Chapter Sixteen #3
“I mean, we got that gig this coming Friday and the awards show Saturday—if we can enter,” Thaddeus began, and Charlie’s heart sank.
Of course, the band always came first. Jason had always had gigs when he’d been chasing his dream, until a lawsuit had devastated him, bankrupting him and forcing him to sell their new home to make up the debts. Gigs were always an excuse to backtrack—
“You too, if you’re willin’,” he added, eying her. “Which means we’ll have to get it done this week. If your momma says it’s okay.”
He … wasn’t backtracking? He was really going to do this.
“She has summer school tomorrow and Tuesday. And don’t you have to ask your cousin first?” Tyler Dixon, the owner.
His face tightened a degree at the reminder, eyes turning stormy. “McClintock’s in the name, too, Flower Girl. Ty and I share the same grandfolks, and until he fires me, I do what I want.”
She rubbed her arms at the soft rebuke. She’d offended. And an offended man turned ugly.
She swallowed, but he softened again as quickly as he’d hardened, and he tweaked her cheek affectionately. This man who thought he was nothing but trouble seemed more like a font of selflessness. It wasn’t like he had a record like Jason, and whatever he’d been, he’d outgrown it.
Thaddeus shrugged, then nudged Daisy’s shoulder with a sly wink. “What’d you say we build a huge one, so we can have lots of chickens?”
He was getting her hopes up. God, she couldn’t bear to pick up the pieces if Thaddeus let Daisy down.
Daisy’s eyes rounded. “Lots of ’em?”
“We’ll put it way back in my yard. Set Artex to guardin’ ’em whenever you come over.”
Now Charlie’s eyes rounded. “You’d just up and build a little girl a chicken coop out of the goodness of your heart?”
“Naw, darlin’.” He grinned. “I ain’t doing it alone.
She’s gotta help me build it, right, lil missy?
” Daisy nodded excitedly. “That way, she can keep ’em and I’d get to see yo—” He cleared his throat and rubbed his nape, his bicep bulging through his shirt.
“And she can see ’em whenever she wants.
” He took her arm now, his other hand still steadying Daisy’s ladder, and his voice gentled softly with concern.
“It’s like you’re trying to find an excuse. ”
“It’s too much for someone like me,” she whispered before she could stop herself, and blinked away a confounding sting as she continued rubbing her arms. “Things that are too good to be true usually are.”
His thumb came to her chin, forcing her to look up at his stern expression, the playfulness in his eyes cooled. “It’s not too much,” he rumbled softly.
He brushed her lips as if seeking atonement.
“I ain’t in the business of lying, neither.
So my word’s my bond,” he added bluntly, dropping his hand.
“I’m buildin’ a coop. The question is, if…
” He rounded back to Daisy on the ladder and tweaked her nose playfully, that smile springing back to his lips like a soldier called to attention, inciting her giggle.
“I can count on my wing girl to be there to help. Are you dependable, Daze?”
“Oh, Momma, please, please, please?” Daisy begged, pouting her lip, eyes wide and guilt-inducing while clasping her hands in prayer and still mouthing please.
Thaddeus mimicked her, pouting out his lip and flashing his blues, and images flashed of Daisy nestled in his arm on the couch reading, as he pet back her hair, of him lifting her on his knee to put duct tape on a radiator hose, pulling her little girl into the fold so naturally.
“Trouble indeed…” She frowned.
That megawatt grin exploded on his mouth as she shook her head, her gaze bouncing to the fallow pasture now belonging to the university, where her daddy’s beef master cattle had once grazed, ghosts of a past that was gone to history along with the man she’d once hung the stars on.
A man who, in hindsight, had often left her alone, heart aching, for months on end when all she’d wanted was to be his wing girl, too.
This chicken coop arrangement meant Daisy was going to get attached, and Thaddeus seemed to be embracing the opportunity with open arms and charming smiles.
“I think we’re about to crack her,” he whispered and winked at Daisy, who giggled, when the roar of an engine coming down the road crunched onto her gravel drive from the front of the house.
Their heads whipped around. A door slammed. Footfalls thudded. A knot tightened in Charlie’s stomach.
“You all right?” Thaddeus murmured, rare intensity falling like a curtain over his face as he took her in.
Her nape prickled. “No…”
Bang! Bang! Bang! pounded the front door. Artex’s thundering bark tore the soundwaves as he bolted to the gate and ran along the privacy fencing.
“Charlize!” Jason’s voice snarled.
She was going to be sick. How was he here? She’d seen him taken to the ground last night. She’d heard the officers arresting him.
“Momma,” Daisy whimpered on a thread. “Why’s he here? I thought he went to jail.”
And the glint in Thaddeus’s eyes turned to daggers. He swung toward the house like a bulldog.