Triple treat Read Online Free PDF Page B

the Great Communicator had nothing on him, but Carrie Wilcox was beyond his reach.

    After all, what good were words and charm when she rendered him mute with that steady blue-eyed gaze of hers?
    Carrie put Emily into the wagon, and Alexa and Ben immediately followed suit, setting Dylan and Franklin in behind their sister. Tyler watched Carrie pull the wagon away and onto the sidewalk. She turned to say something to the small triplets, and the three of them began to wave their hands and boisterously shout, "Bye-bye-bye-bye." Carrie herself said nothing, nor did she glance his way.
    "You should be ashamed of yourself, Mr. Tremaine," Alexa said indignantly as she stalked out the gate after them. "I mean, who cares what you and your sleazy friends do, but inviting my sister and the babies here was unconscionable/ '
    Her shock had turned to anger—Tyler clearly perceived that. He knew how to deal with it, if he should care to. Right now, he didn't.
    "You have to understand, Tyler, my sisters aren't at all— uh—worldly," Ben interjected.
    "And you are?" Tyler asked dryly. Ben's interest was piqued; he appeared torn between leaving with his family and joining the party. Tyler perceived all of that, too. And knew how to deal with it, of course. But it was of little comfort that he could deal with two out of the three Shaw triplets when Carrie remained the elusive third.
    "Oh yes, you see, I've lived all over the world," boasted Ben. "Our dad is a career air force officer. He and Mom are currently stationed in Germany again. I've lived in Germany, too, and in Turkey and England and six different states," he added proudly.
    "I assume your sisters also shared this cosmopolitan lifestyle as well?"
    "Well, yes. But they didn't get out and around as much as I did," Ben said quickly. "Girls are more sheltered, you know. Umm, at least in our family they were." He cast a

    quick glance toward the back of the house, where the swimming pool and cabana were located.
    Tyler could guess what he'd seen there. He thought of the baby running back there and flinched.
    "Benjamin Shaw, are you coming?" Alexa hollered from the sidewalk. Her tone implied that he'd better or she would do something about it.
    Ben sighed. "I guess I'd better go help with the babies. Uh, thanks for inviting me to the party, Tyler."
    "You sound as if you really mean that."
    "I do! Fd like to—er—broaden my social life. But this— scene isn't for my sisters," Ben added earnestly.
    "Well, feel free to come back to the party and—broaden your social life, after you've helped your sis tors with the triplets," said Tyler. He started toward the oversize garage where his cars were housed.
    "You're leaving?" Ben called after him, confused. "You're leaving your own party?"
    "My social life is sufficiently broad," Tyler replied. And all he wanted right now was to be away from it.
    He backed his navy blue '64 Mustang out of the driveway and into the street while Alexa and Ben Shaw stood on the sidewalk, staring after him. Carrie and her children were already in their front yard, and he saw a flash of red, white, blue and blond clambering out of the wagon as he drove past them.
    He watched them in the rearview mirror until he turned a corner and they disappeared from his sight.

    Three
    Carrie sat on the two-seater aluminum glider on her small screened-in back porch. Though it was past 2:00 a.m., the party next door was still in full swing, the noise level so loud that it was as if the live band, alternating with the DJ and his collection of music discs, was right here on the porch with her. She heard voices and yells, shouts of laughter and much splashing in the pool. The scrawny hedge with its wide gap in the center was a pitifully useless sound barrier.
    She sipped her iced tea, wondering how the babies could sleep through this racket, and grateful that they were. She'd turned the room air conditioner in the nursery on low, so perhaps its humming noise was masking the