Joke's On You- To beta Read online

  Text copyright ©2020 Lani Lynn Vale

  All Rights Reserved

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Dedication

  To my readers. Couldn’t do it without you.

  Acknowledgments

  Golden Czermak - Photographer

  My Brother’s Editor & Ink It Out Editing- My editors

  Cover Me Darling - Cover Artist

  My mom - Thank you for reading this book eight million two hundred times.

  Kendra, Kathy, Penney, Lisa, Laura, Mindy, Barbara & Amanda—I don’t know what I would do without y’all. Thank you, my lovely betas, for loving my books as much as I do.

  Table of Contents

  Blurb

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Epilogue

  Other titles by Lani Lynn Vale:

  The Freebirds

  Boomtown

  Highway Don’t Care

  Another One Bites the Dust

  Last Day of My Life

  Texas Tornado

  I Don’t Dance

  The Heroes of The Dixie Wardens MC

  Lights To My Siren

  Halligan To My Axe

  Kevlar To My Vest

  Keys To My Cuffs

  Life To My Flight

  Charge To My Line

  Counter To My Intelligence

  Right To My Wrong

  Code 11- KPD SWAT

  Center Mass

  Double Tap

  Bang Switch

  Execution Style

  Charlie Foxtrot

  Kill Shot

  Coup De Grace

  The Uncertain Saints

  Whiskey Neat

  Jack & Coke

  Vodka On The Rocks

  Bad Apple

  Dirty Mother

  Rusty Nail

  The Kilgore Fire Series

  Shock Advised

  Flash Point

  Oxygen Deprived

  Controlled Burn

  Put Out

  I Like Big Dragons Series

  I Like Big Dragons and I Cannot Lie

  Dragons Need Love, Too

  Oh, My Dragon

  The Dixie Warden Rejects

  Beard Mode

  Fear the Beard

  Son of a Beard

  I’m Only Here for the Beard

  The Beard Made Me Do It

  Beard Up

  For the Love of Beard

  Law & Beard

  There’s No Crying in Baseball

  Pitch Please

  Quit Your Pitchin’

  Listen, Pitch

  The Hail Raisers

  Hail No

  Go to Hail

  Burn in Hail

  What the Hail

  The Hail You Say

  Hail Mary

  The Simple Man Series

  Kinda Don’t Care

  Maybe Don’t Wanna

  Get You Some

  Ain’t Doin’ It

  Too Bad So Sad

  Bear Bottom Guardians MC

  Mess Me Up

  Talkin’ Trash

  How About No

  My Bad

  One Chance, Fancy

  It Happens

  Keep It Classy

  Snitches Get Stitches

  F-Bomb

  The Southern Gentleman Series

  Hissy Fit

  Lord Have Mercy

  KPD Motorcycle Patrol

  Hide Your Crazy

  It Wasn’t Me

  I’d Rather Not

  Make Me

  Sinners are Winners

  If You Say So

  SWAT 2.0

  Just Kidding

  Fries Before Guys

  Maybe Swearing Will Help

  Ask Me If I Care

  May Contain Wine

  Joke’s on You

  Join the Club (7-14-20)

  Any Day Now (8-11-20)

  Say it Ain’t So (9-8-20)

  Officially Over It (10-13-20)

  Nobody Knows (11-3-20)

  Depends Who’s Asking (12-8-20)

  Valentine Boys

  Herd That

  Crazy Heifer

  Chute Yeah

  Get Bucked

  Blurb

  Booth Pena definitely didn’t make the smartest of decisions when he was a teenager.

  At eighteen, he knocked a girl up and signed up for the military all in the same day—signing his life away in more ways than one. Fast forward six weeks and he’s in bootcamp learning that he’s going to be a father while also learning that not only is he going to be deployed, but it’s going to stay that way for a year.

  There weren’t a lot of things that the baby’s mother and he saw eye to eye on after that. He honestly wasn’t sure why he even slept with her in the first place.

  Okay, that last part is a lie. He knows exactly why he slept with her. Because the real woman he’s in love with, her twin sister, Dillan, won’t give him the time of day.

  Five years later, and he still wants her.

  Now he’s home for good, being the best father and police officer that he can be, and still he’s not good enough.

  ***

  Dillan Davidsdottir hated Booth Pena. Immensely.

  She hated him because he slept with her sister, then left. Granted, she knew that he hadn’t meant to leave like he did, unknowingly and unconsciously leaving his son behind, but that didn’t change the fact that he had.

  Five years later, and she still dislikes him just as much now as she did when he chose the wrong sister to take to his bed.

  Maybe if he’d chosen her, her heart wouldn’t be broken, and his wouldn’t be untouchable.

  But when a SWAT officer sees his life flash before his eyes, and decides that enough is enough, what’s a girl to do?

