Chapter Eighteen
She fell against his chest as his embrace engulfed her, fingers splayed on her lower back to hold her close, fingers curled around her nape to secure her shaking, as if she was desperate for his offered touch, any offered touch.
“I got you, Flower girl,” he murmured gently as his pulse rushed in his ears.
Nestled his face to her hair, squeezing, and dammit, it still smelled like the lilacs creeping up the trellis.
Because now he was reliving that night two weeks ago, when he’d reached his hand down to a wallflower in the audience and hoisted her up into the spotlight.
Reliving driving those back roads with the windows down.
Remembering feeding her tacos and discovering her hidden passion in that tunnel and laughing into the early hours of morning with her leaned against his chest, arm slung so casually around her middle, his chin resting on her shoulder, his hand palming her hip as he looked at memories of dream cabins and sensed her loneliness.
Relived being a tangle of limbs and tongues as they fought their way out of their clothes and collapsed in her bed.
Remembered that adoring smile she’d worn when he’d drummed rhythms on his knees while she played her uncle’s banjo.
Remembered the joy he’d felt thinking a pissant like himself actually had a shot at aiming for the star-studded heavens.
Did she still taste like peppermint lip gloss?
He needed to back up. This was horrible timing for an erection—
“What’s this about jail?” he rumbled.
His phone was still buzzing in his pocket. If Ty was firing him, he wasn’t ready to read it.
She shook her head, her hair brushing back and forth across his jaw. “This weekend was Jason’s weekend with Daze. Half the time he’s too busy to give a care and flakes on her or brings her home early like that weekend. And child support? He just works under the table so I can’t go after any of it.”
Or defrauds people for it. His hold tightened.
“But Judge Mitchell told Jason he isn’t supposed to drink when she’s there because he’s…”
He felt her shudder. Ran his hands up and down her back to soothe the shivering. He was a mean drunk, was what she’d been about to say. How had Jason taken that meanness out on her? She better not say he’d hit her.
He saw that morning two weeks ago in a whole new light. The thought of that bastard putting his hands on his flower girl, in any way other than to worship her body, made fury burn like gunpowder through his blood to a keg.
Keys wedged between fingers.
Plumbing wrenches at the ready—no matter how much she’d looked like a mechanic’s fantasy wielding that tool.
Baseball bats behind the door.
“He ever put his hands on you?” he growled through tight lips, so low, so soft, feeling the wolf within him that proved he was every bit the monster Jason was lust for blood.
Remembering all too well scraping Charity off the floor after satisfying the beast within him, he felt Charlie shaking. He petted back her hair, fingers tremoring with unchecked fury, to soothe this frightened creature who was holding up her little world alone—
“Why do you think I packed Daisy up and left him?” she whispered, breaking his heart.
His brow contorted. His fingers clenched the hair he’d just been petting. Because unlike Charity, Charlie’d had no one to be there for her. No one to go to bat for her.
“The guys are staring at you, Charlize,” she imitated darkly. “Get off the stage, Charlize. Are you flirtin’ Charlize? Gonna let another guy knock you up, Charlize?”
God he wanted to satisfy his fists as she spoke.
“‘You played at a pageant with a bunch of beauty queens and think that’ll cut it in Nashville!’ he once announced to the audience, and a lot of people laughed. ‘You’re ruining the band, Charlize. Shut up and go home, Charlize, before I do it for you…’”
To be an insect constantly stomped beneath a powerful boot. T.R.’d never let anyone get the jump on him, but still, the echoes of the pressure, the strain, of putting one’s self back together each time the boot stomped harder, writhed within him to resonate.
Still curled in on herself, still curled into him.
Still so stiff and yet, pressed willingly into his hold.
Wanting to let down a guard that at the same time, she probably didn’t know how to let down, which was why she’d chased him off that morning.
Why she shied from the spotlight if Jason had humiliated her in front of it.
Right now, she needed a listener. Growing up with four sisters had taught him that sometimes a girl just wanted someone to listen. Her head shook against him.
“Let it out, Flower Girl,” he nudged, still caressing, still brimming with intensity to chase Jason down and treat him to a taste of dirt.
As long as you don’t have a record … naw, he couldn’t let that happen again. Charlie didn’t want a bulldog ready to throw down. She wanted a gentleman. Too bad she’d gotten him.
