CHAPTER TEN
LAWSON DROPPED DOWN on his bed, wondering if there was anyone else in the entire state of Texas who’d had such a shitty day as his. Running off a dickhead Swaron who had decent escape skills, his own personal lusting after Eve and then turning away a half-naked woman—Darby—who’d been waiting for him after he’d finally made it back home.
He wasn’t sure which of those three things bothered him the most. He hadn’t wanted to hurt Darby, had wanted the Swaron caught and locked up, but the one that would likely give him the most trouble was Eve. And that was the thought running through his mind when he finally fell asleep.
Ironic that with all the lusting, it wasn’t Eve who first came to him in the dream. It was Brett.
Lawson knew he was dreaming, but he couldn’t make it stop. Couldn’t force himself to wake up. So, he had no choice but to relive the bits and pieces he remembered. Things that should have never happened in the first place.
But they had.
And the nightmares reminded him of that way too often.
Just as it had that night, the dream started with laughter and fun at Brett’s house. Brett’s folks were out of town visiting relatives, and Lawson and Brett hadn’t wasted any time putting together a party. Complete with plenty of beer that they’d sweet-talked the convenience-store clerk into selling them.
Lawson had been good at sweet talk in those days.
Eve was there at the party, of course, and he’d seen that look burning in her eyes. He hadn’t hesitated even for a second when she’d kissed him, and he’d felt that kick of pleasure that he always got whenever she was around him.
Brett had laughed when he’d spotted them in the corner and had yelled out get a room. Unlike Eve’s eyes, Brett’s were already glazed over from the “sweet-talked” beer he’d been drinking most of the night. Lawson and Eve had indeed gotten a room. They’d gone to Brett’s bedroom upstairs, where they’d had sex.
While their friend was dying.
Of course, Lawson didn’t remember any of the dying part. He’d crashed shortly after having sex with Eve and didn’t recall anything until he heard the frantic shouts for someone to call an ambulance.
Later, Lawson would learn that Brett’s blood alcohol level was .30 percent. That would have been way too high even if he hadn’t been underage. And it had apparently been high enough for Brett to slip into a coma.
Lawson hadn’t checked on his friend. Because he’d gone to sleep. But Eve had gone downstairs to get a glass of water, and she’d seen Brett passed out on the sofa. Even in the dream, Lawson knew that hindsight was 20/20, that there had been no logical reason for a seventeen-year-old girl to make sure her friend wasn’t so drunk that it was going to kill him.
However, hindsight didn’t give Lawson any peace.
The nightmares still came. The guilt stayed like a meaty fist clamped around his heart. And it wouldn’t go away, no matter how many years he grieved. Because that night, he’d lost a part of himself. And he’d ultimately lost Eve since that was the last time they were together.
Those were the thoughts that were right at the front of his mind when Lawson finally managed to force himself awake. Even after his eyes opened though, he could still see the images. Still hear the sounds the medics made that night as they tried, and failed, to save Brett’s life. But even that hadn’t been the end of it. Brett had lingered for several days before his family had been forced to accept he was brain-dead and pull the plug on his life support.
No way did he want to go back to sleep with those images still so fresh in his mind. The nightmare would just come again.
In that moment, he hated whiskey, hated himself for needing it. It was a familiar feeling, and Lawson knew the outcome.
He didn’t pour himself a shot.
Because he had a trick to counter the need. He imagined the drink in Brett’s hand. Imagined the kid who was more of a brother than a friend dying because Brett had not only poured the shot but had also drunk it. And the other shots he’d poured, too.
There was no trick, though, to deal with the pain and emotion. Well, no trick that Lawson had found yet, anyway. So, he did what he couldn’t seem to stop himself from doing.
He remembered every detail he could remember. Letting it repeat in his head. Letting the pain that he deserved eat away at him.
* * *
“THE MAILMAN JUST delivered two more gifts,” Cassidy called out.
Eve knew that hearing something like that didn’t usually cause people to groan, but most people didn’t have to deal with Kellan’s steady stream of creepy stuffed toys. The stream had tapered off, however, and since it’d been a month since the green snot blob had arrived, Eve had thought maybe Kellan had forgotten about Aiden. Apparently not though.
