“This staying away from each other isn’t working for me,” he said, his voice a low easy drawl. If foreplay had a voice, that’s how it would sound. “How about you?”
The drawl, the question and the look he gave her would have caused chrome to melt. “No.”
It was the truth, but she winced. She shouldn’t be admitting stuff like that. She shouldn’t be giving him the look, either. The look that was almost certainly begging him to launch her on the path to a much-needed orgasm.
“No,” he repeated.
He drawled that, too, and she didn’t think he was changing his mind about what he’d said. The alley didn’t have the best lighting, just a yellowish bulb above the door, but it was more than enough for her to see his attention lower to her mouth. Then to her breasts.
Then lower.
The look he was giving her seemed very familiar. “Are you playing the game we used to play?” she asked.
He didn’t ask what game? Which meant they were likely playing it. It was one they’d started about the same time they’d made out in this alley. Long, lingering looks at places on each other’s bodies that they wanted to touch or kiss. Followed by the question—touch, lick or kiss?
It was their sexed-up version of “Truth or Dare?”
The game had gotten her into trouble once when she’d glanced down at Lawson’s man parts just as he’d blurted out “lick.” Until then “lick” had usually been reserved for necks, earlobes and nipples. They’d been in his truck at the time and parked on the back of his family’s property so they had some privacy. But, alas, her seventeen-year-old skill set had failed her, and he’d gotten one short lick instead of what he’d been expecting. A few minutes after that, they’d had sex, so it probably wasn’t a huge disappointment.
“It was a fun game,” she said. There was too much breath in her voice, and the pulse on her throat was starting to throb. Actually, several parts of her were throbbing. “But this isn’t the best place to play it.”
She sounded hesitant, and her brain was, but the rest of her was nudging her to go for anything, including but not limited to sex against the wall.
“Probably not.” His words agreed with her, but the look he gave her didn’t. He dropped his gaze to that runaway pulse on her throat.
“Kiss,” she blurted out, and she might have waved it off if Lawson hadn’t moved in and put his mouth there.
Oh, my. That was like flipping on a switch. A hot, needy one. It always had been, and Lawson had been the one who’d discovered that ultrasensitive spot on her. Of course, he’d discovered most of her spots.
“You’re right,” he whispered, his warm breath hitting against her neck in the very area he’d just kissed. “Wrong place, wrong time.”
Yes, that was the only thing wrong about it. Everything else was so right. She leaned back to tell him something that she hoped would sound sensible, but she glanced at his mouth first.
“Touch,” he said. Obviously, they were still playing the game, so maybe sensibility could wait for a few more seconds. Interesting, though, that he hadn’t gone for the obvious—kiss.
She wet her index finger with her tongue and gave him her own version of touching. Eve slid her finger over his top lip. Then his bottom. And while it was fun, it soon wasn’t nearly enough. She upped the touching by grabbing on to a fistful of his shirt, snapping him to her and kissing him.
It was as if the floodgates opened. Hot, mind-blowing floodgates that made her want to touch, kiss and lick at the same time. And she might have done all three, too, if Lawson hadn’t jerked away from her.
That’s when she saw the person coming up the alley from the Main Street sidewalk. Because her heartbeat was drumming in her ears, Eve hadn’t heard their visitor approaching, but she had no trouble hearing what she said.
“Mom?” Tessie called out. “Is that you?”
And her daughter came walking straight toward her.
CHAPTER TWELVE
FOR JUST A split second, Tessie thought that maybe she’d stepped onto a set where Eve Cooper and another actor were playing out a scene. But nope. There were no cameras, no lighting. No crew. Only the strange thing she’d just witnessed.
Her mom kissing a cowboy in a dark alley outside a bar.
It was a first. Even when guys had taken her mother to studio parties and such, there hadn’t been any kissing in front of her. And neither the paparazzi nor the hornies had managed to snap any lip-lock photos like that. Of course, there must have been some kind of kissing going on the night her mom had gotten pregnant with Aiden, but again, Tessie hadn’t been around to see that—thank God.
