Page 66 of Risking it for the Cowboy

“Just cut me a little slack when I do. Because one thing I need you to trust is that I’ll never hurt you.” Damnation, his throat was tight.

Daisy came and took his hand. “She set out three plates so you can eat with us.”

Charlie smiled tentatively at his furrowed brow. “If, you know, you want to stay for dinner. Since you didn’t have a date last night, maybe—” She shrugged. “Maybe we can be your dates tonight. You know … a do-over,” she added hesitantly.

A do-over … his heart nearly squeezed from his chest.

And like that, he was glad he hadn’t acted like the same devil as Jason when he’d sent Jason packing. Couldn’t bear the thought of these girls looking at him and seeing another monster.

He brought his phone to his mouth and voice texted Tyler. “Scratch that. Need you to pick up the vitamins. I got a date.”

Chapter Twenty

Dinner done. Dishes done. The hour was late, and Daisy started her final days of summer school first thing in the morning. T.R. walked to the door.

“Don’t go, yet.” Daisy thudded toward him.

His wing girl collided with his thigh and hip, her face full of worry, and his throat knotted, to be reached for with such need. How the hell didn’t Jason want to give this little sprite the world?

He couldn’t walk out the door with her watching his back recede. She’d already seen one man turn his back on her. He pushed a smile on his face. God, those wide blue eyes were going to do him in.

“I didn’t give you your gift yet.”

His brows arched. “A gift?” For him?

She grabbed a purse by her backpack. Pastel rainbow, sparkly—with a pleather unicorn on it—and returned to him. Then slipped out a fold of construction paper and a wrapper—a card and a package of Reese’s Pieces.

“I got you more. Since I ate all the others.”

Charlie’s head popped out from the kitchen walkway.

“Where’d you get these, girlie?”

“The Boy Scouts were selling candy at the farm market this morning. Seth was there.” She smiled sheepishly at her mother.

Oh boy.

“I was gonna use my allowance, but Seth gave me a pack of ’em for free. May-maybe T. Rex will wanna come back if we give him a gift, Momma.”

The knot in his throat tightened. Sweet girl.

Charlie’s gaze contorted as she took in Daisy’s hopeful face.

“Maybe he’ll keep coming back if we’re real nice to him, don’tcha think, Momma?”

Shit. T.R.’s heart squeezed. Stinging pricked his eyes as Charlie reached out to brush back her wisps, her face twisting with emotion.

This girl, begging for a scrap of her dad’s attention through him instead.

“Hey, now.” He squatted down.

She pushed the wrapper and card into his palm—the telltale orange packaging of Reece’s Pieces. He opened the card. Unicorns. Three of them.

She pointed. “That one’s me, that one’s Momma, and-and that one’s you. And down there is Pumpkin and Artex.”

The knot only worsened.

He cleared it gruffly and swallowed. “Well now. Can’t remember the last time someone other than my sisters gave me a gift.” Couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt so … welcomed with open arms instead of judged.