She hit the save button on her computer for the spreadsheet that she’d been working on, and while trying to brace herself for whatever levels of depravity she might face, Eve went into the foyer. No visible depravity though. There was a bouquet of flowers and a wrapped gift box on the table. It was much too small to contain the behemoth-sized gifts that Kellan had been sending, but Cassidy was still eyeing it with concern.
The person who wasn’t concerned was Aiden. Cassidy had him on her hip, and the moment he spotted Eve, he grinned and clapped his hands. But it was no longer just a gummy grin. The little speck of white was a tooth that had appeared a couple of days earlier.
All of the parenting books had said that three months old was early for teething, but Aiden had proved the books wrong. He’d also used that tiny tooth to bite the devil out of her when he nursed. And that was the reason Cassidy now had a bottle in her hand. Eve missed nursing him, but she didn’t miss the pain. Besides, she could still hold him close when she gave him the bottle.
Eve went to the flowers first. A dozen red roses. When she pulled out the card, the relief came. Not from Kellan trying to make some attempt to romance her. “It’s from Mrs. Hattersfield. She was my high school drama teacher.”
Cassidy looked over her shoulder and read the card. “‘Here’s hoping you’ll come by the new drama center soon at Wrangler’s Creek High. Welcome home, Eve.’ Ah, that’s nice.”
Yes, it was, but Eve imagined how this would play out. The high school students were about the same age as that ego-bruising Swaron and probably wouldn’t think much of an aging Ulyana.
Eve put aside the card from the flowers and tackled the box next.
“Kellan?” Cassidy asked when Eve opened it.
No, but when she took the contents out of the box, it still caused her to groan. Because it was another pair of binoculars almost identical to the ones Dylan had given her. The very ones that Eve had used when she’d seen a nearly naked Darby in Lawson’s house. After that, Eve had shut the binoculars in a storage closet and vowed never to use them again. No way did she want to see Darby making booty-call trips to see Lawson.
Eve took out the card to see who would be so misguided as to send her another pair. “‘Regina,’” she read aloud.
“Lawson’s mom?” Cassidy asked, leaning in to read the card, as well.
Eve nodded. “‘A little gift to spice up your life,’” Regina had written. “‘Take them to your kitchen window and have a peek.’”
That caused Eve to groan again because she knew what she’d see out that particular window. The Granger house. And she just might get a glimpse of Dylan. While she liked Dylan, she wouldn’t get much of a thrill spying on him.
“Matchmaking,” Cassidy concluded. She gave both the note and the binoculars some stink eye.
Eve had filled Cassidy in on what Lawson had said about his mother, and what had happened with the raincoat episode. Cassidy, being the good friend that she was, had assured her that maybe nothing had happened between Darby and Lawson, that maybe Lawson had sent a nearly naked attractive woman away once he made it back to his house.
Part of Eve had wanted to latch on to that because she was pathetic and delusional. She was still clinging just a little bit to those old fantasies of her being with Lawson. And she was still clinging a lot to the lust she still felt for him. What had helped cool her down some was the fact she hadn’t seen hide nor hair of Lawson in the month since that’d happened. Of course, he’d done a great job of avoiding her since she’d moved back to Wrangler’s Creek, so maybe this latest avoidance had nothing to do with Darby.
“Say, when are you going to finish going through the rest of the boxes in the family room?” Cassidy asked, and she headed back in that direction. “Especially the one marked Lawson, etc.”
Eve followed her though it wasn’t necessary for her to see which boxes Cassidy meant. She certainly hadn’t forgotten about them, and while the neat freak in her wanted them cleared up, she hadn’t quite brought herself to go through the last two. Because in addition to Lawson, etc., the other was labeled high school crap. Eve had packed them away years ago—eighteen, to be exact—and while she couldn’t remember everything that was in them, she was certain some of the things were going to trigger a trip down misery lane.
“I can open them for you if you like,” Cassidy volunteered. Then she mumbled some G-rated profanity under her breath. “Okay, I’ve already peeked. I know what’s in them.”
Eve huffed though she wasn’t really surprised or upset. Cassidy was nosy, but she might have been looking for anything that she felt would be too much for Eve to handle.
“Well?” Eve prompted. “What’s the verdict?”
“You’ll be okay with the high school junk.” Cassidy obviously knew exactly what Eve was talking about. “Yearbooks, drama-club stuff and a plaque for chess-club champion. I didn’t even know you knew how to play chess.”
