Father Most Wanted

The girls giggled, except for Stephany, who shivered and closed her eyes.

They were a nice family, Brooke thought. She waited until he sat down himself before commenting on what he’d said when they’d walked in. “You don’t strike me as a man with a sweet tooth.”

He found himself smiling at the observation. A pervading fondness for chocolate was something else he shared with the girls, as well as with his sister. “Why?”

“Are your teeth really sweet, Daddy?” Tiffany looked at him curiously.

“Shh.” Bethany waved her hand at her sister to be quiet.

“It’s an expression people use when someone has a weakness for candy,” Brooke explained before looking at Tyler. “I just thought it was unusual because you look so…” She searched for a word and settled on “fit.”

The smile turned a handsome man into a man who was almost devastating. She found that it took her a second to remember to exhale and then reverse the process.

“Thanks.” He looked down at the paper menus on the tables, small replicas of the one at the entrance. “So, what’ll everyone have?”

The girls had already made their choices and vied with one another to be first in their declarations. Chocolate, strawberry and vanilla sundaes with pleas for plenty of chocolate syrup were ordered. Brooke wondered if their selection of flavors was a way to tell them apart.

Tyler’s dark blue eyes isolated the moment for her, fixed as they were on her face. “What would you like?”

Completely improbable, inappropriate answers popped up in her head. Heather’s influence, she thought, dismissing them all.

She found it harder to dismiss the feeling they created. Or the one generated by the way he looked at her.

He probably wasn’t even aware of it. “A strawberry-ice-cream soda. This is one of the few places that makes them the old-fashioned way,” she told him.

“One strawberry-ice-cream soda coming up,” he said, rising from the table and going to the counter to place the order.

“You like strawberry,” the triplet sitting directly opposite her observed, beaming. Something told Brooke she had just bonded with the little girl. She only wished she knew which one it was.

“It’s the first flavor I ever remember having.” She’d been about three at the time. It had come in the form of an ice-cream cone and she had worn it more than eaten it, according to the way her father used to tell the story. She just remembered liking the taste.

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