Texas-Sized Trouble

by Delores Fossen

  Yeah, so would he, but it almost seemed inevitable when it came to Eve.

  He kept vowing to keep his distance from her, kept vowing to not kiss her, and then that plan would go to hell in a handbasket the moment he laid eyes on her. He had to do better. Because Cassidy was right. Eve wasn’t in a good place to have her feelings dicked with.

  “Eve kept that dress, you know,” Cassidy went on a moment later. “The one she bought with all her babysitting money.”

  Lawson had been following this conversation just fine. Until now. “What dress?”

  “The pink strapless one she was going to wear to the Sadie Hawkins dance your senior year. She was going to wear it and tell you...something important.”

  Well, hell. Now he was really interested. “Tell me what?”

  But Cassidy immediately waved that off. “I’m not sure, but I know that dress meant a lot to her. When she took it out of the Lawson, etc. box, she got misty-eyed.”

  At least he wasn’t clueless about the box because he’d seen it at her house, but cluelessness was plentiful on the rest of this. “Why would a dress make her misty-eyed? Especially a dress she never even wor—”

  He stopped. Because he got it then. She’d bought the dress when they were still together, and it was probably a reminder that she’d broken off things with him and moved before she could wear it.

  Lawson was still a little confused, though, on the misty-eyed part.

  “Are you saying that Eve regrets breaking up with me?” Lawson asked, but then he decided it was best not to hear the answer. He gave his own take on it. “I didn’t end that relationship. She did.”

  Cassidy acknowledged that with a nod. “But that doesn’t mean she can’t be all sad about something she’d planned and fantasized about for months. She kept that dress, so that means it was very important to her.”

  “Fantasized?” he questioned.

  “Not that kind of fantasy,” Cassidy scolded. “She wanted you to dance with her while she was wearing that dress. It’s a metaphor for lost youth, innocence and all that shit.” She covered Aiden’s ears for the last word.

  Now they were talking metaphors. Well, Lawson knew some things about lost innocence and other shit. And that dance was going to be an important night for him, too.

  Not the dancing part though.

  No way had he ever intended to do that.

  But Lawson had planned on going and giving Eve the gift he’d bought her over Christmas break. He hadn’t given it to her at Christmas because the timing hadn’t felt right. But instead he’d saved it for the night of Sadie Hawkins. A night that had never come because Eve had already moved to California by then.

  “Why are you telling me all of this?” he asked.

  Cassidy got in his face, which meant Aiden was right there, too. The kid smiled and kicked his feet, his toes landing against Lawson’s stomach. “I’m telling you because Eve is still hanging on to a lot more than just that dress and the Lawson, etc. box. Remember what I said about not dicking around with her feelings.” She didn’t cover Aiden’s ears that time, but she only mouthed the word dicking.

  Lawson had already gotten the point without the dress story. That didn’t mean though that he wouldn’t screw up again. Especially since there was a big reason he might get pulled right back in. A reason that didn’t have anything to do with lust, dresses or dances that he would have never danced.

  “Did Eve tell you that Tessie came to the Longhorn last night?” Lawson asked.

  Cassidy nodded, sighed and moved back out of his face. “Tears were involved. Lots of them. Despite Eve’s crying, I see it as a good start that Tessie came here. Any idea why Tessie left so suddenly after driving all this way to see Eve?”

  Lawson knew all right. It was because Tessie had probably been scared that he was going to tell on her. And he would if the girl hadn’t come clean with Eve. But he didn’t intend to get into that with Cassidy.

  “Tessie saw Eve and me kissing,” Lawson admitted. “That might have upset her.”

  “Maybe,” Cassidy said as if giving that some thought. But dismissed whatever she was thinking with a head shake. “When all of us were still in California, Tessie was always trying to get Eve to go out on dates, so I doubt that would have bothered her.”

  Cassidy looked him straight in the eyes as if waiting for him to tell her the truth, but Lawson didn’t spill anything. He gave Aiden’s toes another jiggle and changed the subject. “How’s this little man doing?”

