Four Times the Trouble Read Online Free Page B

myself,” he told Allie, giving her what he hoped was a look of disapproval.
    Jessie ran over and sat on Jacob’s other side, spraying him with sand and seawater as she leaned her arm against his outspread thigh. “Wadja want?” she asked, grinning at him.
    “What?” Meggie asked, bringing up the rear. She sat in front of Jacob, her expression serious.
    “I’ve been thinking, since you guys are so grown-up now and all, that maybe it was time we talked about your mother.”
    His stomach sank when he intercepted the worried looks that passed between his daughters. Ms. Wilson had been right on the mark. The girls’ motherless state was bothering them more than they’d let on to him.
    They stared up at him silently, expectantly.
    “Your mother is a very beautiful woman,” he said, wondering where on earth he was going to go from there. “You guys take after her.”
    Jessie smiled. Allie fiddled with the hair on his arm again. Meggie still stared silently. Jacob would’ve given just about anything to know what they were thinking.
    “She loves all of you very much,” he said, telling the lie without flinching. He’d grown up without the security of his parents’ love. His children weren’t going to suffer the same fate.
    “Then why doesn’t she ever come to see us?” Allie asked, her brows drawn together in a frown.
    “She lives and works very far away from here.”
    “How far?” Meggie asked.
    “All the way across the United States. She’s a senator’s, um, aide, in Washington, D.C.”
    Jessie tapped his leg. “What’s an umaide, Daddy?”
    Jacob took a deep breath. He should have guessed that the girls wouldn’t be satisfied with the vague answers he’d hoped to give them.
    “Aide, Jess. It’s someone who stays close to a senator and helps him with things so that he can do his job better.” At least Jacob hoped Ellen helped Senator Keller in a professional capacity, not a personal one.
    “What kind of things?”
    “Well, Al, things like entertaining prominent people and maybe writing important letters. Stuff like that.”
    “Can we go visit her sometime?” Meggie’s small face was virtually expressionless.
    “Maybe sometime. When you get a little older and don’t need a babysitter, in case she has to go out and meet someone important for dinner or something.”
    “Weren’t we important enough, Daddy? Is that why she left us?” Jessie’s big brown eyes were filling with tears. Jacob felt sick, and he floundered for words as he hugged Jessie against his side. Her wet, sand-covered suit grated against his skin, but he couldn’t have cared less about the discomfort.
    “You guys are the most important people I know,” he said, pinning each of them with his “I mean it” stare. “Your mommy didn’t leave you. She left me. I wanted her to be someone she wasn’t. Senator Keller liked her just as she was.”
    “Didn’t you like her at all?”
    Jacob pulled Meggie onto his lap and hugged Allie to his other side. “Of course I liked her, honey. I chose her to be your mommy, didn’t I? But I wanted a different kind of wife than she wanted to be, and I guess I’m just a little too hardheaded sometimes. I wouldn’t give in, and as much as she tried, your mommy couldn’t be happy with me,” Jacob wondered if he was making any sense.
    “You’re not hard in the head, Daddy. You’re the best daddy in the whole world,” Meggie said, laying her cheek against him. Her long black hair fell around her shoulders, tickling his chest.
    “And I love being your daddy more than anything in the world, Meg, but your mommy and I just wanted to live our lives in two different ways. My way made her unhappy. You wouldn’t want her to be unhappy would you?”
    All three girls shook their heads. “Well, I didn’t want to make her unhappy, either. So when Senator Keller asked her to go to Washington and she wanted to go, I told her it was okay with me.”
    “Did you miss her when she was gone?”