Four Times the Trouble

by Tara Taylor Quinn

She couldn’t look away as he moved closer, almost hypnotized by the changing expression in his eyes. He reached out, fingering the strand of her hair that lay against one shoulder. His gaze locked on to hers.

  Michelle had never been so tempted to kiss a man in her life. At that moment it felt like a matter of life and death. She needed to be kissed until she was too breathless to think.

  His head came down, his lips parting. So this was what she’d come to. Was she really so desperate for a man’s touch that she’d kiss Jacob, straight from another woman’s arms? She didn’t try to stop him, but her eyes filled with tears.

  Jacob backed away immediately. “Maybe you should call before you come next time,” he said as if nothing had happened. “That way I’ll know not to stay out so late.”

  If he was trying to make her feel better, he’d failed miserably. Michelle nodded and pulled open the front door. And that was when she remembered Meggie’s ruined costume.

  “If it’s all right with you, I need to run Meggie back to the fabric store tomorrow,” she said as soon as she was safely on the porch.

  “You forget something?” he asked, leaning on the frame.

  Michelle shook her head, gathering her usual composure about her like a cloak. “She didn’t want any help cutting out her costume. She did it herself, with her school scissors, while I was helping Jessie with hers.”

  Jacob grinned. “I assume it didn’t turn out too well,” he said.

  Michelle smiled back, thinking of the mangled material in his trash can. “You could say that,” she said.

  Jacob shook his head, the gold highlights in his hair glinting under the porch light. “I promised the girls I’d take them to the Hard Rock Café tomorrow night. Why don’t you first take Meggie to the store and then come with us, since you’re making the trip over here on a Friday night? I know the place is touristy, but the girls love it.”

  And suddenly, in spite of everything, the evening was turning out okay. “I’d like that,” Michelle said. “And by the way you might want to take some stain remover to the make-up on your collar before you throw that shirt in the wash…”

  * * *

  JACOB HAD KNOWN it was a mistake to invite Michelle to spend the evening with the girls and him the minute he’d issued the invitation. She was starting to make him crave a relationship he had no business craving—that he’d resigned himself to never having. Laughter and loyalty even when he was a grouch, mutual respect and love—those were the things he wanted from her, even knowing that she considered herself a married woman.

  As he waited with her for a table at the Hard Rock Café the next night, he regretted the invitation again, but for a different reason. He should have foreseen the crowd of people waiting for tables.

  He wouldn’t have minded so much if just he and the girls had been here. While it wasn’t easy keeping three energetic and excited seven-year-olds entertained, he was, after all, used to it. But with Michelle here, everything was different. He was on edge, afraid the triplets’ enthusiasm was going to wear on her, expecting one of them to do something embarrassing or, worse, all three of them to do something embarrassing.

  “Can I have another soda, Daddy?” Meggie asked, bringing him her empty cup.

  “I want one, too, Daddy,” Jessie said, bobbing up and down in front of him.

  “Me, too,” Allie said, taking Jessie’s cup and handing it to Jacob with her own.

  He glanced at Michelle. Her glass was still full, but she was smiling at the girls. Deciding not to risk the unpleasantness that could occur—in triplicate—from the word no, he said, “Sure,” and headed back to the bar.

  As he waited for the bartender he wondered what he was doing trying to avoid the inevitable. At some point the girls weren’t going to be perfect angels. In fact, right this minute he was probably creating the situation that was going to ruin things. As a single father he’d discovered years ago that public rest rooms were the ultimate challenge. He couldn’t very well take the girls with him into the men’s room. And he sure wasn’t sending them anywhere on their own. That was why he never took his daughters anywhere without making sure they went to the bathroom just before they left home. But after the long wait to be seated tonight—and after two large sodas—he expected to hear, “Daddy, I have to go right now,” at least three times before the evening was over.

  The girls all knew what they wanted to eat, and they placed their orders almost as soon as they were seated at the table. Jacob sat between Jessie and Allie trying to restrain their excited chatter. Being with the triplets had never been so exhausting.

