“Well, if it isn’t the most beautiful girl in the world,” he greeted.
“Uh huh, I’m not falling for that, old man. I happen to know you say the same thing to Layla and the others.”
I swear I heard a whimper from Sadie. “He has a harem?”
Turning my upper body, I thought about telling her who he was but decided against it. “Really?”
Shrugging unrepentantly, she whispered, “Never thought that would do it for me either, but the man’s good looking.” She gestured at him, blushing when he grinned at her.
Maybe now was a good time to introduce them before she said anything to make me puke again. “Sadie, this is my grandad, Hurst. Gramps, this is Sadie.”
“Pleasure to meet you, Sadie,” Gramps said as he held his hand out. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”
“Likewise, Hurst. Wait, don’t you live somewhere else?”
His eyes widened as he heard her accent properly. “Place called Piersville, about two hours from here. My grandson’s wife is British, too, but she doesn’t sound like you. Well, she’s part British. Technically she’s French, but she spent a majority of her childhood in England.”
I could see Sadie was only just following the lineage of Sabine, my cousin Brett’s wife. “Where about in England?”
“Somewhere in the south west.”
Shaking her head, she leaned both elbows on the counter. “I don’t really know much of the West Country apart from places like Bristol and Bath. I’m from a village near a place called Bromley. It’s closer to London.”
“We went to London a few years ago when Brett crawled across the pond to beg her forgiveness. I got arrested at Buckingham Palace.”
Sadie looked at him, obviously trying to gauge if he was lying or not. “I think I might like you, Hurst Townsend,” she snickered. Then, noticing someone waiting to be served, she held a finger up and started down the bar toward them, still chuckling. “Arrested at Buckingham Palace. Bloody Nora.”
Turning back to Gramps, I chuckled at his comically dazed expression. “She’s awesome, isn’t she?”
Laughing as he shook his head, he reached over and grabbed my hand, holding it gently on the counter between us. “That she is, and I think she’ll be good for you. In fact,” he pulled back and looked around the bar. “I think working here will be good for you, too.”
“I love you.” I’d said those words to him before, but they held gratitude and deeper meaning right now. I’d been worried he’d be disappointed in me for leaving the company, but as always, he just wanted the best for me.
“Love you back, sweetheart.”
Our moment was broken by Sadie whispering, “Great Gods of fire. What am I looking at right now?”
Both of us followed where she was staring with her mouth open, seeing none other than my cousin Elijah standing in the doorway of the bar.
“What’s he doing here?” I whispered to Gramps, who groaned when he started walking toward us.
“Torture. Pure torture.”
I couldn’t help the giggle that burst out of me at his words. The Townsend-Rossis were wild, absolutely freaking wild. They’d never conformed with anything and were a law unto themselves. And it wasn’t that Gramps didn’t love them, he absolutely did, but they lived to give him shit and stress the hell out of him and Grams.
“Old man,” Elijah greeted with a smirk that spread into a grin when Gramps growled at him. His expression softened when he looked at me. “Hey, Arikins.”
I swear I heard Sadie swoon behind me.
Pulling myself up onto the bar, I leaned over to give him a big hug. “It’s so good to see you.”
Hearing it, Gramps grunted like he disagreed, making Elijah’s shoulders move under my arms as he laughed silently. Pulling back, I noticed he was watching Sadie as she bustled about doing something behind me.
Not taking his eyes off her, he instructed, “Introduce us.”
“Sadie, come and meet my cousin Elijah,” I called as I climbed back down off the bar.
“Nice to meet you, Sadie.”
Sadie shook herself out of her stupor and took the hand he was holding out to her. “Likewise, Elijah.” Then, turning to me with her hand still in his, she raised her eyebrows. “Exactly how many of you lot are there? I’ve not been here long, and already I feel like I’ve met a hundred of you.”
Eh, I could understand that. “There’s a lot of us.”
“And more arriving every day,” Gramps muttered. “Your cousins and brothers are reproducing at a crazy rate, but you’re my sensible girl. Well, you and Layla. I take full credit for that.”
