Until Fools Find Gold: A Providence Gold Series and Until Series Crossover

by Mary B. Moore

  Because I was freaking the hell out!

  “The horse doesn’t like me,” I tried.

  “Yes, he does. You named him when he was born!”

  I had. I’d called him Boo-Boo because I’d thought it was cute. Also, because I was a dork. I hadn’t taken into account the fact that the cute tiny foal would grow up into an Amazonian sized Trojan horse.

  “He’s trying to throw me off his back!”

  “No, that’s just his body moving.”

  “My weird booty foot doesn’t fit in the stirrup!”

  “Yes, it does. It even has space to move around because men use those stirrups too.”

  “He just ate, you’re not supposed to do any exercise after you eat.”

  “It was an apple slice.”

  “I think he has gas. I’m pretty sure he just farted.”

  “No, he sharted. Horses can walk, fart or shart at the same time.”

  “Gross,” I muttered.

  “Gramps can do that,” he added helpfully.

  I thought about the handsome guy who was Hurst Townsend and frowned. Nah, no way! He was a gentleman.

  “How is your Gramps?”

  “Him and Grams are fine. They still have their house at the ranch,” he said, reminding me of the beautiful place that his family had. I’d visited it many times before Dad went out of his mind. Well, more out of his mind than he had been before. “He’s turned into an old pervert, though.”

  I frowned at this. “Huh?”

  “He’s started shopping at some bondage site online saying it’s aimed at old people.”

  “Maybe it is?” I stared at Noah’s back wondering how exactly he had decided it was a bondage site.

  Old people might need stuff that young people didn’t. Like those grabber things to pick stuff up off the floor. Some people might use them for perverted things whereas old people just needed them.

  Stopping his horse, he hitched up his right butt cheek and extracted his phone from his back pocket. If I’d done that, I’d have toppled off the horse, but he made it look easy.

  Tapping on his screen, he waited for it to load and then passed it over to me.

  “Bon d’Age?”

  “Yup, he says it means ‘good age’ or some shit like that,” he snorted and then grimaced.

  Flicking through the pages on the site, I went between laughing and groaning. By page four, I was gagging. To each their own, but that last thing was unnatural.

  Then a thought hit me. “What has he bought?”

  “Some plugs, paddles, whips, vibrators and…” he trailed off as he took his phone back and pressed on the screen a couple of times before handing it back. “This.”

  Looking at it, I saw a picture of Noah’s grandmother, Linda, in a swing made up of strips of leather with her head tipped back. It was hanging over the porch that I remember their house having, and she had her legs through loops at the end of the swing. That would have been a bit gross and confusing if it wasn’t for her husband, Hurst, standing between her legs with a look of glee on his face as he looked at the camera.

  “That’s… it’s…” I was lost for words.

  “Don’t even get me started on how Christmas and birthdays go,” he shuddered. “Although, the cock ring he got for my cousin Tom’s turkey at Christmas thinking it was a collar for a chicken was hilarious,” he burst out laughing at the memory.

  Where did one even start in terms of questions on that entire sentence?

  “Um… that make sense, I guess?” I said, hesitantly and then gave up on the diplomatic route I’d been trying to go down. “Why does he have a turkey?”

  “Went to get the Thanksgiving turkey and didn’t realize it was a pick your own live farm.”

  Wincing, I nodded. I’d have done the same.

  “What’s it called?”

  “Jake.”

  “Why would it need a collar?”

  “Beats me! It has one though, but I think it’s a kitten collar. His wife Sonya put a bell on it.”

  “A bell?”

  “Yup, says it has ninja moves and sneaks up on her.”

  “What’s it like?”

  Smiling, he shook his head. “It’s a cute little bugger. Really friendly and funny. Sonya’s cat loves it and stands on its back kneading away at its feathers like it’s a fluffy blanket.”

  That was all I needed to hear.

  A loving, funny, ninja turkey? I wanted one badly.

  “No,” Noah said seriously.

