Dalton (Heaven Hill Shorts Book 9) Read online

  Dalton

  Heaven Hill Shorts #9

  Laramie Briscoe

  Contents

  Also By Laramie Briscoe

  New Release Alerts

  Blurb

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  About the Author

  Connect With Laramie

  Copyright © 2020 Laramie Briscoe

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, distributed, stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, without express permission of the author, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages for review purposes.

  This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to any person, living or dead, or any events or occurrences, is purely coincidental. The characters and storylines are created from the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. 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 if any of these terms are used. Except for review purposes, the reproduction of this book in whole or part, electronically or mechanically, constitutes a copyright violation.

  Proofreader: Danielle Wentworth

  Cover: Laramie Briscoe

  Formatting: Laramie Briscoe

  Created with Vellum

  Also By Laramie Briscoe

  The Haldonia Monarchy

  Royal Rebel

  Royal Chaos

  Royal Love

  Heaven Hill Series

  Meant To Be

  Out of Darkness

  Losing Control

  Worth The Battle

  Dirty Little Secret

  Second Chance Love

  Rough Patch

  Beginning of Forever

  Home Free

  Shield My Heart

  A Heaven Hill Christmas

  Heaven Hill Next Generation

  Hurricane

  Wild

  Fury

  Hollow

  Heaven Hill Shorts

  Caelin

  Christine

  Justice

  Harley

  Jagger

  Charity

  Liam

  Drew

  Dalton

  Mandy

  Rockin’ Country Series

  Only The Beginning

  One Day at A Time

  The Price of Love

  Full Circle

  Hard To Love

  Reaper’s Girl

  The Nashvegas Trilogy

  Power Couple

  The Moonshine Task Force Series

  Renegade

  Tank

  Havoc

  Ace

  Menace

  Cruise

  Laurel Springs Emergency Response Team

  Ransom

  Suppression

  Enigma

  Cutter

  Sullivan

  The MVP Duet

  On the DL

  MVP

  The Midnight Cove Series

  Inflame

  Stand Alones

  My Confession

  Sketch

  Sass

  Trick

  Room 143

  2018 Laramie Briscoe Compilation

  2019 Laramie Briscoe Compilation

  New Release Alerts

  JOIN MY MAILING LIST

  http://sitel.ink/LBList

  JOIN MY READERS GROUP

  fbl.ink/LaramiesLounge

  Blurb

  It is recommended you read "Heaven Hill Generations" before reading this story. If not, you will be very confused and lost.

  From USA Today and Wall Street Journal bestselling author comes the next book in the Heaven Hill Shorts series.

  Dalton Barnett

  When a traitor to our club was revealed, I thought that was the worst pain I could go through.

  I was wrong.

  Mandy losing our child mid-term has become a gaping wound I’m not sure will ever heal, especially now that I feel like I’m losing her too.

  Chapter One

  Dalton

  “Would you shut the fuck up?” I fling a wrench at Jagger’s head. He and I have been doing repos all day, and he’s about to get on my last nerve. Normally we have a good time together, but he’s been singing this stupid song about a woman named Carole killing her husband.

  “You’re just pissed because you haven’t watched the special yet,” he catches the wrench with his hand before making a face.

  “I don’t want to watch it. I have plenty of other shit going on in my life without watching some show on Netflix.”

  “I beg to differ,” Jagger throws the chain we’re using to put this car on the flatbed, back at me. “There’s so much you can do while watching Netflix. You’ve heard of Netflix and chill, right?”

  “Uh yeah,” a memory springs from the edges of my mind. I can’t hold back the tilt of my smile. “My wife is pregnant, so I’d say I know what Netflix and chill means.”

  “Yeah, yeah, let’s get this done so we can get inside. It’s cold as fuck out here.”

  November in Kentucky is a weird month. I’ve seen snow, I’ve seen severe storms, and I’ve also worn shorts to Thanksgiving. This year, we had an early freeze - snow on Halloween, and it’s progressively gotten colder.

  But not in my bedroom.

  This wife of mine, pregnant with the hormones of a teenager, is keeping me up late at night. We’re closer than we’ve ever been, and every night I look forward to going home to her, our son, and the baby we don’t know the sex of yet.

  Puffs of white air freeze in the temperatures as we grab this last car. Today we’ve been lucky, no one came out to give us shit, but even I know better than to count my blessings before I’m in the cab of the wrecker.

  “Let’s get out of here,” my voice carries over the idling engine.

  “Oh shit, Dalton, we better go.”

  His voice is shaky, a measure of urgency.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Don’t ask, just go.”

  That’s when a loud pop explodes from the direction of the house we just took the car from. It’s a rat-a-tat-tat I know well.

