Page 129 of Match Me If You Can (Chicago Stars 6)

He laughed. “You are so full of it. You know you can’t wait to dangle our firstborn in front of Candace’s nose.”

“Well, there’s that.” She paused, took back the notepad, but she couldn’t see a word she’d written. As much as she hated letting reality intrude, it was time to get serious. “Heath, how do you plan to be a father to these children we want while you’re working that sixty-hour week?” She spoke carefully, wanting to get this right. “With Perfect for You, my hours are flexible, but…I know how much you love what you do, and I’d never want you to give it up. On the other hand, I won’t raise a family by myself.”

“You won’t have to,” he said smugly. “I have a plan.”

“Care to share?”

He reached for her arm, pulled her down next to him, and told her what he had in mind.

“I like your plan.” She grinned and curled into his chest. “Bodie deserves to be a full partner.”

“I couldn’t agree more.”

They were both so pleased they started kissing again, which led to a lovely—and very successful—testing of her powers as a dominatrix. As a result, it took a while to get back to their negotiations. They covered sleepwear (none), TV remote control (shared), children’s names (no motor vehicles), and baseball (irreconcilable differences). When they finished, Heath remembered there was one question he’d forgotten to ask.

Gazing into her eyes, he drew her fingers to his lips. “I love you, Annabelle Granger. Will you marry me?”

“Harley Davidson Campione, you have got yourself a wife.”

“The best deal I’ve ever made,” he replied with a smile.

Epilogue

Pippi lifted the tape recorder to her lips and shouted. “Testing! Testing! Testing!”

“It works,” Heath exclaimed from the couch on the other side of his media room. “Do you think you could be a little quieter?”

“My name is Victoria Phoebe Tucker…,” she whispered. And then back to her normal volume. “I am five years old, and I live at the Plaza Hotel.” She sneaked a look at Heath, but he’d watched the Eloise movie with her, and all he did was smile. “This is Prince’s tape recorder that he says I have to give back.”

“Darned right, you do.” She was supposed to be watching the Sox game with him while the book club met upstairs, but she’d gotten bored.

“Prince is still mad ’bout all the phones I took when I was only three,” she said into the tape recorder. “But I was just a baby, and Mommy found most of them and gave them back.”

“Not all of them.”

“Because I can’t remember where I put them!” she exclaimed, shooting him her miniquarterback’s glare. “I told you that about a million times.” Dismissing him, she returned her attention to what she was doing. “These are the things I love. I love Mommy and Daddy and Danny and Aunt Phoebe and Uncle Dan and all my cousins and Prince when he doesn’t talk about phones and Belle and everybody in the book club except Portia, because she wouldn’t let me be a flower girl when she married Bodie because they went to Vegas in a envelope.”

Heath laughed. “They eloped.”

“They eloped,” she repeated. “And Belle didn’t want Portia in the book club, but Aunt Phoebe en-sisted because she said Portia needed…” She couldn’t remember, and she looked over at Heath.

“Noncompetitive female friendships,” he said with a smile. “And, as usual, Aunt Phoebe was right. Which is why I, in my brilliance, convinced Aunt Phoebe to become Portia’s mentor.”

Pippi nodded and kept chatting. “Prince likes Portia. Portia used to be a matchmaker, but now she works for him, and Prince say she’s the best dam’ sports agent he’s ever seed, and, because of her, their new ladies’ sports dibision is getting bigger all the time.”

“She’s the third best sports agent,” he said. “After Bodie and me. And don’t say damn.”

She sank deeper into the big recliner, crossing her ankles just like him. “Prince paid a lot of money to Portia for Belle’s wedding present. Mommy said it was a dumb present, but Belle said Prince couldn’t have gived her anything she liked more, and now Portia gives Belle advice on how to be a matchmaker.” She scrunched her forehead. “What was that thing you gived Belle for her wedding present?”

“Portia’s database from her old business.”

“You should have gave her a puppy.”

Heath laughed, then scowled at the television. “Don’t swing at everything, you idiot!”

“I don’t love the Sox,” Pippi said emphatically. “But I love Dr. Adam and Delaney because they let me be a flower girl in their wedding, and Belle’s mommy cried and said Belle is the best matchmaker in the world. And I love Rosemary ’cause she tells me stories and does makeup. Rosemary’s in the book club now. Belle told Aunt Phoebe that if Portia got to be in the book club then Rosemary did, too, ’cause Rosemary needed friends just as much as Portia, and then Belle said she was too happy to hold on to old biddiness.”

“Bitterness.”

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