The Mitchell Family Series BoxSet 1-4.5 (108 page)

It was funny, I should have been uncomfortable for being caught red-handed in the closet with my husband, but looking around at the people in the room only made me feel happy. We’d been through so much and no matter what crazy thing came our way, we’d always be family, which was the most important part of life.

Chapter 8

Colt

After the attack of the turkey leg on Miranda’s eye, we managed to have a semi-normal dinner. Of course, the babies were a challenge and ended up being passed around like little sacks of potatoes. There were enough adults to manage them and allow everyone a turn to eat.

As Miranda’s eye continued to redden and swell, Ty went into makeup mode. I don’t think there was a second that his hands weren’t somewhere on or around his wife, and it wasn’t even in a perverted kind of way. We all knew it was an accident, a funny one at that.

Savanna had managed to give everyone a feast they would never forget. Obviously, they could also remember this unforgettable Thanksgiving from the simple fact that they caught us in the closet getting it on. I knew she was devastated at the time, but in the big picture of things, I wanted my wife no matter if she was pregnant, or even covered in food from cooking. It made me happy that the longer we were married, the more I seemed to grow to love her even more.

Since another football game was about to come on, us guys cleared the table like we did every year and then retreated to the living room. Noah and Bella were taken upstairs by my mother-in-law to get cleaned up. Where they got those crazy ideas, I will never know. Sometimes I wondered if Ty slipped them money and ideas just to get to my wife. Since he looked as shocked as I did that his daughter had colored herself brown and attached feathers to her head, I would say that he was left in the dark, at least this time.

A sad Miranda sat with us guys with an icepack over her eye. The funniest thing was that not one person would ever believe she was hit by a stubborn turkey leg. Luckily, they were staying a couple days and it would be healed by the time they went home.

Conner, who always seemed to love this holiday as much as all of us, was preoccupied with texting someone on his phone. He had it on vibrate, so it wasn't bothering us, all except for the constant pulling it out of his pocket. "Who do you keep talkin' to?"

He quickly put the phone back in his pocket. "It's just a friend." I think he tried not to, but he looked over at his sister and she shook her head. Conner smiled but wouldn't say anything else.

"What's the big secret?" I usually stayed out of people's business, but I was intrigued.

Ty leaned forward. "Trust me when I say that you really don't want to know."

"Is it somethin' I should be concern over?" I knew Conner had problems in the past.

Conner shook his head, probably assuming that I was actually thinking the worst of him and I shouldn't have been doing that. "It ain't nothin' like that. I just have this friend that I enjoy spending time with. We're just friends, nothin' more."

"Because she's married." Miranda announced, causing everyone in the room to turn around with shocked faces.

Conner stood up and got in his sister's face. "Just friends. Leave it alone, Randa!" He picked up his drink and walked out on the porch to get away from all of us.

When Conner walked away, we all just sat there speechless. If anyone would get involved with a married person, it would have been Conner. I picked up my beer and headed out of the house to see if I could get some answers out of my younger cousin. I didn't want to pry, it was more to reassure myself that he wasn't going to be shot by some angry husband.

"Want to talk about it?"

"Why, so you can get all pissed at me too? Look there ain't nothin' goin' on that anyone has to worry about. Even if I did want it to, she would never be okay with it. She's just in a real bad situation and doesn't have anyone else she can trust."

"So, is this someone you met at meetings?" I knew that sponsors usually became good friends, but dating someone was highly frowned upon.

"No, since I know you aren't going to get off my back, I will tell you. It's Miranda's boss Amy. I'm not goin' to divulge her personal drama, but let’s just say she is in a very bad way and I am the only one that knows the truth."

"And how did you get to be that lucky guy?"

Conner looked out into the yard and let out a laugh before explaining. "I guess it started when I first moved there. She came over after having a fight with her husband. I happened to be really sick and she sat up with me until I pissed her off. We weren't exactly friends, but a while later, after a night out, I found her in a parking lot all upset. I took her somewhere to be safe and she told me enough for me to be concerned. After that she started confiding in me. I don't think it was because I was ever her first choice, it was just that I already knew."

Conner was concerned about someone other than himself…this was serious.

"I never pegged you as the kind of guy that was just friends with a woman."

He shook his head and laughed. "Neither did I, but even if I wanted somethin' else, it would never happen."

