Page 40 of Risking it for the Cowboy

So damn cute, her ponytail mussed from sleep bobbing up and down.

“Like the paleontology my momma teaches.”

He fist-bumped her.

“Whatcha doing?” Daisy pushed up on her tiptoes to look at the engine.

“Stay back, Daze.” Charlie worried, reaching for her, but T.R. drew her in closer.

“Look here. That’s the radiator. Cools your engine when it’s runnin’ hot. The hose busted open, which means a bunch of coolant sprayed onto the engine and looked like smoke.”

“Cool,” she said.

“Naw, sweetheart. Hot.” The girl giggled as he shook his hand, pretending he’d burned it. “Hey, you wanna be my wing-girl?”

“Yes!”

“Alright … you can be the official hat holder.” He plopped his Stetson on her head.

It tipped over her eyes. “Holding your hat isn’t actually helping, T. Rex,” she scolded him with a smirk just like a mini-Charlie. “That’s just something a grown-up does to make a kid feel important.”

He cocked a brow at her as Charlie shook her head with amusement, resting her hands on her hips.

“Is that a fact,” T.R. shot back, standing upright. “All right, miss thang. Your momma can hold it.” He plopped it on Charlie’s head instead as if a dare.

Relished how honest-to-God gorgeous she looked in it, like she wore his colors and he of all people who’d sworn never to settle down had staked some primal claim.

“And you can help me patch the…” When he noticed Charlize’s oversized T-shirt under her work shirt, with that tiny hole in the stomach and rust stain streaked across the side…

His old undershirt? The one he’d forgotten at her place?

He reached out and fingered it. That call from her ex that morning really had spooked her somehow, but she’d been honest. She’d liked him. A girl didn’t wear a guy’s shirt otherwise, and he … liked thinking he might belong to her, might like wearing a ball and chain.

“I need another strip of duct tape,” he said to Daisy, his eyes not leaving Charlie’s shirt as he held the tape out to the girl, tingling sizzling through his blood at the revelation.

He turned back to Daisy who took the roll and tore a tiny piece.

He suppressed a chuckle. “That’s it. I’m gonna lift you up now.”

“Here.” She held the tape out to him.

“Naw, girlie. You’re gonna do it.” He scooped her up around the waist.

Propped a boot up on the bumper so she could kneel on his thigh, then wrapped an arm around her to hold her steady.

“Let’s put it right … there.” He jabbed a black stain on the hose that in the shadow of the spotlights was hard to decipher. “See that spot?”

She eyed him questioningly.

“Press it right over that spot.”

Daisy’s tongue stuck out a touch as she concentrated.

“Don’t touch that metal. That’s hot as hades. That’s it … right … there.”

She pulled back up; her forearms smudged in auto grease where she’d rested them on the frame.

“I did it.” Daisy grinned.