Four Times the Trouble (10 page)

“I know,” he finally said.

“So relax, partner. I think I can handle anything your girls can dish out. Trust me.”

Jacob wished it was that easy.

CHAPTER EIGHT

J
ACOB
AND
M
ICHELLE
were in the station lunch room getting their caffeine fixes when Bob Chaney handed them an envelope.

“You guys had the best ratings this week, so enjoy the promo,” he said as he walked away. He’d been keeping his distance ever since Michelle had blown up at him the week before.

Michelle opened the envelope, half expecting to find a gift certificate for dinner for two at some romantic out-of-the way spot. She was surprised when she pulled out four tickets to Disneyland.

“What is it?” Jacob asked, sipping his coffee. His T-shirt was blue this morning, depicting a beautiful Colorado skyline. The color looked good on him.

“Four tickets to Disneyland. Two for you and two for me.”

“Seems like he got our message. We get to take dates,” Jacob said with a grin.

Michelle wondered why that didn’t please her as much as it should have. “I guess. Here.” She handed him the tickets.

He handed two back. “You get these.”

Michelle turned back to the pop machine. “You go ahead, Jacob. Take the girls.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Michelle. I’m not taking your promo.”

She faced him, a can of soda in hand. “And what am I going to do with two tickets to Disneyland? Take Noby? You know I don’t date, and I can’t think of a single friend who would choose to spend an entire day with me, rather than with the man in her life.” She smiled to take the sting out of her words. It wasn’t Jacob’s fault she didn’t have anybody of her own to take to Disneyland. “Take the girls, Jacob. They’ll love it.”

“Then you’ll have to come with us.”

“We only have four tickets.”

“So we’ll buy one more. I’m not taking these tickets unless you come along with us. Think of it as research. You can get a good look at Cinderella and her evil stepsisters while we’re there.”

As weak as it was, she accepted the excuse. “Okay, sounds like fun. When should we go?”

“How about Saturday?”

“Saturday’s fine. Around eight?”

“Why don’t we pick you up at seven and have breakfast on the way. My treat. We can tell the girls tonight.”

It was only later that Michelle wondered if they’d both been a little too eager to spend the day together. She was in this for the kids. Period.

* * *

“Y
OU
GONNA
SEW
Jessie’s other sleeve on when you finish sewing that one, Michelle?” Allie asked Wednesday night after supper. She was holding the sleeve in question.

“As soon as I trim the threads on this one,” Michelle said. She took her foot off the sewing-machine pedal long enough to turn the sleeve currently under the needle. She was finding it a little difficult to maneuver the material with Jessie hanging on her arm.

“I can trim the threads for you,” Allie said.

“How do you make it go so straight?” Jessie asked, leaning to get a better look.

“See that line?” Michelle asked, pointing to a plate on her machine. Jessie nodded. “I just keep the edge of the material even with it, like this.”

Meggie wandered over to peer at the sewing machine.

“You get that lace measured out like I showed you, Meggie?” Michelle asked.

“Almost,” Meggie replied, returning to her task.

Michelle pulled one of the pins out of the sleeve before the needle hit it.

“Here’s the pin cushion,” Allie said, taking the pin to put it in the cushion herself. “How about if I take all of the pins out for you?” she asked.

“What can I do? It’s my sleeve,” Jessie said, still holding on to Michelle.

“You can help me guide the material,” Michelle said. “See, take the bottom edge, and help me keep it on the line.”

“Like this?” Jessie asked. She’d let go of Michelle’s arm but was having a problem getting a good hold on the material.

“Here,” Michelle said, lifting her foot from the pedal again to move Jessie onto her lap. “Now we can do it together.”

“And I’ll do the pins, all right?” Allie asked.

“Okay, you can be the pin lady,” Michelle said, trying to slow the machine down to a speed Jessie could handle. “How’s the lace coming, Meggie?”

“Fine.”

Jessie started to slip off Michelle’s lap and tried to right herself, pushing one foot against the floor. But she missed and pushed against Michelle’s foot.

The sewing machine whirred loudly as the needle sped into triple time, pulling the material out of Michelle’s grasp. There was a loud cracking noise, and everything stopped.

“What happened?” Jessie and Allie asked at once.

“What was that noise?” Meggie asked, coming over to see what was going on.

Michelle leaned around Jessie to get a closer look at the sewing machine. “I think we just broke a needle.”

“Uh-oh,” Allie said, backing up.

Jessie scooted off Michelle’s lap.

Meggie went back to cutting lace.

After Michelle removed the broken needle, she turned to the girls. Two of them were watching her carefully, their faces puckered with worry. Meggie was hunched over her lace.

“Hey!” Michelle smiled. “It’s no big deal, you guys. Needles break all the time. That’s why I have extras. Allie, bring me my sewing basket.”

Meggie handed the basket to her sister, who hurried over to Michelle with it. Jessie scooted closer.

It took Michelle only a couple of moments to realize she’d left her extra needles at home.

Allie looked worried again when she heard the news. Jessie started to cry. Meggie’s scissors were snipping away.

Michelle cuddled Jessie under one arm and went over to Allie, pulling her under the other. “So I guess we’ll just have to take a trip to my house,” she said. “You girls can come along and say hi to Noby. You remember Noby, don’t you?”

Meggie stopped cutting. All three girls nodded.

“She’s probably pretty lonely, so it’s good to be able to take a break and go see her. Allie, why don’t you run out and tell your daddy where we’re going?”

Allie hurried outside to where Jacob was waxing his 4x4. Jessie hopped up and down, obviously eager to get going, her tears forgotten. Meggie went back to cutting.

“Come on, Meggie, you can finish that when we get back.”

“I’m staying home with Daddy,” she said, concentrating on her task.

Michelle frowned. “Don’t you want to see Noby?”

