Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 92180 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 461(@200wpm)___ 369(@250wpm)___ 307(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92180 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 461(@200wpm)___ 369(@250wpm)___ 307(@300wpm)
I might have gotten the brawn in the family, but she got the brains. She breezed through her nursing degree and has been considering a nurse practitioner’s degree, but selflessly, that’s on hold while she helps me with the boys.
“How was the drive?” I ask as I sit up, trying to extricate myself from their exuberance as they’ve now decided to wrestle with each other. I let them have at it as I know they’ve got to be going a little crazy after all that time in the car.
As they run around the yard, Kiera holds her hand out to me. “As long as they were all three asleep, it was awesome. When they were yelling at each other, not so much.”
I grab her hand and she helps haul me up but most of the effort is on my part. I pull her straight into me for a hard hug. “I can never repay you for doing this for me.”
She squeezes me tight. “There’s not anything I wouldn’t do for you and my hellion nephews.”
My eyes catch Colby running toward the sidewalk. “Halt,” I yell, and he stops mid stride. “You boys stay away from the sidewalk. Stay only on the grass, and you’re not allowed out front unless Aunt Kiera or me are with you. Understood?”
Colby and Tanner nod, but Jake, at a year and a half older, pouts. “Even me?”
“Yes, bud,” I say, releasing Kiera and scooping him up to tickle him. “Even you.”
“When can we play out here without you?” he asks after I set him down.
“When you’re eighteen,” I drawl.
Jake screws up his face and stomps his foot. “That’s what you say to everything.”
“Then stop asking questions you know the answers to,” I quip and give him a pat on the butt. “You can play in the backyard by yourself because it’s fenced in. I might have had a play set installed just like the one you had back home.”
All three boys scream in delight—something I’m sure girls do, but I wince because my boys are pretty vocal when excited—and race up the steps to the front door.
I wink at Kiera. “Come on. I’ll give you the grand tour.”
The house I bought is in an older neighborhood, but I wanted something fairly close to the arena for convenience.
As we step inside, the kids take off running to explore. Kiera looks around before leveling a chastising look my way. “You didn’t get much unpacked.”
I had everything packed and shipped here, but some boxes remain untouched.
“But I got all the furniture arranged and all the beds put together,” I point out. Her look becomes a glare. “I’m not good at putting out that knickknacky shit and hanging art. That’s your forte.”
“No, it’s not,” she says with a backhanded slap to my arm. “But I am better at it than you.”
I take her elbow and steer her to the second floor and left down the hall. “This is your room.”
Kiera halts and refuses to step across the threshold. “I am not taking the master suite. This is your house, and you’re paying for it.”
“You are taking the master suite because I’m going to be gone so much of the time and you’re going to be working and watching the boys. It’s only fair.”
“Drake,” she exclaims wearily. “This is too much.”
“Oh, quit being a martyr,” I growl playfully and push her into the room. I then yell down the stairs. “Okay, Wild Things… assemble.”
More yelling and laughter, pounding feet, but no one comes up the stairs. “Wild Things,” I yell again, this time louder. “You got until the count of three. One… two…”
Pounding feet now run up the stairs, grins on their red, sweaty faces.
“Come see your room,” I say as I move down the hall in the opposite direction.
They follow me into the largest guest room, which also leads into an attached bonus room above the garage. I did away with their beds that were in the moving truck and bought a triple bunk bed set. The boys shared a room back home, given they were so close in age. They loved it and are still too young to want their independence.
They didn’t have bunk beds, though, and they squeal when they see them.
“I get the top,” Jake yells.
“I want the top,” Colby says, making a beeline for the ladder that services the top two levels.
“No, me,” Tanner says, grabbing onto his brother and pulling him back.
“Freeze frame,” I say in an even tone. I don’t need to shout it, and in fact, rarely do I have to raise my voice for obedience issues. They know when they hear freeze frame, no matter what they’re doing, they’d better stop.
The consequence is a time-out, a brutal punishment for three rambunctious boys, or so I’ve been told.
All three stop, and Tanner lets Colby go.