Beard Necessities (Winston Brothers, #7)(105)

Suddenly, the sound of a voice sliced through the air, proclaiming, “I’ve arrived!”

All the kids stopped what they were doing at the announcement, their heads whipping around. And then they were off, making a crazy ruckus as they stampeded to the tree line.

Billy leaned around the half-assembled tent and we shared a look. “You’d think he was Santa Claus with the way they act.” He walked over to the tent pole Constantine had dropped in his haste to greet his Uncle Cletus. “I thought he was coming later?”

“I thought so too. Jenn had that thing in Louisville, I thought they’d be here for dinner.”

Billy abruptly dropped the tent pole, quick-walking over to me. “Where is that bag with the hot dogs?”

“Should be over by the cooler. Bea was going to put it in the camper.”

“I’ll do it.” Billy grabbed the bag and took off.

“Don’t get lost!” I called after him.

“I won’t get lost, woman!” he called back.

Now I chuckled and so did Ashley. Through some unspoken agreement, we walked toward each other as the sound of Cletus plus the kids approaching grew louder.

“The first words out of his mouth will be about either panic or sausage.” Ashley rolled her eyes, but her tone was loving.

“Or blueberries,” I leaned in to whisper since Cletus and his group of admirers had almost made it back to the campsite.

My kids all had special relationships with each of their aunts and uncles, and I’d like to think I had a special relationship with each of my nieces and nephews. That said, Cletus and Jenn were on a different level. If each of the seven Winston siblings and their significant other was a day of the week, Cletus and Jenn were Saturday.

Upon seeing Ashley and I, Cletus halted and held up a giant cooler bag with one hand. “You can stop panicking. I brought my sausage—” he held up a paper bag with his other hand “—and Jenn’s blueberry pancake muffins.”

“He ate most of them in the car on the way over.” This dry statement of fact came from his daughter Viola, standing between Roscoe and Simone and holding both their hands while Pavlov—Cletus and Jenn’s aging dog—panted tiredly just in front of them, like he was guarding the little miss.

Cletus made a face at his six-year-old, clearly trying to hide his smile by narrowing his eyes. “Snitch.”

Roscoe laughed, picking up Viola and setting her on his hip. “Leave my Viola alone.”

Meanwhile, Ashley and I stepped forward to get in line behind Dulci to greet and hug a laughing Simone.

“She has him wrapped around her finger.” Simone’s brown eyes sparkled. “I’d be jealous if she didn’t also have me wrapped around her finger.”

Viola placed her hands on either side of Roscoe’s beard and gazed down at him. “I love you, Uncle Roscoe.”

“I know you do. And I love you,” he said softly, nuzzling her nose and giving her a cherishing grin while Cletus watched the exchange with a distracted smile.

“Come on, Cletus. Better hand over that sausage.” After embracing Simone, I walked over to my friend and took the cooler bag from his grip, nearly dropping it. “Goodness, this bag is heavy.”

“Of course it’s heavy.” Cletus’s expression turned suddenly stern. “My sausage is famous for many of its attributes, not the least of which is its substantial length and—”

“Density?” I supplied flatly.

He made a face like my response disappointed him. “I was going to say girth, obviously.”

Roscoe rolled his eyes, as did Ashley, and Simone fought a laugh. Luckily, none of Sienna and Jethro’s older boys were here, so Cletus’s statement went over all the kids’ heads.

Turning from my brother-in-law, I called over my shoulder, “Well then, I’ll put it in the cooler, see if we can’t get some shrinkage.”

“Shrinkage?!” Cletus seemed to sputter before choking on the word.

I sealed my lips shut as Ashley told her brother to calm his farm, and then he said something about an affront to his meat curing skills. Then Roscoe asked why the meat needed to be cured in the first place and made some reference to diseased wieners, which made the kids bust out laughing because, wieners.

It was going to be a long weekend.

And I was looking forward to every minute of it.





The next few days were predictably crazy.

Other than the typical cousin chaos, Duane, Jess, and their kids were still a little jetlagged even though they’d been in town since Wednesday. Beau and Shelly often traveled to see them wherever they were, as did Jethro and his family. We’d met them twice—once in Peru and once in Canada—but world travel was difficult for our big family, what with the kids in school and sports and music and camps over the summer.

Their oldest impressed his cousins by speaking pretty good Japanese. And then later, Jenn arrived and impressed everyone by speaking better Japanese.

As predicted, the kids played, made messes, dunked each other in the stream, built stick forts, and the adults chewed the fat, swapped stories—both old and new. It was remarkable, having everyone all in one place. This weekend always felt like a miracle to me and it always went by too fast.

After dinner on the last night, we set the kids up around their own firepit, putting Ben and Bethany in charge of the fire, and Andy and Liam in charge of the s’mores. The rule was, no more than two s’mores per kid, which meant most of them would get three or four if the older boys didn’t eat everything first.