“I wanna stay home with Daddy,” Meggie said, neatly sidestepping Michelle’s question.

Michelle walked over to the little girl. “You don’t
have
to come, Meggie. I just want you to know that I’d love to have you along if you
want
to come.”

“I’ll stay with Daddy,” Meggie said, still not looking up from her lace.

“How about if we bring you back some ice cream?” Michelle asked, determined to reach the little girl.

“Okay, if you want.”

And with that, Michelle knew she had to be satisfied.

* * *

A
LLIE
THOUGHT
Saturday was never going to come. All day Friday she kept waiting for school to be over, but it was taking forever. Every time Allie looked at the watch her daddy had bought her for Christmas, the numbers had barely changed at all. She thought maybe the battery wasn’t so good anymore, but if it wasn’t, then the clocks at school weren’t working, either, ’cause when her teacher dismissed them for lunch, it was the exact time on Allie’s watch that lunch was s’posed to be.

Lunch was hardest of all. She kept being afraid that Meggie or Jessie was going to need her for something, and then she’d blab everything and one of them would ruin it. This was one plan she was just going to have to do on her own. She could, too. Because then she and her sisters would live happily ever after.

She and Jessie and Meggie had been to Disneyland lots of times, and Allie knew plain and simple that five people couldn’t sit together on the rides. So she was going to make sure her sisters sat with her. Then her daddy and Michelle would have to sit together and after a whole day of being next to each other they’d fall in love. Now all Allie had to do was keep her big mouth shut and not tell her sisters that Michelle was going to be their new mommy. Not yet. Not until they got back from Disneyland. Then she’d tell them. After all, she wanted them to know she was the one who got Michelle for them—just in case they ever found out she was the one who started the whole trouble in the first place by being born first. But keeping such important stuff a secret was the hardest thing she’d ever done.

* * *

F
RIDAY
NIGHT
, Michelle dropped Noby off at her parents for the weekend, worried that her pet was getting depressed at being left alone so much. Her mom and dad seemed delighted to cat-sit, but Michelle knew, as fond as they were of Noby, it wasn’t her cat they were worked up about.

She wanted to tell them not to read more into her time with Jacob and his girls than was there, to remind them that she was a married woman, that until Brian was found, one way or the other, she would remain a married woman. But she’d been telling herself the same things all week, and if she hadn’t managed to curtail her own excitement at the thought of the next day, she knew she’d fail miserably with her parents.

Sometimes she wondered if she wasn’t overdoing her loyalty to a man she hadn’t heard from in almost five years. She wanted to put her life back on track, to have babies, to raise a family. She didn’t want to grow old alone. And yet each time she thought about putting the past to rest, there was something inside her holding her to the vows that she and Brian had made. She was certain he hadn’t left her by choice. And until she knew for sure he’d left her for good, she couldn’t stop being married to him. There was a bond between them—forged many years ago by their young idealistic love—that refused to be broken. Michelle suspected that the reason she still felt that bond so strongly was because Brian was alive somewhere, willing her to wait for him.

And she’d wait forever if she had to, she told herself as she drove home later that evening. But she was going to do what living she could while she waited. Her mother had been right to claim that Michelle had quit reaching out to people. She’d forgotten how good it felt to help someone else, how much less time it left for worrying about her own problems. Now Jacob’s girls were filling up some of the empty spaces inside her; she just had to be careful not to let their father do the same.

* * *

S
HE
WAS
READY
and waiting at seven o’clock Saturday morning when Jacob’s Explorer pulled into her driveway. The triplets were buckled up in a row in the backseat, looking absolutely adorable in their identical denim overalls, red T-shirts, high-top tennis shoes and their hair up in ponytails. But it was their differences that stole Michelle’s heart as she told them all good-morning and slid into the front beside Jacob.

“Michelle, guess what? We’re stopping at McDonald’s for breakfast on the way,” Allie piped up from the middle of the back seat.

“I get to sit next to you,” Jessie confided.

“At McDonald’s, she means,” Allie added importantly.

“Hi,” Meggie said, not quite containing her smile.

“I missed you guys yesterday, you know that?” Michelle said, smiling at them. The day was perfect already, and it had only just begun.

They arrived at the Magic Kingdom just as the gates were opening. Jacob pulled into one of the few vacant parking spaces in the Thumper lot, and by the time he’d turned off the ignition the girls had unfastened their seat belts. Meggie tugged on one door handle and Jessie on the other, while Allie bounced impatiently between them.

“Come on, you guys,” Allie said.

“Whoa!”

Michelle was startled by Jacob’s stern tone—and by the reaction he got. The girls froze in their seats, three pairs of dark eyes trained on their father.

“I want the rules one more time,” Jacob said, turning around. “Jessie?”

“We stick together and always hold someone’s hand.”

“Good. And?”

“If we have to go, we tell you
before
we get in a long line.”

Jacob smiled. “You got it. Meggie?”

“No running.”

“Right. Allie?”

“
If
we get lost, we go to the castle and wait there.”

“Right.”

“But we won’t, you know, Daddy. We never do.”

“I know, sport, but I’m supposed to worry, anyway,” he said, giving Allie’s ponytail a tug. “Now let’s get this show on the road.”

The girls climbed out of the 4x4, not one ounce less excited, but much more contained. Michelle was impressed.

She was having trouble containing her own excitement as they entered the park and headed down Main Street. The sun was shining, glinting off the lampposts lining the street. The shops beckoned with their colorful displays of candy and stuffed renditions of every Disney character ever to have graced a motion-picture screen. And best of all was the magnificent blue-and-white castle that stood tall and proud at the end of Main Street. Michelle figured even the staunchest scrooge couldn’t look at that castle and not feel, just for an instant, that dreams really did come true.