by Renee George
My Thanksgiving Faux Paw
Peculiar Mysteries Book 10
Renee George
Barkside of the Moon Press
Contents
Acknowledgments
Blurb
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
I Want Your Hex - Chapter One
About the Author
Paranormal Mysteries & Romances
My Thanksgiving Faux Paw
Peculiar Mysteries Book 10
Copyright © 2019 by Renee George
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the copyright holder.
Any trademarks, service marks, product names or named features are assumed to be the property of their respective owners, and are used only for reference. There is no implied endorsement by the author of this work.
This is a work of fiction. All characters and storylines in this book are inspired only by the author’s imagination. The characters are based solely in fiction and are in no relation inspired by anyone bearing the same name or names. Any similarities to real persons, situations, or incidents is purely coincidental.
Publisher: Barkside of the Moon Press
For Mom.
I haven’t always understood you,
but I always love you.
Thanks for believing in me.
Acknowledgments
I have to thank my BFF sister Robbin Clubb, who was with me every step of the way, and BFF Michele Bardsley for her excellent notes and critiques! This one was an emotional journey for me, and I hope it translates for the readers!
To my Rebels, I love you guys more than you know! Thanks for always supporting me.
Oh! And lest I forget, thank you hot black coffee. I would be dead, or at least I’d get a full eight of hours sleep, without you.
For this secret shifter town in the Ozarks, holidays have never been normal…
Human psychic Sunny Haddock has everything she's ever wanted: a stable home, a loving husband, two kids, and great friends. Granted, everyone she knows (and has birthed) is on the furry side, but so what?
Weird is wonderful, especially in this wacky little place she calls home.
But when a young man shows up on her doorstep claiming to be her long lost brother, his presence provokes a psychic walk down memory lane, challenging Sunny's ideas about herself and her future. Throw in exploding turkeys, time-traveling visions, and good old-fashioned family drama… and you have a Thanksgiving that’s gonna be downright Peculiar.
Chapter 1
Kablam!
Hoots and howls erupted from the men as they scuttled away from the metal cylinder sitting in the center of our backyard. One of those four yowling spouses belonged to me. Babe was the handsomest coyote shifter this side of the Ozarks. Even when he was red-faced and cursing.
"I tried to tell him," Chav Smith, my best friend, said to me, Willy Boden-Corman, and Ruth Thompson. We’d all gathered on the back porch to watch the show.
And man-oh-man, what a show.
The hoots and howls turned into shouts of alarm as flames shot ten feet into the air, spraying fire everywhere. Luckily, all the men had vacated the hot zone. Babe, Billy Bob, Brady, and Ed did a panicked dance around the fire, swatting at it with towels and stripped T-shirts.
"This is awesome," I said, watching our shirtless hotties turn pink in the heat. "Good call on that one, Chav."
"I'm no dummy," she said. Chav's mahogany colored hair was pulled back into a braid, something she did more regularly now that she had a newborn whose tiny hands could yank those glossy locks really hard. She fidgeted with the braid’s brush-like tip and shook her head. "Deep frying a turkey has disaster written all over it."
Our shortest and sassiest pal, Willy, nibbled on her lower lip. "Um, not to take away any value from this Darwin award moment, but all the kids are in the house, right?" Willy asked. She and her husband had a two-year-old with Willy's red hair and Brady's golden-colored eyes.
"Yep," Ruth said distractedly. Her big brown eyes were wide with interest as her Disney princess nose twitched. "Lisa Ann and Mariah are playing with them in the living room." Lisa Ann and Mariah were the youngest Thompson girls and neither minded babysitting the little ones, especially since we were all paying them twenty dollars per child.
"Oh!" Willy said on a laugh.
Her husband Brady's T-shirt had burst into flames. He threw it down, and Babe and Ed took turns stomping on it.
"This is fascinating," I observed. "Do you think if we wait long enough, they'll take off their pants?"
Chav snorted. "As much as I love this new game of strip-so-you-don’t-die, it’s officially getting out of hand." She heaved up the fire extinguisher she’d brought from the kitchen.
"Spoil sport," I told her, frowning as she pulled the pin and walked toward the fire. It had started to die down already, and a directed spray at the center of the inferno put it the rest of the way out.
Willy, Ruth, and I enthusiastically clapped our approval. Chav did a quick curtsey in our direction.
Billy Bob and Ed put their slightly charred shirts back on. Babe's was toast, and so was Brady's, of course. I walked to Babe and slid my arms around his trim waist. The man had muscles on his muscles. Yummy. "I've heard of dinner and a show, but dinner as a show?"
"For the record," Chav said, "I told them twice that putting a frozen turkey into hot peanut oil was a seriously bad idea."
Babe grinned at his sister then gave me a kiss. "Do we have another turkey?"
"We have a tofurkey," I said. Since my visions, which focused mostly on animalkind, forced me to be a vegetarian, I'd bought the tofu turkey for myself.
Babe made a face. "Yuck."
I grunted. "If I had known you were going to turn the turkey into a weapon of mass destruction, I'd have bought a spare."
