The Triple Threat (Love In Dayton Valley Book 1) Read online

  His grin was lazy and there was a definite gleam in his eye, which could only mean one thing, it was a girl.

  Shit.

  I hung back and pulled out my own cell and fired off a quick text to Hunter.

  Me: Stop ignoring me you douche. We have a plan to put in place and Carter has just called a girl, so we don’t have much time. It’s Ellie btw.

  I looked at the screen for a few seconds to check whether the dancing dots appeared, but there was nothing – Hunter was still ignoring me.

  “Ellie, baby,” Mom called. “Dinner is getting cold.”

  “Coming.” I glanced at my cell once more and when I was sure Hunter wasn’t going to answer I put it back into the pocket of my sweats and joined my family for dinner.

  “Really, Ellie,” Carter groaned. “Could you not have just stayed home with Mom and Dad?”

  Carter had actually taken a call from Hunter over dinner asking if he wanted to meet at Stars & Stripes for a beer. I’d seen it as an opportunity. An opportunity to see Hunter and ream his ass out for ignoring me, and then to get him to start the damn plan. What the plan was, I had no idea, but I’d think of something. In the meantime, he could start by bigging up my friend to my brother at any chance he got.

  “I have a late shift tomorrow and I feel like a beer. Plus, you did see that Mom had her hands down Dad’s pants while he was washing the dishes, didn’t you?”

  Carter shuddered. “Ugh, they’re fucking forty-eight, they need to stop all of that shit, it’s gross. What is it with all the old folks around here? They’re a bunch of horn dogs.”

  “I know, although it is quite sweet that they still find each other hot.” I looked out of the window and smiled as I thought about our parents, knowing that they’d probably be making the most of their alone time. I knew I should have left home by now, but apart from the fact I was too lazy to look for and move into an apartment, I loved my Mom’s cooking too much. Also, I hated being on my own and Bronte had made it pretty clear she wasn’t leaving her pink princess bedroom until the right man came along. Getting her as a roommate wasn’t going to happen.

  “You can’t hang with us all night,” Carter said as he threw me a glare. “So, unless you call Bronte to come join you, you’re gonna be lonely.”

  “Why can’t I stay with you?” I snapped and poked his bicep. “You’re so damn mean.”

  “I’m out with my buddy, I do not want you hanging around and ruining any chance I have of getting some action.”

  “I didn’t realize it was like that with you and Hunter.” I grinned.

  “Fuck off, you know what I mean.”

  “Carter, it’s a Thursday night. Who the hell do you think is going to be in Stars & Stripes looking for action on Bingo night? Unless of course you have a fancy for the Delaney twins.”

  “You’re one sick bitch, Ellie, you know that?” He scowled and gripped the steering wheel tighter.

  I laughed and flipped down the visor to take a quick look at my reflection. My hair was pulled into a messy bun and I was wearing hardly any makeup, but my brother hadn’t given me much time to get ready. It’d been leave when he said, or not go at all, and I’d needed to see Hunter.

  I pinched my cheeks to try and bring a little color to them but sighed when they remained pale and uninteresting. I definitely needed to get out more and sleep a little less when I wasn’t working. The trouble was, Dayton Valley was farming and ranch country. There were damn cows everywhere, and I really hated cows. It was a pretty part of the world, all green and lush, but the damn bovines just spoiled it.

  While I shuddered in my seat as I thought about the cows, Carter pulled into the parking lot of the Stars & Stripes. I was right about it being a bad night for him to get some action There were at least five motorized scooters parked by the front doors, and the minivan from the Sunny Years Old People’s Center was taking up two other spaces. Thursday night was Bingo night and as its usual venue, the Goodwill Hall, was being refurbished, so, Penny had told Mr. Parker, that he could hold it in the Stars & Stripes until the hall was finished. I had my doubts the old folks would ever want to go back to the hall though; it had no bar and no Penny to serve them grilled cheese sandwiches at the end of the night.

  “Shit,” Carter muttered. “Bingo night.”

  “I did tell you.” I sighed haughtily. “And I reckon Hunter brought his aunts over, which is why he wanted to meet you here.”

