Chapter Forty #3
Golden hair, glossy lips, and that pageant smile, bright and bold and unafraid.
“And McClintock here, or as our little girl calls her daddy, T. Rex—” The audience awed and laughed.
But T.R.’s exhausted brain stalled, bandwidth blown.
She’d said our. Our little girl. “Is the best guy a girl could ask for.” She turned to look directly at him, even though she spoke to the judges.
“You’ll never meet a kinder man, who’d give his all even when the world gives him nothin’, who’d hold back oceans if it meant protecting the ones he loves.
Who’d make a little girl’s dreams come true and a woman’s heart learn to trust again.
” Her words grew soft, her eyes glistening, and he noticed her lip tremble with a desire to cry even though her pageant training kicked in and overrode it.
“He matters to me and our girl so much, and to all the babies still to come—”
What was she sayin’?
“He’s the man I love, no matter what the social media pages say about us, scars and all.
” She turned back to the crowd. “You see, there’s a lot to tell about ’im.
A lot more than not much. Because he’s this brilliant wordsmith, this mathematical genius, this man I know I can depend on for the rest of my life, who’s living a dream, instead of dreaming about living it.
” She looked back to him. “Doesn’t matter if we win or lose today.
All that matters is that we got here and that we keep livin’ our dream together, instead of lettin’ it die. ”
Nettie was smiling, nodding. Braydon was leaning back, watching with interest, and of course checking out Charlie’s legs—bastard. Ortega was flat out grinning. But T.R., he…
She laughed, severing their connection and lifting her bag of takeout on her manicured nail, turning to the audience, charming them into eating out of her hand.
“Sorry about the tacos! A little tradition we have after gigs. Win or lose, it’d be bad luck if we didn’t have ’em.
” She winked, running daintily in those heels and dragging the cord plugged into her banjo with her to set them down as the audience laughed and Nettie chuckled.
Oh, she was tuggin’ on heart strings now, so confident!
But with Jason secure behind bars, for the first time, he was seeing Charlie truly … shine.
She winked and glanced to Bo and Jack, pointing with a finger pick.
“Hit it, boys.” She seduced in that whiskey voice.
The drumsticks snapped together. The music launched in.
A grin lifted T.R.’s lips. Emotion tightened his chest. He turned his lips into the mic, strummed, lost himself in the music as the bass and drums synced in perfection and that banjo …
that banjo. She led into her part, the moment when he’d fallen so hard for a wallflower in a backwater honky-tonk, too afraid to take chances and yet … taking one on him.
“Light me up like a moonlit sky…” she harmonized.
“I’ll be damned,” Jones and Braydon breathed together.
“Love me like it’s our last goodbye.
Pretty as a flower, kiss like a sin…”
But unlike that first night when she’d hid her quiet smile, she shone in the setting sun now, face tilted toward her crowd as she made his dreams come true, bold and talented and just as deserving of a happy ending, and he fell to his knees like that first night as the audience screamed and cheered, slapping his hands on his heart and thumping them in and out, and relished her basking in her God-given gift, going all in for them.
They harmonized together.
“Feels like my life’s about to begin…”
He glanced at her, haloed in stage lights like the angel he’d once met, eyes no longer veiled. Definitely seducing, which made him all the more enchanted.
He shoved to standing. Somehow, they’d inched closer. Somehow, they were dueling, egging on the audience, as Bo’s pounding heightened the tension and Jack’s bass amped up the crowd. Somehow, they were singing so close, lips nearly touching, as the song came to a close—
“Feel like my life has finally begun,” she added acapella.
The crowd remained silent as the final note echoed. The judges stared wide-eyed. All this time, he’d wanted to stake a claim on her and, right now, she’d just done it to him.
Somewhere in the fog of euphoria, the crowd erupted.
The judges shoved to their feet, clapping.
Somehow, it wouldn’t matter if they won the record deal or not, because they’d won at this, grabbing hold of their dream two-fisted and not letting go.
And somehow, he knew they were finally going to go all the way, as his lips touched hers and his body flung around hers and he exhaled relief that it wasn’t over, this woman who’d tried to pay him three hundred bucks for fixing her car…
Three hundred…
“Where’s that three hundred bucks, baby?” he asked against her lips, wrapping around her, feeling her grin as she held him back.
“Don’t know what you’re talking about, Trouble,” she breathed back coyly.
He kissed her harder.
“My mouth must taste awful.” He chuckled, unable to stop, when her hands came up to cup his cheek.
“Smells like roses and rainbows,” she teased against his lips.
Flower Girl stole his heart and he did know why.
To give him a reason.
The End