Chapter Thirty-Two #2
Thad took Daisy’s hand, a strange tick to his jaw, and led her across the porch, the boards creaking, the potted plants bowing down the old planks. She held up her phone. Snapped pictures of them standing hand in hand, of Daisy leaning into his side and his arm around her shoulder.
“Go grab that new book I got you, Daze,” he said, “before we go.”
“What?” Daisy’s face fell. “The one you said your grandma made for you about that song?”
“Yup. And the loveliest of them all, was the unicorn…” That baritone resonated from his chest softly.
What book had his grandma made?
“You’re gonna make me read on the way to the dance?”
He grinned at her. “Mm-hm.”
“Really?” Daisy gasped, disbelief in her voice.
“Yup. Just go grab it for me.”
Daisy stared up at him in disbelief.
He tilted his head toward the front door, unwavering. “Trust me, girlie. I got a surprise for you.”
“You’re as bad as my momma,” the girl muttered as warily, she went back into the house.
Charlie laughed. “Her book? On her date night? Even I’m not that mean.”
Thad chuckled and wrapped his arms around her waist, holding her hips pinned to his, and planted his lips down to hers.
“I think she’ll have fun with what I got.
My grams made the book when I was little.
My favorite song as a kid. She knew I couldn’t read well, so she made a picture book with big, fat words, and I got a recording of her singing it to play while we drive. ”
His beloved grandma, who’d taken a boy struggling to read under her wing to help him. And he was sharing these traditions with Daisy and offering her a place in that legacy.
He kissed her.
“You gonna be okay here alone?” he whispered, that darkness creeping into this newfound light.
“I’ll be fine. I’ve got lots of work to do and still need to do my evening data check on the plants out back.”
He pressed his lips to hers again and he smelled so good. “Let me stay here tonight, with you, like a da—”
Daisy pushed through the door again and giggled up at the sight of them lip locked.
He scooped Daisy up and carried her in a fluff of tulle to his truck, not waiting for her answer, but she knew what he’d been saying. He wanted to stay the night with them. Like he belonged with them.
“I’ll have her home by nine thirty, Momma, so she doesn’t turn into a pumpkin,” he called over his shoulder as Daisy giggled.
“That doesn’t happen until midnight, T. Rex.” Daisy giggled.
“That a fact. Pretty sure Cinderella’s got a nine o’clock bedtime,” he teased. “Lock the doors, Flower Girl.”
She watched them drive away, waving out the window to her, and blew a kiss. Watched the taillights receded.
She stood in the evening sun long after they were gone. So strange to let her daughter leave with a man she trusted. She rubbed her arms. Immediately felt the urge to text him for a check-in, but tamped it down.
Two hours alone and not fearful about Daisy’s safety? What was she going to do?
Work.
She went inside and locked the door. Went out the back door, letting Artex into the yard. Splashed the hose in his water dish to fill it. Checked the tall security fence the university had installed upon approval of her project. Then she walked to the greenhouse.
The hum of the fan droned loud on her ears as she unlocked the door to the decontamination atrium and slipped into her jumpsuit, stretched on her surgical bonnet and kicked off her Birks to slip her socks into her boots—
Something poked!
She yanked her foot out!
Something had jammed against her toe! She nudged aside the boot. The atrium was cleaned each day, but this was Texas, and there was always a chance a snake or spider had snuck past her defenses. She quelled the shiver racking her frame.
Nudging her boot again with her toe, nothing crawled out.
Wedging open the front door, she contorted herself like twister and nudged the boot across the rubberized floor and out the door. Picking it up by the sole, she shook it upside down when … a wad of hundred-dollar bills landed in the grass, fluttering among the blades in the breeze.
Her payment for the SUV.
She shook her head, laughing. Picked up the money and finished dressing, unzipping her jumpsuit to wedge it in her pocket so the filtration fan didn’t blow them away.
She picked up her iPad and began to make the rounds among her plants, setting the irrigation timer, inspecting each leaf to ensure they were pest-free, resisting texting Thad and intruding on Daisy’s big night, when Artex’s vociferous barking outside cut through the droning of the fan.
