Cathy Gillen - The Texas Cowboy's Triplets

She could do better, as well.

* * *

“SO YOU THINK that’s all it is,” Dan said. He had returned to Kelly’s house, and the four kids hit the playroom while she bustled about the kitchen, putting together a quick meal. “You think Sharon is worried about keeping her new job and Shoshanna is picking up on that?”

Although they were out of earshot, Kelly had a good view of the children. They were getting along nicely and having fun, so she began to relax. “I had the feeling Sharon’s boss might fire her if she didn’t comply.”

Dan kept an eye on the kids, too, as he moved back to watch her add chopped celery and apples to the chunks of roast chicken already in the mixing bowl. Quietly, he reflected, “Sadly, that wouldn’t surprise me. Walter Kline is not from around here. He came in when the family that owned the place for years sold it back to the automobile maker’s corporation. From what I’ve heard around town, he’s putting enormous pressure on all the salespeople.”

Kelly whipped together a mixture of plain yogurt, lemon juice and honey. “So Sharon came here for a more low-key life than she had back in Houston, and ended up in what could very well be worse straits.”

She watched Dan turn to look at Shoshanna, who was trying on some of the dress-up clothing. Big floppy hat, heels, a long strand of pearls and some clip-on earrings. Michelle had on her favorites—a pint-size princess gown and jewel-encrusted crown. Both girls were grinning and preening before the play-mirror. “Sharon’s little girl sure seems happy and engaged today.”

She did, Kelly noted in satisfaction.

Dan hung around for another hour. Long enough to partake in chicken salad sandwiches, and chips and fruit. Then help with the cleanup as the kids retired again to the playroom, this time to build structures out of wooden blocks. Shoshanna was smiling and talking as readily as the triplets.

“Feel better?” Dan asked.

Kelly hung up her dish towel to dry. “I do.” Maybe she’d been projecting some of her own childhood fears and troubles onto the child.

She watched Dan drain the last of his iced tea. “It’s possible she just needs time to adjust. And more of an effort from me and some of the other moms to include her in activities after school hours.”

She walked him to the door, realizing how much this felt like a date, albeit a family one. Resisting the urge to step in and give him a big hug for fear how that would be seen, she smiled instead and said, “Thanks for asking me to go today. I feel a lot more at ease.”

“Good.” He grinned at her with a tantalizing sparkle in his eyes. “Maybe now we can go on that date you owe me.”

Owe! Kelly drew herself up to her full five feet nine inches. “I don’t remember promising...”

His low chuckle sent another shimmer of awareness drifting through her.

He caught her hand and brought it to his lips. “I stand corrected.” He bent his head and lightly kissed the back of her knuckles before lifting his head to look into her eyes. Murmuring playfully, “But it’s only fair, don’t you think? That you give me a chance to woo you?”

Feeling her knees begin to quiver, and wondering what the impact would be like if he really kissed her, Kelly repeated the old-fashioned term in surprise. “Woo me?”

He rubbed his lips across her knuckles even more seductively this time. “Mmm-hmm.”

Aware how easily this man would be able to seduce her, she jerked her hand away. Sent him a deadpan look from beneath her lashes. “I’m not woo-able.”

He stepped back, his hearty chuckle hanging in the sizzling air between them. “Famous last words.”

Were they?

Was she woo-able after all?

“But,” he allowed patiently, still holding her eyes, “if that is true, then you have nothing to lose, do you?”

“You have a point,” Kelly countered just as mildly. Although, she thought in amusement, maybe it wasn’t the one he was trying to make. “There’s only one way to put an end to your current quest.” Only one way to prove to him that she had already failed at matrimony once and wasn’t about to give it another go.

The meaning of her words sinking in, his eyes radiated pure pleasure. “Give me what I want?”

“Once,” Kelly stated. So he would see what she already knew, that she was not “the one” for a marriage-minded man like him.

He could then put her in the Rejected Candidates column. Move on to the next female hopeful. And she could put this crazy, ill-conceived attraction she felt for the sexy husband-wannabe behind them.

* * *

WEDNESDAY NIGHT DAN stopped by his sister Lulu’s Honeybee Ranch to pick up a gift en route to his date. The petite dark-haired spitfire looked him up and down. “Aren’t you all fancy!”

He stayed a good distance from the hives where she had been working. “It’s just a shirt and jeans.”

Lulu stripped out of her protective white bee suit, hat and gloves. Surveyed him with a wry smile. “Ironed shirt and jeans. Shirttail tucked in. Your good brown leather boots. Freshly shaven and showered, smelling of aftershave, and did you also get a haircut by the way?”

He grunted. “It was time.”

“Mmm-hmm.” Lulu rolled her eyes. “Who’s the lucky lady this time? Must be someone special if you’re going to this much trouble.”

“Kelly Shackleford.”

His sister did a double take. “Well, what do you know, stud. The pretty preschool teacher finally agreed to go out with you?”

With way too many stipulations.

Dan nodded, happy after months of trying to have gotten that far. “She has.”

Lulu’s eyes narrowed. “On a school night?”

“She was only able to get a sitter from seven to nine.”

“Where are you going?” Lulu led the way into her ranch house.

“The concert in the town square.”

Another pitying glance. “Your choice or hers?”

“Hers,” Dan allowed.

A smirk. “That’ll be nice. And public.”

Beginning to lose his temper, Dan groused, “What’s your point?”

His only sister sobered. “I’m just saying Kelly’s put a lot of safety nets into this outing. Weeknight. Setting with a lack of intimacy or privacy. A short overall time period and early end.”

Put that way... “You’re saying I should read something into this?” Other than the fact she’d been so eager to go out with him she couldn’t wait until the following weekend?

“Aren’t you?”

Hell, yes. Unfortunately.

The irony wasn’t lost on him, either.

He’d spent a lot of time going out with women he suspected might be all wrong for him, just to be sure he wasn’t missing out on a chance to get married and have a family. Now that he finally felt differently about a woman from the outset, she was preparing to simply go through the motions with him in order to officially eliminate him as a viable romantic prospect.

Much to his chagrin, there was no denying the universal payback of that.

Lulu gently patted his arm. “Want my advice?”

Lord knew he really appeared to need it in this case. “Always.”

Lulu handed him a gift set of four kinds of honey. “Make every second count, cowboy.”

Dan planned to.

* * *

UNFORTUNATELY, THE MINUTES were ticking away before they even got started.

Kelly’s teenage babysitter was late and had not arrived yet. The triplets—who had been sent to let him in the door—were thrilled to see him yet very unhappy he was taking their mother out.

“It’s not fair,” Michelle pouted. “We wanted to go to the park, too.”

Dan was trying to figure out how to handle that when Kelly came breezing down the staircase in a burst of flowery perfume.