"So, this is the woman that helped with that Heather girl problem?" The drama in the last year between Ty and Miranda and their boys could have all been avoided if that woman from Ty's past wouldn't have set things up to ruin their marriage. Ty had never strayed from his wife and almost lost his family due to some jealous ex.

"Yeah, and that is a whole different story that we need a bottle of whiskey to talk about."

Savanna had already filled me in on what Conner actually did. I have to say, he is either the bravest or stupidest person I knew.

"They're never goin' to forgot what you've done for them." Conner had gone and seduced that woman to get the truth out of her, to save his sisters marriage. I don't know a lot of men that would sacrifice themselves like that, especially one that never seemed to be that happy about Ty and Miranda being together. I don't know what changed his mind, but he and Ty had mended fences and things were back to how they'd always been.

"I made a promise to my father that I would take care of my sister. I wanted to be mad at Ty, but I knew about his plan and that it was all for Miranda and I also saw his face that night. He didn't want anything to do with that stupid bitch. When he called me all messed up that night, I just knew somethin' wasn't right."

"Even if you didn't do that, I think they would have just worked through it. Those two can’t live without each other."

"I live with them. You don't have to tell me. I bought a recliner for out in the barn, so I could get away from them. You have no idea how loud they are sometimes."

We both started laughing.

When I walked back into the house, I had a new opinion of my hard ass cousin. It seemed that him moving in with Ty and Miranda had been the best decision. That man had gotten to a point in his life where he only cared about himself, but after seeing his sister struggle, he threw himself out there and opened his heart to protect his family. The thing with opening your heart is that it is usually very hard to close it back up. Conner wanted to feel love and whatever he did or didn't have with this woman, was definitely changing him.

He needed to be very careful.

Just like every holiday, we all ate until we couldn’t move and after half of us fell asleep in random places; we were all wide awake to play cards. Because we had so many people now, we had to play in the dining room, instead of the kitchen. One deck of cards to play Rummy with just wasn’t cutting it, so our new game was Pinnacle. We played teams and after finally learning all of the rules, started to really have a good time. My mother and Aunt Karen were the best at it, since they played together all the time.

I didn’t care who won the game to be perfectly honest. My whole family was in the house that I built with my father. I could only hope that he was somewhere looking down on us. I wanted him to know that we were okay and that I finally got that family he always wanted me to have. I knew he would have loved Savanna and every time I did something with Noah it reminded me of my father showing me how to do those same things. Holidays are a hard time to spend without the people that we love, but I’ve learned to keep the ones with me close and remind them every day just how important they are to me.

In a few short months, we would be welcoming another addition to our growing family and when I thought about their future, I hoped that they would be as close as I was with my cousins. Noah and Bella were already off to a good start, seeing as they were already the best of friends.

I reached under the table and grabbed my wife’s hand. As her fingers intertwined with mine, she threw me a smile just as I winked. With the exception of a few mishaps, her Thanksgiving had gone off without anyone having to go to the hospital again.  We still had someone with a black eye from a turkey attack, two cousins with chiggers, two little brown painted Indians, and Savanna and I being caught in the closet without pants, to remember how special this year was.

I couldn’t be more thankful.

End of Part 1

Part Two

Christmas at the Mitchell’s

Hosted By: Tyler and Miranda Mitchell

Chapter 1

Miranda

The chaos of the Christmas holiday started on Black Friday for Ty and I. Van had talked us into staying up all night and heading for a late night shop-a-thon. Since she was pregnant and I was breastfeeding, we were the only two that hadn’t been drinking.

Not Colt, Ty or even my brother had ever gone out and experienced what it was like at a popular large store on the day after Thanksgiving.  Van piled us all into her SUV and we headed out. The Three Stooges sat in the back filling the whole vehicle with loud bantering. Poor Van and I needed earplugs to be able to deal with them for a long period of time.

Sure enough, we pulled up to a local superstore and noted the lines of people just waiting for them to open their doors. Most of the people were in groups and some even held flyers and lists of what they were going to make a run for.

Now, I knew that Van was too pregnant to deal with pushy people and I also knew that if anyone even bumped into her, they would have three grown men kicking their asses. I wasn’t worried too much about myself. All three of the guys knew I wasn’t one to take anyone’s shit. People could be rude around the holidays and I had no problem kicking a pervert in his jewels.

