by D. L. Roan
“Just outside Cheyenne,” he told her, which she repeated. He filled out his flight logs as she got the details about her Uncle. “How is he?” he asked when she finally hung up.
“He’s in surgery,” she said with a sigh that sounded anything but relieved. “He had an ulcer that ruptured, and he was bleeding internally.”
Clay stared at her, processing the news, wondering if he should push her for answers now that she was actually speaking to him. Deciding against it, he scrubbed his hands over his face. His eyes were tired and his head was splitting. “I’m glad he’s okay,” he finally offered. “I mean, for as bad as it could be, it sounds like things are better than they thought.” Christ. His head was so screwed up he couldn’t even string together an intelligible sentence.
The cab pulled up at the gate outside the small terminal and Clay reached back for their bags.
“Where are you going?” Dani asked, glancing between him and his bag with a confused scowl.
“Cab’s here.” He nodded toward the gate. “There’s a hotel a few miles away.”
Dani shook her head. “Why can’t we just stay here? The storm will pass soon, and we can take off again.”
Clay blew out a frustrated breath. “Dani, it’s one in the morning. I’m beat. Neither of us has eaten.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“Well, I am,” he said, in no mood to argue. They were both exhausted and he’d do neither of them any good if he couldn’t stay awake to fly the plane. “I need some coffee at least, and a shower.”
Her mood had deteriorated further, if that was even possible, on the short ride to the hotel. By the time he got them checked in, she was past the point of not speaking to him and had gone straight to ridiculous. She’d even refused to let him carry her bag, flinging it onto the bed when they walked into the room.
“Dani, for fuck’s sake! Tell me what the hell is goin’ on!” he demanded, tossing his own bag onto the other queen bed.
She didn’t reply, marching straight to the bathroom and slamming the door.
“Dammit!”
He was about to walk out when she flung the door back open. “You want to talk? Let’s talk,” she snipped, shoving past him to her suitcase. She unzipped it and shuffled through the clothes inside. “Let’s discuss how we—no you—managed to get through weeks of texting and phone calls and fucking, without even once mentioning you had a son!”
The floor fell out from beneath Clay’s feet. Of all the things she could have said, she couldn’t have picked any other words that made less sense.
“I knew there was something going on between you and Shannon,” she said with a scathing snarl. “I might be young, but I’m not stupid. Shame on me for not seeing it sooner, but I guess that’s one lesson learned the hard way.”
“Did Shannon tell you Paxton was mine?” Holy fuckin’ shit!
“It doesn’t matter,” Dani fired off, tossing aside the clothes in her hand and grabbing another handful.
“The hell it doesn’t matter!” Anger so vile it vibrated through his entire body, warred with disbelief as he marched over and took the clothes from Dani’s hands, tossing them into the suitcase before he grabbed her by the wrists. “Dani, listen to me!” he demanded when she tried to twist away. “Paxton is not my son!”
He thought he’d finally gotten through to her when she stopped struggling, but she jerked her hands free and rolled her eyes. “I’ve seen the pictures.” she scoffed. “Cute kid, riding on daddy’s shoulders. Same eyes. Same dimples. I can’t believe you’d even try to deny he’s yours, Clay.” She grabbed a shirt from the pile of clothes. “What kind of father does that?” She tried to shove her way past him, but he wouldn’t let her. He blocked her way and backed her against the bed until her knees buckled and she was forced to sit.
“The kind of father Jackson is,” he gritted out, pulling his phone from his pocket. He knew exactly which picture she was talking about. He scrolled through his photo gallery and pulled it up, turning his phone around to show her. “Is this the picture you saw?”
“That’s the one.”
He looked closely at the picture, seeing how much they looked alike. Which would be expected, considering how much he and Jackson resembled each other. They’d been mistaken as twins more than once. “Paxton is Jackson’s son,” he ground out. “My nephew.”
“Your nephew?” Dani pushed to her feet and paced to the dresser. “But…why would Jaqueline tell me he was your son?”
