Carolina Wren

Chapter 22

Wren's POV

Dylan's laughter as Nathan attempted the same basket he just made and missed rang out through the street, blending into the sound of a man mowing his lawn down the street and the sound of a slamming car door a few doors down. I'll never get over hearing how happy he is when they include him.

Suddenly, Luke perked up and points down the street, "Hey, look! North must have gotten out early!" Almost immediately, Dylan tensed up, turning to watch as a jeep came up the road and pulled into Kota's driveway.

I'm on my way to stand up and go comfort him when Nathan steps forward, a friendly arm looped around Dylan's shoulders. His voice barely carries to me, but I hear him say, "North's scary looking, but he's not going to hurt you, your sister, or any of us. He may threaten Luke, but that's because he's his little brother. He won't do any real harm. I won't let him, okay?"

Dylan nods and while he doesn't greet North as he comes up the drive, he doesn't back away from him or start hitting him again. Progress.

Instead of diving into the current round of HORSE the boys have going, North heads to me and drops down next to me on the front step. "How are you feeling today, baby?" he asks as his eyes run over my body like he was looking for more injuries.

"My shoulders hurt," I admit. "Carrying around the babies has been a real pain. Not going to lie, I'm looking forward to abusing the seven of you by forcing you to carry kids up and down the stairs."

Without missing a beat, he says, "Don't even hesitate. Where are they?"

"Upstairs napping. They should be waking up soon, though." I let out a yawn, my head aching from exhaustion. "They don't know how lucky they are to have nap times, still."

"Late night?"

"No sleep at all. I couldn't get comfortable." Not a lie, I was too busy being on edge about the possibility of Sheila coming home. It's hard to sleep when every car light reflecting through the window makes you jump and every racoon bumping over a trash can makes you think your witch of an egg donor has decided to come home to finish what she started.

He pats his shoulder invitingly. "Lean your head on me and take a nap."

"North..."

"Wren. Even a fifteen minute power nap can do your brain a lot of good. Just get some rest, baby. It's not like you're going to sleep through the kids waking up and we're keeping an eye on Dylan. Trust us."

He strikes a hard bargain but I'm still hesitating until he grumbles, wraps an arm around me, and pulls me down until I'm resting on his shoulder. It's not the most comfortable position, if I had stayed there for too long I would have ended up with a kink in my neck, but one second I'm closing my eyes and breathing in the musky smell I associate with North, the next I'm sitting up and rubbing at them as Juni cries out for me over the baby monitor.

North is smiling warmly at me as I stretch. "See? 20 minutes and you probably feel a lot better."

"Yeah, yeah," I say sarcastically, but there's no heat in it. I really did need it. "I'd ask you to help me with the kids, but Keegan's going to be confused since you weren't here when he went to sleep. I'd rather he sees you downstairs then up in his space for now."

Instead of questioning it, North stands up with me and calls over to the driveway, "Kota, Luke! Wren needs people to carry babies." They don't hesitate to toss the ball back to Nathan and follow me inside. Their unquestioning reaction to each other when asked to do things is bizarre to me. I've never met a group of people so eager to jump into action at the drop of a hat, rather it's splitting up their lunch or carrying a toddler down the stairs.