Okay, guys. It's WAAAAY past my bedtime (since I have to be up in about six hours) but HAD TO finish this chapter tonight. I literally would not be able to sleep until it was done. So here it is.

Chapter 22

"Snap!" Mat cried loudly, grinning up at me from behind his brand new glasses with the ninjas on the frames. Tank had picked them up from the optometrist after collecting the boys from school and somehow managed to convince Mat to wear them. Not that I had been expecting him to kick up a fuss about it, he's a good kid generally. It was more that I was dreading all the 'Why?' questions I would inevitably be expected to answer.

Edi groaned and banged his head against the table, disappointed that he was too slow for this round. We'd played three hands already and I wasn't going easy on the boys, but they'd clearly been practicing recognising same and different, because I was losing. Perhaps it helped that I was distracted, keeping half an eye on Brodie and his daughter who were deep in conversation a short distance away.

The moment Brodie had explained that his fourteen year old daughter had managed to jump on a plane and fly all the way to Trenton without any parental consent or anything, I'd insisted that we would drive him to the airport to pick her up. We'd collected the boys from the break room on the comm. floor, herded everyone into the SUV, – which I managed to get into with almost no help from Carlos – dropped Grandma at my parents' house and headed straight out.

Brodie was livid by the time he spotted his daughter and had excused himself as he pulled her aside and away. He'd been with her ever since. I'd eventually had to pull out a pack of cards to keep the boys entertained. Carlos, on the other hand, was watching the pair carefully. I suspected he was attempting to lip read, though, given the way Brodie had switched to Gaelic earlier when he got the phone call from his daughter, I assume he probably wasn't getting much. As far as I was aware, Carlos could only speak Spanish and English.

"They're coming over," Carlos informed me, standing from the chair next to Mat and coming around to my side of the table to help me up from my chair and assist me in taking a few steps away from the table to meet Brodie and Lesley as they approached.

"Thanks fer waiting," Brodie mentioned, nodding to us both. "This is my daughter Lesley." He gestured to the girl who had wavy auburn hair and the same blue eyes as her father – and me, I acknowledged, knowing that part of the reason Carlos decided so easily to do the DNA test was the fact that our eyes were the exact same colour. "Lesley," he added, "This is yer Aunt Stephanie and Uncle..." He eyed Carlos for a brief moment before asking, "Can she call ye Carlos? Or would ye prefer Ranger?"

"Carlos is fine," I assured him. Val's kids called him Uncle Carlos, as did all his nieces and nephews on the Manoso side, so I didn't see him having a problem with this young girl using his name as well. After all, he was her uncle now.

Lesley's brows drew together as she swiftly turned her head to spear her father with hard glare. "Ye said you didn't have any brothers or sisters," she accused. "How can they be me Aunt and Uncle?"

Brodie, to my surprise, laid a gentle hand on her shoulder. "It's a long story, lass," he informed her.

"We've got time now," Lesley pointed out.

"You'll wait until later," he told her more harshly, clearly still trying to get his temper completely under control. "You're new cousins have school in the morning and we still have to get back to Trenton before they can get to bed. Now what do ye say to Stephanie and Carlos for driving me all the way out here to pick ye up?" he prompted sternly.

With an eye roll I would have recognised anywhere – it must be an inherited gesture – Lesley turned to face Carlos and I. "Thank ye," she said solemnly. "And I'm sorry." I was about to tell her it was okay, that this is what family is for, when she added in a mutter, "... that my Da's car blew up again."

"Lesley," Brodie admonished, grabbing her upper arm as if to drag her away for another lecture. Lesley was having nothing of it, though, as she reefed her arm from her father's grasp and took a step away.

"What?" she said. "If it weren't for yer rotten luck with cars they wouldn't have had to drive come. And speaking of which, why didn't ye just call a cab like a normal person?" She paused a moment. "Or ye could have given me the details of where yer staying and I could have caught a cab. Ye didn't have to get them involved."

At that moment, Matias and Eduardo decided to make themselves known. Truth be told, I was surprised they'd managed to go this long without interrupting. Perhaps they sensed the importance of the moment and hung back until they thought it was more appropriate... Who am I kidding, they were mucking about with my wheelchair. I knew because I could see them out of the corner of my eye, pretending it was a space ship. And they announced themselves by Mat pushing Edi into the centre of our little group.

"Mommy, look!" Edi said loudly as he came to a stop. "I'm a race car!"

"It's a spaceship!" Mat corrected.

"Na-ah," his brother countered. "Race cars are cooler!"

