Wrapping Up (Novella) Mitchell Family 4.5 (Wrapping Up Novella 4.5)

by Jennifer Foor

  Since we obviously couldn't fit a live pony in our closet, Conner was helping Ty hide Scotch out in one of the far pastures until Christmas morning. We did have her saddle and riding gear, which was a dead giveaway that she was getting the pony.

  I jumped out of bed and walked over to help Ty hide the saddle. We kept blankets in the closet and hid the things underneath of them. As far as her riding boots, pants and helmet, well we hid them behind everyone else's presents. Ty and I walked out of the closet and he closed the door just as Bella came walking in the room. Her hair was standing in all directions and her eyes were half open. He walked over and picked her up, only to toss her down on our bed. Bella wasn't exactly in the mood to play with her daddy and she started whining. He plopped on the bed beside her and started tickling her. "You better give me a smile." He loved to taunt her.

  "Stop it, Daddy!"

  "I can't help it. I need a kiss and a smile from my princess right now or I will die!"

  Ty stretched his body out on the bed and played dead. At first Bella laughed at him. She waited a few seconds and he still hadn't moved. She took her hands and pushed him. "Daddy, wake up!"

  When he still didn't move she pushed him again. "Daddy, please wake up."

  With another failed attempt to get her father to move, she leaned over and started kissing him all over the face. I stood there laughing the whole time, while she was really getting worried. Finally, he opened one eye. She put her hands on her knees and smiled and when she did, he opened both eyes. "There's my princess."

  She smacked his arm. "You tricked me."

  He pulled her into his arms and kissed her head. "One day you're going to be too old to give daddy kisses and I'm just trying to get as many as I can before that happens."

  "You're silly. When will Noah be here?" Their special moment had already been forgotten.

  Ty rubbed her head. "Maybe next weekend kiddo. It depends on Uncle Colt. If he has to work late they aren't going to come until that Sunday. Grandma will be here tonight though."

  "Is Pop-pop John coming too?" Ever since their engagement, my mother had been encouraging Bella to call John pop- pop. They were getting married, so it just made things easier in the long run.

  "Of course he is."

  "Yay! He said the next time he sees me he would give me a present."

  Ty pulled a bag out of the closet and walked over to the bed. "Iz, can you go see if Uncle Conner is awake?"

  "He isn't awake."

  I laughed a little bit wondering how she knew that. “What do you mean? How do you know?”

  "Well, I went in his room first and he said to leave him alone cause last night was a rough one."

  I looked to Ty, who shrugged his shoulders, then back down to Bella. "Sweetie, is that what he said?"

  "Yup, and he gave me five dollars to get out of his room and not tell anybody." She obviously didn't understand that Ty and I were the people he was talking about not telling.

  "Go make your bed, kiddo. Mom and I will make breakfast in a minute."

  Ty scooted our daughter out of the room. He shut the door and turned to look at me. "Don't go there, Baby. You know it will get ugly and I don't feel like dealing with the drama. I love ya, but you need to save it for another time."

  I sat down on the bed and shook my head. "There are some things that can't wait."

  "Miranda, I am asking you to back off of your brother. He's an adult. Besides, you don't even know what's going on. If there is something between he and Amy it will come out eventually. For now, you have to believe they are only friends. Give him the benefit of the doubt."

  I wanted to know what was going on between my brother and Amy. They'd been sneaking around for months, claiming they were only friends. Since they both had problems I really did try to stay out of it, but I could tell it was something more. He was playing with fire and I was sure he was going to get burned. I decided to let it go before my husband got all mad at me over it. "What's in the bag?" It was the lingerie bag and I was wondering if he expected me to start trying the things he bought on.

  Ty got that look on his face, the one where he was up to no good. "Promise you will take my side?"

  I was more than a little confused. "Your side? What the heck are you talkin' about?"

  "What I have in this bag is what we're going to wear for the Christmas picture."

