Read Online Ride the Rainbow Home by Susan Aylworth - Free Book Online

answered in soft monosyllables, but it was the flurry surrounding their arrival that finally helped to diffuse her tension. Joan and Bob were the first to greet them, with four-year-old Alice and two- year-old Tyler in tow. Behind them came "the boys"—blond, burnished, beautiful men who'd have little trouble inspiring change in the whole Amazon army. They grinned at her with the same slightly lopsided smile she'd learned to appreciate on their older brother. Jim introduced Kurt and Chris.
    "It may take me a while to keep you two straight," she said as she shook one strong hand, then the other.
    "No problem," the younger man answered. "I'm the cute one." He winked and Meg giggled.
    Jim stepped forward and slipped a possessive arm around her waist. "I can tell I'm going to have to keep an eye on you when Chris is around," he stage-whispered, flashing Chris a look of mock anger.
    "Bring a pretty woman into the flock and expect the wolves to gather," Chris quipped.
    As the group moved toward the house, a tall, handsome woman stepped out, wiping her hands on a checkered apron. "Welcome!" she called. "You must be Meg."
    Jim led her forward as the rest of the family made way. The deference they gave the woman on the porch told Meg who wielded the power here. "Meg, I'd like you to meet my mother," Jim said.
    Meg offered her hand. "I'm pleased to meet you, Mrs. Mc—"
    "Please, call me Kate. You'll be having me think I'm old if you start that missus stuff." She grinned and grasped Meg's hand, her grip firm. "Come in," she said. "Dinner will be in about twenty minutes."
    "Can I help?" Meg asked.
    "Heavens no, you're a guest! Jim, offer Meg something to drink. Kurt, get the good chair." Kate patted Meg's arm. "You just sit in the front room and get acquainted, honey. I'll call everyone in a while." Orders issued, Kate disappeared into the kitchen.
    "Wow," Meg said, blinking as the dervish whirled by her.
    "She's something, isn't she?" Kurt said.
    "Don't worry," Joan offered. "She likes you."
    "How do you know?"
    "Mom likes everybody," Chris responded, apparently amused.
    "I thought maybe she'd let me help," Meg began.
    "No way," Joan answered. "Mom never likes having people underfoot in her kitchen. She won't let me help, either."
    "You mean she does all the cooking alone?"
    The question brought general laughter. "Not exactly," Kurt responded.
    "She introduced each of us to the kitchen on our eighth birthdays," Jim explained. " 'Kitchen, meet Jim. Jim, this is the kitchen.' We started by making lunches once a week."
    "My day was Thursday," Kurt added. "Joan never ate tuna and Chris only wanted peanut butter."
    "Then on our ninth birthdays we were introduced to breakfast," Joan continued. "I cooked scrambled eggs and bacon every Wednesday for about a hundred years."
    "My day was always Thursday," Kurt said. "I started cooking Thursday dinners when I was ten."
    "Your mother seems very... organized," Meg observed, and the comment was greeted by more laughter. Meg chuckled too. Then she looked at the beautiful people around her, all part of something special. She suddenly felt the need for—well, for something. Air, maybe.
    Jim sensed her discomfiture. "Maybe you'd like to see the place?"
    "I'd love to." Meg beamed. "Do you want to check in the kitchen first, make sure we have time?''
    Kurt said, "Smart woman. You don't want to be late to one of Mom's feeds," and Jim stepped into the kitchen to discuss their plans. He was back a moment later. "We've got fifteen minutes," he said.
    She didn’t know what she’d been expecting, really, but Meg was surprised to find the farm a picture of cleanliness and efficiency. Jim proudly showed off the farrowing barn, then the nursery where the sows stayed with their young litters, then the weanling pens and the feeder pens and finally, the paddocks for the pregnant sows.
    "And where are the daddy pigs? What do you call them?"
    "Boars." Jim seemed amused.
    "Okay, where are the boars?"
    "Come here,