"Race cars don't go to Mars," Mat pointed out coming around the front of the chair and attempting to climb up next to his brother.

Edi pushed at Mat's shoulders to prevent his ascent. "I don't want to go to Mars," he proclaimed. "Mars is for babies. I wanna race in the Formal One."

"So long as it's not NASCAR," Carlos commented, lifting Edi out of the chair and setting him on his feet beside Mat.

Rolling my eyes, I kept a firm grasp on my husband as I reached forward and ruffled both my sons' hair. "Mat, Edi," I said, getting their attention, now that they'd calmed down. "This is Lesley. She's your cousin."

It was like someone flicked a switch. One moment, Lesley was haughty and defiant, giving her father a barrel full of sass, and the next she was sweet as pie, crouching down to the boys' level and sticking out her hand for them each to shake. "Nice ta meet ye, Mat. And ye too, Edi," she said with a bright smile for the pair.

"You talk funny," Mat announced.

"So do you," Lesley returned good naturedly. "How old are you?"

"Five and half," Edi informed her proudly.

"Me too," Mat put in.

Edi gave his brother a slight shove out of the way, literally pushing him back out of the spotlight. "I'm older than Mat," he said solemnly.

"Is tha' so?" Lesley asked, seemingly enthralled as Edi proceeded to explain that he was born several minutes before his brother and therefore was the boss.

Carlos decided to step in at that point. Obviously, we'd shared the information of who was born first with the boys when they'd gotten curious, since all their friends had older and younger brothers, but we'd never tolerated either of them trying to boss the other around.

"Edi," he said sternly, wrapping his arm around my waist. "Who's the boss?"

"Mommy," Edi replied quietly.

I couldn't help but grin. That never got old. Carlos had told them one day about a year ago, that I was the boss in the family. I was the boss of Mat and Edi, and I was the boss of Daddy. Except when it came to punishment, of course. Daddy was the authority on punishments. It wasn't that I didn't punish them; it was that Daddy was harsher and scarier.

"We should probably get going," I said to the men. "We'll grab some dinner on the way home."

Carlos nodded and leaned down to ensure that the break was on the wheelchair before straightening and holding his arm out for me to use for balance if I needed it as I lowered myself into the chair. As I settled, I looked up to let Carlos know that I was ready to go and caught Lesley staring.

When Brodie looked to see where my gaze was directed, he grabbed his daughter's hand. "Lesley," he intoned. "It's rude to stare."

"Sorry," Lesley said to me, sounding sincere. "I'm just... why are you in a chair?"

Smiling slightly to let her know it was okay, I explained that I'd been in a car accident and was still learning to walk again. By the time I'd answered her follow up questions about pain, endurance and limitations, we were at the car and Carlos buckling the boys into their seats while I directed Brodie to stow Lesley's luggage in the trunk area.

We stopped for dinner at McDonalds on the way home at which point we attempted to explain the situation where Carlos and I became Lesley's Aunt and Uncle without invoking an angry outburst at the news that Mom had purportedly disowned Brodie before he was even born. She took the information mildly, but was very interested in meeting the woman and, quite possibly, if Brodie was to be believed in his explanation of his daughter's ways, interrogate her until she got to the bottom of the situation. Apparently Lesley had ambitions of becoming an investigative journalist when she finished school.

It wasn't until we cruised into Trenton some time later, the boys sleeping propped up against each other in the back, while I chatted with Lesley and Brodie over the back of the front passenger seat, that Carlos broke the little bubble we'd seemed to have settled into.

"I'd like for the both of you to stay with us tonight," he announced, never once taking his eyes off the road. I'd assumed he was in his zone and wasn't even aware that we were still with him. When Brodie opened his mouth to protest, Carlos explained, "You've been car bombed twice in a week and the second was a close call on your life. For your safety and that of your daughter, I suggest you follow my advice. You will stay with us tonight and we will reassess in the morning. If you choose to return to your hotel tomorrow, I will provide a security detail to trail you in the hopes that it will deter your car bomber until such a time as we identify and locate them."

"We'll be fi-," Brodie attempted, but I shook my head, cutting him off.

"There's no point arguing, Brodie," I said. "His mind is made up."

Lesley smirked. "I thought Mat and Edi said you were the boss," she reminded me.

"Not when it comes to security," I assured her. "He's saved my life more times than I can count. And he'll keep you safe too. Saving people is his weakness."

I'm now going to focus a fair amount of energy on finishing this story, since I feel it's close to the end. We're on the home straight, just need to start tying up loose ends.