our house with six kids is a little over the top.”
“Six?” Josh echoed, stunned. Because six was twice as many as he was responsible for now, and after three days, he was beginning to doubt whether he would make it through the summer with his sanity intact.
“I think he just wants an excuse to build a really big house,” Lauryn confided.
“Actually, I’ve been thinking about an extension—” Ryder stopped abruptly when his wife held up a hand.
“I think I hear something,” she said.
“Is it starting?” Kylie asked.
“I think it might be,” her mom said.
Josh could hear it now, too—the drums and pipes that indicated the approach of a band from somewhere in the distance.
“I can’t see,” Hanna said.
“There’s nothing to see right now,” he told her.
But as the parade drew nearer, so did the crowd, edging ever closer to the curb. As a result, the little ones had trouble seeing past the bigger bodies, so Ryder lifted Zachary onto his shoulders and Josh did the same—a little uneasily—with Hanna.
The firm grip his youngest niece had on his hair suggested that she was as uneasy as he was—at least in the beginning. But she giggled when the fire department squirted the hot crowd with a hose and clapped when the majorettes paused in front of them to twirl and spin.
After the parade, he thanked Lauryn and Ryder for sharing their curb space, then directed the girls toward the park—where they spent almost an hour in line to have their faces painted before they went to get ice cream. As they made their way toward a cluster of picnic tables, his gaze avidly searched the crowd for a familiar face. He saw plenty of people he knew, but not the one person he most wanted to see.
They succeeded in snagging a picnic table in the shade—a minor miracle—and Charlotte and Emily mostly managed to finish their snacks before they melted. Hanna wasn’t nearly as successful, and by the time she’d given up on the soggy remnants of her cone, she was covered nose to chin with chocolate ice cream.
“Apparently you’ve got a lot to learn,” Tristyn teased as she set her cousin Andrew’s youngest daughter, Lilly, onto the bench with her ice-cream cone and offered Josh a container of wet wipes.
He hadn’t seen her approach, but his initial jolt of surprise was quickly supplanted by pleasure. And the pleasure grew as his gaze skimmed over her, from the ponytail on top of her head to the skimpy tank top that molded to her curves and short shorts that highlighted her mile-long legs.
“The first rule of child care,” she continued, “is never go anywhere without wet wipes.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” he promised, gratefully removing a disposable cloth from the container and clumsily attempting to remove the sticky residue from his niece’s face and hands. He glanced up at Tristyn. “Where’s your boyfriend?”
He was hoping she would object to the label, but she only said, “He’s helping set up the tables.”
Then, in a not-so-subtle attempt to change the topic of conversation, she turned her attention to his nieces to ask, “Did you guys see the parade?”
They responded enthusiastically and in great detail, their words spilling over one another so that he wondered how Tristyn could understand anything they were saying. As he continued to clean up Hanna, out of the corner of his eye, he saw that Emily had stood up on the bench and was wiggling around.
“What are you doing?” he asked, horror dawning along with comprehension.
“I got ice cream on my shorts,” she told him, attempting to push the offending garment over her hips.
“Well, you can’t just take them off,” he admonished.
“But they’re sticky.”
The glint of amusement in Tristyn’s deep green eyes had him fighting to contain his own smile.
“Let’s see if I can help you get rid of the sticky,” Tristyn offered, taking a wipe from the container and scrubbing at the drip on Emily’s shorts.
Josh appreciated her help. He’d quickly discovered that taking care of three little girls was a lot more work than he’d anticipated—and gave him a whole new respect for his sister. He’d also realized that sharing the responsibility with someone else—with Tristyn—made it not just easier but more enjoyable. He continued to wipe ice cream from Hanna’s hands and face while Tristyn cleaned Emily’s shorts and Lilly sat quietly eating her ice cream.
“There you go,” Tristyn told Emily.
The little girl frowned at the wet spot.
“They’ll dry in just a few minutes,” Josh promised, anticipating her complaint. “Probably less in this heat.”
“Look, Unca Josh,” Hanna implored. “Bawoons!”
He turned to follow the direction her finger was pointing and saw a couple of clowns making balloon animals for the kids who had gathered around.
With a sigh of resignation, he returned the container of wipes to Tristyn. “When are the fireworks?” he asked wearily.
She laughed softly. “Not for hours and hours yet.”
“Do you want to come with us to get balloon animals?”
“Sorry,” she said, not sounding sorry at all. “But I promised Rachel I would bring Lilly right back after she had her ice cream.”
“I guess I’ll see you later then,” he said, letting Hanna tug him away from the bench.
“No doubt,” she agreed.
After the girls each had a balloon animal in hand, Josh steered them toward the Garretts’ usual picnic spot.
His best friend’s family had expanded over the past several years, as Daniel and his brothers and cousins all got married and started families of their own. Now there were kids ranging in age from nine months to twelve years, and his nieces were immediately accepted into the fold.
Although Charlotte was a few years younger than Maura and Dylan, they were letting her hang out with them; Emily was playing on a nearby climbing structure with Kylie and Oliver; and Hanna had apparently become new best friends with Jacob and Zachary. The family wasn’t finished expanding yet, either. Ryan’s wife, Harper, was about six weeks away from her due date and, as he’d learned a few hours earlier, Tristyn’s sister Lauryn was scheduled to add to her family around Christmas.
In fact, looking around at the various couples and groups, he realized that Tristyn was the only one of Daniel’s cousins who wasn’t yet married—and he wondered if the guy she was with planned to change that.
Marco had introduced Josh to Rafe when he arrived, which was how he’d learned that Tristyn’s date was also Marco’s cousin and the head chef at Valentino’s II.
“So you’re the reason that Tristyn canceled