  “What, I didn’t say anything?” I tried to look as innocent as I could.

  “You’re not having one.”

  “Okay,” I shrugged, trying to look like I meant the word.

  “I mean it,” he glared at me.

  “I already said okay!”

  I’d just find a way to either sneak one in, or if I was still here with the Townsends by the time Thanksgiving came around, I’d offer to be the one to collect the turkey. If I played it smart, I could get the Christmas one too and have turkey twins!

  “I know what you’re thinking…” he growled, eyes narrowed on me.

  “I doubt it,” I mumbled and looked around us, feigning interest in the wonders of the… shit, it was just grass. Grass could be beautiful though, right?

  With a loud sigh, he nudged his horse to move in the direction he was taking us again.

  I wasn’t paying attention now, too focused on my plans. I needed names for my turkeys!

  “No!” he said again.

  I didn’t bother answering. If I acknowledged his no, I might have to stick to it. By pretending I didn’t hear it, I could always plead the fifth… or the sixth… or… well I could just say I hadn’t heard it.

  8 Noah

  “Oh God, I’d forgotten about this place,” she whispered as we got off the horses.

  Years ago, when my great grandparents had bought the land, they’d needed a large body of water for the horses, crops and the house. They had intended to farm the land, but then they’d found oil. I couldn’t quite remember the exact story, but they’d discovered a freshwater stream that had led them to this natural pool. Ironically, they’d also found some wild horses who had followed them home that day and decided that they preferred being fed to running around free as a bird.

  “We all used to spend hours here,” I said as I shielded my eyes and looked around.

  There were three old trees that provided an area of shade, and under it was the basket with the picnic that Mom had put together for us. It was all full of Luna’s favorite things - all of them.

  “It was so much fun,” she whispered again, sounding almost sad.

  I could understand it– I knew that aside from the time she spent with us and her big brother Madix, her childhood sucked. Any stability and love that she had were always torn away from her. Her father had been a black stain that had tarnished everything.

  “Hungry?”

  With Luna, the best approach was to distract her. It wasn’t people being insensitive, it was just the route to take and the route she preferred. I doubt that there was one specific thing she could put her finger on that hurt her the most. She’d just been through so much and had been so beaten down that even focusing on one thing brought up other memories she’d rather forget.

  “Always,” she replied, spying the basket and walking toward it. “Wait,” she stopped and turned looking wary. “There isn’t turkey in it, is there? I don’t think I can face ever eating it again after hearing about Tom’s.”

  Walking up to her, I grabbed her hand and tugged her toward it.

  “No, no turkey,” I reassured her, chuckling.

  She’d done the same with chicken after watching Chicken Little. For months we hadn’t been allowed to eat it, and then they’d done a project on Charlotte’s Web at school and she’d been distracted by pigs and bacon. Then, she’d watched a movie where the pigs had eaten a bad guy or something and had forgotten all about both issues. Mom says it’s because she hit puberty and had bigge
r issues to deal with, but Levi swears she says she also saw our chickens eating one of their own and decided that if they were savage enough to do that and pigs were savage enough to eat a human, then she could put it to the back of her mind. Plus, she hated beef and was getting sick of eating fish.

  After I’d told her about Tom’s pet turkey, I had wondered if it was going to put her off eating it or if she’d grown out of that issue. Apparently not!

  I’d also seen her intentions about getting a turkey of her own. At some point, we’d have to teach her to perfect a poker face, or the world was going to eat her up. Maybe in around seventy years when I didn’t need to be twenty steps ahead of her.

  It was strange thinking along those lines. She’d been a part of our lives for so many years before she disappeared. I wasn’t lying when I told Levi that during that time, I’d been aware of her, but I hadn’t allowed myself to properly go down that mental route because she’d been so young. I hadn’t really developed those kinds of thoughts about her until she’d turned sixteen.

