At seventeen Blake was getting into his full growth. He was tall enough already that this little guy seemed awfully short.

“How old are you, Jax?”

“Seven.”

That was surprising. Jax couldn’t be any bigger than the twins.

“I’ve never seen you around before. Did you just move in?”

“The blue trailer on the edge of the road. Ma said it’s a dump, but I think it’s okay.” Typical kid, he kept stopping to check out the grasshoppers and spiders that scurried off the trail as they quickstepped toward the house.

Must be the new renters that he’d overheard his parents talking about. The dad had signed on with one of the local hauling companies. Hard work. Jax’s dad would be gone for days at a time. Blake took another look at the kid. His little face and arms were covered with swelling welts, but he hadn’t made a noise of complaint about them.

“So you wanna tell me what happened down at the swimming hole?”

Jax looked up at him in surprise. “I ain’t one of your brothers. You gonna let them tell you what happened, right?”

Blake frowned. “I figure you can tell me just fine. You won’t lie to me, will you?”

Jax stopped dead. “Lying is for babies and cheats. I ain’t no baby and I ain’t no cheat.”

“So, tell me. What happened?”

“Me and Joel and Jesse were swimming and playing a game and Travis came and said he’d make me eat a frog. So I told him that frogs were a delicat-zee and only the really important people could eat them so I thought that was a really fine thing.

“Then he said I had a stick up my butt and he was going to teach me a thing or two. So I said he was too stupid to teach me anything. Then Joel tried to tell him something and Travis pushed him into the mud. Of course Jesse tried to help Joel and Travis pushed him down too. Then Daniel started yelling at Travis and Travis said some bad words and then he tried to push Daniel into the mud and Joel and Jesse were trying to jump on Travis and then…”

Blake stared in amazement. Usually when he asked his brothers what happened he got “he looked at me funny so I hit him” as an answer. Not a five-minute nonstop detailed play-by-play.

They’d reached the house, and there was no sign of any of the rest of the culprits except for a pile of filthy wet shorts lumped by the still-running hose. Blake pointed Jax toward the pile.

“…well, I slipped and fell in the mud and I thought maybe that could be the end and we’d just play for a while. You know, we were all dirty, so why not, but Travis came over and pinched me…”

Yeah, that was Travis. He fought dirty.

Blake stripped off his wet things and turned the hose on himself. Ma put up with a lot, having six boys around the house, but he knew better than to enter the house covered in river water and mud. Even if he went through the basement door straight into a shower.

“…but when I climbed the tree he called me a coward.” Jax finally stopped talking and put his hands on his hips. “I ain’t no coward. So when I spotted the nest I thought it would be a good idea and—”

“Jax. Talk while you take off your stuff. I’ll hose you down.”

“Oh. Okay. So I pulled off the nest but I kinda fell and when I landed I must have made a funny noise because Travis called me a ‘pig in the wallow’ and it made me really mad so I walked up to him and told him at least I wasn’t an ass without a barn and then I pulled that nest apart and things kinda just happened after that.”

The shorts dropped quick like and Jax turned in the spray to let Blake rinse off his back. Welts rose everywhere, and Blake turned down the pressure on the hose. It had to hurt like the blazes.

Then the kid turned around and Blake noticed for the first time what he probably should have figured out sooner.

Jax was a girl.