Page 96 of Risking it for the Cowboy
And the comments…
Her thumb doomscrolled, sweat beading on her brow, then an incoming call began to buzz and chime in her hand. From Jason? Her throat tightened and her body shook.
“Chases the band…”
“Nothing but a groupie … gold digger…”
“McClintock better watch his back unless he wants to end up saddled with a kid…”
“Glad I got a shot with him before the she trapped him…”
Her face burned! Her worst nightmare, being thrown in her face.
Jason’s call kept pulsing. She stabbed it to kick it to voicemail, his call so conveniently incoming right at the moment her world spun out of orbit. Jason’s humiliations on stage echoed in her heart, shutting off her throat as she fought to swallow.
And the anonymous poster who’d shared it and tagged her? How? Her profile didn’t even say her full name, just C. Brad. She’d stopped using it years ago.
She hurried to open her settings and saw a flood of messages hitting her app inbox. Hate mail. She couldn’t breathe! A tear leaked over her eyelid. She ripped at the collar of her T-shirt, gulping for air.
Jason called again, but she couldn’t deal with that as she scrambled to change her profile to private. Deleted her profile picture to the anonymous head silhouette.
“Momma, what’s wrong? Why’re we just sitting here?” Daisy asked, looking up from the tablet she’d brought along.
The phone kept ringing. Thaddeus this time. Oh God, had he seen the post, too? The world was closing in. She shut her phone off instead, the screen falling black and blessedly silent, tossed it onto the floorboard and lay her forehead to the steering wheel, still idling in the post office parking lot.
She had to get it together. What should she do? Just go home? Yes. She turned the wheel. She couldn’t do this band thing with Thad. She’d only drag them all down, give him bad press as Jason sabotaged her again and again—
“This isn’t the way, Momma,” Daisy said. “T. Rex is that way.”
How should she explain this to Daisy? She was so tired of being the one who had to explain every disappointment, who had to sideline her hurt from the constant stabs aimed at her, to find a way to rationalize it to Daisy, who’d then ask a million questions about it, further stabbing at Charlie by making her relive the details, when all she wanted to do was sink into Thaddeus’s arms and let his stalwart presence reassure her in the face of Jason’s restraining order rescinding, this anonymous post aimed to dox and humiliate her…
Jason. The moment her restraining order against him had been lifted—no, the moment she’d opened this letter—this anonymous post, calling her out for divorcing him, had hit social. Had he been … watching her check her mail?
Her skin crawled as she glanced in her rearview and … there was his F-150, pulling out on the road from the side street.
She flipped her blinker on and turned toward the farm. She wanted to see Thaddeus and feel his unyielding presence. She had to tell Tyler.
“You’re right, sweet girl. My mistake.”
Chapter Thirty
T.R. called Charlie again as he idled in front of Ty’s farmhouse, wanting to reassure her.
Straight to voicemail again, when it had rung the first time. Which meant she’d turned her phone off. To silence him? Had Jason come back? Were they okay?
He’d felt her unease at him keeping secrets. He knew she’d seen his phone. He didn’t like how he’d left Charlie. Didn’t like that he’d made her suspicious.
He glanced at the Silverado parked in front. At the woman on the porch, slouched against the post laughing with Tyler, flinging her golden-brown hair over her shoulder with the command of a cowboy roping a bull.
“You’re staring at me like you’ve never seen me before!” the woman called, grinning.
He waved through the windshield as she marched over to him, and creaked open his door.
“You gonna give me what I came here for, McClintock?” she said, softer now. “I believe you owe me my payment. I don’t provide my services for free, and all the online chatter says this one is gonna be hot.”
He moved around the hood and opened his passenger door.
“I’ll give you a ride.”
