Page 3 of Risking it for the Cowboy

A boot jabbed his calf. He whipped around. Jack arched a brow at him as he kept thumping that bass. We playin’ or what? he mouthed.

T.R. stepped back. Perused her body. She pushed a tendril over her ear with manicured nails, biting her delectable lip. Shoot, he was making her nervous. The last thing he wanted was for her to be uncomfortable.

The bass repeated the cadence and Bo on the drums rat-a-tatted to fill the void. And then the whistling started. Guys in the crowd. She ducked her head at the catcalls and turned around to hop off stage.

She was chickening out.

He snagged her arm—

She flinched. Whirled back around. Eyes haunted, dark. Whoa…

He suddenly wanted to shield her from everything and his heartbeat thudded harder.

“Hey now, where’re your manners, fellas?” he called into the mic, friendly enough, but the message was clear.

The whistling stopped. And his pulse decreased, too, as she relaxed again, uncertain and yet as if he’d bought an ounce of credibility just now.

“Okay, Flower Girl. You’re gonna help me close down the house. You know my song ‘Last Goodbye’?”

She nodded. She did? The girls screaming to be picked usually did, but not everyone else. They were local-famous, not famous-famous. Bo hawked CDs and MP3 downloads, and the local Homegrown hour sometimes played their songs but that was as far as his stardom reached thanks to him screwing his band years ago when they’d first had their shot.

“You’re gonna sing the final chorus with me, ’kay?” She eyed his banjo. Yeah, with Hunt too drunk to play, there’d be no banjo tonight, when normally the instrument was the highlight of the song. “Can’t play two instruments, darlin’.” He held up his guitar.

“M-may I?” She hesitated into Hunt’s standing mic, a sweet, whiskey voice. “The song’s not the same without that pickin’.”

His brow shot up. She knew how to play? She knew the riff? His riff? This was no mainstream instrument, and he was nowhere near mainstream enough to sell his copyrighted sheet music, either, which meant, she knew it from ear.

He glanced to his guys.

Bo shrugged. Why not?

Jack shrugged. Let her give it a go.

He looked back at her. Nodded once. Okay, his curiosity, piqued a moment ago, was captivated. This had never happened before. She smiled like he’d given her a prize.

Bo snapped the sticks together. He and Jack led in the song, as she put on the banjo and adjusted the strap. Was she gonna be able to do it? Did he dare bail her out before she embarrassed herself? She didn’t seem like the type that would like to be teased, and the audience would heckle if she sucked…

She led in the banjo. No finger picks.

The hall fell silent, rapt to listen, and his fingering stalled…

He flashed glances to his bandmates as he recovered and strummed. Bo’s brows shot up. Jack’s mouth hung open. Is this really happening? She put Hunter to shame!

“All right, now!” T.R.’s lips curled into a grin.

He fell into his jam as the audience began to cheer. His grin grew as he sang the lyrics. My God. She was good!

Who was she? An air of familiarity niggled as he listened to the banjo. Surely, he’d remember meeting a knockout like her. Had he come across her at a festival before? She didn’t chase boys in bands anymore, so maybe she’d been a groupie once, had once been in the local country scene?

The audience pulsed up and down, shouting and cheering. She worked the frets like a seductress working a lover’s heartstrings, careful at first, gaining confidence. The complicated hammer-ons and fast transitions—

“Hot damn, y’all! Flower Girl can pick!” he bellowed into the microphone.

He dropped the guitar as the band played on, clapping overhead to the beat as he walked around the stage, encouraging his audience. His ever-loyal crowd followed suit like a dependable army, clapping the rhythm.

He grabbed up the guitar neck and fingered it, strumming hard, walking face-to-face with this fascinating woman to standoff. The crowd ate up the dueling, and as the picking increased and he belted out the lyrics into her mic, he itched to see her part those bee-stung lips and sing that chorus. God, could they get to that part yet? Because he suspected he was about to be blown away.

Flower Girl was stealing his heart, and he didn’t know why. What he did know, however, was that he wanted more. Like this was a precipice and she a parachute and he needed to grab her before he fell over the edge.