughter coming from Glinda the Good Witch drifted his way, but he refused to be distracted. Unfortunately, Pippi had hunkered down with her mother. Her hands were occupied, one with a glue stick, the other attached to the thumb she’d popped in her mouth, so she must have stashed it somewhere. Maybe she’d slipped it into her shorts pocket under her gown. He remembered he’d programmed it to vibrate, and he set the camera down, then cut around the house to grab his BlackBerry with its built-in phone from his car. When he returned, he entered the number of the lost cell and stood off to the side to see if she’d react.

She didn’t. Not in her pockets then.

Damn. He needed Annabelle. Except he’d cut her out of his life.

All of the little girls were clamoring for her attention, but instead of being rattled, she seemed to like it. He made himself turn away. So what if she looked as innocent as a Disney cartoon? He didn’t forgive and he didn’t forget.

He slipped deeper into the shade of the patio. None of the girls were ready for their photos, and he had time to make a few calls, but as sure as anything, she’d catch him at it and make some withering remark. Once again, the theme from
Jaws
blared in his head. He looked down.

Pippi wore bright blue eye shadow and sported a rosebud mouth slick with red lipstick. He quickly shoved his Black-Berry in his pocket.

“See my wand?”

“Hey, that’s a wand, all right.” He crouched, pretending to check out her artwork, but really getting down to business. “Pippi, show Uncle Heath where you put his phone.”

She gave him a killer smile, front teeth the tiniest bit crooked, probably from that thumb. “Want phone,” she said.

“That’s great. Me, too. Let’s go find it together.”

She pointed to his pocket. “Want that phone!”

“Oh, no, you don’t.” He shot to his feet and strode away so that, if Pippi started to cry, he wasn’t anywhere in the vicinity. “Who’s ready for a picture?” he called out, hearty as all hell.

“Princess Rosa, you’re ready,” Molly said. “Go sit on the throne and let Prince Heath take your picture.”

A snort came from the general direction of Glinda the Good Witch.

“I’m scared,” the little girl whispered to Molly.

“As well you should be,” Glinda muttered.

Her comment should have aggravated him, but he hadn’t wanted to crush her spirit, just to teach her a lesson about business that was ultimately for her own good. “Do you want me to go with you?” Molly asked the child. But the little girl was gazing adoringly at Annabelle.

“I want my pitcher with her,” she said.

Molly grinned at Annabelle. “Fairy Godmother, you seem to have a photo call.”

“Sure.” Annabelle took the child’s hand and headed toward the throne. As she reached his side, she stuck her nose in the air and swept past him. The nose, he couldn’t help but notice, had a pink glitter smudge at the tip.

After that, it seemed as though every princess in the land wanted her photo taken with the good fairy godmother, who, not coincidentally, acted as if the royal photographer didn’t exist. He knew how to play that game, and he confined his comments to the girls. “Give me a smile, princess. That’s good.”