Forever Falcon Ridge (The McLendon Family Saga Book 7)

by D. L. Roan

  Molly would change her major to bowling.

  She snorted at the thought, wondering how her friend was doing. She thought about sending her a picture of Clay and his brothers, but that would only incite a never-ending flood of questions she wasn’t ready to answer.

  The sound of a car door slamming in the distance caught everyone’s attention. Virgil leaned back in the chair and looked through the screen door to see who had come through the front, narrowing his eyes before he let out a disappointed sigh. “It’s Jackson,” he grumbled as he dropped his napkin onto his empty plate.

  “Ribs smell good! Let me grab a beer and I’ll be right out,” the man said as he passed through the kitchen.

  “Well, this was fun while it lasted.” Beau drained the last swig from his bottle of beer.

  Dani looked to Clay for an explanation, but when the screen door opened and Jackson blew through it, one look at his dimpled cheeks and playboy smile was all the explanation she needed. If she hadn’t taken a second look, she would have sworn he was Clay’s twin.

  “Whoa.” Jackson stopped short when he spotted her at the table. His grin grew wider, his gaze locked on her as if she were the only person there. “Damn if you ain’t as hot as a blazin’ campfire,” he said with a deep Texas drawl. “Forget the ribs. I’ve got a sudden cravin’ for s’mores.”

  “Ribs are gone,” Virgil said, pushing away from the table, gathering his plate and empty beer bottle. He pinned Jackson with a challenging glare. “There’s a spoonful of beans left on the stove, but leave the hambone.” He glanced over at Clay, then looked back at Jackson. “That’s for the dog,” he said and stomped into the kitchen.

  Jackson watched him go, then shrugged and turned back to her. “Hello there, darlin’.” He offered her his hand, which Dani reluctantly took. “My name’s Jackson, but you can call me tonight,” he said, kissing her knuckles.

  “Levi’s already tried that, baby brother,” Beau said with a grunt as he stood. “I’m turnin’ in for the night. Gotta be on a horse before dawn to get those hunters out to the bluff before the sun turns em’ into rice crispy treats for the coyotes. He gave her a polite nod. “It was good to meet you. Have a safe trip home if I don’t make it back before you leave.”

  “It was nice meeting you, too. Thanks.” Dani watched Beau until he disappeared into the darkness, noticing he didn’t say goodnight to his brothers. Feeling like the only one left out of an inside joke, she glanced at Levi to find him staring at Clay, who was glaring daggers at Jackson.

  “Dani,” Jackson said her name with a wistful lilt as he sank down into the seat Virgil vacated moments earlier and propped his booted feet on the table. “I’ll admit, I slept through most of ancient history, but I’ve never heard of a Greek goddess named Dani.”

  “Knock it off, Jackson,” Levi warned, setting his beer down on the table with a thud.

  “Dani, can you give us a minute?” Clay asked her with a tone she knew from growing up with four brothers, meant fists were going to start flying the second she left.

  “Clay, I’m not offended, if that’s what—”

  “This isn’t about you, beautiful.” The anger in his eyes vanished when he looked at her. His lips curled into an apologetic grin and he squeezed her hand. “I just need a minute to square some things with my brother.”

  Dani glanced between the three of them, then gave him a reluctant nod. “Okay,” she said, still feeling like she’d just inadvertently started World War III without even saying a word. “I need to call home, anyway.”

  “Thanks.” Clay leaned in and pressed a chaste kiss to her lips, then gave her a reassuring wink. “I’ll be in in a few. Promise.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Every muscle in Clay’s body burned from the gargantuan effort it took to keep from reaching across the table and punching Jackson square in the face before Dani was out of earshot. He forced himself to swallow the curses rattling around in his head so loud his ears rang.

  “Well, that was rude,” Jackson said when the door closed behind her.

  Clay lunged for Jackson, but Levi sprang from his seat and blocked him. “You don’t want to do that,” he warned.

  The hell he didn’t.

  Levi tipped his chin to something behind him and Clay swiveled around to see Dani through the kitchen window, helping Virgil at the sink. Gritting his teeth, he dropped his fist.

  “Now.” Levi let go of his shirt with a shove. “Sit the hell down.”