“You’re British?” Elijah asked, still holding her hand.
Not showing that this put her out, Sadie cocked her head slightly as she looked at him. “That I am.”
Elijah sucked in a breath and blinked a couple of times, his mischievous sense of humor showing in his expression now. “This might sound weird and creepy, but could you say daddy for me.”
Ew!
Pulling her hand back finally, Sadie leaned into the bar like she was going to whisper something to him. When he moved closer, obviously assuming she was going to whisper it to him and make all his dreams come true—double ew—she said loudly enough for Gramps and me to hear, “No, I won’t say bloody daddy to you. If you want someone to call you that, go to a club or get yourself a woman who wants to be your little girl.”
Shuddering slightly at the conversation topic but also struggling not to laugh loudly, I watched as Elijah moved back an inch, his eyes scanning her face. “You just said it twice for me,” he informed her, his lips twitching. “And it was awesome!”
Standing up straight, she looked at Gramps. “It must be tough being the normal one in the family.”
I swear, my legs almost collapsed under me with the force of the laughter that came belting out. Through the tears that came with it, I watched as Elijah threw his head back and did the same thing.
“Jesus,” my brother Archer said behind us. “What did I miss?”
“She—” Elijah wheezed, smacking his hand down on the bar. “She called him normal,” he gestured at Gramps, who was glaring at both of us.
And then Archer’s deep laughter joined ours.
“Crackers the lot of you,” Sadie huffed, the sound of her heels tapping on the wooden floor announcing her departure.
Once the hilarity left us—although it took a while—I set three beers down in front of them. “Not that I’m not glad to see you, but what are you doing here?”
“Tate knew I was in the area and texted to ask me to meet up with everyone here,” Elijah replied, his eyes following Sadie.
Picking up his bottle, Archer held his finger up in the air. “Same.”
Looking over at Gramps, I finally noticed the lack of sparkle in his eyes. “Are you okay?”
“We buried a good woman last week,” he sighed sadly, and I saw a tension in him I’d missed previously. “It was… Christ, it was devastating. Your Grams and I decided to come visit to get our heads straightened out.”
Reaching over, I grabbed his hand and squeezed it. “I’m so sorry. Who was it?”
“You know that kid who works at your cousin’s garage called Jarrod?” I nodded, remembering the handsome guy well. “His girlfriend’s grandma, Maude, was beaten and left in a coma. Come to find out, she’d been diagnosed with terminal cancer previously, too, and hadn’t told her family.”
The three of us sucked in a breath at the same time.
“That’s not that unusual,” Elijah murmured as he dug a nail into the label on his beer bottle. “Some people don’t want their family to be burdened by it, or they want to have as normal a life as possible until the end. I think that’s what I’d do, you know.”
Wobbling his head slightly, Archer thought it over. “I don’t know what I’d do. On one hand, I wouldn’t want my family to be counting my days with me and feel scared that I wouldn’t wake up every morning. On the other, I wouldn’t w
ant to carry the full weight of it myself.”
“I’m with you there. What happened after that?” I asked Gramps, who was listening to the conversation but lost in his thoughts.
“She never woke up and passed away in her sleep. Jarrod sang to her before she died and then again at her funeral. It was…” he broke off with a choke. “It was as beautiful as it was devastating. Maude would’ve loved it.”
Seeing my normally happy and stoic grandpa struggling cut me deep. “I’m sorry, Gramps. How’s her family?”
Shaking his head slowly, he whispered, “Not good. I think they’re blaming themselves for not noticing the signs, but, hell, I didn’t pick up on anything when I saw her either. Her granddaughter is a mess and keeps saying she thought it was strange how Maude kept pointing out moments for her to remember.”
“What do you mean?”
“They’d go out somewhere, and something would happen, so Maude would shout out that it was the best moment of her life or something like that. It’s like she was trying to stamp it into people’s memories.”
