LITMIR.BIZ

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      She laughed as she threw an arm around Heather affectionately. “So, tell me all about it.”

      That was as close as she intended to get to a date for a long, long time.

      Chapter Three

      Three leagues beyond bone-tired, Tyler sank into a recliner that was as close in size, shape and color to the one he’d left behind as he could find. It was the one piece of furniture he’d selected himself. The girls were in the family room, finally settling down to enjoy their new books. They’d had lunch in and dinner out, and somewhere in between, he’d done a fair bit of organizing around the house, but not nearly enough.

      He looked at the clock in the den, wondering when he should become concerned.

      Tyler passed his hand over his eyes, struggling to sort out his feelings from the quagmire he constantly seemed to find himself in. Mentally he took off his hat to Gina.

      Until these past nine months, he’d had no idea just how much was involved in raising three children, let alone girl children. Never mind triplets. It was close to mind-boggling.

      Gina had been the one to do most of the work, do it so well that he hadn’t even been aware that there was work involved. She had managed to make raising three girls look effortless. Gina, with her coal-black laughing eyes, had completely fooled him into thinking it was easy being a parent.

      It wasn’t.

      And even love wasn’t enough, though it helped smooth over a great many rough spots and blunders he’d made. It was hard doing what was required, what was needed, especially since half of him felt as if it was permanently gone.

      He hadn’t recovered from being without Gina.

      There were times, in the dead of night, when he felt completely overwhelmed by what he faced. When he didn’t know if he could actually manage and continue doing what was being asked of him.

      But ultimately there was no way around it. He knew he had to do it. And he had to do it alone.

      Time, everyone had said, would help him heal. Time was sure taking a hell of a lot of itself about it. The irony made him shake his head.

      Impatience burrowed into the weariness, making itself known. He raised his eyes to the clock again.

      She was late.

      He felt a pang. Maybe Carla wasn’t going to call tonight. Maybe she couldn’t get away. They’d both agreed that she wouldn’t call him from the house. There could be consequences, and it was too much of a risk to take, even though everything so far appeared to be going smoothly.

      But appearances could be deceiving, and he wasn’t about to take chances. Not with his sister’s life and certainly not with the girls’. Losing Gina had been far more than enough for him to endure.

      The telephone on the side table next to him rang, slicing through the faraway sound of his daughters’ voices. Tyler quickly covered the receiver with his hand and yanked it up to his ear.

      “Hello?”

      “Is this the party to whom I am speaking?”

      Dark half-formed thoughts vanished into the evening. “Very funny, Carla. I thought maybe you weren’t calling tonight.”

      “Things came up.” He could hear the unspoken apology in her voice. “I couldn’t get away. Enough about me. How’s everything with you?”

      He looked around the room with its unpacked boxes of possessions that had never been his. Possessions that gave credibility to the life he had assumed. The room reflected his life, as well. “Chaotic, utterly chaotic.”

      The voice on the other end laughed with distant memory. “Sounds just like you. Are the girls adjusting?”

      Pride whispered through him. His daughters were resilient and undefeatable. “Better than me.”

      “They’re younger,” she said. “You’ve got more to deal with. But you’ll get used to it.” She paused, then added, “You were always good about rolling with the punches.”

      He wished he shared her optimism. Wished it could snake its way through the phone lines and infuse him. Just long enough for him to get beyond the walking wounded and begin to move on. But it’d been nine months, and all he was doing was still going through the motions.

      “I’m not now, Carla. This time it feels like I’m down for the count.”

      “Not you. Never you,” she said. “Look, I’d better go, just in case.”

      He glanced at his watch and realized that she must have looked at hers. Wariness had become second nature to him. “You didn’t use the same public phone, did you?”

      “I’m not an idiot.”

      He laughed, affection sneaking forward. “The jury’s still out on that.”

      “Still have that wry sense of humor, I see.” And then her voice became softer, more serious. “I miss you.”

      He wished she wouldn’t say that. But even so, the words comforted him. “Yeah, me too.”

      “Watch your back.”

      “Always.” It was never himself that he was concerned with. He had to be careful for the girls’ sake. Until he could be sure that everything was really truly over. Finally over. “Same time next week.” It was more of a hope than a question.

      “I’ll try.”

      He couldn’t ask for any more than that.

      Tyler hung up and looked thoughtfully at the telephone. The only thing he had of the past was a disembodied voice whispering in his ear for the briefest of calls. Anything longer might be asking for trouble, at least for now, and trouble was the one thing he had to avoid at all costs.

      So far, the cost had been very high.

      A small figure stood in the doorway. Tyler separated himself from the past and returned to the present.

      “Daddy, you promised to read to us.”

      He rose. There were now three of them eagerly spilling into the room. “So I did. Which story shall I read first?”

      “Mine.”

      “No, mine.”

      “Me first, Daddy.”

      Three books from three different sets of hands were thrust at him from three different directions. Tyler smiled to himself. Here we go again.

      “Okay, where do you want this, Oma?” Brooke asked. Her father’s mother had been “Oma,” the German word for grandmother, to her ever since she could remember.

      A grunt accompanied Brooke’s question. Unable to see, she felt her way into the kitchen, shuffling as she went. But there was good reason for that. Somewhere on this floor was Jasper, her grandmother’s longtime pet. Thirty-one pounds of territorial, caramel-colored, generally unfriendly cat. There was no way Brooke wanted to take any chances of stepping on him. Jasper was as unforgiving as they came.

      “Right on the table will be fine, dears,” her grandmother called out.

      From the pitch, Brooke guessed that the woman who had spent more than twelve years raising Heather and her was not in the room with them now.

      “Great. Now all I need to know is where’s the table.” Behind her, Brooke heard a loud thud. It was the sound of Heather depositing the box of books she had brought in with her on the floor.

      “Well, I can tell you that it’s not here,” Heather announced, blowing out an exaggerated breath as she massaged one forearm.

      Craning her neck as far as possible, Brooke tried to peek around the box she was holding. Hers was larger and heavier than Heather’s—she’d insisted on it. She managed to glimpse the edge of the

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