Chapter 14
Wesley had made it to the top of the steps when some kind of crash echoed from below. He stopped, listening, and two seconds later, a scream and then loud crying broke out.
“Jill?” he called down the stairs.
“I’m on it, Jack.” Her voice came up the stairs, calm, a bit humorous over using their new nicknames, but also with a slight edge, not panic, but perhaps concentration.
“Roger that, Jill.”
It was a little bit juvenile, but he was still getting a kick out of it, and he needed to do something to stay sane. He could understand now why Dominic and Vera had practically run out the door.
He wasn’t sure he was going to stick around and talk when they came back. And he sure hoped that Birdie hopped quickly in the car beside him, because he wasn’t quite sure how long he was going to be waiting in the driveway for her to get in.
Maybe he should warn her.
“These are his,” Emma said as she flew by him, throwing pants in his face and thundering back down the stairs, her skirts flying.
“I need underwear!”
No reply, but soon she was thundering back up the stairs and running back into one of the rooms .
It wasn’t long after that that the underwear came flying at his head the same way the pants had.
“Thanks,” he said, wondering where in the world Dominic had gotten his children.
He knew that they were adopted, and he admired Vera and Dominic for their...bravery. Yes. That was the right word. Bravery. Probably they hadn’t met the children before they adopted them.
Yeah. That explained a lot.
That was the story that he was going to stick with, because he couldn’t imagine someone being so...crazy that they would meet these kids and decide to adopt them anyway.
But he thought about kids growing up without a mom or dad, being shuffled from house to house, and maybe not even staying with their siblings, how scary and hard that would be. He thought about the commitment of taking a child into a person’s home and saying that you would be their parent for the rest of their life.
And then doing that four times over. And then, having twins on top of everything else.
Wow. He could hardly believe that Vera and Dominic had willingly sacrificed so much of their lives for these kids.
He wondered if they’d ever appreciate it. He certainly didn’t expect them to appreciate it now, not their age, but... Someday maybe?
He hoped so. They definitely had his respect.
It was a bit of a wrestling match to get the wet pants off and the dry pants on. He recalled his high school wrestling matches and recalled again why he had chosen hockey as his game, just hit something, there was no trying to roll it around and finesse it into little holes.
Of course, that wasn’t exactly a description of wrestling either, but it aptly described what he was trying to do with the kid and his pants.
He had the underwear on, when he realized it was on backward, and he honestly wondered if Vera and Dominic would notice. Guessing that they wouldn’t, he decided to leave it like that. And struggled to get the pants over top of them.
Remembering that there had been a crash downstairs, he pinned down the flailing arms with one arm and grabbed the flailing legs with the other arm and took the struggling kid downstairs .
“There you go,” he said at the bottom of the stairs, setting his charge free. The kid didn’t waste any time in running away from him, although he did stop about four good strides away and turned around and yelled, “Don’t you ever do that again!”
“Tell me a little sooner before you have to go to the bathroom next time,” he called to the retreating back.
It was these children who were running around church, and he realized now what a small miracle it had been for Vera and Dominic to actually get them to all sit in the pew together and behave themselves.
He felt like he just survived a war, and he still had...he checked his phone...one hour and forty-seven minutes left.
That was if Vera and Dominic came back on time, which after being here for thirteen minutes, Wesley highly doubted.
As he walked into the living room, he realized what the crash had been.
The large flat-screen TV lay precariously propped against the wall, while the stand that it’d been on looked like someone had started to make tinder wood out of it.
Birdie glanced up from where she was tentatively trying to put it back together. “No fires, Jack.”
He snorted. “Wow. And I thought they were joking.”
He wondered if the TV had survived the crash, but there was no point in trying to figure it out until they got the stand put back up. Why didn’t they have their TV hung on the wall like normal people?
Hopefully because they never watched it.
“One hour and forty-six minutes left, Jill. But who’s counting, right?”
“Kids or stand, Jack. Your choice.”
“Stand.” He didn’t need to think about that one.
“I’m not sure whether to thank you or be mad at you,” she said as she sighed, looking at the stand, which seemed like an impossible task to try to put back together.
“If you would have taken Wet Pants, this wouldn’t have happened,” he said, loading his tone with lots of snark.
It made her laugh, as he thought it would.
So, this was not going to be an easy thing, but he was pretty sure it was going to be a fun thing. As whatever he seemed to do with Birdie was. Their banter felt easy, and no matter how dorky he was, she didn’t roll her eyes and act like he was a loser .
