Page 131 of Risking it for the Cowboy

Ah, Trouble. She’d get the last laugh in this game of money cat and mouse.

She returned home—to her cabin on the ridge if only Tyler wasn’t selling the farm—and began packing. Heart vowed to be back in the morning to take Daisy. She whirled around the cabin, grabbing instruments, winding cords for the electric guitar, shoving sheet music into her satchel, texting Bo and Jack to coordinate arrival—she’d fill them in on the details once they were together. Then she snuck up to the loft to rummage through her wardrobe for something that a wallflower … wouldn’t wear, when on the way back downstairs, a notch on the growth chart up the corner caught her eye.

She slowed.

A growth mark she hadn’t noticed had been added, fresh, among all the old ones, and marked with a little sticker of a daisy. Her heart warmed. Her damned tears kept pricking at the way this man was pulling them into his fold and giving Daisy a new legacy. Charlie traced the fresh mark, needing to see him.

She glanced at the fridge, at the pictures. If he couldn’t be here with her right now, photos were the next best thing.

Nestled among Thad’s growing collection of Daisy art, that photograph of him, dressed to the nines, with Daisy on his knee in a fluff of sequins, tulle, and crown, his arm around her waist and hers cinched to his neck. Right next to it was a strip of photos taken at a photo booth three weeks ago, of two souls who’d sung together and spent the night together, Charlie’s face downturned, smiling. Thad’s reverent gaze as he stared at her like he was staring at the stars, no longer crammed in his glovebox.

Labeled Fowler Girl.

His little family, all right there for anyone who walked through this door to see.

Chapter Forty

Homegrown Music Awards, Saturday

Thad shook out his arms. No sleep. Too much caffeine. No shower. He was still in last night’s gig clothes and leather cuffs. His BO was offending himself. Tyler had driven them away from the precinct just before noon and only stopped once at a truck stop for breakfast, coffee, a toothbrush and deodorant. He didn’t even have his phone.

He wouldn’t dare look at it, either, hoping for messages from a girl who was gone now. He didn’t want to think about his empty cabin waiting for him at home, and Ty, the asshole, wasn’t talking much, either, only mentioning that the band needed him in Austin and the band had used T.R.’s truck to haul equipment which was why Ty was driving him.

They hit I35 and careened south through Temple, eventually through Georgetown, then Round Rock, until the peaks of the Austin skyline came into view in the distance. Swarmed in city traffic, they exited near Lake Austin, zipping down Fifth Street where he could hear music blasting over the river from the festival grounds. Past the Mean Eyed Cat, and into the looming condos that had overtaken Texas’s music capital. Tyler cut around traffic to whip right on Congress and over the bridge into South Austin, where he veered toward Zilker Park, cutting through neighborhoods lined with live oaks and kids on bikes.

It was already five in the afternoon and illness roiled.

Why the hell even bother if Charlie wasn’t there? They needed that banjo. They needed her presence. But that flinch. That damned flinch…

Those wide, betrayed eyes kept slicing his heart. How could he sing about his flower girl when he didn’t have her anymore? He’d do it for Bo and Jack, they deserved their shot too. But he’d fucked them all over, keeping the past from Charlie while he grew attached to her and the girl, grew attached to the idea of roots, too much of a chickenshit to be honest and deal with the consequences whatever they might be, because the first time he’d actually had a chance to become something to someone he’d been too afraid to lose it.

Tyler hit the gas on the straightway and sailed over a speed bump, finally slowing when he reached the parking attendants as music thumped and the crowd roared in the distance—college students by the look of it, probably fraternities and sororities earning service hours—in their reflective vests, scowling at him for speeding, holding out their wands for him to stop.

Ty rolled down his window.

“Sir, it’s ten miles per hour—”

“He’s with one of the bands.” Tyler thumbed toward him. “McClintock and the Disclaimers. We raced all day to get here. Can I drive up to the stage?”

“No sir. Unloading access was closed at noon and won’t reopen again until set break for bands to load their gear.”

An attendant with an iPad and basket interjected. “Did you say McClintock?”

“Yes, T.R … Thaddeus,” T.R. said, leaning over the console to look out Ty’s window as the guy perused a list with a stylus.

“Here. Put this on or you’re not getting backstage.” He held out a badge and lanyard with his name and VIP access. “Your band’s been worried about you making it. We bumped you to the final act. Ten acts total and they’re already on act six.”

“Shoot.” He shoved open the passenger door to run. “It’s my only shot at somethin’—”

Tyler grabbed his forearm.

“No it ain’t. If you don’t win, you got the farm still.”

He scoffed. How dare the bastard. “Yeah, for how long, man? Till you sell it and the new owner lets everyone go to hire on their own staff?”

Tyler grinned. Actually grinned. Then the bastard actually chuckled. He rummaged behind the seat of the extended cab, pulling out a file.

“Jeezus, this some sick joke?” T.R. seethed. “You know it’ll take me ten years to read all this, and you decide hey, right before he goes and sucks on stage, I better drive a last thorn into his side and make him read about the sale of … the farm…”