Finding Eva (Highland Creek Series)

by Marie Garner

  “Really?” Gwen had a couple of tattoos and had tried to talk Eva into getting one but had never been successful. “What are you thinking of getting?”

  “I am trying to get something that honors both me and my mom, and I wanted to get the quote ‘Not all who wander are lost.’ I just figure that sums us both up in a nutshell.”

  “I love it, and I think it is perfect for both of you.”

  “Good. I have been thinking about it for a while, but I don’t think I had the courage to do so until now. All I need now is someone to go with me.”

  “If that’s an invitation, then you know I am always down. Hell, maybe I will get a new one myself.”

  “Yay. And having you come down for my birthday will be great, especially since my parents aren’t going to be able to make it.”

  “How is that going?”

  “Better than it was. When I went home, we really talked it out, and I have gotten back into the relationship with both of them like I used to.”

  “So does that mean you are talking to your mom every day?”

  Eva knew that Gwen may make fun of her for talking to her mother every day, but a lot of that was just pure jealousy. Gwen didn’t have the best relationship with her mother so she never understood why Eva talked to her almost every day.

  “Something like that.”

  “Well keep me posted. I will see you next week, but I’ll talk to you before that I am sure.”

  “Yeah, and I hope everything works out for you and Nick.”

  “Thanks, girl, I will keep you posted.”

  Eva hung up, feeling both comforted and worried. She was excited to see Gwen in a couple of weeks and couldn’t wait for her birthday. She was still worried about the stuff going on with Nick, if for no other reason other than Gwen’s therapist seemed to be crazy. Eva knew it wasn’t her life, but she didn’t want Gwen to be stuck with an asshole because she was fed some crazy thoughts about her relationship. She didn’t know what to say, because Gwen was clearly stuck on trying to make this relationship work. What would she say? “Hey, Gwen, your husband sucks and I think you should leave him?” Eva figured Gwen and Nick were going to do what they do, regardless of what she thought, but she would just have to wait and see if any other craziness went down.

  Aaron sat with Bryan and Conner, excited to get some time together with his brothers. He had been spending a lot of the last couple of weeks with Eva, and although he loved the routine they had going on, it was nice to see his brothers. Sitting at the café, he couldn’t help but be thankful for all the stuff that had happened to him in the last month or so. As upset as he was that Elizabeth had died, he was thankful that he had met Eva, and he could really see himself with her for the rest of his life. He thought the prospect should scare him more, but it made him strangely excited.

  “So what’s been up with you?” he asked Bryan, wanting to know what had happened since he last saw his brother.

  “Nothing much, working and raising my baby girl. She is getting so big, and she was asking about her Uncle Aaron the other day. She said that you haven’t come to see her, and she wants you to bring your girlfriend.”

  Aaron’s mouth fell open. “She did not!”

  Bryan laughed, throwing up his hands. “Swear she did. I just looked at her, wondering where my bright-eyed baby went.”

  “She excited for school?”

  Bryan had enrolled her in a preschool program to help prepare her for school. Their mother normally kept her, and although she was ready for school, Bryan thought it would be a good idea to have her used to going to school before she had to start kindergarten.

  “Yeah, she told me the other day that we have to go school shopping. I told her it was only preschool, but she said Jenny Thomas down the street told her that we had to, so I guess I am taking my girl shopping within the next couple of weeks.” He rolled his eyes.

  “Who is Jenny?” Aaron hadn’t heard about her, and Kelly was such a chatterbox she usually told him everything.

  “One of the neighbor’s kids. She has an older brother that goes to elementary school and she is always telling me what Jenny Thomas said.”

  “Is Jenny a good girl?” Aaron knew Bryan did a great job with her, but you never knew.

  “Yeah, and the family is great. We have them over sometimes for dinner, but I often wonder if she learns more than I want her to just because of the older brother.”

  Aaron stared at him. “She’s four. You can’t go all papa bear now.”

