Apparently, what my dad and I hadn’t taken into account when we’d planned the back-ups, was the possibility that his friend might have drunk one too many beers leading to him passing out on another friend’s couch. If we had, we’d have made sure to give another key to someone else. This was now the plan for me to do first thing in the morning.
This meant that I was now up shit creek.
Incidentally, this was also how I ended up spending the night at a stranger’s house. That and the fact that when I’d been given my luggage and purse, that had been left behind on the plane in their panic to get me medical attention, my wallet had been missing. All my cards, my money, everything – gone. I had another account, but the card to that was in the drawer beside my bed – in my locked house.
Of-freaking-course it was!
It was only his address, which was on land owned by the Townsend family, that swayed me into accepting his offer to spend the night in his spare room. I knew the Townsends from school, so how bad could that be?
At least that’s what I was repeatedly chanting in my head for the duration of the journey to his house.
In the boonies.
In the middle of a freaking field with only the tiny twinkling of lights from other houses in the distance.
See – calamity! I was stuck with a gorilla shifter in the middle of a shifter plot. If this one had the accompanying sounds of banjos, I would run (willingly) for the first time in my life.
Madix
“Yo,” I snapped at my sister Luna as I drove home from the airport. “I need you to meet me at my place.”
I waited until she agreed and then hung up. How the hell did I always end up in situations like this? Well, this was the first time this had happened to me, obviously, but still. I wasn’t big on weird shit.
“My baby sister will be there, and she’ll help us,” I tried to reassure Dahlia, but I think it was more for me. “You’ll also meet her husband,” I hissed the last word, not sure why I’d felt the need to add that bit for her. “His name’s Noah Townsend.”
I still had issues with the fact that her asshole of a sperm donor for a father had kidnapped her and put her through hell.
She’d also had a freakin’ Elvis wedding.
To a Townsend.
None of that family were right in the head, not one of them.
Fucking Noah Townsend!
Five minutes later, we turned onto the dirt road that led to the houses that were set farther back on the land. They were all spread out with a decent amount of distance between them to ensure that everyone in the family had privacy.
Regardless of the distance, this was Townsend land. That fact was an explanation in itself for why distance needed to be had between the properties, and why I’d chosen the one farthest away.
How I’d ended up here had been down to my sister. I’d been disillusioned with law enforcement and the amount of corruption in the squad that I’d been working in. Then, my sister had been kidnapped and sold to a raping asshole who’d tried to kill her. You just couldn’t make this shit up! Anyway, to be closer to Luna, I’d quit and taken the job to oversee the security for Townsend Oil company. They had been looking for someone, and I’d taken the job. I loved being able to see my baby sister on a daily basis and couldn’t wait to meet my niece or nephew, but I’d come to realize something – no Townsend had ever met a stranger, but I had. By that I mean they immediately brought me into the family, acting like we’d spent every day of our lives together. In contrast, I preferred my own space and socialized when I felt like it. There was no such thing as personal space to this family though, so it was taking me time to adjust to that.
Speaking of which, the pains in my ass were all lined up on the front porch of my house with big grins on their faces. My heavily pregnant sister was leaning against her husband watching as I pulled to a stop.
Sighing, which I seemed to be doing a lot today, I got out of the truck and groaned at being able to stretch my legs properly. It had been a helluva a day, and every muscle felt like it was wound tightly inside me.
Looking up at them, I waited, and waited, and waited. When the questions that I’d expected to be inundated with didn’t come, I let out the loudest sigh possible and rubbed my face with my hands.
“You know, don’t you?”