Book a flight to the nearest airport to Mount Kilimanjaro to do number 3.
“Ari,” Parker’s amused voice sang as he leaned over my face. “Is there something you need to tell me?”
Chewing on my lower lip, I considered the question. “I’m taking a vacation, and I haven’t told you yet. Do you know what airport is nearest to Mount Kilimanjaro?” Then something else occurred to me. “Do you know what country it’s in?”
Smiling softly at me, he held up a white stick. “Go pee on this and bring it back to me.”
In all of my twenty-nine years, I’d never taken a pregnancy test. We’d never even had any scares. I’d kept my birth control appointments to the day… I hadn’t ever done anything wrong until now.
Here’s something else: I wasn’t afraid of having a baby for the reasons I used to be. Nope, I’d worked on getting past that since the week after Parker had told me he loved me. My new fear was passing on Townsend genes to an innocent human being. Laugh all you want, but that shit was real. We’d been shot in the ass, some reacted weirdly to painkillers and anesthetic, my cousin whirled his dick around like a baby elephant discovering his trunk for the first time when he had anything more substantial than Tylenol, scrotox—the list was endless. Heck, even the people who married into the people turned from normal to freaks. And then there were the kids, those poor, poor babies and their messed up little minds.
“The sooner you go and take this test, the sooner we’ll be able to celebrate that we took the best part of you and the best part of me and made it into one human being,” he said gently.
I wasn’t sure he was in his right mind saying that, but I took the test and limped over to the bathroom in the corner of the room I’d been put in.
That’s where I learned how awkward it was to take one. Men had it easy—they could stand, aim, and spray. Women had to sit down to pee to begin with, then we had to hold the test under us to pee on it, but we couldn’t see if we were hitting it.
What kind of fucked up contortionist designed this shit?
“Will it mess up the results if it touches me?” I yelled, trying to adjust my position to allow for optimum pee on target scoring.
“No, but try not to do it anyway!”
“Well, we only get one shot at this,” I reminded him. “I can’t just recharge my bladder to fire again, it takes time. If you want this result now, it’s going to be on a wing and a prayer.”
I could actually hear his sigh through the door, but then it opened, and he walked in with a specimen pot. A freaking tiny specimen pot.
“It’s all I could find out there, but if you pee in this, we can just stick the test into it to get the result.”
Taking it from him, I looked from the tube to him and back again. “How the shit am I meant to get it in here? It’ll go all over my hand.”
Shrugging, he backed away and made a shooing movement with his hand. “You can wash it afterward. Just pee in it already.”
We’d been together for over six years now—married for five of those years—so it was fair to say we’d witnessed the other one at their worst. I can’t say I’d pooped in front of him, but I’d been sick, he’d helped me when I caught a stomach bug, I’d helped him when he’d caught it from me, it had all happened. That magical curtain that shielded each other from peeing and pooping had disappeared, but peeing in a tiny tube while he stood there?
Wasn’t I suffering enough?
“Just pee, baby,” he sighed, turning his back to me and staring at the wall. “I’m not looking.”
Bending forward, I held the stupid thing under me and peed, squealing when it went on my hand. “I would strongly advise you to make sure there’s a shit ton of soap available, Parker.”
“There’s soap and hand sanitizer, baby. I’ve got you.”
It’s fair to say most of my pee went on the thumb and forefinger that were holding the tube under me, but amazingly, I managed to fill it almost to the top.
Not saying a word, I held it out to him and reached for the toilet paper, shuddering when I wiped my hand with it first. By the time I’d tidied myself up and washed my hands with soap four times, he was standing looking at the plastic tube on the counter.
“What does it say? If it comes up with something demonic, I don’t want to know.”
Almost like he was in slow motion, he turned his head to look at me with tears in his eyes. “We’re having a baby.”
The last time I’d seen him so emotional had been when I’d finally found the ring he’d hidden in a cake. My brothers had convinced him to do something they’d seen online and get the ring baked into a cake for my birthday. The point was to wait for each slice to be eaten and the ring to be found, so it was meant to be just the two who ate it. Then Dale had come to drop something off, and I’d insisted he have a slice, so it was his tooth that’d found the ring. One awkward drop to the knee proposal with a cake covered ring and a crown for Dale later, and we were engaged.
Now, this was the next phase of our lives together—a mini version of both of us mixed together.
Throwing myself at him, I kissed him long and deep, the excitement suddenly almost overwhelming me.
