Joshua_The Whitfield Rancher_Erotic Tiger Shapeshifter Romance Read online

  “Can we adopt more children?” He told her he’d love that. “I’m trying to think around all this information, so I’m sorry if it comes out a little scattered.”

  “That’s quite all right. I don’t know that I’d be any less scattered if I had just had all this told to me.” She looked at him and he smiled. “You’re very beautiful when you’re confused, did you know that?”

  “I’m going to hurt you.” He laughed and was glad when she did as well. “What did she mean about going to the castle?”

  “I’m assuming that she lives in one with a lot of other people. But where it is, I’ve no idea. I guess that’s smart on their part, not to let just anyone know. She was going to wake her daughter when she returned. I’m not sure how that works or how long it might take, but she said to expect her to pop in once or twice. It would be harder on her, I think. Thinking that you were dead all this time.” Carter nodded and asked him about the ring. “It’s to protect us both. The only beings that can see it for what it is are other paranormals. And you remember me telling you about the guards? Well, they’ll be around to keep anyone from hurting us as well.”

  “I went from being an ex-con—well, sort of—to being a fae princess married to the best man I know.” Josh thanked her for that. “Now, what aren’t you telling me?”

  “There is money that belongs to us now.” She said that she’d signed all the paperwork before they were wed. “No, this is from the queen. Riches beyond our wildest dreams, I think she called it.”

  “Okay, overwhelmed again. Where are we going to be staying tonight?” Josh told her of the house that Tanner had set up for them to see to first. “Really? It’s in France? I’ve only seen pictures of the place, and I’m betting that they don’t do it justice.”

  “I’ve been there once or twice. Mostly to see to something for the family.” She told him how when she’d graduated from high school she’d planned to go too. “I’m assuming that because of the Comptons you were unable to go.”

  “Yes, and they were able to get to my money too. Even though I’d graduated from high school the year before, I had a job working at the mall.” She laughed then. “When I think of all the shit that they pulled on Rachel and me, all I can think about is how they had these grand plans that were taken away from them just like they took it all from me.”

  The laughter wasn’t supposed to be funny. She was bitter about them, and who could blame her. They had taken a great deal from her. And they would have done a lot more had they lived. Even Rachel was better now that they were gone, and seemed to be living her life to the fullest.

  “Do they have a name?” It took his mind a moment to come back to the subject of the queen and her daughter. “I mean, do I call them Grandma Queen and Mom Princess?”

  “I don’t think that would work anyway. But in answer to your question, yes, they all have names. Your grandmother’s name is Breen. Your mother’s name is Sennetta. And your father’s name is Raytheon. As you can imagine, they’ve no last names. Your father wasn’t human when he married your mom, but he wasn’t fae either. I believe Breen said that he was a leader of the brownie warriors. They met when he saved Sennetta from being kidnapped one day.”

  Josh and Carter bounced back and forth between what they were going to do on their honeymoon to what else Breen had told him. There was a great deal of information on the latter yet to be told, but she was content with hearing it in small doses, and he was fine with that too. When she finally got around to the rings, he was prepared for her questions.

  “You said that they’re only seen by other paranormals. What about humans that want to hurt us? I’m sure that there will be some, aren’t you?”

  He told her just what he’d been told. “There isn’t a weapon in the entire universe that can harm either of us. Or any children that we might bring into our lives.” She asked him if that meant adopting. “I’m assuming so. I didn’t ask. I was more focused on the fact that my poor wife was sobbing on my chest and I couldn’t fix it.”

  When Carter came and sat on his lap, he held her. She told him that he had fixed it by loving her. It was the nicest answer she could have given him. When she finally dozed off, he held her for as long as he could before the plane was ready to stop on the first part of their journey. His dad contacted him as they were going down the tarmac.