  “They damn well throw pens at you if you even breathe a tiny bit too loud, and God-for-fucking-bid you actually talk while Mr. Parker is shouting out the numbers.”

  “We could go over to the café,” I offered and nodded across the road to the Café Au Lait.

  Carter unbuckled his belt and turned in his seat to look at me. His brows were furrowed so much that his eyes were like tiny slits. It was not a good look on him.

  “I think I recall saying you couldn’t hang with us, so fill your boots, Ellie if you want to go over there. Me and Hunter will take our chances where the beer is sold.”

  “Okay,” I replied and gave him the biggest smile I could muster. “I’m cool with that. It’ll be fun watching you both dodge pens thrown by a bunch of senior citizens.”

  Carter sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Sometimes I really wish Dad had had a vasectomy after they had me. I love you because I have to, but you really piss me off just by being around.”

  I laughed loudly and slapped Carter’s leg. I knew he loved me, and I knew I pissed him off, but it was all part of the fun of being his little sister. Aside from which, if push came to shove, he’d be there for me if I needed him.

  “Okay,” I said with a huge grin. “Let’s go and grab us some beer.”

  When we got inside the bar, Bingo was in full swing and apart from Mr. Parker calling something about two little ducks, you could have heard a pin drop.

  “I’ll kill him,” Carter whispered into my ear as we moved to the bar.

  “We can always go to the café like I said.” I gave him a look that clearly expressed the fact I thought he was stupid, but he chose to ignore me.

  “I’m not buying you drinks all night, you know that, right?” Carter pulled his wallet from his back pocket and threw it down onto the bar.

  “I don’t expect you to.” I shoved my card under his nose. “Now stop being a dick to me.”

  Penny approached us and held up two fingers and pointed at the bottled beers evidently too scared to speak in her own bar. When she passed them over to us, I handed her my card and then poked my tongue out at my brother.

  “Happy now,” I said offering him a tight smile.

  Carter mumbled something and without waiting for me, picked up his wallet and turned to go and look for Hunter.

  Penny returned with my card and when I reached for it, she took hold of my hand. “Thought you might want to know,” she said quietly, her eyes darting toward Mr. Parker. “Dominic is back in town.”

  My stomach dropped and my hand fell to the bar. “You’re joking right?”

  Her mouth thinned into a line and she shook her head. “Sorry, honey. He was in here earlier.”

  Dominic Taylor my douche of an ex was back in town – well shit.

  “Was he alone?” I asked and picked at the label on my bottle.

  Penny nodded. “Yeah but he said he may come back in tonight.”

  “Okay,” I whispered. “Thanks.”

  “No fighting, honey, okay?” Her hand drifted over the bar where I knew there was a dint.

  “No fighting, I promise.”

  As I gave her a smile, someone shouted bingo behind us and Mr. Parker was no longer the only person speaking. The bar buzzed with conversation and noise as Mrs. Hubert had her card checked. I made my way over to the high table in the back corner of the bar where my brother and Hunter were sitting.

  “Ellie,” Hunter muttered with the briefest of glances toward me.

  “Hi,” I replied a little distracted by the news that Penny had given to
me.

  “Who pissed in your grits?” Carter asked, nudging me with his shoulder.

  I took a deep breath and looked up at him. “Dominic is back in town.”

  Carter groaned. “You’re fucking kidding me?”

  “He on his own?” Hunter asked. “Or is she, whoever she is, with him?”

  I shrugged. “Penny said he was alone earlier, but he may come back in tonight, so who knows.”

  “Fuck, I’m sorry, Ellie.” Hunter tipped his bottle to mine. “He’s a dick. You’re better off without him.”

  I nodded because I knew that for fact. On the night Dominic had said we were coming to the bar because he had something big to tell me, I’d thought he might say he wanted us to move in together. I knew he wasn’t going to propose, because who would tell someone that? Plus, Dominic knew that ‘telling’ me we were getting married would not go down well with me. I’d been ready to move in with him though. I really liked him, and we had great sex, so why not – actually, not good reasons. The problem was he didn’t want to ask me to move in together, he wanted to tell me that he’d met someone else and would be moving with her to damn LA where he’d got a job as a physical therapist in a private clinic.

