Four Times the Trouble Read Online Free Page A

clean and easily replaceable.
    “It’s not babyish to cry, is it, Daddy?” Jessie asked, waiting while Jacob opened her granola bar for her.
    “Babies do cry,” Meggie said, using her teeth to rip open her snack.
    First talk, coming up. Jacob poured three glasses of milk, glad he could start with an easy one. “Of course babies cry. It’s their only form of communication. But there are other reasons for crying, too. If you’re sad or lonely or hurt you might cry. There are times when it’s best to get those feelings out, so they don’t bother you anymore. But sometimes people cry just because they don’t control their feelings very well, like if they’re mad or embarrassed or disappointed. If all goes well you learn to express those emotions differently as you grow up.”
    “We’re grown-up, Daddy, aren’t we, you guys?” Allie looked at her sisters, her mouth full of granola bar.
    Jessie and Meggie nodded dutifully. And suddenly Jacob was faced with three sets of solemn brown eyes as the girls waited for his confirmation.
    “Well, darlin’s, grown-ups work before they play, so I guess that means you have to make your beds before you put on your bathing suits. You better hurry up if you want to be outside while it’s still high tide.”
    Jacob smiled at the three identical little faces scowling up at him. His daughters slid from their chairs and left the room, clearly unamused. He rinsed the milk glasses and wiped the crumbs from the table. And two minutes later he was shaking his head in resignation. The noise coming from the triplets’ room was only one level below deafening. They were singing, if you could call it that, the L.A. Lakers “Laker Nation” song at the top of their lungs.
    * * *
    T HE OCEAN WAS TOO COLD , in spite of the February heat wave, for any real swimming, but the girls managed to get soaked, anyway. They did a fairly good job of soaking their father, too. Jacob finally retreated to sit well out of reach of their splashing. He watched his daughters play for a while, grinning at their happy squeals as they ran from the waves. All three of them wore fluorescent green, one-piece swimsuits; he remembered when he’d bought them. The girls had complained about the “gross” color. “All the better to see you with, my dears,” he’d growled, and they’d giggled, just like he’d expected them to do. They didn’t need to know how serious he’d been about his reason for the blindingly bright suits.
    Jacob stretched his legs out in front of him, leaning back on his hands, watching while Allie organized a sand-castle construction crew. Jessie and Meggie played along, apparently content to be her laborers. Man, how he loved them.
    The muscles in his gut tightened as he watched them play together. How did a man tell his daughters that he wasn’t as perfect as they thought he was? That he’d driven his wife away just as he had his parents before her? How did he convince them that their mother loved them, even though she’d left them? Eleanor Wilson had said that the girls thought they were too much trouble, but that wasn’t true. Not to him. Never to him. Somehow he had to convince them of that.
    Jessie darted over, bobbing up and down in front of him. “I have to go.”
    “Be sure to clean your feet before you go in,” he said. He kept one eye on Allie and Meggie at the edge of the ocean while he watched Jessie run up the beach to their cottage. She stepped into the small tub of clean water he kept by the door, wiped one foot on the mat beside the tub and raced into the house. Oh, well, the floor could withstand a few wet footprints.
    “What’s for supper?” Allie asked half an hour later. She plopped down in the sand beside Jacob, playing with the dark hairs on his forearm.
    “Macaroni and cheese, but I want to talk to you guys first. Get your sisters for me, please?”
    “JESSIE! MEGGIE! DADDY WANTS YOU!” Allie hollered.
    Jacob covered his ears. “I could’ve done that