Harper laughed and wiped her eyes. “So noted.”
Gage bounded over, inserting himself between them. “Are you ready to play yet, Aunt B?”
“Since Angel is still sleeping, why don’t you and your mom play? I’m sure she’d love to have you all to herself for a little while.”
He turned hopeful eyes on his mother. “Really? I’ve got the Legos all set up.”
At first, Bailey worried Harper would refuse, citing the million things she always had to do. But as she looked at her son, her face softened and she ruffled his hair. “Lead the way, Lego master.”
Halfway into the living room, Harper turned around. “If you’re serious about helping out at the store, you can start tomorrow.”
“Sounds good.”
Chapter Three
The next afternoon Bailey wandered through Wild West Clothiers, the western store Harper owned that was located in the main building of the Split Rock Ranch and Resort.
Harper’s unique sense of style helped create a fun, funky space featuring new and vintage apparel, accessories, home décor and a vast array of “Made in Wyoming” items including candles, lotions and candy. While Bailey was proud of her sister’s accomplishments, she couldn’t help but wonder how Harper managed to do it all. Just being a ranch wife was a full-time job, not to mention raising four kids.
“This meeting shouldn’t take long. Maybe an hour,” Harper said from behind the counter.
“Will the boys be with you?”
She shook her head. “They’ll be watching a movie with the other kids in the conference room.”
Thank god for that. Jake, Tate and Gage were chasing each other around the store. Bailey caught a rack of scarves they’d plowed into before it knocked over a jewelry display. She looked over at Harper, hoping she’d rein in her unruly sons, but she didn’t react beyond saying, “Settle down, boys. I mean it.”
The boys didn’t hear their mother, or if they did, they ignored her.
Bailey ground her teeth. She loved her nephews, but after being around them, it was obvious they needed discipline. Not that she’d ever tell her sister and brother-in-law that . . . unless they asked.
“Okay, let’s go. No running!” Harper said after all three kids tore out the door, knocking the cowbell off the door handle. She just sighed, reattached it and followed after them.
Putting the situation out of her mind, Bailey returned to the counter and cracked open her laptop. A former colleague had recently launched a software company that specialized in military games, and he’d convinced her to design weapons and apparel for his upcoming phone app. With no customers or phone calls interrupting her, she managed twenty productive minutes.
She returned from refilling her coffee cup in the back room to see a small, pigtailed blond girl racing out the door. The candy rack was still wobbling and the bottom row was missing four packages of candy.
Son of a bitch.
Cursing, Bailey took off after the little thief.
Blondie ran at full speed, her pigtails bobbing, but her scrawny legs were no match for Bailey’s years of PT.
At the end of the hallway, Bailey caught her by the arm and spun her around.
The girl screamed and dropped the candy, trying to jerk her arm from Bailey’s firm grip. “Hey! Let go!”
“Not a chance. Where’s your mom?”
“I don’t have a mom! She’s dead! Everybody knows that.”
That shocked Bailey enough that she did let the girl go.
The girl took advantage of Bailey’s distraction, abandoning her spoils and racing away.
The last thing Bailey saw before she scooped up the bags of candy was the little shoplifter zigzagging around the pillars in the main guest area of the resort.
And then the girl was gone.
What the hell? Where could she have disappeared to so fast?
Bailey didn’t see her scaling the stairs to the guest rooms on the second floor. The bar and restaurant were closed, and she couldn’t have escaped through the heavy wooden door marking the main entrance without Bailey hearing it shut.
As Bailey started toward the office, she heard a soft grunt behind her. She reversed course and saw the girl crawling out from underneath the couch.
“Seriously?”
When Blondie heard Bailey, she let out another scream even as she put on a burst of speed and raced down the opposite hallway.
A door at the end opened and she ran inside. But not before Bailey noticed who was holding the door for her.
Gage.
Bailey shouted her nephew’s name and he stared at her in horror, allowing her enough time to reach the door before he slammed it in her face.
She entered the conference room and froze.
Kids were wreaking havoc all over the damn place.
Two conference tables had been turned on their sides, serving as shelter from the chunks of ice being whipped back and forth. A couple of kids were stacking chairs in a life-sized game of Jenga. Two others were jumping—or maybe dancing—on the couch. A cartoon blared in the background—a cartoon no one paid attention to.
Only Gage and the pigtailed blonde were even aware she’d entered the room.
Bailey marched over, grabbed the remote and hit the mute button. The silence finally caught the attention of the hooligans.
When she turned on the lights, they scattered like cockroaches.
Frantic whispering came from behind the tables, followed by a loud “Shhh!”
“Who’s in charge here?” she demanded.
Silence.
No way would adults leave this many kids unattended.
“Jake, Tate and Gage Turner, front and center right now.” She paused. “And the rest of you too or I’ll call the police.”
The closest table tipped over, the kids moved so fast.
Bailey scanned the group. Tate stood next to two boys his age. Jake stood between a boy and a girl his age. And Gage lined up next to a boy his age and one a little younger. Her eyes narrowed. “Where is the blond girl?”
