LITMIR.BIZ

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who?”

      Oh, Lord. Sydney, the most quick-tempered of his three daughters, was already becoming bluntly out-spoken. He chose to ignore the fact that her short question was laced around the edges with insolence.

      “Daddy,” Sasha whined pitifully, “this is going to be the party of the year. All the coolest kids will be there. We have to go. We just have to. If we don’t, we’ll be labeled as geek.” Her eyes were wide, her forehead furrowed, her arms gesturing wildly. All indications that if this classification were to take place, her entire existence would be ruined for all eternity.

      Sloan’s brows rose a fraction. Not because Sasha was being overly dramatic—that was her trademark—but it was awfully early in the dispute for her to start displaying her well-oiled thespian skills. This New Year’s Eve get-together must be more important to his daughters than he’d first realized.

      Glancing over at Sophie, the third of his lovely, lively daughters, he wasn’t surprised to see her arms crossed tightly over her rib cage, her mouth pressed together in a firm line.

      With their long, straight brown hair and their nut-brown eyes, his girls might look like peas in a pod, but their characters—the methods they used to cope with everything from joy and success to anger, disappointment and stress—were as different as the snowflakes that now fell from the wintry, late December sky.

      “Look, Dad,” Sydney piped up, “we’ve been asking you about this party for a month. Now it’s time to go shopping for dresses and shoes and stuff. We’re down to the wire. We need an answer. Now.”

      “Shopping?” he asked. “But all three of you just received new clothes for Christmas—”

      Sasha’s wide-eyed look of horror cut his protest off in midstream.

      “You can’t expect us to wear those things,” Sasha said. “We got jeans and sweaters. Knock-around clothes. We need gowns.”

      “Yes,” Sydney agreed with her sister. “We need long, elegant dresses. Everyone there will be wearing them.”

      Seeing a means of lightening the mood, Sloan allowed exaggerated skepticism to tug at one corner of his mouth as he teased, “The boys are going to look pretty silly in—”

      “Dad,” both Sydney and Sasha chimed. They shook their head in disgust.

      “Our girl friends,” Sydney supplied. “You knew what we meant.”

      “We need an answer,” Sasha pressed him. “The party is just four days away. Are you gonna let us go?”

      He’d put off his girls as long as he could. He needed to make a decision. Let them go to the party? Or protect them, and at the same time, disappoint them terribly?

      During times like this, he really hated being a single dad. With both sets of his daughters’ grandparents deceased, and him with no siblings, Sloan had no one to talk these things over with. He felt…lonely. Lost. And terribly unsure. He never knew for certain whether or not he was making the right choice. He needed more time.

      “Girls, you can’t just come traipsing into my office, demanding—”

      “All your patients are gone, Dad,” Sydney said. “The waiting room is empty.”

      “It’s time for you to go home.” Sasha plunked her hand on her hip. “Besides, you were expecting us. Remember? You asked Annie’s mom to drop us off here.”

      Of course Sloan remembered the girls had spent the day with a friend. He’d just been hedging for time.

      “Sure, I remember,” he said jovially. He stood and pulled off his white lab coat. “How about if we stop off on the way home and pick up some burgers and fries for dinner? We’ll go to your favorite place.”

      Three pairs of eyes glowered at him.

      “We won’t let you change the subject, Dad.” Now Sydney, too, had her hands on her hips, her elbows cocked at wide angles.

      “We want to go to the party!” Sasha said.

      Sophie only nodded tightly, her gaze silently reflecting all the anxiety she was feeling.

      Sloan sighed. He felt damned tired. He sat down, rubbed his palms up and down his thighs.

      “Okay,” he said, “you can go to the party—”

      “Whooo-hoo,” Sydney shouted.

      “Yes!” Sasha threw her hands into the air and performed a joyful little jig.

      Even Sophie smiled, the tension in her shoulders visibly melting away.

      The girls began chattering to one another all at once.

      “I’m going to get that black strapless dress I saw in the mall—”

      “I’m wearing that electric-blue one with the slits up both sides—”

      “I need panty hose and I want those strappy platform sandals—”

      “And let’s not forget to go to the drugstore for makeup. I saw a tube of red lipstick I’ve just gotta have—”

      Strapless dress? Electric-blue slits? Panty hose? Platform sandals? Red lipstick?

      Sloan didn’t think so. Not while he still had breath in his body.

      “Hold it!”

      His daughters turned to face him, their excitement suddenly dimmed by his rare show of anger.

      “I wasn’t finished,” he continued, not bothering to remove the edginess from his tone. “You can go to the party. But you can’t stay out until two o’clock in the morning.”

      “But, Dad—” Sasha lamented.

      “Oh, no—” the two little words Sydney emitted sounded like a groan from a horribly wounded animal “—he’s going to embarrass us. He’s going to ruin everything. Everyone will be looking at us. He’s going to make us leave early.”

      She made the idea of premature departure sound like some sort of disfiguring disease. He wanted to point out just what kind of attention twelve-year-olds wearing revealing dresses and red lipstick would attract, but he chomped down firmly on his tongue and kept the thoughts to himself.

      Sophie quietly pointed out. “Dad, Debbie’s mother rented a hall.”

      Sloan shrugged. “I don’t care if Debbie’s mother rented Veterans’ Stadium. My daughters will not be out until the wee hours of the morning. You girls are twelve years old—”

      Sydney’s chin rose, as did her voice, when she pointed out, “But I’ll be thirteen in three weeks.”

      “Me, too,” Sasha said.

      Through her tight jaw, Sophie added, “Me, three.”

      This was their motto. Their united credo.

      Rebellion glinted in their gazes now, bold and unmistakable.

      Holding his ground, Sloan refused to be intimidated. “I don’t care if you’re going to be thirty-five. No daughter of mine is going to be out gallivanting in the middle of the night. You can celebrate the New Year, and I’ll be picking you up at twelve-thirty. And that’s final.”

      Sasha’s bottom lip began to tremble, piteous tears welling in her big brown eyes.

      “But Debbie’s mom is serving breakfast at one,” Sydney informed him. “And she’s making my favorite. Pancakes.”

      “I’ll be happy to make pancakes just as soon as we get home from the party,” Sloan offered. But his words were firm, uncontestable.

      The air grew tense and thick, and Sloan got the strange sense that something awful was about to happen.

      Fate didn’t disappoint him.

      Sophie—the

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