“I have layers,” Eve grumbled. The studio had known about her being a chess champion, but it hadn’t gone with Ulyana’s kick-ass image, so they’d told her not to mention it. Ditto for her love of gardening. “What about the Lawson box?”
“Possible land mines throughout it. Pictures of you two. You obviously couldn’t keep your hands off him. And vice versa. There’s a junior rodeo buckle. More layers?” Cassidy asked.
“No, it was Lawson’s. He won it after he let a bull sling him around like a rag doll for eight seconds, and then he gave the buckle to me. Possibly while he was mildly concussed and had a dislocated shoulder.”
“Awww, romantic in a cowboy, heavy testosterone kind of way.” Cassidy paused. “There’s also a dress in a plastic bag. Crud,” she quietly added several moments later. “Judging from the look on your face, it’s a land mine, not a layer.”
Yes, to the land mine, but now that Eve knew it was there, she figured she had to face it. She set the binoculars aside, ripped the tape off the box, and the moment she opened it, she saw the dress on top. It was rose pink, strapless, and even though Eve couldn’t actually see it because of the way it was folded, it had a corset back. And she’d intended to use those ties to make sure it gloved her figure—which was more flat than curvy in those days.
Cassidy stared at it when Eve held it up in front of her. No way would it fit now. “Was it for the prom?”
Eve shook her head, but it was a good guess because Cassidy knew that she’d moved from Wrangler’s Creek before the senior prom, so she hadn’t gone to it. “It was for the Sadie Hawkins dance. And yes, we still had them back then.”
“You mean a dance where the girl asked the guy to go with her?”
“That’s the one. I asked Lawson, of course.” In fact, she’d asked him that December, two months prior to the dance. Not that either of them would have gone with anyone else—not at that point in their relationship, anyway.
“I spent every penny of my babysitting savings on this,” Eve added. She ran her thumb over the beading in the bodice. “And for weeks, I dreamed about Lawson dancing with me in that dress.”
“Dancing?” Cassidy questioned. “Lawson had a dancing layer?”
“No. He’d never danced with me before, but it was one of my fantasies. That night, that dress, Lawson, and me telling him that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with him.”
“How sweet. Or not,” Cassidy amended when she looked at her again. The “or not” was probably because Eve’s expression wasn’t that of a gushing sweet teenager who’d been in love.
“I’d never said anything like that,” Eve explained. “Lawson had a problem with the c-word. Not that c-word,” she quickly added. “Commitment. He made sure he worked it into conversations at least once a week that he was never getting married. Or having kids,” Eve added.
Cassidy stared at her. “Shit.”
She didn’t even scold her for cursing because Eve was silently saying the same thing. “Lawson didn’t have a happy childhood, and he thought he’d end up being as lousy of a parent as his own dad.” Eve looked at the dress again. “But that night I was going for it. Heck, I remember thinking that once he knew I wanted to be with him forever, he might tell me he loved me and ask me to marry him.”
Cassidy stared at her. “You were both seventeen and hadn’t even finished high school yet.”
Eve shrugged. “Obviously, I was thinking like a seventeen-year-old.”
But that had changed a few weeks later with Brett’s death, and then she’d left town. There’d been no Sadie Hawkins dance for her. No prom. No graduation. Instead, Eve had gotten her GED and never looked back.
Not until now, anyway.
Since looking back was putting her in a blue mood, Eve stuffed the dress back in the box and nearly told Cassidy to donate it to the town’s resale charity shop. But for now, out of sight, out of mind would work, and she would put the boxes in the attic.
“I’m sorry.” Cassidy gave her arm a pat. Aiden reached out as if he might try to pat her, too, but then he rubbed his eyes and whined a little. “It’s time for his nap,” Cassidy said, glancing at her watch.
Eve was about to volunteer to put him to bed so she could get in some snuggling time with her little guy, but her phone rang before she could reach out for him. When she saw the name on the screen, she knew she needed to answer right away.
“Tessie,” she answered, her breath already racing.
Cassidy smiled, made a toodle-do wave and headed upstairs with the baby, no doubt so that Eve would have some privacy. She might need it, too. The last time Tessie had called her, it hadn’t gone well.
“Thanks for the care package,” Tessie greeted her. Except it wasn’t much of a greeting. Her voice was stiff as if talking to a stranger. But maybe Tessie did feel as if she didn’t really know her own mother. After all, Eve had lied to her for years.
