Triple treat (7 page)

"Why wouldn't I want to?" he countered smoothly. "After all, we are neighbors. It's perfectly natural and reasonable for neighbors to be friendly."

Carrie sighed. "Then I'm asking, friend to friend, will you please leave? You can't stay, and I'm too tired to stand here arguing with you about it."

"You really want me to leave? You'd send me over to that den of iniquity, filled with wanton women only too eager to have their wicked way with me? What kind of a friend are you, Carrie?"

His tone was light and Carrie knew he was joking, although she had no doubts about the veracity of his claim. All those women... She felt an odd little pang deep within her, and entirely unbidden came the torrid memory of that hot, hot kiss they had shared.

Carrie stole a quick, furtive glance at him and found him watching her, his green eyes intent. She wondered if he knew what she was thinking and decided that he probably did, that he'd said what he'd said to evoke that very memory. He was experienced, sophisticated and calculating, and it was time to send him on his way. Immediately.

"I have a can of Mace I'll be glad to lend you, if you really want to fend off all those amorous attacks," she said lightly.

"Carrie—"

"Goodbye and good night, Mr. Tremaine."

"What, no more Tyler? After all we've shared?" He laughed. "Lighten up, Carrie. Loosen up. We like each other and there's no reason why we can't be friends."

"Why are you suddenly so insistent on being friends with me?" she demanded.

Tyler stared thoughtfully at the ground. She wanted an answer but the truth wouldn't quite serve. This was where his years of marketing strategies and counterstrategies served him well.

"Maybe it's because you said we can't be friends in that doomsday tone of yours," he said ingenuously. "I don't like to be told what I can and can't do. In fact, I don't like the concept of can't at all. As soon as someone tells me some-

thing can't be done, I set about trying to see that it can. So how about it, Carrie?" He offered her his hand. "Friends?''

"Oh, well, why not?" Carrie put her hand in his, and they shook like two business partners agreeing on a verbal contract. "All things considered, I guess I'd rather have you as a friend than an enemy. And since we're friends, we can be honest and open with each other, right?"

"I doubt if you could be anything but," he murmured. He had the strongest urge to lift her hand to his mouth and press his lips against her small, warm palm. He pictured her gazing at him, dazed and charmed.

"Okay, here goes." Carrie withdrew her hand from his and flashed him a dazzling smile. "Tyler, old pal, it's time for you to get lost. And I mean that in the most friendly, honest, and open way."

Four

Tyler heard baby voices and squeals of laughter and the sound of splashing water as he approached the gap in the hedge separating his property from Carrie's. He hesitated, glancing back at his house, which stood cool and quiet under the hot noon sun. Most of the party guests were gone, though a few still slept on in various rooms, sprawled on furniture or the floor, and about five or six were currently preparing some sort of breakfast for themselves in the enormous, tiled kitchen. Tyler had listened to their post-party ramblings for a few minutes and been seized by an inexplicable urge to escape.

He'd immediately fled the scene and now here he was, wearing cutoff jeans and nothing else, staring at the trail-beaten gap in the unsightly hedge. From the sounds of it, Carrie's children were playing in the backyard. Tyler frowned, realizing at that moment how much he'd been hoping for a replay of last night. That he would find her alone in her yard and they would...

They would what? he asked himself cynically. Pick up where they'd left off last night? And where would that be? The part where he had kissed her and they'd both burned with unslaked desire, or the part where she'd told him to get lost, gave him a friendly shove out the door and locked it behind him?

It felt odd, wondering about a woman. He viewed the opposite sex as an open book, one he had no trouble reading. His preoccupation with Carrie might have alarmed him if he hadn't already developed a workable course of action for dealing with it. Tyler congratulated himself on his foresight. It was so simple, so basic. The more he saw of Carrie, the less interest she would hold for him. Any marketing student with an elementary grasp of the dangers of overexposure was familiar with that theory. More is less. And Tyler Tremaine had an advanced degree in marketing.

His plan, however, did not include exposure to Carrie's three little kiddies, especially not on the minimal amount of sleep he'd gotten last night. Tyler turned to head back up to the house.

"Dylan, come back! No, no, Dylan. Don't go over there!"

Carrie's voice stopped Tyler in his tracks. A moment later he heard a shriek of victory as a small blond tyke, clad in a boxy pair of green swim trunks printed with yellow ducks, came barreling through the gap in the hedge.

