Page 41 of Risking it for the Cowboy

“Sure shootin’ you did.” He set her back down and held out his palm. “Skin it.”

Daisy wound up for a stinging slap and delivered the crack.

He laughed and shook his hand. “Dang, Daze, not for real.”

She giggled, then wrapped her arms around his waist. “I wish my dad was like you.”

He froze. Eyes snapped to Charlie who’d sucked in hard, returning his gaze with a deep pain in her eyes, when she mouthed, sorry, and gently peeled her daughter from him.

Sorry? The highest compliment in the world just paid him, being likened to a dad, was an honor not an insult, one in which a lot of dads didn’t earn. Like his.

Never gonna amount to anything!

Why can’t you be more like your sisters and give a damn, Thaddeus! His dad’s favorite.

What are we raising, an idiot? Who really fathered you? Sure as hell couldn’t have been me.

Get out of my house! I warned you you’d be gone if you got in one more fight! Quit making our lives hell. His sisters screams for him not to go, screams at their parents to take it all back echoed in the canyon of his mind.

Maybe there was something to Tyler’s suggestion, that Charlie was scared when her ex had brought Daisy home…

He returned to his truck bed. Hauled out a water drum. It wasn’t coolant but it would do the trick to get her Rover down the road and distract him from the warmth that Daisy’s comparison and Charlie’s reverence of his name was spreading in his chest. Using his flannel, he twisted off the radiator cap and poured in the water, letting it glug.

There. He’d dragged this out as long as he could as he swung the drum back into his truck bed. Locked up his truck box. Charlie was biting her lip again when he walked back to them in the bright light, a car whizzing past on the back road.

“What if it breaks down again? Doesn’t make it home?”

“D’you know how to drive my stick?” He eyed her, wiping his hands on his plaid shirt and chewing his cheek as he slung it over his shoulder, playing with fire.

Chapter Thirteen

Charlie folded her arms at his innuendo, even if he stoked heat in her, her eyes glancing heavenward. “I think you know I can.”

He chuckled that lazy sound she liked. But Thaddeus had called her little girl Daze. Like a dad’s fond nickname, and her little girl was eating up his every word of praise. Still wearing his hat, she watched his tatted bicep twitch as he fished his arms back into his plaid. Corded muscle. Ridges and valleys over his abdominals through his painted-on tee.

And play with his band? Old dreams dared to spark, but she quickly banked them. Although … why should she let Jason’s taunts upset her? Yet would McClintock grow to resent her too?

That divot popped as he reached out, plucked his hat off her head, so close she could see stubble growing back in on his jaw. Remembered the scrape of it on her skin. Could smell his male musk, his teak and mint, his sweat, his hint of fresh Dial soap.

Instead, he turned to Daisy. “How ’bout you and your momma take my truck home tonight—”

“No,” Charlie put her foot down. “We can’t do that.”

“Yeah, you can. That way if the Rover breaks down again you won’t gotta worry.”

“That’s not what I was getting at, Thaddeus.”

His eyes twinkled at her use of his name, like he was still growing accustomed. “And I’ll drive your Rover back first thing in the morning, all fixed up,” he finished, as if she hadn’t said a word.

“This is too much. How much will this cost?”

He waved her off, bracing his knees with his hands to get at Daisy’s level. “I just bought a pack of Reese’s Pieces but ain’t had ’em yet. My treat on paydays.”

“No tacos?” Charlie asked.

“Didn’t have a date tonight,” he added carefully, eying her. “They kinda tasted better when I did.”

“What about that girl? On stage,” she hedged, so carefully, and did she even want the answer?