The Calico and Cowboys Romance Collection by Mary Connealy

Author:Mary Connealy [Connealy, Mary]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781683225379
Publisher: Barbour Publishing, Inc.
Published: 2016-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 3

Laura wasn’t sure but she might now be a hostage.

They just wouldn’t let her go home.

Daniel acted like he needed her as a human shield.

Grace acted like Laura was part of some mysterious puzzle that involved making her hoyden sons behave.

Ike acted like she was handy to cook and clean and that was part of being a nurse…which it most certainly was not.

“Why doesn’t Ma come out?” The littlest boy was named Zeb. And he seemed to need a mother’s care. But then Laura had pulled him out of the fireplace twice now—he didn’t need a mother’s care so much as he needed to be surrounded by a cavalry division.

Climbing up the chimney was a mighty poor idea even when there wasn’t a fire. And there was a fire tonight.

The rest of the boys, well, it was hard to explain what they were doing. They seemed to be testing each and every inch of the house looking for something to break—and that included each other’s bones. Fortunately there wasn’t a piece of glass in the whole house. And though Daniel appeared to be a madman when it came to his wife having babies, Laura had to hand it to him, the man knew how to build things sturdy.

“She just had a baby, Zeb. She needs to rest.” Laura patted him on the back and a small puff of dirt rose up. Laura didn’t mention it, afraid Ike would decide part of being a nurse was doing laundry and giving baths. And she didn’t mind doing laundry and giving baths, but it sure enough wasn’t a nursing duty and she really wanted to go home. Tomorrow night was Christmas Eve and she wasn’t spending the holiday in the Reeves’ Lunatic Asylum.

She was planning to have a long, hard talk with Beth about sending her out here.

“She’s never rested before,” the next biggest boy said.

“Nope,” this was the biggest one—not counting Ike. He was taller than Laura and old enough he might well know how Grace behaved after giving birth. “She just pops out those babies and gets right back to feeding us.”

“But that’s not good for her.” Laura remembered Ma staying in bed for about a day, maybe two. Then she’d gotten back to work, though she’d tended the baby and left more to Laura when she had a newborn. “A woman should rest after she’s had a child, she should stay in bed for a week.”

Might as well set the number high in hopes of getting a day or two for poor Grace.

“And did you say it’s a girl?” One of the middle boys asked that—possibly for the one hundredth time. Apparently, the truth was just unbelievable.

Laura herself was tempted to go in and change the little one’s diapers just to make sure.

Twelve sons in a row. Six of them rampaging through the house—well, five. Ike wasn’t exactly rampaging. At least not much of the time.

Daniel had gone outside for quite a while. Laura hoped the man didn’t stagger into a creek and drown.

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