  “Damn,” Jackson said with a smirk as Clay sat back. “You must really like that one.”

  “Shut your damn mouth until you can say something worth listening to,” Levi snarled.

  “You stay the hell away from her,” Clay warned him. “You understand me?”

  Jackson held his gaze, his silence driving Clay that much closer to crossing the line they’d drawn in the sand eight years ago. Jackson finally looked away and shrugged, taking a casual swig of his beer. “Don’t worry, dear brother. I learned my lesson the last time.”

  “You haven’t learned a goddamn thing!” The pent-up anger and frustration finally came to a head and Clay sent his own beer bottle flying, the sound of shattered glass echoing in the darkness.

  “Feel better?” Levi asked.

  “Fuck no.” Clay stomped to the other end of the porch to walk it off. He wasn’t usually so high-strung, even when it came to Jackson, but this fight had been brewing for weeks. He couldn’t stand by and let him throw Paxton away the way he had Shannon.

  “What are you doing here, Jackson,” Levi asked as Clay paced back to the table.

  “What are you doing here?” Jackson repeated the question back with a sour smirk.

  “I’m here to keep him from killing your sorry ass.” Levi nodded to Clay.

  Jackson snorted, but sobered when Clay gave him the last warning he was going to get. “Last I checked, this is still my home, too,” Jackson said, picking at the label on his bottle. “I’m supposed to spend the weekend with Paxton while Shannon’s at some work conference in Atlanta.”

  Clay closed his eyes and drew in a deep breath that did nothing but make him angrier. “That was three weeks ago, Jackson. And on a Friday. Do you even know what fucking day it is?”

  Jackson’s angry scowl eased, confusion swirling in his eyes as he looked at Levi. “I thought it was Thursday.”

  Levi shook his head. “It’s Monday, asshole.”

  “Shhhhit.” Jackson jumped from his seat and dug his phone from his pocket. “It couldn’t be three weeks ago. I put the date in my calendar with an alarm so I wouldn’t forget.” Clay and Levi watched as he frantically searched through his phone. “No.” He shook his head in denial. “It was here, I swear.”

  Clay shook his head in disbelief as Jackson dialed what he assumed was Shannon’s number. How was it possible that his kid brother could be so damn selfish?

  “Shit! Pick up!” Jackson paced the porch and dialed again. “Shannon, I’m sorry,” he pleaded after it rang enough times for Clay to know she’d let it go to voicemail again. “I set the date in my calendar, but it got deleted somehow. I’m at the ranch now and-and…I can come pick Paxton up. Right now, if you’re there.” He checked his watch. “Fuck it. I’ll be there in an hour. We can spend the week together, and you can…I don’t know…you can hang out with us, too, if you want. I don’t have another ride until week after next—dammit!” He pulled his phone from his ear. “Voicemail cut me off.” He started to redial when Levi reached out and took his phone. “What the hell?”

  “Paxton’s in school until Thursday,” Clay reminded him. “You can’t just breeze in and out of his life when you feel like it.”

  Jackson snapped his head back. “It’s summer. Since when do kids go to school during the summer?”

  “He’s in an advanced education program,” Clay reminded him. “They have a different schedule than regular school.”

  Realization crept into Jackson’s pinched features and he sank down onto the top
porch step, dropping his head into his hands with an exasperated curse. “I can’t believe I missed it again. Shannon’s gonna kill me. And my son must think I’m an asshole.”

  Levi sat on the step beside him and clapped him on his back. “I wouldn’t worry about that. That kid thinks you’re some kind of superhero.”

  “Yeah, right,” Jackson scoffed.

  Levi nodded with a sigh. “Sad truth is, Pax doesn’t know you well enough to have an opinion.”

  “Man, fuck you.” Jackson shrugged him off. “I had a lot of ground to make up after that last crash. And a string of bad rides since. I’ve worked my ass off to get back into the standings for next season so I can pay for that special school Shannon put him in.”

  “Jesus Christ! It’s the same old excuses with you!” Clay shoved a nearby patio chair across the deck, sending it crashing into the railing. “That damn rodeo is nothin’ but your drug of choice! Grow the hell up and get a real fucking job for once in your life!”

