Chapter Sixteen
And yet, as she and Daisy strode out the door, her Rover was shiny? So … clean! No back-country dust from field sites dulling the paint. He’d washed it?
Not only that, but as she hopped in the cab, an iridescent sticker in the upper windshield corner flashed in the sunlight.
A new oil change from Rex Auto Works with today’s date?
He’d changed her oil today? It was barely eight-thirty a.m. Was Thaddeus a certified mechanic and business owner?
A far cry from the tinkering under a hood he’d downplayed to her that first night.
And as she drove down the road toward Nacogdoches, her engine purred like a kitten, happy and soft.
Had he flushed the system? Her washer fluid was replaced.
Her wiper blades were brand new, squeegeeing streak free, heavy-duty.
And a fresh inspection sticker sat in the lower left of her windshield?
She’d been riding that out to the final days to renew it.
He’d completed her state inspection.
Which meant he’d found her registration and insurance in her glove box, which meant …
She flipped each blinker on. They blinked!
The front right blinker had burned out a month ago and even though she’d learned how to replace them from a YouTube video, it was a cumbersome task that she’d been putting off, but a requirement for the state inspection.
Thickness swelled in Charlie’s throat as she pulled into Nacogdoches, Daisy chattering on about T. Rex asleep in their house and how Pumpkin needed a friend named Pie.
He’d lied to her. He hadn’t even gone to bed yet.
No wonder he was passed out.
It was the nicest lie a man had ever told her.
Maybe I just want a do-over.
Daisy dashed to the Boy Scouts selling candy and—oh God, Seth Dixon, in his crisp uniform and arm in a sling after the horrible accident he’d experienced the other night. Daisy seemed smitten with Tyler Dixon’s older-by-almost-four-years son.
Thaddeus would probably be gone by the time they got home. And yet still, she found herself mulling over Daisy’s suggestion. Found herself buying: peppers, onions, tomatoes, lettuce, fresh ground meat, tortillas … all the fixings one needed to make the man’s favorite meal.
*
Hot damn … the smell. So good. Chili powder, paprika, garlic, cumin, pepper, pan-seared meat … T.R. stirred, so rested. Relaxed.
He’d felt that gentle touch. The soft caress on his face. Even if his eyes had been too damn heavy to open as he sank hard over the precipice of sleep, he’d felt Charlie touch him, as if to want him. Hold me like you wanna keep me, baby.
His pocket buzzed. A text.
He blinked open his eyes. The house was still, except for clinking around in the kitchen, the sizzling sound of a frying pan, making his stomach growl like a wolf, and the droning of some sort of college lecture, the volume soft.
Bright afternoon light streamed in through the sheer curtains, casting rays across the floor. The tunnel, out back, sat right there in the window, taunting him with aftershocks of his best and yet most frustrating recurring dream.
He was still here in Charlie’s house. How long had he slept?
His phone buzzed again. He patted around, fumbling beneath a warm blanket that smelled like lilac and contemplated nestling back into the comfort of the pillows and the homey stillness of a woman’s touch when … sheet music caught his eye.
An edge sticking out from beneath a book on her coffee table where it was hidden, next to a set of metal finger picks cast haphazardly like dice on the surface? He withdrew the sheet music—staffs, quarter notes, and rests…
Five string tablature notations on the staff beneath it showing fretboard markings for a banjo.
Handwritten…
He snapped awake as his phone buzzed again, swinging his legs off the couch where he’d been laid out like the dead and picked up the first sheet, patting his shirt pocket for his glasses and finding them on the side table, slipping them on.
Noted Charlie’s banjo case in the corner. Cleaned up and dust free.
She was writing music? Music that was marked all over, corrected, noted in the margins.
No … it was his song. It was an entire reworking of what he’d once written for Hunter to play.
“Last Goodbye.” She was a songstress in her own right, he thought, as he mulled over the melody in his head, picking it apart.
The changes were genius, and as he shifted through the papers, the picking solo …
incredible! He devoured the page. These Scruggs-style three-finger rolls notated on the staff that seemed relatively simple …
weren’t. The thumb in-and-out on the second page that bounced between the strings and seemed straightforward, wasn’t, considering the time signature.
Damnation.
She’d improved his song, ready to give Hunter a run for his money.
