Chapter Eleven
No, not lilacs. Cheap-ass body spray. No whiskey soprano. Voice like a cheese grater. Already he knew this bottle blond clinging to him like lichen to a rock wasn’t getting in his pants tonight…
T.R.’s eyes landed hard on her.
Flower Girl.
His lungs seized. Their gazes locked. After two weeks pining for a phone call that was never coming, she had to show up here? Now? Dammit, Ty had been right!
A shove to his shoulder jarred him.
“What the fuck, man?” Jack mouthed, jutting his chin toward the microphone he was white-knuckling.
The flashing lights flooded back—blues, pinks, blowing away the haze he’d just gotten lost within as the girl who’d ruined him stared back at him like he’d just gut punched her instead of the other way around…
Wait, was that her kid? That little girl? Shoot, that was the girl Heart had brought over the other day when she’d taken Seth and Stephen to the university open-house thing.
Then Artex spotted him. And darted into the crowd toward him! Did Artex remember him? Charlie had said he would. The little girl ran after him, calling for him … vanishing into the mass of undulating bodies!
Charlie chased them, her shouting drowned out in the melee as she wedged into the crowd.
“Stop!” T.R. bellowed.
The girl was gonna get trampled!
Tossing off his guitar and blaring feedback, he ripped away from the blond’s clutches and jumped off the stage.
Faces leered and cheered. Girls grabbed his shirt, but he rammed through them as his band’s music came to a fragmented stop.
“Move back!” T.R. called, motioning for people to part. “Move back, y’all!”
Flashes of the girl being knocked around, face fearful, blinked through the bodies. Charlie was screaming and pushing her way forward, flashing between carnival goers.
The girl cried out and fell off step. Charlie screamed, shoving toward him, as Artex wiggled through the bodies and leapt up on him, evading the random hands petting him.
“Outta the way!” T.R. boomed, and finally, people began to understand something was amiss and heeded his command.
He snagged the girl up beneath the arm and into his embrace.
“I got you, girlie. Shiii … ooot, I got you … it’s all right.”
A moment later, Charlie threw herself atop the girl’s back. He jolted beneath the force.
“Daisy!” she exclaimed. “I thought you were gonna be trampled.”
Lilac assaulted. His heart thundered. Familiar body, calming … his arm came around Charlie, too, sliding up her back to cup her neck and reacquaint himself with the girl who’d ghosted him.
Wait, Daisy? The girl’s name was Daisy?
What did save you, then?
Daisy.
At the time, T.R. had thought she’d been talking about her botanical studies when she’d likely been …
talking about the girl, who judging by her size …
Charlie had been a young mom. A teen mom?
Was this when she’d gotten married? Was this when Charlie had stopped dreaming about Nashville?
She’d been eighteen, then. This little one was eight? Nine?
She must’ve gotten pregnant right after that pageant.
Right after she’d met Jason? You don’t know for sure if Jason is the ex or not.
“Dang, girlie,” he huffed.
And was his hand holding Charlie’s nape tighter? Why? Revelations about this woman now or not, she’d still kicked him to the curb like he was nothing but a browned banana peel—sweet while she’d tasted, trash after.
“You done took a year off my life.”
“You saved me,” Daisy said, looking at him with wide blue eyes like he was some hero.
“Of course I did. Can’t have a sweetheart like you flattened like a pancake,” he quipped, and the girl giggled.
“You’re funny. I thought you might be funny.” He grinned. The girl was sweet. “My momma is a huge fan of your music.”
“Is she now?” He quirked a brow.
Charlie was what? Something thumped against his back and smeared his arm. He craned over his shoulder to find that shaggy, slobbering monstrosity, the culprit of this debacle.
“Hey, it’s my favorite pup,” he replied, craning around to Artex. “The one who didn’t want me to leave.”
He couldn’t resist the quirk to his mouth, except Charlie scoffed, pulling away from his touch, and gathered up Artex’s leash.
“C’mon, Daisy May.” Charlie held her hand out to her girl.
Ah, he was dismissed again. “Flower Girl got thorns?” he asked and set Daisy down.
Charlie retorted. “Trouble’s still got game? Your friend’s waiting.”
She nodded over his shoulder, and he glanced back to see the girl he’d hauled up on stage. Irritation pricked.
He rounded back on her and leaned into her ear as a smile titled up his mouth.
God, she smelled so much better than cheap body spray and, for a moment, his eyes rolled shut while she shivered beneath his breath.
“What do you care, beauty queen?” he whispered.
“You didn’t want me. I already figured out you think I’m trash.