  I thought you should know that your house is being overrun. He asked him with what. The most uniformly dressed little faeries that I’ve ever seen. There must be millions of them. They’re painting the house a nice shade of light green, and your shutters, which I don’t think you had before, are a deep brown. It looks very nice. I can’t tell what they’re doing on the inside as yet. I’m sort of afraid to go and look.

  Josh told his dad what he could. Nothing about Carter—he didn’t know how to tell that other than face to face. But he did tell him that they would be home in a month, and to keep him updated.

  Some papers are going to come to you at your house. They’re for Carter and me. If you could take care that they are at the house when we get there, I’d really appreciate it. And Tanner may look you up for a couple of things he’d like for you to do for him. Dad said he’d do whatever he needed. I told him you’d say that. It’s not huge, but something to do with daylight hours, and he can’t do that when the man can meet him. I guess you’ll get the information sometime in the next couple of days for you to help him.

  All right. How is your pretty bride today? I’m telling you, that is one heck of a girl you got there. All that power in her, and her being just a little bitty thing too. Josh told him she was learning to handle it. I think she does really well now. And you tell her that I said so.

  I will, Dad. And I love you. I don’t tell you that often enough, I don’t think. Dad said that he didn’t, none of them did, but it was nice to hear it from him. I’ll make sure that they tell you more often if you’ll give us a call when you need to be told. It’ll be my pleasure.

  When the limo that met them at the airport pulled up in front of a large house and servants were lined up waiting for them, Josh got out, laughing. This trip would not be boring, he thought, as he handed Carter out of the car too.

  Chapter 13

  Adam sat down on his couch and tried to think what he could do now. He’d rearranged his cabinets, cleaned out the pantry, and had dusted the entire house from top to bottom. It was like this every year when he put his big boy toys away and had too much energy to just sit around the house. His house would get a total cleaning, and he’d be worn out enough to sleep at night. Laughing, he got up to answer the door when someone knocked.

  He wasn’t sure who he expected to be there, but to see his mom was something that had him startled into silence. When she asked him if he was all right, he asked her the same.

  “Can’t a mom come and see her little boy?” He asked her when she had ever used the front door to the houses of her sons, and then knocked too. “I’m trying to be more mom like and not the nosey biddy sort. What are you doing this fine day?”

  “Its pouring down rain. What’s going on?” She huffed at him and came into the house. Adam followed her to his living room and took her coat from her when she held it out. “I don’t think you’re a nosey biddy, by the way.”

  “It’s taken you long enough to say that, don’t you think?” He sat down in the easy chair that he’d kept from his Grandda’s things. “I’m not going to snip at you anymore.”

  “I don’t care so long as I know why I’m being snipped at. Have I forgotten something? Done something that I don’t remember?” She shook her head. “Then why are you snipping at me? And everyone else. That’s why you’re here, isn’t it? You’ve over-snipped your welcome elsewhere.”

  “What a thing to say to your own mother.” She looked ready to cry. “You don’t need me anymore.”

  The dam opened up and she started sobbing. Going to her, he held her while she cried out her reason for being so mean to everyone.

  “You all ha
ve your own homes that you keep nice. I have two grandsons that are in school all day, so I can’t be with them. Sunny is going to have her baby soon, and she’s all prepared with it all. She does ask me questions, but I think she knows the answer and is humoring me.” He told her that no one was humoring her. “But you don’t need me anymore, do you, Adam?”

  He pulled her chin up so that she could look at him before speaking. “Mom, I will forever need you. I need you to be there for me every day. And while I might not come to you for help every day, I do like knowing that you’re right there should I need you. You are my rock and my foundation. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t think of you a million times. What would Mom think of this? Or, what would Mom do in this situation? And every time, you give me the right answers and the right path to stay on. Even when you’re not around me.”

  “That’s what I needed to hear.” She was still crying, so he asked her what was wrong now. “I’m so happy.”

  Women were weird. He’d had an idea that they were before his mom came to see him today. He still didn’t know why, but women were all weird, and he was going to avoid them at all costs.

