Page 44 of Risking it for the Cowboy

“You gotta stop drinking, Jason,” she pleaded, waiting for the first strike. She didn’t like to see them coming. “I’ll tell your bandmates I’m out … I just … need to get to class…” She liked him far better sober.

When he drank, she paid for it. When he was sober, he took off for days on end, leaving them in peace.

“You and that scholarship! Thinkin’ you’re better just ’cause you got a shot at Nashville like some consolation prize, tryin’ to trap me…”

The doorbell kept chiming. Since when did this dingy apartment have a doorbell?

“Just try me!” Veins popped wildly in his neck as their fishtank smashed.

Charlie flinched at the shattering. Daisy screamed harder. She curled her arms around little Daisy to cover her ears, her grubby toddler hands still clenching her piece of banana smooshing through her fingers.

The doorbell kept chiming … chiming…

Chiming … Her cell phone. Chimed again. Incoming call…

Charlie bolted awake, her cell phone chiming and glowing on the bedstand.

Pulse racing, hair clinging to her neck, lungs pumping. The neck of her tank was drenched and a clammy chill settled on her skin.

Jason.

She scrambled awake, foraging blindly across her bedstand as she threw the covers off and jumped to her feet, silencing the phone to vibrate. Snatched up her daddy’s old Louisville Slugger and the cell, tucking it into the pocket of her sleep shorts, opening her door and easing down the hallway and steps as the approach of an engine vibrated in the distance.

Light from the family room glowed, the TV volume on low. Daisy was up, watching TV softly instead of doing her summer school reading, sitting on the floor with her chick in one hand and a handful of feed in her other. Artex curiously sniffed it. Light through the curtains was still dim. Her phone stopped pulsing in her pocket.

She eased down the hallway to avoid the old creaks, as the vehicle rumbled closer. Sweat broke out on her brow. She snuck past Daisy and her cartoons, in her nightgown covered in unicorns, none the wiser to the impending threat.

Pressed to the door, Charlie dared not push up on her toes to look out the panes across the top, and instead, gripped the bat and shrank into the corner, hand on the knob to ease it back.

The engine killed. Her phone started vibrating against her thigh.

A door opened and closed. Boots started plodding across the gravel, onto the front walk, when Artex bounced up from somewhere near Daisy, paws click-clacking to the window, then started to whine with excitement. The porch creaked beneath the thud of weight, and a moment later…

Rap.

Rap.

Rap.

Knuckles tapped the screen door. Her brow creased at the gentle sound. Jason was never gentle. He pounded like a SWAT team. Her phone stopped vibrating. Started vibrating again. When Daisy padded barefoot across the floor.

“T. Rex! Hi!” Her daughter squealed through the window. “Momma! T. Rex is here!”

Charlie whipped out her phone, glancing down at the illuminating screen in the predawn dimness, and…

Trouble rolled across the screen. Trouble.

Thaddeus!

She exhaled hard, a weight lifting off her lungs, and a relieved smile curled her lips. Fingers furled tightly around her bat, loosened, until it slipped free into the corner with a thud, propped there.

Jason had been arrested last night.

That was right.

She’d been dreaming.

He was in jail until at least tomorrow when bail courts opened on Monday.