  Give in, that’s what.

  Author’s Note:

  Delanie and Dillan have different last names from their father.

  Dillan is the daughter of David= Davidsdottir.

  David (their father) is the son of Gunnar= Gunnarson

  Prologue

  There appears to have been a struggle.

  -My housekeeping style

  Booth

  “Mail day, bitches!”

  I grunted when a box was practically thrown into my face, along with about eight letters.

  I blinked.

  Ever since we’d gotten out of what I liked to call ‘hell month,’ I’d been getting mail regularly. One or two letters a week. Not fucking ten letters and a package.

  I carefully sifted through the letters, freezing hard when I read the name on the return address of the last one.

  Davidsdottir.

  A few years ago, Delanie and Dillan Davidsdottir had moved into our small town, and
ever since then, I’d had a crush.

  A crush on Dillan.

  Yet, I’d slept with Delanie, effectively ruining any and all chances that I would ever have with Dillan.

  Which really fucking sucked.

  Why my drunk brain had decided that would be a good idea, I would never know.

  Needless to say, getting a letter from a Davidsdottir literally sent a shiver of fear through me.

  Opening it up, I started reading.

  Booth,

  I don’t know when you’ll get this, but I need you to know.

  The night that we slept together ended up with a little ‘oopsie.’ I’m pregnant. As of right now, my due date is about eight months away.

  I want you to know that I can have this baby by myself. You don’t have to be involved.

  However, since your mother saw me coming out of the obstetrician’s office, and asked how I was doing, I broke down and told her everything. She assures me that you’ll want to be in the baby’s life.

  I knew you would want to be… but I’m just scared. Anyway, if you have any questions, I’d be more than willing to answer them.

  I’m sorry.

  Delanie

  I’m sorry.

  I’m pregnant.

  Son of a bitch.

  I closed my eyes as a wave of something—horror? Sadness? Regret?—washed over me.

  Not at fucking all.

  As I folded the letter up, something fell down to the ground that was folded in with the letter, and I bent over to pick it up.

  My breath caught at what I saw.

  It was a sonogram.

  Of my baby.

  My heart, that I thought was broken, kicked a stuttered beat.

  My baby.

  That was my baby in the picture.

  I ran my finger over the black and white photo, brushing the pad of my thumb over the blob that I assumed was my kid. And knew.

  I would do everything that I could for this kid of mine.

  Everything in my power to give, that baby would have.

  Then I thought about Dillan again.

  And then there was Bourne. Who really disliked both sisters.

  Not because they were bad or anything, but because they always acted like they were so high and mighty.

  I’d never been able to understand what it was that they saw in us that they didn’t like.

  Needless to say, it hadn’t been easy having a crush on a girl that looked at me like I was a scuff mark on her pristine thousand-dollar heels.

  “What’d ya get?”

  I looked over at my new friend, Colin.

  Colin was a good guy. I liked him a lot.

  Even if he’d started a Dungeons and Dragons underground ring while we were in bootcamp and got caught, which then turned into all of us having to pay for his stupidity.

  He couldn’t help that he was a complete geek.

  “Umm, I haven’t opened the box yet,” I admitted. “I’ll do that in a sec. Still trying to process this.”

  I showed him the sonogram photo, causing his breath to suck in fast through his teeth.

  “Oh, fuck.”

  God, I wished my brother was with me.

  If anyone could talk me straight again, it was him.

  Swallowing hard, I tucked the photo into my front pocket and read the letter all over again.

  “All right, boys,” our drill sergeant bellowed. “Let’s get to chow.”

  ***

  Seven and a half months later

  “Yo!”

  I turned to see a man from my unit stopped at the foot of my cot.

  “Yeah?” I asked, utterly exhausted.

  Being deployed was nothing like I thought it would be.

  I expected constant fighting. Battles. Firefights.

  Anything.

  What I got was a fuckin’ whole lot of nothing.

  Every day was monotonous. A whole lot of sitting around and doing nothing.

  We walked. We patrolled. We went back to our bunks. And we did it all over again the next day.

  It really, really sucked.

  What sucked even more was that I wanted to be back home, in the states, where I was supposed to be.

  Instead, I was one of the oh-so-lucky ones that got deployed. According to my CO—commanding officer—while in bootcamp, that almost never happened.

  Except, apparently, for me.

  What fuckin’ luck I had.

  “You got a call from your pop, I think. An emergency,” he said. “Jordan took a message since you were out. He wants you in his office.”

  His ‘office’ was actually a tent.

  I ran to the command tent and halted outside, even though I wanted nothing more than to barge in and demand to know what happened.

  I looked at the man at the door, and he announced me.

  I gritted my teeth as I waited for Jordan to allow me entrance.