“You’re welcome. I thought you might want some of your favorite snacks for your room now that the new semester’s started.” In fact, Eve had another box ready to go. “How are your classes? Are they hard? And how are you?” Eve clamped her teeth over her bottom lip to stop herself from adding even more questions.
“Everything’s fine.”
It wasn’t, and it crushed Eve’s heart to feel this distance from her daughter. “I was hoping I could bring Aiden to see you.”
“No.” Eve would have felt a little better if Tessie had hesitated at least a second or two. “I’m not ready for that yet.” Now she hesitated. “But keep sending me pictures of him. He’s my brother no matter what happened between us.”
Yes, he was, and Eve supposed she was going to have to be satisfied with that. For now. But it couldn’t stay that way. “Tessie, we eventually need to talk. There are some things I have to tell you.”
“Right. Okay. Right,” she repeated. Now Tessie sounded flustered and annoyed. “Maybe during fall break.”
Since Eve had memorized the school calendar, she knew that was still over a month away, but she latched on to it as a glimmer of hope. And dread. Because she was going to have to tell Tessie about Lawson. That wouldn’t necessarily cause the rift to deepen between Tessie and her, but once Tessie knew, Eve would tell Lawson. A rift might be the least of his reactions.
“Your birthday is before fall break,” Eve reminded her. “There must be something on your wish list that I can send to you.”
“Not really. Just keep a running total of tuition and my expenses so I know how much to pay you back.”
That caused Eve to sigh. She didn’t want her daughter paying her back for college, but Tessie had insisted on it. Plus, it really wasn’t that much since Tessie had a great scholarship that covered a good chunk of it.
“I wanted you to know that I had my stuff shipped from the house in LA to a storage unit here in Austin,” Tessie added a moment later. “I won’t be going back there, so if you want to sell the place, that’s fine with me.”
Eve had been so busy with the baby that she hadn’t thought much about selling the LA house. But she certainly thought about it now. Even though it’d never felt like home, it was where she’d raised Tessie. It was also where Tessie and she had had their falling-out. She had no immediate plans to move back there, either, but she’d considered keeping it just in case.
“Does that mean you’ll be staying in Austin?” Eve asked.
“Probably. I can finish my undergrad here and then go to A&M for Veterinary Medicine.”
So, Tessie was sticking to her plan. Well, her revised plan, anyway. Before the rift between them, Tessie had been considering other schools, but her major had always stayed the same. She’d wanted to be a veterinarian since first grade, when Eve had taken her for riding lessons.
“Who was the cowboy cop who came to the sorority house last month?” Tessie asked.
Eve’s muscles went stiff because she doubted that Clay had gone there. “Do you mean Lawson Granger? If so, he’s not a cop. He’s a rancher. I went to high school with him.”
Because she was talking about him, Eve picked up the new binoculars and went to the window to have a look. Lawson was there all right. With Vita. They were in the yard and appeared to be trying to catch a chicken.
If she hadn’t been chatting with Tessie, that would have definitely held her attention and caused her to break her no-spying rule, but Eve also thought of something else. Something that sent her stomach to her kneecaps.
“Uh, I didn’t realize you’d seen Lawson that day,” Eve commented, and she tried not to sound panicked.
Silence. For a very long time. Oh, no. Had Tessie seen him and then noticed the resemblance between them?
“Why’d he come to Austin?” Tessie finally asked. What she hadn’t done was respond to Eve’s statement.
“He was traveling through on business, and his aunt asked him to check on you. She knew I was worried about you, and Lawson didn’t know I’d be there.” But Eve had certainly known about his visit, and that’s why she’d rushed there.
“So, you didn’t ask him to come?”
God, no. But Eve tamped down her emotions enough to give a hopefully calm answer. “I didn’t.”
“And he didn’t say anything about me?” Tessie quickly added.
Eve had to tamp down even more emotions. Mainly fear. This was what happened when you lived a lie. You were always afraid of being outed, which meant Lawson and Tessie needed to know the truth.
“Lawson was just worried about you,” Eve settled for saying. She took a deep breath, ready to insist that Tessie and she meet so they could talk. However, Tessie spoke before Eve had even finished her breath.
“Mom, I have to go. ’Bye.”
