by D. L. Roan
Dani stared at the closed door. What just happened?
After hours of tossing and turning, Dani crawled out of bed before dawn the next day, determined to take care of Matt’s morning chores before she left. A nauseating mixture of foreboding and excitement made breakfast a no-go. She downed a cup of coffee instead before heading out to her office, only to find the stalls freshly mucked and full of hay. A second look revealed the absence of Grey’s horse.
How early did he start?
Wondering if she had enough time to meet up and help him with whatever was left, she tried calling, but the call when straight to his voicemail. He must be out of range. She snorted. Or Mom still has his phone.
If Grey was going on a long fence run or to check the livestock in the outer valley pastures, he should have taken his radio. She headed to her office to radio him, only to see all the handhelds resting in their chargers.
When she returned to the house, Mason was in the kitchen gathering ingredients for breakfast. “Do you know where Grey went?” she asked, closing the refrigerator door for him.
“Yep,” Mason said, setting the eggs and sausage onto the counter. “Somebody crashed through the fence over at the Hadley’s place last night. Whoever it was didn’t report it of course, and a couple dozen head of cattle escaped. Your mom said he rode over this morning to help round them up.”
Dani frowned. “I hope he’s here to say goodbye.”
Mason chuckled. “Trust me. He’ll be here.” He tossed her a loaf a bread. “Make the toast, will ya?”
Breakfast came and went. She and Mason met with the ranch hands about Matt’s expected absence and redistributed the workload. She’d walked over to Uncle Cade’s to say goodbye to him and Papa Daniel, a visit that resurrected her doubts about leaving. Cade hadn’t eaten dinner the night before, skipped breakfast again, and by the looks of it, he’d had less sleep than she had.
She was walking back down the driveway, not far from the house, when she heard a vehicle in the distance slowing at the entrance to the ranch.
She turned to see a familiar truck pull through the open gate and a thousand sharp-winged butterflies took flight in her stomach. She shielded her eyes, trying to see through the reflection of the trees against the windshield. The brim of his white Stetson came into view first, and then his bright, wide smile as he slowed to a stop beside her and rolled down his window.
“Hey, beautiful.”
Dani almost giggled at the sound of his Texas drawl. His voice sounded so much deeper in person than she remembered.
“Where should I park?” he asked.
“Right there’s fine.” She threw a thumb over her shoulder. “My things are right inside. I just have to go say goodbye.”
Clay cut the engine and slid out of his truck, turning to reach for something in the back seat. Dani’s eyes widened at the stonewashed, denim-covered perfection. She’d never thought she had a type until that moment. Apparently, her type was long legs, lean hips, and a perfectly rounded—
“I thought I could feel you staring at my ass.”
Dani snapped her gaze up to find him looking over his shoulder, his smug dimpled smile as broad as a barn. Despite the heat rising in her cheeks, she cocked a brow. “What’s good for the goose,” she said with a casual shrug, covering her mouth to hide her unstoppable grin. Clay chuckled and shut the door, handing her a box with a bright orange logo she’d never seen before. “What’s this?”
“Some new RFID tracking software I’m trying out,” Clay explained. “It’s still in beta testing, but it’s the most promising system I’ve come across in a while. Grey said he was looking for a new system, too, so I cut a deal to get an extra download code for the trial version.”
“He’ll love it,” she said, handing it back to him.
“How’s Matt doing?” he asked as they climbed the steps. “And your Uncle?”
Dani sighed. “Matt’s okay. Just can’t move too fast. The painkillers are helping some. Grey and my brothers have the ranch covered while I’m gone, but Uncle Cade…”
Dani opened the screen door and Clay caught her hand to stop her from going inside. “You don’t have to go if you don’t want to. I completely understand.”
“It’s not that I don’t want to. I do. I am going, but it’s hard. You know?”
Clay nodded. He looked like he was about to hug her but stopped himself. “If anything happens, and you need to come back, all you have to do is say the word. I’ll fly you straight home.”
Dani nodded, tempted to snake her arm around his waist and lean into the crisp, clean scent wafting off his shirt. The sound of Matt’s voice inside stopped her just in time. This was supposed to be a business trip, and the second her dads got wind it might be more, she’d be locked inside her room until she was thirty.
“Thanks,” she offered with a gracious smile, pulling her hand from his, regretting the loss of his touch.
Clay greeted Matt and Mason with a handshake and gave a polite nod to her mom. “Sorry to hear about what happened yesterday,” Clay said to Matt. “Same thing happened to my older brother Levi a few years back. Took him weeks to get back on his feet.”
“I believe it,” Matt said with a groan, a half-eaten ham sandwich on the plate in front of him. “The sooner I can get this fixed, the better.”
“Where’s Grey?” Dani asked, glancing out the kitchen window toward the barn. “Has he not come back yet?”
“He called while you were at Uncle Cade’s, honey.” Her mom gave her an apologetic look. “He got caught up at the Hadley’s and he won’t make it back for another couple of hours. Something about a dead steer. He said to call when you landed.”
The last breath Dani took came rushing out in disappointment. “Wow. Okay. I guess this is it, then.” She reached for her mom, giving her a goodbye hug.