“Tessie,” her mother said.
It wasn’t exactly a squeal of delight, but one quickly followed, and she ran to Tessie and dragged her into her arms. She didn’t hug her long though. Probably because her mom felt her go stiff.
Tessie hadn’t meant to react like that, but all the hurt came. Feelings that her mother probably understood—from her own way of seeing things, that is. Her mom almost certainly knew that the lie she’d told her for so long had cut at her in a way that would never heal. At least that’s how Tessie felt about it.
Somehow, though, despite Tessie’s stiffness, her mom was still smiling when she pulled back and looked at her. “You came,” she said, but then she shook her head. “How’d you know I’d be here?”
“Your sitter. I went by your new house at the Heavenly Pastures Ranch, and she said Cassidy and you were here at the Longhorn. She gave me the address and directions. I was about to go in and ask for you, but then I saw you. With him.” Tessie tipped her head to him. “Who is he?”
But it wasn’t necessary for her mother to answer. That’s because at that exact moment, the cowboy stepped from the shadows, and Tessie got a good look at his face.
Oh, shit.
It was Lawson Granger.
He came closer, and for a second it seemed as if he was going to shake her hand or introduce himself. No intro, though, when he looked at her. His mouth dropped open for a couple of seconds, but like her mom’s hug, it didn’t last. His breathing became a little noisy, and his eyes narrowed.
Tessie mentally repeated her oh, shit and added some more curse words.
She hadn’t exactly looked her best when he’d come to the sorority house in Austin because she’d been falling-down drunk and slumped in the middle of two puking classmates. Lawson hadn’t known who she was that day, but he certainly knew who she was now since Eve had blurted out her name.
Tessie had avoided Eve discovering the drunk-thing that day because once she’d heard her mom in the foyer of the building, she’d stayed at the top of the stairs to talk to her. No chance of Eve sniffing her breath that way. Then Tessie had lied through her teeth by saying she had the stomach flu. Even with that, her mom had wanted to come up and see her, but Tessie had put down her foot and said no.
Good thing Tessie hadn’t actually had to put down her foot, or she might have toppled down the stairs. During the entire forty-five-second conversation, she’d had to steady herself by gripping the railing.
Lawson’s mouth moved a little, and while he didn’t actually say any words, his body language let Tessie know what he was thinking.
He was so going to rat her out.
That would add a nasty layer of crap to her already crap-coated relationship with her mother. She hadn’t come to Wrangler’s Creek to bury the hatchet with her mom—not exactly, anyway—but after prodding from Cassidy, Tessie had thought it was a good time to start trying to work things out. Obviously, her timing for that sucked though, and her mom might be thinking the same thing since she’d seemed pretty wrapped up in that kiss.
A kiss from the very man who could make this much worse than it already was.
“Oh,” her mom said, volleying glances at both Lawson and her. Uneasy glances. Great. Eve was probabl
y picking up on the tension. “I haven’t introduced you. Tessie, this is Lawson Granger. Lawson, this is my daughter.”
Tessie certainly wasn’t going to be the first to say anything and step in something she was trying to step around. But Lawson didn’t exactly jump to chat, either.
“Tessie and I spoke on the phone earlier,” he growled.
“Yes, he just told me that you’d called him.” Her mom sounded relieved and on edge at the same time.
Tessie knew exactly how she felt. The cowboy wasn’t blurting out anything. That was the good news. The bad news was that he probably didn’t have amnesia, so he might just be keeping his mouth shut to try to figure out a way to break the news to her mother.
“It’s nice to meet you,” Tessie said to Lawson. It wasn’t, but she had no idea what else to say to him. However, she did know what to tell her mother. “I need to be going. I just wanted to stop by and say hello.”
“Going?” Eve repeated, making it sound as if Tessie had just told her she was about to elope to Vegas. “You just got here. And it’s dark. You don’t want to drive back to Austin in the dark. You can stay the night at my house—our house,” she corrected herself. “I have a room fixed up for you.”
