Page 31 of Risking it for the Cowboy

Daisy pursed her lips to manage her smile and rolled her eyes. Sweet girl.

Her default, at age nine, was blessedly still a bright smile, despite everything. It wouldn’t be long before those innocent smiles turned into angst, and if Jason kept up drinking, and then complaining to the courts about Charlie sabotaging his visitation, Daisy’s smile would soon vanish forever.

Charlie cleared the emotion thickening her throat. “It won’t change what happened tonight, Daisy May. I know that. I just thought…” She forced a fun smile. “It’s okay. Silly idea.” She bobbed her head side to side. “Let’s go home and throw a pizza in the oven. Girls’ night, nail polish, Disney movie.” She let off the brake to roll onward. What had she been thinking, offering her daughter the thing that hurt most right now—

“Go right.”

Charlie braked again and glanced back at Daisy’s bright blue eyes.

Daisy smiled. “The carnival is to the right.”

And just like that, tears welled on Charlie’s eyelids as she craned around and met her daughter’s smile. “You sure?”

Daisy nodded.

“Maybe Seth Dixon will be there.”

Oh, man, Heart’s boyfriend’s son, who’d just been hospitalized. Heart had taken Daisy with her to a university open house the other day so Charlie could proctor her summer final, and met those boys, and Daisy was oh so smitten. Sweet girl, cute boys get us in all sorts of trouble.

She flipped on the blinker, clicking a metronome into the void of radio DJ chatter. “Here’s one from local sensation, McClintock and the Disclaimers—”

Her heart pinched. That egg on her face burned anew.

“Comment on our live feed and tell us what you think … honest to God, Chuck, I can’t for the life of me figure out how these guys were never snatched up by a label … hopefully, we see them at the Homegrown Music Awards…”

His deep, twangy voice that melted panties right off of women came on the radio. The first guy she’d welcomed into her home and body in a long time.

“And the Houston Chronicle just announced that it’s up for the Texas Music Award’s best new original song…”

The player with the unfinished tattoo sleeve and megawatt smolder, who’d rocked her world and had the audacity to act hurt when she’d made him leave. What a jerk he’d turned out to be when he hadn’t gotten her immediate compliance to further their one-nighter into a one-dayer.

“Light me up like a moon-lit sky…”

That voice. Her fingers tightened on the steering wheel and her jaw clenched at his betrayal, the oldest trick in the book, and she’d fallen for it.

“Love me like it’s our last goodbye.

Pretty as a flower, kiss like a sin.”

She cranked the volume down—

“I like this one, Momma. Turn it up. I thought you liked McClintock.”

Reluctantly, Charlie smiled in the rearview and turned it back up as she turned into the outskirts of Nacogdoches.

“Feels like my life’s about to begin.”

Her skin tingled, stomach fluttered madly, as anger burgeoned. She pulled into the fairgrounds, carnival lights blinking, teens congregating, and rolled into the grass since all the parking spots were full.

Live music blared from a side stage as Daisy dragged her through the ticket booth amid the din.

“Three a.m. and I’m wide awake—” That voice again! “Thinkin’ on the one that got away.”

Her head swiveled, looking for the source of those baritone vocals as adrenaline at being near him again flooded her bloodstream.

“She knocked me flat in the neon lights,

Left me flounderin’, stole my fight.”