  That was what the fucking dick wanted to tell me, and he chose a packed Stars & Stripes to do it. I kept my cool at first because I was not one to beg. If my mom had taught me anything, it was that I should never lower myself to beg a guy for anything, least of all his time and attention. So, I nodded, asked him to leave my few pieces of stuff from his apartment in the break room at work and then went to the bathroom and sent out an SOS to Bronte.

  She arrived within twenty minutes and found me sitting in a toilet stall crying. We stayed there for a half hour and drank the bottle of bourbon she’d bought from over the bar. By the time I licked my lips of the final drop I was wasted, we both were, but I was wasted and thought I was heartbroken – I realized soon after that it was the booze that made me feel like that, because it was ‘Dominic who?’ after three days, max. So, drunk and heartbroken I stormed out of the bathroom intending on dancing the dick out of my head, but when I saw him at the bar laughing and joking with my brother of all people, I lost it. I ran at him screaming like a warrior on the attack, jumped on his back and grabbed his hair.

  And that’s the story of why there is a dent in Penny’s bar the size of Dominic’s head.

  “Hey, El,” Carter said.

  “Yeah?”

  “You in a fighting mood tonight?” he asked, rubbing a hand over his stubbled chin.

  “Nope, not really why?”

  He nodded toward the bar and I heard Hunter groan. I swiveled around already knowing what, or who, had caught their attention. I wasn’t wrong. Dominic stood at the bar with his arm around the shoulder of a woman as he nuzzled his nose against her neck. At the time I’d had no clue who he’d cheated on me with, he would never say, and when he left no one heard from him, so I was shocked to see who it was.

  “Well would you look at that,” Carter gasped, his bottle of beer paused in midair.

  “You didn’t know?” I asked.

  “Nope,” he replied.

  I turned to Hunter who staring hard at Dominic.

  “You?”

  Hunter shook his head. “No and I doubt my Pop did either, not that he’d care overly much.”

  “So why do you look so mad?” I asked and glanced back to Dominic and his woman.

  Hunter looked down at me, his brown eyes dark and intense. “Because you’re Carter’s sister and I’ve known you since you were a baby,” he stabbed his finger in Dominic’s direction, “and he hurt you and you deserve better.”

  Something pricked at my throat and I found it hard to swallow. I took a deep breath and then slowly let it out, my eyes on Hunter the whole time.

  “Thank you,” I whispered.

  “I tell you something,” Carter said as he slapped a hand on Hunter’s back, startling him. “Miss Watkins ain’t improved much since she taught us in high school.”

  We all turned back to Dominic and our ex teacher. They kissed and giggled at the bar and we clinked our bottles together. “Here’s to being rid of douchebags,” I toasted.

  “To being rid of douchebags.”

  We laughed and everything seemed relaxed, so I could only be shocked when Dominic looked over and winked at me with his hand on Miss. Watkins ass, and Hunter slammed down his bottle, stormed across the bar and punched Dominic right on the nose.

  Hunter

  “What the ever-loving fuck,” Carter exclaimed as he pulled me away from Dominic Taylor. “Hunter, calm down man.”

  “You even look in her direction and I’ll punch you again.” My face was so close to his we were breathing the same air.

  “You damn animal,” Dominic spat back. “I didn’t do anything.”

  “You winked at her, you cocky bastard. While you had your hands all over the woman you cheated with.”

  A small hand wrapped around my bicep and I looked over my shoulder to find Ellie’s big brown eyes begging me to pull away.

  “Go on, Hunter, boy,” a voice I recognized as old man Simpson shouted. “Punch the little ball sack.”

  “Mr. Simpson,” Ellie snapped as she let go of my arm and turned to the old man wearing sweatpants and a hoody. “Keep your nose out of it. You do not need to be getting your blood pressure up again.”

  Mr. Simpson batted Ellie’s pointer finger away and made a punching motion. “Sock him right between his eyes, boy.”

  “Don’t listen to him,” Ellie said and pulled me by my arm away from a cowering Dominic. “He,” she pointed down at Dominic and gave my arm another tug, “is not worth it.”