Hearing the explanation brought back a dozen memories I had of my grandparents, and if I sat down and wrote them out, I’d have thousands that made me smile. If I knew I was going to lose them, though, having those final ones where they were acknowledging it was the best moment of their life would hurt as much as it would soothe me.
Appearing out of nowhere, Sadie thrust some napkins at him. “Here you go. Let me know if you need anything else.” Then, turning to me, she smiled gently. “I’ll cover the bar, you look after your family.”
As she moved to walk away, Gramps called out, “I could use a hug and getting called rude British words.”
And he was back.
Turning back to face him, she raised an eyebrow. “Is that right?” Then she tutted and hopped up on the bar, swiveling gracefully on her ass until she was facing him and then dropped down from it. “All right, bugger lugs, give us a hug.”
Some people might have seen it as taking advantage, but he was as loyal and dedicated to my grandmother as he was to the rest of his family. He was breaking the tension, signaling he didn’t want to discuss it anymore, which I could respect. I usually preferred not to hash things that were bugging me out at all.
He was also doing what he’d lived his life doing: making people feel like part of our family. There was nothing worse than feeling like an outcast, and by showing him she’d cover me at the bar while I made sure he was okay, Sadie had unknowingly shown qualities that my family thrived on. Compassion, loyalty, genuine friendship, and just being a good person.
It might have sounded trite, but it wasn’t. People could fake a lot of those, and they did with monotonous regularity, but whatever he’d seen in her when she’d said the words to me had shown him she was genuine.
Rubbing his chest, Elijah said pitifully, “I feel sad, too.”
Ignoring my cousin, she pulled back from Gramps and smiled at him. “Feeling better, you big git?”
“Your insults need working on,” he replied, looking at her with mock disappointment.
“I’m just breaking you in gently,” she assured him, squeezing his cheek before she climbed back over the bar.
“Hey, why does he get treated like the Queen of England?” Elijah snapped, and those of us who’d already experienced this with Sadie winced.
Spinning slowly, she leveled him with a glare. “The Queen of England?”
“Yeah,” Elijah replied, nodding and ignoring Gramps’ attempts to tell him to shut the hell up.
Drawing in a deep—and hopefully calming— breath, Sadie closed her eyes for a moment before opening them again and focusing on my cousin. I could have warned him to run, but I wasn’t that nice.
“I’m going to ignore that slip-up and answer your question. I’ve heard a lot of stories about him and your grandmother from Ariana, and people who are that nice deserve to be appreciated. Plus, I was raised to be polite.” She punctuated the last part by raising her eyebrows and looking at him like ‘maybe you should try it.’
Grinning, Gramps waved his hand through the air. “That’s kind of you, Sadie. I don’t like to brag, but I’m just as awesome as she—”
“Don’t make me tell her the truth, old man,” Elijah interrupted, shooting Gramps a smug look. “I know your secrets.”
Glaring at him, he hissed back, “I’m telling Lindee your secrets.”
Now that threat did have an impact on my cousin, judging by the panic that flashed across his face. Turning his back on Gramps, he returned his focus to poor Sadie. “Want to explain the issue about saying the Queen of England now?”
“Not really,” she shrugged, sounding bored as she cut up some limes.
“So, you won’t have an issue if I just, say, call you the Queen of England all the time?”
The knife in her hand slipped narrowly missing her finger, but she shook her head. “Nope, not even a little one.”
Leaning back, Elijah watched her closely. “Okay, then. I’ll have a Coke, please, Queen of England.”
Smiling tightly at him, she looked back down at what she was doing. “I’ve got to get these done. Ari, are you free to get the tw… Elijah a Coke, please?”
Elijah held his hand up and shook his head just as I started to get it for him. “No, I’ve never had a British Coke, so I’d love it if the Queen of England could get it for me.”
Dropping the knife with a clatter, she moved slowly away from us to the small fridge to get out a bottle for him and then came back and placed it calmly in front of him. “Here’s your Coke, I hope you enjoy it.”
“Jesus, I was hoping she’d shove it up his ass,” Gramps whispered to me, looking disappointedly at the bottle.
