Match Me If You Can

signing him even though he knew otherwise. He'd then taken her interest in the player to the Packers' bargaining table and used it to gain the leverage he needed to get his client a better deal. Phoebe was furious and, in a blistering phone call, warned him never to use her like that again.

Instead of taking her words to heart, he'd gotten into another battle with her a few months later over a second client, this one a Stars player. Heath had decided he needed to sweeten the third year of an existing three-year contract, again negotiated by a former agent, but Phoebe refused to budge. After a few weeks, Heath threatened to hold the player out of training camp. The guy was her best tight end, and since Heath had her over a barrel, she came through with a respectable counteroffer. Still, it wasn't the splashy new deal Heath thought he needed to establish his reputation as an agent on the move. He dug in and sent the player deep-sea fishing the day training camp started.

Phoebe was enraged, and the media had a field day playing up the feud between the Stars' tight-fisted owner and the city's brash new agent. Heath capitalized on the player's popularity with the fans by giving interviews at the drop of a hat and dramatically berating Phoebe for treating one of her best men so shabbily. As the first week of training camp came to end, Heath kept on showboating, staying cozy with the sports columnists and working the sound bites on the ten o'clock news. A back swell built against Phoebe. Still, she wouldn't budge.

Just as he'd begun to have second thoughts about the wisdom of his strategy, a stroke of luck occurred. The Stars' backup tight end broke his ankle in practice, and Phoebe was forced to cave. Heath got the extravagant deal he wanted, but in the process, he'd made her look bad, and she'd never forgiven him. The experiences taught him two hard lessons: In a good negotiation, everybody comes out feeling like a winner. And a successful agent doesn't build his reputation by humiliating the people he has to work with.

The Stars' receptionist directed him to the practice field, and as he approached, he saw Dean Robillard cozying up to Phoebe on the sidelines bench. He swore under his breath. The last thing he wanted Robillard to witness was Phoebe Calebow cutting him to shreds. Dean looked like he'd stepped out of Surfer Magazine: beard stubble, gel-rumpled blond hair, tropical print shorts, a T-shirt, and athletic sandals. Hoping to minimize the collateral damage, Heath made a quick decision and concentrated on him first. 'Is that a new Porsche I saw sitting in your parking space?'

Dean gazed at him through the yellow iridium lenses of a pair of high-tech Oakleys. 'That ol'junker? Heck, no. I bought it at least three weeks ago.'

Heath found a laugh, even though the hair had begun to stand up on the back of his neck. And not from being around Robillard. He slipped on his own sunglasses, not so much to protect his eyes, but to even out the playing field.

'Well, well, well…' Phoebe Somerville Calebow cooed in the husky, bimbo voice she used to conceal her razor- sharp mind. 'Look who's joined us. And I thought our exterminator had gotten rid of all the rats around here.'

'Nope. The meanest and strongest somehow manage to survive.' Heath grinned, doing his best to hit the balance between not pissing her off any more than he had to and letting Dean see she couldn't intimidate him.

The Stars' owner and chief operating officer was in her forties now, and nobody wore the years better. She looked like a more intellectual version of Marilyn Monroe, with the same cloud of pale blond hair and a powerhouse body, today clad in a clingy aqua shell and pencil-slim canary yellow skirt slit up the side. Busty, leggy, and delectable, she should have been a centerfold instead of the most powerful woman in the NFL.

Dean rose. 'I think I'll get out of here before the two of you accidentally hurt my passing arm.'

Heath couldn't back down now. 'Shoot, Dean, we haven't even started having fun yet. Stick around and watch me make Phoebe cry.'

Robillard gazed down at his beautiful boss. 'I've never seen this crazy man before in my life.'

She smiled. 'Run along, Dean honey. Your sex life will be screwed up forever if you're forced to watch all the ways a woman can chop up a snake.'

