Page 61 of Risking it for the Cowboy

T.R. grit his teeth. “What happened?”

“God, I thought a fling meant, you know, he liked me.” She wiped her face on the cuff of her oversized cardigan, hanging on her frame. “Until he wouldn’t return my calls. Wasn’t home when I’d come by. Had his friends answer the phone. And then I started feeling sick. Throwing up. Couldn’t eat. Things I’d once loved smelled so bad. And my momma made me take a pregnancy test and…” She shook her head, disgusted with herself.

“‘Don’t shame your daddy’s good name, Charlize, don’t you dare’ my momma shouted at me. “‘You better marry that boy or you’re outta my house.’”

His whole body thrummed. He knew that feeling, to be pressured by parents that wanted their kid to do the impossible, fix something that couldn’t be fixed, or leave, get out, take your bullshit with you and don’t come back till you grow the hell up and start taking life serious…

“I begged Jason until he caved and took me to the courthouse, then took me home to his house and—” Her breath caught and her next words were a whisper. “Went out with his friends to celebrate at a strip club since he said he never got a bachelor party. He never took me to meet family. His mom, some judge, had apparently died. His dad wasn’t involved in his life, even if he bought Jason our home. I kept lying to myself. It’ll get better. He’ll care when he hears the baby’s heartbeat.”

T.R. pressed his lips into her hair.

“He’ll care when Daisy comes. He’ll care if I try harder, if I offer to help his band, if I stop asking him to pick her up from daycare on Tuesdays when I had that evening class. And then, that first time … th-that bottle smashed on the wall and his hand cracked my cheek—”

The air whooshed from T.R.’s lungs. His palm gripping on her lumbar turned ironclad, his other curled around her nape. He’d known what was coming but nothing could prepare him for the visceral storm brewing at the admission.

“I couldn’t take it anymore. The bruises I couldn’t hide with concealer, the weeks of abandonment in between while he sold the house to pay off some court order, some guy he’d screwed outta money, when a judge actually held him accountable for a change, my nightmares. I just c-couldn’t take another minute—” She choked silently on her words.

The debt. Had Jason sold the very house his wife and daughter lived in to pay T.R. back the money he’d stolen? When the bastard had finally been held to account in a criminal trial after the judge in T.R.’s civil suit had let Jason off the hook because T.R. had misread one single hearing location? His palm rubbed her back, up and down, the sun sinking lower in the sky. His phone buzzed again. He’d probably been fired and now Ty was trying to get a hold of him for next steps. But had Charlie ever bled this poison from her heart? How could she, when Jason poisoned her every thought, to the point that she was always wedging car keys in her knuckles?

“It was my fault,” she breathed.

“Don’t you dare say that again,” he rumbled.

“It was, because I should have stood up to my momma. I should have said no. I should never have tried to marry someone who didn’t want me.”

Oh, Jason wanted her, but to own, not to love.

“You were barely eighteen, baby. How were you supposed to know how to do that—”

“And then, the divorce. The shame. The pageant demands. I-I couldn’t tell the world what had happened. I couldn’t believe I’d ever been so spineless.” She gasped angrily, swiping her nose with her sweater. “And my momma was so mad. She wouldn’t talk to me for a week after I moved back home.

“Jason vanished that first year. I-I had to sell this house to get the pageant lawyers off my back and secure a place for Daisy to live, money to save for college and the never-ending legal fees my lawyer racks up. But he just won’t … stay gone. He can’t handle that he doesn’t have control of me anymore—” And yet he controlled her every thought. “He’s not keeping Daisy safe and loves to throw in my face that he was raised by a momma who knew the law and therefore he knew his rights. These altercations … they keep getting scarier. And the judge just keeps slapping him on the wrist each time he screws up, but heaven forbid I refuse to send her on a visit, knowing it’s only gonna scare Daisy. Then, Mitchell’s ready to throw the book at me for violating the custody agreement.”

T.R. kept stroking her, thinking. Jason had seemed so smug, as if he didn’t have a thing to worry about. And that name…

Mitchell.

“What happened last night? Before the carnival?” he pressed, but he had a sinking feeling.

“You don’t need to care so much, Thaddeus,” she whispered, clenching harder. “There’s nothing anyone can do about it—”

“What happened, baby?”

She exhaled. “Daisy called me from the phone I send with her.” He kept running his hand up and down her back to soothe the words out of her. “He was drunk. She was scared and wanted me to pick her up. I called the police and drove to get her. The cops asked her if she wanted to be there, and she cried and said no. It just flipped a switch in him. He blew up. Accused me of turning her against him.”

“Don’t he see his own actions are doing the trick?” he growled, feeling her slowly soften in his arms. Torture.

She shook her head. “It’s always me. He cursed me out and—”

Shoot … his arms became a vice, clenching her hair and holding her to him.

“Threw a bottle through the officer’s windshield, which is what got him arrested, but he was aiming for me—”

How had he let that fucker walk free instead of sinking his fist into his jaw?

“I guess a judge was doing bail hearings this morning after all if he’s already out.”

“How?” It made no sense, this giant red flag walking free.