Tainted Gold (Providence Gold 3)

I didn’t live without my joe. And if he kept getting in the way of me and the pot of coffee on the side, he wouldn’t live either.

“I don’t care what they said,” I growled, yet again. “If they told you that for fatherhood you had to have your pubes permed, would you?” He shot a curious glance over his shoulder at me. “Or, if you had to have them braided with bells put on them, would you do that?”

“Why are we discussing my pubic hair?”

“It’s an example, asswipe.” It’s at this juncture I should probably say that I hadn’t been deprived of coffee ever since that first cup, so I had no control over what was coming out of my mouth because I didn’t even know what was going to come out of it.

“I’ve got some decaf k-cups somewhere. I’ll hunt them out and you can…”

“Don’t say it. Don’t even suggest it!” I warned.

Turning around to face me, he crossed his arms over his chest and looked at me. I was being somewhat dramatic as I supported the top of my body on the counter of the island in his kitchen like I couldn’t hold my body up, but not by far.

I’d never seen anything like the counter top under my cheek, which when you looked at it this close up was like varnished streaky concrete. It was awesome. Then again, I now knew that Tate had a kick-ass house. It was a barn conversion on steroids. He’d told me as we drove over here that it had been the original barn for the land, and he’d loved the outside of the structure so he’d paid out the ass to have it made into a house for him. There were tall ceilings, beautiful wooden floors, and paneled glass floor to ceiling windows. His kitchen was thankfully separated from his living room, something which I appreciated because who wanted the smell of dinner soaking into their couch, and it had space for two dining areas in it.

Then there was the lounge, which was flipping huge, with a wooden staircase that suited the house leading up to the four bedrooms upstairs. I vaguely remembered some of it from our night together, but not much. The bourbon was to blame on the way in, and my randy vagina was to blame for the speed that I ran out of it the next morning making me miss how awesome it all was.

“Is it really that bad?” he asked, pulling me out of my musings about his house.

“Yes,” I whined, smacking the inside of one arm. “My veins don’t even come to the surface when I don’t have coffee in my body. Look!” I slapped the area again for emphasis. “They don’t know which way is up. In fact, I think my whole body shuts down without it. It doesn’t know what it’s meant to be doing, or even what it’s there for.”

I watched his lips twitch as he fought not to smile at my predicament. He could laugh, he wasn’t being executed.

Eventually, after a gazillion years, he put me out of my misery. Just. “I’ll make you a weak coffee. Until we see the doctor and get some answers about it from them, someone whose job it is to know a pregnant woman’s body, then you’ll have to cut back and drink weak ass ones. Deal?”

I could feel my stomach rebelling at the thought, but it was coffee, so I’d make do. “Cross my heart.”

Nodding, he turned to make me a dishwater coffee and then plated up our breakfasts.

Here’s where my pregnancy made itself known, violently. Tate had said he made bomb-ass waffles, eggs, and bacon, so I’d taken him up on the offer. While he’d been cooking, he’d asked me if I liked syrup on my waffles and ketchup with the rest, which I did so long as the two never met. I wasn’t a mixing my sweet with my savory type of girl – you kept that shit far apart unless you were a psycho. That might be a bit harsh, but I really didn’t mix the two.

When he placed it down in front of me, it turned out he’d used two plates, bless his heart. On one were the waffles, drenched in syrup. On the other, were fluffy scrambled eggs, perfectly cooked bacon… and ketchup. The sight of the sauce triggered a memory of how it tasted, and then I got a waft of the smell of it which all mixed together made my stomach rebel.

I only had seconds to get to a place where I could toss my cookies – which wasn’t enough to get me to the bathroom and throwing up in the kitchen sink was just bad manners. So, I covered my mouth and headed to the front door, opened it and ran across the porch to the railing, and then puked over it into the rose bushes – yes, rose bushes – that surrounded the house.