Page 68 of Risking it for the Cowboy

“You’re comin’ to the farm?” His eyes darted to hers, as if an idea was brewing there.

She nodded.

He diverted his eyes again to the distance. “I don’t like y’all here alone,” he bit out, baritone laced with acid. Then leveled his blues on her. Frosty with steel. “Go in and lock the door, Charlie.”

His eyes burned, and yet, the steel edge to his jaw relaxed, his brow furrowing as he stared at her lips. Brushed his thumb over them.

She palmed his cheek, noting his rough inhale as his thumb pressed her lip harder, when he pulled her into his window, pressed his lips to hers. Firm, demanding, this wasn’t the kiss of the eager lover and tender soother. This was a statement, and a yearning.

He kissed her hard, gripping her nape as if he had the right. He swallowed, his throat bobbing, his gaze bouncing back and forth between hers before he let go and motioned her inside, waiting to see her shut the door. She turned the dead bolt and glanced down to grab her keys and beep her SUV lock … there, on the stand by the door where she always dumped her car keys was…

She snatched up a fold of one-hundred-dollar bills. She fanned them apart like a deck of cards. Three of them. He’d fished them out of his pocket again.

“That man,” she breathed, yanking the door back open.

“Trouble!” she called, waving the money and starting down the step but he was craned over his shoulder, arm across the bench seat, reversing into the road.

“Only if you’re lucky, Flower Girl!” He kicked up a satisfied smile, rumbling away.

Chapter Twenty-One

T.R. threw a bale, palms sweaty in his work gloves as he straddled the tailgate with one boot and braced the rim of the circular trough with the other.

His lungs were still tight as fists since he’d driven home the night before to rummage through old documents. Because that name, Mitchell, had niggled all through dinner like a ringing in the ears … until he’d finally found the dog-eared document with the highlighter marks to help his eyes focus.

His failed civil suit in an Austin court to recoup his money from Jason Thompson.

The failed suit that Jason had so gleefully tossed in his face yesterday.

One look at that Austin judge’s name who’d dismissed his complaint. Calvin Mitchell. The same Mitchell?

He tossed another bale.

What Jason had said, all smug, before he’d driven away, I’ll fare fine in court. It was as if he thought he really would, when there was no way he could know that. Could he? Charlie had lamented the judge barely slapped his wrists while throwing the book at her.

He’d grabbed his phone to call and tell her until he’d realized it was after midnight.

He grunted, thrusting the next bale even harder, still braced on the truck and trough. Heaved another, as thoughts of little Daisy sitting in a police station, listening as her mother recounted the harrowing details of the day before irritating him.

He hefted up another bundle, as Beau nickered and swished his tail, his gelding, shifting from one hind hoof to the other as the sun beat down and sweat soaked the back of T.R.’s ribbed tank.

He tossed the last bale into the feeder, whipped loose his pocketknife to slice through the twine and shred the hay apart, then jammed both the twine and the knife back in his jeans pocket and jumped down from the trailer and over to his chestnut mount as a distant crunching on gravel rumbled.

He popped upright. A green Rover, in the distance, rolled down the drive to his grandparents’ old farmhouse.

Flower Girl. With her delivery for Tyler from Heart.

And despite his unease, like a moth to zapper, he untethered Beau’s reins from the trough, the feeder prepared for the herd Tyler and his brothers were droving toward the pasture gate. He hoisted himself into the stirrup, swung his thigh over, and turned Beau, tapping him into a trot, a lope, a gallop across the pasture, a skilled rider since practically birth considering the McClintock brand at McClintock Equestrian on Legacy Creek.

Daisy spotted him. Rolled down her window!

“T. Rex!” She squealed, waving.

“It’s my wing girl!” he called, waving his Stetson in the air like a rodeo star as Daisy stared awestruck.

Sweet girlie.

And her momma. Charlie’s smile was … warm on him.