"I swear," Kari said above the noise, "your Aunt Lindsay has the biggest mouth in the Valley."

"Hey," Lindsay said as she entered the family room from the kitchen, her curly red hair bouncing. "I heard that. Molly wanted to know where you were so I told her you were with a client. Then your nosy daughter asked who the client was, and I told her it was Max Dutton. I had to wait in the car for ten minutes while she ran around telling everyone."

A frown creased Molly's brow. "What's the big deal, Mom?"

"It's not a big deal," Kari said, although she knew she'd blown it by triggering her daughter's already above-normal suspicious nature.

Molly narrowed her eyes. "You didn't like him, did you?"

"I liked him fine. I'm working with him, aren't I?"

"Your eye is twitching," Molly said, pointing at her face.

"My eye is not twitching."

"Yeah, it is," Lindsay said. "There, your eyelid just did it again."

Kari sighed. All of her life her twitching eye had been a dead giveaway for those who knew her best, but twitching eye or not, she needed to steer the conversation in another direction. "You two need to get a life. My eye is twitching because I'm not a big fan of football. It's a violent sport."

"It is sort of lame," Lindsay agreed. "Grown men trying to prove their manliness by knocking each other over and trash talking."

"Well, I think I'm going to like it," Molly said.

"What do you mean, *you're going to like it?'"

"Remember when you told me to think long and hard about what I wanted for my birthday?"

"Yes."

"Well, I've thought about it and I was wondering if you could get me tickets."

"Tickets to what?"

"Four tickets to a Condors' game."

"You want to go to a football game for your thirteenth birthday?" Kari plunked a hand on her hip. "I sent out invites for your bowling party last week and I already have your gift. What's going on here?"

"Grant Parker," Lindsay answered for Molly.

"Grant who?"

Molly's cheeks blossomed with color. "Grant Parker."

"He's a boy," Lindsay chimed in.

"I sort of figured that part out," Kari said. "And?"

"And she's had a crush on him since sixth grade," Lindsay offered.

Kari hated when Lindsay knew more about her daughter than she did.

"He finally talked to me," Molly added. "Once Grant found out you were working with Mad Max, he came right up to me and talked to me. Can you imagine what will happen if you can get tickets and maybe some sort of pass into the locker room?"

Her daughter's eyes grew twice their size as she added, "Oh, my God. If you can do this, Mom, I'll never ask for another thing in my life."

"Oh puhleeze," Kari said. "How many times have I heard that one before?"

"I'm serious this time. I'll never ask for another thing. Never."

Kari sighed. "You're too young to be hanging out with boys."

"That's why we need four tickets. You and Lindsay will be there to chaperone."

"I'll see what I can do," she said, figuring one little football game wouldn't hurt as long as Max and Molly didn't meet. "I'm not canceling the bowling party though. And I'm not making any promises about getting tickets. And no way are you going into the locker room."

"Just get Grant into the locker room. I can wait outside."

"I'll escort Grant," Lindsay told Kari as if that settled things. "You can wait outside with Molly."

"Oh, gee, thanks."

"You're welcome."

"I'll talk to Max, but don't get your hopes up."

"That's all we're asking," Lindsay said.

Kari turned to Lindsay. "Whose birthday is this...Molly's or yours?"

Lindsay raised her hands. "Excuse me for trying to help."

The twins ran back into the room.

An evil grin crooked Molly's mouth. "It's tickle time," she told the twins. Then she cracked her twelve-year-old knuckles for good measure, making the four-year-old boys squeal with delight before they took off in the other direction.

Molly ran after them.

"You can't take Molly away from me," Lindsay complained the moment Molly disappeared around the corner.

"Don't start. You know I feel guilty enough as it is."

"Who will I whine to every night if you move? It'll be so quiet without you two here."

Kari sat on the edge of the worn leather couch, pulled off her shoe and rubbed her heal. "Well maybe it's time you found someone to settle down with so you can raise your own kids along with everyone else's."

"I'm already on it."

Kari dropped her foot to the floor. "You met someone?"

"Yep. His name is Donor."

"Really?"

Lindsay laughed. "Of course, not. Nobody would name their son, Donor. I went to a sperm bank."

"A sperm bank?" Kari fell back into the couch. "I have a headache. Could you speak English?"

"Now that you and Molly have decided to abandon ship, I've decided it's time I have a baby of my own."

"Ridiculous," Kari said. "You can't just suddenly decide to walk into a sperm bank and have a baby. That's crazy talk."

"I've been thinking about this for a long time. And don't tell me I have to wait until Mr. Right comes along, because it's never going to happen."

"Don't say that."

"It's true. Men are...you know...men. They think they know everything and they're bossy. Even if I met someone it would never work."

"Not all men are like your father," Kari reminded her.

"They might as well be. Frogs and snails and puppy dog tails," Lindsay said with an exaggerated shiver.

"That's what little boys are made of, not men."

"Most men are little boys. They never grow up. I'm not going to waste any more precious time waiting for Mr. Right...precious time that could be well spent with my beautiful baby."

