Julia’s alarm clock starts buzzing. She reaches over and smacks it. She gets up and starts getting dressed. Halfway getting dressed, she remembers she was suspended for three days. She stops putting her uniform on and takes it off.

“Why are you getting undress, sweetie?” Christmas had woken up and noticed Julia taken her uniform off.

“I just remembered I’m on a three-day suspension.” Julia puts on the Native American-made shirt Chayton’s grandfather gave her.

She pulls a pair of her favorite pair of blue jeans out of the dresser and puts them on. Once she was dressed, she looks at Christmas as she gets dress.

“I’ll take the kids to school today and go shopping afterward.” Julia figures she could do their Saturday shopping today.

“Are you going to be alright, grocery shopping on your own? I know how much you hate it.” A sly smile appears on Christmas’s face. She loved teasing Julia.

“I only hate it, when I forget something.” Julia didn’t like forgetting anything they needed.

“Alright, you go and do the shopping. Try to stay out of trouble, today.” Christmas walks over to Julia and places a kiss on her cheek.

Julia shivers from Christmas kiss. She loves when her wife kisses her. It was still a shock to her that all the time they spent in school together. She never knew Christmas was a lesbian.

Julia watches as Christmas walks out of their bedroom. She goes and starts knocking on the bedroom door of her children.

“Come on sleepy heads, it's time to get up and ready for school.” When she checks on Haylee, she was already up.

She was so proud of Haylee and how dedicated she was to her duties. Haylee took her duties of feeding and caring for the animals on her
father’s ranch seriously. Julia walks downstairs and heads into the kitchen to get breakfast ready for all three children.

She hears the front door open and closes, as Haylee runs into the house and upstairs to her bedroom. Julia just shakes her head as her other two kids come running into the kitchen.

“Sorry, mom.” Chayton sits down at the table.

Catori sits at her favorite spot and pours some cereal into her bowl. She had her favorite cereal, just like her brother. She knew Haylee had her favorite as well.

While the kids are eating breakfast, Julia works on their lunches. Each of her children had foods they liked eating. She makes sure, as she is fixing their lunches, she puts the right foods in their lunch bags and lunch boxes.

“Sorry, mom.” Haylee comes running into the kitchen and sits at the kitchen table.

She had hurried to change her clothes. She had her school uniform on, like her brother and younger sister. She thought it was unfair that the boys could wear pants, but the girls couldn’t.

Once the kids are done eating, Julia rinses their cereal bowls and puts them in the dishwasher. She hands each child their lunch.

“Alright, kids, time to get you to school.”

“Which car are we taking?” Chayton looks at his mother.

“The pickup truck.” Julia grabs the keys to the truck.

“I call shotgun.” Haylee was rushing towards the front door.

“Hey, it's my turn.” Catori rushes past Haylee.

Chayton just shakes his head, as he watches his little sister. Julia makes sure she has her weapon with her. She grabs her purse and follows all three kids outside. She presses the remote to unlock the truck.

Catori hops into the passenger seat. Chayton gets in behind her and Haylee gets into the truck behind her mother. The truck was an extended cab.

Julia gets into the truck and puts her purse into the armrest compartment. She was glad it was big enough to hold her purse. She checks to make sure all the kids are buckled in, before backing up and start heading towards the kids’ school.

When Julia arrives, she gets into the line of parents dropping their kids off. She spots members of the basketball team waiting for Chayton. When it was Julia’s turn to pull up to the curb “all alright kids, behave yourself and learn something today.”

“We will mommy.” Catori unbuckles her seat belt and places a kiss on Julia’s cheek.

A warm feeling comes over Julia as she watches Catori, and her children exit from the truck. Once the kids were away from their mother, they
split up. Catori and Haylee stay together as they meet up with their classmates.

Julia pulls away from the curb and follows the road out to the street. The kids were going to the same private school she, and Gina went to.
She spots her other sisters pulling into the school parking lot.

Their father bought Alyona a black Jeep Wrangler. It was her sixteenth birthday present. Jack got a good deal on it, from the local Jeep dealer. Julia blows her horn at her sister as she passes them.

Alyona and Silvia spot Julia’s extended cab pickup truck. They wave at her when they hear the truck's horn. Alyona honks her horn at her sister.

Alyona parks her Jeep next to her friend’s car. As she gets out of the Wrangler, she watches as Julia drives off. She figures Julia was dropping off her nephew and nieces. She does wonder why Julia isn’t in her police cruiser. Normally, she dropped the kids off in her SUV.

Arabella spotted Julia’s pickup truck leaving the schools grounds. She looks at her aunt “why isn’t Julia in her police cruiser?”

“Don’t know, you’ll have to ask Haylee or Chayton that question.” Silvia was wondering the same thing.

The three girls start walking towards the school entrance. Arabella wonders how her mother and father were doing in Washington D.C. She
talked with them last night and wishes she could have gone with them.

Julia tunes the radio to her favorite station and listens to the music playing. She had her police radio turned down. She heads to her and Christmas's favorite grocery store. It wasn’t as big as Walmart, but it had a selection of items that her family loved. It also had a butcher shop inside of it. She loved the fresh meats she could get.