  Bryan disagreed. “Hey, that is my baby. You will understand when you have kids, but from the time that she was put in my arms I knew that I was going to do whatever I had to in order to protect her. If that means I have to watch out for the sixteen year old punk or the eight year old down the street, I am going to protect my baby.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” Aaron didn’t want to get into it with him; Bryan got a little crazy about Kelly sometimes. Aaron knew that more shit when down with Ash than he was told, but he wondered if it made him even more protective of Kelly, overcompensating for her mother.

  “Speaking of the ladies in our life, how is it going with Eva?”

  “It is going great. I’ve loved it. The only problem is that we haven’t said that we love each other yet.”

  “Is that a big problem for you?” Bryan knew Aaron was quite a bit more sensitive than he was, so he figured it had to be a bit of an issue that Eva wouldn’t say it to him. If there was ever a guy that needed the white picket fence it was Aaron, unlike Bryan, who fell into his own version of a suburban nightmare. Thank God he got out of that bullshit.

  Aaron frowned when he thought about it. “I don’t know. I always thought that I could let it come in its own time, but every time I see her, I want to shake her and ask her why she doesn’t love me.”

  “How do you know she doesn’t?” Conner asked, having joined them when they started talking about Eva.

  “I don’t, and that is part of the problem. I want to tell her, but why put myself out there if she doesn’t feel the same way. Maybe that makes me a pansy as well, but there is more at stake than just whether or not she loves me.” Aaron had been thinking more and more about the fact that she was leaving, but he didn’t know how to ask her to stay, especially when she constantly talked about leaving at the end of the month.

  “That doesn’t make you a pansy, it just makes you human. No one wants to tell someone they love them and have them not return it.” Conner spoke with conviction, like he knew what was what.

  Aaron didn’t ask, but he had a feeling Conner felt more for Gwen than he said he did and continued to torture himself by staying friends with a married woman he was in love with.

  “I am just going to have to wait and see what happens. If there is an opening, I am going to take it. If not, I am just going to lie back and chill.”

  “Is she still going back at the end of the summer?” Bryan asked after they ordered. “Because I am definitely going to miss having her around, and I know Kelly is already getting attached to her, which doesn’t happen all the time.” As far as females went, Kelly was only attached to Aaron’s mom and sisters, and Aaron wondered if some of that had to do with the fact that her mother was a bitch.

  Aaron shrugged his shoulders. “She says she is, and I don’t know how to convince her to stay with me. How can I ask her to give up her life somewhere else, especially if I am not offering marriage quite yet? I don’t want to push her into staying, but damn, I don’t want her to leave.”

  “You’ll figure it out, I’m sure,” Bryan said before changing the subject to some craziness that was going on at his office. One of the subcontractors was causing some problems, and one of the reasons he asked Aaron and Conner for lunch was to get their thoughts on how to handle the problem. It felt good to hang out with his brothers, and he left with plans to take Eva to dinner with Bryan sometime this week so they could play with Kelly.

  He took the short walk to the office, taking in his surroundings as he neve
r really had before. He loved the town that he lived in, liked the fact that he could walk down the street to lunch or his office, and loved the fact that he had an amazing woman to keep him company. His good mood was short-lived when he walked into his offices and saw Marcia sitting in the waiting room and Mary looking like she had swallowed something sour. Clearly Marcia had already worked her charm. He hated that he was Marcia’s lawyer; she always found bullshit stuff for him to do for her, but she had never been too inappropriate, so he couldn’t tell her he could no longer represent her. She was just annoying as hell, like popping up whenever she wanted.

  “Aaron, darling.” She leapt from the couch before coming over to him like she was going to hug him. He took a step back, and she seemed to take the hint because she stepped back and folded her arms in front of her and composed herself.

  “Marcia, to what do I owe the pleasure?” He ignored the pet name and the movement, knowing from experience that it was easier to ignore it than to try to explain why it was inappropriate.