Her pulse spiked.
Jason. Always the first thought. She took a deep breath to relax except…
Pounding on doors thumped in tandem with the rhythmic pulse of the fan. Was it just in her head? She inched toward the decontamination atrium. The sound of the fan blasted in here. Hanging up her iPad, she unzipped her jumpsuit, slipped free her phone, and eased open the door a crack to see…
Artex barking at a squirrel scampering up the live oak draping over the yard.
She exhaled, the vise in her chest easing. So paranoid. “Stop letting him win,” she whispered.
She let the door shut and peeled off her gloves, wiping her forehead that had beaded with sweat.
She had to stop letting him hold her hostage. She threw the gloves in the waste bin and plucked two fresh ones from the box on the wall, returning inside the greenhouse to mop up the irrigation puddles, then marked the time in her iPad and turned on the grow light timer for the next morning.
It was already almost eight thirty and the dance would be ending soon. Her stomach growled. Artex began barking again. Charlie’s pulse jumped.
She willed it to settle and closed her eyes on an inhale as the fan droned out the barking. Was he chasing another squirrel? Probably. She finished squeegeeing the floors and returned to the atrium.
Tossing her jumpsuit in the basket and spritzing down her boots, she grabbed the iPad to update in the comfort of the kitchen instead of in her space-age lingerie, and hoisted up the laundry basket, pushed out into the evening, already shadowed beyond the hills to the west even though the sun wouldn’t set for another hour or so, and locked the tunnel door. Artex was at the fence.
Barking, barking.
“Enough, buddy!” she called.
He glanced at her but kept barking, chasing back and forth along the base of the fence as if what he wanted was just on the other side.
“It’s just a squirrel.”
She crossed the yard, up the back steps, pushing into the house, calling Artex in, though he chased through the house to the living room window and kept barking.
“What on earth, dog?” she grumbled beneath her breath, dumping the jumpsuit in the washer beneath the stairs and flipping on the lights in the kitchen, when a vehicle in the driveway caught her eye, shadowed in dusk.
Were Thad and Daisy home already? She flipped on the porch light and unlocked the front door to peer out into the shadows of the canopy of live oaks, opening the screen—
It yanked back. A hand gripped her neck and dragged her out.
“What the fuck is this about, Charlie!” Jason roared and thrust a roll of paper in her face, stinking of whiskey.
It bounced off her cheek and fell to the porch.
She threw her hands over her face, but he yanked them down as Artex snarled and barked inside.
“You though—thought this rettraining order would work?” he slurred. “Like I’m some criminal? Y-you think some fancy new lawyer is gonna keep you from me? You think you had it bad before? ’Cause I’ll show you bad! I’ll show you—”
She yanked back the screen and slipped inside, slamming the wooden door and bolting the lock, fingers shaking, when he banged his fist through the screen and rattled the windows over the top.
Oh God. She fumbled with her cell, alarm clawing up her throat.
Memories flashing through her mind. Fists striking.
Banging against a wall from a shove. Soundbites kept buried boiled over now.
He hadn’t put his hands on her since that day when she’d finally crumpled, snapping beneath the weight as she hit rock bottom, her nose crusted with blood and a bruise swelling on her cheek as she packed up her baby to drive to this very porch at three in the morning.
“You’re mine, Charlie! Not McClintock’s!” he thundered, his pounding jolting her back against the door. “Open up and stop fightin’ it!”
If she called Thad, he’d panic. He’d fly back here with Daisy, and she didn’t want Daisy here.
Didn’t want to ruin her big night. Why did Jason always find a way to ruin everything?
She slid down to the floor, her knees tucked up, grabbed the Louisville Slugger, hands shaking so badly she could barely wake up her phone, as the wood at her back thumped with each pound of his fist, with each yell—
Glass shattered.
She screamed, covering her head. Shards rained down from the windows over the door.
“Stop it!” she screamed as she finally managed to hit the emergency icon.