Free Triple treat by Barbara Boswell

like gunshots. "Aren't you going to do anything?" he demanded. "They're getting awfully noisy."
    "This from the man whose party blasted the entire neighborhood at nine-million-trillion decibels?" Carrie shrugged. "Anyway, they're just enjoying a little brotherly tiff. I thought you'd approve. Doesn't it bring back fond memories?"
    "Well, if you can't be bothered to intervene ..." Scowling his disapproval, Tyler snatched the duck away from both boys and handed it to Emily who was calmly pouring and emptying, ignoring the spat entirely. "Your sister gets to keep the duck, guys," he said righteously. "You see what happens when you yell and—"
    He didn't have a chance to finish. Dylan and Franklin both burst into howls of rage, crying and wailing at the top of their lungs. They advanced on Emily like a charging army. Emily took one look at the duck in her hand and another at her brothers and threw the toy out of the pool. It was too much for Dylan and Franklin to deal with. They

    began to cry in earnest, sinking down onto the floor of the pool, looking very frustrated and very, very small.
    "I feel like the school bully," Tyler muttered grimly. He retrieved the duck and offered it to the boys, but both were crying too hard and refused to accept it. When he handed it to Emily, she threw it out of the pool again.
    Carrie got into the pool and took Dylan and Franklin on her lap.
    "How do you stand it?" Tyler stared at them, his expression a mixture of horror and awe. She had to live like this, amidst cries and babbling, twenty-four hours a day, three-hundred-sixty-five days a year. Three-sixty-six during leap year. Why, working weekends at the hospital dealing with hysterical women in labor and their panicky husbands probably felt like a vacation to her!
    Carrie ignored his question, ignored him, and devoted her full attention to her sons. It took only a few moments of her cuddling and soft voice to calm the two children. Their good humor restored, they each clutched toy boats she'd handed them and crawled around the water, pushing them. Carrie got out of the water and resumed her seat on the chaise.
    Neither realized that Tyler had moved closer to it, and when she sat down her leg brushed against his back. Both moved apart so quickly, it would've been humorous, if either felt like laughing. But neither did. Carrie felt as if her skin were on fire. Every nerve ending that had contacted with Tyler's muscular back tingled and burned.
    Tyler still felt the silky smooth softness of her leg against him, as if she'd left a permanent, sensual imprint. He felt his body tighten, felt the pleasurable hardening rise of desire and stifled a groan. Now was definitely the time for one of the triplets to dump a bucket of cold water in his lap, or for all three of them to begin screeching again, an equally effective turnoff.
    But the triplets played contentedly in the pool. Carrie and Tyler remained silent and tense with sexual awareness.

    Tyler glanced covertly from Carrie to the children. They looked adorable, and watching the three of them interact was far more interesting than he could bring himself to admit. As for Carrie, she was sexy and sweet and utterly unattainable—not that he wanted to attain her, of course, but even if he had wanted to, he couldn't because he would not, could not, become involved with a mother of three. It was unthinkable.
    Tyler felt a sharp, sudden wave of anger crash through him. He didn't know why but suddenly he was as infuriated as he'd been on the day that an idiot subordinate within the Tremaine Books division had mistakenly sent fifty thousand copies of The Alternative to Beef Cookbook to the Kansas City Cattlemen's Association.
    "So this is what you do all day, huh?" He broke the silence, the sneer in his voice matching the sneer on his face. "You mediate fights among the munchkins, you chase them around, outside during warm weather, inside during cold. You feed them, you change diapers, then you feed them