Blinding Trust

Chapter 1

Savanna

I couldn’t believe that it had been five years. None of us expected Conner and Amy to end up with a house full of kids, probably because we remember how he was before Amy came into the picture. When that happened, everything changed.

They’d gone through a lot to be together. Between her still being married and the fact that they hid their relationship, it wasn’t exactly easy for them.

I think once Amy got pregnant with their first child,
Cammie, was when they knew that they were going to have to start making decisions.

Our family had been through so much, so the drama with Amy was nothing new to us. It was unfortunate what they all had to go through, but they
persevered and came out stronger than ever before.

I was especially sad when they made the choice to move back to Nort
h Carolina. I understood that Conner wanted to be near his sister, so that they could raise the kids together, but I had become so close with Amy that I knew I would miss her terribly.

Lucy and my moth
er-in-law kept me busy, when I wasn’t running after the kids.

Noah was very
athletic. I found myself taking him all around the state of Kentucky. Colt was great about making his games. He even coached him during football season.

The girls usually tagged along. They played so good together and Noah was always a big help.

D
ue to one of his games, we were late getting to Cammie’s birthday party. By the time we got there, the whole family was there, already celebrating. It was great to see everyone together. Actually, it was great to be out of the darn car. You know it’s a long drive when you have three kids that have to pee more than physically possible.

Ty was the first one to greet me, like always. He grabbed me and pulled me into a spinning hug.
“There’s my sexy cousin.” He kissed me on my cheek.

Bella was still wearing her uniform from a game she must have had earlier in the day.
She saw Noah and the two of them wandered off together. It was amazing how close they still were. It was also hard to believe that Noah was almost eleven and Bella was ten. Since coming into our life, Noah had been such a blessing. He taught me how to be a mother and, since his mother had died when he was three, I was the only one he had.

Colt loved all of our children, but I think he shared a special bond with Noah. Maybe it was because they were the men of the house. It could have been that Colt still felt guilty for not being there the first three years of his life. It wasn’t his fault. We didn’t even know he had a child.

Through the years it was almost like I forgot that I hadn’t birthed him myself. I love him just as much as my own girls. Our family just wouldn’t have been the same without him in it.

Ty smacked me
on the butt and grabbed Christian. “There’s one of my pretty nieces. Uncle Ty missed you!” He kissed her on the cheek, too.

Miranda came out of the house and walked up to me, while Ty met Colt on the other side of the truck, to w
ait for him to get out Addy, who was almost four and still had to be secured in a booster seat.

“Hey, cuz.” Miranda always smelled of the best s
hampoo. Since her and Amy’s salon was here at the house, they never really had to leave the kids. Ty’s mother had her own daycare center between Ty’s kids and Conner’s. She seemed to be in heaven when she was with them.

After our hug, I pulled away to look at how beautiful she was. “What is your secret? You look ravishing. Your hair is so shiny.”

She played with her hair. “If I told you, you may throw up.”

“Seriously? It can’t be that bad.”

Ty walked past quickly, spatting out one word. “Cum!”

I almost threw up in my mouth. Miranda started
to laugh as she followed her husband. “Told ya. It’s full of proteins. You should try it.”

Still trying to not throw up, I shook my head. “No thanks!”

Colt cocked his eyebrow, while carrying Addy. “Sick! That’s what they are.”

“Yeah, but there are family and we have to love them, right?”

“Sometimes, darlin’, that’s debatable.”

I loved my mature husband. Ty and Conner still acted like teenagers. Miranda and Amy seemed to like it. After a while, it got on my nerves. Colt and I were settled and content. We didn’t need to act like them to be happy.

Our family was huge. Growing up, mine was so small. Even when I married Colt, his family wasn’t that large. It was now. All of our children had made it triple in size.

I heard screaming and went running toward the sound. A mother knows her own child’s screams.
Colt and Miranda had just got into the house, which was full of people being loud. I knew he couldn’t hear what I was hearing.

Jake had Christian by the ponytail and was swinging her around. He saw me and dropped the bunch of hair. “Hi, Aunt Van.” Just like his father, when he did something wrong, he’d look so innocent.

“Jake, why were you pulling your cousin’s hair. You know that’s not nice!”

“She said that my breath smells like skunk.”

I wanted to giggle. Christian had been on this kick where she told everyone how she felt. Sometimes her truthful confessions were downright offensive. “Well, that doesn’t mean you should pull her hair. How about telling an adult next time.”

He shrugged and went to pull away, but his father grabbed the collar of his shirt and pulled him back. “Not so fast! Did you brush your teeth, like I told you to?”

“Yeah!”

Ty looked at me and then bent down. “Let me smell your breath.”

The things we do for our children. I watched Ty make a face like he was going to throw up.

“Your breath smells like the dog took a crap in it. Boy, how many times did I tell you to brush your teeth?”

He shrugged again and wouldn’t look up into his father’s eyes.

Ty looked over at me. I had nothing to say, since he was already embarrassing Jake. “Go tell your mother what you
didn’t
do. I’m sure she will have a good idea what to do with you.”

