Page 134 of Risking it for the Cowboy

“What should we know about you?”

He cleared his damned throat again. Blinked down at his boots to shield the hurt, as the crowd fell into a hush, so soft the birds in the surrounding trees could be heard and the rumble of traffic over the Congress Street Bridge carried all the way upriver. Then he fixed his megawatt smile on his lips, notching up his chin. Even if it felt hollow.

“Ain’t much to tell about me.”

Silence. Nettie watched him. Her brow furrowing harder. The sweat on T.R.’s brow worsened—

“That’s such bull,” a dulcet voice, whiskey soprano, came over the speakers. He froze as the audience gasped. “This boy’s nothin’ but trouble.”

He whirled to stage right, skin catching fire and lungs seizing. No one. But he caught Jack’s eye, who was grinning like a Cheshire cat who’d known all along what was about to happen, when the audience erupted into screams and roars of approval and he whirled around toward stage left to see…

A long-legged goddess strutting like the Miss Lone Star she was across the stage, crown straightened, in the shortest damn leather skirt he’d ever seen and those heeled cowboy boots, a fluttery spaghetti strap blouse that showed off her entire midriff and showcased her twine of daisies tattooed over her shoulder. Her turquoise bangles glinted in the light. Her jade eyes flared bright green in the setting sun and that smokey eyeshadow and eyeliner and bright red lipstick…

Jeezus, the whistling, the cheers … on her lips a smile, just for him, quirked up the corner like both a sweetheart and seduction, and on her finger was a takeout bag. Juanita’s tacos.

“I’m Charlie,” she said into her wireless mic down the side of her cheek, then turned to her adoring audience already fawning over her.

“That’s Charlie?” Braydon exclaimed, the judge of few expressions, slapping his palms on the table and leaning in front of Jones to Nettie.

“Wow,” Jones muttered as he leaned back and folded his arms.

Ortega smiled.

Golden hair, glossy lips, and that pageant smile, bright and bold and unafraid. “And McClintock here, or as our little girl calls her daddy, T. Rex—” The audience awed and laughed. But T.R.’s exhausted brain stalled, bandwidth blown. She’d said our. Our little girl. “Is the best guy a girl could ask for.” She turned to look directly at him, even though she spoke to the judges. “You’ll never meet a kinder man, who’d give his all even when the world gives him nothin’, who’d hold back oceans if it meant protecting the ones he loves. Who’d make a little girl’s dreams come true and a woman’s heart learn to trust again.” Her words grew soft, her eyes glistening, and he noticed her lip tremble with a desire to cry even though her pageant training kicked in and overrode it. “He matters to me and our girl so much, and to all the babies still to come—”

What was she sayin’?

“He’s the man I love, no matter what the social media pages say about us, scars and all.” She turned back to the crowd. “You see, there’s a lot to tell about ’im. A lot more than not much. Because he’s this brilliant wordsmith, this mathematical genius, this man I know I can depend on for the rest of my life, who’s living a dream, instead of dreaming about living it.” She looked back to him. “Doesn’t matter if we win or lose today. All that matters is that we got here and that we keep livin’ our dream together, instead of lettin’ it die.”

Nettie was smiling, nodding. Braydon was leaning back, watching with interest, and of course checking out Charlie’s legs—bastard. Ortega was flat out grinning. But T.R., he…

She laughed, severing their connection and lifting her bag of takeout on her manicured nail, turning to the audience, charming them into eating out of her hand.

“Sorry about the tacos! A little tradition we have after gigs. Win or lose, it’d be bad luck if we didn’t have ’em.” She winked, running daintily in those heels and dragging the cord plugged into her banjo with her to set them down as the audience laughed and Nettie chuckled. Oh, she was tuggin’ on heart strings now, so confident! But with Jason secure behind bars, for the first time, he was seeing Charlie truly … shine.

She winked and glanced to Bo and Jack, pointing with a finger pick.

“Hit it, boys.” She seduced in that whiskey voice.

The drumsticks snapped together. The music launched in. A grin lifted T.R.’s lips. Emotion tightened his chest. He turned his lips into the mic, strummed, lost himself in the music as the bass and drums synced in perfection and that banjo … that banjo. She led into her part, the moment when he’d fallen so hard for a wallflower in a backwater honky-tonk, too afraid to take chances and yet … taking one on him.

“Light me up like a moonlit sky…” she harmonized.

“I’ll be damned,” Jones and Braydon breathed together.

“Love me like it’s our last goodbye.

Pretty as a flower, kiss like a sin…”

But unlike that first night when she’d hid her quiet smile, she shone in the setting sun now, face tilted toward her crowd as she made his dreams come true, bold and talented and just as deserving of a happy ending, and he fell to his knees like that first night as the audience screamed and cheered, slapping his hands on his heart and thumping them in and out, and relished her basking in her God-given gift, going all in for them.

They harmonized together.

“Feels like my life’s about to begin…”

He glanced at her, haloed in stage lights like the angel he’d once met, eyes no longer veiled. Definitely seducing, which made him all the more enchanted.

He shoved to standing. Somehow, they’d inched closer. Somehow, they were dueling, egging on the audience, as Bo’s pounding heightened the tension and Jack’s bass amped up the crowd. Somehow, they were singing so close, lips nearly touching, as the song came to a close—