Page 123 of Risking it for the Cowboy

“Your girl speaks highly of you. Told us we should keep an eye on you at Homegrown tomorrow.”

He grinned. Shook again. Felt sweat beading his brow.

“I’d be much obliged. You gonna stick around for a bit? Just need to get eyes on my girl for a sec.”

“Yeah, we’ll be here. We want to talk to you.”

He nodded. It warmed him to hear. Too bad he was too distracted to appreciate it.

“About her. You didn’t happen to see where she went, did you?”

The other guy said, “Yeah. Some guy wanted to talk to her.”

“Probably another record label, man. You oughta be proud,” the guy in the jacket said.

T.R. nodded again. He couldn’t be rude to these guys, but his patience was waning and the crowd was now leering, swelling in on him.

“You see who it was?” he hedged.

They shook their heads. “Worried we got competition. But I wonder if there’s a meeting room here or something. We glanced out in the corridor but there was no one there.”

Shit. There wasn’t a meeting room in this old joint.

“Some guy in a T-shirt.” The bartender leaned in as he closed out someone’s tab and handed them their bill. “Blond, blue-eyed.”

Double shit.

T.R. bolted back out into the corridor. Slammed into the ladies’ room this time.

“Charlie!” Empty. Hurried out into the foyer as the Country Roads guys followed, as well as a trickling of fans.

“Charlie?” he called.

She didn’t respond.

“You all right?” one of the execs asked.

“Naw, man. She’s got this real mean ex who’s been harassing her. Used to put his hands on her. Broke her window last night. I jus-just got a bad feeling that he’s gonna do something worse.” He shoved out into the parking lot.

Looked around; began jogging into the rows of trucks, motorcycles, and other vehicles, blessedly losing the spectators.

“Charlie!” he called.

Nothing.

“Charlie!” he hollered and darted in and out of vehicles.

He pulled out his phone and woke it up. Heart pounding. Hit her number and slung the cell to his ear, peering like a prairie dog over the vehicles. Dammit!

It rang and rang. She wasn’t answering.

“Charlie!” Others were calling out, heading in different directions.

Bless his army of followers. They fanned out into the parking lot, the word spreading.

He called her cell again, maneuvering through the vehicles, when he heard her ringtone, faint … and heard arguing.

He rounded a jacked-up F-150, padding farther away from the venue and the others, around a tall hedge of wax myrtles, and onto the sidewalk running parallel to the road—