“There is no way you should be able to climb that baby gate.You could have hurt yourself.”
Markie shrugged, completely unrepentant.“Me did it okay.”
“You are as wicked as Em was, aren’t you?”
She just nodded solemnly, then lifted her arms to his sister.“Me hungee, Aunt Claudie.Food now?”
At the words, they all just sort of appeared.Little girls in pajamas, all different sizes, were justthere.He heard more footsteps, coming from the stairs behind the kitchen.Em and Junie, also in pajamas, were there, red hair falling down their backs—hair all sexy and tangled, and their faces soft from sleep.
They were some seriously gorgeous women.
Then thereshewas, the baby in her arms.That mass of red hair was down everywhere.Curling madly.Hell.She usually wore it pulled up.Seeing it down had him frozen right where he sat.
He’d always loved hair like that on a woman.
Cal just about fell off the couch.Her hair reached almost to her waist when it was down like that.He wanted nothing more than to sink his fingers in that hair, and just…hold her still while he did things to her.
He’d start with her mouth and work his way down…
“Are you awake in there, Calloway?”she asked, her mouth forming his name in a way designed to have his gut tightening.“We’re going to make breakfast, then Claudia is going to drive you to your truck.See if she can figure out what happened.”
“Are the roads clear?”He had to get ahold of himself here.He couldn’t stand in her kitchen and drool over her like an idiot.Eventually, she’d catch on.
“Yes.Gil showed up this morning to collect his wife,” Junie said.“About an hour or so ago.He said it wasn’t as bad as the weather stations had reported it would be.Sage snuck out so she didn’t wake anyone.He said he already used his truck to pull yours back into the drive.He said he saw some deer tracks out there.Sage thinks maybe you swerved and went off the drive?But how did you get on our drive in the first place?”
Good question.The highway ran parallel to their driveway for about an eighth of a mile.
“I don’t really remember.Everything after about four o’clock is a blank.”He ran a hand over his face.He still had a dull headache, but that was about it.“Probably from the headache.But I’ll figure it out.”
He’d had migraines back when he’d been in high school.Sometimes, he’d lose a few hours.But he’d never had problems with them as an adult—especially when driving.And he’d always been able to tell hours ahead when one was coming.He wouldn’t have been driving if he’d thought for even a moment that he’d be getting one.He supposed there was always a first time.
They’d flared with stress back then—well, he was under stress lately now, too.
It was one possible explanation.
Then Auggie and her sisters, and his, got to work making breakfast for the inmates.Cal showered in the downstairs bathroom.Gil Tyler had left him some sweats and a T-shirt to wear.It galled; he’d admit it.He would probably never like that particular Tyler.But he appreciated the clean clothes—and the fact that Gil was the same size.The shower cleared the rest of the clouds from his head.He could at leastthinkclearly.There was that.
He could now be rational where that particular female creature was concerned.
By the time he was finished, he was just in time to…set the table.
Claudia was grabbing plastic place settings and recruited him to carry.“Deal is, you eat here, you work for it.It’s the house rule.Otherwise, it would be chaos.”
He could handle that.He had a little helper—Tobi, the lisper.She seemed particularly attached to Claudia.She looked mostly like Junie, but she had Auggie’s hair and Em’s smile.And the hair flew everywhere, just like Auggie’s, even though he thought there were some braids trying to tame Tobi’s back.
Most of the girls looked like Auggie in some way.Though one was a carbon copy of Em—the one who liked romance novels and kept eyeing him suspiciously.And the one just below her in age looked a great deal like Junie, but with Em’s hair color.
The quiet teenager, though, she was Auggie all over again.Especially when she smiled.Which wasn’t very often.As was the baby, except for that hair.Well, the color of the hair was Junie.The curls…pure Auggie through and through.The girls were beautiful and a bit wild—and utterly hilarious.
He took the same seat as the night before.Claudia took one near the end.And just like the night before, Auggie and her sisters took care of everyone over eggs and bacon and fruit.He hadn’t had that kind of family mealtime since he’d been in college and home to visit.He’d missed it.Maybe it was time he admitted that.
Halfway through breakfast, someone knocked on the door.
Junie answered it—to reveal Cal’s brother.Cadell looked at him.“I just got your text; you okay?I saw your truck on the side of the drive.No damage, that I could see.”
“Great.Now we’ve really been invaded.So not part of the breeding stock plan, so if that’s on anyone’s mind, just forget it,” Em had to say.Cadell and Em tended to explode at each other whenever their paths crossed.They always had.
Auggie stood and smiled at his brother.Cal saw the appreciation in Cadell’s eyes when he saw the elder three Tyler daughters and what they were dressed in.
