Mad Gold (Providence Gold 2)

Dad had a new girlfriend too. A lovely lady who was a regular customer of ours, Hazel Reid. She was shy and really quiet, but I’d seen the looks between them and had appointed myself cupid. One day, when she’d been due to collect her car, I’d made sure I was out of the office and that Jones was distracted too. This meant that Dad had to take over, and one thing led to the other. I loved them as a couple and was delighted that Dad was taking the next step in his life.

I’d also met Madix’s dad. He was just like his son – quiet, serious, handsome, loving and just awesome. He’d gotten along well with Dad, and now they were great friends, texting and making plans to go fishing and whatever else. I’d also seen the guilt and regret on his face when he’d seen Luna, something which she’d also picked up on and lectured him over for hours afterward. He wasn’t responsible for her childhood or the fact her father had kidnapped and abused her for years. He also wasn’t responsible for her dad selling her to a bunch of disgusting rapists. After that, all it had taken was Luna putting Jamie in his arms and calling him Grandad, and he was a goner. He was also a baby hog, which pissed me off. Because of my injuries, I’d spent a lot of time sitting down which meant that people always passed me their babies, or I ended up with Jamie. I’d become a baby pro and wasn’t scared anymore, so when Madix’s dad Ranger came and I wasn’t allowed to hold her, it pissed me off.

One of the other awesome things to happen that delighted all of us was that Mrs. Crane had to leave town. Apparently, people were more accepting of LGBTQ+ than she’d assumed. After the Levi-Madix proposal at lunch, word got around, and she lost all of her friends. Two weeks after it at church, the Pastor called out any ‘would-be’s’ who couldn’t love thy neighbor. This was a two pronged attacked on her because she’d attacked me for something I wasn’t part of, and he was of the mind that love was love, regardless of gender. When he added that he hoped the Lord forgave anyone guilty of not being able to love their neighbor and live life in a loving and peaceful way, she had gotten up and walked out. After that, she’d just packed up and left. I felt sorry for the people where she moved to, but hopefully she’d clear her mind of her nasty ways.

What else had happened? Oh, the Townsend cousins had an issue about two months previously. This meant that all the men and Ariana had to go and help, so I was without Madix for nine days. Nine. Long. Days. And the rat bastard had hidden my vibrator so I couldn’t find it. As a joke though, he’d left a car battery on the floor beside the bed – asshole. Again, they didn’t say exactly what had happened, but I knew it had been bad.

And that brings me to today. I’d gone to see the orthopedic doctor at the hospital about my knee. The MRI that they did on the day of the accident had shown a tear in the cartilage in my knee, something that was sore but not really a huge problem. As the days went on, I’d been experiencing more and more pain which wasn’t being helped by painkillers so I’d stopped taking them and now relied on Lidocaine patches – big old sticky patches that numbed the area. They were fabulous, but they wore off quickly during the day. Today, I’d gone for a follow up MRI because my doctor had decided that surgery was more than likely going to have to be done. It was a simple arthroscopy which would mean just cleaning out the gunk, looking around inside and then walking away – that I could handle. I was sure it wasn’t as simple as that, but the way he described made it seem like that.

When I’d arrived, they’d asked me if there was any chance I was pregnant. I’d laughed and said no… until they asked me for the date of my last period.

Fuck. Me!

So, one pregnancy test later and there it was. No MRI, no operation, keeping the sore knee, and I was carrying a baby gorilla that was going to come out the baby chute taller than me.

Now I had to tell the big silverback.Madix

Four hours later…

I was sweating like a pervert in a sex shop. My hands were shaking so hard that I was almost sitting on them to hide it from everyone.

To make matters worse, all the Townsends had trailed in when I’d gotten home, deciding for some reason to get in their cars and drive all the way here instead of meeting at their own home. I’d wanted it to be just me and Dahlia for what I had planned, but as always the plan didn’t go the way it should.