I was about to defend him, but then a mental image of Cole getting his hand stuck in a pickle jar the other day, then getting it stuck again when we asked him what happened, and he showed us came to mind. Maybe she had a point? Nah, Cole was just…unique. Brett was fine, maybe a bit scary, but he was smart and sane. And the youngest brother Tom and Layla sounded like they were okay too. What if it skipped siblings?
“Listen, I gotta go and get back to Hades. My, if you decide to marry the guy then I’ll love your kids however they may turn out.”
“Alright sweetie, don’t let the bastards get you down.” I worried about her; she’d lost so much weight and looked exhausted.
“Sure thing love, good luck!”
I was going to need it, but right now I needed a nap. I was meant to be having lunch, but I was exhausted. Tony won't mind; he’ll just eat it himself; so long as he doesn’t look at the soup’s ingredients.
* * *
I must have only been asleep for an hour because the sun wasn’t shining through the glass doors at the end of the bedroom. I’d been on the ranch long enough to tell the placing of the sun in the sky and the time of day. Moving my head, I grimaced when I felt a piece of paper stuck to my cheek and recognized Ren’s messy writing on it.
Meet me outside, R XXXX
Was he having a laugh? This is the guy who practically dials 911 as soon as I get within three feet of the stairs, and he’s asking me to go down two sets of stairs?
“Miserable bastard,” I muttered, trying to push myself up, remembering at the last second that I needed to roll to the other side first. “This had better be good.”
Picking up both crutches, I Forrest Gump’d my ass as Cole called it, to the stairs and threw one crutch down to the bottom. Carefully I made my way down by holding on for dear life to the banister with my good hand and balancing on the other crutch, before grumping my way down towards the next set of stairs and starting all over again. By the time that I got to the front door, I was ready to tear Ren a new one. I was relieved to have my freedom after so many weeks of his dick-tatorship; another Cole-ism, he even had a photo of a dick shaped potato for a visual. But at the same time, those stairs were no joke.
Throwing open the front door I stopped when I saw a metal enclosure with the tiniest little pig I’d ever seen snuffling around at the food in it.
Before I could do anything, Ren walked up the porch steps and walked towards it with his hands in his jean pockets.
“She’s called Pip,” he said bending down to pick the tiny little baby up and snuggling it under his chin.
“What is it?”
He grinned as the piglet snuffled in his neck, making random noises here and there as he scratched it’s back and stomach.
“It’s a Royal Dandie micro pig. She’s six and a half weeks old, weaned onto solid foods, loves having her chin and belly scratched and has already started her house breaking training.” He flipped her onto her back and went to town on her tummy.
Hobbling up to her, I lifted my hand to scratch under her chin and pulled back when she looked at me with the most beautiful eyes that I’d ever seen. This was apparently not what she wanted because she started making squealing noises and tried to flip herself to get to me or to run away, I wasn’t sure which. I’d always wanted a micro pig after meeting my friends’ three micro pot bellied pigs, but I don’t think I’d ever told Ren this before.
“Go sit Maya and you can cuddle her all you want,” Ren jerked his chin in the direction of the chair behind me, and gently nudged me to get me moving.
Hobbling over, I sat down carefully and looked up at him expectantly when the piglet wasn’t immediately put into my arms. He was still holding her and grinning and didn’t stop until he realized I was still waiting.
“Sorry,” he muttered, looking so like Cole with the sheepish look on his face that it was almost comical; until you got to know Cole and then it was just…God, what if this is the father of my babies?
Bending over, he gently placed little Piplet on my lap and crouched in front of me. “Just in case she makes a mad dash for it like before,” he said, keeping his eyes firmly on the piglet like he wanted to snatch her back.
She was now looking up at me expectantly like I wasn’t following the rules or I was missing something. I was scratching her head and chin gently, what else did she want? Just as I was about to ask Ren, she put her tiny front trotters on my stomach and started straining as she tried to climb me.
“Here, she wants snuggles,” Ren lifted her onto my chest so that her head was under my chin.
