Page 108 of Risking it for the Cowboy

He pressed his lips to hers again and he smelled so good. “Let me stay here tonight, with you, like a da—”

Daisy pushed through the door again and giggled up at the sight of them lip locked.

He scooped Daisy up and carried her in a fluff of tulle to his truck, not waiting for her answer, but she knew what he’d been saying. He wanted to stay the night with them. Like he belonged with them.

“I’ll have her home by nine thirty, Momma, so she doesn’t turn into a pumpkin,” he called over his shoulder as Daisy giggled.

“That doesn’t happen until midnight, T. Rex.” Daisy giggled.

“That a fact. Pretty sure Cinderella’s got a nine o’clock bedtime,” he teased. “Lock the doors, Flower Girl.”

She watched them drive away, waving out the window to her, and blew a kiss. Watched the taillights receded.

She stood in the evening sun long after they were gone. So strange to let her daughter leave with a man she trusted. She rubbed her arms. Immediately felt the urge to text him for a check-in, but tamped it down.

Two hours alone and not fearful about Daisy’s safety? What was she going to do?

Work.

She went inside and locked the door. Went out the back door, letting Artex into the yard. Splashed the hose in his water dish to fill it. Checked the tall security fence the university had installed upon approval of her project. Then she walked to the greenhouse.

The hum of the fan droned loud on her ears as she unlocked the door to the decontamination atrium and slipped into her jumpsuit, stretched on her surgical bonnet and kicked off her Birks to slip her socks into her boots—

Something poked!

She yanked her foot out!

Something had jammed against her toe! She nudged aside the boot. The atrium was cleaned each day, but this was Texas, and there was always a chance a snake or spider had snuck past her defenses. She quelled the shiver racking her frame.

Nudging her boot again with her toe, nothing crawled out.

Wedging open the front door, she contorted herself like twister and nudged the boot across the rubberized floor and out the door. Picking it up by the sole, she shook it upside down when … a wad of hundred-dollar bills landed in the grass, fluttering among the blades in the breeze.

Her payment for the SUV.

She shook her head, laughing. Picked up the money and finished dressing, unzipping her jumpsuit to wedge it in her pocket so the filtration fan didn’t blow them away.

She picked up her iPad and began to make the rounds among her plants, setting the irrigation timer, inspecting each leaf to ensure they were pest-free, resisting texting Thad and intruding on Daisy’s big night, when Artex’s vociferous barking outside cut through the droning of the fan.

Her pulse spiked.

Jason. Always the first thought. She took a deep breath to relax except…

Pounding on doors thumped in tandem with the rhythmic pulse of the fan. Was it just in her head? She inched toward the decontamination atrium. The sound of the fan blasted in here. Hanging up her iPad, she unzipped her jumpsuit, slipped free her phone, and eased open the door a crack to see…

Artex barking at a squirrel scampering up the live oak draping over the yard.

She exhaled, the vise in her chest easing. So paranoid. “Stop letting him win,” she whispered.

She let the door shut and peeled off her gloves, wiping her forehead that had beaded with sweat.

She had to stop letting him hold her hostage. She threw the gloves in the waste bin and plucked two fresh ones from the box on the wall, returning inside the greenhouse to mop up the irrigation puddles, then marked the time in her iPad and turned on the grow light timer for the next morning.

It was already almost eight thirty and the dance would be ending soon. Her stomach growled. Artex began barking again. Charlie’s pulse jumped.

She willed it to settle and closed her eyes on an inhale as the fan droned out the barking. Was he chasing another squirrel? Probably. She finished squeegeeing the floors and returned to the atrium.

Tossing her jumpsuit in the basket and spritzing down her boots, she grabbed the iPad to update in the comfort of the kitchen instead of in her space-age lingerie, and hoisted up the laundry basket, pushed out into the evening, already shadowed beyond the hills to the west even though the sun wouldn’t set for another hour or so, and locked the tunnel door. Artex was at the fence.