Page 100 of Risking it for the Cowboy

“Hard to ignore when I’m tagged in it,” she said flatly.

He paused. Searched her eyes. Then snatched her phone and … scrolled. His stomach dropped.

“Found the Flower Girl, she’s the one digging for gold.”

An anvil of … something pitted in his gut.

“It’s not true,” he croaked, reading the comments, looking at that old photo of Charlie, so innocent and ready to take on the world. He looked at her now. Battered down by life.

“I know Jason did it,” she added. “But that’s the thing. He’s always going to do this. I just … don’t know if I can go through this again. The public shaming. His manipulations—”

“Don’t you dare let him win,” T.R. growled. “Tyler’s helping you now.”

“Tyler can’t stop the damage from this. I’m a detriment to you and your guys, and it seems your biggest fan base isn’t a fan of me.”

“They ain’t my fans. Just some obsessed people. This ain’t fair, baby—”

“It’s never been about fair with him, but—”

“Don’t you dare chicken out.”

“Thaddeus, he’s not just impacting me anymore. He’s dragging you into this, which is what I wanted to avoid all along, and as much as I hate that page…” She shook her head, staring into the distance over the escarpment. “You don’t deserve this.”

He clenched his teeth. Her white knight comparisons, that he was so good, as they stared at evidence that he wasn’t.

“Give Ty time, baby. Don’t pull out on us. It’s only been a day since you hired him. And these people?” He waved dismissively at her phone, dropping it back in her hand. “Just some fringe group on the internet. My real fans show up at the shows. They’re the ones who were cheering for you.”

She shook her head—

“Baby, please.” Fuck, he was begging and grabbed her hands, bringing them to his mouth. but an ache lodged that wouldn’t abate. “This award … it means so much … a record deal, and it’s my first shot in so long—”

He cut himself off. He sounded like a selfish prick considering the way she’d just been smeared.

“I said I’d screw up,” he croaked, pressing a kiss to her hands. “I don’t know how to do this. I can’t erase my past. But I’m trying, Charlie. Because I was chasing something all these years I couldn’t find until this wallflower took me home and let me into her life.”

She stared at him, taking in his desperation as he clenched her hands, and finally whispered, “Okay.”

A knot eased in him, and yet, guilt assailed as he bundled her in his arms. Held her hard even if she remained rigid, to have her affirm she wouldn’t pull out on the band. But he could still sense something lurking. Something hurting in her and, God, he wanted to protect her, wanted so badly to go back in time and erase his mistakes, living fast and carefree, filling voids left by parents who hadn’t ever tried to understand him, now being flung in his girlfriend’s face.

He didn’t want this poisoning her, but she was primed to absorb that poison, by a past that had left her heart vulnerable to a guy like he’d once been. Yeah, his past was biting him in the ass, and it felt like shit.

“And you must be Daisy,” Faith was saying, squatting an inch and resting her hands on her knees to come down to Daisy’s level. “Love your boots. A regular cowgirl like me…”

Daisy … that sweet girl. Would she grow up seeing this sort of thing dragged out online? His mistakes constantly leveraged against her mother, wearing her mother down? Should he … let Charlie go? Protect her from him, as she’d been trying to do all along?

“Boy, my brother’s about to make your day,” Faith said, earning a giggle from Daisy, and hell no, it was too late for letting go.

He couldn’t turn his back on this little girl, like her daddy had done. He couldn’t break Charlie’s trust, either.

Chapter Thirty-One

Faith stood. Smiled carefully at Charlie. Thad was still watching her, a quiet tick to his jaw.

“Anyway, thanks for giving me what I came for, brother-mine. Pays to know the lead singer of a band. My friend’s gonna be over the moon. He’s such a fan, and everyone is curious who this girl might be.” Faith winked cryptically at Charlie, and held up a CD demo, sealed in shrink-wrap.

Charlie noted it was a single by … McClintock and the Disclaimers. “Flower Girl.” His new song.

The song he’d written about her. Guilt assailed. Charlie’d thought the worst and yet, here he’d been, talking her up, giving his sister his song about her. God, she was a mess. She wasn’t girlfriend material. Someone like Thaddeus Rex McClintock deserved someone who wasn’t so damaged, and she suddenly wanted to go home—