  “She’s right,” Carter added as he placed a hand against my chest and pushed me.

  “Don’t you listen to them,” Mr. Simpson growled as he did a little shadow boxing. “Knock his teeth out.”

  “Stan, come on, don’t encourage them.” Mr. Parker patted Mr. Simpson’s back, but the old man wasn’t having any of it and shrugged him off.

  He was evidently desperate to see a fight, despite the fact that no one else in the bar seemed to be. I had to be honest, I had no problem helping Mr. Simpson get his wish, but the way Ellie’s eyes burned with anger told me I should probably listen to her rather than the old man throwing pretend punches. I straightened up and took a step back from Dominic. Miss. Watkins had her cell in her hand about to tap out a number.

  “Really, Miss. Watkins, you’re going to call the cops on me?”

  Everyone swiveled to land their gaze on her, and she immediately dropped her hand to her side.

  “You don’t want to do that,” Penny said, her tone hard as she stood with her hands firmly on her hips. “You know that’s not how we do things around here, Pamela.”

  Miss. Watkins’ eyes shot to me and then back to Penny. “You are all just going to stand there and let him punch Dominic.”

  “Yeah,” Mr. Simpson shouted. “He’s a fucking little dickwad.”

  I couldn’t help the laugh that escaped me. Ellie’s shoulders shook too.

  “We all know what he did to our beautiful Ellie,” Mr. Simpson continued. “And you should know better, Pamela Watkins. You’re old enough to be his mother.”

  I doubted that she was much past thirty-six as she’d been pretty young when she’d started to teach us at high school, but even so, he was right, she should have known better than to mess around with someone already in a relationship.

  Miss. Watkins leaned down and pulled at Dominic’s hand. “Come on, let’s get out of this mad house.”

  Dominic grunted and groaned as he pushed to his feet. Once he was standing, and Miss. Watkins had an arm around him, he threw me a glare and pointed a shaky finger at me.

  “You’ll pay for that, Delaney, I promise you.”

  I threw my hands up in surrender and rolled my eyes. “I’m fucking petrified.”

  “Dominic, come on,” Miss. Watkins said as she pulled him towar
d the door.

  “You’re all a bunch of crazy people. I’m glad I got out of here.”

  “Well you should never have come back then,” Ellie said and took a step forward.

  “As for you, you stupid, frigid little bitch,” Dominic snarled.

  I made a lunge for him, but Ellie pushed in front of me and beat me to it, punching him right on the nose.

  “Shit!” She stamped her foot and shook out her fist. “You fucker.”

  “For God’s sake, Ellie,” Carter groaned. “You said that you wouldn’t fight him.”

  Ellie’s eyes went wide as she cradled her hand. “He called me frigid. I’m the best sex he’ll ever have.”

  Her words and the way she stamped her foot and glared at Dominic was pretty sexy. I couldn’t help but notice my dick perked up.

  “And you,” Carter continued and pointed at me. “What the hell did you hit him for?”

  I shrugged, but I knew it was the look on Ellie’s face when I told her she deserved better than Dominic the Douche. She’d looked so grateful, as if she hadn’t believed it up until that point.When he’d taunted her with a wink, well the red mist kinda clouded my judgement.

  “Oh, Hunter honey, you’re such a hero.” I turned to see both my aunts had pushed through the crowd of people gathered around us. I knew they must have missed most of the excitement because like clockwork whenever the final number had been called by Mr. Parker, they both went off to the bathroom. Janice-Ann told me it was because of the anticipation of hope that they could win the big prize that made them want to pee. Like everything they did, they did it with twin synchronization – one needed to pee, they both needed to pee.

  “You haven’t hurt yourself have you, sweetheart?” Lynn-Ann asked.

  “No, Auntie L,” I said as I flexed my hand. “But I think Ellie might have.”

  Ellie still had her punching hand cradled in the other and was arguing in hushed tones with Carter.

  “Well, you got the first punch in I heard, so well done you.” Lynn-Ann reached up on her tiptoes and kissed my cheek, quickly followed by Janice-Ann. I told you twinchronisity as Pop liked to call it.