Stefan felt an odd sense of loss as the intimate contact was broken.Thebreath rushedbackinto his lungsas he inhaled sharply. He shifted again, his erection suddenly becoming unbearably painful. “You named it the snake war?” Jess asked, her eyes darting toward Isabelle and narrowing angrily.
All his humor vanished as a fresh wave of anger washed through him. Isabelle met Jess’s gaze, before she turned her attention back to her family. Jess reached out to touch his legagain;he instantly batted her hand away. She glared angrily at him for a moment before plastering a smile to her face and turning away.
“Wehavehada few wars,” Ethananswered. “We startedtonamethem when I was about twelve.”
“That way we could keep track,” Ian explainedhappily.
“What were some of the other ones?” Jess inquired sweetly. She looked exceedingly innocent, but Stefan could feel the resentment seething within her.
“Well, let’s see.” Mike leaned back in his seat as he thoughtfully tapped his chin. “There was the ice war, the water war, the fire war....”
“The paint war,” Ian chimed in. “Mom almost killed us over that one! I’ve never seen her as mad as she was that day!”
“What did you do?” Stefan inquired as he tried to divert his attention fromIsabelle, and the aching pain in his loins.
“Our mom left out a bunch of paintthat she didn’t want,” Ian explained.
“Red paint,” Ethan elaborated. “The color was too dark, and she didn’t like the way that it looked. Well, we found it, and decided to paint each other with it. I was eleven at the time, Isabelle was nine, Ian was seven, and Aiden was four.”
“I never stood a chance,” Aiden said with a bright grin. “These guys corrupted me!”
“Hey!” the other three protested. Stefan found himself grinning again in response to Isabelle’s exquisite smile, and gleaming violet eyes. When she smiled, she was the most beautiful woman that he had ever seen. He found himself oddly captivated by her, and the realization was more than a little unnerving.
“I think we were playing cowboys and Indians,” Ethan said laughingly. “And we wanted to paint the Indians, or at least that’s the way it started. By the time we were done, we were completely covered with it.”
“It was in my hair for a week,” Isabelle said brightly.
“At least your hair was already darker by then;I looked like Opie for a month!” Ian cried.
They all laughed loudly as their faces, and eyes, took on fond looks of remembrance. Stefan found himself becoming enchanted with the entire group. He couldn’t imagine what it must have been like to grow up in such a warm, loving environment. Especially since his own childhood had been a cruel time that he’d spent his entire existence trying to right.
“There was also the dare war, whoever did the dumbest thing, and survived, won. Ethan won it by throwing himself off of a forty foot cliff,” Aiden continued.
“We quit after that move,” Isabellesaidlaughingly.
“You’re lucky you weren’t killed!” Jess gaspedin horror.
They all exchanged secret smiles as Ethan shrugged. “Broke a few ribs, but I heal quick,” he addedwith a wink, causing all of them to chuckle.
“There was the fish war, the parakeet war...”
“That was the least funny,” Isabelle interrupted Ian. “Vicky and Abby cried for a week.”
They all looked pointedlyat Aidenwho threw his hands up defensively. “Hey, it’s not my fault! They thought that they were old enough to get involved with the wars! Besides, they started it by putting itching powder in my bed.”
“He retaliated by turning their ten parakeets lose in December. We found five of them frozen in the front yard, the others disappeared,” Mike said, shaking his head disapprovingly.
“Vicky and Abby never gotinvolved in anything after that,”Aiden said with a bright grin.
“Yeah, and we’ve gotten too old to continuously torture each other,” Ian said. “But Willow, Julian, Kyle, and Cassidy have takenup where we left offwith a vengeance.”
“Except they’re more likely to get themselves killed,” Isabelle muttered. “I think they’re crazier than we were.”
“You’re forgetting about the time that you climbed to the top of that same sycamore tree, and threw yourself out of it in the hope that I would catch you,” Ethanreminded her.
“Which you did,” she said with a grin.
“You broke my damn ankle!”