A knock sounded at the door just as the twins ran back into the living room to announce in identical voices that the toilet was overflowing.

"I'll get the toilet," Kari told Lindsay, "you get the door."

A few minutes later Lindsay joined Kari in the bathroom. "It's a done deal," Lindsay said as she watched Kari plunge. "Brenda's rat-bastard husband has run off with another woman. Wait until Patti Bertram hears about this."

It took a moment for Kari to remember that Patti Bertram was a popular advice columnist. "Have you been writing letters to the LA Times again?"

"Of course. I never stopped writing letters to them. It's therapeutic. I always change the names to protect the innocent, but somebody needs to let women out there know the truth about men...snakes all of them...slithering, coiling tongue-flickers."

Kari laughed. "Tongue-flickers?"

"Yes. I mean come on, the twins' mother Brenda works full-time, she picks up the kids, she makes dinner every night, she takes care of herself. She looks better than most twenty-year olds. I don't get it."

"She's also smart," Kari said, focusing on the job at hand. "She'll know what to do."

"I hope she takes that two-timer for all he's got."

"She has the boys," Kari said right before she flushed the toilet and went to the sink to wash her hands. "They may be a handful, but we both know how fast they grow. If you ask me, she's won already."

Lindsay thought about it for a moment. "You're right. Those boys are her gold at the end of the rainbow. At least until they turn into men. After that, I just don't know."

Kari shook her head at Lindsay's stubbornness when it came to men and what Lindsay usually referred to as their thieving conniving, lying, cheating ways. But Kari knew better than anyone, maybe even better than Lindsay, that a lot of her talk was just that...talk. Although Lindsay would never admit it, she liked men. She just hadn't found the right guy. Lindsay needed a man who would stand up to her without trying to beat her down, a man who could match her wit for wit, a man who had a few tricks up his sleeve.

"So tell me about Mad Max," Lindsay said in a low voice so Molly wouldn't overhear. "Why don't you like him?"

Kari groaned. "Not you, too. I like him just fine."

"Wasn't Max the boy you had a crush on when you first moved into the neighborhood, you know, when he was a paperboy and you were only ten?"

"I don't remember," she lied. "I don't think so. The only boy I had a crush on was...er...Frank. Yeah, Frank Hunsaker, who lived a few doors down."

Lindsay scratched her head. "Frank Hunsaker...really? The guy in our chemistry class? The one with the thick-rimmed glasses and wiry hair?"

"That's the one." She shrugged. "Go figure."

"Well you can do better than Frank Hunsaker. If you're really lucky, maybe you'll meet the man of your dreams tonight at Carol's bachelorette party."

Kari frowned. "I almost forgot for the second time today."

"Come on Cinderella. The party is being held at the Roosevelt Hotel. Put down the plunger and get dressed. We're already late."

CHAPTER 4.

That same night, Max sat at one of four chairs circling a stone-top table at the Tropicana Bar at the Roosevelt Hotel on Hollywood Boulevard. In the chair next to him, was his blind date, a woman Cole Fletcher, good friend and starting quarterback for the Los Angeles Condors, had rounded up for him to meet.

Across from Max sat Cole and a buxom blonde who would have rated a ten if she had forgone the silver hoops piercing her eyebrow and right nostril.

Max turned to his date, Brooke Channing, a pretty brunette with cute dimples, small turned up nose, and just enough cleavage to keep him guessing. Too bad the slight nasally whine in her voice, and the fact that she rambled on about her job as a veterinarian, made his mind wander.

As Cole ordered another round of drinks, Max found himself thinking about Kari. There was more to Kari than carbohydrates and calcium supplements. He just needed more time to figure her out. She was sexy and mysterious; a heady combination that made him wonder what life could have been like if he wasn't headed to an early grave. He'd been thinking about marriage and family a lot lately, which shouldn't have surprised him considering he always wanted what he couldn't have.

His date must have moved her chair when he wasn't looking because suddenly she was sitting so close her leg had become one with his. She rested her long, pink fingernails on his arm. "Tell me, Max. Why's a good-looking guy like you still single?"

Max raised one eyebrow. "Just lucky, I guess." He took a swig of his beer, 155 calories, 13.4g carbs, and swallowed a twinge of guilt by going off the "plan" Kari had set up for him. He looked around, past the fire pit and toward the entrance leading from the patio to the pool and bar where people were dancing.

What was he doing here?

He grew tired of blind dates years ago, but Cole promised him this particular girl was different, just a regular gal, he said.

His date must have thought he was joking about being lucky because she laughed, leaned her chest into his arm, and whispered, "I bet you're built like a horse."

Max nearly spit out his beer.

Sure, he'd hung out with a lot of loose women over the years, groupies as some of his teammates liked to call them, women who liked to party and considered it a challenge to get laid by a pro athlete, but this girl just hadn't struck him as the groupie type. For one thing, her clothes weren't too tight and her makeup wasn't too heavy. But he was pretty sure a "regular gal" wouldn't ask him if he was built like a horse on the first date. Before he had time to respond, both girls stood.