Gage said, “She’s scared of you because she said you yelled at her.”
“I yelled at her because she stole four bags of candy from your mom’s store.” Bailey’s gaze zipped down the line, from the three oldest boys, to the three kids in the middle, to the three youngest. “Now where is she?”
That was when Bailey heard someone beating on the door at the back of the room, a door with a chair jammed beneath the handle.
She stalked over, kicked the chair aside and opened the door.
A small redheaded girl barreled out past Bailey, screaming, “You guys are in so much trouble!”
Then mass chaos erupted.
Pushing, yelling, furniture being tipped over . . . it turned into a grade school version of WWE.
Bailey put her fingers in her mouth and let loose an ear-piercing whistle.
That got their attention.
“Line up.” When no one moved, she added, “Now.”
Her recruits had never lined up so fast. Even the little blond thief came out of hiding.
She pointed to the redheaded girl. “Your name and what happened.”
“I’m Brianna. The grown-ups put me in charge—”
“Hold up. How old are you?”
“Almost thirteen.”
“You just turned twelve, you liar,” the boy next to Tate shouted.
This girl looked to be about eight, but she’d never been a good judge of ages. “Keep going, Brianna.”
“So while the grown-ups have their stupid meeting and I went to look for cups, these brats locked me in the closet.”
“That’s because you were bein’ a jerk,” a boy Tate’s age said hotly. “Mom said you have to be nice to us.”
“Yeah,” the boy standing next to Gage adde
d. “You’re so bossy.”
“Because I’m the oldest, lamebrain. I’m supposed to be bossy.”
“We’re gonna tell Dad that you were callin’ us names.”
“And you were swearin’ at us,” the littlest boy piped in.
That got them all riled up and everyone started yelling.
Bailey whistled again. “Enough. You’re all in trouble. But before anyone tattles, you’ll work together to get this room in order.” To Gage and the youngest boy she said, “Grab a bucket and start picking up ice.” Next she addressed Tate and his cohorts. “Put the tables back the way you found them.” Lastly she pointed to Jake and his buddies. “You three round up the chairs.”
“But, why—”
“You can ask questions when you’re done cleaning up.”
“What in the devil is goin’ on in here?” a deep voice said behind her.
Bailey spun around so fast she lost her balance. Strong hands latched onto her arms and she looked up.
The greenest eyes she’d ever seen gazed down on her. Before she took more than a cursory look at the man to see if the rest of him was as dreamy as his eyes, a body wiggled between them. Bailey caught a glimpse of blond pigtails before she heard a girlish cry of “Daddy!”
Immediately she took a step back.
“How come she doesn’t have to help pick up?” Tate demanded, moving to accuse the candy-stealing kid, who was now hiding behind her dad.
“Yeah, she always gets special treatment,” his buddy said behind him with disgust.
“It ain’t fair,” Jake complained.
“Because she scared me!” Blondie shouted, adding, “She was yellin’ at me, chasin’ me and she grabbed me,” with a dramatic sob.
Oh, you lying little—
“Is that true?” the big bad daddy demanded of Bailey after putting a protective hand on Blondie’s head.
Bailey met his glare with one of her own. “Yes, I chased her after she stole four bags of candy.”
“From where?”
Harper walked in and stopped behind the man, taking in the room’s wreckage. “What on earth happened?” Then she looked at Bailey. “Bailey? Why are you here?”
“Because you didn’t warn me that apprehending preschool shoplifters was part of my job description.”
“What job?” green-eyed Daddio asked.
More adults entered the room—Bailey recognized the first two as Renner and Tierney Jackson, the owners of the Split Rock that she’d met earlier today.
“Brianna, you were supposed to be watching them,” Janie Lawson, the Split Rock’s general manager, said to the oldest girl.
“It’s not my fault, Aunt Janie! They locked me in the closet after I wouldn’t let them go to the ice machine. And they did it anyhow.” She gestured to the ice all over the floor.
Janie’s eyes narrowed on the dark-haired boy standing next to Tate. “Tyler Lawson. Whose idea was it to have an ice fight?”
Silence.
Bailey could’ve told her the older boys wouldn’t rat on one another.
The younger kids, however . . .
The girl Jake’s age stepped forward and addressed the couple. “Mom and Dad, I told them not to lock Brianna in the closet. I only went along with it because I didn’t want to get pelted with ice.”
“That’s bull crap, Isabelle.” Jake sneered at her. “You’re the one who built the table forts!”
“Oh yeah? At least I’m not the one who sent the little kids to steal candy!” she shot back.
“That wasn’t my idea,” Jake said.
“Then whose was it? Dylan’s?” They both spun on the third member of their gang.
Dylan shook his head. “It was Olivia’s idea.” He gestured to the girl still clinging to her dad. “She made Gage be a lookout.”
Gage stepped forward and stuck out his chin. “Don’t blame Olivia. It was my idea to get the candy. Wasn’t stealin’ if my mom owns the store, right?”