  I heard what he said; it just wasn't registering in my mind. "Tell me you're jokin'?"

  "Nope!" He laughed as he pulled out the red fabric items. He spread them across the bed so I could see everything he bought. The first thing I noticed was three pair of men's briefs that were red velvet. The next thing I saw were two ladies outfits. One was a two piece and the other was a one piece.

  "Please tell me the one piece is for our pregnant cousin, because Ty, if you think she is going to go for this at all, there is no way in hell she will wear that two piece."

  He started laughing at me. "I was going to ask her which one she preferred."

  I smacked him on the ass. "You're so bad!"

  He leaned down and kissed me softly, letting his lips linger over mine. "You love it." His kisses could still take my breath away, even as the baby monitor started blowing up with screams.

  "The C.B.s are up!"

  "Must you continue to call our children Cockblocks?"

  We started walking toward the boy's room. "I can't help it. They have some kind of radar that goes off whenever we have any kind of physical contact. It’s like they have an armed guard on your tits."

  "Guess they don't want to share."

  He turned around and held his hand up. "Hold up! They were mine way before they came along. If anyone is sharing, it's me."

  He was so dead serious that I just pushed him out of the way and walked past him. The boys were both sitting up in their beds with real tears running down their cute little cheeks. "Oh my goodness, real tears?" I picked up Jax just as Ty picked up Jake.

  Jax had soaked through his diaper and I could tell because my shirt was instantly wet as I held him against me. Ty mimicked my actions and began changing Jake. "This is way more fun than getting naked with my wife." His sarcasm made me laugh. I knew he was kidding, but I think a part of him was just a tad bit disappointed that our love life was always our last priority, but we had sex a lot more than other married couples. I thought that waiting actually made it even hotter when we finally got opportunities to be together.

  Chapter 6

  Ty

  The next week went by way too fast. Between the decorating and wrapping of presents, we were wiped out. Bella was becoming more anxious by the second and I could hardly wait to show her the pony we had hiding on the other side of the pasture for her. The boys were just boys except I swore they somehow knew that Miranda and I had been extra tired. They kept waking up at all hours of the night for no apparent reason.

  Miranda’s mother had been staying with my parents for the past six days and they were a big help with the kids. The one good thing about them living so far away was that when they visited, they wanted to spend all of their time with the kids. We appreciated the break immensely.

  From what I could see, Miranda kept to her word about leaving Conner’s business alone. In fact, she hadn’t, to my knowledge, told her mother about what she thought he was up to. We were hosting Christmas and had too much to do to worry about where he was spending his time. He hadn’t come home with the shit beat out of him yet, so obviously he wasn’t in that bad of shape.

  Karen and my mother got it in their heads that it was important for us to decorate the outside of the two houses more than we ever had before. Doing that required not only myself, but my dad and John to spend a good half day up in my parent’s attic going through old decorations.

  I felt like Clark Griswold climbing up on the roof to start hanging the ridiculous amount of lights that we had decided to hang. Bella played outside watching our every move. She was too afraid she was going to miss us turning them on to go in the ho
use to play.

  Colt and Van were due in any moment and we had decided to not tell Iz and let her be surprised. Between Christmas and Noah coming, we couldn’t shut her up for even one second to take a breath.

  Colt had gone out and gotten Noah one of those miniature planes. I was kind of jealous, because he had one when he was little and we all wanted to play with it, but he wouldn’t let us. None of us kids understood just how expensive it was back then.

  Colt was over the moon excited about Noah getting the plane. He loved doing things with his son and making sure he made up for the time he’d lost when Noah was a baby. Others may have thought he overdid things at times, but the truth was that I would have done the same thing.

  Since Conner and I were high on the roof, I knew that I could mention Amy without my wife freaking out. “Your sister keeps drilling me for information about your secret romance.”

  Conner stapled another row and shook his head. “There ain’t nothin’ to tell, bro.”

  “She doesn’t seem to believe that.” I wasn’t egging him on; I was being quite honest about it.

