Finding Her

Chapter 6

After that, they ate in peace, well, as peaceful as two drinks 'accidentally' spilling on Emma can be, we clean up and head back outside.

I watched them play tag for some time, while keeping a close eye on Sam. He is the trouble maker out of the bunch. It can be amusing though watching him try and talk his way out of trouble. They all got along nicely and included everyone. Their ages aren't that far apart. The oldest, Evan, was nine and the youngest, Anna, was five. Everyone else was somewhere in between them with most of them being six or seven.

After watching them for about fifteen minutes, I went back inside to get them something to drink to cool off. One thing I know they all like is strawberry lemonade. One of the only things they can all agree on. I prepared a pitcher, grabbed some glasses, and put everything on tray and headed back outside.

"SAM!" I hear as soon as I open the door. I should have known better than to leave them for five minutes. Emma, the one who got the spilt drinks at lunch, had mud all over her face. The culprit, was of course, Sam who had a big handful of mud in his hand.

He must have found the hose while I was inside making lemonade, and dragged it out to a pile of dirt. Little boys I tell you.

"Grace. Look at what Sam did to me." She runs up to me with a tear in her eye. I bend down to her level and wipe the tear away.

"It's okay Emma. It's just mud and it'll wash right off. Besides, I think you should give Sam a taste of his own medicine." She tilts her blond head to the side.

"What do you mean?" I lean in to whisper in her ear so the other kids can't hear me.

"I think you should throw mud back at Sam." I lean back and look at her. She has a big smile on her face, before running off as fast as she can.

She scoops up a handful of mud, gives a ferocious battle cry, and flings it as hard as she can at Sam. It hits him on his shirt, and a little splattered on his chin.

"What was that for." He doesn't seem mad, just confused as to why Emma would throw mud at him.

"You threw mud at me first, and Grace said I could." She crosses her arms with a smug grin plastered on. Every single kid turns to look at me like I'm some sort of alien. This is probably another thing that makes me a bad sitter. 

Before I can even open my mouth, I feel something cold and wet on my stomach. I look down, yep, definitely mud. Brown, cold, wet and stickyish. My gaze immediately goes to Sam, who once again, is the culprit.

I do the only thing acceptable, I throw some mud back at him. It got on the back of his shirt because he turned to scoop a big handful. He more of flings it in my general direction, which was a bad move because it lands on a few other girls who squeal in disgust.

Each girl who was hit, gets their own handful of mud and flings it back. And that is how the mud war started.

We started out as every-man-for-himself, to being divided into two teams of boys versus girls. The girls had a slight advantage by have two more people than the boys do.

By this point, everyone is covered in mud from head to toe. It was when I was thinking how how much this is going to suck to clean up, when it happened.

Sarah was aiming for Daniel when she accidentally hit me in the back. The boys, of course saw this. Each one of them got an evil glint in their eyes that only means one thing to little boys. Trouble.

"GET HER!" They all screamed and pointed at me. I started running away from them flinging mud behind me as I go. They quickly strategized and broke off into little groups trying to corner and surround me.

Since there's only one of me and thirteen of them, it didn't take long for them to surround me completely. I'm at a disadvantage because I ran out of mud to throw and can't get to the pile without being trampled. I tried dodging the mud coming at me as best as I could.

I closed my eyes for, I swear, one second, and the next thing I know is I'm on the ground with thirteen little kids on top of me, every single one of us caked in mud.

"I surrender!" I shout over all the happy screaming. They leap off of me, give cries of victory and high five each other and the boys give chest bumps. At least they are all getting along now.

I slowly inch away from them, run to the mud pile, scoop some more up, and quickly fling it at them  before they know what hits them.

It's in the midst of round two when everything changes. I was so distracted that I didn't hear the two sets of footsteps, I didn't smell powerful scent coming from them, I didn't see the two people standing on the patio leading into the house, and I didn't feel the tingles on my back when someone is watching you.

"What on earth is going on here?" And just like that, we all look over the front of the backyard where Cody and a stranger was standing.

Except he isn't really a stranger, at least not to me. No he is something else entirely.

He is my mate.

Hurray for updates! It's just a quick little chapter to get the ball rolling. I've been meaning to update sooner, but I had a few different ideas on how I wanted them to meet.

Shout out to sirieli for her comment.

I've been thinking of having the next chapter in Grace's mates POV. Thoughts?

I'll try to update within the week because I have off from work (Thank the Lord) and am going on vacation! No promises though because this is a very important vacation and because life is giving me loads of plot twists. The kind that comes out of nowhere and hits you in the face with a baseball bat.

As always give me your thoughts good or bad. It helps me develop as a writer and ideas for future chapters.

Au revoir

LadyPeaches01 🍑