January 10th 2021

Chapter 10
Our Move Toward Family

"What do you want to do today?" Lucas asked, the next morning, after Maya went about turning toward him. He would do his best these days not to wake her too prematurely, to allow her the very most rest she could accumulate in these waning weeks ahead of the baby's birth. He doubted it would matter for very long once their girl came along, but it couldn't do any harm either.

Of course, with Cara and her friends in the house this morning, he did not expect for his wife to sleep in, and she didn't.

"I was thinking I'd go and see the little Hunters, actually," she told him, propping her head up in the palm of her hand. "They're probably bummed out right now, so..."

"Yeah," Lucas agreed with a tip of the head. Katy and Shawn had been meant to come down for a few days, until a couple days ago, when they called to let them know something had come up, and they wouldn't be able to make the journey. They were working to reschedule as soon as possible. "Think it would cheer them up if we took them to see Chance?" he suggested. Maya smiled at once.

"I really think it would," she nodded.

Going by the low sound of talking and laughing coming from down the hall as they left their room, they guessed the girls were awake but hadn't gotten to the point where they felt like rising. Maya poked her head through the doorway, where she was promised that Cara, Raina, and Lainey could see to their own breakfast, after which they needed to get back to work on their project. So, really, it worked in their favor that Maya and Lucas would be gone for the next several hours, giving them the house. One quick call to her grandfather set the plan in motion, and minutes later they were on the road.

They hadn't exactly set out for the visit to be a surprise, but when they arrived and found a supremely excited Haley waiting for them, they learned that Gracie had figured out they were coming, on account of how Grangie had started whipping up a big batch of pancake batter. In no time, the news had gone buzzing from one to the other and the next and the last of the Hunter kids, like wings had grown from their backs.

"Can't get anything by her," Maya chuckled, and Haley shook her head with an agreeing 'uh huh.'

"Bet she didn't figure out the other thing though," Lucas turned to Maya, knowing it would draw the five-year-old's curiosity at once. Maya knew what he was doing, and it was a wonder she kept a straight face.

"I don't know, she's really good at picking up on stuff, it's spooky," she told him, and by now Haley was gripping at her shirt, pulling lightly for attention. Maya reached down blindly to stroke at her sister's blond hair, though she kept looking to Lucas.

"Now that you mention it, I'm really starting to think she can read our minds. How long do you think it'll take her to figure out where we're taking them?"

"Where are we going?" Haley tugged on, and Maya just held on to her. At this point, picking her up was just too complicated.

"Who's going anywhere?" Lucas looked to Haley, showing himself unaware with a shrug, receiving a confused look from his sister-in-law.

With perfect timing, they were summoned to the kitchen by Tanner Clutterbucket. Lucas scooped up Haley and brought her along, receiving several curious prods of her hand at his shoulder. But then she smelled the pancakes, and the question of her siblings' sneakiness was momentarily forgotten in favor of the fluffy stacks. MJ was helping his grandmother, under careful supervision, while Nellie and Gracie finished setting the table.

"How are we doing today?" Tanner asked in his gruff and even tone. It might have appeared lacking in emotion to some, but then they wouldn't have known him, not like they were all getting to know him. That he was here at all, it meant so much to him.

"Couldn't be better," Maya assured him, and under that impressive moustache of his, she could just see a smile. She had a feeling that, even if not for his daughter calling him and his wife to step in and look after the kids, he would have wanted to be here, to be involved with Marianne, his first and only great grandchild to date.

"We're going to get our Halloween costumes!" MJ informed the visitors when he finally looked back and saw that they had arrived.

"Yeah?" Maya asked, matching his energy. "Today?"

"No, but soon," MJ explained. "Grangie said she could make them, too."

"You know, she showed Mom how to sew," Maya told him, which got all four of the kids to turn and look at their grandmother. Angela smiled, perhaps recalling some of those days for herself. Maya wouldn't bring up how Katy had mentioned this to her in a way that suggested it was one of the few useful things she'd been able to get from her parents. Those opinions had changed by now, no longer fuelled by the memory of the girl who'd run away to New York, and Katy had a much better view of those years by now.

"Can we make the costumes with you, Grangie?" Nellie soon asked, which was just the nudge Maya had hoped to give. Any additional outlet her grandparents could grasp on to, in tightening the bonds with the four of them, the better they would all be, the grandparents, grandchildren, and the parents off in LA, too.

