Gideon (Seven Sons Book 7) Read online

  Lillian shrugged. “In his cabin, they keep food available that works for him. The other boys can have what they want, but Frank is still following his diet with him. It might be nice if we did rotisserie chickens or something on Friday nights, so everyone could eat the same thing.”

  “I think I’m going to stick to your tried and true recipes for now. I’m a little nervous about branching out on my own.”

  “That’s fine, but remember you have Claire to help you. This first Friday, I’ll be here to help as well. I know you’re still going to be working. I think you should have Gideon fill in that day, though.”

  “Isn’t Gideon about to be the person running the entire ranch?” Brittany asked, a little surprised his mother would suggest him filling in for her in the office.

  “Well, sure, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t need to work around here. The thing with Gideon is we were always careful never to give him a particular job that he could own. We wanted him to know every single task on the ranch, so he would be a more skilled and benevolent leader.”

  Brittany smiled at that. “I think you’ve succeeded. He can do just about anything.” Her eyes widened. “Oh! I have to get something from the truck!” She rushed out the door and came back in carrying her mother’s African violet. “This thing was my mother’s and it’s been trying to die for years, and Gideon made it bloom for me again.”

  “It’s beautiful.” Lillian smiled as Brittany flitted around the kitchen, trying to find the best place for it.

  “I think the windowsill,” Brittany finally said. “What do you think?”

  “That’s perfect.” Lillian let Brittany admire it for a minute before she showed her the special features in her kitchen. “We have triple ovens, two cooktops…”

  Brittany was overwhelmed with the kitchen, but she paid careful attention and nodded. “I hope you made a book for the kitchen, too.”

  Lillian laughed. “Of course I did. You’re going to be just fine.”

  Brittany hugged her mother-in-law. “Stay close. I’m going to drown.”

  “You’ll swim beautifully.”

  Madison and Kaeden meandered down the stairs then, and Brittany glared at them both. “You’re both going to help around here. A lot.”

  Madison sighed. “I figured since we were part of the family, we wouldn’t have to work.”

  Lillian hid a laugh behind her hand.

  “Really? You don’t think the brothers work? They work harder than anyone I’ve ever seen. So you can work just as hard as they do after that comment.” Brittany glared. “Start helping carry boxes out. They’re making room for our stuff.”

  Both teens immediately got to work as Brittany shook her head.

  “They’re going to need breakfast before school,” Lillian said gently.

  “Got any Pop Tarts?”

  “As a matter of fact, we do!” Lillian went into her pantry and pulled out a box of Pop Tarts.

  “There we go. Instant breakfast. They can eat on the bus.”

  Brittany herself hurried off to work a short while later, saying a silent prayer that Adam and Tiffani had found time to at least start looking for someone else. When she walked into the office, she stopped short. “Who are you?” There was a woman sitting in her chair.

  The woman jumped up. “I’m sorry! You must be Brittany. I was told this was your job, and you were just going to train me. I’m an interim administrative assistant, just here because of the close friendship the GOG has with the McClains. My name is Mildred.”

  Brittany frowned. “What’s the GOG?”

  “Oh, you’ve never heard of us? We’re the Guild of Godmothers. You know, from Everland, Wyoming? Every time we’ve been in a pinch, the McClains have helped us out, so now that the McClains are in a pinch, I’ve been sent to help you. You’ll need to spend the day today training me, but after that, you’ll be free to do your own thing.” The woman was older, with gray hair pulled back into a bun and blue eyes that danced.

  “Okay…Does Adam know you’re here?” Brittany was getting a little more confused by the moment.

  “Yes, Adam was the one who called the guild on Saturday, asking for help. You’re not upset, are you?”

  Brittany shook her head. “Not upset. Just a bit stunned.” She shrugged. “No mind. I wanted to be able to stop working, and this will make it possible. I should be thanking you instead of staring at you like you’re a circus animal.”

  “That would be rather nice,” the sweet old lady said. “Now, show me what you want me to do!”

