Page 11 of One Bride for Three Single Dads

“That’s exactly what I’m talking about!” I object. “You guys aren’t going to be able to keep it in your pants. You know that, right?”

“Likeyouare some kind of monk?” Harrison smirks. “Worry about your own pants, Ambrose.”

“Yeah, she is just your type,” Boone shrugs. “I would worry more about you saving some of her for the rest of us.”

Fuck, he has a point. She is my type. As soon as I opened the door, I could imagine having her ankles in my hands, holding them over my shoulders. A nice, broad, country girl. Strong and thick, with a pretty pink outfit and little cheerleader-type shoes. Hair that looks like bottled sunshine. Eyes the color of a late summer sky.

Perfect, you might say.

And when she looked at me, her lips parting, just that tiny breath of air coming out as she gasped in surprise, I felt like she knew it too. If I had met her at the grocery store, I might have asked her out. I might’ve asked her to the back seat of my truck, actually. We probably wouldn’t have made it out of the parking lot.

But that is not the job at hand.

“We should keep looking,” I insist.

Harrison does an about-face and heads back for the front door.

“Not me. I am done looking,” he announces as he disappears back into the house.

As a last-ditch effort, I try to appeal to Boone’s sense of fairness or something. Decency? There must be something in him that realizes that girl is just too fucking… fuckable.

I wish there were another word, but there isn’t.

“There was that other lady? From Signal Mountain?” I suggest.

Boone flinches. “The grandma? Are you kidding me?”

“Yeah, she’s got loads of experience,” I continue, thinking maybe I have a shot here. “She raised nine kids. She’s got six grandkids.”

“She’s got a mobility scooter and congestive heart failure!”

I’d been hoping Boone had forgotten that part.

“She could get better!”

Boone throws out one arm, pointing in the direction where Jolene just drove off minutes ago.

“That woman is twenty-two! Fucking gorgeous! And she didn’t turn right around and leave like we were some kind of cult or something!”

“Boone, we cannot fuck her, okay?”

Boone scowls and rolls his eyes, crossing his arms as he rocks back onto his heels.

“Boone! I’m serious!”

“Maybe getting fucked is what you need,” he mutters. “You ever consider that? What has it been, a year?”

I don’t want to talk about this. Has it been a year? I guess if I add it all up… Lydia had a hard pregnancy. Practically from day one, she was sick. We should have known.

“Yeah, man, forget I said that. I’m sorry,” Boone continues, eager to change the subject. “All I’m saying is you still gotta lot of life left in you. You can’t let it all just… you know. Fade away.”

“That’s not what I’m doing,” I object.

“Okay.”

“And besides, childcare is the priority, right?” I continue desperately. “We can always figure out something else for the female situation, or whatever you want to call it.”

“The female situation!” Boone repeats, incredulous. “Wow, you got a way with words!”

---