Chapter 6
When Cal woke in the morning there was a beautiful face staring into his. Through thick plastic glasses. There was also an old red-haired doll propped against his chest as if it belonged there.
A doll wrapped up in a blanket, a toy baby bottle next to it. And was that a toy diaper, too? He could handle feeding a toy doll, of course, but…should he draw the line at toy diapers? It was something to consider.
“Good morning, little bit,” he said softly, not wanting to frighten his new little friend away. “Are we playing before breakfast?”
She just nodded very seriously—looking like Auggie, of course. Most of them looked more like Auggie than he would have expected.
She was about three and a half, he thought Em had said last night. She didn’t look it. She was very small. No surprise; he’d seen her older sisters, after all. At five-six or so, Junie was the tallest.
Em had called Junie Gigantore last night. Junie had just called her an evil little garden gnome a moment before, though. The sisters liked to snip at each other.
“You be the cousin. The cousin don’t yells,” the preschooler whispered.
“I won’t.” he whispered back. He’d played with dolls when he was fourteen or fifteen, on Clancy’s orders. But only when his father had paid him to babysit. Clancy probably hadn’t been any older than this beautiful little Tyler in front of him.
This little urchin had Em’s long strawberry blonde hair, and her face was very much like Auggie’s.
The eyes, behind the glasses, moved back and forth repeatedly, in a rhythm he’d seen before.
Her older cousin Nikki, he believed. At the diner.
She resembled Nikki a great deal. “Are we playing house today?”
There was a pink toy stroller there, too. She’d been busy while he’d been sleeping.
“I be Mommy like Auggie. You be the cousin.” It came out ‘da’cudden’ and took him a moment or two to figure out.
“And what exactly does a cousin do?” He cuddled the doll appropriately, feeding it the baby bottle as if it was the most serious task he’d ever done. It was a very hungry doll, too.
“A cousin picks you up and gives you hugs and shows you the horsies and the doggies and all the kitties. And feeds baby Mae-Mae while Mommy on the phone. When we at work.”
He could only assume she was talking about the cousin Auggie worked for, Gil. Gil probably had dozens of horses, after all. “I see. I don’t have any cousins. You are very lucky.”
“Yes. You have to feedz her, too. Like this.” She had a baby-food jar and a plastic spoon. She showed him how her doll needed to be fed.
He did exactly what Mini-Auggie ordered him to.
For a good fifteen minutes. The kid had an intense attention span, that was for sure.
He thought she could see him, but probably not very well.
And the child had real control issues. Much like her new mother, he suspected.
She also liked to talk. She told him all sorts of things, especially about kittens.
This one liked kittens. And numbers. She showed him how she could count to ‘furr-teen’.
Three times. He’d only had to help her a little. With the number eleven—each time.
Claudia came out of the guest bathroom in time to rescue him. “Marchlyn Maribelle Tyler, how did you get out here?”
“Me climbed.” She pointed toward the hall at the top of the four-step landing. “Not hard.”
“There is no way you should be able to climb that baby gate. You could have hurt yourself.”
Markie shrugged, completely unrepentant. “Me did it okay.”
“You are as wicked as Em was, aren’t you?”
She just nodded solemnly, then lifted her arms to his sister. “Me hungee, Aunt Claudie. Food now?”
At the words, they all just sort of appeared.
Little girls in pajamas, all different sizes, were just there.
He heard more footsteps, coming from the stairs behind the kitchen.
Em and Junie, also in pajamas, were there, red hair falling down their backs—hair all sexy and tangled, and their faces soft from sleep.
They were some seriously gorgeous women.
Then there she was, the baby in her arms. That mass of red hair was down everywhere. Curling madly. Hell. She usually wore it pulled up. Seeing it down had him frozen right where he sat.
He’d always loved hair like that on a woman.
Cal just about fell off the couch. Her hair reached almost to her waist when it was down like that. He wanted nothing more than to sink his fingers in that hair, and just…hold her still while he did things to her.
He’d start with her mouth and work his way down…
“Are you awake in there, Calloway?” she asked, her mouth forming his name in a way designed to have his gut tightening. “We’re going to make breakfast, then Claudia is going to drive you to your truck. See if she can figure out what happened.”
“Are the roads clear?” He had to get ahold of himself here. He couldn’t stand in her kitchen and drool over her like an idiot. Eventually, she’d catch on.
“Yes. Gil showed up this morning to collect his wife,” Junie said.
“About an hour or so ago. He said it wasn’t as bad as the weather stations had reported it would be.
Sage snuck out so she didn’t wake anyone.
He said he already used his truck to pull yours back into the drive.
He said he saw some deer tracks out there.
Sage thinks maybe you swerved and went off the drive?
But how did you get on our drive in the first place? ”
Good question. The highway ran parallel to their driveway for about an eighth of a mile.
“I don’t really remember. Everything after about four o’clock is a blank.” He ran a hand over his face. He still had a dull headache, but that was about it. “Probably from the headache. But I’ll figure it out.”
He’d had migraines back when he’d been in high school.
Sometimes, he’d lose a few hours. But he’d never had problems with them as an adult—especially when driving.
And he’d always been able to tell hours ahead when one was coming.
He wouldn’t have been driving if he’d thought for even a moment that he’d be getting one.
