“Collette! Ruger outran her so she grabbed him with Juliette’s help, and I know that child was going to bite him if I hadn’t caught her,” Hellen said.
Lucien put his fingers in his mouth and let out a sharp, deafening whistle.
Two unnaturally beautiful little girls wearing matching white dresses with tiny red and pink flowers embroidered on them, and pink bows in their dark auburn hair came to a screeching halt and looked back at their father innocently.
“Do not — I repeat — do not bite anybody!” Lucien warned firmly.
“He ran faster than us!” Collette objected.
“You can’t always win,” Lucien said impatiently.
“But…” Juliette started.
“No!” Lucien yelled.
“Yes, sir,” they said, their voices innocently sweet as they resorted to batting their lashes at their father.
“And do not go hide and jump out at the rest of the kids in your gator forms!” Hellen ordered.
“But Momma!” Juliette whined.
“They like it,” Collette claimed.
“They do not like it! Stop scaring your cousins!” Hellen insisted.
“Yes, ma’am,” they echoed.
“If I have to correct y’all, there will be no river swimming for a month! You hear me?” Lucien threatened as they ran toward their cousins, without an answer.
“Do you hear your father?!” Hellen demanded, her voice rising to be heard over everybody.
“Yes, ma’am!” they called back in unison, as they immediately rejoined the game of tag that was taking place.
“You made it!” Analise exclaimed, when she realized they were standing with Hellen and Brandt. “I thought you guys were going out to eat tonight.”
“We are, but we saw the bonfire and Brandt flagged us down for a picture, so we decided to come by. We were running early anyway,” Ronan said.
“I’m so glad. I don’t think we’ve ever taken a family picture of all of us before,” Analise said.
“It won’t be of all of us,” Brandt said. “We’re going to have to leave a space somewhere to add Tessa to it.”
“Where is Tessa?” Ronan asked.
“She’s closing up the shop for Bailey,” Tempest called from where she sat with Bailey a few feet away.
Ronan started laughing.
“But she’s doing good,” Bailey said.
“Is she really, though?” Havoc asked from the grill. “I keep waiting for her to pull a Delilah on some pushy customer.”
Tempest lifted the baby girl she held on her lap and held her over her head for a few seconds, making funny faces at her. “Aunt Tempest is going to have to go fix things when Aunt Tessa turns a customer into a freezie pop, isn’t she, my Sammy girl?”
Sammy gave her one of those typical baby belly laughs, that makes it impossible for anybody within ear shot not to smile.
“What stories are you telling my baby?” Shaun asked as he walked over and handed Bailey a bottled wine cooler and Tempest a bottle of water.
“About how I’m waiting to get a call from y’all about Tessa freezing a customer because they were rude,” Tempest said.
