One of whom was supposed to be on an airplane right now, flying east toward his mother.
“Your mother is going to kill me.”
That line made Houston’s jaw twitch.
Whatever Reid thought they were aiming for, it wasn’t his death, apparently.
Nice to know.
“Do you think she’s going to be really mad?” Houston asked hesitantly.
Like, yeah. Double yeah, with whipped cream and a cherry. “Of course, she’s going to be angry. She’s already angry that Dallas wasn’t there three days ago. She’s gonna be extremely angry that he’s not on the airplane right now. And most of that anger is going to be directed at me. Even though,” he gave his son a look, “I saw you get on the airplane. And you’re not supposed to be able to get back off.”
Dallas knew better than to smile right now. Reid wasn’t yelling, his voice wasn’t even raised, although he was using the tone reserved for his kids when they’d done something really, really bad—like miss their flight on purpose. Still, he wasn’t quite in the mood to be joking about this. Yet.
“There was a lot going on today, and everyone was pretty distracted. It wasn’t hard to get off the plane.” Dallas shrugged his narrow shoulders.
Reid pressed his lips together. He believed that. The airplane personnel did their very best, but under the current conditions, with the limited flights and people pushing and fighting to get on, their job was made extra hard, and they also probably didn’t normally have to deal with a child who didn’t want to be on the airplane to begin with.
Maybe they were used to one who wouldn’t sit still, or one who had to use the restroom, or one who annoyed the passengers around them, but one who wanted to get off? Probably not something they were looking for.
Still, he could probably complain to the airline and possibly get a discount on the new ticket he needed to buy....
His eyes narrowed. Another thought came to him. Man, had it been that long since he was young? He’d just figured out this wasn’t a spur-of-the-moment action.
He put his hands on his hips. “You guys planned this.” His voice wasn’t firm; it was like he was asking. Trying to figure out why.
The two identical-looking heads nodded solemnly, freckles on each face going up and down. Freckles they’d inherited from their mother. She’d always hated them, but he thought they were cute.
Now their boys had them.
And why was he thinking about freckles? Emerson was going to be seriously jacked.
“Why?”
The boys looked at each other. Almost as though thinking about some kind of agreement they had. Probably did.
“That’s the last time she and I leave you guys together for three days. Holy smokes.” He lifted his cowboy hat and ran a hand through his hair. He was in so much trouble. “Why couldn’t you have done this on your mother’s watch?”
He would have handled it much better than she was going to. Not that she usually got angry and threw fits, but she already thought that he was cheating on their deal by keeping Dallas an extra three days. She would probably say something like that in the email she sent—that he was cheating again.
“Because we’re together here. Plus, neither one of us likes being in Switzerland. We both want to stay in Missouri.”
Reid shrugged. “That’s fine by me. But you’re going to have to talk your mother into that.”
Houston bit his lip and shoved a hand in his pocket. His words came out slowly. “That’s what we wanted to do.”
Reid stopped in the act of starting to pace and jerked his head around. “What? What do you want?”
“We want Mom to come to Missouri.” Dallas shuffled his feet on the floor, still standing beside his brother, but he’d been still for several minutes, and he needed to move.
“How is you missing your airplane going to get your mom here to Missouri?”
“We were hoping you would help us.”
“Me?” He couldn’t help it; his hand went to his chest, pointing at it. “What am I supposed to do?” He almost added he didn’t even want their mother in Missouri, but that would have been way too big of a lie for him to deliver with any kind of straight face or seriousness. He would like nothing more than to see Emerson in Missouri again. In Cowboy Crossing. In his house. As his wife.
Again those two little heads with those splatters of freckles went up and down side by side. Almost like they