“Oh my God,” I whispered when she snuggled her face into my neck and instantly calmed. “Is she asleep?”
The smile on Ren’s face instantly dropped into a scowl. “Motherfucking cockblocker,” he growled standing up suddenly.
“Listen, I know that Piplet is adorable, but seriously this reaction is a bit much. She’s only a baby and needs…”
“You think this is over a pig? I admit, she’s fucking adorable and actually smells kinda nice. She doesn’t hump people, yet, but I’m sure we can train her, and yeah I’ll say it again she’s cute, but I bought her for a purpose!”
I put my hand over the ear that wasn’t against my chest and hissed, “If you say you bought her to eat, so help me God Renwick Townsend, I will geld you…”
“What the hell are you talking about?” He said looking completely horrified. “Of course, I didn’t buy her to eat. Who would eat that? No, I bought her for you to give you the thing around her neck which she tried to eat every thirty seconds until I ransomed that apple slices, and then she falls asleep!” His hands were in his hair, and he was tugging away.
Feeling around Pip’s neck, I felt a ribbon and followed it round, until I came to the bow at the side of her neck and undid it. Holding the snoring piglet against me with my cast, I brought the ribbon in front of my face and saw the engagement ring that he’d taken off my finger a couple of days earlier dangling from it.
“Maya Price, will you do me the honor of becoming my wife?” Ren whispered on one knee in front of me.
I could hardly see his face through the tears pooling in my eyes, but I nodded and tried to get out the word ‘Yes’, but all it sounded like was, “isshhhh”.
I leaned in to kiss him when boots stomped onto the porch.“Aw fuck, tell me Dash didn’t reproduce.”
“Fuck it,” Ren muttered, closing the space between us and kissing me, which was ruined five seconds later when the sound of a squealing micro pig broke us apart.
“What the fuck was that?” Cole asked looking around the area.
“That’s Pippa, my piglet,” I said holding her up proudly with her little legs moving as she tried to get to the addition to the group. Ren lunged for her, like he thought I was stupid enough to drop her, and took her over to Cole.
“Damn, she’s cute,” he said taking her from Ren and getting the now customary nose to chin butt. “Why’d you get her a pig man? I mean, I like her, and all…awww fuck look at those eyes, and the teeny weeny nose,” he cooed turning her onto her back. “And look at these ittle wittle feet…”
“Uh dude, you want five minutes alone? I’m thinking the ASPCA won’t like it, though. Plus Dash is looking all kinds of jealous and left out over there,” Ren pointed at where Dash was lying on his stomach with his head on his paws, watching Cole with sad eyes.
Clearing his throat, Cole walked over to the enclosure and stepped over it to put Pippa on the floor, staying in there with her. “So yeah, why the pig?”
“She asked me to marry Ren for him,” I held my hand up with the ring back on it.
“What the fuck,” he whispered glaring at my hand. “Your idea of a fucking awesome proposal was with a fucking dwarf pig?” He yelled at Ren.
“Dude, she’s always wanted a micro pig and pips of the Doodle Dandie, which is a champion breed.”
“You couldn’t do fucking rose petals or anything even slightly romantic?”
Ren’s eyes narrowed before he bit out, “Shut the fuck up, you don’t know a damn thing. Her favorite book since the age of five was Charlotte’s Web purely for fucking Wilbur. When Babe came out, she gushed for a year over how she wanted a pig of her own. When Bathsheba went into labor two months ago, she sat with her inside the enclosure telling her the story of Charlotte’s Web and was there to welcome each piglet into the world. She even went as far as shaking the shit out of Maverick’s lungs when he wasn’t breathing.” Well, when he put it like that, didn’t I sound like a pathetic nut sack? “She has loved pigs since she was little, and this way she has a house-sized pig that will always be inside with her. It’ll walk beside her and can also be house trained. So if that isn’t goddamn fucking romantic enough for you, then you can…”
“You did good bitch dick, you did real good,” Cole interrupted, leaning over the enclosure to throw his arms around Ren and swaying him violently back and forth. I had to admit, I agreed - he’d made it the most romantic proposal a girl could ask for.