“Wait!” But she was talking to the air because Tessie had already ended the call.
Eve sighed. She really did need to practice exactly how she was going to tell Tessie the news. Also, since it was highly likely that Tessie wouldn’t see her anytime soon, Eve also needed to practice saying it very quickly to get it all out before another hang-up.
Frustrated, she scrubbed her hand over her face and peeked out through the binoculars again. The chicken-chase was still going on and had escalated. Lawson had taken off his shirt and appeared to be using it to try to grab the running chicken.
The chicken was winning.
It was like an old Keystone Cops scene playing out in front of her. Except that the cop had never looked that good. It was a reminder of why they’d become lovers in the first place. Lawson was still Hot Cowboy.
She watched as he lunged forward, causing all those muscles to respond to the movement. Eve responded, too, and she suddenly wished she were the chicken when Lawson scooped it up in his shirt and held it against his chest. Once, he’d held her that way. Well, not with her head wrapped in his shirt, but Eve remembered in complete detail what it was like to be in his arms.
Vita went to Lawson, extracted the chicken from the shirt and took it from him. That brought an end to the chase. And the peep show, because he put his shirt back on. With the chicken now tucked under her arm, Vita headed to her bicycle, which was leaning against Lawson’s truck.
He said something to the old woman, probably an offer to give her a ride, but Vita waved him off and peddled away, somehow managing to keep hold of both the chicken and the handlebars. Lawson watched her for a few seconds before he went to his porch. He stopped though, and with his back to Eve, he stayed there a few seconds before he glanced over his shoulder.
At her.
Or rather in her direction.
That sent Eve scurrying back in case he could see her. She doubted that he actually could, but her heart was sprinting as if she’d just gotten caught doing something she shouldn’t have been doing. Which she was.
Lawson didn’t make the glance a lingering one. Instead, he went inside. There was nothing particularly life-changing about the moment, but it hit Eve like a slam from a rodeo bull. She needed to amend her plan about telling Tessie and give the news to Lawson first. That way, maybe they could tell Tessie together. And there was no time better than the present to fill in Lawson, so before she could talk herself out of it, she pulled her phone from her pocket and called him.
She hadn’t thought it possible, but her heart rate went up a notch with the first ring. It went up even more with the second. By the fourth ring, Eve thought she might be about to go into cardiac arrest.
And then the call went to voice mail.
His recorded greeting was short and sweet. “This is Lawson Granger. Leave me a message.”
Eve didn’t do that. She would just call him back later. After the chicken-chase, he’d probably headed straight to the shower.
Or not.
She peered through the binoculars again and saw him at the back of his house. He was drinking a beer and looking out at the creek. Maybe he’d forgotten to take his phone outside with him.
At the exact moment she had that thought, he took his phone from his jeans pocket and glanced at it. Then he glanced in her direction again. A missed call with her name on it was likely on his screen. Eve kept watching, waiting to see what he was going to do, and she tried to steel herself for him to call her back. The steeling took a nosedive though when her phone rang, the sound causing her to shriek like a schoolgirl.
But it wasn’t Lawson. It was his cousin Sophie.
Since Sophie hadn’t called her in weeks, Eve answered as fast as she could get her fingers working. She hoped nothing had gone wrong.
“How many baby throw-up stains do you have on the shirt you’re wearing right now?” Sophie immediately asked.
It certainly wasn’t a question Eve got every day, but she knew where this was going since Sophie was the mom of toddler twins. “Only one. But you caught me on a good day.” Eve smiled. “How about you?”
“I’ve graduated from throw-up to food stains. My son can squish a pea between his index finger and thumb and then flick it in the same motion. My daughter pretends her mouth is the blowhole of a whale and spews out apple juice.”
Eve laughed. Sophie wasn’t making motherhood sound fun or sanitary, but she’d seen Sophie with the twins and knew that motherhood suited her.
“And that brings me to why I’m calling,” Sophie went on. “Want a girls’ night out, one where we can wear unstained clothes, speak in complete sentences and not have to change a diaper?”
“Does such a night exist?” Eve joked. “After three months, I can’t remember.”
“Oh, yes. It exists all right. How about a week from this Saturday at the Longhorn Bar? That’ll give you some time to get a sitter because I also want you to bring your friend Cassidy. I’ll bring Mila and Nicky.”
