by Nikki Ashton
I watched Ellie as real fear sparked in her eyes. I felt kinda bad for telling her about Bronte and the laundry hamper. It was obvious how much she cared for Bronte and how much she evidently had to take care of her and stop her from doing anything stupid—which if I knew Bronte, was pretty often.
“You want me to get Pop to talk to her?” I asked.
Ellie glared at me. “God, no. That would only make it a challenge for her. No, we have to think of something else.”
She started to pace again, and my head moved from left to right as I watched her until eventually she came to a stop.
“I know what we have to do,” she announced and planted herself in front of me, her hands on her hips.
“We?” I asked, my brows almost disappearing into my hairline.
“Yes, we,” she answered with more than a hint of exasperation. “You have to help me get her to fall in love with someone else. Otherwise if you don’t the worst thing possible could happen; Bronte could end up as your step-mom.”
The idea was ridiculous, but Ellie sure did sound worried. I muttered a curse and looked up to the ceiling. This was not what I wanted to be doing on a Friday night. I should have gone home when I had the chance.
“I’m not sure—”
Ellie didn’t even let me finish. “No, Hunter, you have to help me. You have no idea what a handful she can be. I can’t do this on my own.”
“Ellie, don’t you think you’re maybe overreacting?”
She shook her head. “Nope. She’s been my best friend since pre-K. I know exactly what she’s capable of.”
I groaned and nodded. “Okay, so who do you recommend we get her to fall in love with. The way I see it, most men in this town would love a shot with Bronte, and if I’m reading her right, Bronte would not want a shot with any man who would want a shot with her. So, who do you propose?”
Ellie beamed. “It’s obvious.”
“To you maybe, but not me,” I replied with a shrug.
“Who do you know who can’t stand to be around her, who she irritates more than a fly would.”
I frowned and tried to think who Ellie could mean. There was no one, except…
“Shit no,” I almost shouted. “Not happening. He’d be more likely to kill her, and I do not want that blood on my conscience. Nope, sorry, Ellie but I ain’t helping.”
“Please.” She pouted and crossed her arms over her chest, which meant my eyes were dragged toward it and the dark brown stain above her left tit, which then meant my eyes zeroed in on the actual tit, and my dick woke up.
“Hunter,” she snapped, poking a finger in front of my eyes. “How many times do I have to tell you? Look at my face, not the girls, and concentrate. Will you or will you not help me to save our parents’ friendships by getting Bronte to fall in love with Carter and vice versa?”
Before I had time to say, ‘hell no’ Bronte appeared from her room and filled the hallway with laughter.
“Oh my God,” she exclaimed. “That guy was the weirdest. I really need to keep messaging him, if only for the laughs.”
“Bronte,” I groaned and rubbed a hand down my face. “What the hell are you doing?”
“I’m getting a coke and some Cheerios to keep me going while I converse with Mr. Flirty as he calls himself.”
“He doesn’t mean that,” Ellie snapped. “He means what are you doing by internet dating in the first place, and what are you doing by messaging those douchebags?”
“Ah chill,” she said and flapped a hand at us. “It’s fun. I have nothing or no one else to amuse me.”
I saw the way she smirked at Ellie. When the sound of my pop’s laugh unexpectedly rang from the den, I also saw how Bronte’s eyes went wider and she pushed her tits out. Fuck, she really did have it bad for my old man.
“Okay.” I breathed out. “I’m in.”
Ellie’s head turned in my direction and she glared at me.
“In what?” Bronte asked, as she began to walk toward the kitchen.
“Hunter offered to help me with the hospital fund raiser,” Ellie answered quickly.
I was glad that she’d thought on her feet, but I also realized that she would finally get me to do what I’d always said I wouldn’t. Now she’d said it to Bronte, I’d have to agree and actually take part in the damn calendar. She had me. When I looked over to her, the sneaky little witch was grinning like a Cheshire cat and I knew I was right.
“Oh my God, Hunter.” Bronte stopped in her tracks. “You always say no.”
“Yeah,” I muttered. “I know.”
