Blinding Trust (Mitchell Family #7)(2)
Author: Jennifer Foor

Cammie was wearing an outfit that was both cute and an eyesore. I was positive that she must have picked it out herself. Josh was playing on the floor with his cousin Jax. They had a Lego tower over two feet high. I followed the southern accents to the kitchen, where Colt and Conner were already talking about work.

Colt smiled when he saw me walk into the room. We didn’t get a lot of alone time with the kids always running around. Usually, the girls would end up in bed with us. There had even been several times where we ended up having our alone time in one of their twin beds. For my tall husband, it wasn’t the most comfortable of situations.

One thing I never had to worry about was my husband straying. Since he worked at our family’s ranch, he never even went anywhere except on our property. When we went into town, we were always together, with our children in tow.

Even through the years, Colt was still as handsome as ever. Some of his whiskers had a couple grays, but I kept quiet about it. Ty already gave him enough grief about being over thirty, even though we were all hitting that pivotal mark.

It didn’t matter to me if Colt’s whole head turned gray. He would always be the hottest man that I would ever know. He knew it too. When we were alone and I gave him that look, like nobody else in the world existed, he knew what it meant. I was still madly in love with my husband. He was an excellent father and a great partner.

Through the years, Colt had built a beautiful life for us. Our house was perfectly designed for a family, even though we hadn’t even come into Colt’s life yet when he built it. Even through out minor struggles, our love always saw us through. The longer we were married, the more I believed that we could get through anything.

With his arms wrapped around me from behind, he kissed the side of my cheek. “What was wrong with Christian? That was her screaming, right?”

I turned to look at him. “You didn’t run when you heard it?”

“I did, but I saw that you and Ty had it under control. Once I knew who the culprit was, I went back inside. You know how Ty’s sons are.”

“Actually, it was Christian who started it. She told him he had terrible breath.”

Colt made a face, like he wasn’t surprised. “That kid is goin’ to get herself into trouble, if she keeps this up.”

“I told her!” We’d both told her. She just had to tell people the truth, all of the time.

“Maybe you should just teach her to lie,” Conner teased.

I reached over and pushed him. “Don’t even joke about that!”

“You guys joking about shit without me in here?” Ty walked into the kitchen, followed by Amy. Her belly was so cute. I caught Conner giving her a look, like they were the only ones in the room.

I poked him in the arm. “I saw that! Now I know why she’s always pregnant.”

The room filled with laughter.

“She’s just jealous cause she never gets any.” Ty made Conner and Amy laugh, but I could tell the look on Colt’s face without even looking at him. He didn’t like the fact that I talked about our sex life to Miranda and Ty when he was listening in on our conversations. It wasn’t like I directly called him to complain.

“Shut up! Colt and I are perfectly happy.” I was afraid to look at my husband, so I backed my body up into his. Thankfully, I felt his large hands reaching around my waist again.

“I happen to like waking up to a bed full of family.” I think Colt realized how that came out the second he’d said it. But, it was already too late.

Ty was on him like a fly on shit. “Dude, that’s just wrong! I’m out of here!”

Conner covered his face and laughed, while Colt got mad and walked into the living room.

Amy was putting candles in her daughter’s princess cake. She was shaking her head and laughing as well. “He does it to himself, you know. Ty and Conner just wait for him to say the wrong thing and they pounce every time.”

“I know. You’d think after all these years, he’d learn.” I grabbed the matches and started lighting the candles. “Sorry we were late getting here.”

“It’s no biggie. You’re here now and that’s all that matters.”

I followed behind Amy, who was carrying the cake, while attempting to sing ‘Happy Birthday’, so that everyone else would join in. Finally, the chaos that filled the house, turned to give their full attention to the birthday girl. Her face lit up when she saw her cake. She ran over toward the dining room table and sat down in front of the lit up masterpiece.

All of the kids filled in the chairs around the table and got excited that they would all soon be eating cake and ice cream. Our family loved sweets. Jake and Jax had the cavities to prove it.

Noah and Bella came walking inside together, halfway through the song. They were too caught up in each other to care what was going on with their younger cousins. I didn’t mind, since they didn’t see each other very much. Well, not counting talking on their matching iPads, that my mother-in-law had to buy them for Christmas.

The kids were spoiled, all of them. Colt’s mother had nothing else to do with her time. Aside from taking trips with my parents and her own sister, she spent her free time taking the kids different places. She even treated the whole family to two trips to Disney. It was what she lived for, so we didn’t get on her about it.

Even with being spoiled, mine and Colt’s children knew their place when it came to being home. They knew they couldn’t get away with things like at Grandma’s house.

We stood around, getting each child situated with plates of pure sugar. I think only the females realized what was going to happen in thirty minutes. The boys were going to be bouncing off the walls.

When I was growing up, one Ty was hyper enough. Now there were two of them running around. One drop of sugar and they could bring down a house. God, they were so ornery.

Once the kids had finished eating, I helped Amy and Miranda clean up the mess. Ty’s mom took Addy and put her down for a nap, which was nice of her. Through the years we’d built a new kind of relationship. I’d learned to love her and appreciate what she’d always done to protect her child. There wasn’t anything that I wouldn’t do for mine. It sort of puts things into perspective when you have one of your own.

Speaking of parents, mine moved to Kentucky last year after my father retired. I thought they would be more sad about leaving their life here in North Carolina. Instead, they were thrilled to move close to us. When I say moved, I mean they moved onto the ranch.