Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 80660 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 403(@200wpm)___ 323(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80660 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 403(@200wpm)___ 323(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
“I can take care of it, Momma!” a delicate feminine voice yelled.
“Don’t you dare,” she growled into the phone. “I swear whichever one of you little demons tries to go outside and murder the local wildlife will find themselves in a corner for the rest of your life. Do I make myself clear?”
“Dang, Charlotte. She’s crying. You made her cry.” Malone managed to make it sound like the worst thing that had happened all night long.
“Could you order some pizza?” Boomer yelled. “Don’t cry, little girl. I’m okay. Just hungry.”
Charlie took a deep breath and looked back at Ian, who was following along.
Yep, she’d been right. Totally bad idea.
* * * *
“Charlie, baby, you have to see the humor in the situation,” he said after roughly twenty minutes of chilly silence. “I mean the girls are barely five and they’ve got two Special Forces dudes on the ropes. There’s some humor there.”
This time the chill had come entirely from her direction.
She kept her eyes on the road. She was driving because Ian’s shoulder had popped back out of place when he’d twisted the wrong way trying to get to the box of leftover lemon tarts.
“Did you or did you not teach our baby girls, who aren’t even in kindergarten yet, how to build a fire?” She knew the answer to the question, but she wanted to hear it from his damn lips.
He turned to her. “How are they supposed to go to kindergarten if they don’t know how to build a fire? There are basic skills that are required to live, and I won’t apologize for that. They also know how to pitch a decent tent.”
Always with the sarcasm. Well, he wasn’t the one who had to deal with the public. He wasn’t the one everyone judged. “Do you know what they said to their preschool teacher the other day? You’re not the one who got called in. I am. I’m the one who has to deal with the teachers.”
“What did they do?” Ian asked.
She hadn’t mentioned it to him because she didn’t want to get mad. There was no way to avoid it now. He should know what his influence was doing. “The teacher told them it was time to come in from the playground and Kala said she didn’t want to.”
He sighed. “Baby, she’s stubborn. You know she didn’t just get that from me.”
He didn’t understand the half of it. “She got the other kids together and explained to them that they didn’t have to go in because there were fourteen of them and only one of the teacher.”
Ian snorted.
“She talked about how they could flank the teacher and take her out. She made plans in the dirt with a stick. She showed the others how they could overrun the teacher’s defenses and take back the playground. I’m not joking, Ian. Miss Mayberry was terrified.”
Ian winced as he turned in his seat. “Next time I’ll go and talk to the teacher.”
That would so put that sanctimonious teacher at ease. Shouldn’t a preschool teacher be tougher than that? “And that’s going to go so well. You think those girls can do no wrong. Do you know what they did to me at the grocery store?”
His eyes seemed to glaze over. “Well, yes, baby. They decided it would be funny if they played hide and seek with Mommy. You yelled about it for three days. I totally know.”
But she was going to tell him again. “They decided it would be funny to hide from Mommy and they pulled out the cereal boxes and hid behind them.”
“You called 911,” he said, proving he definitely knew the story.
“I called 911.”
“You thought our babies were dead.”
“I thought our babies were dead somewhere.” She still hadn’t gotten over the panic. They’d taken years off her life with that stunt. “And what did you do about it, Ian Taggart?”
He held up his working hand as though trying to placate her. “In my defense, I knew they weren’t dead. They were right in front of me.”
“You laughed, Ian. You high-fived them.”
He grimaced. “And that was wrong. I’m sorry, baby. I’m new to this whole parenting thing.”
“And I’m not?”
“No, you are not. You’ve been raising kids since you were a kid. I sometimes feel like a dipshit compared to you.”
He did? And honestly, it was rather clever. They’d managed to perfectly conceal themselves and stay off the security camera. They were only five but they’d considered the security cams. She turned on to the freeway that would take them home. “You raised a kid, too.”
“Nah, I raised a Sean. He wasn’t any trouble. He ate like a horse and he couldn’t comprehend algebra to save his life, but he was a good kid. Ours are rotten. Like Chelsea was.”
But it was said with a grin.
She would give him that because her sister still called him Satan from time to time. Chelsea hadn’t been easy. She’d been hard. She’d been stubborn and obnoxious. It had taken everything Charlie had to keep her sister alive.