She pulls into the parking lot and parks. The place wasn’t as busy as it normally was on Saturday morning. She grabs her purse, after parking and cutting the engine off. She makes sure her gun is hidden on her, before exiting the truck. She didn’t need to take it with her, however, the one thing her father drilled into her, and Gina was to always be prepared for trouble.

She makes sure she has a quarter to put into the shopping cart lock. The owners of the grocery store were following some of the new ideas some of the other stores were doing. Julia walks into the store and notices a new cashier was working.

As she starts heading down an aisle, she brings up the shopping list on her cellphone. She and Christmas always put it on their phones. Normally, Catori was with her and Christmas as they shopped. Julia walks down the first aisle looking for the special bread she wanted.

The kids loved it and it was better than the name brands everyone else carries. According to her sister Silvia. The company was new and built
a bakery right here in Caldwell. They tried recruiting Silvia, but she loved the little bakery shop she worked at.

Julia walks up and down the aisles looking for what she needed. When she comes to the butcher area, she notices Joe was working “they got you on the morning shift, this morning Joe?”

Joe was putting out some fresh product when he hears a familiar voice. He looks up and notices one of his favorite customers was standing before his counter “Yeah, the normal guy called out sick. No one knows what he got.”

“I heard there was a new virus going around. It is supposed to be deadly.” Julia hopes it doesn’t strike Montana.

“That’s what I heard as well. It’s hitting New York bad right now.” Joe caught the news on his way to work.

“I hope it doesn’t hit us. I don’t know what would happen.” Julia was concerned about her family being affected.

“Knowing your family, you guys would more than likely brush it off.” Joe knew how strong the Bounty family immune system was. It was extremely rare for them to get sick.

“There’s a first time for everything.”

“True, so what can I get for you today?” Joe grabs his pencil and a piece of butcher paper to write Julia’s order down.

“Let’s start with….” Julia reads off her list to Joe.

“On the roast beef, do you want a twenty-pound one or smaller?” Joe had both in stock.

“Give me the larger one. My son loves roast beef.”

“How about your wolves? Do they love roast beef as well?” Joe knew Julia had two wolves, a border collie, and a coyote.

“My father has a special diet the wolves are on, but to answer your question. They are big meat lovers. There’s nothing they won’t eat and that includes Roxy as well.”

Joe just shakes his head. He’s met the little border collie at the dog show. Julia's youngest Haylee had entered her, and she won first place. All the judges thought Haylee was going to enter a wolf like Gina did one year. All the other dogs were afraid of the wolf.

Joe works getting Julia’s order ready. He wonders why she wasn’t in uniform and why she was in the store on a Tuesday, instead of Saturday with her wife and daughter. After a while, he has her order completed.

“Here you go, Julia.” Joe hands several wrapped packages to Julia.

“Thanks, Joe.” Julia accepts them and puts them in her cart. She places two twenty-dollar bills up on the counter for Joe.

Joe notices the two twenty-dollar bills. He places his hand over it “thanks.”

“You’re welcome.” Julia smiles at him before she turns and starts walking off.

Julia stops halfway down an aisle and checks what she has so far. Everything that is on her list, she has. She goes by the ice cream section and selects some pints of ice cream for her and Christmas. She picks out a variety pack for the kids. It had chocolate cones with nuts, ice cream sandwiches, and ice cream pops.

She also grab some microwave popcorn that everyone likes. By the time she is done shopping. She notices she was going to have to make several trips from the truck to the house. Julia gets in line behind a woman a little older than her.

Something about the woman didn’t sit well with her. The cashier she spotted coming in was a young black woman. The woman in front of her moves ahead and she could tell from the woman’s tone, she was condescending to the young cashier.

“Hey, I would be nicer to the young lady, before I take offense with your attitude towards her.” Julia made sure the woman heard the anger in her voice.

The woman turns around and looks at Julia “what are you going to do if I don’t? Are you going to punch me or something?” The woman looks at Julia with a smug look on her face.

An evil smile appears on Julia’s face “actually, I can think of a lot worst things I could do to you.” Julia shows her badge.

She brought it with her just in case she needed it. Even though she was on suspension, she still felt naked without it.

“What are you going to give me a ticket for being rude?” The woman had a smug look on her face.

“I can think of several things I can charge you with.” Julia steps closer to the woman.

The woman saw the look in Julia’s eyes and gulped. She was afraid of what she saw there. The woman may look like the actress Charisma Carpenter but had the look of a person who would kill you.

“I think I’ll be on my way.”

“I think that’s a good idea, ma’am.” Julia kept watching the woman as she gathers her stuff and quickly left the store.

The cashier looks at Julia “thank you.”

“There’s no need to thank me. There’s no excuse for bad manners.” Julia wonders what has gotten into people lately.

“Still, thank you.”

The cashier starts to ring up Julia's purchases. As she rings the items up, she watches as Julia packages everything.

“Your total comes to two hundred and fifty dollars, ma’am.” The cashier looks at Julia.

Julia pulls her purse out and pulls out three one-hundred-dollar bills. She hands them to the cashier.

The cashier accepts them and gives her the change. She looks at Julia “you have a nice day, ma’am.”

“You too.”

Julia heads out to her pick-up truck and loads her groceries into the cab part of her truck. Once everything is loaded, she gets in and starts the truck and back-up out of the parking space, and starts driving back to her house.