  Jackson sprang to his feet and pointed his finger in Clay’s face. “Don’t you go gettin’ all high and mighty with me, you self-righteous sonofabitch. You chase that same high every time you take off in mom’s plane, and for the same damn reasons. You didn’t give up on your dreams, and I’ll be dammed if I’m givin’ up on mine.”

  “I don’t have a son to raise!” Clay shoved him away.

  Jackson narrowed his eyes, his lips curling up into a mocking smirk. “You still can’t stand that Shannon picked me. Can you?” He sneered. “You’re just jealous Paxton isn’t yours.”

  “She didn’t choose you,” Clay snapped. “She fucked you, and you got her pregnant.”

  “Yeah, um, Jax?” Levi stood, scratching his brow as he walked over to Jackson. “I don’t think bringing up that you fucked Clay’s fiancé is an effective argument strategy, bro.”

  “I was drunk! We both were!”

  “More of the same excuses,” Clay muttered.

  Jackson narrowed his eyes. “I love her, and drunk or not, she’ll pick me over you every damn day of the week.”

  Clay snorted. “You keep tellin’ yourself that.” Shannon obviously hadn’t shared her most recent feelings with him.

  Jackson took a step forward and Levi stepped between them. “Enough. It’s been eight years. You two need to let this shit go.”

  Everything inside Clay wanted to push past Levi and sock Jackson in his smartass, selfish mouth, but one thought held him back. Dani. “You know what?” Clay held up his hands and took a step back. “You’re right.” This wasn’t about him and Shannon. He had a chance at something better than he’d ever dreamed of waiting for him inside, and he wasn’t about to screw it up by fighting over burnt bridges. “You and Shannon deserve each other, but your son deserves better. I hope you realize that before it’s too late.” He turned and walked down the steps but paused with one final warning. “Stay the hell out of my life, and I’ll stay out of yours, but if you even think about coming on to Dani again, you won’t wake up from your next coma.”

  Too worked up to be good company, Clay paced into the dark field behind the house, hoping to calm the hell down. The cooler night air pricked at his sweaty skin like a cactus, only adding to his agitation. The last thing he wanted was for Dani to see him so worked up, so he kept on walking until he ended up in front of Beau’s cabin.

  Thor heard his approach and trotted out to greet him. He gave the hound’s ears a scratch as he navigated the well-worn footpath to the porch.

  “Need help burying a body?”

  The bright red glow of a lit cigarette pinpointed Beau’s location on the small front porch. Clay shuffled up onto the raised deck behind Thor and collapsed onto the old wooden chair beside his brother. Thor pushed his head into Clay’s lap, begging him for one last bit of attention before he curled up next to Beau, a disgruntled snort the dog’s last protest.

  “No,” Clay said with a frustrated sigh, propping his elbows on his knees and staring out at the lights from the main house.

  “Then what the hell are you doin’ out here, instead of in there workin’ your way into that filly’s stall?”

  “I don’t know.” He wanted more than anything at that very moment to sink balls deep into the sweet heaven he knew he’d find between Dani’s thighs. “I guess I’m just not ready to expose her to the shitstorm my life has been.”

  “Nobody ever said you had to talk during sex,” Beau said in his usual crass way.

  Clay dropped his head into his hands and ran his fingers through his hair. “This isn’t like that. She’s different.”

  “How different?” Beau asked, taking a long draw from his cigarette.

  Clay looked through the darkness at the lights shining from Virgil’s house in the distance. Today had been filled with one surprise after another. The panic in Dani’s eyes when he’d suggested she sleep in his room had set off more alarms than a catastrophic engine failure.

  “I think she’s a virgin,” he said with a sigh.

  Broken puffs of smoke billowed into the air as Beau coughed up a lung. “Shit,” he choked out when he dropped his cigarette, scrambling to pick it up before it fell through the cracks in the porch floor. “Yeah, I’d say that’s different, all right,” he finally managed with an astonished chuckle. “In what universe did you find this unicorn?”

  “You heard her at dinner. Her parents, all four of them, own a ranch up in Montana,” Clay told him, leaning back in the chair and stretching his legs out.

  “So, somehow you missed the Mormon family reference?”

