Tainted Gold (Providence Gold 3)

With this pregnancy, we’d done it the science way – by getting three gender scans done. All of which conclusively confirmed it was another boy. Lily had also taken pity on me, and had announced at the reveal party, which went normally this time, that I was choosing the baby’s name.

Great, awesome, what a relief – but I couldn’t think of a name for him. We were only weeks away from him coming into the world, and I still didn’t know what the hell I was going to name the poor kid.

“Grandad,” Rebel squealed suddenly, dropping her mom’s hand and running toward me.

“Uh…”

“Hey, kiddo,” Petey bellowed behind me. It was a relief because for a second I’d thought she was calling me Grandad, but it also sucked because he always managed to materialize out of thin air. That would be cool, but the guy took great pleasure in scaring the shit out of me, but at least he’d stopped calling me rude names (a majority of the time). My son’s squeals joined his sister’s as he ran over to him too.

Petey and Rachel were great parents and grandparents. After his second brush with the grim reaper, Rachel had cut back on the work she was doing, and now only did a movie once a year at most. Was it a trip being related to a famous woman? Honestly, no, she was just Rachel, my mother-in-law. Even the people in town didn’t make a big deal out of it, not that she’d have let that happen. That woman was as down to earth as my own family.

“Hey, Dad,” Lily called, walking up to me and wrapping her arms around my waist. At least someone wanted me.

“Grandma wants to have a sleepover tonight, is that ok?” he asked as he joined us with a kid wrapped around each leg.

Looking down into Lily’s sparkling eyes, I saw the same thoughts that were going around my head shining back at me.

A night alone.

No kids.

Just us.

“Yes,” we answered at the same time, not even looking up at him.* * *Ten hours later…

With experience comes wisdom – apparently. It also hardened you to your wife giving birth. During Rebel’s, I’d fainted. During Nash’s, I’d had to sit down because she did it the natural way and I hadn’t expected to see what I did a second time. No cake can prepare you for that, I’m warning you now.

Her water’s breaking as I was thrusting into her had my dick crawling to hide behind a lung. She’d been on her hands and knees in front of me, I’d only just entered her and was thrusting slowly as I skimmed a hand up her back, and the next thing, she grunted and that was it.

“I’m never having sex again,” I muttered, pacing beside her as she lay calm as anything on the bed. The drugs had a lot to do with that, but she was becoming a pro at giving birth so that might have added to it.

“You’ll be fine,” she tried to reassure me, her eyes not leaving the screen of her iPad. “Lion’ll be here soon.”

That stopped me, mid-step. “There’s no way in hell we’re naming him Lion, Lily.”

“Don’t be so silly, it’s a great name.”

No, it wasn’t. Maybe for an animal it was, but for a little kid? Lion Townsend? Hell, no.

“What if we spelled it with a y?”

“Veto,” I replied firmly.

“Ludwig?”

“Veto.”

“Moss?”

“Ve-to!”

“Ferdinand? He’d have loved one of the kids to be named after him.”

We’d lost KFC a year ago, shortly after we’d lost Bojangles. Apparently chickens didn’t have long lives, but it had still been a shock. They’d turned out to be great pets for kids, following Rebel around, and snuggling up beside her when she sat down to watch a cartoon. In the end, we’d put a doggy door in the back door, and they’d used that to come and go when they’d wanted to.

Lily, Rebel, and even Nash wanted to get replacements, but it was me who wasn’t ready. Instead, I focused on Chewy, Ozzy and our youngest dog, Hairy Paw-ter who was a German Shepherd. We’d found him looking emaciated on the side of the road when we’d been driving back from seeing my cousins six months ago. The poor baby was terrified, but the second Lily jumped out and said, “Hey, puppy!” he’d run over to her and started snuffling for loves.

On the way home, we’d seen that his right eye didn’t quite look right, so we’d taken him straight to the vets, and gotten him vaccinated and checked over. The diagnosis that followed was a shock – he was blind in his right eye. Everything about him looked healthy, apart from being underweight and his eye, so we’d called in the behavioral specialist from before, and had taken it from there.