With a sense of inevitability, Tyler swooped down and caught the fugitive, swinging him up in his arms.

"Go!" Dylan demanded, struggling and wriggling impatiently.

"You mean 'go home,'" Tyler amended as he carried the toddler back through the hedge.

Dylan stopped moving and looked at him curiously. "Go ho?"

"Happy to oblige you. Home you go," Tyler assured him. "And I sincerely hope you'll stay there." He squinted

against the sun to see Carrie running toward them, clutching a child on each hip.

"Looks like both your arms are fully occupied," Tyler noted drolly. "How did you plan to catch this one—with your teeth?" He shook his head. "The logistics of toddler triplets are mind-boggling, especially in your case. It's three against one."

He wasn't telling her anything she didn't already know. Carrie shrugged. "I couldn't leave Emily and Franklin alone in the pool." She was breathless from the heat and exertion. "They could slip under the water within seconds. Better that I try to catch Dylan with my teeth."

Tyler smiled. He liked her can-do spirit. None of that poor-helpless-little-me whining for her. She probably could've caught Dylan with her teeth!

He looked over her shoulder and saw the round blue plastic pool, half-filled with water, standing across the yard. Then he glanced down at Carrie, who was wearing a modestly cut two-piece swimsuit, bright yellow with white polka dots. Her legs were quite long for someone of her petite stature, he noted, remembering he'd noticed that last night, too. And her legs were very shapely, from ankle to thigh. He found himself staring appreciatively.

"You seem to be making a habit of this," said Carrie.

Tyler jerked his eyes away, and to his consternation, a guilty flush stained his neck. "Uh, I don't know what you mean." An elementary principle—when caught in the act, stonewall!

"Catching my runaways," Carrie said, smiling up at him. "First Emily last night, then Dylan today. Thank-you once again."

Tyler swallowed hard. Her legs were definitely a weapon, but her smile apd those intense blue eyes of hers were an arsenal all their own. He stared at her, bemused.

"Bath," Franklin exclaimed, pointing to the little pool. He was wearing white swim trunks printed with green frogs.

Emily wore a ruffled pink bathing suit and was doing her upside down trick, hanging over Carrie's arm.

"Bath," echoed Dylan excitedly, nearly jumping out of Tyler's arms. Tyler tightened his grip, a bit more adept at coping with the wriggling bundle than he'd been last night, with the gymnastics-prone Emily.

"Bath! Bath! Bath!" Everybody took up the cry, each louder than the other.

"Swim," corrected Carrie. "You're going to swim in your pool." She started across the yard toward the small blue pool.

Tyler automatically followed her. What else could he do? He was holding her kid, wasn't he? "Fim," Dylan said conversationally.

Tyler looked at him. "You mean, swim? Hey, you got it. Swim, not bath." He was rather impressed. He'd never actually credited babies with the ability to think, but this child had obviously listened to Carrie and comprehended her correction. His diction was pretty bad, though. "Swim," Tyler corrected. "S-w, not/."

"Fim," repeated Dylan.

"Yeah, well, you're on the right track. Keep practicing." Tyler put Dylan into the pool as Carrie deposited Franklin and Emily there.

"Bath!" Franklin cried ecstatically, splashing in the water.

"Swim," Tyler corrected. "Say swim. Come on, kid, show your brother that you're as smart as he is."

"By all means, set up that competitive drive," Carrie said dryly. "After all, they're eighteen months old and it's never too soon to teach them all about competition in the global marketplace, hmm?"

"Brothers are natural competitors, nobody has to teach them to be," Tyler retorted. "My earliest memories are of trying to beat my older brother at any game I could—at anything I could." He smiled reminiscently. "Of course,

since Cole was three years older, I never had any luck there, but I did have the extreme good fortune to have a younger brother, Nathaniel—'-

"And you were always able to win against Nathaniel, the way Cole won against you," Carrie surmised.

Tyler beamed. "That's right. Every brother should have a kid brother to triumph over. Builds character."

"Or character disorders," Carrie said dampeningly. "I want my boys to be friends, not rivals."

"Fim!" shouted Dylan.

"Bath!" crowed Franklin.

Carrie and Tyler looked at each other and laughed. "Suddenly they're dueling linguists," Carrie said. She sat down on the edge of the rickety chaise lounge positioned by the side of the pool.

