Page 85 of Risking it for the Cowboy

“Unless she was pressured not to.”

“The question is, why is Mitchell showing favoritism?”

“Who posted bail?” Tyler asked.

T.R. navigated his way through the computer software and landed on the information. Squinting, and holding up a paper to cover each letter until he could focus on it. Damn this strained the eyes and brain. “EZ Bond LLC fronted the money for him.”

More typing in the background as Tyler took notes.

“D’you see who presided over his bail hearing on Sunday?”

“Man, you know who presided over it.”

“Damn, Mitchell works all hours, it seems. Wonder who’s gonna be on the bench for her restraining order hearing?”

They both knew the answer. Which meant … Charlie was at risk of her temporary restraining order being lifted. Just like she’d feared.

“Okay. Get a printout,” Ty said. “We’re heading back to Nacogdoches.”

Shoot, that might be a hundred bucks or so, and he was already down some from the parts he’d needed for Charlie’s Rover, which would only put him further behind getting the award show registration fee paid.

But what was some cash when it came to a woman’s safety and a little girl’s security? Certainly worth more than a contest fee.

*

Walking among her blooms with her tablet, Thad’s words from the night before kept running through Charlie’s mind. As she tapped the syncopated rhythm he’d suggested, that she’d still not given an opinion on, but yeah … it would sound great with a one-two from Bo, but only with a lead-in from the banjo, she realized!

She set aside the tablet and snatched up the notebook she’d been jotting notes in all morning and hummed the banjo refrain. Daring herself to just … go all in. Put herself out there. Take the risk. Ignore Thad’s past. Trust his present.

So often she felt as if she were atrophying. But last night, she’d come alive. Thad had once more dragged her out of anonymity and thrust her into his fray and they’d all … clicked, picking and singing around the fire.

All morning over breakfast and on the way to school, Daisy had begged to go back. To do that every night. How much Daisy wished they could live there because there, it had felt happy and safe. She didn’t want to live like this anymore. In constant hide, fight, or flight mode.

She didn’t want her beautiful Daisy wilting, becoming an angsty, untrusting teen, or a young woman sucked into the same cycle with her own lovers one day.

She snagged up her tablet again and put down the notebook, tapping one of the angiosperm’s progress in the data fields, and moved onto the next, when her phone rang.

She fished it out of the sterile suit pocket, bracing herself for Jason or maybe the school. She exhaled with relief.

Trouble.

She wedged it into her shoulder to keep working. “Hey.”

“You home?”

She furrowed her brow at his abruptness. “Is something wrong?”

“Where’re you at?”

“In my tunnel. Why?”

“Got something to show you.”

She frowned. “I’ll be out in a minute—”

The phone went dead.

She returned to her tablet, hurrying to finish the next plant, when the door to her greenhouse opened. Her head whipped up as T.R. popped his head through the door—