Page 45 of My Boyfriend Marks Trees
And even praying.
Please, don’t let anyone take my munchkin away.
Chapter 13
Ares could see Charlotte worried.Luckily, Greta didn’t. Then again, they kept her busy. The dumping of snow, the sticky packing kind, made it perfect for building and?—
“Snowball fight!” Athena’s warning before she smacked him in the face with a nice toss.
“To the fort, princess,” Ares shouted as he scooped Greta under one arm and ran for cover.
Greta giggled as they hunkered behind the wall of snow to avoid the next missile. “This is fun.”
“This is war,” he said with a waggle of his brows.
“I’ll make snowballs for you to throw.” She began scooping and patting the cold, wet stuff.
“Good thinking.” As fast as Greta made them, Ares threw them at his sister, who stood in the open, laughing.
Derek, however, glowered.
“What’s up, grumpy?” Athena asked.
“You’re pregnant!”
“And? Doctors say exercise is good.”
“Exercise, yes, not getting pummeled with snow,” insisted her mate.
“Bah, Ares throws like a girl.”
Ares stood. “He’s got a point, sis. Preggos and kiddos should be off-limits.”
“Okay.” Athena got an impish smile. “But do you know who isn’t?”
She whirled and hit Derek in the chest with a snowball.
He glanced at the white spot. “Seriously?”
“Better run for cover, sugar plum, because you are going down.”
Rather than hide, Derek stalked for Athena, who kept grabbing snow and firing it. She managed three tosses before Derek got close enough to grab her and shove snow down the neck hole of her jacket.
“Eek!” Athena screamed. “That’s cold.” When he would have given her a snow job—which for the uninformed involved rubbing snow in someone’s face—she cried, “Uncle! You win.”
“As if there were any doubt.” Derek smirked. “Once the baby is born, we can have the most epic snowball battle. But until then… get your sweet ass in the house and warm that fetus up. I’ll wager Grams has some hot cocoa ready.”
“Cocoa!” Ares lost his snowball-making partner as Greta bolted to go find it, entering the house with Athena.
Derek lingered behind. “You think that fucker is going to show up?”
“I’d say there’s a chance. He’s wilier than I would have thought. He found my business card at Charly’s and hunted down my home address.”
“Sounds more like he got lucky. He won’t know about Grams and Gramps’ farm.”
“Assuming he didn’t follow me. Assuming he doesn’t find out Athena is dating you. Assuming there’s nothing at the farm that would give our location away.” Ares had been racking his brain to think if they might have left a clue.
“You know, I really hate when the bad guys make the first move.”