Tessie could have predicted all of that word for word, but as she’d done on the stairs that day in Austin, she shook her head. This time, it didn’t cause a severe dizzy spell because she hadn’t had a drop to drink.
“Let’s just take this in baby steps,” Tessie told her.
“It was good to meet you,” she repeated to Lawson, and she headed out of the alley.
Of course, her mother came after her, and she fell in step alongside Tessie as she walked to her car. “Maybe before you go, we can just pop by the diner and have a cup of coffee,” Eve suggested.
“I really do need to get back.” That was partly true. She didn’t need to stand around there even though it seemed as if the cowboy was going to keep his mouth shut. That was a surprise. He really did have cop’s eyes.
Her mom tried again. “Please, let’s just go somewhere and talk.” She glanced back at the cowboy who was making his way toward them. “There’s something important I need to tell you,” she added in a whisper.
Tessie knew where this was going. Her mom wanted to apologize, again. But she wasn’t in the mood to hear it. It’d been a huge mistake coming here, and now she needed to cut her losses and get going.
She threw open her car door as soon as she reached it and got inside. Thankfully, her mom didn’t try to get in with her. With the cowboy behind her staring holes in Tessie, Eve stayed put on the sidewalk and looked ready to launch into some more moping and crying. After what her mom had done with the lying, Tessie didn’t want to feel bad about that.
But she did.
Tessie felt like crap.
Despite what’d happened, Eve was her mom, and Tessie loved her. Still, it was going to take a little more time for her to get to a point where her stomach didn’t twist into a knot at the thought of that lie. A lie that hadn’t been for Tessie’s benefit, either, but for her own. Eve hadn’t wanted her hornies fans to know that she’d gotten knocked up because it would have ruined her kick-ass, perfect image.
Tessie started the car and looked at the front doorway of the bar. There was another guy in jeans and a cowboy hat, and he was watching them. She hadn’t wanted to start any gossip for her mom, but this would probably do it. The effed-up daughter had returned to eff-up things even more.
The glaring cowboy behind her mom would see it that way.
She shifted her attention back to Eve. She’d seen her a couple of times since learning the truth that she was her real mother. And just like those other times, Tessie tried to pick through the features of her face to see if she could see any part of herself there.
She couldn’t.
Her mom with her blond hair and green eyes, and there she was with brown hair and blue eyes. That was why Tessie had never once suspected that they shared any DNA.
But...
The cowboy was a different story. Dark brown hair. Like hers. But then, lots of people had hair that color.
He came closer, and the streetlights caught his eyes just right so she could see the color. Blue. Again, like hers. But again, lots of people had blue eyes.
How many of those blue-eyed, brown-haired men, though, had she ever seen kissing her mother?
Just this one.
Tessie got that knot in her stomach again and was ready to hit the accelerator and get out of there. However, when she went to shut the car door, the cowboy caught onto it as if to help her.
“If you don’t tell your mom, I will,” he whispered just loud enough so that only Tessie would hear it.
She didn’t have to guess what he meant. He was talking about her getting drunk. And while Tessie was indeed concerned about that, she had a new concern. A new knot in her stomach. Because she glanced at both her mom and him.
And that’s when Tessie knew her mother had yet one more truth she needed to come clean about.
* * *
WHEN LAWSON CAME out of the barn, he saw Cassidy and his mom on the back porch of the Granger house. Cassidy had the baby in one of those front-facing pouch carriers, and with Aiden’s little arms and legs flailing around, it made it look as if she had a turtle strapped to her.
Seeing them was a surprise since the porch had been empty about fifteen minutes earlier. That’s when Lawson had left the office inside the house to go to the barn to have a chat with one of the horse trainers.
What was especially bad was that Cassidy and his mom appeared to be waiting for him.
When he first spotted them, both were looking down at the baby and grinning, but that stopped when their eyes landed on him.