He playfully swatted my butt. "And here I thought I married a psychic."
I knew Babe was razzing me, but sometimes I wished my psychic ability worked better on the people I loved. Unfortunately, the more space someone took up in my heart the less space they took up in my visions. I snuggled closer, enjoying the warmth of his chest against my cheek. I tilted my head back to meet his gaze and wiggled my brows. "I have a few predictions for later."
"Oh yeah?"
"All right," Chav said. "How about we keep Thanksgiving festivities rated PG." She'd traded the fire extinguisher for the cutest little cuddle-monkey num-num in the whole wide world, my adorable nephew Rory.
I disengaged from Babe. "Give me that baby!" I held out my arms and made a silly face.
Rory kicked out his tiny legs and made a happy gasp.
Chav laughed as she handed him over. "All the noise out here woke him up from his nap." Rory was five-months-old with Chav's dark brown hair and Billy Bob's gray eyes.
Billy Bob wrapped his arms around Chav from behind. "Sorry we ruined Thanksgiving."
"It's not technically Thanksgiving," Willy said.
"Close enough," I told her. My BFFs and I had planned a big potluck get-together today, which was the Sunday before traditional Thanksgiving. And, as Ruth said when we were concocting our plan, "It's a good excuse to eat lots of pie."
I personally didn't need a "good excuse" to eat pie. A day ending in "y" was a reason enough for me. "Besides, it's not ruined,"
I said to Rory as I nibbled his yummy toes. "Auntie Sunny also bought two spiral hams."
"And Mommy," Chav said, lightly booping her baby's nose, "brought an extra turkey." She tilted her head back to look at her husband. "It's in the cooler in the trunk."
"I'll get the oil going," Babe offered.
"You will not," I protested.
"It's already cooked," Chav said as she kidnapped her son straight from my unwilling arms. "No deep frying required."
“You’re amazing,” said Billie Bob. He leaned over to coo at Rory. “Isn’t your mama amazing?”
“So, are you,” Babe whispered to me. I turned in my husband's arms, so my back was to his front, and I wiggled my derriere against his groin. He growled his pleasure.
A vibration against my booty made me giggle. I elbowed Babe in the ribs. "Is that your phone or are you just happy to see me?"
He laughed. "Both." He dug into his pocket for his cell phone and glanced at the screen. "It's the sheriff. I better take it."
My husband was officially the Mayor of Peculiar now. He'd won the vote in a landslide victory. Of course, he'd been unopposed, so that made his campaign cheap and easy. Part of his responsibility, though, was taking calls from the sheriff even when he was off duty with his family.
"Hello," he said. His brow furrowed, creating the cutest little groove between his eyes. He frowned. "Who?"
I mouthed the words, "What's going on?"
Babe held up a give-me-a-moment finger. "Repeat that." He nodded. "Okay. I'll ask." Babe took the phone from his ear and looked at me. "Do you know a Jonathan William Haddock?"
"Never heard of him." But the fact that his last name was Haddock raised more than a few alarm bells. "Who is he?"
Babe widened his eyes. "He claims to be your brother."
"I don't have a brother," I said.
Babe put the phone back to his ear. "Sunny says she doesn't have a brother. Uh-huh. Yep. Okay. Hold on." Babe took the phone from his ear again. "The guy says his parents are Jerry and Rhonda Haddock."
I frowned. “Those are my parents’ names. How old is he?".
"Twenty," Babe replied. When I raised a brow, he said, "Sheriff heard your question."
Sheriff Sid Taylor was a raccoon shifter, and like all the therians in Peculiar, had really good hearing.
I shook my head. "This is a joke, right? I mean, it's November, but it's feeling a lot like April Fool's."
Babe gave me a sympathetic frown. "The sheriff wants to bring him to the house."
I narrowed my eyes. "Do you really think bringing a human to our fur-filled pre-Thanksgiving extravaganza is a good idea?"
Babe shrugged. "Sheriff says he can't stay in town."
"But my party." I gestured to the scorched earth. "It's just getting started."
"I say the more the merrier," Ruth interjected with a little too much perk.
"Traitor," I said.
"I think we can all control ourselves long enough to meet this brother of yours," Willy added.
I shook my head emphatically as a coyote pup with superhero underwear sliding down his hind legs ran between us. "Can we?" I asked. "Can we all control ourselves?" The pup headed into the woods. I frowned at my husband. "Go get your son before he makes it to town."
"Oh, he's my son now," he said.
"When he's all furry and running around on four paws?" I gently poked his chest and winked. "You betcha."
Babe’s low chuckle made me shiver with pleasure. He grabbed me around the waist and yanked me close, cupping my neck as he kissed me until my toes curled backwards. "I'll go get my son," he said. "You get the house human safe for when your brother arrives."
By the time I got my bearings, Babe was already hot-footing it into the woods. “I don’t have a brother!” I yelled at him.
"Maybe we should all try this next weekend," Brady said.
"Oh, hell no," Willy told her husband. "I ain't leaving until I see this Jonathan William Haddock for myself."
"See. That name alone should tell you he's not my brother. If my parents had given birth to him his name would be something like Sagittarius Moonbeam."