I laughed with Ty as we watched one of his sons pout his way into the house. “That poor kid. You probably didn’t brush your teeth when you were his age either.”

He put his arm around me as we walked into the house. “Even as kids you have to admit that my breath was always fresh enough for you to want to kiss me, Van.”

I rolled my eyes and turned my attention to the house full of family.
Miranda was walking around the living room, talking to her mother, with her hand in Addy’s. We talked or text messaged just about every day and she was just crazy about my girls. I missed seeing all of them, but we all had lives. We still got together often; it was just never often enough.

Cammie was wearing an outfit that was both cute and an eyesore. I was positive that
she must have picked it out herself. Josh was playing on the floor with his cousin Jax. They had a Lego tower over two feet high. I followed the southern accents to the kitchen, where Colt and Conner were already talking about work.

Colt smiled when he saw me walk into the room. We didn’t get a lot of alone time with the kids always running around. Usually, the girls would end up in bed with us. There had even been several times where we ended up having our alone time i
n one of their twin beds. For my tall husband, it wasn’t the most comfortable of situations.

One thing I never had to worry about was my husband straying. Since he worked at our family’s ranch, he never even went anywhere except on our property. When we went into town, we were always together, with our children in tow.

Even through the years, Colt was still as handsome as ever. Some of his whiskers had a couple grays, but I kept quiet about it. Ty already gave him enough grief about being over thirty, even though we were all hitting that pivotal mark.

It didn’t matter to me if Colt’s whole head t
urned gray. He would always be the hottest man that I would ever know. He knew it too. When we were alone and I gave him that look, like nobody else in the world existed, he knew what it meant. I was still madly in love with my husband. He was an excellent father and a great partner.

Through the years
, Colt had built a beautiful life for us. Our house was perfectly designed for a family, even though we hadn’t even come into Colt’s life yet when he built it. Even through out minor struggles, our love always saw us through. The longer we were married, the more I believed that we could get through anything.

With his arms wrapped around me from behind, he kissed the side of my cheek. “What was wrong with Christian? That was her screaming, right?”

I turned to look at him. “You didn’t run when you heard it?”

“
I did, but I saw that you and Ty had it under control. Once I knew who the culprit was, I went back inside. You know how Ty’s sons are.”

“Actually, it was Christian who started it. She told him he had terrible breath.”

Colt made a face, like he wasn’t surprised. “That kid is goin’ to get herself into trouble, if she keeps this up.”

“I told her!” We’d both told her. She just had to tell people the truth, all of the time.

“Maybe you should just teach her to lie,” Conner teased.

I reached over and pushed him. “Don’t even joke about that!”

“You guys joking about shit without me in here?” Ty walked into the kitchen, followed by Amy. Her belly was so cute. I caught Conner giving her a look, like they were the only ones in the room.

I poked him in the arm. “I saw that! Now I know why she’s always pregnant.”

The room filled with laughter.

“She’s just jealous cause she never gets any.” Ty made Conner and Amy laugh, but I could tell the look on Colt’s face without even looking at him. He didn’t like the fact that I talked about our sex life to Miranda and Ty when he was listening in on our conversations. It wasn’t like I directly called him to complain.

“Shut up! Colt and I are perfectly happy.” I was afraid to look at my husband, so I backed my body up into his. Thankfully, I felt his large hands reaching around my waist again.

“I happen to like waking up to a bed full of family.” I think Colt realized how that came out the second he’d said it. But, it was already too late.

Ty was on him like a fly on shit. “Dude, that’s just wrong! I’m out of here!”

Conner covered his face and laughed, while Colt got mad and walked into the living room.

Amy was putting candles in her daughter’s princess cake. She was shaking her head and laughing as well. “He does it to himself, you know. Ty and Conner just wait for him to say the wrong thing and they pounce every time.”

“I know. You’d think after all these years, he’d learn.”
I grabbed the matches and started lighting the candles. “Sorry we were late getting here.”

“It’s no biggie. You’re here now and that’s all that matters.”

I followed behind Amy, who was carrying the cake, while attempting to sing ‘Happy Birthday’, so that everyone else would join in. Finally, the chaos that filled the house, turned to give their full attention to the birthday girl. Her face lit up when she saw her cake. She ran over toward the dining room table and sat down in front of the lit up masterpiece.

All of the kids filled in the chairs around the table and got excited that they would all soon be eating cake and ice cream. Our family loved sweets. Jake and Jax had the cavities to prove it.

Noah and Bella came walking inside together, halfway through the song. They were too caught up in each other to care what was going on with their younger cousins. I didn’t mind, since they didn’t see each other very much. Well, not counting talking on their matching iPads, that my mother-in-law had to buy them for Christmas.

The kids were spoiled, all of them. Colt’s mother had nothing else to do with her time.
Aside from taking trips with my parents and her own sister, she spent her free time taking the kids different places. She even treated the whole family to two trips to Disney. It was what she lived for, so we didn’t get on her about it.