Page 111 of Risking it for the Cowboy

The plea slowed him in his tracks.

God, to satisfy that crunching of bone with his fist would do much to ease his fury. That rat bastard had gotten away with years of bullshit. A haze of fury muffled his ears like cotton. Words were still pouring out of her mouth, but he couldn’t process them. Charlie had been at her ex’s mercy, alone. He hadn’t been there to protect her, but he got her point. He needed to be a pillar, not a tornado and that guilt, that he hadn’t been honest with her, stabbed at him now.

“I got the girl and I’ll do what you’re askin’, but I’m coming back for you.”

“You don’t have to do that. Just maybe, stall for another half hour? You don’t deserve to be pulled into this—”

“And you’re not gonna argue. Christ, Charlie, don’t you realize you don’t have to do this alone? Pack some bags. Neither of you goin’ back there. You belong out at my cabin. If you need to go back and forth to the greenhouse to work, I’m comin’ with you. Simple as that. Charlie, I’m … worried for you.” His voice cracked, and he cleared it.

“Miss Bradford?” the officer in the background said.

“Will you put Daisy on the phone?” she asked. “I don’t want her to fret.”

Jaw pumping, he bit out an affirmative and climbed back into the truck. Daisy’s face looked worried as he put it back on speaker and pugged the cord back in.

“Hey, Daisy Maisy—” Her nickname, cheerful and chipper.

He saw her tricks now for what they were: the undue burden of having to always compensate for a violent, unpredictable father.

“T. Rex is going to take you back to the farm tonight to see Auntie Heart. Won’t that be fun?”

Daisy smiled tentatively up at him. “Yeah, but why?”

Charlie cleared her throat, imbuing it with false lightness. “Oh, I had a little accident here, and there’s some broken glass. I need to clean it up, but then guess what? T. Rex wants us to come stay there.”

“Like a sleepover?” Daisy asked, subdued.

“Exactly. And just think, Unicorn and Pumpkin will be there when you wake up.”

“We’re bringin’ the dog too,” T.R. added, forcing his words to come out even and not shaking with blood lust. “He’ll be a happy pup lyin’ in front of the hearth. What d’you think, baby girl?”

That earned a smile from the girl.

“And we can listen to your grams singing this story again too?” she asked.

He nodded, and despite the helpless anger manifesting a monster in his chest, an ounce of relief doused his gut, too, that they’d be safe within his walls, within the farm, where they had security cams mounted to catch trespassers and his and Ty’s reckoning to answer to if Jason dared to be stupid enough to try.

“Okay,” Daisy said, biting her lips just like her mother did when she was uncertain but wanted to say something anyway. “Are you okay?”

The one simple question broke T.R.’s heart.

Because in that one question, it meant Daisy remembered seeing her mother when she wasn’t okay. Had Daisy ever bore witness to Jason’s antics? Did she know the depth of her mother’s pain and the source of her mother’s strength that had given her the pride to straighten her tiara and face the world alone?

“Oh, sweet girl, I’m just fine. And I’m packing s’mores for his firepit. It’ll be fun.”

Fun. Masking the truth with lies. Eating the shame so that Daisy wouldn’t have to taste the rancidness. Charlie had been doing it so long, it was a knee-jerk habit.

He ended the call. Set up the recording again to play the book, his grams’s warbling vocals and ukelele strumming. Anything to distract as he put the truck in drive. Whipped around in the road to head toward the farm, needing those boxing gloves Tyler had taunted him with, when Daisy took off her belt, scooted to the middle seat, and put on the middle belt.

She leaned quietly against T.R.’s arm, no longer the chatter bug she’d been moments ago recalling the evening in her pretty dress and corsage. “Momma always sounds like that when my dad is mean to her.”

Sweet girl. Whether Charlie knew it or not, she wasn’t hiding anything from the girl.

Like that, his anger morphed into an unbearable ache to take her pain away. He wrapped an arm around her. Cupped her head to his side and dropped a kiss to her head. What could he say?

“I got you,” he croaked.

Chapter Thirty-Four