Until Fools Find Gold (Providence Gold 1)

Walking up to her, I grabbed her hand and tugged her toward it.

“No, no turkey,” I reassured her, chuckling.

She’d done the same with chicken after watching Chicken Little. For months we hadn’t been allowed to eat it, and then they’d done a project on Charlotte’s Web at school and she’d been distracted by pigs and bacon. Then, she’d watched a movie where the pigs had eaten a bad guy or something and had forgotten all about both issues. Mom says it’s because she hit puberty and had bigger issues to deal with, but Levi swears she says she also saw our chickens eating one of their own and decided that if they were savage enough to do that and pigs were savage enough to eat a human, then she could put it to the back of her mind. Plus, she hated beef and was getting sick of eating fish.

After I’d told her about Tom’s pet turkey, I had wondered if it was going to put her off eating it or if she’d grown out of that issue. Apparently not!

I’d also seen her intentions about getting a turkey of her own. At some point, we’d have to teach her to perfect a poker face, or the world was going to eat her up. Maybe in around seventy years when I didn’t need to be twenty steps ahead of her.

It was strange thinking along those lines. She’d been a part of our lives for so many years before she disappeared. I wasn’t lying when I told Levi that during that time, I’d been aware of her, but I hadn’t allowed myself to properly go down that mental route because she’d been so young. I hadn’t really developed those kinds of thoughts about her until she’d turned sixteen.

There were four years age difference between us, and that was enough for me to feel dirty for even finding her attractive. Not saying I didn’t, I absolutely did, but anything else made me feel like a pervert. Some guys might have been okay with that and I didn’t judge them for it at all, but I couldn’t.

Like a forty-year-old with a twenty-year-old. If he’d hit thirty, and she was ten and he’d decided that he found her attractive and that she was it for him, people would look at him like a dirty pervert. But, at the age of twenty and forty, it was okay! Four years is far different to twenty, absolutely, but even that age difference is a matter of personal preference for when you feel that it’s acceptable. Different folks, different strokes!

There comes a time when the ages don’t matter anymore. Before her dad had done the dip with her, I’d been coming up to the point where I was struggling to look away. Her being eighteen and me being twenty-two made it feel more acceptable. Would I have held back until she’d hit twenty-one like she was now? I don’t think I would or could have.

Luna was the epitome of female perfection– the yin to my yang. She was beautiful, actually stunningly beautiful when you added what was on the inside. Regardless of what she’d been through, she was funny, loyal and loving. It didn’t matter what walk of life you came from, she’d treat a homeless drug addict with the same loyalty and care as she would one of us. She had a soft heart that couldn’t fathom eating an animal once it became ‘human’ in her eyes. She was terrified of spiders, but one of the other effects of reading Charlotte’s Web had been that spiders all became Charlotte to her– speaking, loving, little spider mommies. Bizarre, but true!

How her father could hurt and abuse that in any way was beyond me, and it was another reason why I wouldn’t relax until he was caught. I’d even called in a friend of mine, Sven, who lived in Tennessee. He had acquaintances everywhere who were putting out the feelers for Rick’s current whereabouts.

Once he was found, they had strict instructions to ‘obtain’ him in any way possible. I didn’t care about his condition or how he was restrained until I got to him, I just cared about making sure that there was justice for what he’d done.

Looking over at Luna as she opened the basket and squealed, I snapped out of those thoughts and watched her lift out the different tubs and bags from inside it. Everything was done with a smooth grace, even with the white dressing on her forehead, the boot on her foot, and being as clumsy as she was.

That was another Luna-ism. Clumsy as fuck, but ironically also as graceful as a princess.

I felt my palms sweating just watching her. I’d thought I could wait, but after last night, I couldn’t.

A couple of steps brought me up behind her, and then I was sinking down onto my knees and spinning her around. The squeal that came out of her was cut off by my lips hitting hers.