  Adam wasn’t sure how he was going to make that happen yet. When your mate was out there just waiting to pounce, you had no choice in the matter. And the only way that he could make this work, he thought, was to sell everything he owned, buy an island, and stay on it alone for the rest of his life. But with his luck, she’d be swimming out in the ocean and come by his place to have a rest or something.

  He didn’t really have any qualms about having a mate. They were a good thing, he supposed. His brothers sure did seem to be happy. And the thought that they’d turned mushy was sort of funny. Adam had never thought of himself as a romantic type of man, but he supposed neither had his brothers. And they seemed to be doing all right.

  “What’s going on in that head of yours?” Instead of telling her nothing, he told her everything that he’d been thinking about. “Women are not weird. And that’s not a very nice thing to say. What would you do if Dylan, Sunny, or Carter heard you?”

  “I’d be more worried about what they’d do to me and not what I said to them.” She laughed when he did. “I don’t know why that thought popped into my head. I was thinking how strange it is that you, and I don’t mean just you, but all women have the emotions of a two-year-old. Sad? You cry. You’re thrilled to death about something? You cry. I don’t know how other men handle that up and down stuff all the time.”

  She sat up, and he was worried that he’d offended her or something. But when she spoke, she was telling him what it was with women, or her version of it, she told him.

  “We do, I suppose, have the emotions of a child, but we love someone with all that we are. And we take the love to the grave with us. But men handle the ups and downs very well when they love someone as much as they’re loved back.” She ran her hand over his cheek, then slapped him. It wasn’t painful, but he knew that she could have made it very painful should she have wanted. “And do not ever call me a two-year-old again.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He smiled at her. “I guess when the time comes, I’ll be able to love someone as much as I do you. But I can’t imagine me being all mushy like the others are. I mean, they’ll lay down their lives for their mates.”

  “As you will.” He didn’t think so, but didn’t want to get slapped again, more than likely harder. “I was feeling the loss of my baby boys today. I just needed to have one of you say that you might need me for a little while longer. And you go and tell me that you’re not sure that I’m an adult. I do hope you have better manners with your mate when the time comes.”

  “I hope so as well. If she’s anything like the other three in the family, I’ll be dead and pushing up pretty flowers for you to water in no time.” She laughed when he did. “I know that having a mate will change me. I’m aware that I’ll love her beyond anything that I ever have before, but why?”

  “What do you mean, why? You love her because she loves you. And you’ll be spending the rest of your life wanting her to be happy and cherished. Don’t you want that?” He told her that he didn’t know. “Oh, poor Adam. When she gets here, I’m going to have such fun watching the two of you come together.”

  “I don’t want her to change me.” She frowned at him. “The others, they’ve made changes in their lives to suit their mates. Not that they’re not happy, they really look like they are. But I’m a rancher, Mom. A person that gets up when the cows do and goes to bed shortly after the sun has left the sky. How does anyone expect me to court and woo a woman when I have more work going on than most?”

  “Perhaps this woman that comes to you, she’ll like ranching as well.” He just huffed at her. “Well, she could. Or she’ll be one of those frou-frou girls, and you’ll have to cater to her every whim so that you’ll be able to get laid once in a while. I don’t know.”

  Adam hugged his mom as he laughed with her. “You have my heart, Mom. I don’t know if I have anything left for a woman other than you.”

  “You’ll see, Adam. When she comes, it’ll all work out, and you’ll be sorry that you ever stressed so much about it.” He told her that he supposed so. “Not to mention, when she does get here, she might make you get rid of all the furniture in this house and buy new. Even your grandda is surprised that you still have it in here. Don’t you care for change?”

