Joke Read online

  JOKE

  by

  Mia Malone

  Copyright © 2018 by Mia Malone

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  SHARING OR DOWNLOADING AN EBOOK WITHOUT PERMISSION IS EQUAL TO STEALING. SO PLEASE DON’T.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents 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.

  Books by Mia

  The Brothers series

  Gibson

  Padraig

  Joke

  Dear reader –

  A few things;

  I’m still as uninteresting as ever, but I’ve set up an author profile on Goodreads, so if I figure out something worth saying, or if you have any questions – this is where you find me:

  https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/17906472.Mia_Malone?from_search=true

  I also promised to move up release dates if I got an encouraging number of reviews and pre-orders, and since you guys have blown me away I’ll release Joke more than a month earlier than planned.

  The same deal goes for my next book. Reviews (of any kind) will make my fingers fly faster over the keyboard.

  And tell your friends about this book… some might not like my calm, strong Joke, who likes it just a little bit dirty – but some might :)

  My thanks for any support will be to continue to roll out all books in the Brothers series at pre-order price 0.99$ (it will become 2.99$ on release day).

  Thank you so much for your support!

  XOXO/ Mia

  A hint:

  If you somewhere in this book feel like listening to Ed Sheeran’s amazing song Dive, then you might want to listen to the Luke Combs version instead of the original version.

  Reaching for the stars

  “I made it!”

  Tears started running down my cheeks as I jumped off the lift and started skating toward my mom and dad. They turned, and I was too far away for them to hear what I said, but they saw my face, and they knew.

  I’d made the national team.

  “Baby,” Mom whispered into my neck. “We’re so happy for you.”

  “I’m happy for me too,” I squealed. “I’ll be here for two more weeks and then…”

  I blabbered on about training camps and fittings for clothes and how a few of the other girls on the team had already texted me their congratulations. My parents smiled, and through my gloriously exuberant eighteen-year-old joy I saw theirs, quieter and calmer but running just as deep.

  This was what I’d lived for in the past eight years. I’d pushed myself until I threw up, literally and disgustingly, and just kept going, because of my love for what I did and the desire to see how far my talent would take me.

  And I made it.

  I was going to the Olympics.

  “Let’s go down for a long lunch,” Dad said. “Celebrate.”

  “I just want to go for a quick run first,” I said, laughed again and added, “A victory run.”

  “You deserve one,” Mom said. “We’ll go get a table and call the others.”

  They waved when I turned toward the easy way down to the base, and I waved back at them as I kicked off and started making my way down the slope. The season was in full swing, but I had skied this mountain my whole life, and there were places only I knew about. Just at a corner where the slope narrowed, and most skiers stopped to look at the magnificent view, I turned off the groomed areas and into the trees.

  I was singing as I made my way down through an area I’d skied the first time at the age of five. I knew the path well, so as I moved my skis to the rhythm of our national anthem, I saw myself bending down to let an elderly man hang a gold medal around my throat. I was going to the Olympics, representing my country and myself, and life was perfect right then, so I laughed through the words as I belted them out.

  I didn’t hear him.

  Didn’t see him.

  The steel pipe hit my right knee hard enough to throw me to the side and I screamed from a sharp pain which had started in my leg but radiated through my whole being.

  “You shouldn’t have said no,” he whispered behind the ski mask.

  Then he raised the pipe again.

  “No,” I screamed. “Not my leg!” I tried to put my hands over the already destroyed knee in a pathetic attempt at protecting it. “Not my leg. Please. Please…”

  It took me four hours to crawl down the mountain, and then I reached the slope.

  Everything was blurry after that, but they told me later, all I did was scream.

  “Not my leg!”

  Living with it

  “Okay, mommy,” Cady said quietly.

  I looked at my daughter’s face and felt like crying. I’d just upended our plans to go to her beloved grandparents for the summer, and that was all she said. She was six years old and had already learned that our lives were partly controlled by that man. My husband hadn’t wanted to tell her about him, but he’d made threats, and I had argued that she had to know. We couldn’t just tell her to never talk to strangers like other parents did.

  She had to know, because not knowing what he could do had already taken too much away from me.

  “Oh, honey,” I murmured soothingly. “Mommy will figure something out. Promise.”

  “Okay,” she repeated.

  “Love you, Lady-Cady,” I whispered, and she giggled at the nickname like I’d known she would. “Goodnight, sweetie,” I added and left the room before I started crying.

  Dante walked through the door with his phone at his ear and a bunch of papers in his hand just as I closed the door to our two-year-old daughter’s room. He was talking to someone, and it sounded like business, so I went into the kitchen to get his dinner out of the fridge and into the oven.

  He was still on the phone when I put the plate in front of him, and he smiled up at me, mouthing, “Thank you.”