“Is there a fire inside?” he asked, only half joking. “Is that why you’re out here?”
“No fire,” his mother jumped to answer. “I was on my way to the barn to find you. I didn’t know Cassidy was coming, too, but we’re here to talk to you.”
Lawson sighed. “Is this about Eve, Darby or that stain you found on your red silk dress when I was seven?”
Regina had already opened her mouth to answer until he threw in that last one. She did indeed want to know about the stain that he had denied many times over the years, but obviously, she wasn’t going to let that distract her.
“Eve,” his mom said.
Cassidy made a sound of agreement. Aiden just belched and then giggled about it. Lawson thought maybe the kid had the right reaction. There was nothing he could do to stop whatever lecture he was about to get, so maybe belching was the answer. He tried it and got a laugh from Aiden. His mom and Cassidy weren’t as easily amused though.
Since it was hot and he didn’t want the baby outside for too long, Lawson walked past them and into the sunroom so they would follow him.
They did.
Lawson turned to meet head-on whatever his mother’s beef was. “Okay, hit me with what you got, but do it one at a time and do it fast because I’ve got a mountain of paperwork on my desk.”
Regina apparently thought she had first dibs because she started. “It’s all over town about you kissing Eve outside the Longhorn last night.”
He was about to ask how the heck that had gotten around. To the best of his knowledge, no one other than Tessie had seen them kissing, and he doubted that she’d blabbed. The other couple making out likely hadn’t looked away from each other long enough to draw breath, much less see what had gone on. But in Wrangler’s Creek, the gossips seemed to have mind-reading skills to assist them.
“You know I hate to interfere with your life,” Regina went on, “but I feel I have to say something.”
It was true for the most part. Regina didn’t interfere because she was rarely around. But when she did show up, yes, interference for at least one of her kids was on the age
nda.
“Are you telling me not to get involved with Eve again?” Lawson came out and asked.
Regina nodded. “But not for the reason you think. I’ve given up on Darby and you. I can see that it’s just not going to work. But Eve’s in a vulnerable place right now. She just had that precious baby, and she’s upset about her breakup with Kellan Carver. It’s all over the tabloids that she’s falling apart over losing him.”
Cassidy rolled her eyes, verifying what Lawson already knew from personal knowledge. Eve was indeed upset, but it had nothing to do with the horn-boy. It was all because of Tessie. And maybe because the kissing that Lawson and she had been doing was confusing her some. It was certainly confusing him.
“Anyway, I’m here to ask you to give Eve some time to work out her feelings. You’d be just a Band-Aid now to her broken heart, which means you could end up getting hurt again, too.”
Part of that was true. He could end up getting hurt. But he could have argued about Eve’s broken heart since she’d been the one to leave him. If he did that though, it would only lengthen the lecture, and that was the last thing he wanted to do since it appeared his mom was winding down.
She smiled, kissed Aiden on the top of his head and turned to Cassidy. “Make sure you come by so I can introduce you to Lucian.” Regina winked at Cassidy.
Lawson hoped that unholy intro didn’t happen, but Cassidy was a grown woman, and he didn’t want to interfere—as his mom had just done. And as Cassidy was likely about to do.
“And you come by the house, too,” Regina added to Lawson. He also got a kiss on the cheek before his mom headed out back.
One down, one to go. He took a deep breath to steel himself for the next round, which might have more bite to it than motherly concern.
Cassidy put her hands over Aiden’s ears. “Don’t dick around with Eve’s feelings. Got that?” And with the shortest lecture in recent history, she would have just walked out if Lawson hadn’t stepped in front of Cassidy to stop her.
“Did Eve say something to you about me?” he asked.
She looked at him as if he’d sprouted an extra nose. “For nearly every minute of the eighteen years that I’ve known Eve, she’s talked about you. Or Tessie. Or Brett. She has nightmares about Brett, you know? She cries about Tessie. But you’re the one who can send her into a tailspin. She’s my best friend, and I’d like to avoid future tailspinning.”
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