  Clay shook his head. “No, it’s the opposite, actually. Her three dads are brothers and married to the same woman.”

  “Damn,” Beau said around the butt of his cigarette. “That would fly about as well as a petrified horse turd around here.”

  “But I don’t think the way her family lives has anything to do with religion,” Clay said. Not as far as he could tell. “The way she tells it, it’s more of a way of life, not some religious tenet they follow.” He sure as hell hoped not, because he wasn’t about to share her with any one of his brothers, or anyone else’s. “I don’t know what to think.”

  “Does she kiss like a virgin?” Beau asked.

  Clay shifted in his seat. Just thinking about kissing Dani had his cock standing at attention. “She kisses like a dream you don’t want to wake up from.”

  “Then she’s not a virgin,” Beau said, like he was some virginal expert.

  He’d thought the idea absurd at first, too, but there was something about her that made him want to believe he was right.

  “One thing’s for sure.” Beau pushed from his seat and offered Clay a hand, pulling him to his feet. “You’re sure as hell not gonna find out hangin’ around here talkin’ to me.”

  “Yeah.” Clay gave his brother a slap on the back and shuffled off the porch. “Be safe out there this week.”

  “Always am.” Beau gave him a mock salute, and Clay turned for the house. “Hey, Clay,” Beau called after him. “You were right to call Jackson on his bullshit tonight. It’s been a long time comin’, but don’t let him push your buttons so easily,” he warned. “He’s self-destructing. He’ll hit bottom sooner or later, and I don’t want to see him take you down with him.”

  “Yeah.” Clay waited until his brother disappeared inside before he turned and made his way back to the house. His dad was sitting at the kitchen table when he walked in, holding a finger to his lips to warn him to be quiet.

  “She passed out the second she stopped moving,” Virgil whispered, nodding toward the living room.

  Clay eased the door closed. Fucking Jackson. Dani’s first night there and he was already wasting time he should have spent with her, on his brother’s stupid shit. Disappointed in himself for letting Jackson get to him, he heel-toed it into the living room and found Dani curled up on the end of the sofa, her phone still cradled in her hand.

  All the tension from his fight with Jackson drained from his muscles an
d he sank down onto the arm of his dad’s recliner. He sat in the soft glow of the light coming from the kitchen and stared in wonderment at the sleeping angel in front of him, awestruck at how quickly the chaotic noise inside his head quieted and everything but her disappeared.

  The same thing had happened in the barn that day. After talking to the McLendons about his mom, he’d been running from the memories and all the pain they’d induced, racing to get into a plane and let the rush of adrenaline chase the clamoring noise away. The second he’d heard her voice it all vanished, evaporated into nothingness. The only thing that existed was her.

  He raked a hand through his hair, his gaze fixed on her beautiful face, and wondered what it would be like to wake up every morning to her sleeping so peacefully beside him. Vivid images raced through his mind, pictures of her lips curling into a sleepy smile as he hovered above her, kissing his way down her naked body, teasing his way between her thighs, waking her up one taste at a time.

  The vision shifted like a misty dream. Still stretched out beneath him, she was staring down at him as he kissed his way up and over a barely visible bump in her tummy. He pressed his lips to her bare skin there, and their gazes locked. Their unborn child stared back at him through her warm brown eyes. The image was blurred, but so real, his fingers twitched with the need to reach out and grasp ahold of it.

  Jackson had been right. He was jealous. Paxton should have been his. He was the father Pax deserved, and God knew, he’d tried to fill the void Jackson left in the boy’s life, but no amount of denial or wishing otherwise would change the fact that Pax wasn’t his.

  For the first time since Shannon’s betrayal, he wanted another chance at the life he’d almost had, but never knew he’d wanted. Warm and satisfying, the feeling bloomed into a new kind of hope as he stared at Dani, wondering if that chance was lying right there in front of him, just waiting for him to take it.

  A shadow appeared in his peripheral. Clay snapped his gaze up to see Virgil standing in the kitchen threshold, his arms crossed over his chest and a knowing smirk on his face. Clay blinked and, just like that, all the noise came back. He stood and pulled a quilt from the back of the recliner, being careful not to wake Dani as he laid it over her, and then tiptoed past his dad back into the kitchen.