“Be careful,” Gabby whispered.
“I will.”
“Take care of her,” Gabby said to Clay. Something in the way she looked at Clay said the words were more of a warning than a request.
“I will,” he promised.
“I want a full report.” Matt said, recoiling with a wince when he reached up to hug her.
She bent down and kissed his forehead instead. “Love you, Dad. I want to know when they schedule the surgery.”
“You bet, darlin’. Don’t worry about me.”
“I’m still jealous I’m not going with you,” Mason said as he, too, gave her a quick hug, and then shook Clay’s hand again. “Thanks for giving her this opportunity. I hope to get down there myself one day soon.”
“Any time,” Clay assured him.
“Oh honey,” Gabby hugged her one last time. “Have fun.”
Clay gathered her bags, and five minutes later, she was on her way to the municipal airport where Clay’s plane was waiting. As they pulled out of the driveway and onto the road, she gazed through the window at Falcon Ridge, hoping for a sight of Grey until the last fencepost had long since disappeared in the passenger mirror.
Grey sat on the picnic table beside the creek, a flask of whiskey in his hand. The sound of a truck driving down the driveway was barely audible above the ringing in his ears. The crunch of gravel grew fainter. He turned his head, listening until it disappeared altogether, before he took one last swig and set the empty flask on the bench between his feet. Not even the good stuff had been able to numb the ache in his chest.
She was gone.
His baby girl was gone.
He hadn’t meant to read the text message on Dani’s phone. He hadn’t wanted to look when it flashed onto the screen like a fucking neon sign.
Hey Beautiful. Missing your voice. Call me when you can.
A million and one murderous thoughts had rushed through his head as the blood cells in his veins turned into prickly thorns, cutting him from the inside out.
Clay Sterling.
Clay fucking Sterling
He still couldn’t believe it. Emotions he didn’t know he w
as capable of had roared through him all at once as he read and reread the message. He’d never been so enraged, humiliated, confused, overwhelmed, or elated, or proud, or…utterly broken.
Everything Dani had been trying to tell him, everything that had happened in the last few days, had suddenly snapped into place with debilitating clarity.
Jonah was going to be a father.
He was going to be a grandfather.
His little girl was all grown up.
A break in the pain gave him a moment’s reprieve. He rubbed the spot on his chest where the ache had burned for hours, drawing in a ragged breath as he tried to gather his thoughts.
He had no illusions about what was happening, what would no doubt happen between them, things he couldn’t dare allow himself to imagine. At that very moment, Dani was driving away from them. When she returned, things would be different. She would be different.
And as much as he wanted to hate Clay for being the one to steal her innocence, he couldn’t have chosen a better man for the woman she’d become.
He spotted Gabby walking toward him and he hastily wiped the moisture from his eyes, clearing the aching knot from his throat.
“I’m proud of you,” she said, taking his hand as she sat beside him.
Grey shook his head in disagreement. “I couldn’t be there. I couldn’t…” His voice choked with tears as the ache in his chest returned, flaring to unbearable levels and stealing his ability to draw his next breath.
“You did the right thing,” Gabby assured him, pulling him into her arms. “You let her go.”
Those last four words broke through the dam he’d been trying to hold together. Grey let the pieces of his heart fall from his grasp, clung to his wife with all the strength left within him, and wept.
Chapter Eleven
With Dani finally by his side, Clay navigated the winding country road, the silence between them more solemn than awkward. Sensing she needed a few minutes to herself, he didn’t say anything, glancing between her and the road as she stared out the window. This wasn’t going the way he’d imagined it would.
For weeks, he’d thought of nothing else but getting her alone, finally tasting that sassy-sweet mouth of hers, and feeling her skin-to-skin, wrapped around him in his bed, and a hundred other places his imagination had conjured up since he’d first laid eyes on her. He still wanted those things, every single damn one of them, but something had changed.
His charm offensive had worked well, better than he’d expected, actually. He’d broken through her defenses, managed to get her to let go of her grudge and acknowledge their mutual attraction, but she’d done a number on him, too.
He’d had a few relationships since he’d split with Shannon, some more meaningful than others, he’d admit, but none of those women had ever driven him to distraction, or made him burn just to hear their voice, or made him want to comfort and protect her from the pain of loss.
With his elbow propped on the door, he smoothed a finger over his lips to hide his grin as he tried to imagine her ever admitting need of those things. She was the antithesis of needy, which made her that much more attractive, but she was also as stubborn as a mule, and he couldn’t help feeling like she might be regretting her decision.
“I can turn around anytime you want,” he offered, reaching over to take her hand.
She jolted at the unexpected contact and looked down at their hands, then up at him, her eyes brimming with conflicting emotions. “I’m fine,” she said with a weak smile, threading her fingers together with his.
Satisfied, for now, he tightened his grip and refocused on the road ahead, determined to make this the best week of her life.
After a forty-five-minute debate over why country classics were so much better than modern country music—which she’d declared to be complete bullhockey, but was clearly biased by her brothers—they reached the airport.
He squared the bill on the rental truck and started his pre-flight inspection, explaining each step to Dani as he went along.