"Come on, your parents can't be that weird," Willy said.
"Hello. These would be the same people who named me Ambrosia Sunshine."
"Good point." The fiery redhead crossed her arms, her stance daring me or anyone else to tell her to leave. "Even so, I'm staying until the alleged baby bro arrives."
Chav nodded. "If Willy is staying, then Doc and I have to stay. You know, in case any medical attention is required."
I glared at her. "Do you think this guy is bringing a shotgun?"
“I’m not talking about a doctor for you,” said Chav. “Once you’re done with him, your brother might need a Band-aid or two.”
"Hah! For the last time, I don’t have a brother. No siblings. None. My mom was older than dirt when I left their whack-a-doodle cult. Too old to have any more babies."
"How old?" Ruth asked.
I paused. My mom had been thirty-seven when I'd left. Younger than I was right now, and I'd had two babies over the past five years. I let loose a defeated sigh. “Okay. She could’ve had another kid.” I felt my stomach squeeze with dread. It never occurred to me that Jerry and Rhonda would make another baby. After all, I’d barely been eighteen when I left and I figured they’d be happy to be rid of me. I always felt like a burden—when I wasn’t feeling like their show pony. “I haven't talked to them since I left the commune."
Chav and Ruth shared a look. “Not at all?” asked Ruth, her voice soft with empathy.
“They tried. I got letters every now and then. A few phone calls. But I’d already had eighteen years of their weird cultish ways.”
“How did they find you?” asked Chav.
“I don’t know. Or care.”
"Besides, you got us now,” said Willie. “And we won’t let anyone hurt you."
“We have shovels,” added Ruth.
"And a whole lot of woods where no one will every find a body.”
I sniffed. “You must really love me. Aw. Okay, okay. You can stay. But we need to do something with the kids. They change at a whim these days, and unless you can figure out how to explain to a bunch of small children and babies that they can't go furry around the human, they can't be here when this Jonathan dude arrives."
Babe trotted out of the woods holding our back-to-biped, naked, giggling son upside down by his ankles, his one-eyed winky wagging at all of us like a puppy tail.
"Where is his underwear?" I asked.
"Out in the woods somewhere." Babe flipped Jude over, and our son laughed with so much joy as he landed on his feet and sprinted toward the house.
"Are you sure that kid don't have cat in him?" Willy asked.
She was a cougar shifter, so I got the joke, but I was too stressed out to laugh. "How are we supposed to keep the kids from shifting when Jonathan gets here? It's an impossible situation. Call Sid and tell him that he can't bring him."
Ed stepped up. "How about if the dads take the kids to the park? Linus and the girls can help us keep them corralled." Linus was Ruth and Ed's youngest son. "You text us when the coast is clear."
Babe, Billy Bob, and Brady glanced at each other, and then nodded their agreement.
"Sounds like a plan," Babe said.
"No way, mister," I told my big hunka-burnin’-coyote. "You stay."
"And the kids?"
I frowned. "They can go."
"Do you want us to go?" Chav asked.
"Noooo." Willy groaned her dissent.
"You three to stay,” I said. “I need the BFF brigade for support."
Ruth looped her arm in mine. "Then we stay."
Willy snorted. "Like we were going to leave."
Chapter 2
By the time Sheriff Taylor pulled into our driveway, the dads, minus Babe, had somehow managed to gather up all the children and escape.
Chav smacked my hand. "Get your fingernail out of your mouth
."
"Uhhhng," I whined. "I can't help it."
Sheriff Taylor got out first then opened the back door of his patrol car.
"Poor guy," Ruth said as a nice-looking young man slid out and stood up. He had brown hair, the color of mine before I met Miss Clairol, and he was wearing jeans, a tan bomber jacket, and a pair of blue canvas shoes.
"Nope. That is no child of Jerry and Rhonda Haddock." I waved my hand. "Too normal."
Babe rubbed my shoulders. "You got this."
When the young man locked gazes with me, I recognized my dad in the slight downturn at the outer edges of his eyes. It had been so long since I'd seen my father, the resemblance hit me harder than I expected. My lower lip started to tremble.
Babe massaged harder.
"I'm okay," I squeaked out. I put my hands over his before he wore holes in my muscles.
"Babe," the sheriff said when they approached the porch. "Sunny."
"Hey, Sid," I said.
He presented the newcomer. "This is Jonathan Haddock."
"Jack," the young man said. Even though he was on the thin side, and not overly tall, maybe five-feet-eleven inches, his voice was a deep baritone. "Wow." He shuffled nervously. "Mom and Dad had some pictures from when you were young. Except for your hair color, you haven't changed much.”
“Mom and Dad, huh?” I narrowed my gaze. I never got to call them Mom and Dad. They insisted on me using their first names because “parental monikers are manacles of the patriarchy.”
Jack held his hand out to me. "It's nice to finally meet you."
I felt my expression sour, but I took his hand for a quick shake. "Yeah, you too."
He laughed, and it sounded like my mom's laugh. Hurt that I hadn't expected to feel twisted in my stomach.