He chuckled. “Sure, we can try, but at the moment—” he nodded toward Joey and his boys charging straight for them “—that doesn’t look too promising.”
Joey ran right for him at full speed, calling his name, looking all proud of himself. “Papa! Papa! Did you see me?” He ran smack into Colt as he swooped up his boy in his arms, giving him a tight squeeze, thankful there were no broken bones.
“You had me scared as a jackrabbit with a fox on its trail. Never do that again. You hear me, son? Never.”
Joey’s face went all serious. His blue eyes instantly lost their sparkle. “But, Papa, it’s my fourth birthday and Gramps said you jumped off the roof when you were four. Isn’t that what I was supposed to do?”
“Sounds about right to me,” Helen said as Colt’s other two boys grabbed hold of her with tight hugs. Colt knew how much his boys liked Helen, but he also knew they were a handful when they tackled her like they were doing now.
“Boys, give her some breathing room.”
They let go and tackled Colt instead, knocking him to the ground, where they wrestled and tickled him. “Wait!” Colt yelled over their laughter and squeals. “You boys almost gave me a heart attack. What the heck were you thinking?”
They stopped attacking Colt and Joey got all serious. “Did you have a heart attack, Papa? Should I call nine-one-one?”
“No, I’m fine, but that’s beside the point.”
“You didn’t have a heart attack and I jumped off the roof. That makes me happy. Are you happy?”
Colt sat up and looked Joey in the eyes. “Promise me you’ll never, ever do that again.”
“Why would I do it again? I could hurt myself.”
Helen let out a little laugh. Colt shot her a look. “This is serious.” He turned back to his boy. “That’s right, son. You could break some bones or worse.”
“Of course he could, that’s why we moved the trampoline over,” Buddy, his oldest, said.
“We’re not stupid, Daddy,” Gavin chimed in.
“Yeah, Daddy,” Helen added.
Colt tried to keep a straight face, but was having a difficult time of it.
“I didn’t want to jump into the manure pile like you did,” Joey said. “That stinks and I might have missed and landed on the ground. I could crack my head open and die on my birthday. I don’t want to die on my birthday. That’s no fun. I’d miss out on all the presents and cake. Can we cut my cake now?”
Colt grinned at Joey, unable to stay angry at his youngest for more than five seconds. “Yes. Cake sounds like a good idea.” He stood, and his boys stood, as well. “You run and tell your aunt Maggie it’s time. She made the cake especially for you.”
“It’s a real cake, right? She didn’t let Aunt Kitty make it out of broccoli or anything healthy, did she? I won’t have to pretend I like it, will I?”
Kitty, Maggie’s sister, was an honorary aunt who tended to overdo “green.”
“Nope, your aunt Maggie told me it’s pure sugar and flour.”
“Yay!” Joey yelled and the three boys took off to look for their aunt Maggie, while Colt shook off any lingering tension that had encompassed his body.
“How the heck do parents do it with a whole houseful of kids? Three boys are enough to keep me up all night worrying about what crazy shenanigans they might come up with next. I never even considered a planned jump off the barn roof. If I had any more kids, I’d probably go insane.”
He felt thankful he’d had the wherewithal to take care of that possibility years ago.
Besides, when his beautiful wife died in childbirth with Joey, he’d decided then and there he never, ever wanted to be responsible for another pregnancy as long as he lived.
He turned to Helen. “Now, what did you want to talk to me about?”
Copyright © 2014 by Mary Leo
ISBN-13: 9781460327838
MOST ELIGIBLE SHERIFF
Copyright © 2014 by Cathy McDavid
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