you bring presents? Everyone else brought presents,” Irene Stallion questioned, her small hands resting on her lean hips.
Nicholas laughed. “I did bring presents. They’re still in my car. Are you going to help me carry them in?”
Irene narrowed her gaze on the man’s face. “I’ll go get Collin. He does things like that,” she said with a shrug.
Gabi echoed the sentiment. “Collin does ’dem things. He’s a big boy,” she said.
“Girls can do boy things, too,” Irene said matter-of-factly.
Two of the older boys looked from the girls to the adults. One small voice suddenly spoke up. “Uncle John, are we still going outside to play kick ball?”
John turned his gaze to eye the nine-year-old and ten-year-old staring at him. “We’re ready when you are, Jake. But I thought you and Lorenzo were having fun playing with the girls?”
The youngster named Lorenzo gave them all an exaggerated eye roll. “Irene and Gabi are too bossy,” he said emphatically.
“Am not!” Gabi snarled.
Irene snapped her head in the young boy’s direction, her eyes narrowing into thin slits. “Humph!” she grunted.
Lorenzo’s eyes widened, and he took a step backward, bumping into his cousin Jake.
“I’m playing, too, and I’m going to be the pitcher,” Irene said as she turned on the toes of her cowboy boots. She then tossed her ponytail over her shoulder and moved toward the back of the house.
Gabi gave the boys a take that look as she skipped after her older cousin. The line of noise followed behind the two, the wealth of it rushing toward the other side of the home.
John called after them, “Gabi! Your mother said to stop running!”
Marah tossed up her hands. “You guys know your way to the kitchen. I need to corral the toddler brigade back upstairs to the playroom.”
“I’m still trying to figure out how they all got out!” John exclaimed, his own head shaking.
He and Marah exchanged a look both answering at the same time. “Frick and Frack!” they exclaimed, referring to Gabi and Irene.
Nicholas laughed. “And how old are the girls now?” he asked.
“Gabi is eight and Irene just turned eleven.” Marah answered.
“Eleven going on thirty,” Mark Stallion, John’s brother, suddenly interjected, hearing his daughter’s name. “It’s good to see you, cousin,” he said as he moved to Nicholas’s side to shake his hand.
Marah gave her husband a quick nod. “John Stallion, you have only two hours until all the children need to be in bed. Please tire them out before we all go crazy!” she admonished as she rushed in the direction of the noise, an argument ensuing in the other room between the younger kids.
John laughed. “You are just in time, Nicholas. How are you at running the bases?”
“I’ve never had any problems before,” Nicholas answered, chuckling deeply.
The others all laughed with him.
“Well, Mark’s daughter is one tough cookie,” John interjected. “And she throws a mean ball. You may have just met your match.”
* * *
The men from the Stallion and Boudreaux families and their children were divided into two teams. John was captain of one, and Nicholas had volunteered to lead the other. The women watched from the rear patio as the men and children played kick ball in the makeshift field.
Irene’s mother and Mark’s wife, Michelle “Mitch” Stallion, shook her head. She and Marah exchanged a look, their two daughters bickering at each other in the outfield. Despite admonishments from both their fathers, neither little girl was interested in playing nice.
“She’s trying to break me,” Marah said. “Gabi has made it her mission to try my last nerve and break me down.”
Marah’s twin sister, Marla, laughed. “It was that parent curse. Daddy had wished that you’d have a daughter just like yourself, and voilà!”
Marah cut an eye in her twin sister’s direction. “I was never that bad!”
“You really were that bad,” their older sister Eden said.
Katherine Boudreaux chuckled. “We all have one that challenges us. Thankfully they grow out of it,” she said.
“Which one of us was yours, Mama?” Maitlyn Boudreaux-Sayed asked, shifting her newborn son against her shoulder.
Her sister, Katrina Boudreaux Stallion, echoed the question. “Yeah, Mama? Which one?”
Their mother tossed them both a look. “Do you two really have to ask?”
A warm voice echoed from inside the patio door. “I’ll take that as a compliment!” Tarah Boudreaux exclaimed as she rushed out to hug her family.
“Tarah!” The women called out excitedly, everyone rising to embrace her.
“You finally made it,” her sister Katrina said, moving to give her a hug. “Why didn’t you call? Someone could have picked you up.”
Tarah shrugged. “Someone did. There was a car service waiting for me when I landed.”
The women all looked at each other. Maitlyn, who was usually their go-to girl for anything that needed to be done, said, “It wasn’t me this time!”
“Well, I don’t care who did it. I’m just glad they did,” Tarah said. Reaching for Maitlyn’s baby, Tarah pulled the infant into her arms. It was her first time seeing her new nephew in person. “Maitlyn, he’s beautiful!” she exclaimed, kissing the little boy’s cherub cheeks. “And he’s so chubby!” She looked around for the infant’s older sister. “Where’s Rose-Lynne?” she asked. The little girl was nowhere in sight.
Maitlyn dropped back into her seat. “Upstairs in the playroom with the nanny!” She blew out a sigh. “I love coming here. I can actually take a break! Zayn isn’t an easy baby like his sister was.”
“Ain’t that the truth,” Tierra Stallion exclaimed. Tarah imagined she was thinking about her own children, Lorenzo and his little sister Tianna. Visiting the ranch had to have been a welcome reprieve for her and her husband Travis. The distraction of cousins for their children to play with and the added care from family and trusted staff were just the beginning of the many perks afforded to them.
“I don’t know about all that,” Phaedra Stallion-Boudreaux offered. She rubbed a small hand against the beginnings of a baby bump. “Every time I take a break here, Mason and I get pregnant.” It was her third pregnancy in as many years. Her two sons and the daughter they hoped for had begun to look like stair steps.
“I think it must be something in the water,” Phaedra’s sister-in-law, Dahlia Boudreaux, echoed as she waddled to her seat. It was her third pregnancy as well, the second set of twins coming to her and her husband Guy.
Katrina Stallion laughed. “At least every time you visit and get pregnant, you go home and win another film award! So there are perks!” she said as she gave Dahlia a high five.
“It’s the water!” all the women exclaimed, their laughter abundant.
Katherine laughed with them. “Girls, it sounds like your problem is that you’re having too good of a time during those breaks! And that don’t have anything at all to do with water unless y’all are doing it in that swimming pool!”
The women all laughed again.
Tarah passed her nephew back to his mother. “So what good family gossip have I missed?” she asked, her eyes briefly shifting out to the activity on the game field.
Marah