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my mother surprised her with something new.” He turned his key in the ignition. He’d always told himself it was because girls loved getting new clothes that none of those surprises had ever been for him.
    “So what have you done to upset your daughters?”
    Jacob shot her a startled glance. “Why would you think I’ve upset them?” he asked, turning out into the city traffic. Was he that transparent? Or worse, did she know him that well?
    “Why else would you think you need to buy your way into their hearts?”
    He could feel her looking at him. Really looking at him. And he found himself wanting to tell her. What could it hurt? She’d been a good buddy over the years. And she was so tenaciously married to her memory she was no threat to him.
    “I think my place in their hearts is pretty much a given. Though I’m not so sure it’ll still be that way a few years from now when they want to start wearing crap on their faces and talk on the phone all the time.” He paused, wondering if he should stop right there. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d confided in anyone—not about something that mattered.
    “So you just like to spoil them?” she asked.
    Jacob shook his head, well aware of the danger of overindulgence. “As a general rule they think I’m stingy with the goodies. But right now I don’t want them feeling like they’re missing out on anything.” He turned onto La Cienega Boulevard, heading back toward the station. “I guess the jeans were a little overboard, considering that they already have enough clothes to get us through two weeks without doing laundry. I just wanted to do something to make them feel special.”
    Michelle was surprised by the concerned tone in Jacob’s voice. He always seemed so invulnerable. She’d pretty much figured that if life ever did dare throw him problems, he’d just tackle them—or hire someone else to do it for him. But he’d been unusually preoccupied on Monday, too.
    “Are you having some difficulties with the girls?” she asked, feeling rather tentative. Jacob wasn’t the type one usually offered a shoulder to.
    He shifted in his seat. “I don’t know that I’d call it that exactly, but there seems to be a misunderstanding or two we need to clear up. The girls’ principal called me last Friday. It seems there’ve been a few minor problems at school which they’re attributing to a lack of feminine guidance in the girls’ lives. Ms. Wilson seems to think that my daughters are blaming themselves for my divorce and subsequent single state.”
    “Did you talk with them about it?”
    “Yeah. I talked. But I’m not sure they heard. In fact, I’m pretty sure they didn’t.”
    “Did their principal have any suggestions?”
    “Not really.”
    “She referred you to someone else?”
    “No, though she did mention calling in a school counselor if things don’t get better.”
    “So how does she expect that to happen?”
    “The most obvious answer would be for me to marry again.”
    “Oh.” Michelle didn’t know why she should feel so deflated. “I guess that wouldn’t be too difficult. Considering the number of women who’ve thrown themselves at you in the past year, you should have at least a hundred to choose from.”
    Jacob glanced at her oddly, and Michelle realized how she must have sounded. After all, why should she care if every eligible woman in the state of California wanted to date Jacob? “I haven’t dated a hundred women in the past five years, Colby.”
    “Fifty then.”
    “Thirty. Maybe. And since when have you been counting?”
    “I’m not counting obviously.” Michelle flushed with embarrassment, glad that at least half his attention was on the traffic. “So what’d you tell the principal?”
    “That I’d talk to the girls.”
    “Which didn’t work.”
    “Not yet, but it will. Like everything else, these things take time.”
    “I’d be glad to help out if they need anything meanwhile, Jacob. You know that,