  “Look at that guitar, Michelle. Isn’t it cool?”

  “I like the motorcycle. Did you see the motorcycle, Michelle?”

  “Daddy, what’s that record hanging over there? Can I go see?”

  Jacob wished he were at home. “Girls, girls, one at a time, please,” he said, afraid to look at Michelle. Had she had enough yet?

  “Well, can I, Daddy? Can I go see?” Meggie was halfway out of her chair.

  “Meggie, sit,” Jacob said. “We’ll look after we’re done eating.”

  “See that guitar, Michelle? It’s Elvis Presley’s,” Allie said, pointing to a corner of the room.

  “Yeah, and the motorcycle’s his, too,” Jessie said, sitting up on her knees.

  Michelle’s head spun as she tried to keep up with the girls.

  “Are they really Elvis Presley’s?” she asked Jacob.

  He shrugged. “I doubt it, but you never know.”

  “I’m hungry, Daddy. When’s our food coming?” Meggie asked fifteen minutes later, long after the girls had tired of the sights in the room.

  “Soon,” he said, hoping he was correct. He must have been out of his mind to have invited Michelle on an outing like this—his family was an accident waiting to happen.

  Jessie grabbed the saltshaker and turned it over, spilling salt in her palm.

  Jacob snatched it from her. “You know better than that, Jess,” he said, brushing her hand off with his napkin.

  Watching Jessie, Allie and Meggie took an interest in the condiments, too.

  “I’m counting the sugars,” Meggie said, pulling the dishful of packets toward her.

  “What’s this, Daddy?” Allie asked, shaking a bottle of steak sauce.

  Jacob lunged for the steak sauce, praying the lid was on tight. “Put the sugars back, Meg. People don’t want to use them after you’ve played with them.”

  Jacob was surprised that Michelle still looked so unruffled. Ellen would’ve insisted on leaving.

  “Anyone know how to play hangman?” Michelle asked, taking a small notepad and pen from her purse.

  “What’s hangman?” Allie and Jessie chorused. Even Meggie looked interested.

  “I think of a word—I’ll make it one you guys can spell—and draw blanks like this. Then you try to fill in the blanks by guessing letters. But each time you guess wrong, I get to draw another part of a stick figure up here. If he’s complete before you guess the word, then I win.”

  “What happens if we guess the word before he’s done?” Jessie asked.

  “Then we win, silly,” Allie said. “Okay, let’s start.”

  “Be nice to your sister, Al,” Jacob said, relaxing just a bit. Michelle flashed him a quick smile—and the game began.

  With Jacob as referee, Michelle kept the girls entertained for another fifteen minutes until their food came. And she helped dispense catsup and salt to the three plates of burgers and fries as naturally as if she’d been doing it all her life.

  A second of silence fell over the table while the three children dug into their meals. Jacob figured there was something to be said for keeping their mouths full.

  He’d just taken the first bite o
f his cheeseburger when things started to go wrong. “I have to go,” Jessie announced, bouncing in her seat.

  Jacob groaned inwardly. What now? He glanced down the hall that led to the ladies’ room. He could stick his head around the door and make sure the coast was clear before he sent Jessie in, then stand guard outside until she came out. It wasn’t the way he liked to do things, but it didn’t look as if he had much choice. He’d just have to hope that he didn’t offend some poor woman in the process.

  “I’ll take her,” Michelle said easily.

  Jessie jumped up and slid her hand into Michelle’s. Jacob groaned again—audibly this time. Michelle was putting up a good front, but her food would be cold by the time she got back.

  “Allie, Meggie, you go with them,” he said. At least he could insure that this only happened once.

  “I don’t have to go,” Allie said, her mouth full of hamburger.

  “Me, neither,” Meggie added.

  Jacob gave the two his sternest look. “This is your only chance, girls. If you have to go, you better do it now.”

