A Father for Her Triplets

She cleared her throat. “I heard a rumor that you got superrich once you left here.”

“I did. I write comic books.”

“And you make that much money drawing?”

“Well, drawing, writing scripts…” His sexy smile grew. “And owning the company.”

She gaped at him, but inside she couldn’t stop a swoon. If he’d smiled at her like that in high school she probably would have fainted. Thank God she was older and wiser and knew how to resist a perfect smile. “You own a company?”

“And here I thought the gossip mill in Newland was incredibly efficient.”

“It probably is. In the past few years I haven’t had time to pay much attention.”

He glanced at the kids. One by one they’d ambled back to the hedge and over to her, where they currently hung around her knees. “I can see that.”

Slowly, carefully, she raised her gaze to meet his. He wasn’t the only one who had changed since high school. She might not be rich but she had done some things. She wasn’t just raising triplets; she also had some big-time money possibilities. “I own a company, too.”

His grin returned. Her face heated. Her heart did something that felt like a somersault.

“Really?”

She looked away. She couldn’t believe she was so attracted to him. Then she remembered that Wyatt was somebody special. Deep down inside he had been a nice guy, and maybe he still was underneath all that leather. But that only heightened her unease. If he wasn’t, she didn’t want her memories of the one honest, sweet guy in her life tainted by this sexy stranger. Worse, she didn’t want him discovering too much about her past. Bragging about her company might cause him to ask questions that would bring up memories she didn’t want to share.

She reined in her enthusiasm about her fledgling business. “It’s a small company.”

“Everybody starts small.”

She nodded.

He smiled again, but looked at the triplets and motioned toward his motorcycle. “Well, I guess I better get my bike in the garage.”

She took a step back, not surprised he wanted to leave. What sexy, gorgeous, bike-riding, company-owning guy wanted to be around a woman with kids? Three kids. Three superlovable kids who had a tendency to look needy.

Though she was grateful he was racing away, memories tripped over themselves in her brain. Him helping her with her algebra, and stumbling over asking her out. And her being unable to keep that date.

The urge to apologize for standing him up almost moved her tongue. But she couldn’t say anything. Not without telling him things that would mortally embarrass her. “It was nice to see you.”

He flashed that lethal grin. “It was nice to see you, too.”

He let go of the hedge he’d been holding back. It sprang into place and he disappeared.

With the threat of the newcomer gone, the trips scrambled to the kitchen door and raced inside. She followed them, except she didn’t stop in the kitchen. She strode through the house to the living room, where she fell to the sofa.

Realizing she was shaking, she picked up a pillow, put it on her knees and pressed her face to it. She should have known seeing someone she hadn’t seen since graduation would take her back to the worst day in her life.

Her special day, graduation…her dad had stopped at the bar on the way home from the ceremony. Drunk, he’d beaten her mom, ruined the graduation dress Missy had bought with her own money by tossing bleach on it, and slapped Althea, knocking her into a wall, breaking her arm.

Her baby sister, the little girl her mom had called a miracle baby and her dad had called a mistake, had been hit so hard that Missy had taken her to the hospital. Once they’d fixed up her arm, a social worker had peered into their emergency room cubicle.

“Where’s your mom?”

“She’s out for the night. I’m eighteen. I’m babysitting.”

The social worker had given Missy a look of disbelief,so she’d produced her driver’s license.

When the social worker was gone, Althea had glared at her. She wanted to tell the truth.

Missy had turned on her sister. “Do you want to end up in foster care? Or worse, have him beat Mom until she dies? Well, I don’t.”

And the secret had continued… .

Her breath stuttered out. Her mom was dead now. Althea had left home. She’d enrolled in a university thousands of miles away, in California. She’d driven out of town and never looked back.

And their dad?

Well, he was “gone,” too. Just not forgotten. He still ran the diner, but he spent every spare cent he had on alcohol and gambling. If he wasn’t drunk, he was in Atlantic City. The only time Missy saw him was when he needed money.

A little hand fell to her shoulder. “What’s wong, Mommy?”

Owen. With his little lisp and his big heart.

She pulled her face out of the pillow. “Nothing’s wrong.” She smiled, ruffled his short brown hair. “Mommy is fine.”

She was fine, because after her divorce she’d figured out that she wasn’t going to find a knight on a white horse who would rescue her. She had to save herself. Save her kids. Raise her kids in a home where they were never afraid or hungry.

After her ex drained their savings account and left her with three babies and no money, well, she’d learned that the men in her life didn’t really care if kids were frightened and/or hungry. And the only person with the power to fix that was her.

So she had.

But she would never, ever trust a man again.

Not even sweet Wyatt.

Wyatt walked through the back door of his gram’s house, totally confused.

Somehow in his memory he’d kept Missy an eighteen-year-old beauty queen. She might still look like an eighteen-year-old beauty queen, but she’d grown up. Moved on. Become a wife and mom.

He couldn’t figure out why that confused him so much. He’d moved on. Gotten married. Gotten divorced. Just as she had. Why did it feel so odd that she’d done the same things he had?

His cell phone rang. He grabbed it from the pocket of his jeans. Seeing the caller ID of his assistant, he said, “Yeah, Arnie, What’s up?”

“Nothing except that the Wizard Awards were announced this morning and three of your stories are in!”

“Oh.” He expected a thrill to shoot through him, but didn’t get one. His mind was stuck on Missy. Something about her nagged at him.

“I thought you’d be happier.”

Realizing he was standing there like a goof, not even talking to the assistant who’d called him, he said, “I am happy with the nominations. They’re great.”