  I watched the garden until I heard him put the phone down.

  “Rough day?” he asked.

  I pressed my lips together for a second and then I turned.

  “He was released this morning.”

  “I thought he’d be in there until November.”

  Dante’s face had hardened.

  “Good behavior. His mother was there, apparently, crying about how she needed him. He got out early.”

  Dante swore under his breath, and I watched him calmly, wishing I’d not agreed to stay away from the parole hearing.

  “Right,” he said. “I guess you and the girls aren’t going to your parents for the summer?”

  “No.”

  “You could still go, Louisa.”

  “No.”

  We couldn’t go home. Not when that man was there. He’d threatened to harm my girls the last time I saw him, so we couldn’t.

  “You’ll stay here?”

  He looked unhappy, and I knew he wanted to avoid the madness following me into our lives, haunting us until something happened. Something which usually was unpleasant but put the man back in prison so we could breathe freely for a little while.

  “If it’s okay with you…” I trailed off, wishing he’d agree but still hoping he wouldn’t.

  “What?”

  “I was thinking that the girls and I could go to my grandparents. Mom and Dad could come too.”

  “Norway?”

  “Yeah. Except, you –”

  “I’ll be fine. I can’t get away more than a week, maybe two. I’ll just go sailing with Brad and Dominique instead, they asked about it the other day.�
�

  Brad and Dominique had asked him to go sailing with them? They knew we were going to my parents for the summer and he’d travel back and forth to see us.

  “Okay,” I said because what else was there to say?

  The invite had clearly not been for our children, and as a consequence, not for me.

  “Okay,” he echoed. “I’ll text them,” he added and picked up his phone.

  It didn’t seem to register with him that Norway wasn’t at the end of the world, so traveling there wasn’t exactly impossible, although I knew he’d prefer going on the yacht with our friends and whoever they brought along. Spending time in a country where he didn’t speak the language, the food was strange, and the main attraction was walking up and down a mountain wasn’t his thing at all.

  He didn’t text Brad, he called him, and then I heard him chuckle as they made plans.

  I went into the bedroom and got my own phone, but before I called my parents, I sat on the bed for a while. The night ahead would be difficult, and I looked at the bottle of pills which would make it easier.

  No, I decided, like I’d done every night since Cady was born. I would not give in to that man and would not use drugs to sleep because if I did, I wouldn’t be there for my girls in case they woke up. I would be drowsy in the morning and sluggish at work. I wouldn’t be me. So, I’d face my nightmares, and if I woke up too many times, I’d go to the guest bedroom and read a book or five until I dozed off.

  It was a part of my life, and even when I tried, I could barely remember how it had been, before.

  Was this all we had?

  “I hope we can handle this amicably,” Dante murmured, and I swallowed.

  Amicably.

  Right.

  “Of course,” I murmured. “You’ll move out I assume?”

  “Actually…”

  He looked uncomfortable, and I straightened.

  “You’re kicking me out of the house?” I asked.

  “You don’t like it.”

  He was right about that. The big, white monstrosity he’d come home one day to share with the family that he’d bought was not what I’d ever wanted to live in, but I hadn’t protested because it was important to him.

  “Where do you expect me to go?” I asked, knowing he’d likely made plans already.

  “Summer is soon here, so people are moving,” he said slowly. “There’s a condo I’ve heard about. It’s a bit small, and the girls would have to share a room, but Cady only has one more year before college, so they’ll be fine when they visit.”

  When they visited? Oh, God. We’d have shared custody. I wouldn’t be with my girls every day.

  “Visit?” I said weakly.

  “Yeah, that’s the problem. It’s too far from their schools so it really would be better if they stayed here.” I opened my mouth, but he kept going quickly, “You’ll have them every weekend, I promise, Louisa.”

  Weekends? Cady was almost eighteen and had a huge crowd of friends. She wasn’t home most weekends. And Mimi had all the activities a thirteen-almost-fourteen-year-old girl could cram into her free time.

  “No.”

  “Lou –”

  “No, Dante. Not happening. I’ll find somewhere to live within the school district. If you want joint custody, they can spend every other week with you, but I will not settle for weekends.”

  “You can’t afford something in this neighborhood.”

  “I’ll find something.”

  “Louisa, you can’t afford something –”

  “I’ll find something,” I snapped.

  “You can’t afford something safe.”

  “He isn’t up for release for almost another year. I’ll find something that works until then.”

  “Don’t mess things up, Louisa. Not one more time,” he said warningly. “You’ve done it too many times already.”

  I wanted to shout at him that I wasn’t the one who had messed up anything, but it didn’t matter. Our plans had been changed too many times, and it didn’t matter whose fault it was because the effect was the same.

  “I’ll make sure it’s safe,” I promised.

  I glared at him, and after a while, he sighed.