  “Come in.”

  I sighed and pushed through the tent flaps, nodding my head at my commander.

  “Sir,” I said, trying to temper my irritation.

  “Kid,” he said. “Your baby’s on the way. Your dad called.”

  I felt my heart lurch into my throat.

  My baby was on the way.

  My son.

  Over the last seven months, I’d gotten quite a bit of mail, emails, and letters, as well as a few packages. All of them I awaited with bated breath.

  I was so goddamn excited about having a kid on the way that it wasn’t even funny.

  I swallowed hard.

  “Really?” I all but croaked.

  Jordan’s eyes crinkled at the edges as his mouth formed into a semblance of a smile.

  “You’ve got four days. Make the best of them,” Jerk, aka Jordan, muttered.

  I blinked.

  Honestly, I was surprised to get any days to go, let alone four.

  Especially with the escalation in fighting we’d seen over the last few days.

  “Thank you, sir,” I said softly.

  Jordan looked up at me with a grin.

  “You know, I had my first kid while I was deployed, too,” he said. “Didn’t even know about it until I got home. Nine months after he was born. So I get it. I know that it’s hard. It’s like your guts have been ripped out, and they’re rotting and exposed, just hanging there but you’re unable to fix it.” That was true. Very descriptive and imaginative, but true. “See the kid. Don’t let that baby grow up without you.”

  I didn’t want him to grow up without me.

  The sad fact was, the US government owned me lock, stock and barrel for another five years.

  And, unless I was hurt to the point where I could no longer perform my duties for them, I was stuck.

  Also, even if I did get to the point where I was no longer deployed, I highly doubted that I’d be able to convince Delanie to move where they stationed me.

  So what did it matter if I was deployed or not? At least this way, I didn’t feel like a piece of shit for not being able to see my kid.

  Rubbing my chest over my heart where it was at a constant ache since I’d found out about my child all of those months ago, I looked at Jordan.

  “And your son?” I said softly. “How’s he doing now? Does he understand your job?”

  Please tell me that he understood.

  Jordan’s face went utterly blank. “I haven’t been able to find him again. When I deployed the next time, my ex was gone, and so was my son.”

  That caused nausea to well up and fear to intrude.

  Delanie would never do that, would she?

  ***

  It took me a day and a half to get home.

  I arrived at the hospital in my dirty clothes that I’d had on for patrol two mornings ago.

  I smelled to high heaven, and I was fairly sure I still had sand in places there shouldn’t be sand.

  Feeling my heart in my throat, I clu
tched onto the tiny little t-shirt that I’d gotten from the store on base before being deployed, and knocked on the door.

  A loud ‘come in’ that was most definitely not from Delanie sounded.

  I entered, shocked to find the room completely full.

  My brother Bourne was there. My mom. Dillan. Hell, there was even a couple from church.

  There was also a man in the corner of the room holding my kid that I’d never met before.

  Jealousy burned in my gut that everyone had gotten to hold my son before me.

  My dad. My mom. My brother. Hell, even the fucking gym’s owner got to hold him before me.

  That really fuckin’ irritated me, but I had nobody to blame but myself.

  I stepped into the room and my eyes didn’t stray from the baby that was in the man’s arms.

  “Booth.” My mother came up to me, wrapping her arms around me tightly. “You made it.”

  I hugged her back, my eyes still entirely focused on the baby.

  “Yeah,” I rumbled.

  She tugged on my hand and led me over to the baby.

  She reached for him, but the man glared.

  “Sorry, but this is my grandson. I just got him,” he snapped.

  Why was he even there? The last I’d heard, he’d had nothing to do with Delanie from the moment that she got pregnant.

  “Dad,” Dillan snapped. “That’s Asa’s father. Don’t start. You promised that all you wanted to do was see him and you’d leave.”

  The man’s eyes narrowed. “So you’re the little asshole that thinks he can get my daughter pregnant and not be there for her?”

  Before I or anyone could reply, Delanie was there.

  She took the baby from her father’s arms, offered him a glare, and placed him into mine.

  My breath hitched as I stared at the small baby that was the perfect mini Booth.

  “Fuck,” I whispered.

  “Language,” David Gunnarson snapped.

  I wanted to punch him in the throat.

  I chose to step away from him and turn my back on him instead.

  Delanie ran her finger over Asa’s nose.

  “You went with my name suggestion,” I said softly.

  “I did,” she agreed. “It’s a good name.”

  I’d had a friend in bootcamp that had suffered a heart attack. He’d been eighteen. His name was Asa.

  And since I’d been the one to see it happen, and perform CPR on him for fifteen minutes before the medics arrived, Asa’s death had made a large impact on me.

  Hence the reason for the name suggestion.