"You absolutely can," Angela promised, wiping her hands on her apron before moving to greet the arrivals. "As soon as you make up your minds on what you will go as, we can get started." Going by the looks on her siblings' faces...

"Not there yet?" Maya guessed. The kids leapt in with explanations all at once, suggesting this had been a reigning debate among them for some time already. "Alright, okay, I get the picture," Maya smirked as they moved to sit.

"We were thinking of doing a group costume, all of us," Gracie spoke now, motioning to the other kids. "But we can't decide what."

"When we pick something, everyone is in except one," Nellie added, sounding exasperated.

"Always the same one or..." Lucas asked, but they shook their heads, so it told him that it would be one or another of the quartet at any given time. "Alright, which ones had three votes?" he asked now, causing a new outpouring of chatter, slowly but surely painting a picture for him and Maya both to consider anything that might satisfy all four of the little Hunters.

The more they all talked, the more it got to leave a sort of underlying impression, a real cause for this indecision. Maybe they were only jumping to conclusions, but it really didn't feel that way. No, it felt like they should have seen this coming, that it went back to their parents not being here. They loved having their grandparents here, no doubt, they did. All those things they were getting to do, to bond with the two of them, they were great, and the kids appreciated them, they did. Would they have given it all up if it meant their parents were home with them all the time though?

Halloween would be the first big thing – at least where the kids were concerned – that they would miss, in all likelihood. Both Katy and Shawn had been telling them that they would do their best to be there with them, but there was really no promise that they'd make it happen. At the very least, if Katy couldn't be there, Shawn would try to come down to join them, to take them trick-or-treating. The twins really wanted to make sure and get to go to the house on the lane this year, too, to get to play the games outside. In the years since they'd been living up there, since they'd been doing their Halloween games out on the grounds, they had never actually gotten to come out and see it for themselves, not really. But the twins were ten now, and it was really getting to that point where they were too much of their own people to not do something about it.

"Alright, here's a thought," Maya finally had to settle the matter. "What if you call Mom and Dad and ask what they think? They could be part of your group costume, too. Even if they're not in Austin with you, they'll be part of it. And it'll be like you guys have a secret going. No one will know but you four here and the two of them out there."

The kids were intrigued now. They looked at each other, and they were liking the idea very much. They all looked like they liked it enough that they were one second away from dashing for a phone or a laptop, too, and it only took one look from their grandmother for them to remember they needed to finish breakfast first.

The momentary distraction succeeded in realigning a few things in the youngest Hunter's mind. As she turned back to her plate and busied herself with spearing a bit of strawberry on top of a chunk of pancake, Haley blinked and looked up to Maya and Lucas. A beat later, she turned to look to Gracie.

"Do you know where we're going?" Haley asked her, which made Maya laugh in a way where she was thankful not to have been mid-bite. Gracie looked from Haley, to Nellie, to Maya. Put on the spot as she was, they had to hand it to Sherlock Hunter, it didn't take her long to consider the options, and look to her big sister, to her brother-in-law, and make a guess. She was plenty smart enough not to just say it out loud, in case she was wrong and just ended up putting ideas in her younger brother and sister's heads for nothing. Instead, she leaned over and motioned for Lucas to join her, as he sat next to her. She whispered at his ear, which only made Haley stretch up on her chair, like she'd be able to make out a single word of it from clear across the table. Sitting by her, Tanner guarded her from going too far.

"Yeah, that's it," Lucas chuckled, sitting back up. She was really freakishly intuitive, but this might have been her biggest reach.

"Tell me!" Haley pleaded, sounding like she might start crying if no one said what was going on.

"We're going to see the baby horse at the ranch," Gracie told her little sister at once, and the floodgates never opened. Instead, Haley became so excited that she looked like she was going to stuff all that was left on her plate into her mouth in one go, the better to finish as soon as possible and get going.

It took Tanner's saying how they would only go once everyone was done, but she finally settled back to reasonable bites, especially as she was told they would see about calling Katy and Shawn on the ride out to Sullivan Stables. They also got a promise out of Lucas that, if their parents weren't able to come to Austin for Halloween, he would take them trick-or-treating after he took them out to the house. After he said yes, he only had to take one look to Maya to know she was resisting the urge to laugh, seeing him so eager to jump into 'dad mode' with the little Hunters. He fully assumed it though, and proudly so.

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners