CHAPTER THREE
“YOU KNOW, MOST people don’t scowl when they look at newborns,” Lawson heard Garrett say.
His cousin was coming up the hall of the hospital toward him, and Garrett stopped shoulder to shoulder with Lawson outside the nursery viewing room. Lawson figured he was indeed scowling, and he was doing that while looking at the baby in the incubator on the other side of the glass.
Eve’s baby.
The scowl wasn’t for the newborn though. Nope. It wasn’t the kid’s fault that he’d been born three-and-a-half weeks early and that his mom was someplace she shouldn’t have been—the Granger Ranch.
“Most people don’t have a concussion and stitches on their ass,” Lawson grumbled. Or a wrecked image.
There was nothing left of his tough cowboy reputation. Lawson was certain of it. He knew both of the medics who’d come to the ranch, and they were blabbermouths. Blabbermouths who would embellish what they’d seen on the floor of the guesthouse, and pretty soon the gossip all over town would be about his ass stitches.
“I heard about the stitches,” Garrett confirmed. “Did a rhinestone from Eve’s phone really get embedded into your butt cheek?”
And that comment confirmed Lawson’s theory about the blabbermouths. Lawson certainly hadn’t called his cousin and told him what had gone on with him in the ER after the ambulance had brought Eve and the baby to the hospital.
“It wasn’t a rhinestone,” Lawson corrected him, and he was pretty sure it would be a correction he’d have to make a lot. “It was a jagged piece of her rhinestone phone case that broke when Eve dropped it.”
But yeah, the doctor had had to pluck out a rhinestone, too, that had been like a sparkly BB in his butt cheek.
Damn Vita, and damn her stupid foretellings.
“Are you okay?” Garrett asked.
“I’ll live.” With somewhat reduced dignity, but somehow he’d muster through.
Garrett tipped his head to the baby. “How about him? Is he okay, too?”
“Yeah,” Lawson said. “According to one of the docs, he’s in the incubator because he was a little premature, but he’s fine. I didn’t screw up anything when I delivered him.”
Garrett made a sound of approval. “And how about Eve? How is she?”
“Don’t know. I’ve been busy for the past hour, remember.” Lawson hiked his thumb to his right butt cheek, then his forehead. He could have kept “hiking” what with all his cuts and bruises, but Garrett had no doubt gotten the point.
Garrett smiled, though other than the healthy baby, Lawson couldn’t see much to smile about. “Not busy enough to find out about the newborn. But I guess you feel...vested in him since you’re the one who brought him into the world.”
Lawson scowled again. “No vestment. I just looked in on him while I was waiting for you.”
That was the partial truth. Garrett had followed the ambulance from the ranch to the hospital, but once Lawson realized he was going to need stitches and an X-ray, he’d sent Garrett home to deal with that horse seller. Lawson hadn’t called Garrett for a ride home until about ten minutes ago when he’d found out that the baby was okay. So yeah, he had a slight vested interest. But that interest only applied to the kid.
“Why didn’t your mom tell me that Eve was coming back to Wrangler’s Creek?” Lawson asked.
It was a question born out of frustration, and it only caused Garrett to give him a how the hell should I know? grunt. And Garrett truly wouldn’t have known what was going on in Belle’s often loony head. Belle was one of those oddball mysteries of life.
As was Eve.
Not once had there been a hint that she might want to come back. For that matter, Lawson hadn’t read anything about her being pregnant. Not that he’d looked for that kind of gossip about her, but as often enough as she still appeared on tawdry tabloid covers, it made him wonder why there hadn’t been a story about it—tawdry or otherwise.
Garrett moved closer to the glass, his attention on the baby. The kid was cocooned in a blue blanket and was sacked out. Occasionally, he would open his eyes, but the light must have bothered him because he would make a face and go back to sleep.
“It doesn’t seem right for him to be in there all alone,” Lawson muttered, and he immediately wished that he’d kept the thought in his head because it caused Garrett to look at him. Not just any old look, either. It was the slightly amused one that made Lawson want to punch him.
“I’m sure the nurses are watching him on a monitor,” Garrett said, tipping his head to a camera just over the incubator. “Look, there’s a nurse in that room.” A room that was right next to the nursery. “And we’re here, too.”
True, but they’d be leaving any minute now. Not that Lawson wanted to stay. He didn’t.
“Plus, they’ll probably take him to Eve soon,” Garrett went on. “She might plan to nurse him.”
Maybe. But Lawson didn’t like thinking of Eve’s breasts. Way too many memories of those since they’d been the first breasts he’d ever touched. Of course, he had the freshest memories of her nether regions when he’d been delivering the kid.
“I’m sure Eve will be getting visitors, too,” Garrett added. “And they’ll see the baby.”
Obviously, Garrett was still pleading his case about the baby not really being alone. But that only reminded Lawson of something else. “When Eve was in labor, she mentioned her adopted daughter, Tessie. You think Belle might know of a way to get in touch with the girl?”
“Possibly. Or you could just ask Eve.” But Garrett waved that off. “I’ll ask her if Belle doesn’t know. Are you about ready to go home now?” Garrett tacked on a moment later. But he didn’t budge. He just kept staring at the baby.
At first Lawson thought that was because this was bringing back bad memories for him. Four years ago, Garrett and his now ex-wife had had a stillborn daughter. It had crushed him, but lately there’d been some much better memories of this place. A year ago, Garrett’s sister had delivered her twins here, and just six months ago, Garrett’s wife, Nicky, had given birth to a healthy baby boy. Sometimes, though, the good stuff couldn’t outweigh the bad.
Lawson knew that firsthand.
And he got a jolt of his own memories. Oh, hell. Not now.
His best friend, Brett, had died in this hospital. Since at the moment he couldn’t deal with that, Lawson shoved it back in the little box he’d built in his head.
“There are reporters outside,” Garrett told him. “The security guard’s insisting he won’t let them in, but I figure they’ll sneak in first chance they get. Plus, there are a couple of people out there carrying horns.”
Lawson didn’t think that was horns of the musical variety. He didn’t want to face either the reporters or the lunatics. He added yet another person to that mental list.
Darby. His ex-girlfriend.
But he was apparently going to have to face her because she was headed their way. It wasn’t a shocker to see her, not the way it’d been for him at the guesthouse with Eve. After all, Darby was a nurse and worked here at the hospital. In fact, Lawson was surprised he hadn’t seen her sooner, but he’d just figured she was avoiding him.
The way he’d been avoiding her.
No chance of avoiding her right now though, because she stopped directly in front of him. She was wearing purple scrubs today, her favorite color, and she had some magazines clutched to her chest.
“I came on shift about an hour ago, just as the ambulance arrived with Eve and you,” Darby said. “I heard you needed stitches.”
She said it with concern, too. Of course, Garrett had been concerned as well, but his cousin had found the butt injury funny.
Lawson settled for saying, “I’m fine.”
Darby scrounged up a smile, and her gaze lingered on him a moment. As if she was waiting for him to return the smile.
He didn’t. Lawson had learned that Darby could interpret something as small as a smile as a sign of their reunion. She was a smart woman, but she hadn’t figured out yet that it was never going to work between them.
And that she was too good for him.
Darby gave a soft, frustrated sigh and turned to the baby. “Eve’s son,” she muttered. “I think he looks exactly like her.”
But again, she seemed to be waiting for something. Maybe she wanted confirmation of the gossip she’d no doubt already heard? Lawson kept watch of her from the corner of his eye, and he saw the slight tightening of her mouth and her bunched-up forehead.
“He’s not my kid,” Lawson growled. “Before today, I hadn’t seen Eve since she left town our senior year of high school.”
The next sigh Darby made seemed to be one of relief, and it caused Lawson to silently curse.
Crap.
Had people really thought he’d knocked up Eve? Apparently so. And the fact that he hadn’t seemed to put a sparkle of hope in Darby’s eyes since he’d just confirmed to her that he hadn’t been with Eve. The sparkle dimmed considerably when she looked at him again.
“I was just in Eve’s room,” Darby said. “I wasn’t snooping or anything. This is my floor, and it’s my job to check on patients, but a couple of the staff also wanted me to get her to sign these.” She shifted the magazines so he could see them. Well, he could see the one on top, anyway.
Damn. It was those tabloids and not a recent one, either. According to the date, it had come out about six months after Eve had left. It was also about the time Demon High had become a hit.
And there were the hit-makers on the cover.