“Are you nervous?” he asked as he buckled her into the copilot’s seat.
Excitement flickered in her eyes and she gave him a jerky nod. “A little.”
Damn, he wanted to kiss her. “Have you ever flown before?”
She nodded. “Con and Car flew us to Tennessee a few times when I was younger, for the annual children’s hospital benefit they do.”
“Commercial, though, right? You’ve never flown in a smaller plane?”
“Nope.”
“Well.” Clay plucked off his hat and tossed it onto the bench seat behind her. “It’s a little different, louder mostly, but don’t worry. I’ve only crashed once.” He laughed at the flash of panic in her eyes before she realized he was teasing.
He squeezed her jean-clad thigh and then closed the door, locking her safely inside before he jogged around and climbed into the pilot’s seat. The engines cranked over like a dream and the hum of the propellers rushed through him faster than an illegal drug.
“Put those on.” He pointed to the auxiliary headphones hanging on the side of her seat. “Can you hear me?” he asked when they were in place. Her lips turned up into the brightest smile and she gave him an excited nod.
That’s what he wanted to see.
He taxied around the hangars and out to the end of the runway.
“Big Sky tower, Cessna one-six-niner-alpha, ready for takeoff IFR, runway zero-two.”
“Cessna one-six-niner-alpha, winds two-eight-zero at twelve, cleared for takeoff.”
Clay repeated the wind speed and direction back to the tower and then reached for Dani’s hand. “Do this with me.” He placed her hand on the copilot yolk.
“Are you crazy?” She jerked her hand away.
He nodded to the yolk, urging her to take it, and she nervously capitulated, her hands trembling.
“Here we go!”
He throttled the engines and they started down the runway.
Dani squealed as the nose of the plane tilted up, craning her neck to see the ground as it disappeared below.
Once they were out of the regional traffic airspace and flying at their programmed altitude, Clay reached over and took her hand again. His pulse was racing, his adrenaline pumping, and with her beside him, he was hard as hell. He couldn’t not touch her.
“Oh look! There’s my school!” She pointed out the window at the Billings sprawl below.
“Want to do a flyover?” Clay asked, teasing her with a quick dip in altitude, laughing when she gripped the door panel. “How about just a wave.” He tipped the wings from side-to-side.
“Stop!” she said with a breathless laugh.
“A barrel roll?”
“No!” She squeezed his hand so tight his knuckles cracked.
“Okay-okay!” He laughed. “I was just teasing. We have a long flight, so we have to conserve fuel anyway, but I can take you up for fun later if you want.”
Dani jerked her hand free and covered her mouth, holding her stomach like she was about to be sick.
“No-no-no-no-no! Please don’t puke.”
She gave him a sideways glance, her conniving smile visible from behind her hand.
“Oh-ho!” Clay laughed. “You’re going to pay for that.” He reached into the pocket behind her seat and retrieved a plastic bag. “Here. Just in case you really do get sick.”
“I won’t,” she promised, taking it anyway. “So, I know you flew drones in the Air Force. Did you ever fly fighter jets, or…bombers or whatever?”
“Na.” Residual regret ghosted through him every time someone asked him that question.
Shannon had thrown a fit when she’d found out he would have to transfer halfway across the country if he was accepted into the flight training program. She’d refused to even talk about it, threatening to leave him if he went through with it. If he only knew then what he knew now…
“I applied for the training program once, but it usually takes a few tries, if you get in at al
l. I was lucky to get into the drone pilot program, which led to me starting my own agri-tech business, so I can’t complain too much.”
Dani considered him for a moment. “Why only apply once, if you love flying so much?”
Clay shrugged. “Dreams change, I guess.” As much as he’d blamed Shannon, experience and hindsight had shown him just how wrong that dream had been for him. “I guess I didn’t want it bad enough to be that far away from home for so long. Being stationed in Arizona was hard enough.”
Dani seemed to think about that for a moment before she nodded her understanding. “Why did you leave the Air Force?”
Clay’s fingers curled into a fist around the yolk, an involuntary reflex to the memories of his last assignment. Some of the things he’d witnessed through the lens of a drone had left him scarred in ways few would ever understand. The things people do to one another when they think no one is looking…
“Let’s just say there are some dark doors I was no longer willing to go through,” he offered, instead of spoiling the mood with any grotesque details. “I tapped out and didn’t reenlist.” He’d wanted out by the end of his enlistment term, but he’d committed to two extra years when he’d signed onto the special drone training program, two years that nearly killed his soul. “What about you?” he asked. “Other than runnin’ your family’s ranch, is there anything else you’ve always wanted to do?”
Without thought, she shook her head. “As far back as I can remember, all I’ve ever wanted was to take over for Grey one day.”
Clay gave her a hesitant nod and then looked away to hide his disappointment as the hope he had of convincing her to be his business partner shrank a little more. He’d heard her say it before, but this time was different.
He scanned the gauges, then the horizon, trying to pinpoint what that difference was, but the answer eluded him. Giving himself a shake, he reached over and laced his fingers with Dani’s again. Whatever it was, it could wait. He had her all to himself for a chance to change her mind, and he planned to make every second of it count.
