Forever Falcon Ridge (The McLendon Family Saga Book 7)
Page 9
Her phone vibrated again, this time with a video message.
“Ouch!” His dimpled smile filled the screen with his lighthearted laugh as he slapped his hand over his heart in feigned dramatic agony. “That one stung a little.”
Dani replayed the message a dozen times, smiling bigger and feeling more and more like a jackass each time, until she finally typed out a short sorry and pressed send.
When he didn’t reply, she tossed the phone onto her nightstand and walked to the bathroom to get ready for bed. Maybe she’d been a bit harsh, but it was his own fault. She’d told him not to text her. She still couldn’t believe he’d bothered after the message she’d left him.
After changing into a nightshirt and crawling into bed, she saw the new message notification blinking on her phone and she snatched it up.
Asshat: Does the age thing bother you?
Dani thought about it for a moment. Eight years wasn’t that big of a difference. He was the same age as Connor and Carson and they didn’t seem old. Papa Nate and Papa Joe were older than Gran. And Uncle Cade was older than Papa Daniel. Their age differences didn’t seem to matter. And there was something about him being older. Though she couldn’t quite put her finger on one specific thing, he was different than the guys her own age.
Not really, she typed in with a shrug. It was irrelevant anyway. She wasn’t dating him, no matter how many shirtless, six-pack tractor pictures he sent her.
He sent back a smiley, then a wink, followed by another goodnight.
Dani set her phone on her nightstand and clicked off her light, only to reach for the phone again. She scrolled through the pictures he’d sent, studying each one. Compared to the lush green valleys and rocky mountain tops of Montana, everything in Texas seemed dry and brown, but there was still an isolated sort of beauty to the pictures.
The sky was just as blue as Montana’s. The bluffs in the distance were streaked with reds and yellows. The patches of wildflowers dotting the flat grazing lands seemed out of place, like an exotic oasis in the middle of a desert. Texas didn’t look like anything she’d imagined. Neither does Clay, she thought as she studied the first picture he’d sent her.
“Yep.” She sighed, running her fingertip down the center of his chest. Texas had some sexy tractors.
The next two weeks flew by in a blink. Duncan’s old filing system was history. All their data was now digitally stored, sorted, charted, and accessible with a simple click. They could access everything they needed from anywhere on the ranch, or the country for that matter. Now all she had to do was teach her dads and the ranch hands how to navigate the cloud drive. Grey wouldn’t have a problem. Mason would get it eventually, but Matt would fight her tooth and nail. He hated technology.
There’d also been more texts with Clay. A lot more. He and Grey managed to set a date for their trip. Since then, she and Clay had texted every day. Sometimes all day. He’d sent silly pictures, and she’d sent more snarky replies. Earlier that morning, she’d sent him a picture of the rear end of her horse, and then a selfie of her kissing the star on Silver’s forehead, but he never texted back. She’d thought she was being cute, but later realized it might have been insensitive, considering he’d recently lost his own horse. She’d typed out an apology, but hours later he’d still not responded.
Uneventful, dinner came and went. She and Cory spent the evening with Uncle Cade and Papa Daniel watching superhero movies until she’d fallen asleep on their sofa, wondering why he’d stopped texting.
She was riding into town with Breezy the next day to meet her other sister-in-law, Chloe, for lunch when his next text came through.
Clay: Sorry.