Eve, aka Ulyana. She was wearing her body-hugging, red leather fighting costume complete with a sickle knife. Kellan Carver, aka Stavros, was in his body-hugging, black leather demon garb, and yeah, he had the horns. He also had Eve. His black leather garb wasn’t the only thing doing some hugging because Stavros was standing behind Eve, his arms coiled possessively around her.
The headline said it all: Stavros Is Demon Hot.
Lawson had the same reaction now as he had seventeen-and-a-half years ago. He threw up a little in his mouth. The only reason he didn’t throw up a lot was because Eve had indeed signed the cover—and her signature was right over Kellan–Stavros’s smug face.
“I know,” Darby went on. “I really didn’t want to bother Eve with these, but she said she didn’t mind.” Darby made eye contact with Lawson again. “Anyway, she wants to see you.”
“Why?” Lawson practically snapped.
Heck, that snap seemed to bring back the sparkle to Darby, too. “She mentioned something about wanting to thank you. You wouldn’t even have to go to her room because she’s insisting she’ll come down here to the nursery and stay until her baby is out of the incubator. She’ll probably be here any minute.”
“No thanks needed. I’m surprised she’s not here already,” he added without even pausing.
“Oh, she was until about thirty minutes ago, but the doctor made her get back in bed so he could examine her.”
Lawson had just missed her since that was about the time he’d arrived at the nursery window. Of course, if he’d seen Eve, he would have slipped out and not interrupted her time with her baby.
“Are you ready to go?” Lawson asked Garrett.
“Uh, sure, but if you want to pop in for a second and see Eve—”
“I don’t.” He wanted to get out of there—now. It was like being a contestant on a bad game show. Behind door number one was Eve—old memories and fresh butt-stitch humiliation. Behind door number two was Darby and her needy eyes.
“Tell Eve I’ll be by to see her later,” Garrett added to Darby, and he hurried to catch up with Lawson. “I guess it really is over between you two.”
Lawson glanced at him, trying to decide if his cousin was talking about Eve or Darby now. It didn’t matter. The answer to both was yes.
“I think I’ll leave early for that cattle auction in Amarillo,” Lawson said, throwing it out there. “I could be on the road in just a couple of hours.”
“The auction’s next week.” There was a reason for the skepticism in Garrett’s voice. Lawson didn’t like buying trips or hotels, and leaving today would mean a week and a half in a hotel.
“It’ll give my stitches time to heal,” Lawson reasoned.
It was stupid reasoning. His stitches would heal at the ranch, too. Plus, he probably shouldn’t be gone that long since his house was close to being finished. The contractor might have things to show him, questions to ask. But that could wait. He had to get out of there.
“We should go out the back,” Garrett said when they reached the main waiting room. “Remember, there are reporters out front.”
Lawson hadn’t forgotten about them, but the numbing meds were wearing off, and he didn’t want to take the long way around to get to the parking lot.
“They know you delivered the baby,” Garrett added.
Lawson groaned. That said it all. They’d want pictures. They’d have questions about what Eve was doing in town. They might even know that Eve and he used to date way back when and try to connect unconnectable dots as Darby had done when she’d considered the baby might be his.
Garrett and he headed for the back exit. However, it wasn’t obstacle-free, either, because just as they reached the door, Belle came rushing in. She was wearing a black raincoat, dark sunglasses and a neon yellow straw hat that was the size of a truck tire.
“I didn’t want anyone to see me,” Belle said as if that explained her getup. “There are reporters out there, and someone left a bunch of these on the porch at the ranch.” She reached in both her pockets and pulled out the turd-shaped horns.
Garrett cursed. “We might need to hire some security.”
No. Lawson just needed to kick some asses. That had a twofold purpose. It’d get rid of the trespassers along with burning off some of this restless energy inside him. But he rethought that. Best not to pop any stitches, or he’d end up back here.
“I’ll have Sophie send down some of the security guards who work at the company,” Garrett added.
That was a good idea. Sophie ran the family business, Granger Western—or Cowboy Mart, as most folks called it since it sold discount Western supplies. It was a huge operation with no doubt plenty of security at the warehouses. It wouldn’t hurt to have a few of them on the ranch...unless Eve wouldn’t be returning there. Lawson was about to bring up that possibility/hope, but Garrett spoke before he could.
“Lawson wanted to know if you knew how to get in touch with Eve’s daughter, Tessie,” Garrett said to his mom. “Eve broke her phone when she went into labor, so she might not know the number right off the top of her head.”