  “She needs to stay out of my business. I love my sister and I appreciate everything you’ve done for me, but I don’t need a babysitter.” He sat down where he was working and waited for my next response.

  “This stays between me and you.” I motioned my hands between us. “I think the two of you are cool together. Amy is a nice girl but she’s always been a victim. If you’re being a friend and helping her out, I can’t see any wrong in that. My marriage is important to me, but I know that not everyone has the kind of relationship that I do. She’s needed to leave that asshole for a long time now.”

  He nodded but immediately changed the subject. “So, I got this idea that I think Iz and Noah would get a real kick out of. My buddy back home gave me these fireworks and I found a few still in a box in my room on Thanksgiving. I think we should strap some kind of Red plastic to it and make it look like Santa is leavin’ the roof. We can do it from your parents and let the kids look out at just the right time. What do you think?”

  I thought it was a great idea if we could fool proof it. “What happens if Santa’s plastic sled catches on fire and we watch him go up in a ball of flames?”

  We both started laughing. “Well, maybe we should try it out first before we devastate the kids.”

  “Yeah, if I had to tell Iz that Santa was really me and her mom, your sister would kill me.”

  “You could always blame the whole thing on me, like you did when we were kids.” He cocked his eyebrow and shot a staple at me in the air. It wasn’t close enough to come near me, so I didn’t get the least bit upset. I chuckled when I thought about how many times us kids blamed things on little Conner.

  I laughed again remembering a few of the times we had blamed Conner for things we had done. Like the time that we climbed on top of this old hay barn and fell through the roof. We called Conner in to show him what we’d done and ran away when we saw the adults heading our way. Conner cried his eyes out and we all hid behind some farm equipment just listening to my uncle scorning him. “Remember when you fell through the barn?”

  Conner let out an air filled laugh. “Yeah, you’re still stickin’ to that version of the story.”

  I held up my hands. “What can I say, you were an easy target. You wanted to hang out with Colt so much that he could make you do anything.” Okay, it was mean, but we were kids and Miranda was a girl, so we couldn’t pick on her as much.

  “I remember when you put me on the back of that horse with no reigns or saddle and smacked its ass.” Conner folded his arms across his chest and tightened his face up, as if he were remembering that horrible time.

  Colt had told him if he wanted to be in our gang, he had to ride a horse like a real Indian could. That boy hung on to that horse all the way until it bucked him off on the other side of the pasture. To make matters even worse, the damn horse came back around again and jumped over top of the kid. He balled himself up and screamed until we got to him and were able to steady the startled horse. Looking back, it was a horrible idea and he could have gotten seriously hurt or killed, but at the time, it was freaking hilarious. “Will you ever stop bringing that up?”

  “Bro, I could have died and you both stood there laughin’ at me.”

  I shook my head. “It was like fifteen years ago. Let it go, dude.”

  Conner pointed at me. “I will never forget that shit. You wouldn’t either. I had nightmares and had to sleep with my mother for a damn month. Do you know how embarrassing that was? The worst part was that she kept askin’ me why I was so scared and I was too afraid that if I told her the truth, I couldn’t be in the gang. Hangin’ out with you two idiots meant more to me than my safety.”

  Our conversation was cut short when little drops of ice started hitting us and the roof we were still sitting on. “We better hurry up, or else we’ll both be falling off this roof.”

  In less than ten minutes, Conner and I had finished stringing the lights out. We put up our hoods and climbed down off of the roof. Izzy was still in the yard trying to set up a set of reindeer. “Sweetie, you need to go inside. We can’t let you get sick before Christmas is here.”

  She looked down and stuck out her bottom lip. I had learned when she was trying to get her way. I picked her up and threw her over my shoulders. She started smacking me with her large mittens. “Daddy, let me down.”

  Once I got her carried into the house, I sat her down in front of Miranda and her mother. “It’s starting to sleet and this little elf wouldn’t stop helping us, even though she was going to catch a cold.”

