Alice Larabee glanced around her large kitchen as she mentally checked marked her regular scheduled week day morning to do list. With help of the alarm, she had woken early in order to prepare a basic breakfast meal of eggs, toast, bacon and a glass of orange juice, milk or coffee was set at each self-assigned spot. Everything was nice and neat.

That was before the boys awoken up in a rush to make it to school on time. Now plates were pushed randomly around on the table. Toast crumps littered the table top, the chair and even the floor where JD had been sitting. Glasses were over turned from when Buck jolted the table as he quickly pushed himself away in haste to catch a ride with Chris.

Alice loved all of her boys dearly and she would never pick one over the other. They each had a special place in her heart and for different reasons. Josiah was her romantic boy as well as her oldest at twenty-one. He was named Josiah after his great-grandfather and the name seem to suit as they looked very much alike with a square face and twinkle of laughter always present in the eyes. He came to life before Alice and Clint married. His mind was full of dreams and a soul eager to reach them. Currently he was away in college while studying to be a counselor, which he hoped to help troubled teens. Alice was sure he wouldn't have problems getting the teens attention as he was very intimating because of his size; however he was a gentle, patient giant.

Christopher was seventeen though he had a much older altitude towards life due to the tragedy of his girlfriend, Sarah Connelly who passed away in a car accident by a drunk driver. Chris had her light honey brown locks, which he kept short but he had his father's green eyes and nature. His personality was unpredictable. Most of the time he was very much in control of the situation but that anger often builds up and he becomes a keg of dynamite waiting for a spark.

Buck was next in line of the family tree at the late age of fifteen. His sixteen birth date was fast approaching and he was letting the whole world know about it. He went as far as to dedicate a song on the radio to himself and for his upcoming celebration of his birth. Buck wore his heart on his sleeve yet he was also known to lose his shirt so that heart would be stitched on another gal sooner than he would wink. Buck was tall and always smiling, which fitted his flirtatious personality and his eyes held a twinkle that girls swooned for.

Vin was the quiet one, very opposite of Buck. At age fourteen, he announced his world should end due to the need of glasses. It wasn't nearly as bad as his teenage mind kept telling him. The glasses were for reading and Alice assured him that he looked adorable in them. Adorable wasn't what he was going for though. Like Chris, Vin preferred a solitude environment and the outdoors suited his needs. Horseback riding through the land own by their small ranch and fishing, to Vin life couldn't get any better than that. School was a challenge because of dyslexia that he suffers. He always had to work twice as hard to get that average grade more than other students his class. To Vin, the glasses added to his feelings of not being as bright as his peers.

The baby of the family was called JD, which was short for Jonathan Daniels Larabee, named after Alice's great grandfather. His hair was dark and his eyes matched. He was outgoing as any nine year old boy but didn't seem to make friends easily. He also had a knack of learning and held in his mind a lot of useless knowledge that some thought to be fascinating while others thought he was showing off. His intelligence and his height being somewhat small for his age, caused him to be a target of bullying. JD was also a bit spoiled as Alice and Clint found it easier to cave into his demands instead of hearing his tantrums.

The family's two Labradors *Sam and Dobie were sharing turns of licking off Vin's plate, which the boy had snuck under the table when Alice wasn't looking. Both were black Labradors but Sam had patches of white in his face due to age. Even at the age of ten, he could be found bouncing around with Sam but his legs would tire more quickly and he would retire to his favorite spot on Clint's chair. Dobie however would help with the ranch. He was always eager to chase the chickens to their coops or herd the horses into their stalls. Dobie would also take it upon himself to jump into the pond in order to remind the ducks they could fly. As if reading time by the position of the sun, Dobie would time the arrival of his family by waiting at the edge of porch to bark their arrival.

Alice sighed heavily at the work before her. It never ceased to amaze her how in just minutes the boys could tear her kitchen apart. She tossed a dish towel over her should as she began the morning ritual of cleaning up.

Clint, her husband after twenty years, quickly made his way into the kitchen as he shoved on his sheriff jacket. "Good morning." He gave her a quick kiss on the cheek before reaching for his coffee. "Boys made it off on time?"

From time to time, there were moments where Clint had to run one or two of the boys into school with the local police car.

"Today and you are lucky because you are running late." Alice reminded him. "You have the meeting with Judge Travis today. Has he let on what it is all about yet?"

"Not yet but you know how Travis is, Alice." Clint answered.

"Well, call when you find out." Alice told him as she juggled the plates and glasses towards the sink. "He has me curious."

"You've always been curious." Clint came behind her, kissing a spot on her neck just below her ear. "Lucky for me, it's the reason you started dating me."

Alice laughed but turned around to face him, slipping her hands behind his neck. "All the fine things the girls were saying, it was hard not to be curious about you."

"And look where it got you." Clint looked down at her, grinning as her brown eyes danced before him.

"It got me pregnant with Josiah before I graduated, that's where my curiosity got me." Alice pointed a finger into his chest.

"No regrets?" Clint asked her.

"No regrets." Alice smiled at him. "You may have some if you hold Travis up on being late."

Clint sighed and looked up at the ceiling as in debating whether a moment alone with his wife would be worth Travis' stern lecture.

"Go." Alice pushed him away from her. "I have a meeting with the school this afternoon."

"For which boy?" Clint frowned but his eyes held concern. "Vin?"

"Yep and JD." Alice told him. "Vin won't wear his glasses in class and JD is getting bullied."

"I thought everything was settled with that Rufus boy." Clint told her.

"I will find out more once I talk to his teacher." Alice patted him on the shoulder. "You need to go, you are later than before."

