Free Loving Ashe by Liz Madrid Page B

over before to help her coral the three terrors. I guess she figured she needed reinforcements tonight.”
    “It’s probably best that he not know what he’s getting into just yet, dear,” Paige laughed before extending her hand towards Ashe. “Very nice to meet you, Ashe. Riley has apparently been keeping you a secret,”
    “Unfortunately, I haven’t been around long enough for anyone to show me off properly but it would be nice to change that,” Ashe said. “There’s no point in disappointing the audience now, is there?”
    Everyone laughed, except for Riley, who glared at Ashe before one of triplets tackled her with a hug. Soon all three surrounded her, telling her all their plans for the next few hours.
    Let’s play with trains, auntie! No, I wanna build trains. Let’s read a story. I want Finding Nemo. No, I want Chuggington! I want some mac n’ cheese! Chicken nuggets! I am Thor! 
    Before she was swept away by the triplets into the living room, she reminded Ashe that it really wasn’t too late to back out now.
    Clint laughed. “I won’t blame you if you decide to leave, Ashe. My boys can be quite a handful, but somehow, Riley manages to coral them quite well.”
    “Now don’t scare him, honey,” Paige said.
    “I don’t mind. Really, I don’t,” Ashe said, chuckling.
    “As long as you know what’s in store for you, Ashe. Many a brave man would easily run away from something like this,” Paige laughed, leading Ashe into the living room where the triplets were showing Riley their newest toys, which were partly still in their boxes. It was a Lionel train set and they were telling her all about how they planned to assemble all the parts tonight.
    “Well, I’m certain it will be fun,” Ashe said.
    After a few more minutes of small talk, with Paige wanting to know how Ashe had managed to find Riley (“purely by chance,” he said for he’d heard of how good the caffé Medici was at the Library Cafe), Clint reminded her that they had to leave. The town car was idling outside their brownstone and after loud good-byes and air kisses, they were on their way, leaving Ashe and Riley with the children.
    “You can still get out of this, you know,” Riley said again. “I won’t hold it against you.”
    “I can leave if you really want me to,” Ashe said. “But I’m perfectly fine right here with you.”
    Riley couldn’t help but blush at the way Ashe looked at her. His blue eyes seemed to appear darker, more intense, when he gazed at her, a mischievous smile on his lips.
    “Alright then. First things first,” Riley announced, gathering some of the toys that littered their playroom and faced the triplets. “Who wants to help me make mac and cheese?”
    The triplets all jumped up and down, raising their hands up to volunteer, and like the pied piper of Hamelin, she led them to the kitchen with Ashe following right behind them. When she saw his look of amusement — or was it awe — she decided to let him in on her secret.
    “I let them add corn chips to their mac n’ cheese as topping,” she whispered. “It’s like crack.”
    With the boys enjoying their dinner, Riley found some leftover roast chicken in the fridge and proceeded to make chicken salad sandwiches with almonds for her and Ashe, along with a light salad. He helped out with the salad and she was quite impressed with how he created his own ‘everything’ salad, adding just about every fixing he could find in the pantry — sunflower seeds, dried cranberries, almonds, just to name a few.
    After dinner, while she insisted she rinse the dishes and load up the dishwasher, Ashe helped the boys assemble the toy trains and the tracks around the playroom. He had removed his jacket shortly after Paige and Clint left, and by the time dinner was over, he was moving around the play room in his bare feet, on his knees putting anything he could find together while the boys climbed all over him, directing him what to do. By the third hour,