But he’d try. For her.
“He didn’t want to marry me,” leaked out of her mouth. “It was my fault.”
He dragged her head back from him, bracing her nape and glaring. “What did you say?”
Her eyes bounced back and forth between his.
“It ain’t your fault he hurt you. It’s his fault. He had a choice—”
“I was so stupid.” She furrowed her brow.
No, she wasn’t but telling her that right now wasn’t going to make any difference.
“Why?” He pressed her head back into his chest, pressed a kiss to her temple, breathed in her lilac.
Home. A family. Everything lilacs meant. This girl needed a home, and so did her baby girl. He’d never in his life considered settling down. But then again, he’d never met anyone who’d make it worth it.
“My momma was so depressed. My daddy traveled to find any work he could. Would be gone for weeks. Those pageants … dolling me up like a centerfold when I was only a kid … it started when I was a baby. I thought it was normal, until I started school and realized she was obsessed, would get so mad if I complained. So, I finally entered Miss Lone Star as a teenager. I was so certain, if I could win it, it would be my ticket out of here and the last pageant I’d ever have to do.
And I did win. And I was gonna go places, study music at University of Tennessee, go to Nashville, and then I met Jason, and he was so charming, so cute, and he had this amazing band and was everything I wanted to be… ” She trailed off.
T.R. grit his teeth. “What happened?”
“God, I thought a fling meant, you know, he liked me.” She wiped her face on the cuff of her oversized cardigan, hanging on her frame.
“Until he wouldn’t return my calls. Wasn’t home when I’d come by.
Had his friends answer the phone. And then I started feeling sick.
Throwing up. Couldn’t eat. Things I’d once loved smelled so bad.
And my momma made me take a pregnancy test and…
” She shook her head, disgusted with herself.
“‘Don’t shame your daddy’s good name, Charlize, don’t you dare’ my momma shouted at me. “‘You better marry that boy or you’re outta my house.’”
His whole body thrummed. He knew that feeling, to be pressured by parents that wanted their kid to do the impossible, fix something that couldn’t be fixed, or leave, get out, take your bullshit with you and don’t come back till you grow the hell up and start taking life serious…
“I begged Jason until he caved and took me to the courthouse, then took me home to his house and—” Her breath caught and her next words were a whisper.
“Went out with his friends to celebrate at a strip club since he said he never got a bachelor party. He never took me to meet family. His mom, some judge, had apparently died. His dad wasn’t involved in his life, even if he bought Jason our home.
I kept lying to myself. It’ll get better.
He’ll care when he hears the baby’s heartbeat. ”
T.R. pressed his lips into her hair.
“He’ll care when Daisy comes. He’ll care if I try harder, if I offer to help his band, if I stop asking him to pick her up from daycare on Tuesdays when I had that evening class. And then, that first time … th-that bottle smashed on the wall and his hand cracked my cheek—”
The air whooshed from T.R.’s lungs. His palm gripping on her lumbar turned ironclad, his other curled around her nape. He’d known what was coming but nothing could prepare him for the visceral storm brewing at the admission.
“I couldn’t take it anymore. The bruises I couldn’t hide with concealer, the weeks of abandonment in between while he sold the house to pay off some court order, some guy he’d screwed outta money, when a judge actually held him accountable for a change, my nightmares.
I just c-couldn’t take another minute—” She choked silently on her words.
The debt. Had Jason sold the very house his wife and daughter lived in to pay T.R.
back the money he’d stolen? When the bastard had finally been held to account in a criminal trial after the judge in T.R.
’s civil suit had let Jason off the hook because T.R.
had misread one single hearing location?
His palm rubbed her back, up and down, the sun sinking lower in the sky.
His phone buzzed again. He’d probably been fired and now Ty was trying to get a hold of him for next steps.
But had Charlie ever bled this poison from her heart?
How could she, when Jason poisoned her every thought, to the point that she was always wedging car keys in her knuckles?
“It was my fault,” she breathed.
“Don’t you dare say that again,” he rumbled.
“It was, because I should have stood up to my momma. I should have said no. I should never have tried to marry someone who didn’t want me.”
Oh, Jason wanted her, but to own, not to love.
“You were barely eighteen, baby. How were you supposed to know how to do that—”