“Ellie, what did you do to make him finally agree?”
Ellie shrugged. “Nothing, he just agreed.”
I looked at Ellie with narrow eyes, warning her that something would definitely be coming up that would mean I’d regretfully have to pull out.
“Hey, what’s going on?” a voice half-way between boyhood and manhood croaked behind us.
We all turned to see Bronte’s youngest brother, Austen, sloping out of his room with a pair of huge earphones hanging around his neck. He was thirteen and tall for his age, and by the sound of his voice, his balls were about ready to break free from the confines of his abdomen.
Bronte squealed with excitement and clapped her hands. “Hunter has agreed to help Ellie with the hospital fundraiser.”
“And that’s exciting, why?” Austen asked, blinking through his blond bangs.
“Because he always says no,” Ellie replied as she gave me a sneaky wink.
Austen shrugged. “I’ll help.”
The way he looked at Ellie I had a feeling we had another little crush going on.
“You’re too young buddy,” Ellie said roughing his hair.
“If Shaw was home, you’d ask him,” Austen grumbled, evidently a little pissed off that his elder brother was probably everything he himself wanted to be.
Shaw was nineteen and currently at Harvard Law no less. Not only did he have brains, but he was a good-looking bastard too; a smarter version of Jax Teller with his buzz cut was how I’d heard him described by more than one of the Dayton Valley ladies when he came home during his college breaks. He was also Austen’s hero. The poor kid had cried for almost a week when Shaw had first gone off to school.
“When you’re eighteen,” Ellie said softly. “You’ll be the first person I ask.”
Austen’s pout slowly disappeared, and he stared at Ellie, silently swearing her to promise.
“Hey,” Bronte shrieked and slapped a hand against her leg. “I have an idea.”
“No,” I replied and wagged a finger at her. “I’m not doing it naked.”
“No stupid,” she said and rolled her eyes. “Why don’t we get your dad to do it with you. Two Delaney’s for the price of one.”
Ellie’s quiet groan sounded pained as she clutched at her stomach.
“Oh God, yes. Hunter and Jefferson Delaney Mr. January and Mr. February respectively in the ‘Hunks of Dayton Valley’ calendar. And,” she said with a gleam in her eye. “Both of you naked for December. It’ll be epic.”
I knew then that I’d get Carter and Bronte together if it was the last thing I did. If I remembered correctly, I had two months to do it until the calendar started shooting
Ellie
It had been a week since Hunter had agreed to help me with the Bronte situation and I hadn’t seen neither hide nor hair of the stupid cowboy. It was pissing me off.
He’d promised to help get Bronte and Carter together but staying up at the ranch and not even calling my brother was not helping. I knew he hadn’t spoken to Carter because I’d called at my brother’s apartment twice over the last week to ‘hang out’ and find out what I needed to know. When I’d asked Carter the first time if he’d heard from Hunter, he’d looked at me suspiciously and then accused me – yes me – of crushing on his best friend.
Ugh. As if.
On my second visit I’d been a little more subtle and grabbed his cell and taken it to the bathroom wit
h me to check his calls. Thank goodness my brother was an imbecile and used the same passcode for everything – Blake Lively’s birthday; he was obsessed.
While I peed, I scrolled and found nothing recent from Hunter. Although I did find a text from a few months before where he’d told Carter he was worried about me being with my douche of an ex. It seemed I looked permanently sad. My loving brother’s response was: ‘did I lend you my red button down?’. Yeah, I definitely won big time on the brother stakes.
I managed to drop his cell back down the side of his favorite gaming chair and then made myself scarce. The smell of farts, sweaty socks and unwashed bodies being too much to handle any longer than necessary.
The one thing I hadn’t done and wished I had, was to take down Hunter’s number because then I could have called him myself. Problem was, I’d been too busy wondering why he’d felt it necessary to tell my brother that I looked sad, and also thinking about my need to buy new panties as I looked down at the once white and now greyish ones around my ankles.
