Page 125 of Snowed In With the Mountain Man
She knew how much she’d just hurt him.
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JJ nudged Zion faster, one hand on the reins, the other on the phone in his hand.
The useless phone.
He scowled at the space where bars should be. Was it only weeks ago that he’d thought having spotty reception out on the range was a good thing?
He supposed it had been before he’d met the love of his life. And before the love of his life had become a modern-day pen pal.
“Stupid son of a gun,” he muttered as he gave his phone a shake.
The shake didn’t help, but Zion snickered.
JJ patted the horse’s neck absently. “Not talking to you, Z. Just waiting for a response from my girl.”
He paused.My girl.Was he allowed to call her that after the way they’d ended things? He suspected not. She might have admitted that she loved him, but then she’d all but shoved him out the door.
He sighed, sticking the phone back into his pocket as he steered Zion toward the stables.
She wasn’t his girl, but she was his friend. He tried to be grateful for that. They’d exchanged texts every couple days since he’d left two weeks before. They’d even had a few phone calls.
But it wasn’t the same, and not just because they were on opposite sides of the country. There was a wall between them. Or many walls, maybe. All erected by Dahlia, and seemingly made of steel.
The L-word hadn’t come up again. And she either didn’t respond or fell quiet on those rare moments when he gave in to temptation and told her how much he missed her.
The only thing that gave him hope was that she seemed just as miserable as he was.
Not that this was a good thing. He didn’t want Dahlia to be miserable… but it did give him hope that maybe someday she’d come to her senses.
He muttered another curse under his breath when they rode into an area where he had reception… and there was no text.
He hoped she’d come to her senses sooner rather than later, because much more of this pining from afar and he might just lose his mind.
He got Zion back into his stall and cleaned up, all the while pondering what he ought to do.
Every day he went through this battle. Should he go back or give her space? Tell her he loved her every dang day or let her be so she could come around to it in her own time?
Zion huffed at him as he left.
Even the horse was tired of his brooding.
He ran into Nash in the office that he rarely used. It was attached to the main barn. As best he could, Nash tried to keep his work out of the ranch house. And now, the typically easygoing cowboy was smacking the old desktop computer in the corner like that was gonna help.
“Technical troubles?” he asked.
“Always,” Nash muttered.
JJ gave a huff of amusement. Nash was an excellent cow boss, and he knew how to treat his men, the buyers, and not to mention the cattle, but when it came to crunching the numbers and sorting out the taxes and whatnot, Nash turned grumpy.
“Shouldn’t you be in a better mood?” JJ leaned against the doorframe. “With being an almost-married man and all?”
Sure enough, Nash’s frown morphed into a silly smile.
Mentioning Emma or the wedding had proven to be a surefire way to cheer up the boss whenever he was stressed about the finances and logistics of running this operation.
He sighed as he leaned back in the chair. “It can’t get here soon enough.”
