She checked and they glared at one another across the cocked and ready towel.

“You be civil, Corelle,” he finally managed. “You have no need or place to talk low to me. Eldest will decide what I wear, whom I see, and whom I marry, so there’s no call for you to be fussing at me over it.”

Corelle pursed her lips together as if to keep in bitter words, her blue eyes cold as winter sky.

In the high chair behind Corelle. Kai started indignant squawking.

“Take care of the baby,” Corelle snapped, to give herself the last words of the fight, and stalked out of the kitchen.

Jerin had just put Kai down to sleep when he heard the first rifle shot. He froze beside the cradle, listening to the sharp crack echoing up the hollow.

Maybe it was just thunder, he rationalized, because he didn’t want it to be gunfire. He replayed the sound in his mind. No, the sound definitely came from a rifle.

Who would be shooting in their woods? Damn her, had Corelle gone out hunting? Eldest had told all four of the middle sisters to keep at the house, to forgo even fence mending, while their mothers and elder sisters were gone.

Another shot rang out from the creek bottom, then a third, close after the second. The back door banged open. His younger siblings spilled into the house like a covey of quail, the littlest sister running in first, the older ones doing a slower rear guard, scanning over their shoulders for lost siblings or strangers.

Blush, second oldest of the youngest sisters, stationed herself at the door, tapping shoulders to keep count. “Drill teams! Prepare for attack! Shutter the windows, bar the doors, and get down the rifles.

Fifteen! Sixteen!” Blush snapped, and tagged Jerin. “Three.” Then pointed to the cradle. “Four?”

“Four boys,” Jerin said automatically, although stunned. Sixteen? There should be seventeen youngest, and the four middle sisters.