  She followed him as he walked into the office and shut the door before leaning back against it and looking like the cat that swallowed the canary. He was suddenly wary, not knowing what she was up to but waiting to give her the benefit of the doubt.

  She pressed her arms to her chest, breathing dramatically. “I got a speeding ticket this morning.”

  He couldn’t believe it. “Another one?! Unbelievable! I thought we talked about this the last speeding ticket!” He knew it was unprofessional to raise his voice, but damn, he was pissed off. This was the fourth speeding ticket in the past year, and he didn’t know if he was even good enough to allow her to keep her license.

  “I know, darling. I didn’t mean to.” She turned on the waterworks, something she was really good at doing.

  Collapsing in the chair in front of his desk, Marcia grabbed a tissue to dab her eyes for dramatic effect. She was always a good actress, whether they were fucking or fighting, she knew how to turn it on. Staring at her now, a sobbing mess for no reason other than that she didn’t want him to be mad at her, he wondered what in the hell he ever saw in her.

  “Marcia, calm down. There is no use crying about it now. What’s done is done.” He crouched down in front of her, cursing himself for being the idiot that always fed into her bullshit because he didn’t like for anyone to be hurting, and tried to reassure her.

  “I’m sorry,” she said and she continued to sob in his shoulder as he patted her back. He couldn’t help but think he was a sucker, but he couldn’t stop himself. He got her calm, although it took everything he had to get her situated in her chair with the waterworks done, and sat down at his desk to put some distance between them.

  “Look, I can help settle up the speeding ticket, but I don’t know how much longer you are going to be able to keep your license if you keep doing this.”

  “I know.” She nodded solemnly. “I am going to do better from here on out.”

  “That’s good, since one more and no judge in the county that will let you keep it. It is going to be hard enough with number four. The other thing is that your fee is going to go up. A lot. I can’t keep doing this for the little that you pay me.” He thought he would feel bad raising her rates, but he knew that she would gladly pay it to keep her license. With as much work as he did for her he should have been charging her more, but he was trying to cut her a special rate because she was a friend. Not anymore. He couldn’t do it because it made her think that she would potentially get back together with him, something that was not going to happen.

  She dabbed her eyes with the tissue she pulled from her purse. “I understand, and I will gladly pay it. Although I think you and I both know that I have other ways I can pay.”

  “What the hell?! Did you just offer to sleep with me to keep your rates down?”

  “Of course not!” She actually looked insulted, although what the hell else was he supposed to think from what she said? “No one here is offering to have sex with you in order to get their rates lowered. All I meant was that if you and I got back together, as I know we will, it would be stupid to raise the rates on your girlfriend.” He couldn’t believe her. He didn’t know how he missed all that crazy, but clearly he had.

  “Marcia, I want you to listen very closely. I am not now, nor will I ever get back together with you. We had sex for a couple of months about a year ago, and you have been trying to get back with me ever since. That’s not going to happen. EVER. Even if I wasn’t with Eva, which I am, I still wouldn’t want you.”

  She flicked her wrist as though dismissing what he said, something she did when they were briefly together. “Darling, you are just irritated. But don’t worry, I will wait until you get done with your dalliance.”

  She was crazy as hell, and as bad as he felt about it, he knew that he was going to have to cut her off as a client. He would settle her ticket and then they would be done. He couldn’t take it anymore, especially when she was offering sexual favors for a rate cut.

  “We will just need to talk about this later…” he looked at his watch, knowing he had a client coming in soon “…because I have a client coming in. I am going to settle the ticket in the next couple of weeks, get it out of the way, and then I will call you and set up an appointment about our future dealings.”

  She smiled her shit eating grin, like she knew she had him, and patted his cheek. “Great,” she said and breezed out of the room with a pep in her step that she didn’t have when she came in, and he couldn’t help but think that she was going to be more trouble than she had ever been worth.