He supposed there was always a first time.
They’d flared with stress back then—well, he was under stress lately now, too.
It was one possible explanation.
Then Auggie and her sisters, and his, got to work making breakfast for the inmates.
Cal showered in the downstairs bathroom.
Gil Tyler had left him some sweats and a T-shirt to wear.
It galled; he’d admit it. He would probably never like that particular Tyler.
But he appreciated the clean clothes—and the fact that Gil was the same size.
The shower cleared the rest of the clouds from his head.
He could at least think clearly. There was that.
He could now be rational where that particular female creature was concerned.
By the time he was finished, he was just in time to…set the table.
Claudia was grabbing plastic place settings and recruited him to carry. “Deal is, you eat here, you work for it. It’s the house rule. Otherwise, it would be chaos.”
He could handle that. He had a little helper—Tobi, the lisper.
She seemed particularly attached to Claudia.
She looked mostly like Junie, but she had Auggie’s hair and Em’s smile.
And the hair flew everywhere, just like Auggie’s, even though he thought there were some braids trying to tame Tobi’s back.
Most of the girls looked like Auggie in some way. Though one was a carbon copy of Em—the one who liked romance novels and kept eyeing him suspiciously. And the one just below her in age looked a great deal like Junie, but with Em’s hair color.
The quiet teenager, though, she was Auggie all over again. Especially when she smiled. Which wasn’t very often. As was the baby, except for that hair. Well, the color of the hair was Junie. The curls…pure Auggie through and through. The girls were beautiful and a bit wild—and utterly hilarious.
He took the same seat as the night before.
Claudia took one near the end. And just like the night before, Auggie and her sisters took care of everyone over eggs and bacon and fruit.
He hadn’t had that kind of family mealtime since he’d been in college and home to visit.
He’d missed it. Maybe it was time he admitted that.
Halfway through breakfast, someone knocked on the door.
Junie answered it—to reveal Cal’s brother. Cadell looked at him. “I just got your text; you okay? I saw your truck on the side of the drive. No damage, that I could see.”
“Great. Now we’ve really been invaded. So not part of the breeding stock plan, so if that’s on anyone’s mind, just forget it,” Em had to say. Cadell and Em tended to explode at each other whenever their paths crossed. They always had.
Auggie stood and smiled at his brother. Cal saw the appreciation in Cadell’s eyes when he saw the elder three Tyler daughters and what they were dressed in.
Auggie smiled at Cadell, a practiced expression of welcome from probably years at the diner on her face.
“Please, Cadell, come in. There is plenty, if you haven’t eaten.
Girls, this is Aunt Claudia’s other brother, Cadell.
Cadell, this is January, Jules, Avril on this side.
That’s Tobi next to Claudia, and Markie right here next to your brother.
The baby is Maeya, but we call her Mae-Mae. ”
“I think I just stepped back in time here. You girls look just like your big sisters. Just as beautiful as they were—are—too.” Cadell smiled.
Their mother had ensured they all had impeccable manners, at least. “I’m just here to rescue Cal.
I didn’t realize Claudia beat me to it. But if I was my brother…
I’d want to stay right there next to you, Auggie. It’s the hair. Absolutely gorgeous.”
“Cut it out, Cadell,” Cal told him when Auggie’s cheeks reddened. Hell. What was his brother doing?
“I stopped here last night on my way home from Cheyenne because of the storm. I stayed to give Cal a ride.” Claudia took it upon herself to make Cadell a plate. Junie grabbed him the extra chair out of the corner. And they just made room. Like his brother was perfectly welcome there.
The preschooler, Markie, leaned toward Cal. “Is he goods, Mister Cow-way? Like a cousin? He no yells?”
Mister Cow-way. Well…close enough, he supposed.
“He’s very good, I promise,” Cal told her, his damned soul hurting that one so young would be so afraid of a man.
Would have learned so young to doubt her own safety.
“Cadell doesn’t yell at all. Or he’ll get in trouble from Aunt Claudia.
And me, because I’m the oldest, like Mommy Aug.
And I won’t let him yell or be mean to anybody. I promise.”
“Okay. He can stays then.”
“We sure Cow-way won’t takes Mommy Aug or Em or Junie away from us?” Tobi asked Claudia.
He was starting to remember which girl was which. They all looked alike, but they didn’t all act alike. Far from it.
“I promise. I’d know where to find him, anyway, even if he did take Junie or Em or Mommy away. Since Clancy lives with him, already. He’d just take them to Clancy’s house,” Claudia told the little girl who was scooting closer. “He’s my brother, too.”
“A brother is a boy sister, with a penis, I remember.”
Cadell started coughing at that.
Cal just looked at Auggie and her overly calm face, and grinned.
The queen of the madness—that was what she was.
“I can say I’ve learned one thing from this adventure of mine,” he told her, handing her the bowl of applesauce someone had sat out for the baby.
“Oh, just what is that?”
“That Tyler sisters are definitely never boring.”
Auggie shot him a smile, one that was powerful and seductive, as she leaned forward a little. “That, Cow-way Grady, we are definitely not.”
“Mommy Aug?” the little lisper said. “What’s breeding stock and why does Em want to keep Aunt Claudia’s brother to be it?”
Well, he was definitely going to enjoy hearing how she explained this one.