he whispered.
“Caesar?” Kyan growled, his footsteps pounding in this direction.
I opened my mouth to call out to him then Saint’s hand closed over it to silence me. The door kicked open a second later and Kyan folded his arms as he stood in the doorway, arching a brow at us.
“Yes?” Saint inquired, his hand sliding from my mouth as he pulled me tighter against him.
For someone who liked keeping order, he sure didn’t do it with his kids. I was pretty certain he thrived on the carnage in this house when the kids were running wild. I kinda did too.
“Have you seen Caesar?” Kyan asked, his eyes shifting to the piano where a smothered laugh sounded from beneath it.
“No,” Saint said simply and I snorted a laugh.
“What did he do?” I asked, because if Caesar had been really bad, I was gonna have to hand him over to Sheriff Kyan for another punishment.
“Rowan slapped him with a bag of frozen peas and Caesar drop kicked him. It was kind of impressive if it hadn’t been such a dick thing to do,” Kyan said with a snigger.
“It was a bag of frozen beans, Pa,” Caesar’s voice came from under the piano in annoyance and Kyan ducked down, hauling him out with a chuckle of triumph. He started tickling him as he fought to escape and Caesar’s laughter filled every corner of the room, making my heart expand.
“Seems like tit for tat to me,” Saint commented as I dropped out of his lap, kneeling down to tickle Caesar too.
“Rowan hit his head when he fell. I mean, he took it like a fucking warrior but still,” Kyan growled.
“Pa swore again!” Caesar cried and I turned on Kyan, tickling him instead. Caesar laughed wildly, jumping up to help me as Kyan fell down beneath us. Saint was suddenly above his head, yanking his arms up so we could tickle him more easily.
“Alright, alright,” Kyan choked out as we showed him no mercy, but we didn’t stop.
He yanked a wrist free of Saint’s hold and suddenly he was free. Caesar caught my hand to tow me out of the room to safety and I laughed as I chased after him.
We ran down the hall with Saint behind us but just as we made it to the kitchen, a huge thump sounded followed by Saint cursing. I twisted around, finding Kyan on top of Saint on the floor, wrestling him down and planting a wet kiss on his mouth.
“Oh for fox sake, Kyan,” Saint spat, keeping to his no swearing rule in front of the kids even now which was just too cute.
“Happy birthday, brother.” Kyan grinned.
“You heathen, you’re not even wearing a shirt. What kind of hillbilly event is this?”
Kyan laughed as he got up, pulling Saint after him and clapping him on the shoulder. Rowan came running in from the beach suddenly with a stick, his hazel hair sticking up in every direction as he charged down Caesar with a roar.
“Woah, woah!” I scooped Rowan off the ground, wrestling the stick from his surprisingly strong grasp before he could spear his brother on it.
The doorbell rang at that moment and my heart pounded excitedly. “That’ll be Mila,” I said with a grin.
“Ope!” Rowan said excitedly.
“Yes, baby, Hope’s here too,” I said, surprised he remembered their little girl.
Mila and Danny still lived in Sequoia but we visited each other as often as we could. Hope was the same age as Rowan and the two of them had taken to each other the last time they’d met a few weeks ago.
I carried Rowan to the door as Saint tried to talk Kyan into putting a shirt on, smiling to myself at the madness of this party already. I opened the door and Mila squealed as she ran in with Hope in her arms, the two of them wearing pale yellow summer dresses which matched.
“Hey girl!” We wrapped each other in a hug full of babies and kisses before I stepped back to let them in, hugging Danny too.
“It’s so warm here,” Danny said with a grin then whispered to me, “I’m trying to convince Mila we should move here too, but she won’t have it.”
“Keep trying,” I said with a grin and we all headed through the house and out to the beach.
We took seats on the deck chairs and Cooper and Christina soon arrived, fussing over the kids while I caught up with Mila and Danny.
At the earliest opportunity, Nash headed off to fetch