Things were starting to add up as he turned off the hose and stormed over to me.
“Your kids,” he sneered, “took a shit, and then drew fucking…” he broke off, his mouth opening and closing as he thought of the right wording. “Fucking cave paintings on my back!” He finished on a yell.
“Why did you let them do that?” I mean, who in their right minds would let their children do that to them?
“I didn’t let them,” he snapped. “I fell asleep and woke up to it.”
I didn’t get to reply as Gramps walked up, calling out to the kids as he passed them. As always, if their Gampy was around they were right by his side and they almost fell out of the little pool in their hurry to get to him.
“Hey, what happened to your back?” He asked as he walked up holding their hands. I winced thinking of what was on those hands as they hadn’t been washed properly after their art session. That pool was going to have to be burned too.
Turning to look at his back in the reflection on the window, he must have been able to see the patterns because he spun around and glared at me and then he did something that absolutely threw me. That in itself was a big achievement given the family that I’d married into. But, he hissed, actually hissed like a cat at the kids and then stormed inside the house.
“You might want to wash your hands,” I advised a confused looking Hurst and then proceeded to fill him in on what had happened.
Five minutes later, I sat back and watched as he cleaned the kids down with a long brush attachment for the hose that was normally used on cars, but that we kept on the ranch for situations just like this. Townsend kids got up to all sorts and for some reason most of what they got up to involved shit.
It just wasn’t normal.
Later that night…
Sitting back as Brett took a mouthful of his Corona and listened to his family talk about the latest drama to hit the town, I looked down at the plain water in my hand and then looked over at my son and his little sister running after their cousins.
He hadn’t noticed that I wasn’t drinking yet, but he would when the next time I got up to get him a new beer, I handed him his empty bottle with the positive pregnancy test in it.
Looking back at him as he took my hand, breaking me out of my plans, I gave him a grin as he leaned down to give me a kiss.
“Gross,” I laughed. “You just kissed my teeth!”
Grinning back at me, he kissed my nose and then pulled me into his side. “I’m always happy to kiss any part of you.”
Then he ruined my plans by putting his hand on my hip, right on the stick that was poking out of my pocket. Pulling out the hard object, he lifted it up and looked at it in confusion.
“What the fuck is that?”
Admittedly it was a bit mangled, but surely even he could put two and two together?
“Surprise!” I whispered warily. I didn’t want to draw attention to the situation because he wasn’t actually looking pleased by the news.
“What do you mean?” he asked me, getting even more confused. “What the fuck is this?” Sighing, I took it out of his hand and turned it so that he could see what was left of the screen. “Ant?”
Looking down at it, I saw that that really was the only word that you could see now, but surely he could still tell what it was?
Losing my patience, I jumped up and stood in front of him with my hands on my hips. “I’m pregnant, you stupid dick! That’s what it says – preg-nant,” I turned the screen toward him and moved my finger under it as I said the word slowly, breaking it into syllables. It really didn’t say that, but the fact that he didn’t recognize anything about the pregnancy stick pissed me off.
“What the hell happened to it? Oh Jesus,” he looked around me in the direction of the kids. “Please don’t tell me that they chewed on it!”
Throwing it at him, I walked into the house yelling, “No, Simba did just before she ran up and licked your lips before we left.”
There was a clatter as something hit the floor and I heard him running up behind me. “I told you she smelt funky! You said it was her new food,” he cried as he ran to the toilet. He didn’t manage to close the door before he threw up and I felt my own stomach turning as the loud sound of him being sick carried across the house.
Doing my best to tune it out, I filled up my glass and walked back outside to the group of family who were now sitting silently. My daughter, Tabitha, walked on her chubby legs up the stairs catching all of our attentions.
She was the cutest little girl normally, but at that precise moment, her beautiful blonde curls were in a Mohawk, fixed in position by something brown.
Please let it be mud, please let it be mud…
“What have you done?” Cole whispered in horror, just as his two sons joined Tabby on the porch, their hair sticking out in all directions with the same brown substance.
The smell that followed them answered our worries. And FYI – it wasn’t mud.
“I’ll get the shit shovel,” Hurst murmured as he walked around the shitty tots, keeping a big distance between himself and them, and then walked off to get the brush that he’d used earlier that day.
Almost like something out of a fecal zombie movie, the other kids walked up to join the three – all of them in exactly the same predicament; hair gelled into style with excrement.
Looking down at my stomach, I realized that I needed to start preparing myself for another one of what was now standing in front of me.
I could pray all I wanted, though, and it wouldn’t make a difference. It was a Townsend
The End
Acknowledgements
This is always a really long looooong list, but here goes:
To my family – What can I say apart from thank you. I love you all and love every second that we spend together. Thank you for encouraging me and supporting me through everything. xox
Sonya - thank you for being my best friend, my sounding board, my whining board, for putting up with my shit and for helping me stay relatively sane. Thank you also for helping me through a really hard time and for being my voice of reason. I love you and I feel blessed for having you, Lee and the kids in my life. My #HML4L! xox
CMMFS – you’re absolutely and perfectly Jawsome. You’ve listened as I babbled about the plot and held my hand when I just wanted to turn my laptop off. Somehow, you make my insanity seem actually sane as I Luna through life. Thank you for being an amazing best friend, for getting me through last year and I love you to pieces. London Baby! xox
Jane – Thank you for being my beta, for supporting me and for always being my unicorn buddy and everything in between. I’d be absolutely lost without you and I love you to pieces xox
Lucy – I love you fiercely. Our kids may take our TV’s and living rooms playing XBOX against each other every night, they may then take our sanity texting until stupid o’clock when they have school the next day, but they can never take our unicorns or our laughs. Thank you for always helping me and for always making me smile. You’re a one in a billion xox
Panda – YO! Thank you. Thank you for taking the perfect photos for my books, for my future covers, thank you for the laughs and for letting me bounce ideas off of you (even if they’re totally irrelevant to anything and everything and just because they randomly popped into my head). And thank you for just being you.
Anne-Marie – I love you fiercely woman. Thank you for always making me smile and for encouraging me when it came to this book and all of the others before it. You are such a beautiful person inside and out and one day I will get to give you a big hug. xox
Lynne - #LTLGT we just have it going on. There’s Gin, there’s M&M’s, there’s unicorns, there’s just so freaking much. I love you to the moon and back and now that I have my Gin-twin there’s no going back. Thank you for being you! Xox
About the Author
I love unicorns and I shit glitter. I’m really not crazy . . . GET THE HELL AWAY FROM MY UNICORN! Okay . . . you may proceed.
Other Books by Mary
Providence Series
Forever Mine – Ren & Maya
More Than Forever – Luka & Isla
Until Forever – Cole & Ebru
My Forever 3.5 – Cole & Ebru
Choosing Forever – Brett & Sabine COMING SOON
Bound to Me Forever – Adam & Scarlett TBA
Only You Forever – Tom & Sonya TBA
Holding Onto Forever – Layla & Mark TBA
Amity
Redemption – Mace & Ava COMING SOON
Devotion – Ethan & Sadie COMING SOON
Tranquility TBA
Absolution TBA
Salvation TBA
Serenityn TBA
Grace TBA
Valiant
Compass – Hunter & Piper
Revenant – Bo & Noah COMING SOON
Endurance - 2017
Sanctum - 2017
Advocate TBA
Amnesty TBA
Purgatory TBA
Release TBA
Counterblow TBA
Preservation TBA
Sanction TBA
Vanquish TBA
Doughty
Force Projection – Kyle & Jagger
Choosing Forever Page 21