I was so caught up in it and trying to convey how happy I was that I didn’t come up for air until a foot started kicking the door.
Opening it, I saw my family all crowding the small room with huge grins on their faces. Apparently, the walls weren’t as thick as I’d assumed, so when one of them had come in to check on me, they’d heard the news. Did I mind that they’d told everyone before me? No. The most important person to share it with had been in the room with me when I’d taken the test. Coming out to find everyone else ready to celebrate and congratulate us just made it even better.
As it turns out, my pregnancy was a walk in the park. The sickness only lasted a month, I breezed through each check-up, the baby was slightly small, but that only meant good things for my poor vagina. When I went into labor at thirty-nine weeks, it was long, but I gave birth to our little boy with no problems.
The only issues came when we had to decide on a name. We hadn’t found out the gender of the baby while I was pregnant because he’d been too wriggly and hadn’t wanted us to, but even if we had, I reckon we’d have struggled to decide because we had five names for a girl and another five for a boy.
“What about Tobias?” I asked after we’d vetoed all of the names. None of them seemed to fit him, so I’d gone online and looked up ‘rare boys names,’ and this one had stuck out.
“I love it, but on one condition—we call him Tobias Townsend Knight,” Parker whispered as he walked slowly around the room with our little boy in his arms.
Like I was going to argue with that!
**Flip to the next page**
I Want To Break Free…
Wait, I didn’t include the fundraiser? Hurst and the Townsend men all dressed up to do Queens I Want To Break Free video? I wouldn’t leave you guys hanging.
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If you want to read it, it’ll be included in the new Townsends series, Family Ties. The first book—Elijah and Sadie’s—Great Sass comes out on 17 November.
Preorder it now: https://amzn.to/3dODrdl
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About the Author
I’m a British author who grew up all over the world. My parents were diplomats, so we were posted to all of the corners of the earth and it was a blast. Some wouldn’t seem so awesome if you heard about them, but my parents always made it a fun experience and it molded my brother and I into who we are today.
I live in Wiltshire in the west country of the UK. At random times of the day, I’ll hear a moo from the fields around me, or get a whiff of that…uhhh…’country air’, and I love it! I might not have grown up in the UK, but I’m a British girl to the bone (regardless of the
suspicious whiffs coming in from the fields).
I’m a single mother with a son who is nearing his teenage phase. Maybe he’s reached it early? Who knows. But he’s awesome and has a personality and sense of humor that I can only attribute to my family. We’re slightly bonkers, we have a wicked sense of humor and we find the positives in every situation. I’m so proud to be his mum and to watch him grow and mature.
Writing was something that I’d always done. I had a teacher in the third grade who always set us the task of writing a story and making it into a book every weekend. After I left school, I kept this up and wrote as often as I could or just plotted out books. This evolved into me taking the plunge and publishing my first book in 2016 and I’ve been typing ever since.
I’m proud to be an Indie Author, and I absolutely love writing out my crazy Providence characters and the more complex ones in my other series’. It doesn’t matter if it’s romantic comedy or something with more suspense – so long as it has a HEA I’ll do it!
I’ve got so many more planned, so the best is yet to come.
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Also by Mary B. Moore
Providence Series
Forever Mine – Ren & Maya
More Than Forever – Luka & Isla
Until Forever – Cole & Ebru
My Forever – Cole & Ebru pt 2
Choosing Forever – Brett & Sabine
Until Tom, Finding Forever – Tom & Sonya
Forever Ducked – All of the crazies
Bound to Me Forever – Adam & Scarlett
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Providence Gold
Until Fools Find Gold – Noah & Luna
Mad Gold – Madix & Dahlia
Tainted Gold- Tate & Lilith
Going For Gold – Levi & Charlotte
Forbidden Gold – Parker & Ariana
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Cheap Thrills Series
Fireball – DB & Tabby
Living On A Dare – Ellis & Jose
Classy AF – Raul & Rose
Talk Flirty To Me – Jarrod & Katy
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Covent Garden Series
Quids In
* * *
Valiant
Compass
* * *
Doughty
Force Projection
* * *
Quick Snap Novella
Out Of Bounds
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Available on all Amazons.
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US: www.amazon.com/Mary-B-Moore/e/B01DR11PPM
UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Mary-B-Moore/e/B01DR11PPM
Forbidden Gold (Providence Gold Book 5) Page 29