And whether he liked to think on it or not, he knew damn well from flashing his smile on stage that sex sold, and this blond goddess with the smokey voice and daisy tats could make a killing just strutting into the spotlight with those mile-long legs and fuck-me jades batted at every guy in her audience, before she played a single note and blew the crowd away.
Why the hell wasn’t she playing at bars?
Venues? Making a career and letting her charisma shine through?
She’d been embarrassed by the attention from the crowd.
Avoided Jack cajoling her onto stage last night, though the blond chick standing up there might have been an equal deterrent, and he wished he could take that moment back, because it had bothered her deeply when it hadn’t meant a damn thing to him.
She’d been shy that first night, too, as if afraid to be seen.
She’d muzzled herself. Not a wallflower, but a vibrant bloom wilting and decaying in the shade because he’d seen her natural stage presence and allure in those old clips from Miss Lone Star.
Screw Hunter for flaking on him. But bless him for Charlie then landing in his lap, if only he could convince her to take a chance, because this was the band’s first shot in so long to get a record contract again and he didn’t want to blow it.
He shoved to his boots as his phone buzzed again.
Spotted his keys, sunglasses, and hat and snatched them up one by one, eyeing a roll of money and sticky note, Thanks for the repairs.
Shoot, Flower Girl. Screw that. Yeah, he was gonna have to hustle now to recoup what he’d just spent on her repairs because it had all come out of his Homegrown entry fee, but like hell he’d take money out of little Daisy’s mouth.
Just the thought of knowing Charlie didn’t have anyone looking out for her, that she was looking up videos on how-to repairs, had compelled him to make her SUV road safe because he knew what it was like to not be safe.
He pulled out his phone to see who was texting him to death.
T.D. initials illuminated the screen, making it easier to read.
It was Tyler. Jeezus! He should have already seen to picking up the vitamins from the feed store.
Tyler was on edge about T.R.’s ownership slip.
Did he really want to give his cousin more reasons to cut ties?
Ignoring the roll of money and slipping his glasses back into his shirt pocket, he moved to the kitchen to say goodbye, as the sizzling smell intensified, when the floorboard creaked.
Charlie, aproned and chopping tomatoes and lettuce, whirled around, and the sight that greeted him was so stunning, he held his breath.
Her shiny hair was knotted up high in a ponytail. Her plump lips glistened with clear gloss, making them look watery and good enough to drink. Her tight pink tee hugged her breasts, her rib cage, and the old overalls hanging on her frame were so cute.
Her eyes darted to the music in his hand. “No … that’s just. It’s, uh, it’s…” She wiped her hands on her apron and moved to take them from him.
He held them out of her reach and their chests collided. She reached up when he saw a stack of tortillas, freshly pressed and pan fired.
Fresh tortillas?
She was making homemade tacos? His favorite. By coincidence? Naw. He was under her skin. Right where he wanted to be, and his grin hitched up.
“Seriously, it’s laughable compared to how you wrote it,” she said, still trying to reach the sheet music. “You can’t read it, Thaddeus. I wasn’t taking liberties with your art, I swear it.”
Why was she so nervous about him seeing this? Did she think he’d be offended?
“I was just, you know, messing around with some sounds and, you—”
“It’s brilliant, Charlie,” he said, hating how she thought so little of it. “We gotta make a single or something, put it out there, up on MP3 sites. It’s seriously something I’d feature in my set.”
“You would?” she asked, with such honest disbelief in her voice that anyone would think it worthy, it hurt.
She shook her head, darkness overtaking her face again, that same darkness that seemed to shroud her brow whenever her ex was the subject of conversation. Her ex…
Tonight, he really scared us.
What the hell had happened last night? T.R. had assumed the debacle with her daughter, the crowd, the girl he’d pulled on stage, and the radiator hose had been her bad night but her ex … her ex.
“I best git.” He brushed back her tendril contemplatively, then stepped back with that cocky grin again. “Didn’t mean to sleep over again.” He winked.
A laugh caught her off guard, and she stifled it. “Yeah, speaking of that. You never went to sleep last night, did you? You overhauled my entire SUV. I wish I could pay you more than three hundred. You got the money, right?”
Three hundred. Shoot … it would pay the entry fee. But three hundred would buy these girls groceries too.
*
Thaddeus scoffed. “Hell no.”
She glanced around him into the living room, his compliments about her music swirling in her mind. Featured in his set? A far cry from the days when a man had been angry she would outshine him…
The money she’d laid out was still sitting there!