Forever Mine (Providence Series Book 1) (2 page)

"Really? Did you talk to her? What was she like?" Mom was suddenly full of interest because one of her boys was talking seriously about a female.

"She was quite tall, say to here," he said pointing at the bottom of his neck, “with long curly blondish hair and these eyes that..."

My head snapped up at the description of my angel from Coopers. ”She was with the Montgomery’s?"
 

"Yeah!
 
All I know is she’s just moved here to work or some shit and has just rented the Twyman house outside of town.
 
Jaysus, she's beautiful, man!
 
I'm gonna head back into town tonight and ask her out," he wiggled his eyebrows, not realizing that he was now closer to death than he'd ever been in his life.

"The fuck you..." I started just as there was a knock at the front door.

My mom clapped her hands loudly, “That’ll be Maya. Y'all stop your arguing and get ready to meet the designer.”

Still in the kitchen with my brother, I put my face in his. "You won't be asking her out Cole. She's mine and don’t you forget that."
 

Before I could threaten him further, Mom walked into the kitchen with her guest. "Ren, Cole, this is Maya Price, the designer.
 
Maya, these are two of my troublemaking boys, Cole on the left and Ren on the right."

Cole and I turned around and I damn near choked all over again. There standing in the doorway was my beauty from Coopers, who was now my interior designer. All of a sudden I felt a healthy interest in decorating my home, come on; and from the gulp from beside me, I'd say my shit head of a little brother was thinking the same thing. The only difference between his thoughts and mine was that the fact that she was mine was a reality for me whereas it was a pipe dream for him.

2

____

May
a

As my parents were in Australia
and my sister was still in college doing her nursing degree, I decided to move to be closer to my Uncle, Aunt, and cousins here in Piersville.
 
My dad was a diplomat working for the US Government and was now Ambassador in Canberra. Being without any close members of the family from the age of sixteen had made me desperate to be closer to my family, plus I loved them so moving here was ideal for me.
 

My boyfriend of nine months had turned out to be a bigger mistake than I'd thought, so feeling protected and having a career was a no-brainer for me.
 
It was not that I was scared of Andy per se, it was just that he had been the campus slut when we’d been at college and I'd stupidly believed him when he said he had no interest in any other girls when he’d asked me out a couple months after we graduated from the University of Florida.
 
When I'd decided that I actually couldn't stand the jerk and dumped him, it came out that the whole time he'd been fucking anything with a hole. He hadn’t taken the break up well though and had taken to turning up unannounced everywhere; now I just got regular texts, phone calls and FaceBook messages — those I could handle.
 

I was away from it all now though and I loved my new home.
 
The Twymans had an old plantation style home that had belonged to a grandmother and it had been the first property I had visited, but I fell in love with it. They had no use for it as their family all had their own homes, so they'd decided to rent it out with a view to the renter buying it if they were interested. I had my nest egg from working and I could easily afford to buy the three-bedroomed property, but I wanted to get a feel for the area first and make sure that this was it for me. I had expected to fall in love with the quaint town and the lovely people who lived there, but I hadn’t expected to fall in love with the house itself, and I definitely hadn’t expected to fall in lust with some random guy that I'd seen in town, but that wasn't important. I was happy here and there had been such a huge interest in my business and doing work on not only homes but offices and stores; Piersville was the best thing to happen to me.
 

We’d moved from country to country all of my life until I was sent to a boarding school in Washington with my sister Lucy. I’ll always look at my childhood as a gift as I’d experienced so many cultures and had seen so much of the world, but because of it I didn’t even have a proper American accent - it was a mixture of accents. As a result of that and all of the moves, I’d never felt that I belonged and was used to people assuming that I was bragging about my childhood when I tried to explain about it, so setting down the roots that had been impossible growing up was very important to me and I just knew I’d be able to do that here.
 

I turned up at Colette Townsend's house and gasped at the size and beauty of it. It was old and had been looked after well.
 
In the distance I could see other large houses dotted around and I realized that those were probably the ones that I was being hired to decorate.
 
Damn, I'd give my left arm to decorate this beautiful place in front of me.
 

With a sigh, I opened the car door and jumped out into the heat.
 
How could this family work outside on the ranch in this heat and humidity?

I could hear men's voices coming from inside the house as I knocked on the door and did a final check of my outfit to make sure that my white roll up sleeve shirt was still tucked neatly into my high waisted gray pencil skirt.
 
I heard a woman say something and then the door opened and I was face to face with a beautiful petite woman with brown hair pulled into a ponytail and a face that didn't look any older than thirty. What was this woman's secret because I could have sworn my cousins told me that she had four kids, with the eldest being twenty-seven or twenty-eight?

"Hey, beautiful girl,” she said putting her hands on either side of my face and looking into my eyes.
 
I must have been seven inches taller than her so I automatically stooped when I saw her raising her hands.
 
Coming from the city I wasn't really used to being that much taller than people, but here all the women seemed so delicate and petite and I felt like a giant in comparison.

"Hello, Mrs. Townsend, thank you for inviting me out here to look at your properties. Your home is just beautiful!" I caught a glimpse of the inside over her shoulder and immediately started to take notes for future reference, i.e. for my own home. Regardless of my profession, I could still find ideas from other homes; it was allowed.

"Call me Colette, sweetie, and it’s me who should be thanking you. You'll see what I mean once you see the properties,” she said rolling her eyes and pulling me through the door. "Maybe while you're looking at the other houses you could have a look here and tell me what I could do to make it look better?" She gestured to follow her as she walked through the living room towards what I assumed was the kitchen.

