“Come on, girls,” I said.
Hunter froze, eyes wide as I shooed his little sisters inside. He gazed at them adoringly.
“Hey,” he said softly, bending down. The littlest ones clung to Enola.
“I’m Hunter,” he said, voice rough, eyes misty. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you. I’m so glad you’re here. Can you tell me your names?”
They blinked at him but didn’t say a word.
“Go on,” I said to the girls. “Hunter’s nice. Usually. I told you, he and I are friends.”
One by one, I introduced them to Hunter, and they gave him shy smiles and waved at the rest of their brothers.
“And this,” I said, patting the oldest girl on the shoulder, “is Enola.”
Enola took her kerchief off her face. She looked up at Hunter, her jaw set. She narrowed her eyes, curled her lip, and said, “This house isfilthy.”
I sucked in a breath.And on that note…“I need to go check on my sisters,” I said. Hunter looked at me, wide eyes, as Enola started barking at her brothers to fetch mops, dust rags, and buckets.
“Meg, wait!”
“Have fun!” I called over my shoulder and slipped away so I wouldn’t have to hear him tell me again that he didn’t want anything to do with me.
80
Hunter
Iwanted to run after Meg, but Enola was a bomb that had gone off in the household.
“There’s dust everywhere!” she shrieked as she bullied my brothers like a corgi, barking out orders. “The windows are covered in crud, and there are crumbs in the carpet.”
“We just had dinner,” Archer explained, hopping out of the way of one of our youngest sisters.
“Crumbs! We’re going to get ants!”
Davy climbed on top of a table to escape her.
“Get down from there this instant, Davy,” Enola hissed.
“I don’t like this!” he wailed.
One of my sisters raced by and handed me a broom then raced off to start dusting.
“There will be order in this household,” Enola announced over the din.
* * *
“You have to admit,the house has never been cleaner,” Mace said, very early the next morning. After hours of frantic scrubbing, Enola had deemed the house “clean enough” then forced all my younger brothers to bathe, checked them, then told them to bathe again.
“You could eat off these floors.”
“This is not going to work,” Garrett said to me in a low voice. “They cannot stay here.”
“This is what we’ve been working toward for years,” I reminded him. “One big happy family.”
Enola stormed into the dining room.
“Aren’t you supposed to be in bed?” I asked gently.