  Throughout the day, as they chatted, she learned more and more of the guild of godmothers that were all located in Everland, Wyoming. “One of your husband’s dear great-aunts…or is that great-great-aunts? Well, whichever it was, one of them was invited to be a godmother, and she now lives in Everland with us.”

  By the end of the day, Brittany was sure Mildred was ready to take her place. She was a quick learner, and she seemed very excited about helping Adam and Tiffani for a while. “Make sure you don’t forget to place an ad, so a permanent person can take your place,” she told Brittany as she was leaving for the day.

  “I already did. Thank you so much for stepping in to make the transition easier. I wasn’t looking forward to waiting until someone could be found to fill my shoes.”

  “Oh, my dear, no one will ever fill your shoes. You are one of a kind.” The godmother turned back to her desk to straighten it up at the end of the day. Brittany hoped the woman knew to act normal when there were people outside the family there watching.

  Brittany walked in the door at three-thirty, earlier than she usually got off. She wanted to be home when her two miscreant siblings showed up, so they could go to the house and pack up her car with another load. Then she realized it would be much smarter to take a truck.

  She pulled her phone out to call Gideon.

  “Hi there,” Gideon’s deep voice said, and her heart started racing. Why him and no other man?

  “Hi. Did you know I was replaced today?” Brittany asked.

  “No! Is this a good thing or a bad thing?”

  “I think it’s definitely a good thing. I won’t have to work after today. Do you mind if I borrow your truck?”

  “My truck? You know how Texas men feel about their trucks!”

  “I do,” Brittany said with a grin. “I need to bring a load of boxes over from my old house. I can’t fit very many in my car.”

  Gideon sighed. “Let me grab a couple of boys, and we’ll all go in my truck.”

  “All?” she asked, surprised. “Can we fit six?”

  “I was just thinking about you and me and boys. You know what? Instead, send just Kaeden, and he can help. You and Madison can start unpacking what you have there.”

  “But we didn’t bring anything!” she protested.

  “You didn’t. I made a few trips today. Look upstairs in the master bedroom.”

  The door opened then, and Madison and Kaeden hurried in. Madison put her books down and headed into the kitchen. They were already a little too at ease there. “Sounds good. They just got home. I’ll give them a snack and then send Kaeden out.”

  “Love you,” Gideon said softly before hanging up. He didn’t give her a chance to reply, which was good, because she wasn’t sure she could respond the way he wanted. She loved him, but…there was still something holding her back.

  After she put her phone away, she followed her siblings into the kitchen. “Snack fast. Gideon is coming to get you in a few minutes, Kaeden. He’s grabbing two other boys, and the four of you are going to load boxes into his truck and bring them back. Madison, you’re going to help me unpack the boxes he’s been shuffling back and forth all day.”

  Madison frowned. “We were in school all day! We’re tired.”

  “You’re helping.” Brittany didn’t mention she was tired as well. It wasn’t easy to train a godmother to do office work all day!

  Chapter Eight

  Gideon pulled up in fron
t of the house ten minutes later, and he jumped out, followed by Hunter and Nick. When Nick walked into the house and saw Brittany, he frowned.

  “Where’s Lillian?”

  Brittany’s eyes met Gideon’s. “She moved into another house across the ranch. Gideon and I are living here now with my brother and sister.”

  “You kicked Lillian out of her house?” The anger on Nick’s face was obvious, and Gideon rushed over to put his hand on his shoulder, sending him calmness. “Why?”

  Gideon answered. “In my family, the youngest son inherits the house the day he marries. We waited a couple of days, and we asked them to stay, but they said they had to follow tradition. So we’re here at the house, but Lillian and Peter are still here on the ranch.”

  “Does that mean no more Lillian days?” Nick’s voice was soft. His days with Lillian in the past six months had been some of the happiest of his life.

  “Not necessarily,” Gideon said. “Now there will be Brittany days, and I think Mom would do one last Lillian day with you, if you wanted.”

  Nick sighed. “I want to. I’m going to miss her!”