Just as I was about to get my phone out and share the news with my parents and the girls, the sound of tiny grunts came started. It all hit us at the same time, and we looked down to see Piplet the randy piglet humping Cole’s boot with gusto.
“Aw come the fuck on,” he yelled, jumping out of the enclosure, only to change direction and jump off the porch and run when Dash immediately started jumping up at him with that special twinkle in his eye.
Pip let out a little cry from her enclosure, so Ren picked her up and brought her back over to me.
“So, is that a yes, Mrs. Townsend?”
“It’s an I don’t give a shit if our kids can only turn in circles or they get their hands stuck in objects, it’s a hell yes!” I replied grinning and leaning up to give him a kiss, only to get a wet snout stuck between our chins.
Moving her out of the way, I tried again to give my future husband a kiss, but just as I reached his lips, he suddenly turned and started walking away and muttering to Pippa, “I knew we’d ace it. No dickless thundertwat is ever gonna be able to top this,” and then started talking about pubescent zit riddled pecker heads not standing a chance with his daughters and including her in a tattoo so she’d have to meet her uncle. When he got to the part about them living at home until the age of at least fifty I thought about the number Ebru had passed me the other day for the specialist when I’d mentioned, albeit jokingly, about getting Cole tested. Maybe I’d start with Ren. He’d never know…
If you enjoyed this novel, the author would appreciate a few lines of review at Amazon.
Thank you very much.
Thank You
Thank you for reading the first book in the Providence series. The next book is Luke and Isla’s story and is already in the process of being written. I’ll keep you updated on my author page: https://www.facebook.com/author.marybmoore/
And also on my website: http://marybmoorebooks.com
Feel free to also add me as a friend on FaceBook and/or shoot me a message.
One thing I’ll say is this, in the book I come cross as a naturally funny person because of events and dialogues. I think I’ve actually set myself up to fail doing that because now you’re going to assume that I’m a really funny person in real life. That’s a lot of pressure ya know! I’ll do my best, but I think maybe the characters in my head are the funny ones. In fact, a couple of the characters in the books are inspired by my friends, and some events in the books are actually real life events, and yes I had permission to use them. Me no stupid!
Thank you again, and here’s to Ren and Maya finally getting their story out there and I’m sorry if I left you on a semi-cliffhanger. There’s more trouble to come!
And because I’m so nice, I’m going to leave you with a bonus scene…….turn the page xoxoxo
Bonus Scene
____
Cole $ Maya
"Sitting next to Maya as we watched a programme about some wives who were scaring the shit out of me it suddenly hit me, "hey Maya?"
Without tearing her eyes away from the tv screen, she grunted “yuh."
"You ever tried haggis when you lived in London?"
That got her attention. Pausing the show she turned and looked at me, "Yeah, why
you asking?”
Shit, I couldn't tell her it had been in the book I'd downloaded the other night. I know the guys laughed, but those damn things were addictive. Think Cole think! "Uh just wondering what it was like?”
"It's honestly lush sweetie. You wanna try it sometime?"
Hell yeah!
* * *
5 days later…..
"What do you think then?" Maya sat back and picked up her glass of wine after we'd inhaled a haggis....haggi....haggigi....haggises...whatever but it was gone!
"God that was beautiful. Here you sit I'll go do the dishes." She'd cooked after all.
Walking into the kitchen, I saw the wrapper of the haggis and decided to see if I could make it at home.
Ingredients:
"Sheeps pluck"- heart, liver, lungs……
I could feel the bile rising and put the wrapper on the counter quickly when I swayed. Just as I took the first deep breath to stop the roiling in my gut, I saw five words that sealed my fate….
Presented in a Sheeps Stomach
I never made it to the bathroom and hearing Maya cackling as I threw up into the basin in the kitchen I swore I'd get her back....."
Forever Mine (Providence Series Book 1) Page 30
