winsome trio interrupted the conversation by trooping up to the register. Each placed her carefully decided-upon final selection on the counter. Tiffany vied for top honors, placing hers on top after Stephany had just done the same. Bethany gave both her sisters the evil eye, meant to quiet them.
Tyler hid his smile. Bethany had always been the one unofficially in charge.
“Okay, Daddy, we’re ready,” Bethany told him importantly.
“Excellent selections, ladies,” Brooke said as she scanned each book in turn, ringing up the sale. The register came up with the final total. She pointed to the figure. “And this, Mr. Breckinridge, is what they all come to.”
Stephany looked around, then turned her face up to her father, her small brows drawing together in confusion. “Who’s she talking to, Daddy?”
Bethany gave her a reproving look. “That’s Daddy’s grown-up name,” she informed her sister, then looked at her father for confirmation. “Right, Daddy?”
Brooke thought it a rather odd exchange. The girls were so bright about everything else. Why did something as ordinary as formally addressing their father cause any of them confusion?
“Right,” Tyler answered. Taking his charge card out of his wallet, he glanced at it before handing it to Brooke.
She could have sworn he looked just the slightest bit apprehensive. Probably wondering if his three little darlings had caused him to max out his card. The man tried to give the appearance of being in charge, but it was evident to anyone who paid the slightest bit of attention that the girls had him tied up in neat little knots around their small fingers.
The authorization number flashed, catching Brooke’s eye. She wrote it down on the three-layered credit slip before handing it to Tyler to sign.
He took the pen she offered him and began writing his name. Biting off an oath, he stopped. There was a touch of both frustration and sheepishness in his eyes as he looked up at her.
“I’m sorry, I was preoccupied.” His eyes indicated the slip. “I started writing down the name of someone I’m supposed to meet later this afternoon. Would it be too much trouble to write up another slip?”
“No, no trouble at all.” She reached into the drawer for a blank slip, then grinned. “I guess being around this handful might make anyone forget their name at times.” Lowering her eyes, she ran the credit slip through the machine, embossing it, then wrote in the pertinent information. Finished, she held out the slip to him while reaching for the one in his hand.
To her surprise, he ripped it up in front of her, then tucked the pieces into his pocket. “I’ll just get rid of this for you.” There was no room for discussion or dissent.
Brooke shrugged carelessly. It made no difference to her one way or another. “Been the victim of credit-card fraud lately?”
He looked up from the slip he was carefully signing. “What?”
She nodded toward his pocket. “You’re so careful with the receipt I thought that maybe someone had stolen your credit card before. You know, once burned, twice leery, that sort of thing.”
“Yes, something like that.” Finished, he handed the signed receipt to her, exchanging it for his card. He slipped the latter back into his wallet.
Nothing wrong with being careful, she thought, watching him. She smiled as she handed the large colorful bag with the girls’ purchases to him. There was a sleepy-eyed teddy bear, dressed in a nightshirt and nightcap, sitting and reading a storybook with his picture on the cover decorating the side of the bag. Stephany oohed over it.
My father would have been touched, Brooke thought. The teddy bear, Wandering Willie, had been his creation. “He was my favorite, too, when I was your age.”
Tiffany’s eyes widened. “Is he that old?”
“Tiffany.” Tyler flashed Brooke an apologetic look. “Everyone over ten is old to Tiffany.”
She’d taken no offense. “I remember how it was.” On impulse, Brooke rounded the register and walked them to the entrance. “Well, Mr. Breckinridge, you and the girls feel free to come back any time.”
The girls took the invitation as a signal to gang up on him again. Brooke was getting the distinct feeling that they did that a lot. She wondered which side his wife took.
“Can we come back tomorrow, Daddy?”
“Yeah, can we?”
“Please?”
“We’ll see,” he answered, but he had a hunch it was a foregone conclusion that they would be back, if not tomorrow, then soon. Besides, the woman was genuinely kind to his daughters. That put her store on the plus side. He smiled at her over his shoulder as he ushered the trio out. “Thanks again for all your help.”
Brooke inclined her head. “Anytime.” She completely missed her sister, entering from the opposite direction, until she almost turned into her.
Unmindful of the near collision, Heather stared at the departing quartet, specifically its tallest member. “Wow. Now there’s a man who looks good coming and going.”
Brooke could only shake her head as she retreated into the store. Heather’s official course of study at the university was child psychology, but there were times Brooke was convinced her younger sister’s real major was men. She certainly went through her share of them.
“Hello, Heather, so nice of you to finally decide to join me.”
Heather deposited her purse behind the counter with the kind of carelessness that came from someone who was carrying nothing worth stealing. “Don’t get snippy. My alarm clock didn’t go off.”
A knowing look creased Brooke’s face. “Was that before or after you threw it against the wall?”
Heather pried the lid off the café latte she had bought from the coffee shop. “I only did that once and that was because it woke me up when I had a terrible headache.” She sniffed. “I’ve been very nice to my alarm clocks ever since.” She ran her tongue along the inside of the lid before throwing it out, then sidled up beside Brooke. “And never mind me, just how did you help Mr. Gorgeous and just what did you mean by ‘Anytime’?”
Leave it to Heather to put the wrong spin on things. “One of his daughters wandered into the store. I helped reunite them, that’s all.”
“Obviously winning his undying gratitude,” Heather commented. She looked at Brooke, her eyes bright. “Sounds like a good beginning to me.”
Brooke knew where this conversation was going, and for once, the train was not going to leave the station. “In case you hadn’t noticed, little sister, the man has three daughters.”
“So?”
“So?” Brooke shut her eyes. There were times Heather was incorrigible. “So that usually means one wife somewhere.”
Taking a long swig of her coffee, Heather remained undaunted. “Not necessarily in the present tense.” She followed Brooke as she began replacing the books that had been part of