” He stood back, smirking, except calling her jealousy out and upping the ante didn’t make him feel better.
If anything, the silence he’d just induced on her lips and the fire suddenly lapping in her eyes stabbed at him with regret.
His smirk fell. Voice gentled. Tyler had just warned him he might regret his choices. Both he and Heart had suggested he be patient. He glanced back to the girl on stage.
Karma delivered fast, because shame coursed through him even though he had no reason to feel ashamed. “I just wish I knew why you didn’t call—”
“Oh. You’d never know if I called, would you?” she seethed through her teeth.
He balked—
“But you’re right,” she choked out through a tight smile, gesturing to the stage. “A one-night stand is no reason for me to feel hurt. Sorry. Your next fool is waiting. Just wish I’d known the fool you were making of me when you did it. What lie do you have for her? Some honest proposition?”
Full snark.
“What?” His skin prickled as she backed up a step.
“Flower Girl?” someone nearby said.
“Is she who you wrote the song about?” another face in the crowd said.
“It’s her!” people began to call, as her skin raged red, and she threw a hand up to shield her face.
His heart suddenly raced. He suddenly didn’t want anyone to see that random woman on stage clinging to him. He’d just been trying to fill a void the woman in front of him had left empty. What had she meant by that? He’d never know if she’d called?
Gripping his nape, his bicep twitched, mind reeling.
“Hey! Yeah, you!” Jack called, and T.R. glanced to see his bassist recognizing her. “Hot damn, we’ve been wantin’ to hear from you! Get up here!”
Yeah, Hunter had called in. Wasn’t coming. The banjo sat in its case on stage, unused. Except Charlie shifted uncomfortably beneath their attention, backing up another step, shaking her head.
“You want my momma to play?” Daisy asked now, face scrunched in confusion.
“It is Flower Girl!” the people kept shouting.
Cell phones were snapping. And Charlie was shielding her face harder now, her chest rising and falling as if a panic attack might set in.
“Thank you for helping Daisy,” she bit out, not meeting his gaze.
“Charlie.” He chewed his cheek and reached out, tucked a blond whisp over her ear.
Gorgeous eyes. Bee-stung lips, while the crowd around them vied for more music.
“What do you mean you cal—”
She flinched back and walked away, daughter’s hand and dog’s leash in tow. He winked at Daisy instead, who craned over her shoulder to wave.
He backed up. Returned to his set. Hopped back onto the stage as the random chick reached out to him. Flicked his finger at Bo, mouthing a title, who rapped his drumsticks together to launch into something else as Charlie’s eyes flashed to him again from the distorting carnival lights.
He cocked up his grin and winked again just to crawl under her skin and hold her attention.
But she turned her back on him. Once more, his grin faltered.
He cleared his throat. Didn’t look at blond chick in the eye as he ushered her, confused, off stage, because he couldn’t forget how Charlie had taken his hand, how it had felt encased in his grip in that shitty honkytonk while he’d coaxed her to the mic and out of her shell and had encouraged a reluctant melody from her lips that had knocked him flat and been blown away…
So much for working her out of his system.
Instead, he sang and tracked that glorious gold spun hair like a hunter on a deer, all knotted up atop her head in the prettiest messy bun a woman could have. As she swayed among the blinking lights. As her daughter darted off the ride exits and raced around to the lines again.
She vanished behind attractions or within shadows, emerged between bodies, lithe and lean and graceful, even in those worn jeans hugging her gorgeous ass that looked nothing like her pageant getups, her Birkenstocks, her army-green fieldwork shirt with the sleeves rolled up hanging unbuttoned over a baggy T-shirt hiding her perfect breasts.
Only former Miss Lone Star could look like she’d just rolled out of bed, having thrown on the nearest bits, and still look so perfect. And why did he still care?
Let her go.
Yeah, he was letting her go so hard he was crafting tears-in-your-beers songs about her like old George Jones, wondering how the hell he was going to enter the Homegrown Awards without a complete band.
The entry cutoff was Saturday. If he entered and Hunter stayed MIA, it would be a waste of a few hundred bucks.
He watched Daisy try and fail at the claw machine, watched Daisy win a tiny chick from bottle bowling, when Charlie glanced back at him. His blood rushed in his ears, drowning out the amplifiers, to feel her attention, to know she was as aware of him as he was of her.
He watched them share a funnel cake and Charlie smudged her daughter’s nose with powdered sugar, that face of hers splitting into one of those rare grins. A glimmer of the fun Charlie he’d spent the night with before that phone call had crashed a gate between them.