  There were four years age difference between us, and that was enough for me to feel dirty for even finding her attractive. Not saying I didn’t, I absolutely did, but anything else made me feel like a pervert. Some guys might have been okay with that and I didn’t judge them for it at all, but I couldn’t.

  Like a forty-year-old with a twenty-year-old. If he’d hit thirty, and she was ten and he’d decided that he found her attractive and that she was it for him, people would look at him like a dirty pervert. But, at the age of twenty and forty, it was okay! Four years is far different to twenty, absolutely, but even that age difference is a matter of personal preference for when you feel that it’s acceptable. Different folks, different strokes!

  There comes a time when the ages don’t matter anymore. Before her dad had done the dip with her, I’d been coming up to the point where I was struggling to look away. Her being eighteen and me being twenty-two made it feel more acceptable. Would I have held back until she’d hit twenty-one like she was now? I don’t think I would or could have.

  Luna was the epitome of female perfection– the yin to my yang. She was beautiful, actually stunningly beautiful when you added what was on the inside. Regardless of what she’d been through, she was funny, loyal and loving. It didn’t matter what walk of life you came from, she’d treat a homeless drug addict with the same loyalty and care as she would one of us. She had a soft heart that couldn’t fathom eating an animal once it became ‘human’ in her eyes. She was terrified of spiders, but one of the other effects of reading Charlotte’s Web had been that spiders all became Charlotte to her– speaking, loving, little spider mommies. Bizarre, but true!

  How her father could hurt and abuse that in any way was beyond me, and it was another reason why I wouldn’t relax until he was caught. I’d even called in a friend of mine, Sven, who lived in Tennessee. He had acquaintances everywhere who were putting out the feelers for Rick’s current whereabouts.

  Once he was found, they had strict instructions to ‘obtain’ him in any way possible. I didn’t care about his condition or how he was restrained until I got to him, I just cared about making sure that there was justice for what he’d done.

  Looking over at Luna as she opened the basket and squealed, I snapped out of those thoughts and watched her lift out the different tubs and bags from inside it. Everything was done with a smooth grace, even with the white dressing on her forehead, the boot on her foot, and being as clumsy as she was.

  That was another Luna-ism. Clumsy as fuck, but ironically also as graceful as a princess.

  I felt my palms sweating just watching her. I’d thought I could wait, but after last night, I couldn’t.

  A couple of steps brought me up behind her, and then I was sinking down onto my knees and spinning her around. The squeal that came out of her was cut off by my lips hitting hers.

  At the back of my mind was the brief worry she’d hit me for doing this, but instead, her arms went around my neck– and not to choke me which was a relief - and she kissed me back, taking control.

  The taste of her was finally in my mouth again. Every so often I would skim her lips with the tip of my tongue, addicted to how soft they were.

  Not wanting to rush her or overwhelm her, I reluctantly pulled back and gave her a couple of slow kisses before moving my head away from hers completely. I wasn’t quite ready to release her altogether though, so I kept my arms around her and buried my face in the top of her hair just breathing in the sweet smell of her. It should have been awkward with us both kneeling on the grass, but it just wasn’t.

  “I don’t know what to say,” she muttered into my chest making it sound muffled.

  Grinning, I turned my head to the side so that my cheek was resting on her hair and answered. “I don’t know that there is anything to say, apart from I loved every second of that kiss.”

  Her hands started to move gently on my back, just rubbing up and down slightly like she was afraid to make a full pass of my back. Wanting to encourage her to do just that, I ran my own up and down her. Her sigh into my chest was a huge relief. In fact, feeling how relaxed she was at that moment was a huge relief.

  “I did too,” she eventually said, sighing and pressing into me a bit more.

  I allowed myself a couple of minutes just holding her like this, but when my knees started to go numb and I was getting pins and needles in my feet, I realized that she might be getting it too and reluctantly moved back.

  “Hungry?” I lifted my hands so that I was holding her face and watched as her beautiful eyes focused on me.

  “I think I smelled Funfetti,” she whispered, her lips twitching with the need to grin like a kid at Christmas.