  “You’re still going to see her,” Brittany protested. “I am not taking her place. I’m very fond of Lillian myself.”

  Hunter looked back and forth between the others. “It’s really going to be strange to come to this house and not have her rush out of the kitchen to see us, telling us that we’re her boys.”

  “Who’s going to bring us cookies every Tuesday?” Nick asked.

  Brittany frowned. “I won’t be able to tomorrow, because I have to unpack my things, but by this time next week, I’ll be a cookie-baking maniac.”

  “Gotta be a maniac to marry Gideon,” Hunter said, a grin on his face. “You got a Hunter-friendly snack in your kitchen, Brittany?”

  “Let me go check.” She knew about Hunter’s stomach issues, as did everyone else on the ranch. She went into the pantry to dig for something. She pulled out a bag of pretzels. “Pretzels are fat free.”

  Hunter grinned. “I’ll take some to go, please.”

  Gideon shook his head. “If he hadn’t been so sick, I don’t know that I’d let him steal pretzels.”

  “It’s not stealing when they’re given with love.” Brittany stuck her tongue out at her husband as she found a Ziplock baggie and put a generous portion of pretzels into it.

  Hunter grinned as he took the baggie. “Do you have any bottled water? Lillian always kept some for me.”

  Brittany hurried to the fridge and found some, handing it to him. “Do you want anything, Nick?”

  “Not if you haven’t had time to make cookies yet. Next week, though, right?”

  “I promise, I will bake cookies next week.” Brittany couldn’t believe how set in their ways these boys were. She knew their backgrounds, and before they’d come to the ranch there had been little for any of them. They knew where the good food on the ranch was kept though. In Brittany’s commercial refrigerator.

  After the men had loaded into the truck, Brittany turned to Madison. “It’s time for us to get upstairs and get to unpacking. The faster we get it done, the sooner we can rest for a minute or two.”

  Madison groaned. “I thought living on the ranch was going to be an endless parade of teenage boys in and out of the house. These are all the boring boys I already know from school!”

  “Life is really rough, isn’t it?” Secretly Brittany was thrilled that Madison’s hopes for new boys had been squashed. She needed no more boys in her life.

  Gideon noticed that Kaeden wasn’t thrilled about having to work by the way he stomped toward the truck. His emotions were screaming that it wasn’t fair as well. “It’s your stuff, Kaeden. We’re willing to help move it, but you have to be there. What if we don’t get the stuff you want?”

  Kaeden just shrugged. “Wouldn’t be the end of the world.”

  “I stayed at your house all weekend, and your sister and I spent a lot of time making sure everything was packed up and ready to move. We didn’t waste all that time, did we? Because I’d be thrilled to take your boxes to the thrift store.”

  “You can’t do that! You’re not my dad.”

  “No, I’m not your dad. I’m not Nick or Hunter’s dad either, but they’ve learned to respect me, and you will too. Now, which way do you want it? Do you want to help move your stuff? Or do you want the three of us to take it to the thrift store on our own?” Gideon wasn’t bluffing. He didn’t believe in bluffing. Once he made a threat, he’d follow through, no matter how upset a boy became.

  “I’ll help. But you can take my sisters’ stuff to the thrift store.”

  “It doesn’t work that way. We will all get your sisters’ stuff first, and yours last. You have heard the saying ladies first, right? We practice that here on the ranch.”

  Kaeden glared at him. “Everyone talks about how cool you are, but you’re mean!”

  For the first time since they’d gotten into the truck, Nick said something. “You know, I’ve only been on the ranch for about five months. Maybe a little longer. And I’ve noticed something. The brothers expect us to work hard, but they always thank us for the work we do, and they work right along with us. Not to mention we get a weekly paycheck for the hours we work.”

  “What do you know?” Kaeden asked.