Hunter and I had never been close enough that I needed his digits, but they really would have been useful the last week. Especially as Bronte had mentioned with glee that Jefferson and his lady friend, Jojo, had argued at her parents’ house at Friday night’s dinner. It had resulted in Jojo storming into the yard and sitting out there for over twenty minutes until Jefferson finally went out to talk to her.
“Can you go and help out in ER?” A breathless voice roused me from my thoughts. I whirled around on my seat at the nurse’s station to see Mimi, our hospital administrator, breathing heavily and clutching at her side.
“Sorry, hon, I ran up here. I’m trying to get some weight off my tush and I kind of underestimated how long three flights of stair actually are.”
When I noticed her glasses had begun to steam up, and her blouse was pulled from the waistband of her skirt, I couldn’t help but smile. Mimi was a little like a comfy sofa; all soft and squishy and coming apart at the seams.
“What’s the deal with ER?” I asked as I got up from my chair and moved around the desk.
We were a hospital that served three small towns, the closest being Dayton Valley, but even so we weren’t often short staffed for the number of patients we had. The kid’s ward which I worked on rarely had above ten patients on it, which was why I worked on a small rotation of six staff members.
“There’s been a stomach flu epidemic down there.” Mimi groaned, making a face as though she was about to puke herself. “They’re down to two nurses and one doctor and seeing as we’ve just had six people come in who were in a car accident on the Western Lake road, we need your help.”
I knew I was an obvious choice. I’d started my career in the hospital on the ER until a place had come on Pediatrics, which was what I’d majored in.
“Okay, let’s go,” I said and guided Mimi with a hand to her elbow. “But we’ll use the elevator.”
Most of the casualties from the accident had been patched up and sent home or sent for x-rays. Things were finally calm. I’d persuaded the two nurses and a doctor to go and grab a quick break while I held the fort, knowing I could call them back if I needed to.
No one had been in or out of the ER for almost a half hour and Beth, the receptionist, and I were both taking the time to catch up on paperwork, so when the next person to come to the desk was Hunter, I was a little surprised.
“Hey,” I said and stood up to greet him. “What brings you here?”
He pulled up his shirt to reveal deep black bruises along his side. “Your brother was checking on a calf and like an idiot, I walked behind it just as Carter injected it with antibiotic.”
I leaned over the desk to take a closer look. “Sheesh, looks painful. Does it hurt?”
He shook his head. “Nope, but Pop insisted I get it checked out for broken ribs, so here I am.”
“Beth can you check Hunter in, please,” I said and pushed my chair back.
“Sure, honey. Hey, Hunter,” Beth sighed. “Not seen you for a while.” She flashed her blue eyes at him and flicked her long blonde hair back over her shoulder. If she hadn’t been Beth, I’m sure Hunter may well have flirted back. Beth was a good-looking woman but not known for being particular about the men she took to her bed. I mean I didn’t judge her for it; her fiancé had been killed in Iraq when they were only twenty and three months from getting married. Since then Beth had enjoyed a lot of attention in the bedroom department and didn’t care who knew it.
“Hey, Beth, how you doing?”
“Better than you by the looks of it, honey.” She gave Hunter her bedroom smile again, but when he turned to watch me walk toward him, she gave up and continued to book him in. I grabbed a clipboard and chart from the desk and ushered Hunter down to one of the examination rooms.
Once I’d pulled the drape I rounded on Hunter.
“Where’ve you been and why haven’t you been trying to get Carter to fall for Bronte?” I whispered.
Hunter took a step back and put his hands to his hips, with a wince I should add.
“I’ve been busy,” he retorted. “I have cows to look after. And who says I haven’t been trying?”
“Carter. He said he hadn’t heard from you all week, and I checked his phone.” I poked my head around the drape to make sure no one was hanging around. The last thing I needed was to get into trouble for not caring for a patient and interrogating him instead. When I saw the coast was clear, I pulled my head back inside. “She’s going to do something stupid; I know she is.”
Hunter ran a hand down his face. “Ellie, don’t you think you’re overreacting a little. My pop isn’t interested in Bronte.”