  One day I’d make her feel the same way the damn cake did.

  That thought must have shown on my face because she called me on it. “What was that?”

  Trying to act as nonchalant as I could, I innocently asked, “What was what?”

  “That look,” she pointed at my face. Her finger was close to me, so to distract her, I nipped the tip of it with my teeth. “Hey!”

  I wasn’t fast enough to avoid the sharp tug to my beard.

  “Never ever disrespect the beard,” I warned her, smoothing it down with my hand. “It’s sacrilege!”

  “To whom?” she snickered, making a point of holding her hand out to the side and rubbing her fingers like she was trying to get some beard hairs off of them.

  “To the Beard Gods.”

  She stared at me for a second before she burst out laughing. “Beard Gods?” she wheezed. My eye was ticking slightly– who didn’t know that those Gods existed? “Like Santa?”

  This was actually a good point. Who were the Beard Gods exactly? I knew they existed, hell there were enough t-shirts and coffee cups with Beard God slogans on them (most of which I already owned), but none of them ever gave a name.

  Maybe it was Santa?

  She started laughing even harder when I didn’t answer.

  “Funfetti,” I reminded her when I still hadn’t come up with a response. That stopped her laughter in its tracks and instead drew a deep sigh out of her.

  Fucking cake!

  Completely ignoring all of her other favorites, she picked up a confetti cupcake - with blue frosting and confetti on it this time - and bit into it. As she got to the bottom of the cupcake, her eyes widened and she pulled back, her lips covered in icing.

  “What’s that?” she sounded almost disgusted as she pulled the side off the cake and looked at what was hidden inside it.

  “You mean you can’t tell?”

  This was something I hadn’t foreseen even being a possibility. She could sniff both cakes out a mile away, so how couldn’t she tell them apart?

  Giving it a poke, she pulled her finger back and then licked it with the tip of her tongue making me groan.

  “Cinnabon?”

  Her eyes shot to me in surprise before she shoved the rest of the cake in her mouth all
at once. Her ability to take a lot in her mouth was impressive and made things south of my border a little uncomfortable.

  The blue frosting now covering her lips made things even more uncomfortable.

  The loud groans of ecstasy coming out of her, though, were the hardest to deal with– literally.

  Squeezing my hands into fists, I started counting in my head to distract me from it all. Fucking cakes!

  I got from one to two before I lost it and reached out for her, pulling her to me. This time it wasn’t the gentle kiss like the one before.

  Oh no, restraint gone - it was a more intense and passionate kiss. Teeth nipping, tongues rubbing against each other that bit more roughly, and…

  “Hey,” a voice yelled from behind us followed by the baying of a dog. That was the only way to describe it. Normally dogs howled, this dog - one I knew well and who whenever I looked after it kept me up at night with the same fucking noise– bayed.

  Pulling away from her, we both turned to look at the asshole and his four-legged asshole’s direction, and there was my cock-blocking brother, Archer.

  He was looking around, but when his eyes landed back on us, he did a double take and jumped slightly.

  “You, uhhh…” he rubbed the back of his neck and looked around the area more carefully. “You been doing… things to Smurfs?”

  The word things came out choked like he was trying not to laugh, confusing the shit out of me.

  “Smurfs?” Luna asked, watching as his dog Bogey came running up to her.

  He was a bloodhound and had the droopiest jowls in the history of canines. His ears also bitch slapped whoever he was near when he shook his head, it fucking hurt.

  Pointing at his mouth, Archer nodded. “Yeah, you’ve both got something here.”

  It was one of those moments when someone points at a tiny area of their mouth like the person has a crumb, when in fact most of their lower face was covered in schmutz.

  Picking up a napkin, Lune did the typical ladylike dab at her mouth. When she pulled it away and saw the blue icing on it, she looked up at me and squeaked. My face must have been a sight because there was no hiding the shock when I saw her blue mouth and the dots of blue on her chin.