No way sweet little rule-following Gage had concocted the idea. Why was he protecting the candy thief?
“Then why didn’t you go, huh?” Tate demanded.
“Because Olivia’s the fastest runner. Me’n Rhett and Cody needed to stay here and make our own fort outta the chairs so we wouldn’t have to share the candy since you wouldn’t share the ice,” Gage retorted.
“I’m bein’ punked, right? My family put you up to this?” a new voice said from the doorway.
Bailey saw Janie, Tierney and Harper exchange an oh-shit look.
“Who are you?” Daddio demanded.
“I’m here to interview for the summer day camp counselor’s job.”
“How long have you been standing there?” Harper asked.
“Long enough.” The young woman’s eyes took in the scene before her. “Are these kids in the program?”
“It’s not really a . . . program,” Tierney explained. “It’s just one day a week.”
“Just one person handling all these kids?”
“Brianna would be your assistant.”
“Brianna . . . the one they shut in the closet?” the young woman asked suspiciously.
“It wasn’t my fault!” Brianna said, and pushed the boy next to her. “It was his.”
“You deserved it!” he said and pushed her back.
“Stop fighting, it’s annoying,” the one called Isabelle said, trying to separate them.
“You’re annoying.” Tate sneered.
“Don’t you talk to my sister like that,” the youngest boy said, launching himself at Tate.
And once again, it was on.
As the parents rushed in to break up the fighting, the job applicant raised her hands in surrender. “I’m out. Workin’ at my uncle’s dairy farm isn’t looking so bad right now.”
“But you’re—”
“Not nearly desperate enough to deal with this.” She gestured to the kids. “They need a warden, not a camp counselor.”
Then she was gone.
Renner bellowed, “Clean this up now!”
Kids scattered.
He turned and addressed his wife, Janie, Harper and green-eyed Daddio. “Now what? She was our only applicant. We’re out of options and we’re headin’ into the busy season. While I’m glad we’re a family-run business, there are times like this that there ain’t enough family members to go around.”
Bailey tried to edge away. This discussion had nothing to do with her. Plus, she’d left the store unattended and Harper hadn’t noticed that yet.
“Don’t you work with a company in Casper for Olivia’s daycare?” Janie asked the green-eyed man.
“I did. But the last one quit on us.”
“The last one? Meaning . . . ?”
Making sure his daughter was out of earshot, he sighed and adjusted his cowboy hat. “We’ve gone through every daycare provider in their employ.”
“All of them?”
“Yeah. Essentially we’ve been blacklisted.”
No surprise, Bailey thought, if the babysitters had to deal with the sassy-mouthed candy thief every day.
“What are we gonna do about a day camp for these kids?” Janie asked.
Day camp? These kids needed boot camp. At that thought Bailey couldn’t stop the snorting laugh from escaping her mouth.
Then all sets of parental eyes zoomed to her.
Harper said, “What’s so funny?”
“No offense, sis, you know I love my nephews, but they are hellions. And from what I saw today—and what you can clearly see happened in this room—all of these kids are out of control. They need boot camp rather than some artsy-fartsy day camp.”
Green-eyed Daddio was in her face. “Exactly who are you to be tellin’ us what you think our kids need?”
Bailey immediately snapped
into her military posture. “I’m Sergeant Bailey Masterson, United States Army. And who, sir, are you?”
“Bailey, stand down.” Harper sighed. “Streeter, this is my sister Bailey. She’s on military sabbatical. Bailey, this is Streeter Hale. He’s the Split Rock ranch foreman and Olivia’s father.”
“Olivia the candy snatcher.” He opened his mouth to dispute that moniker, but Bailey held up her hand. “I saw her take the candy, dude.”
“But you got the candy back.”
“That’s your takeaway from this?” She sidestepped him. “You know what? Not my concern. Now that you’ve all been apprised of the situation and I’ve recovered the stolen merchandise, I’m going back to work. Good luck with the day camp thing.”
She left unsaid, You’re gonna need it.
* * *
An hour later Harper, Janie, Renner and Streeter showed up together at Wild West Clothiers.
As soon as Bailey finished with her customer, Renner closed the door and flipped over the Closed sign.
This couldn’t be good.
“Can I help you with something? We’re running a special on scarves.”
Janie offered her a chipper smile. “We forgot to say thanks for dealing with our kids.”
Bailey glanced at Harper, but her sister was busy studying her nails. “Where are the kids now?”
“Tierney is supervising their cleanup,” Renner said, “so let’s cut to the chase. How would you like to take over the kids’ summer day camp?”
She laughed.
“We’re serious.”
“Why?”
Janie leaned on the counter, her face troubled. “Look, it sucks when someone points out that your kids are undisciplined and disrespectful. My boys are sweet and decent about seventy percent of the time. It’s that other thirty percent that worries me and their father. So we’re in agreement that you’re the perfect candidate to work with them.”
“Work with them . . . how?”
“Teaching them discipline and respect. You’re military. You’re perfect for this.”
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