My eyes widened and I felt the nerve endings of my hair bristle at his stupidity. “Hunter your pop is a dog, in the nicest possible way. My dad does jigsaws for a hobby, your dad does women. So, you really think if a hot twenty-four-year-old comes on to him he isn’t going to give it a thought?”
Hunter frowned and shook his head. “He’s best friends with her dad. So, no, he isn’t.”
He had a point, but I knew my best friend. “Well you really don’t know Bronte then. She won’t care as long as she gets to do the nasty with your dad. That’ll be all she cares about. I’m telling you her crush is getting worse.”
“And I’m telling you, you’re overreacting. Now do you think you could look at my damn ribs some time this century?”
I knew he was right; I had a job to do, but it didn’t stop me worrying about Bronte and Jefferson. We would have to continue our chat another time. I pointed to the bed.
“Halle-fucking-lujah,” Hunter grumbled.
“Okay,” I said once he’d hopped up on the bed, his legs dangling over the side. “Take your shirt off and I’ll check it out.”
Hunter undid the cuffs and the top few buttons of his flannel and then taking the bottom of it, pulled it up and over his head. He winced as he threw it to one side and while his eyes were closed in a grimace, I risked a quick ‘non-medical’ look at his abs. Damn he was ripped. I had time to quickly count at least six deep ridges of muscle. There was no doubting he was sexy and hot. Tattoos adorned his chest and biceps, not so many that you couldn’t see his smooth, golden brown skin, but enough to make him look a like a bad boy who you knew would ruin you in the bedroom. Of course, I had no clue whether he was good in that department, he was my brother’s best friend, he was a pain in the ass, and he was a cocky son of a gun at times. The fact that the sight of his naked torso got me a little hot under my scrubs, made me take a step back and shake myself.
I soon got back into nurse mode; felt around Hunter’s ribs, asked him to take deep breaths, and then to twist his body from side to side. Despite the black and blue bruising, Hunter said he didn’t feel any extra pain when he did all the things I asked, so I was pretty sure the ribs were intact.
“I’m confident they’re not broken,” I finally said after listening to his breathing. “But I can send you for an x-ray if you want to be
sure.”
Hunter shook his head. “Nope it’s fine. I’ve had a broken rib once before and this feels nothing like it. I’m good. I only came because Pop insisted.”
I wrote on the chart and held it against my chest as Hunter twisted to find his shirt. The muscles in his body were strong and taunt, and all moved in unison which made my damn mouth water. I’d fallen out of nurse mode and had slipped back to ‘woman who hadn’t had a man induced orgasm for nine weeks. Of course, my eyes fell to the bulge in his jeans. He wore a leather belt and the big brass buckle sat right on top, like some sort of billboard alerting me to the fact that there was a sale on huge dicks. I squirmed but still couldn’t take my eyes off Hunter as his shirt slithered down his body and disappointingly covered up his abs and the sexy little trail of hair that disappeared into his jeans down to that huge dick that I’d been imagining and salivating over.
“You okay?” he asked as he lowered himself off the bed. “You seem a bit out of it.”
I literally shook myself and cleared my throat. “It’s just a little stuffy in here.”
“Yeah,” he said and wiped his brow. “It kinda is. So, I’m good to go?”
I scribbled something else on the chart and then looked back up at him. “I’m going to ask the doc to prescribe you some pain relief but he’s having a quick break. You okay to hang around until he’s back?”
“Yeah,” Hunter sighed, looking up at the clock on the wall. “Pop was busy with a buyer when I left. I’ll have to wait for him to come get me anyway. Don’t know why he didn’t just let me drive here, but he damn well insisted Carter give me a lift.”
“I’m off in a half-hour,” I said without thinking. “I can give you a lift.”
“No Ellie,” he protested. “Going out to the ranch is out of your way.”
As he said the words ‘going out to the ranch’ I realized that meant going to the place where the cows lived. Oh shit, maybe I’d withdraw my offer and agree it was way out of my way.
“But if you’re happy to,” Hunter said before I had chance to speak. “It’d save Pop coming out.”