At the mention of Jacqueline, the pieces of the puzzle came together like two airplanes crashing in midair. Clay flung his phone onto the bed. “That fucking bitch!”
He should have known better than to have taken Dani anywhere near that cunt! “Jacqueline is a vindictive bitch. She’s a slut who tried to peg my best friend with a kid our senior year in high school, but I was at the party the night she said she’d gotten pregnant, and I saw her screwin’ another guy. She’s been out for blood ever since, but I don’t know why she’d tell you this.” He shook his head and let out a sigh. “Maybe Shannon put her up to it.” He hated to think it was true, but maybe she was making some kind of play to break him and Dani up, thinking he’d take her back.
“Why would Shannon do that, if she was with Jackson?” Dani insisted. “Clay, that makes no sense.”
“I’ll tell you what doesn’t make sense!” He paced to the door and drew back to punch it, but didn’t. “Christ, Dani!” He scrubbed his hands over his face instead. “After everything, how could you think I would keep something like this from you?”
“How could I—how could I not? You haven’t told me anything about Shannon or your nephew!”
Clay sunk down on the edge of the bed across from her, his hands trembling with anger as he shoved his fingers into his hair. What a fucking clusterfuck!
No matter how much time went by, he could never seem to outrun this part of his past. Every time he thought he had it beat, it would come raging back with a vengeance, hell-bent on destroying whatever life he’d managed to cobble together. All he’d ever tried to do was the right thing, and this is where it got him.
“Shannon and I were engaged,” he reluctantly began.
He told Dani about them being high school sweethearts. He told her how Shannon hated him joining the Air Force, and how she’d cheated on him with Jackson and gotten pregnant. He told her how he’d tried to be a father to Paxton while Jackson was busy fucking up his life, despite how hard it was not to hate her or his brother. He told her everything, every gritty, humiliating detail, including Shannon’s failed attempt to get him to take her back the night he’d flown home from Falcon Ridge.
Dani sat shocked, her face red with indignation. “How could Jackson do that to you?”
Clay had asked himself that same question a thousand times. “All I can say is that he’s never been the same since Mom died, and after the other night, I have a feeling why, but it’s still hard to swallow sometimes, even after all these years.”
Dani shook her head. “I can’t believe you still talk to him at all.”
“He’s my little brother,” Clay said with a helpless shrug. “I can hate him or move on. I’ve done both, or at least tried.”
Dani reached across the narrow aisle between the beds and laid her hand on his knee. “Clay, I’m…”
“Sorry?” he finished for her with a bitter smirk. “Yeah, whatever that means.” He’d heard that word one too many times in his life. He shoved from the mattress and paced to the dresser, picking up one of the two key cards he’d tossed down when they’d arrive.
“Clay, wait.” She hurried across the room. “I am sorry. I should have talked to you, but…why didn’t you just tell me this in the first place?”
He laughed, the sarcastic response immediate. “Yeah. There’s something you want to tell the woman of your dreams. Fuck me for thinking you’d find me being fucked over by my own brother a turn off.”
“Clay, please.” She tugged him back when he ste
pped toward the door.
“Jesus Christ, Dani! I’m in love with you!” He jerked free of her hold. “I’ve fucking loved you from the second I saw you. I wasn’t thinking about Shannon or Paxton, or any of the other fucked-up things in my life, okay? I was trying to get you to fall in love with me, too. I’m sorry if that’s not enough for you, but it’s all I’ve got!”
“It is enough.”
Clay paused, his hand on the doorknob, his chest aching with each breath he managed to take and he turned to look at her. “What?”
“It’s enough,” she repeated, tears glistening in her eyes when she looked up at him. “I am in love with you,” she finally said. “I was going to tell you tonight. I don’t know why I didn’t say it back to you before.” She shrugged, and looked away, her cheeks turning pink. “I guess I wasn’t sure you meant it, because…you know…”
Because it was during sex.
Clay mumbled a curse. “I know,” he said, feeling his own face flush with embarrassment. “I totally screwed that up.” Unable to stand another second without her touch, he reached out and pulled her into his arms. “I’ve never felt anything like this in my life,” he admitted. “I was tryin’ to pick the perfect moment, but I just couldn’t hold it in any longer.”
