Page 74 of The Alpha’s Unclaimed Mate

This is starting to become a serious problem.

Home glows dark gold with evening by the time I clear my tree line. Cole and Tomas are sprawled across the grass with the girls, the wreck of a picnic scattered between them, a soccer ball gone still on the trampled ground. Jessa watches the whole thing from the porch steps, a cup of juice she’s stopped drinking in one hand.

Mia spots me first. “He’s back!” She’s up off the grass and running before I clear the last of the trees, Bella a half-step behind. The two of them hit me at the waist together.

I catch them both, one arm around each, and I hold Mia every bit as tightly as Bella.

“What have you two been up to?” I ask, dropping a hand to Bella’s hair.

“Tomas and Cole played soccer,” Bella reports breathlessly. “We got to ride on their shoulders. I scored from way up high.”

Looking down at Mia, I put some iron into it. “You’re supposed to be taking it easy today.”

“I didn’t play.” She scowls up at me, indignant. “They did all the running. Bella and me just rode up top, steering.”

“She’s telling the truth,” Jessa calls from the porch. “I had eyes on them the whole time. Nobody so much as scraped a knee.”

Cole rolls onto his side and squints up at me. “Look who finally turned up, the man himself.” He elbows Tomas. “Runs a whole academy and still shows up late to everything.”

“Too important for the rest of us,” Tomas agrees, eyes shut.

“Keep it up.” I crouch and pluck the ball off the grass. “Twenty minutes on the pitch, right now. We’ll see who’s washed out.”

Cole groans. Tomas cracks one eye. “That’s abuse. We’re guests.”

“You’re freeloaders.” I drop the ball. “Did you two make her cook for you?”

Both of them straighten up fast.

“She offered,” Cole says.

“Volunteered,” Tomas puts in. “We tried to stop her.”

Jessa rolls her eyes behind them, and that decides it. I hook an arm around Tomas’s neck and haul him into a headlock before he can scramble clear.

“She’s not here to feed you,” I tell him, tightening my grip while he claws at my forearm.

“Cole, do something,” Tomas wheezes.

“Kick his ass, Marc.” Cole sits back on his hands, delighted. “Put him in the dirt.” He twists toward the girls.

“Uncle Marcus will win,” Bella announces. “He always wins.”

Cole holds out his hands. “Care to bet on that?”

Bella crosses her arms, dead serious. “I bet my doll that Uncle Marcus wins.”

Mia digs in her pocket and holds up a plastic hair clip. “I’ve got this.”

“Now that’s a serious wager.” Cole takes the clip and turns it over, whistling low, then pulls the cap off his own head. “I’ll see your clip and raise you the hat.”

Jessa’s off the porch and across the grass before he finishes. “Absolutely not. No gambling with the children.” She holds her hand out until Cole surrenders the clip and the cap both, then returns them to their owners. “Deal’s off.”

I release Tomas, who flops onto the grass rubbing his throat and cursing me without heat. Jessa levels a look at the three of us that drops us squarely into the same age bracket as the girls. She’s got a smudge of flour on one cheek, her hair sliding loose from where she pinned it this morning, and I have to stop myself from reaching to tuck it back.

She catches me watching her a beat too long, and she flushes before she looks away. Want tightens low in my gut. Even hollowed out by what I saw today, the urge to pull her in nearly wins.

“I’m taking the girls in to wash up.” She herds Mia and Bella toward the door with a hand on each small back. “There’s food left in the pot if you’re hungry. Try to act your age while I’m gone.”