31)

After a quick shower and a change of cloths, worn blue jeans and a plain red tee shirt, I headed down to the kitchen to find Sara looking up at me with a shy smile as she cut up one of the two chicken breasts on a chopping board.

I would have just cut it up in the glass pan, but I decided to let her do things her way, after all she had a knife.

“Just doing one?”

She nodded as she looked down to start dicing the long stripe of chicken. “One’s enough for dinner. I’ll cook the other one with it for a sandwich or something tomorrow.’

I nodded and started getting out fresh stuff, chips and such. Warned Sara that “Ami wanted to cook so don’t do anything else so you don’t steal her thunder.” as I headed out to round up the other two.

Dinner was nice. Ami set out tortillas and corn chips after cooking up the hamburger, then some cheese, chopped lettuce, diced tomatoes, an onion, and a bell pepper, plus black beans and salsa, as well as the Catalina and taco sauce.

Of which I threw in a little, well a lot, of everything while Sara used her chicken instead of the hamburger, Ami went heavy on the veggies and Aran did the same with meat, even stealing some chicken from Sara’s bowl while Ami was saying something to her.

After cleaning up, and finishing off the leftovers, the sacrifices I make, I just needed to keep them entertained for a few more hours until the boy conked out, then it would me and the girls until it was late enough to justify sending them to bed.

“You kid’s ever play pool?”

Aran needed to stand on a stool, Ami did too but refused until I pick her up by the waist and kicked it under her feet. Sara ended up being pretty good at it, and me, well it was my table, but I had never been all that good at it, but the boy’s team still won, although not by much, but I could let them assume it was that close was because I was paired with a seven year old.

The boy didn’t want to get sent off to bed alone, and ended up crashing on the couch while I taught the older two how to play scramble, again barely winning, before I used the excuses of not wanting Aran to wake up alone to get the other two to hit the sack.

“Sooner you two get to sleep, the sooner tomorrow and a new TV comes, and no story tonight, the boy’s already asleep.”

Sara rolled her eyes, but Ami looked a little disappointed.

Then I got some internet time of my own, I checked the daily updates on my webcomics, two online novels that had updated, plus my social media sites, ok, site. Then my emails, just more ads, and a few daily check-ins for some games.

I had been in deep for a good four hours and was starting to think about hitting the sack, when I felt it.

Intruders. On my lands. Not the sheriff’s people. Strangers, a danger to mine.

Oh...there’s the violent instincts I’d been worrying about.

I checked the camera’s on my phone as I headed for the kid’s room. There was a car parked longways in front of the gate, with three guys debating how to get in without stepping into the wet ditch on either side of the gate.

Three men, one with a long pole with a loop of cable on one end, another with a baseball bat.

Wha…? Did they think I was going to turn into what amounted to a big dog to deal with them?

Oh hell no! I have thumbs, and a phone.

The Sheriff answered before the second ring. “Hello?”

“Sheriff, this Is John Lathe, they're at my house. Right now.”

I could hear a voice asking a question in the back ground. “I’m on my way John, just hole up in your house until I get there and I got a deputy and my grandson right next door, they can be there in five minutes and I'll be right behind them.”

I stood in front of the open door of the kid’s room, Sara’s face beginning to look concerned as she began to stir from her sleep.

“I’ll be in my house Adora, armed, and I will not be letting them come inside.” I ended the call ”Gotta go.”

Sara’s eyes snapped open and she began to look up as I rapped my knuckles on the door. “Bad guys on the way up the driveway, cops are on the way, grab your brother and head for the safe room. She scrambled out of bed and snatched the keys off the dresser before grabbing her brother out of the lower bunk, pillow, sheet, and all.

Now. How do I wake up a itty bitty little witch with a history of property destruction when she gets upset, so that when she wakes from a sound sleep I don’t get myself tossed around the room.

Hmmm…I leaned in a little and began to gently blow into her ear as she lay sprawled out on the upper bunk until she began to try to shield her ear with her shoulder and squirmed her way into partial wakefulness, “Uh, grandpa…what?”

“No time sweetheart, think of the lazy eight, and watch it spin until we get to the safe room.” Then I picked her up, along with her pillow and sheet as well and began to run full tilt through the house while ignoring the younger girls protests and questions. “Lazy eight girl, remember your training.”

Sara had just enough time to have unlocked the door to the library and picked up her still soundly sleeping younger brother as I caught up. I tilted Ami upright and set her feet on the floor with a little push to get her on her way after her sister who was heading to the bookshelf door of the safe room.

I got the library door locked behind me and followed, nudging the still confused Ami into the safe room before stepping in and closing the door securely behind us.

Sara settled the boy down in a corner, adjusted his pillow and sheet before turning to me and whispering in her serious voice. “What’s happening...you have more guns?

I had opened the gun locker. “Yeah, these are the one I had bullets for. You three are going to stay in this room, if I don’t come back or call by morning get a hold of your dad and give him the address.” I handed the now wide eye Ami my phone.

“Trade you. Same username and password.”

Sara had put her self between me and the door while I was trading phones with Ami. “Why you are going anywhere, why aren't you just staying in here, you can call the sheriff and let her take care of it.’

I gave the girl a fond smile, maybe this was me trying to act like a young idiot again, going off to defend my home like some want a be hero, but, “They're looking for me kiddo, if they find me, they got no reason to go looking for anyone else. Plus I already called the sheriff, I got no plans to go outside, and as far as I can tell they don’t even have guns.”

That when we heard the sound of a gunshot outside.

Well...crap.