They exchanged a look as she pushed herself off the ground, and he surveyed the broken stand.
He didn’t think that Vera and Dominic would be the slightest bit surprised or upset about either that or the TV set.
“If I had some tools, I think I could get it put back together fairly decently, but I’ll do my best.”
“All right, then I’ll go back to making sure the children don’t kill themselves or set the house on fire.”
He was pretty sure that Vera and Dominic were probably trying to train their children, but with the fact that Vera had been pregnant with twins not long after they had adopted the kids, it probably made it very difficult. He was no expert on pregnancy, but he was guessing that Vera had a lot more on her hands than what she had been expecting when they had adopted the children.
Regardless, it was best to patch the stand back together, and then, rather than setting the TV back on top of it, he set it in the corner, with the flat screen toward the wall.
Hopefully out of the way where the children wouldn’t knock it down.
By the time Vera and Dominic had come back, he was ready to lie down and sleep for the rest of the day.
Thankfully, the twins had not woken up, and Vera and Dominic did not seem the slightest bit surprised or upset about the TV stand, the wet pants, or even the possibility of their TV being broken.
“We never use it anyway,” Dominic said as he shrugged a shoulder. “As long as the kids weren’t hurt.”
“No. They’re fast, and they got out from underneath it before it fell.”
“I should put it on the wall anyway,” Dominic said, giving Vera a look, which she returned.
“Or we could give it away. We never watch it anyway.”
They turned back to Wesley and Birdie. “I know they’re a handful. I really appreciate you coming. I...understand if you don’t volunteer to come back.”
“I think we’ll be back. We had a good time, didn’t we, Jack?”
Wesley decided that he was not as good a liar as what she was. “If you say so, Jill.”
“Oh, stop,” she said, grinning and rolling her eyes as he opened the door and she threw up a hand to wave goodbye .
They walked out into the bright sunshine, and he couldn’t help but feel like he had been released from prison, except, as he opened the car door, he realized that maybe he would miss prison after all.
Or maybe prison wasn’t so bad when you had the right cellmate.
They got in and sat down in the car, both of them just sitting there, exhausted.
“We survived,” he said in a monotone.
“No one died,” she said in the exact same tone.
“The house didn’t burn down.”
“Success, Jack,” she said, lifting up her hand and holding her fist over the console.
He grinned, bumping her fist and starting the car. “What time are we supposed to be at the stable for horseback riding?”
“I think seven or so. She said a two-hour ride should let us see the sunset.”
“I’m gonna sleep until then.”
“I hope I can. I’m not sure what Gram has planned for today, but I know she’s doing something.”
“I guess if I see you with your blanket out on the beach, I’ll know she’s got some kind of meeting going on in your house.”
“Yeah. Don’t disturb,” she said, laughing.
“After the last two hours, I can guarantee you that I will leave you alone.”
He had to be honest though; he couldn’t leave her thinking that it had been terrible.
“Were you serious about saying that it wasn’t that bad?” he said as he pulled off the main road in Raspberry Ridge and onto the sandy road that took them to the cottages.
“Mostly because of you. It seems like whatever we do together, I have a good time. I had to admit, after the TV crash I wasn’t so sure I was going to make it the two hours, but you done good, Jack.”
“That’s funny, because as we were walking out the door, I felt like I’d been released from prison, only I knew I was going to miss it because I had such a great cellmate.”
“Are you talking about me? Or the kid with the wet pants?”
“I think he didn’t like me, did he?”
“He was pretty violent toward you, but he did seem to have an affinity for you as well.”
“I think he could grow on me.”
“That’s why I said what I did. It wasn’t as bad as what I thought it was going to be, and... If I have a year to think about it, I might even go back.” She sounded surprised.
“Think it will take me about five years, but same.”
As he pulled into her cottage, he said, “Looks like you got the place to yourself.”
The Ferrari was gone, and she nodded. “I better slip my nap in while I can.”
“I might eat before I get mine. That chicken divan was really good, and I think there might be a piece of apple pie left if Gramps didn’t eat it in the last two hours.”
“Let me know if he did. I think there’s some left over at my house too.”
“I knew there was a reason I kept you around,” he joked.
“I know. My gram. She’s my male magnet.”
With that, she got out of the car, and he was still laughing as he drove to his cottage.