Chapter Eighteen #2
“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.
“No idea. Each time I go back to court to fight for sole custody, Judge Mitchell shoots it down and says stripping parental rights is something they only consider in extreme cases. Guess Jason hasn’t become too extreme yet.”
“Mitchell?” That inkling from a second ago took root in his mind.
What was a judge doing holding bond court on a weekend?
“I thought I had at least until tomorrow to get down to the police station to file for a new restraining order.”
“You got a good lawyer?”
She huffed sardonically. “I mean, I’ve got a lawyer.”
He pressed his lips to her temple and closed his eyes. She hadn’t said good.
“How do you know him?” she asked.
“Shady business deal. Our bands did a show together some years back at a music fest. He pocketed our share of the profits.”
She shook her head against him harder. “God … he just uses people. Last night he was supposed to take Daisy to the carnival and then—God, I—”
“Shh,” he crooned softly, cheek resting against her knotted hair. So silky.
“He … lets her down, constantly. And then I have to pick up all the broken pieces, and it breaks my heart because all she wants is a daddy who loves her. And all he does is puts me down, embarrasses me. Two-dimensional ditz, Legally Blonde…” Her whisper broke.
The words rested on his ears. Loaded words. Yet so simple. A lover shouldn’t ever be a competitor. And a daddy didn’t have to be blood. A daddy was the one who should love Daisy the most. How could a man look at that little sweetheart with anything other than stars in his eyes?
Whoa, he caught himself.
Like he was actually dad material. Like they were actually an item. And yet, him, her, her little girl, weren’t they all just dangling roots searching for soil to settle into and call home? Why couldn’t they tangle together?
You’d have to be honest with her. Convince her you won’t hurt her like he did.
“So you let him kill your passion? ’S this why you got a wall of diplomas? You got something to prove?” he murmured. “You could earn more running a florist shop or a plant nursery.”
“Maybe so,” she argued back, “but the benefits package from a big organization like the university are attractive—”
“You could get the benefits working as their janitor,” he whispered, kissing her temple, nudging her with gentle tugs. “What’re you trying to prove?”
“Nothing—”
“Bullshit, baby. What’re you trying to prove?”
“That I’m not a statistic.” The words blurted out, unleashing the pent-up dam. “That I’m not some walking blond joke. I want to be someone Daisy’s proud of. I want to prove I could make it in spite of him. I want to be someone I’m proud of because I know no one else is prou…”
“Proud of you,” he croaked, finishing her thought.
She’d chosen to become a brainiac. Jason’s quips had hurt her young heart just as much as his hands had. She was working her ass off for redemption.
“Baby,” he crooned.
“God, T.R. I lost everything. My dignity. My only chance to go to college for free and get out from under my mom’s thumb. I was so naive. I didn’t realize Jason was just using me. Which is why I vowed never to let it happen again.”
She’d sent T.R. packing. Maybe because Jason was blazing a path to her door with Daisy in tow. But now he realized, she’d also been afraid of falling victim to the same trap again too.
“And in the end, I lost it all anyway.”
Naw, she’d gained her voice. Her grit. And her little girl. All while ignoring the open wounds festering within her like a blight, hoping they’d just go away.
He knew what it was like to feel like an idiot. He knew what it was like to not have his parents’ respect. He tasted peppermint and tears. She hungered for validation. Just like him.
She tipped her head back, eyes closed. “I shouldn’t even bother filing a restraining order this time.”
“You’re filin’ a restraining order, got it?” he growled.
Her eyes popped open. Stared at his mouth and his hard words, brow furrowing with frustration and helplessness. “Judge Mitchell always lifts them.”
“Got it?” he gruffed harder, his throat so thick.
She studied his dark expression. He relaxed his face. Forced a smile.
“Anyway.” She laughed wryly, swiping her cardigan cuff over her eye again. “I tried my best to get you to dodge this bullet.”
He petted his beauty queen with the broken crown’s hair and kissed her temple again. “Are you so blind that you can’t see I got hit square in the chest with it?” he croaked.
And have been bleeding for more ever since?
Jade gems so wide on him, he pressed a kiss to her forehead as they fluttered shut.
“Trouble,” she breathed, her nails pressing into his lower back and sending a shiver rippling over him.
“Flower Girl,” he whispered.
Kissed her nose, relishing that she was sinking into him like she had that night.
Her lips were upturned, begging for his.
Fuck, but he shouldn’t kiss her right now, when her heart was vulnerable, except, he needed it, too, because what if Daisy had been hurt last night in Jason’s drunken outburst?
What if that bottle had smashed Charlie instead of the cop’s windshield? What if he hadn’t been here today?
Their lips touched. A brushing. A reacquaintance.
And it was so damn sweet. She was finding this comfort in him. No one ever found comfort in him. And he was lying to her. Because she had every reason to see a record as a red flag, and God, he wished he could take that day back, handle it all so differently—
“I knew your whole indifferent vibe at the carnival was bull, Charlie Bradford, when I saw you in my shirt.”
She kissed him harder.
He groaned and doubled down, the hand fisting her overalls beneath her frumpy cardigan now sliding beneath the straps, beneath her T-shirt, to press into her glorious skin, fingernails trailing on her spine, inducing a whimper from her lips and a shiver across her skin.
“It’s not what a girl does when she hates a guy.
That’s a guy’s mark on her right there.”
She grappled to hold him closer, arching into him, lips so tender at first, colliding now.
“I knew—” His tongue laved hers and, heaven, still peppermint lips, still delicious. “You had a kid that night. And I didn’t leave…” He groaned at her growing intensity, his words opening this door of trust between them. “Little girl’s backpack on the chair,” he continued.
This capitulation felt so good. This wall she held up by sheer force of will crumbling an inch to let a tiny piece of him into her world that was so heavy to hold alone.
Somehow, in their frenzy, his forehead came to rest on hers and hers his, stoked by rhythmic scoring of his neck.
“I ain’t the most sophisticated,” he gruffed. His hand kept caressing. “You don’t gotta take me to your faculty dinners or anything—”
“Stop—”
“But if you like me back, then all I’m asking for is a chance because … I ain’t a bad guy, just a guy who wants to be worthy.”