Tainted Gold (Providence Gold 3)

Sitting upright, I stared at it trying to figure it out, and almost missed the next text hitting my phone.

Lily: Now look at it in the mirror.

Tenderly, I moved to the edge of the bed and willed the room to stop spinning. When I felt like I had my land legs, I stood up and stumbled over to the mirror on the wall in my room, and tried to get the image staring back at me into focus.

That’s when I realized what I’d done.

How fucking stupid do you have to be to get your woman’s name tattooed on you back to front?

Apparently, I’d had it done, not realizing or caring that the only time it would make sense is when I was looking in the mirror.

I wasn’t a stranger to having ink done, in fact I had quite a lot. Black and gray tattoos of pieces of old oil machinery, my families signatures on my ribs, just things that were of sentimental value to me… I knew the tattooist who worked out of the shop in town well. I also remembered said tattoo artist being at the bar last night, waving a bottle of tequila…

Oh Jesus – shaped like Diablo with a sombrero on.

That’s when I also remembered triumphantly getting the worm at the bottom of the bottle and swallowing it in the last shot…

And had to run to puke my guts up.ElevenLily“Does he remember anything yet?” Luna asked as she changed Jamie’s diaper. That baby was a heartbreaker, and her daddy was going to be in so much shit once the boys saw her.

“Nope. Does Noah have guns?”

“We live in Texas, what do you think?”

Shrugging, I waved back at the baby and grinned. “Not everyone owns guns. Plus, your daughter will have boys queuing up for miles, so he might want to invest in some more.”

Picking her daughter up, Luna walked her over to me and plonked her on my lap. “Here, get some experience in while you can. And just to say, Tate might have to do the same thing when yours gets here.”

Snorting, I cuddled Jamie close as she tugged on my hair and shook my head. “Nope, Tate’s adamant it’s a boy. Apparently he took some tests invented by the Mayans and Chinese and swears blind by them. I also picked a key up a certain way that means it’s a boy.”

Looking up from Jamie’s neck where I’d just blown a huge raspberry, I saw Luna watching me with wide eyes. “I did the baking soda in pee test, and it was wrong. Where did he find those ones?”

“Online somewhere, and Beau helped him do them.”

And that’s how we ended up spending an hour going over lunar based mathematical equations and doing both tests ourselves. Apparently he’d gotten it all wrong. I was having a girl.

“Oh, this is going to be so good,” Luna hooted, holding her side when we got the results. “Are you going to tell him?”

Grinning at her, I thought it over and made my decision. “Nope. I think I’ll wait for the gender reveal scan to do that. He wants to have a huge party for us all to find out at the same time, so everyone will get to see his face when the pink comes floating down.”

“I wish we’d been able to do something like that. I’ve seen so many cool ideas online since I had Jamie, and now I feel cheated.”

I could hear Noah’s voice as he staggered up the porch stairs at the front of the house. Apparently Luna had found him curled up in front of the door when she’d gone to let their dogs out this morning. Once she’d woken him up, he’d realized he was late for a video conference call with his cousin and some CEO’s of the business, and had run to the office building. This was him getting back now, and he sounded rough!

Just as the front door opened, I said loudly, “Yes, you have to have a huge party to reveal the sex of this baby. That sounds fab-u-lass.” I kept hissing the last part as I clapped my hands. “What do you want to have this time? A boy, or another girl? I love that they won’t be too far apart in ages, too,” I added, picking Jamie up and giving her a big kiss.

Not one sound could be heard from where Noah was standing behind us. I’ll give her credit, Luna didn’t try to talk her way out of it either, instead she just sat rubbing her stomach and nodding.

And then he cracked.

“What the hell?” he croaked. “I… how… I’m not sure…” he started and then ran outside and did a live action replay of what I’d done all those months before when I’d smelled that vile sauce that shall not be named. Incidentally, I’d also added onions, mushrooms, cheese (unless it was Velveeta), two brands of shampoo, one brand of soap and oranges to the list of puke inducing scents and foods.