Her knees were feeling peculiarly weak. That smile of Tyler's had actually affected her physically, leaving her wide-eyed and winded, as if she'd been socked directly in the solar plexus. In addition, there was the visual impact of his bare chest—muscular, broad and hair-roughened; his long, strong legs, and his well-worn jeans that enhanced every masculine line. Oh, he wore them well, all right. Carrie gulped. She allowed her eyes to linger on him for a moment longer, before dragging her gaze away.

Tyler Tiemaine was a marvelous-looking man, and he seemed to become even more attractive with every passing glance. And he knew it, of course. Carrie knew he knew it. He had that innate confidence of one who has always been admired and prized—-especially by the opposite sex. Carrie was sure that she wasn't the first woman to be rendered breathless by his smile and virile physique, but this was definitely a first for her. She'd never before simply looked at a man and felt the sharp slash of sheer desire,

Carrie felt a swift stab of disloyalty toward Ian's memory. Ian had been blond and handsome and his wholesome boy-next-door looks had appealed to her from the first time

she'd seen him, in the lunch line at their dormitory cafeteria six years ago. Her heart clenched, remembering that innocent time. It seemed so poignant and so sad to look back, knowing the tragic end that awaited laughing, warmhearted Ian.

Carrie slid her sunglasses, which were resting on the top of her head, down over her eyes and thought how much she loved Ian. How much she would always love him, forever and ever. Nobody would ever take his place. And if she were to occasionally glance at another man, it didn't mean a thing. She was human, wasn't she? One would have to be an android not to react, even slightly, to Tyler Tremaine's traffic-stopping looks.

Tyler stole a quick glance at Carrie. He was glad she'd put on her sunglasses; those gorgeous eyes of hers disarmed him too thoroughly. Maybe it was the intensity of the color that mesmerized him or the alert intelligence reflected in them, which made him listen more intently to her, no matter how inane the topic. Whatever, he turned his attention to the children, with something akin to relief.

"Okay, Emily, you must have an opinion on this matter." Tyler knelt beside the pool where Emily sat methodically filling a milk carton with water and emptying it into a plastic pail that floated nearby. "Let's hear the feminine viewpoint. Is this activity a bath or a swim?"

Emily gave him a long look. "Wa-ner," she said calmly, resuming her project.

"She said water," Tyler said eagerly, ignoring the mispronunciation. Carrie nodded her confirmation.

"Wow, she's the smartest one of all." Tyler was astonished. "She's made the leap that it's all water, be it a bath or a swim."

"Isn't it lucky you didn't have a sister," mocked Carrie. "She would've taken on you and your brothers and won every time."

Tyler rolled his eyes. "Your poor brother has my heartfelt sympathy. You and your sister probably led him around by the nose. From the little I've seen of the three of you together, you still do."

"Don't ever let Ben hear you say that." Carrie grinned. "He's always harbored under the delusion that he is the undisputed leader of us three."

Tyler shook his head. "Poor chump."

At that moment, Franklin and Dylan each reached for the fat rubber duck floating in the middle of the pool. Franklin grabbed it by the tail just as Dylan grabbed the head.

"Mine!" Both screamed in unison.

"That's their new word," said Carrie wryly. "They learned it last week and have been using it enthusiastically ever since."

Neither child would cede the duck, and the shrieks of "Mine!" resounded through Tyler's head like gunshots. "Aren't you going to do anything?" he demanded. "They're getting awfully noisy."

"This from the man whose party blasted the entire neighborhood at nine-million-trillion decibels?" Carrie shrugged. "Anyway, they're just enjoying a little brotherly tiff. I thought you'd approve. Doesn't it bring back fond memories?"

"Well, if you can't be bothered to intervene ..." Scowling his disapproval, Tyler snatched the duck away from both boys and handed it to Emily who was calmly pouring and emptying, ignoring the spat entirely. "Your sister gets to keep the duck, guys," he said righteously. "You see what happens when you yell and—"

He didn't have a chance to finish. Dylan and Franklin both burst into howls of rage, crying and wailing at the top of their lungs. They advanced on Emily like a charging army. Emily took one look at the duck in her hand and another at her brothers and threw the toy out of the pool. It was too much for Dylan and Franklin to deal with. They