Read Four Times the Trouble for Free Online

the scotch, savoring the taste, thinking suddenly of Michelle. Now there was a woman worth having. She was loyal to the core. It was too bad that the man she honored with her loyalty wasn’t around to know how lucky he was. If Jacob could ever find a woman who loved him the way Michelle loved Brian Colby…
    Jacob stood up and tossed the rest of the scotch over the deck rail. He was getting maudlin. He had all the women he could handle, in miniature, sleeping right down the hall from him. They needed him and he needed to be there for them. He’d long since given up wanting anything more.

CHAPTER THREE
    “I ’ M GOING TO BE a little late getting home today, but I’ll make it up to you, Noby, I promise.” Michelle gazed into the blue eyes across the table from her and refused to allow their unblinking stare to make her feel guilty. She took a sip of diet soda, her version of morning coffee, and picked up the Wednesday-morning newspaper. It was a rare treat for her to still be at home when the paper was delivered.
    She read one headline before the newspaper was smashed to her lap, a white paw on top of it. Those eyes were a lot closer—and demanding an explanation.
    “Jacob and I are doing a remote broadcast at the new mall off La Cienega. I’m meeting him at the station at eight, we’re driving over together, and we’ll be done by two. That should put me home before four—in plenty of time for dinner.”
    Michelle took another sip of soda. The blue-eyed stare was relentless.
    “You’re not going to let me read my paper, are you? Maybe it’s time I started reading it online.”
    Still nothing but that silent stare.
    “You’re spoiled rotten.” Michelle leaned over to plant a kiss between Noby’s knowing blue eyes. “And I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
    * * *
    “A ND THERE YOU HAVE IT , folks. Jacob Ryan and Michelle Colby are secretly involved in a wildly passionate relationship, which is open now for your viewing pleasure,” Jacob muttered under his breath as their mics went dead.
    “Jacob.” Michelle punched him playfully in the shoulder as they cleared the papers off their table in the main entrance of the mall. “It wasn’t that bad.”
    Jacob took off his microphone, handing it to one of the KOLR technicians. “Admit it, Michelle. You just like having all those people drooling over me and envying you for having me.”
    “In your dreams, Ryan.”
    “Yeah, there, too,” Jacob mumbled, reminded all too clearly of the dreams he’d had Monday night. Dreams of women he could deal with. They came with the territory of the single man. But dreams featuring Michelle Colby were something else entirely. As he’d told himself in no uncertain terms early Tuesday morning.
    They finished clearing up, stopping several times to sign autographs, and in a matter of minutes were saying goodbye to the technicians who would drive the KOLR van back to the station. Jacob had to admit, if only to himself, that the broadcast had come off better than he’d hoped. Not because he’d had any doubts about his or Michelle’s performance, but because for the past two days he’d had doubts about himself.
    After all these years of working with Michelle, he was suddenly finding her more attractive than filet mignon. It made no sense. She certainly wasn’t encouraging him. After all, she wore her wide gold wedding band like a suit of armor. The woman was so tied up with a memory, she probably wouldn’t even remember how to talk to a flesh-and-blood man off the air. Or at least that was what he told himself.
    “Would you mind if we made a quick stop before heading back?” he asked Michelle as she waved off the van. “I need to pick up something for the girls.”
    “I’m not in a hurry,” Michelle replied, as easygoing as ever. Her blond hair swung over her shoulders as she turned toward the mall. In Jacob’s dream he had run his fingers through it.
    He made a beeline for the department store where he did