Mila was Roman’s wife and Nicky was married to Sophie’s other brother, Garrett. Eve knew them both and had even seen them around town, but she hadn’t had time to catch up with what was going on in their lives.
“A sitter?” Eve repeated.
Now Sophie chuckled. “Yeah, I know. You probably haven’t left him with a sitter other than Cassidy, but there are several good ones in town. I’ll text you a list, and if none of them are available, you can try Karlee’s cousin.”
Eve knew Karlee O’Malley, as well. She was Lucian’s assistant, but Eve didn’t remember the woman having a cousin, only Karlee’s brothers. There were three, maybe four of them.
“So, we’re on?” Sophie pressed.
“Sure.” But Eve thought there was a good chance she’d cancel. Aiden was almost certainly ready to stay with a sitter, but she wasn’t sure she was.
“How’s Lawson, by the way?” Sophie asked.
Eve didn’t think that was a casual question, and she certainly didn’t want to confess that it’d only been minutes since her last Lawson sighting. She glanced through the binoculars again to update the timing of that sighting, but Lawson was no longer in the yard.
“Uh, why do you ask?” Eve countered.
“Just wondering since you’re practically neighbors now. And I haven’t seen him in a while. He seems to be taking a lot of business trips lately. I think he’s trying to avoid Darby.”
“More likely he’s trying to avoid me.” Eve muttered that a little louder than planned. She hadn’t intended for Sophie to hear.
“No, definitely Darby,” Sophie argued. “A couple of weeks ago, I walked into his office at the ranch, and Lawson was holding a copy of one of those old tabloids with you on the cover. He was staring at it but put it away when I saw him.”
Lawson was more likely glaring at it rather than staring.
“And he was touching it,” Sophie added.
Eve did a mental double take. “He was doing what?”
“Touching it,” Sophie repeated. “It was hard to tell from the angle where I was standing, but it looked as if he was running his fingers over the picture of your face.”
Eve didn’t intend to read anything into that. He could have been brushing off crumbs he’d dropped there from his lunch. “Why’d he have a copy of a magazine like that, anyway?”
“Tate’s girlfriend, Arwen. Have you met Tate yet?”
“Yes. He’s Roman’s son. I saw them together in town the other day.”
“Well, Arwen is a fan of Demon High and has watched all the episodes. She got some magazines from eBay and left them there with him so he could ask you about signing them. Lawson didn’t mention anything about doing that?”
“It probably slipped his mind.” And she hoped he hadn’t tossed the girl’s magazines just so he wouldn’t have to see her to get the autographs. Just in case he’d done that, Eve would make sure to send her some signed copies.
Sophie huffed. “Not to worry. I’ll get them from Lawson and bring them to the Longhorn for our girls’ night out. See you then.”
Sophie obviously didn’t catch the “maybe” that Eve tossed out there before Sophie ended the call. It was a slim maybe, too, but she would at least look into getting a sitter in case there was some kind of emergency in the future.
She put her phone back in her pocket and had one final peek through the binoculars. Still no sign of Lawson, so Eve shifted them to the other side of his house where there was a grove of pecan trees.
And that’s when she saw the monster.
A hairy blob with giant eyeballs.
She let out a garbled scream and scurried back, bashing into the sofa. The collision off-balanced her, and she fell onto the cushions. She got up as fast as she could, taking out her phone again to call 911. But when she looked out the window, there was no monster.
Just Lawson.
His face was only a few inches from the glass. Without the magnification of the binocular lens, he no longer looked monstrous. Though he did look confused.
“Is everything okay?” Cassidy called out.
“Fine,” Eve managed to say, but there was no way she sounded fine. Her heart was somewhere in the vicinity of her toenails, and she was certain she was beet red from blushing.
Because Lawson had caught her spying.
Dreading what he might say about that, she went to the door and opened it. She didn’t have to wait long to see him since he was already on the porch.
“I didn’t want to knock or ring the bell in case the baby was sleeping, so when I spotted you in the window, I thought I’d get your attention,” he said. “Uh, are you all right?”
Eve repeated that lie of a response. “Fine.” And he had gotten her attention.
She definitely wasn’t fine though, but Lawson sure seemed to be. His face was a little misted with sweat. Not the kind that made you beet red from embarrassment, either. This was the sort of stuff added to underwear models’ chiseled faces for a photo shoot.