Retreat wouldn't win Heath the quarterback's heart, and as Robillard began to walk away, Heath called out after him. 'Hey, Dean… Sometime ask Phoebe to show you where she buries the bones of all the agents who don't have the balls to stand up to her.'

Dean waved good-bye without turning around. 'I didn't hear that, Mrs. Calebow. I'm just a sweet mama's boy from California who wants to play a little football for you and go to church in my spare time.'

Phoebe laughed and stretched her long bare legs as Dean disappeared through the fence. 'I like that boy. I like him so much I'm going to make sure you never get your grubby hands on him.'

'I doubt it was too hard to lure him out here today so he could witness our little meeting.'

'Not hard at all.'

'It's been seven years, Phoebe. Don't you think it's time we bury the hatchet?'

'As long as the blade ends up in the back of your neck, I'm game.'

He slipped his fingers in his pockets and smiled. 'The best day of my career was the day your brother-in-law signed on as my client. I still savor every minute of it.'

Phoebe scowled. She loved Kevin Tucker as though they were blood relatives instead of being related by marriage, and the fact that he'd ignored her entreaty and signed with Heath was a bitter pill she'd never quite been able to swallow. Heath's first negotiations with her over Kevin's contract had been brutal. Just because family was involved didn't mean Phoebe believed in loosening her iron grip on the Stars' finances, and he still remembered the way she'd methodically x-ed out an admittedly outrageous bonus package Heath had stuck in to test the waters.

'Family is family, and business is business. I love the boy, but not that much.'

'Who are you kidding?' Heath had said. 'You'd walk over coals for him.'

'Yes, but I'd leave my checkbook behind while I was doing it.'

Heath gazed toward the practice field. Although training camp wouldn't start for more than a month, a few players were running drills with the team's trainer. He nodded toward a fourth-year player, one of the Zagorskis' clients. 'Keman's looking good.'

'He'd look a lot better if he spent more time in the weight room and less time selling used cars on TV. But Dan likes him.'

Dan Calebow was the Stars' president and Phoebe's husband. They'd met when Phoebe had inherited the Stars from her father. At the time, Dan had been the head coach and Phoebe had known nothing about football, something that was hard to believe now. Their early battles were nearly as legendary as their ensuing love story. Last year one of the cable channels had made a cheesy movie about them, and Dan was still getting ribbed because he'd been portrayed by a former boy band singer.

'I want a three-year contract,' Phoebe said, getting down to the business of Caleb Crenshaw.

'Yeah, I'd want one, too, if I were you, but Caleb's only signing for two years.'

'Three. It's not negotiable.' She stated her case without consulting notes, reeling off complex statistics in her breathy, sex-kitten's voice. They both had excellent memories, and he didn't write anything down, either.

'You know I can't advise Caleb to take that offer.' He propped his foot on the bench next to her. 'By the third year, he'll be worth millions more than you'll be paying him.' Which was exactly why she wanted the three-year deal.

'Only if he stays healthy,' she retorted, as he'd known she would. 'I'm the one taking all the risk. If he blows out his knee that third year, I'll still have to pay him.' She went on from there, emphasizing her altruism and the unending gratitude a player should feel for simply being allowed to wear the uniform of football legends like Bobby Tom Denton, Cal Bonner, Darnell Pruitt, and, yes, Kevin Tucker.

Heath threatened a holdout, even though he had no intention of carrying it through. What he'd once seen as a canny bargaining tool he now regarded as a desperate measure guaranteed to do more harm than good.

Phoebe bore down, hitting him with more breathy statistics, peppered with allusions to ungrateful players and bloodsucking agents.

He countered with statistics of his own, all of them pointing toward the fact that tightwad owners ended up with resentful players and a losing season.

In the end, they arrived at the place they'd both pretty much known they'd reach. Phoebe got her three-year contract, and Caleb Crenshaw got a one-and-a-half-million-dollar signing bonus for the insult. Win. Win. Except it was an agreement they could have reached three months ago if Phoebe hadn't gone out of her way to make things as hard for him as she could.