“We appreciate you taking them.”
“I saw that.” Ron winked at her.
“We’re not talking about that!”
“Oh, that’s right.”
The sidewalks were filling up with people, either standing or setting up chairs along the parade route through the center of town.
Ron cleared his throat and, luckily, changed the subject. “At least it stopped snowing.”
“I hope it snows tomorrow. Just flurries. It’ll make the day even more special if it does.”
Leah spotted Mary Ann making her way through the crowd with Greg and Hannah on her heels. The Brysons always staked out the sidewalk in front of the salon every year to watch the parade. It was tradition.
Her mother-in-law stopped in front of her and held out a paper cup. “Hot chocolate.”
“A hot toddy would be better.”
Marc’s mother made a face.
“I’m kidding, Mom.” Leah muttered under her breath, “But not really.”
“I heard that!” Mary Ann exclaimed as she got Greg settled into his seat with a blanket next to Ron and she took the seat on the other side of Greg. Hannah dropped into the folding chair on the other side of Leah with dramatic flair.
Leah took a sip of the rich hot cocoa and mmm’d, then leaned forward to ask Mary Ann, “Where are the boys?”
“They found Marc walking the crowd. They’re with him doing foot patrol, pretending they’re police officers. He’s going to herd them back here shortly.”
“I’m sure Oliver doesn’t want to miss his father riding in the parade.”
“Dad’s in it every year,” Hannah announced, with two gloved hands wrapped around her own cup. “I’m sure if Liver misses it, he can see it next year.”
“I thought you weren’t supposed to call him that?” Leah asked the ten-year-old version of Amanda.
“He likes it.”
“He doesn’t and you aren’t,” Mary Ann scolded her from a few seats down, sipping on her own hot drink.
“Every time you call him that I’m tossing one of your presents into the fire.”
“Grandpa!” Hannah shrieked.
“Too extreme? Okay, then every time you call him that, I’ll change the name tag on one of your presents to his name. Then he can have all the awesome gifts we bought for you.”
“Grandpa,” she moaned. “That’s not nice.”
“Neither is calling your brother organ meat.”
“Eww!”
Suddenly, Leah had a flashback of when she and Marc first worked together when he was always spouting some sort of pig product.
She had started to think he had a form of Tourette’s. He later confessed he thought of pork butts, ham hocks, and bacon whenever he needed to distract himself from how much he wanted Leah. He wasn’t allowed to have her since he was her supervisor.
Sweet but weird.
Typical Marc.
“Pickled pig’s feet,” she murmured with a smile.
“What?” Hannah asked, pulling her from her memory.
“Nothing.”
“Did they buy me pickled pig’s feet for Christmas?” Hannah yelled. “Gross!”
“Gross!” Greg mimicked her and laughed.
“Hannah, we all still have our hearing, we’d like to keep it,” Mary Ann reminded her.
“The boys get louder than me.”
“There are three of them. One of you.”
Hannah rolled her eyes and huffed, “Fine.” She turned her eyes back toward the empty street that had been cleared of snow for the parade. “When does this thing start?”
“The same time it does every year,” Leah answered her, hiding her amusement behind her cup.
“I wouldn’t even come if Dad wasn’t in it.”
“Yes, you would,” Ron told her. “It’s a mandatory Bryson family tradition.”
“When I’m eighteen I won’t have to come out here and freeze.”
“Will you still be a Bryson when you’re eighteen?”
Her mouth gaped open at her grandfather’s question. “Yes.”
“Then your ass will be in that seat and you will be here.”
“Grandpa!”
“Grampa said ass!” Greg crowed, bouncing in his seat.
Mary Ann sighed. Leah smothered her chuckle by taking a sip of hot chocolate.
Leah turned toward her in-laws. “Thank you for taking the kids, it’s been so peaceful.”
“P-e-a-c-e or p-i-e-c-e?” Ron spelled out.
“Ron!” Mary Ann scolded him.
“Quiet,” Leah corrected her mistake. “Until now.”
She spotted her husband squeezing through the crowd, carrying Jax, and keeping a tight grip on Austin’s mittened hand who held onto Oliver’s.
God, seeing him still made her breath catch. Especially when he was in uniform. And this was why she was pregnant for a third time.
Watching him interact with their sons and nephew would make her eggs shoot out of her ovaries like a machine gun.
“Here they come,” Mary Ann said.
“Here they come!” Greg shouted, excited to see the boys, like it had been weeks instead of maybe twenty minutes. “And Marc!”
Oh yes, here he came...
Her husband’s gaze locked with hers and he smiled.
She decided right then and there, she was taking a nap after the parade so she could jump his bones as soon as he walked in the door after his shift.
His smile wobbled and he lifted one eyebrow at her, like he could read her mind.
She hoped he could. Because that might keep him warm while he walked the parade beat.
When they got close enough, he put Jax down and let go of Austin’s hand so they could run over to her.
“Mommy!” They both tackled her and she guarded her hot chocolate so they wouldn’t knock it out of her hand. “We had funnel cake.”
“You did? Before dinner?”
Austin, a perfect clone of Marc, nodded. “Daddy got it for us.”
“Yes, I see the powdered sugar on your lips.” She lifted her gaze to his father. “Daddy knows what sugar does to you. And Daddy also knows your grandparents are getting you Chinese food tonight for dinner.”
“Daddy also knows what a little sugar does to Mommy,” Marc whispered.
“Is that what you younger generation are calling it now?” Ron asked. “Sugar?” He turned to Mary Ann. “Are we going to have sugar later?”
“I put plenty of sugar in your wet-bottom shoofly pie, honey.”
Ron smiled. Marc made a face. And Leah groaned.
“At least that gives me hope,” Leah said under her breath.
Ron patted her hand. “Yep. If he’s anything like me he won’t have any problems in the future.”
“Christ,” Marc muttered, “Pop, the kids.”
“The kids, what? We’re talking about sugar and pie. Isn’t that what you’re talking about, too?”
“Whoa,” Leah whispered as she saw a big man with an extremely long beard making his way to an empty spot on the sidewalk. He was holding on to a blonde woman with one hand and a matching little girl with the other.
Marc turned his head in the direction Leah was staring to see the six-foot-three, two-hundred-something pound biker heading toward an empty spot not far from where his family sat.