miniature draft horses came barreling around the corner, a long string of slobber hanging from Menace’s mouth. Both mastiffs plowed past Max and immediately found their little humans, Austin and Jax, who were sitting on the floor engrossed with their tablets. Trouble’s big tongue licked up Jax’s face, from his chin over his open mouth and up his nose, leaving a path of slobber.
“Guess you didn’t use a napkin during breakfast this morning, did you?” Amanda asked the four-year-old.
“Who needs a napkin when you have dogs?” Marc announced as he came around the corner from the foyer to join them. Leah followed behind him, her cheeks pink.
“Did you two walk here?” Mary Ann asked, her eyes narrowed on Leah.
“We were trying to wear the dogs out a little since it’s going to be tight quarters today,” Marc answered.
Ron jumped from his recliner and went over to Leah. “Come sit down on the king’s throne and put your feet up. I’ll rub them for you, if you need it.”
“No, Pop, she doesn’t need her feet rubbed,” Marc growled.
“Yes, she does,” Mary Ann insisted. “All pregnant women do. Gets the blood flowing.”
“In Leah or Pop?” Marc asked.
Leah rolled her eyes at her husband as Ron escorted her to his seat and helped her sit.
“The woman is carrying my grandchild, she deserves to be spoiled,” Ron said.
“And she puts up with you,” Max added under his breath, loud enough for his brother to hear. “For that she deserves an award.”
“Get your wife a plate and some juice,” Ron ordered Marc.
“Pop and his harem. Fuck me. If he didn’t have Mom, we’d have to hide our women,” Marc muttered as he turned and headed toward the kitchen.
They heard the door open again and a loud, “Yoo hoo!”
“Uncle Teddy’s here!” the boys all yelled and a wild pack of man-children rushed past them to tackle Teddy.
“Oh, look at all these baby gorillas.” He came around the corner, fighting his way past them, carrying one small wrapped gift in his hand. Adam followed on his heels, a mile-high mountain of gifts in his arms, so high Amanda wondered how he could see where he was walking.
“Are those for us, Teddy?” Greg bellowed in excitement across the room.
“Some of them, yes. Some are for the adults who will open them in private when they get home.”
“Sweet!” Amanda said.
Adam placed the small mountain next to the beautifully decorated tree since there wasn’t any room left under it. “Nobody opened gifts, yet?”
“We were waiting for all of you before they tore into them,” Ron said.
“Grandpa made us wait,” Hannah grumbled, now sitting next to her grandmother, her legs tucked under her and her nose in her phone.
Max went over to his daughter and plucked the phone—one he was not happy Amanda bought her—from her fingers. “No phones today. Today is a day to spend with family, not strangers.”
Her mouth gaped open. “They’re my friends. And the boys have their tablets!”
Max pulled Oliver’s tablet from his hands and then with an approving nod from Leah, took Austin and Jax’s, too.
He took all the electronics and put them on a high shelf out of reach. “Grandpa will give those back to you when he decides family time is over.”
“Dad!” Hannah wailed.
“Hannah, you aren’t going to die without it,” Mary Ann said. “Is it so bad to spend some quality time with your family?”
Hannah’s lips twisted but she said nothing.
His wife turned to him and whispered quietly, “When do we tell them about staying here for two weeks while we escape to Fiji?”
“We’ll send them emails after we leave,” he told her, joking but also not.
“Oliver doesn’t have email, nor can he read very well yet,” she reminded him.
“He’ll get the picture when Hannah stomps her foot and has a tantrum about not coming along to the beach.”
“When do we leave again?” she asked, when he very well knew, she was aware of exactly when they left. She had even put a countdown timer on her cell phone.
He grinned at her. “Like I told the kids, family time first.”
“Oh all right,” she grumbled, her shoulders drooping and trying to sound like their daughter. “If we haaaave to.”
“We do. When do we want to surprise Greg?”
“After all the presents are opened and cleaned up. Then everyone will be here. I think the puppy will distract the kids from getting through that motherlode of presents if we don’t wait.”
“Good idea.”
“But before the other thing.” She wiggled her eyebrows.
“I agree. Before the other thing. Otherwise,