Forbidden Gold (Providence Gold 5)

I loved all animals, but my preference was for little ones that I could cuddle. And I’d seen Sphynx’s before, two of my friends had them, and even though they looked a little bit weird to me, they were actually kind of cute. This one looked like it’d been given way too much skin, waxed bald, and then inflated. And his face was just the grumpiest cat face I’d ever seen. There’s no way in hell I’d sleep under the same roof as it, he’d probably eat me.

“I brought the box of gloves I’ve been using to put the moisturizer on him that you said he had to, and the veterinarian checked him over and is satisfied with the pet passport he traveled in on. So, he’s now clear to go, and you can have him back,” MeeMee told her, nudging the bag toward Sadie with the tip of her finger. “Seeing as how he ate the whole tub of moisturizer you gave me, I bought him a new one. I also bought him some other things to stop him attacking my home,” she muttered, then said to the side, “not that it worked.”

Suddenly remembering that none of us knew the woman, Sadie gasped, “Oh my lord, I’m so sorry. This is my grandmother, MeeMee. MeeMee, this is Hurst, Elijah, Levi, Tate, Noah, Linda, and Ariana Townsend. Well, Elijah’s a Townsend-Rossi, but he’s still a Townsend.”

Looking at us and taking us in, MeeMee smiled warmly at us. “I’ve heard all about you. Thank you for looking after her.”

And, just like that, my grandparents came forward and started talking to her as they led her to a table, leaving the rest of us still staring at the cat. I swear it was assessing all of us like it was thinking about which one to kill first.

Then, the one who’d been quiet up until that point, Noah, asked, “If you get it wet, does it turn back into the cute Mogwai?”

Sadie turned her best glare on him, but it was like trying to fight a war with cooked spaghetti coming from her.

“I would never have expected your grandmother to look like that,” I nodded my head in the direction of where MeeMee was sitting. “What’s her real name? I feel silly calling her MeeMee.”

“Miranda Elerson Dahl. She hates being called granny, grandma, nanny, or anything else close to that, so we call her MeeMee.”

I guess I was calling her it, then.

“She looks like the kind of grandparent that would make you write and recite grand poetry,” Elijah mused, looking from Sadie to her grandmother.

“Oh, she did!”

That had us all intrigued.

“What kind of shit did you write?” Elijah asked, leaning forward with a smirk on his face. It wasn’t a nasty smirk, it was an I’m getting to know you better than you think smirk.

“On a boat from Birmingham to Westminster, sat a very uptight spinster. A handsome young man called Huck said, ‘dear lady, I’ll teach you to—'”

“Sadie Odessa, I told you when you wrote that not ever to repeat it again,” MeeMee snapped, shocking all of us considering Sadie was whispering, and the woman was sitting a good thirty feet away from us.

Smiling proudly, Sadie sighed. “I was never great at poetry, but I write a fucking dirty limerick.”

“Sadie!” MeeMee shrieked as Gramps made his way over to us, leaving the two grandmothers alone.

When he got to the bar, he sat down on the stool next to Elijah’s. “Okay, hit me with them.”

Proving it wasn’t just Sadie’s grams that’d gotten bat-like hearing, Grams turned around and scowled at him. “I apologize in advance for my husband. He’s got the mental age of a twelve-year-old. They all do, Linda. They all do.”Driving up to Parker’s home was an experience. Yes, I’d been here before, but I hadn’t been here since the changes in our relationship. It was weird, but I was excited.

Seeing that his vehicle was already there, I parked to the side of him in case he was called out later on. We’ve all been in the situation where we needed to leave quickly and couldn’t because some dick had blocked us in—i.e., one of my brothers because they had shit for brains. Ironically, it was usually them I was trying to get away from. Parker’s job made this a strong possibility, and let it be known that I never wanted to be like my brothers, so I was thinking outside of the box now.

I’d only just opened the door of my car when he appeared on the porch of his house with a huge smile on his face. When I grinned back at him, he walked quickly down the stairs and over to me, engulfing me in a tight hug that made me feel settled. This beginning part of our relationship was making it a little hard for me to settle. I didn’t know how to read him all the time, I couldn’t always tell what he was going to do next, I wasn’t sure of the tone he’d used in some of his texts, and I just felt slightly off balance. I apparently also overthought things, but that was me. So him welcoming me like this felt awesome.