  She stomped her way into the house just as I went back out to finish.

  Conner was on a roll, trying to get everything done before we froze to death. After we had used every strand of tested lights, we stood back and plugged in the main extension cord to see if we had lights, or if all of our hard work was for nothing.

  It was still daylight, but the lights filled the exterior of my parent’s house with bright colors. It was going to look great when it got dark and I was almost glad that Iz had gone into the house. She was going to be so surprised.

  The older she got, the more she enjoyed decorating and Christmas. In fact, our church had a little play they put on the first week of January every year and this year Iz was picked to be the Angel of the Lord. We were so excited to see her saying her little part.

  Much like our farm, Colt had managed to close operations on the ranch for the next two weeks. They weren’t staying with us the whole time, but would enjoy the break from everyday farm life. Our job was never nine to five. I was lucky having my father, Harvey and Conner, but Colt had to rely on his other employees when he and Van traveled. Sometimes he couldn’t trust them for long amounts of time.

  Since we knew our plans for the holiday ahead of time, Colt sent out his last batch of chickens just days before he left and more loads weren’t due in until the first of the year. His cattle were managed by a guy that lived on the far side of the ranch. Since it was winter, neither of us were worried about any produce. Our barley was picked and we didn’t do any more planting until the spring.

  I was excited to be able to spend time together. Colt and Van usually stayed at her parents place in town, unless we had a late night of drinking, in which they would just spend the night. Noah and Izzy always spent the night at the same place. If Noah went with Van then so did Iz and vice versa.

  We saw their SUV pulling into the lane as we were walking in the house. Izzy came running out of the door with no coat. I pointed toward the door. “Get your tail in that house and…..” Miranda was already at the door holding out her coat. “Thanks, Baby!” She crossed her arms and waited for them to come to a stop before we all approached the vehicle.

  Noah jumped out and showed Iz some handheld game he was playing. They started walking toward the house without grabbing a single thing. “Noah, get back here and help your mother.” Colt climbed out and walked t
oward us while Van hopped out and hugged us.

  Noah handed Iz the game and sadly walked back to carry something. I laughed and shook hands with Colt. “How was the drive?”

  “It was fine until we hit the sleet. We saw several cars slidin’ around in town. We were just stoppin’ by because Noah didn’t want to wait and see Bella. Do you want them to stay here or at Savanna’s parents tonight?”

  I looked to Miranda and wondered if she was thinking the same thing as me. The weather was shitty and the roads were getting slippery since the sun was setting. I wanted my daughter as safe as she could be, even if it meant a night without Noah. “I’d rather she stays here tonight.”

  “That’s fine. Noah can just see Savanna’s parents tomorrow. We better get goin’ before it gets worse.” We all gave hugs again and sent them back on their way. I wasn’t worried about Colt getting them there safe. He would drive two miles an hour if it meant his family would get there in one piece.

  Noah and Iz were already in the house and once it was dark enough, Conner and I could show them both what we did for them outside. I walked with my wife back into our warm house.

  Our Christmas was going to be great.

  Chapter 7

  Miranda

  The afternoon that Colt and Savanna came to town, the weather was horrendous and depreciated by the hour. The light sleet became heavy and by the time it was dark there was already a light layer of solid ice on everything. Ty had wanted to take the kids outside to see the lights, but the wind had picked up and just hearing it against the windows made them not want to go outside. It didn’t help that Ty told them Jack Frost was a real person who came after little boys and girls during the Christmas season.

  The two of them ran back in Bella’s room and refused to come out to even talk to me. My mother and John had gone over to Ty’s parents. As it stood, my aunt and Lucy were going to have a delayed flight due to the weather closing down our airport. I was just glad that Colt had made it here before it got too bad.

  We still had three days before Christmas, so they had plenty of time to get the roads and runways clear for a safe travel. There shouldn’t have been anything to worry about.