  “I don’t, actually. But that’s not why I’ve not done anything to it. I love the smells that are here. I can still smell Grandma on some of the sheets that I put on the beds. The handmade quilts that she made, when I touch them, I can see her bent over the quilting frame putting beautiful designs all over the top of it. And Grandda’s chair holds me like he did when I was younger and would scrape my knee or something.” She told him that was romantic. “Naw. It’s also expensive to buy new stuff when I have all this around. Not to mention, until last week, I was working from dawn to dusk, and had no time to mess with it.”

  “It’s a good thing that I love you, Adam, or I’d beat your bottom until you couldn’t sit for a month. The things that spill from that mouth of yours borders on meanness.” She kissed him on the cheek as she stood up. “Well, I must go and find Blake and Adrian. They’ll need their mother to talk them out of being a fool when their mates come. I’m afraid there is no hope for you and yours. She’ll just have to come here and see what a mess you are. And she’ll blame it all on me.”

  “No, she won’t. I won’t let her. She’ll be nice to you or I’ll lock her in the shed out back.” She tisked at him again as she took her coat from him. “Or, I could do what I was thinking anyway. Buy myself an island and live out my days as a hermit. Eating fish all day that I catch and cook on an open fire.”

  “You do that, and I will beat you senseless. Not that I don’t think you are now.”

  With another kiss she went out the door and waved at him from her car. Adam loved his mom so very much.

  The rest of his morning was spent on finding something to fill the living room with. Grandda’s chair did hug him, but it also had a nasty spring in it that would catch him unaware sometimes and he’d have to carefully get up off the thing. There was also a need for him to get a few lamps. There wasn’t an overhead light, and he found the room to be too dark sometimes.

  He thought about a television. Adam only watched football on it, and when he could a baseball game. There were really small ones that he could carry from room to room with him to watch, but he decided that he wanted huge to watch the games with his family and think they were right on the fifty-yard line. As he made his list of things he wanted, he also looked for things on the Internet. He hated shopping almost as much as he hated being without something to do.

  By the time he had placed an order to be delivered, he was ready for his lunch. Not that there was much in the place—he’d been much too busy to hit the stores other than to grab some milk and eggs. That was another list that he started as he made himself a peanut butter sand
wich. Not only with the last of the peanut butter, but he had no jelly, nor any bread left. He’d have to hit up Mom’s house today to replenish his jelly stash.

  Going into town in the driving rain, he was careful of the road. A lot of the trees had lost all their color over the last two days, and it was slick on the road with all the rain. As he was pulling up in front of the market to get his food, he saw an elderly man struggling to get in his wheel chair and then into the store. Helping him do both, Adam asked him if he needed help shopping.

  “No, I got it, young man. I was trying to hurry, and that never works out for me.” He laughed with the man. “You go on about your business. I’ve been flirting with one of the cashiers here, and she’ll help me out just fine.”

  Adam wished him luck and got a cart. Another domestic thing that he hated doing was food shopping. All of it sounded really good while here, but he’d get home and wonder why he’d purchased such a thing. Maybe his future mate would like to shop. That might be something that he could put on the pro side of his mental list.

  After finishing up with his list and grabbing several jars of jelly from Dad, as Mom was still out, he headed home. Putting away the groceries, he’d thought he’d done well until he got to the bottom of the bag. Why the hell had he purchased a leg of lamb? He didn’t even know how to cook it.

  ~~~

  Meghan hated everything about this little town that they’d stopped in. But the car had needed to be fixed, and since she wasn’t going to do it, there had to be someone out there that would. As soon as her sister came back to the little room that she was in, she asked her how long this was going to take.

  “Do I look like a mechanic to you? I told you when you went on this harebrained idea of yours that this wasn’t going to work. Your car is older than I am, and you don’t even drive. What the hell do you even have it for? Not to mention, you didn’t make any plans other than to make me drive you to the coast. The coast, in case you didn’t know, is a pretty fucking big place.” Ivy sat down in the room’s only chair, and that pissed Meghan off too. “You’ll have to find us a room for the night. He said that he has to order parts, and they’ll be here either tomorrow or the next day.”