The McEllis Boys

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Seven

"So when is our poker game going to start?" Ian asked as he flopped down on the opposite side of the couch from Nicole and nearly made her fall sideways.

She glared at him and shook her head, "What are you talking about?" she asked.

She'd been on the phone all day with various school big wigs she knew in order to get herself on the substitute teacher call list for Monday. It wasn't a glamorous job but it would pay the bills and there were enough little schools in the county to give her work nearly everyday.

She and Cavanaugh had gone with Bethany earlier in the day and gotten all of her belongings and Nicole's horses from Silas's house. Nicole had a barn and corral behind her house but had let her horses stay at Silas's because many of the parents she had babysat for had been afraid the horses might injure their children. Now that that was no longer a worry Nicole had been happy to bring her babies home.

"When we were at the bar the other night you said that you'd arrange for us to have a poker game tonight," Ian reminded her.

"Was this before or after you rang up a one hundred and fifty dollar tab and got in a bar fight?" Nicole asked dryly and Cavanaugh chuckled from the arm chair where he was reading another gun magazine.

Ian pretended to think hard for several moments and then offered her a charming grin, "Before."

"I guess we could play. Why don't you round everyone up and ask if they want to," Nicole replied and Ian nodded happily.

"HEY EVERYBODY!" he yelled loudly without moving from his spot on the couch. "COME TO THE LIVING ROOM!" Nicole winced and shook her head as she pushed on her now deaf left ear several times.

"Thank you, Ian. I could have done that." she said with a roll of her eyes.

"Then why didn't you?"

Nicole resisted the urge to smack him, "Three years old. I swear you have the maturity of a three year old."

"He needs a good woman to make him grow up and settle him down," Cavanaugh said with a grin, knowing the reaction his commitment scared brother would have.

"Hell no! All I need is a woman to ease this throbbing in my..."

"Ian!" Nicole exclaimed.

Ian grinned sheepishly when he realized Madeline had just come into the room with her mother, "In my head," he said quickly. "This throbbing in my head." He made it a point to rub at his temples as if they were hurting him and Cavanaugh and Nicole both laughed while Madeline walked to him and crawled up on the couch beside him.

"You should take some medicine to stop the throbbing," she said in a very matter of fact way.

Ian frowned at the pain in the butt little girl, "Do they make that?"

"What was all that yelling about?" Andrew asked as he and Bethany came in from outside.

"Ian being helpful," Cavanaugh replied.

Nicole stood up, "Ian would like for us all to play some poker. Would some delivery pizza and cards sound good to everyone?"

"Poker? Real poker? Oh yeah, that sounds good to me!" Andrew exclaimed as he bounced up and down. "I ain't played poker since 1875!"

"I don't know how," Bethany said quietly.

Andrew stared at her as if she had just said she didn't know how to walk, talk, eat or some other basic function of life, "You can sit with me and I'll teach you," he promised her as he put his arm around her. "You can learn from the master."