I looked around and almost tripped a couple of times at how beautiful and classy yet homely Colette had made the place look.
 
The walls were a bright white and had the odd picture here and there, the furniture was brown leather and glass and totally minimalistic, but it was the oak floorboards that made me drool.
 

"Oh my God, are these reclaimed or the originals?” I breathed as I stopped and stared.

"Ah, they're the originals.
 
No one realized they were there because my great grandfather-in-law had for some reason put pine boards over them.
 
When we moved in here, one of the boards was loose so I lifted it and found these babies underneath.
 
At the time I was nesting because I was six months pregnant with my eldest Renwick, but I started tearing up those pine boards like a mad woman and went and bought some varnish from the store and would have done it if my Jack hadn't come in from the ranch when he did.
 
I'll never forget when he walked in and saw all these floor boards thrown outside and me sanding the floor with this massive bump in the way," she said laughing hard and I couldn't help laughing with her at the mental picture she'd painted for me.

"Well, you've done a beautiful job. Honestly, this is like my ideal home - you’ve mixed the old with the new and blended them together perfectly, and it’s classy but homely at the same time.
 
I love it!”

"Thank you, I love this place too.
 
Now if only we can get my wayward kids to make their houses into homes too,” she sighed.
 
"Let me introduce you to them. Two of my boys are in the kitchen this way. My other babies are in different states at the moment, but they’ve agreed to meet with you later to work on their homes thank the Lord.” She started back in the direction that we'd been headed before I started drooling over this home perfection.

I heard the deep voices coming from the kitchen and walked in to find the hottie from the store and the cute guy I’d seen at the bar last night. ‘Seriously, why was my luck so damned bad?’ I thought, tipping my head back to look at the ceiling for a second before I looked back at the visual heaven that was the Townsend brothers.
 
My usual taste would have been the shorter of the two, but I couldn't stop looking back at the taller one that I'd seen in the grocery store.

"Ren, Cole, this is Maya Price, the designer. Maya, these are two of my troublemaking boys, Cole on the left and Ren on the right."
 
Okay, so the sex God from the store was called Ren; if you didn't think of Ren and Stimpy, Ren was a hot guy’s name so it figured that he'd have it.
 

Cole stepped towards me drawing my attention back to him and pulled me in for a hug scaring the shit out of me.

"So, we meet again," he said as his eyes skimmed my face making me feel just a wee bitty uncomfortable, especially since we technically hadn’t ‘met’ last night as I’d been leaving when he arrived.

"Uh yeah, happy to meet you formally, Cole.” I heard a deep growl from over his shoulder, and Ren's face appeared as he pulled Cole off of me then softly stroked a finger down my face following its path with his gorgeous gray eyes.

"Hey baby, nice to finally meet you,” he rumbled in the deepest, sexiest voice I’d ever heard.
 
I tried my best not to flinch at his use of the word baby, but nine months with my ex-had taught me a couple of things like the fact men used the word baby for girls to basically land them by making them feel special when, in actuality, it was so they didn't mess up their name or have to remember it.
 
He caught my flinch and frowned and I could see the question in his eyes, but I powered through it.

"Uh hey, Ren. Great to meet you both too and thanks for letting me look at your homes,” I said trying to pull myself back to being professional and remembering exactly why I was here.

"That's okay, gorgeous. We were just talking about how Ren's left his wood bare for too long and how it's at risk of rotting now,” Cole’s voice sounded from behind Ren.
 
I couldn't help but take a step away from Ren and shoot a quick glance down at his crotch.
Well, that's a damn shame.

"Jesus Christ, Cole. Shut the fuck up,” Ren snarled, scowling at his brother.
 
"FYI there is absolutely nothing wrong with my wood nor have I ever left it bare. This guy is just a little bitch.”

Well, I felt better knowing that his wood wasn't rotting off, not that it would make a difference to me because I was going nowhere near Ren's wood.
 
God, why is this all so dirty all of a sudden?
Houses Maya - walls, decorating, wood…….no steer clear of the wood thoughts.
 

I felt my cheeks heating and was relieved when Colette interrupted. ”Both of you shut up.
 
I swear I brought them up better than this, Maya. It’s their father’s genes that I sadly thought were sexy beyond belief, and still do, that he's passed down to our sons," she scolded with her hands on her hips.

"Sorry, Ma,” Cole said casting his mom an innocent look that I bet worked on every female on the receiving end of it.

"Sorry, Ma,” Ren grumbled from beside me, still shooting Cole dirty looks.

3

____

May
a

"Right, uh shall we go to the first house
you want me to look at?" I asked Colette. No doubt the boys would be heading back out on the ranch, so thankfully it would just be the two of us.
 
I didn't know if I would be able to concentrate with Ren Townsend near me, especially if we were near a sofa, or a table, or bed…

"Sure, there are five in total as I told you when we spoke.
 
Ren and Cole's, then Brett's, Tom’s, and finally my daughter Layla's.
 
Since his has been ugly the longest, why don't we look at Ren's first?" Colette was watching her boys with narrowed eyes, just daring them to make an innuendo.
 
It seemed like this was perfectly normal for her, and I didn't doubt that it most likely was.

I went to say bye to the men, but Ren put his hand on the base of my spine and murmured in my ear, "This way, baby,” making me to do a mini flinch again.
 
Here I was mooning over the guy and he probably couldn’t even remember my name - just fucking great.