The excitement that the children were putting out had Daci chuckling. Raising her hands in a display of surrender, she let them go to run to the man in question.
Of course, when he stood up and turned to look at them, she was momentarily caught completely off guard.
For almost five years now, she had centered her entire universe on Darius, the twins, and her art. She'd never once been surprised by another male... not since George. So not only was she caught off guard by the man in front of her -- this firefighter who was doing nothing more than his job -- but she was caught off guard by being caught off guard in the first place.
And suddenly realizing that, yes, she did have blue paint in her hair.
Clearing her throat, she reached up to try to tuck that strand behind her ear -- to no avail -- and waited patiently for the twins to calm down a little. Though, knowing the twins, that could be awhile.
"Aunt Daci brought us today!"
"We were good. We sit in the fire truck?"
Leave it to the twins to break the tension. Bless their little hearts. She knew exactly why she could very rarely say no to their big eyes and hopeful stares when they made a request, she was just wondering how immune to it this guy was.