And speaking of underwear, she could see the top of his boxer shorts. That’s because he’d missed some of the bottom buttons on his shirt, and he hadn’t tucked it in. Since his jeans were low on his hips, she could see his stomach and belly button. Usually she didn’t consider navels to have any sexual appeal, but they apparently did on Lawson. Ditto for those boxers.
There’d been times when she had run her hand right down into his jeans to touch him. Times when her mouth had been in that general vicinity, too. She’d never managed to give him a successful blow job, mainly because she hadn’t known how, but she’d gotten pretty darn close back when they’d been seventeen.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” she heard him repeat.
That’s when Eve realized she was staring at the front of his jeans. And it was when she realized, too, that Lawson had noticed where she was staring. Great. Now she’d embarrassed herself twice in under a minute.
“Uh, did you want something?” Eve asked.
Lawson tipped his head to his pocket where she could see his phone. “I’d put my phone on silent when I was...well, trying to catch a chicken. Don’t ask,” he quickly added. “But when I finally looked at the screen, I saw that you’d called me.”
Yes, that. At the time, it’d seemed like the right thing to do, but that was before she’d gotten all hot from her hand-in-his-pants memories. Eve wasn’t sure what she was going to say to him, and she soon realized not speaking wasn’t a big deal.
“Damn you,” he snarled.
Even though that didn’t sound like it was the start of something good, it was. Lawson slung his hand around the back of her neck, yanked her to him. And he did the last thing on earth that Eve expected.
He kissed her.
* * *
LAWSON DIDN’T HAVE to think about this. Plain and simple, it was a mistake. One that he seemed hell-bent on making, so he just decided to go with it so it’d be a mistake worth making.
Eve obviously hadn’t been toying with dirty thoughts as he had thought because she made a sound of surprise when he kissed her. That sound sort of got trapped there in between their lips, and it mingled well with the next sound she made.
A little purr of pleasure.
He knew that purr. Knew the feel of her body against his when she slipped right into his arms. It was like coming home, a birthday, losing his virginity and Christmas all rolled into one. Except this particular celebration was going to give him a raging hard-on. And regrets.
Best not to forget that part.
There’d definitely be regrets, and it wouldn’t be long before they arrived. Did that stop him? No. The hard-on in the making was in control here, and it convinced the rest of his body that if he didn’t kiss Eve, he was going to explode. And that was the justification Lawson used to keep on kissing her.
Thankfully, Eve kissed him right back, too. In fact, she was the one who deepened the kiss, and the purr turned to a hot, hungry, needy sound. As a general rule, it was what he preferred to hear after he’d gotten naked with a woman and not while he was making out with her on her porch. Still, it upped the speed of his full-blown hard-on.
Lawson couldn’t make himself stop kissing Eve, but he could do something about the porch issue. Without breaking the lip-lock or the grip he had with his arm around her waist, he maneuvered her into the foyer, and he kicked the door shut. Of course, being inside wasn’t necessarily obstacle-free, and he opened his eyes long enough to make sure Cassidy, the baby and no one else wasn’t around.
They weren’t.
Eve and he had the foyer to themselves.
Now that they had some possible privacy, Lawson went for a whole new level of stupid. He pushed her back against the wall and made the contact body-to-body with his chest against her breasts. Even after all these years, they still fit in all the right places. At least they did with their clothes on. Lawson figured it’d be the same if they were in their birthday suits.
Of course, that couldn’t happen.
It was one thing to kiss each other silly, but sex would complicate the hell out of things. His erection begged him to take on that complication, but there was still a glimmer of sanity left in his brain. And that’s why Lawson finally pulled back from her.
With her breath gusting, Eve stared at him and blinked. “Oh,” she said.
He had no clue what that meant or how to respond, so Lawson just stayed quiet while he tried to level his own breathing. It would have been better if he could put some distance between them, but he couldn’t walk just yet.
Eve didn’t move, either, but her attention did drift lower. At first, he thought she was going to look at the front of his jeans again—the very thing that had started the kissing. But she looked at the front of her own shirt.
It was wet.
Not an ordinary kind of wet. There were two circles of moisture right over her breasts.
“My milk,” she mumbled. She scooted away from him and folded her arms over her chest. “I’ve weaned Aiden to the bottle, but my milk still sometimes lets down. It’s a reflex action.”