“Oh, I already called her and told her about Eve having the baby. Eve had left her number with me. You know, in case there was some kind of emergency. But Tessie didn’t answer. I think she must have been in class or something, so I left her a message. I’m sure she’ll be calling back soon when she hears she’s got a baby brother.”
Good. Somehow, Tessie’s photo hadn’t landed in the tabloids, but Lawson remembered the news when Eve had adopted her. Eve had been in her early twenties, which meant Tessie was either a teenager or close to being one. It did make Lawson wonder, though, why Tessie hadn’t made the move with Eve, but maybe the girl was at boarding school.
“How long will Eve be staying?” Lawson asked.
“Until her house is ready. She’s having some remodeling done before she moves in. She runs a charity foundation, and she needed an office for that. Plus, she had to redo rooms for the nursery and the baby’s nanny.”
Lawson was certain he’d missed something—and no, it wasn’t the room-usage part. “What house? Is it here in Wrangler’s Creek?”
Belle didn’t seem to notice his surprise because she dropped some more of the horns, and they clattered onto the tile floor. “Your brother Lucian sold her one of the houses on your family’s land.”
Well, hell in a shit-lined handbasket. Yeah, he had definitely missed something, and apparently he had another ass to kick because Lucian should have told him something that monumental.
“Which house and why did Lucian sell it to Eve?” Lawson snapped. Because last he heard, there were at least four houses on the property, and none of them were occupied full-time. None of them had been for sale, either.
Belle looked up from her horn retrieval and shook her head. She tsk-tsked him. “I know you don’t get on with your brothers, but you really should make more of an effort.”
No, because he wanted to stay sane. That’s why he worked for Garrett. He didn’t intend to go back into the viper pit owned by his immediate gene pool, and Garrett and Roman felt the same way about Lawson’s kin.
It was enough of a compromise that Lawson was building his new place on land that would get him marginally closer to his brothers. Or more specifically, Lucian. But it’d been his land, and Lawson had decided he could live with marginally closer to have the home he’d always wanted.
“Eve bought your mom’s house,” Belle continued. “It was the place your great-grandpa built and where she moved after she divorced your dad. She hasn’t lived there in donkey’s years though, so I guess Lucian figured it’d make a good home for Eve.”
That particular house was only about a quarter of a mile from the one Lawson was building. Eve and he would practically be neighbors. If he couldn’t stop the sale, that is.
He would stop it.
No way did he want daily reminders of Eve, and he was certain she wouldn’t want that, either. Lucian must not have told her that she’d be so close to him and the main house on the Granger Ranch.
On second thought...
Lucian wouldn’t have brought that up. His family and Garrett’s had been feuding over some acreage for over sixty years now. Acres that lay directly between the Granger Ranch and Lawson’s family’s land. Lucian was always threatening a lawsuit, and if it happened, that would put Eve’s house right smack in the middle. Once Eve learned that, no way would she want the house.
And Lawson was going to be the one to clue her in.
He turned, ready to head to her room—and maybe have one last look at the baby—but the commotion stopped him. There were footsteps, loud voices and the flashes from cameras.
“The reporters got in,” Garrett mumbled.
Yes, and Lawson was about to send them right back out, but then he saw who was in the middle of that commotion.
Kellan Carver, aka Stavros.
No black leather today, but he was dressed like a rock star. Sorta looked like one, too, and he was talking and posing for pictures at the same time. There were two nurses trailing along behind him. A patient, too, on crutches and another in a wheelchair. They all looked giddy and starstruck.
“There you are,” Kellan said, aiming a smile that was more blinding than the camera flashes, and he was aiming it at Lawson.
Lawson hated him on sight.
Kellan went to him, automatically taking Lawson’s hand for the side-by-side posed handshake photos that quickly followed. The flashes were like being swarmed by giant lightning bugs.
“This is the hero of the hour,” Kellan announced, lifting Lawson’s arm the way a ref would lift a prizewinning fighter. “Lawson Granger. Thanks, man,” Kellan added to him in a whisper that was still plenty loud enough for everyone to hear.
Lawson pulled back his hand. “Thanks for what?” he asked once he got his teeth unclenched.
Kellan’s plastic smile never wavered. “For being there when Eve and me needed you.” He slapped Lawson on the back, his hand landing right on a giant bruise. “Man, you delivered my son.”