  “I don’t,” Allie said, looking toward her sister for confirmation.

  “Me, neither,” Meggie said again.

  “I gotta go now,” Jessie said again, hopping up and down.

  Jacob watched her head off with Michelle. Then, flagging down their waiter as he passed, he asked him to try to keep Michelle’s meal warm.

  Three-quarters of the way through dinner, Allie had to go to the bathroom.

  “Me, too,” Meggie said when she heard her sister’s announcement.

  Normally patient with his daughters, Jacob had to bite his tongue to keep from snapping at them. He looked across at Michelle, prepared to see the irritation or, worse, the resignation he’d come to dread seeing on Ellen’s face every time one of the girls needed something she’d just done for one of the others.

  Michelle was standing there grinning. “Come on, you two. You won’t believe what’s hanging on the wall right outside the bathroom.”

  Allie and Meggie jumped up, flanking Michelle as they traipsed off to the bathroom giggling excitedly. Allie was holding her hand, and Michelle was keeping Meggie within grabbing distance, as well.

  Jacob stared after them, shaken by a wave of longing. Michelle’s obvious fondness for his girls moved him more than he could say. It almost made him believe he might yet find that happy-ever-after he used to dream about. Until he remembered Brian Colby.

  “What’s the matter, Daddy? Don’t you like your french fries?” Jessie asked, putting her hand on Jacob’s arm.

  “Sure, sport, I like them just fine,” he said, looking down at one of the females who owned his heart.

  “Then why did you have such a bad look on your face? Like this.” She scrunched her eyebrows together and jutted out her chin.

  Jacob smiled and tweaked the end of her nose. “Just to see if you’d notice,” he said.

  Jessie didn’t look convinced. “I love you, Daddy,” she said, her small features solemn.

  “And I love you, too, Jess,” he said, knowing he was lucky beyond belief to have his three beautiful daughters. Somehow he was just going to have to make them be enough.

  * * *

  JACOB EXPECTED Michelle to leave just as soon as they got back to his place that night. But she followed him into the house, offering to make him a pot of coffee while he got the girls tucked into bed. He could tell she had something on her mind. He wondered if she was about to turn tail, after all. Allie and Jessie insisted on hugging her good-night before they’d go to bed. Meggie didn’t hug her, but she smiled and thanked Michelle for the trip they’d made to the fabric store that day.

  Michelle was gazing out the kitchen window when he came into the kitchen fifteen minutes later. “There’s diet soda in the fridge,” he said, pouring himself a cup of freshly brewed coffee.

  Michelle whirled around as if she hadn’t heard him come in. “Thanks,” she said, and filled a glass with ice.

  “The girls said to tell you good-night, again,” he told her when she joined him at the table. He’d had a talk with himself while he’d waited for the girls to get into their pajamas and brush their teeth. Whatever Michelle had to say, he’d deal with it unemotionally. If she was going to leave them, so be it. He’d find another way to get the costumes made. In fact, maybe that would be for the best. Her tears the night before when he’d tried to kiss her had really thrown him for a loop. But not as much as the guilt that had plagued him for coming home to her after going out with another woman. He’d actually felt like an unfaithful husband. Yeah, maybe it was for the best that she call it quits before he did anything foolish—like fall in love with her.

  “Can I ask you something?” Michelle said softly.

  “Sure.”

  Her eyes were serious as she looked at him. “You seemed pretty on edge tonight, and I wondered if I’ve done something to upset you. Because if I have I think we should talk about it now before it becomes a problem.”

  “No!” he said, setting his cup down so forcefully the coffee splashed over the rim. “I wasn’t upset with you.”

  She shrugged. “Well, what then? I’ve never seen you so uptight before. If it bothers you having me around your girls, I can make the costumes myself at my house,” she said.