Lawson wasn’t sure how that worked, but Eve suddenly seemed very uncomfortable. Maybe even in pain because her face was screwed up a little.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
That encompassed not just the possible pain but the kiss itself. Yeah, the regrets had set in. And when he heard the knock on the door, Lawson figured the regrets were going to skyrocket. Because now someone was going to see Eve and him like this. Of course, whoever it was might not know how to interpret the wet spots on her shirt or their heavy breathing, but unless they were blind, the erection straining against his jeans would be a no-brainer.
“Yoo-hoo?” someone called out.
From that single-word greeting, Lawson knew who was on the other side of the door. Hell. What was she doing here?
“Uh, is that your mother?” Eve asked, and she sounded just as shocked, and alarmed, by that as he was.
Because, yes, it was indeed his mom.
“Yoo-hoo?” Regina repeated, and this time the knock on the door was much louder.
Footsteps followed, and several moments later, his mom was at the window, peering into the family room. It didn’t stretch her gaze much to continue that peering into the foyer. She smiled and waved at Eve. She quit smiling and waving though when her attention landed on Lawson.
Judging from the sound Eve made this time, she was trying to choke back a groan at the sight of her visitor. Lawson didn’t bother choking back his, but he did move behind Eve when she opened the door. His erection was going fast, but he didn’t want his mom to see the remnants of it.
The moment Eve had the door open, Regina pulled her into a hug. “It’s so good to see you. I’m back for a visit and just had to stop by.”
It had been nearly six months since he’d last seen his mother, and there’d been some changes. For her last visit, she’d been a brunette, but today her hair was flame red thanks to the wig she was wearing. So were her skinny jeans, top, heels and earrings. And her nail polish and lipstick. Apparently, Regina didn’t believe in mixing it up when it came to color schemes.
As his mom had done at the window, she was all smiles for Eve until she looked at him. “Why are you here?”
Lawson didn’t have a good answer for that, but no way was he going to admit he’d been there to kiss Eve’s lights out. Mission accomplished, which meant he should get the heck out and go back home. He slid his hat over the front of his jeans so he could walk past Regina, but that only seemed to make her notice what he was trying to hide.
Regina hugged him but then put her mouth right against his ear. “What’s going on?” she asked.
“Nothing,” Lawson whispered, and it wasn’t a lie because nothing indeed was going on. Now.
She pulled back, and one of Regina’s needle-thin eyebrows lifted. “You really think it’s wise to get involved with Eve again?” she whispered to him. Of course, Eve heard it because she was standing right there.
No, it wasn’t wise, far from it, but that’s what happened when you thought with your dick.
Thankfully, his mom didn’t press him for an answer on that because she began to look around at the foyer and the family room. There were two boxes on the floor, and Lawson saw his name on one of them.
What the heck was that about?
Lawson wanted to know but not at the expense of staying there and having his mom also catch sight of the bulge around his zipper.
“Oh, you’ve redecorated,” Regina told Eve. “And you’ve gone with neutrals.”
Lawson moved past her toward the door but immediately encountered another obstacle, and this one was smiling at him.
Dylan.
“Why are you here?” Lawson snapped.
Dylan chuckled in a way that made Lawson want to bust in his face. That said, pretty much anything Dylan did at this point would make him feel that way. That’s because his brother was smirking. It probably wasn’t obvious to Eve and his mother that his brother was doing it, but Lawson knew him and that smirk. Dylan was enjoying watching him squirm.
“Oh, I asked Dylan to come here with me,” Regina said, as if that explained everything. It didn’t explain diddly-squat because Lawson still wasn’t sure why his mother was there.
“Eve,” Dylan greeted her as he walked past Lawson.
This would have been a good time for Lawson to leave, but his feet stayed planted to the floor and his Stetson stayed in front of his hard-on. Yeah, it was still there and would likely stay until he was no longer looking at, or thinking about, Eve.
Dylan went to Eve, and as if it was the most natural thing in the world, his brother kissed her. It was on the cheek, but it was still a kiss.
“Dylan’s here to ask you something,” Regina said, prompting him with an elbow nudge.
Judging from the way Dylan and his mom were acting, Lawson was about 1000 percent sure he wasn’t going to like anything that came out of his brother’s mouth.
And he was right.
“Eve,” Dylan drawled, “I’m here to ask you out on a date.”