BACHELOR NUMBER FOUR Read online

  "Nice first date," she said to the empty car, and laughed again.

  A few minutes later, she'd picked up her children. The girls were both full of stories about their night's events. Aislin had been to a Brownies' sundae party to kick off their fall fundraiser, and Maeve had been invited to a movie with her friend Unagh. Both girls were high on sugar and up-past-bedtime excitement, but their excited chatter gave Arden the chance to drive and think about her date with Brian.

  She ought to have felt worse about it. She'd been a bad judge of character. Brian's charm had turned sour faster than milk on a hot day. His expectation of fast, easy sex had affronted her...not because she was looking for a boyfriend, but rather, because he'd assumed getting in her pants meant not giving a damn about anything else. Getting laid was one thing. Getting laid by a moron was something else entirely.

  She glanced into the rear mirror to catch sight of her daughters still babbling to each other about their evenings. Their sweet faces made Arden's throat close with emotion. She was a mother, a mommy, not some siren of sex. Not even a M.I.L.F., as she'd heard the term. At least, she'd never thought so.

  Making love with Jason had always been good, even in the dry times when pregnancy and caring for infants had sapped her sexual desire. He'd always made her believe there was more to her than changing diapers and cleaning toilets. He'd made her feel like a woman, even at her times of lowest self-confidence, with baby weight and leaking breasts, greasy hair and bad-fitting clothes. Jason had always made Arden feel beautiful...and loved.

  But those feelings had been saved for him alone. If other men looked at her with appreciation in their eyes, she'd never noticed, content to be a wife and mother. Today had been her first experience with seeing male reaction to her in twelve years--since meeting Jason.

  Knowing that a man, even a man as scummy as Brian had turned out to be, found her attractive could not offend her. Discovering she was desirable after so long pushing away that part of herself was a heady feeling. That some man other than the one she'd married and invested her life in could want to take her to bed...that made Arden grin and giggle out loud.

  "Mo-oom! It's not funny!" Aislin's cry tore Arden's attention away from her thoughts.

  "I'm sorry, honey. What's not funny?"

  Aislin gave a long-suffering sigh. "Brittney Zook at Brownies said her mom's going to buy her a bra, and she made fun of me because I don't have one."

  Arden thought carefully before replying, flicking on her turn signal and heading down the street toward their house. "Do you want a bra, Aislin?"

  Maeve burst out laughing. "She doesn't have any boobies!"

  "They're called breasts," Aislin told her sister haughtily before saying to Arden, "No, but I don't want Brittney to make fun of me either."

  Arden pulled into the driveway, turned off the engine and turned in her seat to look at her older daughter. At eight years old, Aislin was still pretty far away from needing a bra, but Arden remembered being the last girl in her class to get one. She swallowed against another wave of emotion threatening to make her voice tremble. "Honey, you really don't need a bra, but if you think you'd like one..."

  Aislin crossed her arms over her chest. "I don't want one! I don't have any boobs!"

  "Breasts," Maeve corrected and earned a scornful look from Aislin.

  "Maeve," Arden said gently, "don't tease. Aislin, does Brittney need a bra?"

  "No." Aislin giggled. "She doesn't have boobs either."

  "Maybe it make her feel more grown up to have one," Arden offered.

  Aislin snorted. "That's so dumb. Besides, she just wants to get one so the boys can snap her straps. She thinks that means the boys like you when they do that, but that's dumb, too. Like I would ever want a boy to snap my straps!" She made such a face of disgust Arden stifled a laugh.

  "That means they want to do sex!" cried Maeve importantly.

  Arden's laugh cut off. "Maeve, who told you that?"

  "I saw it on TV."

  "Ah." What to say now? They'd already had the talk about the birds and the bees, how women's bodies worked, how babies were made. The girls both knew about eggs and sperm, and if they weren't quite clear on the exact details of how the two combined, Arden was okay with them not understanding for a little while. But this...

  "Kids our age don't do sex, Maeve." Aislin unbuckled her belt and gathered her things. "You have to be a grownup."

  And that was the end of that, Arden thought as she followed them into the house and supervised their night's routine. She was wrong. As she bent to kiss Aislin good night, her daughter said, "Mom, you did sex with Daddy, right?"

  Arden sat on the edge of the bed and took Aislin's hand. "Yes, honey. To make you and Maeve."

  "But didn't you do it other times, too?"

  Arden squeezed Aislin's fingers. "Yes, Aislin. That's what men and women do when they're married."

  She braced herself for the next question, not sure how'd she'd continue to answer, but certain she wanted to give her kids a healthy view of sex.

  "But you don't do it now?"

  She smiled and shook her head, glad the answer was an easy one. "No, honey."

  Aislin's eyes were serious. "But will you ever do it again, do you think?"

  A few different answers whirled in Arden's brain before she said, "I don't know, Aislin. Sex is something that's very special and is better when it's shared with someone you really care about."

  "Like you cared about Daddy."

  Arden took a deep breath, not wanting to cry. "Yes. Like Daddy."

  "I don't ever want to do it. It sounds disgusting to me." Aislin turned on her side and pulled her hand from Arden's.

  "Good night, sweet pea." Arden bent and kissed Aislin's forehead, tucked the covers around her, and went downstairs.

  Another milestone covered, she thought as she went to the computer. The sex talk. It only gets more complicated from here.

  She adjusted the keyboard and clicked the mouse to stop the swirling screen saver. "Hello, handsome."

  The photo of Keanu filled her screen, marred only by a few icons on her desktop. Idly, she arranged them so they lined up along the side of the screen and no longer blocked his distinctive features. She leaned back and stared at his perfect face, then peeked at the clock. It was already almost nine. The girls would both have a hard time getting up in the morning since they'd gone to bed so late past their normal bedtime. She should get some sleep, too.

  Just a quick note to Lida, she thought as she opened her email program. She wanted to let her friend know about the disaster date.

  She clicked the "compose" button and started typing as the program collected her incoming messages. A small red number five appeared on top of her email icon, letting her know she had five new messages.

  She paused in typing her note to Lida to see what she got. "Junk, junk, junk...oh!" The gasp tumbled from her lips and made her feel foolish, and her hand jerked so the mouse no longer highlighted the fourth message. It was from Shane.

  She took a deep breath to calm herself, then clicked on it.

  Hey, nice to hear from you. I saw the notice in the paper about your shop. Looks good. Give me a shout some time. S.

  "Don't overanalyze it," she whispered, but, of course, did just that. She read the message several times, but couldn't convince herself of any hidden meaning in the innocuous words. And she shouldn't expect any, she scolded. Her note to him had been just as bland. But what could she have sent instead?

  Hey, Shane, just wondering if you're still available and interested in a fuck buddy? Stupid, Arden.

  Her words to Aislin flew back at her. She had meant them. And yet, her memories of Shane, naked in candlelight, sent a shiver through her powerful enough to peak her nipples even now.

  Her fingers moved on the keyboard, crafting her reply.

  I'm glad you wrote back. I saw your company's website. It looks very successful. Congratulations.

  Signing it with only her initial gav