Her arms tightened around him, and every ounce of anger and frustration drained from his body as he held her. “I’ve never felt this way either,” she said against his chest.
They stood there, quiet, the only sounds that of thunder and the rain pelting against the window. The lights flickered on and off. The air conditioner sputtered. Neither of them moved.
His mother’s ring was burning a hole in his pocket. The waiting was killing him. He loved her, and she loved him. The timing sucked, but he didn’t want another day to pass without her knowing just how deeply committed he was to her, to them. The seconds ticked by and he worked up the nerve to say the words. He was about to reach into his pocket to get the ring when he heard her sniffle and she pulled away.
“I shouldn’t have believed her,” she said, swiping at her tears. “This thing with us, it’s all just happened so fast.”
Clay closed his eyes and swallowed the stinging truth in her words. She wasn’t ready.
She sniffled again, and he reached over and pulled a tissue from the box sitting on the dresser. “This whole night is awful,” she said as she dabbed at her eyes. “I really am sorry.”
Clay pulled her back into his arms and walked her to the bed, pushing aside his disappointment. “It’s over,” he said, sitting down and pulling her into his lap. “It’s my fault, too. I should have told you about Shannon sooner, and warned you about Jaqueline. I just never dreamed she’d go this far.”
The second he got Dani squared away, he’d be calling Nannette. If it wasn’t so late, he’d call her now. Jaqueline’s days at the Bulzeye were numbered, and anywhere else within a hundred-mile radius of Sterling Eagle.
“Thank you for flying me home,” Dani said against his shoulder. “I’m sorry I was such a bitch.”
“Stop apoligizin’, beautiful.” He reached up and tucked her hair behind her shoulder. “It’s been a shitty night. Maybe you should lie down and get a couple hours of sleep. You’ll need it once you get to the hospital. I’ll wake you as soon as the storm breaks and I get the okay to take off.”
“I want to call Mom back, first.”
Once she’d gotten an update from her family on her uncle’s condition, Clay folded back the covers and pulled off her boots. He laid with her, holding her in his arms until she nodded off to sleep, then crept from the bed to check his messages. When he saw nothing from the airport, he stuffed a keycard into his pocket and slipped out the door as quietly as he could. He was going to need a massive dose of caffeine to make it to Montana.
On the way to the hotel lobby to score some coffee, he shielded his face from the driving rain and pulled out his phone, searching online until he found the number to the Bulzeye. To hell with waiting. He wanted Jaqueline on the street by sunrise, or—his dad’s girlfriend or not—Nannette would never see another Sterling Eagle employee in her bar again.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Dew still blanketed the ground when they landed in Montana the next morning. Dani rubbed the sting from her eyes, but couldn’t stifle her yawn as she adjusted the passenger seat of the rental truck. The few minutes of sleep she’d managed to grab at the hotel had gotten her this far, but the lull of the road beneath the tires made her eyelids too heavy to hold open for much longer.
“Drink your coffee,” Clay urged her.
She brought the Styrofoam cup to her lips, watching Clay as she sipped through the tiny opening in the lid. How on Earth he’d been able to stay awake, much less fly the plane, was a mystery. “Are you okay?” she asked, afraid he’d nod off at any second.
His lips turned up into a tired smile and he gave her a wink. “I may sleep for a week when we get there, but I’ll be fine until then. It’s only thirty more minutes.”
She kept a close eye on him anyway, pushing through the haze of exhaustion to help him stay vigilant. There were no words to express her thankfulness for what he’d done to get her home.
Green fields and thick forests whirred by as they drove along the winding road to Falcon Ridge. She noticed for the first time since they’d landed how starkly different the landscape was. It still felt like home, and she was glad to be back, but there was a piece of her that already missed the rusty reds and oranges and the million shades of browns that painted the desert.