  “Okay,” he said. “You have a month to find somewhere else to live. I’ll get our lawyers to draw up the papers.”

  My glare turned into astonishment. A month to find a new home, and some papers to sign.

  Was this all we had after twenty years of marriage?

  He looked at me, and I knew it was because I saw exactly what we had in his eyes, and it was only a whole lot of nothing.

  Chapter One

  Joke

  Joke Tucker walked into the empty room and looked around at Oak, the local bar he’d built up from a small biker place barely providing a living for the previous owner to something which wouldn’t make him a fortune but at least had been profitable for the past fifteen years straight.

  It wasn’t fancy because he’d never tried to make it that way. Wilhelmine was a small mountain town with tourists passing through, mostly on their way to the resorts for skiing or hiking, so going for fancy would have been dumb. He’d kept the biker bar style but slowly upgraded both the décor and the menu options until it had become what it was today. A nice place where the mood was friendly, and you didn’t have to dress up to hang out with your friends. That was what he liked himself, and he’d figured there would be others who wanted it too.

  He hadn’t been wrong, and people from all over the county were regulars at Oak. He was behind the bar himself most nights, had a dependable second bartender in his old friend Tug, a stable of experienced waitresses, and he was feeling old.

  Not because he was old-old. Fifty-five wasn’t old. Perhaps he was just tired? The bar was busy even on weeknights these days, and dealing with purchases, deliveries and administration made his days long which meant downtime was scarce.

  Maybe that was it? He hadn’t gotten laid in for-fucking-ever. Months, he realized. Plural. There were several women he could call to see if they wanted to hook up, and he was pulling his phone out to do just that when it buzzed, informing him he had a message from his sister.

  “Gib and Lee are at our place for dinner tonight, you wanna come?”

  His sister Jenny was in a relationship with one of his closest friends after a gazillion years of them being buddies but apparently both wanting more. Now they had a whole lot more, and Joke was happy for them.

  Gib was another close friend, and he’d snapped Lee up the second he laid eyes on her, sitting with Jenny in Oak, and Joke was happy for him too. Very happy. So happy he joined them for somewhat naked activities when the mood struck them all, which wasn’t often, but it happened.

  Their two other friends, Mac and Day, seemed to have dropped off the radar lately, Mac buried in police business and Day spending more time than usual on the road, roaming the world.

  Having dinner with two couples who never made him feel left out but still lived lives full of couples-bliss suddenly didn’t appeal to him. He’d spent a lot of time with his sister because they’d both been single and had been tight all their lives. Then she found a fantastic friend in Lee and hooked up with Paddy, and he didn’t begrudge her a second of that, but he ended up spending more time at Oak, or at home.

  Words he’d overheard Lee say popped up in his head, as they had several times in the months since they all went camping.

  “Joke’s a good man. He’s gorgeous… and lonely,”

  “Fucking shit,” he muttered and crouched down to start switching kegs.

  He was.

  Working in a bustling bar each night, a handful of close friends he could call any time of the day and a lot of other friends to hang out with. Women he could call when he felt like it. His sister across the street.

  And he was still lonely.

  Maybe he should –

  The front door opened, and he heard steps approaching the bar.

  “We’re closed,” he called out. />
  The steps kept coming, so he pushed the keg to the side and stood up.

  A woman was standing on the other side of the bar, and he stared. Then he stared some more. Her straight, thick hair reached well below her shoulders in a fall so blonde it looked almost white. She had high cheekbones which hinted at a Native American heritage, but she couldn’t have. Not with that hair. She wasn’t tall, average height maybe, but nicely built. Sturdy would have been the word he’d used if it hadn’t been insulting and, he realized as he kept looking at her, also incorrect. The way she stood, back straight and shoulders squared, was almost defiant and it gave her a look of strength. She was stunning, but none of it was what had him staring at her.

  It was her eyes. He’d never seen anything like it on a human before. The irises were a blue so pale it looked like they were made of ice. They were guarded in a way that made her look hard, but there was something else in them too. He got the strange feeling that behind the apprehensive stare she aimed back at him, there was warmth, ready to reach the surface. Ready to light up with laughter and a fire hotter than the sun.

  “Dibs,” he murmured before he could get his brain to come up with something slightly less stupid and a lot more charming.

  “Excuse me?”

  “What can I do for you today?” he said smoothly. “The bar is closed, but if you’re desperate for a drink, I can make an exception.“

  “The lady in the diner across the street sent me here. I’m looking for a job, and she said you might need a bartender.”

  Joke blinked and wondered how the hell they’d remembered a job he’d mentioned thinking about, in passing and more than a month ago. And which one had it been – Jenny, or Lee?

  “Tall or short?” he asked.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Just curious, darlin’. Tall would be my sister, short would be my buddy’s woman.”