"I'm going." Clint gave her a quick kiss. "And I will talk to Vin and JD when I get home."

Clint found himself now staring across a high glossed desk of his old friend, Judge Orin W. Travis. Both men stared at each other in silence. Clint, because he was too stun to say anything and Orin because he was waiting for the shock to be over.

"There has to be some kind of mistake." Clint said to himself more to Travis. He glanced back at the results he held in his hands.

"I am sorry to say it is not a mistake, Clint." Travis nodded to the pages in his friend's hands. "I had a doctor of my own choosing do the results and according to those genetic tests results, you are the father."

"This can't be happening." Clint threw the papers on Travis' desk in frustration. He turned his head away from Travis stare, feeling ashamed of himself. "It wasbefore Buck was born. Alice and I separated for a short time. She was going to divorce me. I had even signed the papers."

"I remember you two went through a trying time." Travis nodded as he placed his folded hands on his desk. "You two will get through this as well. Am I to understand that you never told Alice about this Maude?"

"No." Clint shook his head. "I thought it was best to keep it from her. I had just won her back."

"I see." Travis watched his friend carefully. "When I spoke to Mrs. Standish, correction." Travis held up his index finger, "Mrs. Carlisle now, she had admitted that she never sought you out after the boy was born."

"I never heard from her after that week." Clint rubbed his chin as he returned a hard stare at the Judge. "Why now? What has it been? Fifteen, nearly sixteen years now?"

"Are you wishing you never knew you had another son?" Travis asked seriously.

"I'm not saying that. Though things clearly would be better." Clint growled out. "She never asked for money or anything at all from me. Now she wants to put her kid into my care? The boy knows nothing of me. She doesn't know anything about me. We spent a week together and that was all."

"Maude is an enigma all her own, Clint. Her appearance is deceiving." Travis picked up a pen, twirling it around his fingers as he recalled his meeting with Mrs. Carlisle. "It wasn't a chance she crossed your path that week. She targeted you a few weeks before that."

"Target? What are you talking about?" Clint eyes turned to steel at the thought of being used.

"She's a con-artist, Clint and you at the time were a pawn. Maude admit that she was watching you enter a bar a few weeks before she introduced herself to you. At the time, she was married to a wealthy, older gentleman for a few years but was finding difficult in conceiving a child from him. She wanted security. You happen to fit his profile when he was younger. You had the same hair color, the same built, even similar eye coloring. You were the perfect match. She charted things the way women do and when the right week arrived, well she nailed you."

"And she let her husband think the boy was his." Clint shook his head in disgust.

"Yes. However, it didn't go as well at Maude had planned. Her husband at the time knew he could not conceive any more children." Travis shrugged of indifference. "In the end, he kept her out of the will. However, he must have had some soft spot for the boy as he remained in the will but cannot touch inheritance until he has turned twenty-one and then only a quarter of it at that time."

"So why does Maude decide to drop him off at my door and not with any of his rich family members?" Clint asked.

"They are outcast. His children wanted no part of Maude and naturally, the boy." Travis tapped the pen against his desk. "Mrs. Carlisle is a desperate woman at the moment. She is facing criminal charges that are associated with embezzlement; this is not her first arrest. The boy, Ezra also has a history with law." Travis slid a folder over to Clint. "His life was not a sheltered one, Clint. Maude dropped him off many places and several states even had him removed from her care. Somehow she manages to find his location and reunites them together once more."

"It says he is a known runner." Clint looked up at Travis. "He has run away before?"

"From homes the state put him in. Yes. Even manage to give a certain reform school a slip a time or two. However, it was under Maude's care when he took to the streets permanently when he was eleven." Travis pointed out.

Clint flipped the pages, scanning the police files with disbelief clearly showing on his face. "Shoplifting. Auto thief. Burglary. Possession of a fire arm! Is he even safe to have in my home? "

Travis gave another shrug for an answer. "Doesn't appear violence is in his rap sheet and speaking to the boy, he doesn't come across of being violent, which is a surprise. The gun that was in his possession may have been for intimation. Again, he was young when he hit the streets. I'm surprised he survived at all. However, I cannot truly give you an answer to that, Clint."

"I don't know what to do." Clint tossed the folder back on Travis' desk. "I have to talk to Alice at least."

"I understand, Clint." Travis nodded looking down at the folder. "You don't have to take him in, you are aware of that? You can sign him over to the state. He's getting older and if he keeps to the same path, he's going to get some real prison time."

"And I am responsible for that?" Clint glared at the older man.

"You are his father and maybe his last chance, Clint. That is all I am saying. You have a great family and maybe that is what he needs." Travis replied. "In the end, it is you and your family who decide upon that."

A/N

I promise, future A/N's won't be this long. I just wanted to say that though I have done fanfiction under a different pen, I have always wanted to do a Magnificent Seven fiction but felt so intimated. I'm a sucker for stories where they are all children. There are some wonderful stories out there and this area has more serious readers. But I'm putting myself out here today.

*Sam and Dobie, the Labradors belong to Joy K who wrote a favorite story of mine, the 'North Pass Ranch' found on Black Raptor. I asked permission to use in a story about a year ago. At the time, my own lab had passed away and I dearly wanted at least one lab in my story but not mine, I wasn't ready to share. Sam and Dobie are perfect and Sam seemed so much like mine. Just because Dobie and Sam are in my story doesn't mean Joy K read my story or anything like that or approve of my story. As promised, those dogs will not suffer in my story nor have I had any plans for that.

Some of the things I used from stories I have read such as the name Clint or Sarah getting killed by a drunk drive or Vin needing glasses and such. Just piece from many stories that seem to fit the characters. Thanks for reading.