  Thankfully there was no more craziness after Marcia left, but Aaron was looking forward to a quiet night at home with Eva. He made it back to her house, thinking about all the stuff he had talked about with his brothers, and let himself in with the key she gave him. He called out to her and walked toward the noise coming from the kitchen. He stopped in the doorway, watching Eva sing as she sautéed something in a pan, shaking her gorgeous hips to Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing.” She turned around and screeched when she spotted him, but she leaned forward happily for the kiss she knew was coming.

  “You cheating on me, babe?” she asked curiously as she brushed her hand over his shirt.

  Belatedly, he remembered Marcia’s crying on his shoulder and shook his head in disgust. “Hell no, that was just Marcia crying all over my shoulder.”

  “She got pretty up close and personal,” she said lightly, but he heard the underlying tension in her voice before she turned back and continued to stir the onions and peppers.

  He leaned down, wrapping his arms around her waist before leaning down and kissing her neck. “Babe, trust me when I tell you that this was not a pleasant experience. She was crying hysterically, and you know how I am. I couldn’t just let her sit there.”

  “Of course not,” she said snidely, and he knew he was in trouble because she wasn’t responding to his touch.

  He took the spatula out of her hand and turned her around so she could look him in the eye when he said what he needed to say. She crossed her arms over her chest, and he hated that she looked like she needed to protect herself from him.

  “Babe, listen. I can’t change the fact that she was crying, and I can’t help the fact that I have this uncontrollable need to help everyone. Even if it is Marcia, who we both know is not my favorite mistake, I couldn’t just stand there.” He could see her softening but knew that he needed to bring out the big guns if she was really going to believe him. He tilted her chin up to make sure she was really looking. “Now listen and listen good. This is not the only time that you will hear this, but I want you to know that I love you,” he continued despite her gasp, “I want you. I come home to you and want to continue to come home to you for a long time.” He looked at the happy tears gathering in her eyes, and he leaned down and kissed her deeply. She put her arms around his neck and pushed herself up into him to return the kiss.

  “I love you too,” she said, rubbing his ch
eek.

  His eyes lit up, excited that she said it. He mentally kicked himself, but couldn’t resist telling her. “You don’t have to say it back if you don’t want to.”

  She cocked her head at him and stared at him like he was crazy. “Really, babe? When was the last time I did something that I didn’t want to?” He chuckled, knowing that she had an insane stubborn streak. “I didn’t say it because you said it. I said it because I wanted to. And I will keep on saying it until you believe me.”

  He leaned down and kissed her again, his hands teasing the bottom of her shirt before he smelled something burning. He pulled back briefly and turned off the burner before picking her up.

  “Let’s eat later.” He carried her into the living room and dumped her on the couch before lying down on top of her and kissing her senseless.

  It had been a couple of days since Aaron had told her he loved her, and she couldn’t think of a better birthday present than that.

  “You got a minute?” Conner asked as Eva was finishing cleaning the kitchen. She had a lot to do; Gwen was coming over that afternoon so they could get tattoos tomorrow to help celebrate her birthday.

  “Sure.” She threw the rag down in the sink and turned to go with him. She knew he was really close to being done, he had told her at the beginning of the week that he was doing punch out work, whatever the hell that was, but apparently it meant he was close to being done. “Whatcha need?”

  “I need you to come look at something?”

  “What?”

  “You’ll see,” he answered cryptically. What the hell? He was usually pretty straight forward, so she didn’t know why he was being weird.

  “Fine,” she said and followed him upstairs to the bathroom. The bathroom door was shut and suddenly she knew what this was about. “Are you done?” she asked with a smile splitting her face.

  “We are. We did everything as your mother asked, with the couple of changes that you asked. Is there anything you need before I open the door?” She was going to kill him if he didn’t open the door, so excited she thought she’d pee her pants. It had been a long process, and some days she thought it would never be clean again, but here she was. He must have sensed her impatience because he threw open the door and gestured inside with his hand. All she could do was stand in the doorway with her hand over her mouth. It was amazing, and she didn’t move until he nudged her forward.