Finding Perfect (Fool's Gold #3)(28)

A group of yelling kids raced past her open office door. “Lunch must be over,” he said.

“Apparently.”

More kids ran by.

“Does the noise bother you?” he asked. “Do you want an office somewhere else?”

Dakota laughed. “I’m one of six. I’m used to noise.”

“Loud, happy childhood?”

“Absolutely. The boys came a couple of years apart, but when we were born, Mom got smacked with three babies at once. I can’t imagine how she did it. I know my dad helped and the neighbors pitched in, but triplets? Somehow she managed.”

He thought of Pia. She would have the three embryos implanted at the same time. If all of them survived, she would be looking at triplets, as well.

“So you’re used to the chaos,” he said.

“I don’t even notice it. There are complications with a lot of kids, but as far as I’m concerned, the positives far outweigh the negatives.”

“Planning a big family?” he asked.

She nodded and laughed. “I should probably get started, huh?”

“Is there a guy in all this?”

“I’d prefer it that way.” She wrinkled her nose. “I know—how boring. I want to be traditional. Get married, have kids, a yard, a dog. Not anything a famous football guy would find interesting.”

“What makes you think I don’t want the same thing?”

“Do you?” she asked, tilting her head as she studied him.

“It would be nice.”

“You were married before.” She made a statement rather than asked a question.

“It didn’t take.”

“Is there going to be a next time?”

“I don’t know,” he admitted. Like Pia, he found it difficult to trust people. In his case, it was specifically women that were his problem.

“It can be different,” she said. “Better.”

He was less sure. “What about you? Any prospective husbands on the horizon, or are you waiting for the perfect guy?”

“He doesn’t have to be perfect. Just a regular guy who wants an ordinary life.” She shook her head. “Finding that is harder than you’d think. We have something of a man shortage here in town.”

“I’ve heard that.”

“You could ask some of your single football buddies to visit. As a gracious gesture to the lonely women in town.”

“Donating the camp was my good deed for the week.”

He stood and glanced out the door. A group of boys walked by, including Peter.

Raoul turned back to Dakota. “There’s a kid in Mrs. Miller’s class. Peter. He got scared during the fire. I went to take his hand, to lead him out. But when I stretched out my arm, he flinched, like he thought I was going to hit him.”

She frowned. “I don’t like the sound of that.” She wrote the name down on a pad of paper. “I’ll talk to his teacher and do some quiet investigating.”

“Thanks. It’s probably nothing.”

“It probably is,” she agreed. “But we’ll find out for sure.” She glanced at the clock. “You’d better go. Your fans are waiting.”

He shifted uncomfortably. “They’re not fans.”

“They worship you. You’re someone they’ve seen play football on TV and now you’re on their playground, throwing around a baseball. If that’s not fan-worthy, what is?”

“I’m just hanging out with the guys. Don’t make it more than it is.”

“Caring and unassuming. Be still my heart.”

“I’m not your type.”

“How do you know?”

Because from the second they’d met, there’d been no chemistry. Besides, Dakota worked for him. “Am I wrong?”

She sighed theatrically. “No, you’re not. Which is why I’m very interested in your football friends.”

“I doubt that. You’re going to find your own guy.”

“Want to tell me when?” she asked with a laugh. “So I can put a star by that day on the calendar?”

“When you least expect it.”

PIA SAT ACROSS FROM Montana Hendrix in Pia’s small office. She’d known the Hendrix triplets her entire life. The family had always been a prominent one and could trace its lineage back to the founding of the town.

People who assumed that the three sisters acted alike because they looked alike had obviously never met the triplets. Nevada was the quietest, the one who had studied engineering and gone to work with her brother. Dakota was more like a middle child—wanting everyone to get along. Montana was youngest, both in birth order and personality type. She was fun and impulsive, and the one Pia was closest to.

“So everything sold?” Montana asked, folding a letter and putting it into an envelope.

“Yes. The auction was a huge success. Despite the fact that there weren’t any minimum bids, we made nearly twice what we’d hoped for.”

The letters were going out to the successful bidders at the school fundraising auction. It provided information on how to pay and when to claim the prize.

“Everyone wanted to help,” Montana said.

“Like you today.” Pia grinned. “Did I thank you yet?”