Adding Up to Marriage Read Free Page B

money, yet pitched a fit if he worked late because he wasn’t around to help her with the babies—Silas began to see the writing on the wall.
    Oh, he’d dug in his heels the first time she’d said she wanted out, not about to give up that easily on something he still believed in. But eventually Silas had had to admit he couldn’t prop up the marriage on his own. Or raise his wife as well as his sons.
    His folks inside, Silas backed out of the drive, thinking that at least the resulting implosion, as horrendous as it had been, hadn’t left him where it had found him. In fact, his shrugging off his mother’s relentless matchmaking attempts notwithstanding, he was beginning to heal, even if only in terms of… maybe. If the right woman—not girl, woman —crossed his path, he might, might, consider trying again.
    But this time, he had a checklist as long as his arm, with Putting the boys first at the top. Followed closely by maturity. Serenity. Stability.
    Sanity.
    In other words, not someone who made him feel like the ground was constantly shifting under his feet.
    Moments later he pulled up into his driveway and cut the engine, his forehead crunched. Why were the lights still on?
    The cottonwood’s first crackly, fallen leaves scampered across his feet as he walked to the door, the rustle barely audible over the raucous goings-on inside. The instant he opened the heavy carved door to the hundred-year-old adobe, Doughboy speed-waddled over and plastered himself against Silas’s calf, the English bulldog’s underbite trembling underneath bulging, terror-stricken eyes.
    Why? Why you send crazy lady here?
    Then, his spawn’s shrieks of unbridled glee assaulting his ears, Silas got the first glimpse of what had once been his living room.
    Which now looked like Tokyo, post-Godzilla-rampage.

Chapter Two
    â€œD addy! Daddy! You’re home—!”
    â€œYou shoulda been here, we had sooooo much fun!”
    â€œSo I see,” Silas said in a low, controlled voice as he swept Tad up onto his hip while leveling a What the hell? look past the destruction at the flushed, heavily breathing, messy-haired female responsible for the mayhem.
    Who gave him a whatchagonnado? shrug.
    Woman destroys his house and she gives him a shrug? God help him.
    And her.
    Sofa and chair cushions teetered in unstable towers all over the room. Sheets, tablecloths, bedspreads—was that his good comforter? —shrouded every flat surface. No lamp was where he’d left it that morning, not a single picture on the wall was straight. And so many toys littered the floor—what he could see of it—it looked like Santa’s sleigh had upchucked.
    Leaning against his ankle, the dog moaned. See? Told ya.
    Jewel giggled. “Guess we kinda got carried away.”
    Silas forced himself to breathe. “Ya think?”
    Apparently, she got the message. “O-kay, guys, Daddy’s home, so off to bed—no, no arguments, we had a deal, remember?”
    He could only imagine. “Thought I said bedtime was eight?”
    â€œYou did, but—”
    â€œJewel said if we took our baths and got our jammies on,” Ollie said, “we could stay up for a bit.”
    â€œA bit?” Silas said. Calmly. Over the seething rage. “It’s after ten.”
    â€œWhat? You’re kidding!” Shoving loose pieces of hair behind her ears, Jewel picked her way through the wreckage to peer at the cable box clock. “Ohmigosh—I’m so sorry! The clock got covered and we were having so much fun we lost track of time—”
    â€œYeah,” Tad said, curls bobbing. “We made cookies, an’ then Jewel said we could bring our toys out here, an’ then we decided to make tunnels an’ stuff—”
    â€œJewel’s like the funnest person ever,” Ollie put in. “She’s not like a grownup at all!”
    There’s an