  Jacob felt as if he was surfing on a wave that was about to become an undertow. “The girls have to help, I told you that.” He’d said the quickest thing that came to mind. Now that it seemed she wasn’t leaving, he forgot all about wanting her to go. After all, who else would he get to make those costumes?

  She nodded, still looking serious. “I just don’t want you to think I’m trying to butt in, like when I came over last night.”

  “Butt in already. It’s working out okay, isn’t it?” he asked, suddenly wondering if this was a roundabout way to get out of helping him.

  “That’s the problem. I don’t know if it’s working out or not. You never tell me what you’re thinking, and it’s driving me nuts to keep guessing, wondering if I’m getting in your way. It wouldn’t kill you to open up a little bit, you know.”

  He wasn’t so sure. But he didn’t want her to walk out that door and never come back, either. Even if she was only in his house as a friend. He wanted her there. He’d finally admitted it. To himself at least.

  He leaned forward, resting his forearms on the table, cradling his coffee cup. “The last time Ellen and I took the girls out to dinner, we’d barely been seated when Jessie spilled her drink. They’re good kids most of the time, but they’re still kids. And Ellen seemed to bring out the worst in them. That night, Jessie had to use the bathroom before we’d even looked at the menus. Then when Allie started to cry because we wouldn’t let her have ice cream for dinner and her sisters joined in, Ellen insisted that I take them home, get a sitter and take her—Ellen—out for a real dinner. She yelled at the girls all the way home, telling them that they didn’t have the right to publicly embarrass her, that she deserved to be able to sit down and enjoy a meal at least once in a while, that she wasn’t going to let them steal her life away. They were only three at the time, and I don’t suppose they understood half of what she was saying, but they knew she was angry and was blaming them. And when I intervened, Ellen went ballistic. She claimed I always sided with the girls, and she took that out on them, as well. There was no reasoning with her. I drove as fast as I could, but the girls were all crying hysterically by the time we got home. It took me the rest of the evening to get them calmed down enough to eat a sandwich and climb into bed. I’ve never felt so helpless in my life. I should have seen it coming, should have been able to do something more than I was doing, but I had no clue what that was.”

  When he realized how much he’d just revealed, Jacob clamped his mouth shut. He hadn’t even known h
e remembered that night in such detail.

  “She ought to be hung.” Michelle’s fierce look brought a smile to his lips.

  “I gotta admit to having had that thought a time or two myself, but it was a lot more complicated than that. She was partially right. I did side with the girls a lot.”

  “It sounds like you may have had good reason.”

  “Some of the time. But Ellen wasn’t a bad person. She just wasn’t mother material.”

  “Then she shouldn’t have had children.” Michelle’s voice was as fierce as her expression. She reminded him of a mother bear protecting her young. Except they were his young she was defending. It was a new experience for him, one he could probably get used to with very little effort.

  “You’re right of course. And she probably wouldn’t have had children if I hadn’t pressured her into getting pregnant. I wanted kids. A whole houseful of them.”

  “Didn’t you two talk about raising a family before you got married? I know Brian and I did.”

  “Yeah, we talked. I told her how badly I wanted kids. She said okay. What we didn’t talk about, until after she was pregnant, was that she wanted a baby to show off but not to care for. Her idea of parenting was as far from mine as it was possible to get. She’d been raised by a nanny. Her mother was a social butterfly who always looked immaculate, who only saw her child when she stopped home in between appointments. I’d thought that Ellen of all people would understand how hard it is to grow up with parental neglect. Instead, she thought that was the only way to raise children. She was shocked when, once she got pregnant, I refused to consider hiring a nanny. Frankly I didn’t have the greatest childhood, and I was determined that my child was going to be raised by his parents, not by strangers.” Jacob knew that ultimately the fault for his divorce—for his children’s motherless state—lay with him. He’d been too unbending. He expected too much. But where his children were concerned, he wasn’t going to change. And he wasn’t sorry for that.

  Michelle laid a hand on Jacob’s forearm. “It’s not wrong to expect your wife to help raise your children.”