  “Motherfucker has a gun.”

  Because I want to go home to my family, I put some speed in my steps, before hiking myself up onto the running board. A few well-placed movements and I’m sitting in the driver's seat, wrecker in gear. “Come the fuck on, Jagger,” I yell.

  “Go, go, go!”

  He’s not even inside the cab, he’s hanging onto the door, feet up on the running board when I step on the gas. Reaching over, I hit a few buttons to roll down the window, just as the glass behind me shatters.

  “Son of a bitch, get in.”

  “I’m too old to be putting myself through a passenger side window,” he argues.

  It’s hard enough to drive this thing, shifting gears and making sure I won’t hit one of the parked cars on the street, but doing it while arguing with Jagger isn’t helping matters.

  “Okay, if you’d rather get shot than break a hip, that’s your business.”

  When another shot hits just above where his head is, Jagger dives through. “Fuck this.”

  “That’s what I thought.”

  It takes longer than I like, but we finally get to the main road, and away from the idiot firing the gun.

  “Is he following us?”

  Jagger can finally straighten himself in the seat.

  “Not that I can see, but do you t
hink you can manage to look behind you?” I glare.

  “Think I twisted my damn neck, but let me do all the work for you VP.”

  “Wish you’d bitch and complain about something, shit.”

  “We’re clear behind us.”

  Letting my foot lift off the gas pedal, I situate myself in the seat to get more comfortable. In the cup holder, my phone is vibrating so often it’s moving around in a circle.

  “The fuck? Someone wants you bad,” Jagger’s gaze fixes on me.

  When I flip the phone over and see that it’s Drew, I get this feeling in the pit of my stomach. The one where you’re going over the edge of a roller coaster, or down a hill in a car super fast. You know the one. I’m light-headed and hands that are normally steady as hell are suddenly shaking. Scrolling through, I see he’s called me thirty times in the last twenty minutes.

  Something is wrong.

  Bad wrong.

  Without a thought, I slow the wrecker down, flipping on the hazard lights, and pull over to the side of the road. My phone is vibrating again and this time I answer.

  “Hello?”

  My voice is so hoarse, I barely even hear it. “Talk to me.”

  “I’m at the hospital.”

  The shaking in my hands magnifies, almost to the magnitude that I can’t hang on to the phone. Somehow I keep it from slipping. “Why?”

  “Mandy called looking for you because she woke up feeling off. When I told her you were doing repos and you weren’t available, she freaked out. Usually she’s not so far up your ass when you aren’t available. I immediately knew something was wrong. The shake in her voice and her clipped tone had me already grabbing my keys. When I got there, she was doubled over in pain, and I rushed her here. She had a miscarriage, Dalton.”

  Crushed.

  My heart is broken, my spirit tattered.

  “Why didn’t you call me as soon as you got her there?” I cry.

  “She told me not to.”

  Always wanting to deal with everything on her own. It’s a problem we’ve had throughout our marriage, but right now I need to be with her. All I want to do is push my hand through something hard, but I hold my reaction back. Me breaking my hand won’t help anything. Swallowing roughly against the mountain in my throat, I choke out my intentions.

  “I’ll be right there.”

  Jagger sits quietly beside me, almost as if he’s afraid to poke the bear. Truth is, I’d be afraid to poke me too. He doesn’t ask when I make a U-turn (probably the worst one I’ve ever made) and head toward the hospital. There’s no shout when I blow through a red light and then a stop sign, arriving at the emergency room entrance. All he does is push me out and hop over to the driver’s seat.

  My feet move quickly, causing me to stumble as I wait for the automatic doors to open. Putting my arms out, the doors open, and I fall flat onto the floor. The pain doesn’t register as I push myself up to my feet.

  Drew is right there in front of me when I glance up. “Where is she?”

  “They’ve taken her in for surgery.”

  “I didn’t get to tell her I love her. I didn’t get to say goodbye. Where’s Walker?”

  All the questions are running through my head, and I wonder how I’m supposed to deal with this. What is the protocol?

  “He’s with Mom and Dad, he didn’t see anything. So he’s fine.”

  But am I? Are we?

  “And she knows you love her.”

  But does she?

  Sometimes I wonder.

  Chapter Two

  Dalton

  Heaven Hill Christmas Party

  Last Week of December

  Walker has been by my side all night. Unfortunately I can’t say the same for his mother. She looked at me once, and she’s done her best to avoid me ever since.

  “When are you comin’ home, Dad?”

  It’s the question I’ve asked myself every day since we came home from the hospital. When do I get to come home?

  But we’re broken.

  We’ve been half-broken since Travis died, and when we lost the baby, whatever was holding us together splintered into a million tiny pieces.

  “Soon.”