We all climbed out of the vehicle and headed toward the crowd of people. Luckily, the guys were too involved in themselves to really notice the tension in the air. They just didn’t get that people were vicious when it came to Black Friday shopping.

The guys continued to fool around, drawing attention from the shoppers around us and even getting a few eye rolls when they were talking about and doing things that seemed inappropriate, like trying to punch each other between the legs and playing the hand slap game.

What grown men still do that?

Scratch that.

My husband still did.

About fifteen minutes after we arrived, we heard cheering as the mob of people started moving. Conner walked ahead of all of us while Ty and I walked behind Colt and Van. I noticed that when Colt got a glimpse of the crazies, he grabbed ahold of his wife and didn’t let her go.

Since Ty and I were in the back of the crowd, he found it to be impertinent to pick out weirdo’s and point to them. For a second I was sure my brother was going to hit him, but he ended up turning around and laughing with him. Our first thirty seconds in the store and two women were fighting over some baby doll. We made our way past them and in the next isle was a tower of the same doll for sale. Ty found an empty cart that someone left sitting and took it for his own. He grabbed as many as he could put in the cart and went running around, passing the two bickering women. They froze as they saw him. It didn’t help that he was acting like a fool running circles around them screaming, “I love baby dolls!”, over and over.

While a security officer approached my husband, Conner made a beeline for the electronics department. I knew my brother and he came for one thing only.

Video Games.

The crowds of people got thicker and Colt wasn’t taking any chances with his pregnant wife. “I think we’re going to grab a few things and wait for outside. The lines are already pretty long.”

With them heading in the opposite direction of everyone else, I felt a tug on my arm and my body began moving past carts that were already full. Men and women of all ages were hauling flat screen televisions in shopping carts and grabbing things off end caps as they made their way to the registers.

“Ty, wait! Where are we goin’?”

He started grabbing random toys as we past them and finally stopped at the jewelry counter. An older woman leaned on the other side. “Can I help you?”

“Yeah, I need to get a pair of earrings for our daughter.”

As sweet as he was being, I knew he could have got something like that any day of the week.

The woman showed him a couple pairs and we made a choice quickly knowing that Van and Colt were outside somewhere waiting on us. I thought it was funny how he was the first person to give up on the crazy idea of shopping.

Ty leaned over the counter in an almost flirty kind of way. “Do you think we could get these few things here at your register?”

“Sure thing.” The woman started taking the items from Ty. One thing caught my eye and I was shocked when I saw it. There was this pink hair cartoon character that Bella loved and I had been checking the internet for weeks trying to track one down.

I looked to him and he winked. “It was just sitting there all by itself. Ain’t that cool, Baby?”

I put my arm through his. “You are such a good dad.”

“Yeah, wait till she wants a convertible or a tattoo.”

Conner’s big head caught my attention and we waved him down. He held up a bag and smiled as he approached us. “Let’s get the hell out of this place.”

We made it about fifty feet and were stuck in a herd of people that weren’t moving. I honestly felt like I couldn’t breathe. Ty turned around and looked at my brother. “Give me a boost, Dude.”

“What? No!”

“Just do it. I have a plan.”

He reluctantly lifted up my husband and held him piggy back. “Make this shit quick, Peckerhead.”

Ty started waving his hands around. “They are giving away a free iPod touch to the first fifty people in the electronics section in five minutes.”

Half of the crowd disappeared like flies on shit, making it easy for us to make our exit.

Our all night shopping spree ended there and I swear that I was so overwhelmed by it that I hadn’t been shopping since.

Van and Colt were laughing as we got back to the vehicle. “You made it out alive. We grabbed two things and someone let us cut in front of them, bless their hearts. I think it was my belly.”

Ty chuckled. “Barely made it out alive. Conner and I had one hand on our wallets and the other on our dicks.”

Van and I spat out a laugh. She couldn’t help but ask. “What for?”

He pointed toward the store, while my brother stood beside him with his hands on his hips. “Did you see it in there? If any of those crazy ladies knew what we were packing, they would be fighting to the death.”

Colt put his hands on his wife’s shoulders. “Should have left that one alone, darlin’.”

She cringed. “You got that right!”