  “A lot. Let me tell you something, Kaeden. We’re treated like real human beings on this ranch. Maybe you’re used to that where you come from, but for most of us boys, that wasn’t the case. I’ve been treated better by the strangers that took me in on this ranch than I’ve ever been treated in my life. For the first time, I look forward to getting up in the mornings, so get that chip off your shoulder, and get ready to pull your weight. The ranch is awesome, and none of us are going to let you turn it into something less than it is.”

  Kaeden stared at Nick, shocked into silence.

  Gideon gave Nick a mental high-five, planning to talk to him later about what his words meant, and how much maturity they’d showed. Nick’s past was something he’d finally opened up about, and they were all thrilled, because until he admitted what had happened, the healing couldn’t happen. And Nick needed healing more than most.

  He pulled into the driveway, and Kaeden was the first out of the truck, hurrying into the house. Gideon understood that it was the only home the boy had ever known, and this was rough for him, but he also knew that he was in the best place for any of them.

  Gideon clapped Nick on the shoulder as they walked toward the house. He said very softly, “I’m proud of you.”

  Nick’s face brightened and he stood taller, walking with a bit of a swagger. “I’ll do all I can to help.”

  “I know you will.”

  Gideon looked over his shoulder at Hunter. “How’re you feeling? I’m a little worried about you since you ate.”

  Hunter grinned. “I had fat-free stuff. And even when I don’t, and I’m not super careful, that stuff Maria gave me is really helping. I hate drinking it, because it does taste like dirt mixed with mint, but it really does help my stomach.”

  Gideon started to put his hand on the boy’s stomach to gauge the truth of what he said, but he held back. Daniel had been working with him, and Daniel was a full-fledged doctor. There was no reason for the ranch’s resident Gideon to check him out.

  Thirty minutes later, the truck was loaded and they were on their way back to the ranch. Most of the conversation in the truck was the boys talking about school. “I got an A on my Algebra test today, Gideon. For once I wasn’t spending every class in the bathroom,” Hunter said. “No one can believe the change in me at school.”

  Gideon rolled his eyes. “We kept telling them you weren’t faking!”

  “I know you did. They didn’t want to believe it.” Hunter grinned. “I’m a troubled teen, after all.”

  “Yeah. Right. You’re anything but a troubled teen.”

  Kaeden looked at Gideon. “But they’ve all been in trouble. Isn’t that why they’re here at the
ranch?”

  “Some of them have. Some of them are here because they lost their parents. All of them are here because the outside world failed them somehow, and they needed love—the kind of love the McClains specialize in.”

  Kaeden looked back out the window. “Do you really believe all that nonsense?”

  Three voices answered him, filling the truck. “Yes!”

  “Brainwashed,” Kaeden mumbled under his breath, shaking his head.

  Gideon ignored the boy, knowing he simply didn’t understand the ranch. He’d been in a rougher spot than most of the boys when his parents had died. If it hadn’t been for Brittany, there was no telling where he would have ended up. Of course, Kaeden didn’t even think about thanking Brittany for sacrificing for him. She’d had a full-ride scholarship to SMU that she’d turned down so she could raise her siblings. And they only complained to her. He needed to find a way to remind them that they were fortunate to have her.

  Brittany hated that Gideon was gone most of the evening. When he finally got home, it was past ten. Sure, he’d brought several loads of boxes with the boys’ help, but she’d wanted his time as well.

  She was in the kitchen, heating up supper leftovers when he came in, and she turned to him. “Maybe we can find a godmother to take over your role with the boys so I can see you on occasion.”

  He chuckled. “Sorry. I work long hours, and I always have. Now that I’m married and about to take over the ranch, they’ll find someone to work with Frank. Or maybe Lani will want to take my place. I don’t know if it’s been discussed.”

  “But you won’t always work these hours?” she asked. She already felt like a nagging wife, and she was sure they were supposed to be married longer than three days before that happened.

  “No, I won’t always work those hours. And I’ll do most of my work from the study here in the house, just like Dad did.”

  “Good.” She handed him a plate of food and followed him to the table. “It’s so weird that I won’t be needed at work after today. I thought I’d be there for at least another month.”