  It’s the answer I continually give him whenever he asks. The truth of the matter is, I don’t know. I keep waiting to get served with divorce papers, but Mandy - she’s still wearing her ring - I saw it tonight.

  She may think she’s given up on us, but I haven’t. I’ll keep fighting until there’s no more fight left in me.

  “When is soon?”

  He’s as sick of hearing it as I am of saying it. “We can’t rush these things, Walker. We’ll know when it’s time.”

  Fuck it, I finally take a drink of the bottle of beer I hold in my hand. It’s been taunting me since I grabbed, but as I tell my son a bunch of shit I’m not even sure I believe, I have to drown out the acid rising in my throat. Part of me wants to rage, scream at God, and ask him why he did this to us. Why can’t anything ever be easy?

  For real, I’ve fought my whole fuckin’ life, and I’m getting tired.

  Tired of trying to prove to people I’m worth fighting for.

  Fuck, I cough, holding back the sob that threatens to escape from my throat.

  Justice and Harley run by grabbing Walker, there’s no telling where they’re going, but it gives me a moment to myself.

  Nobody in this place is watching out for me, no one besides Drew. He’s always been the one to have my back, no matter what’s going on. He may be Mandy’s twin, but he’s my brother too, and he’s always proven that to me.

  Even in the past weeks.

  Silently, I slip out onto the back porch, putting the bottle of beer on the railing. It’s cold, like I expected it to be, but sticking my hands in my jeans, I search for my pack of cigarettes and lighter.

  Once I have them in hand, it’s only a few seconds until I have it lit and I’m inhaling, feeling the nicotine wash over me, calming my nerves. My nerves have been shot since the day we all found out about Travis.

  Since then, I haven’t slept a full night and I haven’t had a day that was fucking normal.

  It’s only gotten worse since Mandy had her miscarriage.

  Taking a seat, I take another hit off my cigarette and another drink of my beer. Inside, people are laughing, glasses are clinking, and kids are screaming with excitement.

  Looking in, everybody seems to be having the time of their lives, without me. That’s how my entire life has been. I’ve always been on the outside looking in, and I never would have thought I’d be on the outside of my own family.

  “How’s it going?”

  Wild scares me as he walks up behind me, as stealthy as Tyler.

  “All right, now that you’ve given me a fucking heart attack.”

  A grin appears for a few seconds at the corner of his mouth. “Didn’t mean to.”

  “What are you doing out here?”

  He raises an eyebrow. “I could ask you the same thing.”

  The two of us stare at each other for so long I have to blink. When he doesn’t make a move to go back inside, I finally give in. “Felt like I was on the outside looking in, so I thought maybe it’d be better if I did. ‘Sides, I can smoke and drink out here without Walker seeing me,” I take another drink from the bottle. “Your turn.”

  If anyone doesn’t want to talk to me, it’s Wild. He hates talking to anyone, but now that I’ve shared, he’ll definitely feel the need to share back.

  “It’s still overwhelming,” he shrugs. “Being with everyone. No matter how many times I try to convince myself I’m used to it, I’m not. Sometimes when everyone’s together, I have to take a few moments to myself.”

  “You were a bartender, you’re used to a crowd of people.”

  “Yeah, but there was a bar in between me and them. Those people in there,” he points to them with the lit end of his cigarette. “They’re huggers and they don’t pay attention to the don’t hug me vibe I like to put off. It’s h
ard to deal with.”

  I throw my head back laughing. He’s described them perfectly. They may get your vibe, but that doesn’t mean they’re gonna pay attention to it. “You’ll get used to it one day. I did, even though I said I never would. There might even come a time when you miss it.”

  The way he avoids my eyes tells me everything I need to know. He realizes I’m talking about the situation I’m in right now.

  “You and Mandy are solid,” he speaks before bringing the cigarette between his lips and inhaling. The bright orange ring glows brighter, before he pulls it from his lips and exhales. “You’ll figure it out.”

  Maybe it’s the beer I’ve had, or maybe I’m just fucking tired. “If we’re so solid, why am I stuck spending the night here, every night? Why aren’t I at home with my wife and kid? Why did we lose what we were building?”

  “If there’s one thing I’ve come to understand since patching in, it’s that things happen for a reason, Dalton.”

  “Now you sound like Tyler, and what I don’t need is any of his ya ya speeches about how life will be better because of this experience.”

  “Look, all I’m saying is a lot of shit has lead me here. It could have lead me right past here, but my bike broke down at a place where y’all would come into my life. I didn’t know where I was going, but for some reason I was put here, just like you were. So you’re not home right now, so some shit’s gone bad, it’ll change. If there’s one thing for sure about life, it’s that it won’t be the same way long.”