“Oh, I intend to do that, I just didn’t want to waste the beverage,” Sadie snickered, going back to her limes.
“Thank you, Queen of England,” Elijah said as he raised the bottle to his mouth.
Sighing, Gramps grabbed it away from him before he could take a mouthful of it. “Okay, you little peckerhead. Brits don’t like the term because it’s stupid, just like the way you’re acting.”
Looking confused, Elijah argued, “But she is the Queen of England. What the fuck’s the issue?”
This time, Gramps looked at Sadie and begged, “Please, for the love of all things sacred, fill him in. He’s been like this since he was born, and I promise you he won’t give up. If I have to hear him say Queen of England one more time, I’ll be the one shoving the bottle up his ass, full or empty.”
Rolling her eyes, Sadie leaned on her elbows on the bar and said slowly, “He’s made it a bigger deal than it needed to be, but for the sake of his arse hole, I’ll do it.” Then, focusing her attention on Elijah, she laid it out. “Calling her that is like calling your president the President of Washington instead of the United States. She’s the Queen of the whole of the United Kingdom—which, by the way, is made up of four nations,” she held up four fingers like he needed the visual proof.
“It is?” Someone asked from behind us, deep inside the bar. “I didn’t know that.”
“Oh shit,” I whispered to Archer, who was watching it with amusement.
With a sigh, Sadie got back up on the bar. “Yes. Four nations—England, Northern Ireland, Wales, and Scotland.”
“Ah, you’re wrong. Ireland is its own country,” the same voice replied, sounding smug.
“No,” she said slowly, shaking her head. “It’s split into two: the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. Hence why there’s a lot of history involving Republicans and the IRA and the rest of the UK. Northern Ireland is one of the UK’s four nations, of which the Queen is the monarch of. She’s also the monarch for the whole of the British Commonwealth, which consists of fifty-four countries.”
“Is that so?” Elijah questioned, crossing his arms over his chest as he watched her.
“Yes, it is so, so you calling her an archaic term like the Queen of England is wrong. There hasn’t be
en a queen or king of just England in centuries.”
Thinking this over, Elijah eventually shrugged and held his arms out again. “Now I feel like I just need to hug you to say sorry for insulting you.”
And just like that, he proved something we already knew in the family: Elijah Townsend-Rossi could handle anyone, even an irritated Brit. I’m not going to lie, I had wondered if there was a man out there who could match her, and now I was wondering if we’d found him. He’d wanted Sadie to relax around him, having obviously picked up on her wariness, and that’s how he’d gone about making it happen.
Then again, was she woman enough to handle him? Was any woman strong enough to handle him? Honestly, it was unlikely.
Not waiting for her to make her mind up and go to him, he quickly moved over to where she was and pulled her up and off the bar in a big hug, making her squeak as she flew through the air.
Glancing at Gramps, I saw him tip his head back and look up at the ceiling, no doubt coming to the same conclusion I had.
“Ah, excellent, you’re all here,” my brother Tate shouted, signaling his arrival as discretely as always.
Looking over my shoulder, I frowned when I saw various family members behind him, all carrying bags with them.
Smacking Elijah on the back, he greeted, “Good to see you, man, but could you stop manhandling my wife’s employee.”
Spinning with Sadie still held tightly against his chest, he shook his head. “Don’t wanna.”
Lifting her hand in the air, Sadie squeaked, “I kinda wanna.”
His response was immediate and determined. “No.”
Looking behind my brother, I frowned at my family. “What are you doing here?”
That frown deepened when I noticed Parker in amongst them with Rich and Beau, who looked like she’d rather be anywhere else but here.
Clapping his hands together, Tate called out to the patrons, “Ladies and gentlemen, we’re having a special event here tonight. It’s a spur of the moment, so I’ve made sure we have popcorn, chips, nuts, and awesome stuff. My assistants,”—he gestured at my brothers who were snickering as they emptied the sacks—“will be serving you while we get it all ready.”
Forbidden Gold (Providence Gold Book 5) Page 4