When they pulled into the hospital parking lot a few minutes later, Dani felt as though her heart was being ripped from her chest. Having texted them when they left the small airport, her brothers were waiting outside the entrance with Breezy and Chloe. Breezy and Jonah’s eyes were red and puffy with tears and Dani couldn’t decide if she was more relieved or devastated to see them. Had something happened with Uncle Cade since they’d landed?
A tearless sob bubbled up in her chest as she waited for Clay to park. When the truck came to a stop, she struggled to unbuckle the seat belt with her trembling fingers. Clay finally clicked the button for her and she leapt from the truck and sprinted to the entrance.
“Is Uncle Cade okay?” she asked, almost afraid to hear the answer as she exchanged hugs with Con and Car, then Breezy, Chloe and Jonah, wondering where Pryce was.
“He’s awake, but they moved him to the intensive care unit,” Connor answered.
Jonah sucked in a shaky breath, then turned away, wiping tears from his eyes as he paced down the sidewalk. Chloe followed him, her hand on his back as Jonah fought not to cry. Seeing her twin about to lose it set Dani’s lips to quivering and she turned back to Breezy, unable to voice her need for an explanation through the knot in her throat.
“They stopped the bleeding,” Breezy said, understanding her silent plea, “but he’s running a fever. The doctors put him on a strong antibiotic drip, but the fever spiked again this morning.”
“Oh God.” Dani blinked against the sting of the tears she could no longer hold back.
“Clay.” Carson reached out and shook Clay’s hand. “Thanks for getting her home.”
Having completely forgotten he was there, she searched out Clay’s hand and laced their fingers together, needing to feel him beside her.
“No thanks necessary,” Clay assured them with a polite nod, then shook Carson’s hand when he offered.
Breezy glanced down at her and Clay’s joined hands, then back up at her with a tired but approving grin. Dani gave her a look that conveyed they would chat later, and then everyone but Jonah and Chloe followed Con and Car through the doors, past the registration desk at the mouth of a long hallway and to a room where the rest of her family sat waiting.
“Dani!” Her mom sprang from her seat and rushed across the room, enfolding her in a long, desperate hug that was joined by Mason and Grey.
“When did you get home?” she asked Mason as he kissed her cheek.
“Is Matt at home?” Shame bloomed in her heart that she hadn’t called to check on him more since his hernia surgery. Now that she was home, she felt as though she’d been living another life over the past week and had missed so much.
“He’s not quite mobile yet,” Grey informed her, crushing her to him. “Christ, I’ve missed you, baby girl.”
“Missed you, too,” she cried against his chest, resisting the urge to remind him it had only been a week. She’d never cried so much in her life as she had in the past twelve hours and there still seemed to be no end to the tears, but the pain that stabbed through her heart when she saw Papa Daniel was unbearable.
He looked so fragile and broken sitting alone in the chair in the corner, until they locked gazes and he stood, his shoulders broad and the look on his face so brave as he pulled her into his arms.
“I’m okay, honey,” he said, his words but a broken whisper.
Safe in her papa’s arms, her exhaustion and sadness crushed the last bit of her will to fight the knot in her throat and she sobbed against his chest. “I’m so sorry, Papa.”
“Shh.” He rocked her back and forth, his hands shaking as he stroked her hair. “It’s going to be okay,” he said again and again, until her breathing calmed, but no matter what happened today, they all knew it wouldn’t be okay.
She was still shaking when Papa Daniel finally let her go, his eyes filled with tears he fought not to shed. “I’m just glad you’re home,” he said, thumbing away her tears. “I can’t wait to hear about your trip.”
He glanced over her shoulder, and she turned to see Clay chatting with Grey and Mason, but Clay’s gaze was on her and she gave him a watery smile.
“Dinner ought to be interesting tonight,” Papa Daniel teased with a wavering grin. “Make sure he wears a cup.”
Her face turned impossibly hot when she looked back up at Papa Daniel to see his knowing grin. “Where’s Gran and the other papas?” she asked him, fanning her neck and face. “And Pryce?” she added. “Why isn’t he with Jonah and Chloe?”