  Cassidy’s long stare continued a moment longer before she dragged in a long breath. “He’s a crappy sleeper, is frequently gassy, as you heard, and he will pinch any part of your body that he can reach when you’re feeding him a bottle. Not soft pinching, either. He gets a good grip.” She kissed Aiden and grinned at him. “But he owns every bit of my heart, and the little shit knows it.” She covered Aiden’s ears for the shit word.

  Aiden laughed.

  Lawson could see how this kid could manage some heart-claiming. Of course, maybe he felt that way because he’d been the one to bring him into the world.

  “It won’t be long before he’ll be ready to go out riding.” Lawson hadn’t intended to say that out loud. It made him seem too, well, involved. And that’s when he knew it was time to skedaddle.

  “I’ll watch my step with Eve,” he added.

  Lawson said goodbye and headed toward his office. He nearly made it, too, but then he saw Nicky coming out of the kitchen. Like Cassidy, she was also carrying a baby. Her six-month-old son, Ben. The kid was sacked out with his head dropped down on Nicky’s shoulder.

  Since Nicky and Garrett lived here now, it wasn’t a surprise to see her there, but then he saw the serious look on her face. Not a frown exactly but close. Which meant Lawson was probably about to get another round of lecturing. If Cassidy and his mom had heard about the kissing going on between Eve and him, then Nicky almost certainly had heard, as well.

  First, he put his hands over Ben’s ears even though there was little chance the sleeping kid could hear it. “Don’t worry. I’m not going to dick around with Eve,” Lawson volunteered.

  Nicky blinked, clearly surprised by that confession. “Oh. Okay.” She tipped her head toward the hall just off the kitchen. “Might be a good thing since she just arrived and is waiting for you in your office.”

  Lawson blinked, too. “Eve’s here?”

  Nicky used her free hand to pat his arm. “Maybe it’s a good time for you to clear up that no dicking around. First, though, you should probably try to convince yourself that it isn’t going to happen again.”

  And with that wise but smart-ass advice, Nicky smiled and strolled away.

  Lawson didn’t stroll. He made a beeline to his office, walking faster than he usually would, but he stopped in the hall when he caught sight of Eve. She was standing and looking at something on his desk.

  It wasn’t something he’d planned to do, but he took a moment to admire the view.

  She was wearing a blue dress that hit a couple of inches above her knees. It was just short enough for him to see plenty of her legs. Her butt, too, when she leaned farther across his desk. The motion caused the dress to slide and cling in all the best places.

  Speaking of the best places, she turned to the side, giving him a nice view of her breasts. Again, the fabric cooperated, and it was almost as if he could see her without her clothes. And he suddenly wished he could do just that.

  Of course, this wasn’t helping him convince himself about that no-dicking-around promise.

  Thankfully, she didn’t notice him ogling her. She kept her attention on his desk, but she was moving back and forth the way a person would if they were trying to look at something from a different angle or in a different light. Since he had payroll reports, orders for worming meds and a memo to the hands about the lousy job they’d done mucking horsesh
it from the west barn, he couldn’t imagine what she found so riveting.

  Maybe she sensed he was there because she whirled around. Her eyes widened as if she’d been caught doing something wrong. Lawson felt that way, too. Except he was betting his “something wrong” upped hers. He’d been undressing her with his eyes while she’d just been reading paperwork.

  “I hope this isn’t a bad time for a visit,” she said. “As I was pulling into the driveway, I saw Cassidy leaving out on the side road and figured she’d come here to talk to you.” Her breath was unsteady, and it was causing her chest to heave a little. Just what he didn’t need if he wanted to keep his attention off her breasts.

  He went in but didn’t close the door. Best not to add the temptation of privacy to this mix. “Cassidy’s worried about you, that’s all. Are you okay? I mean because of Tessie,” he added when she just stared at him.

  “Yes.” She stuttered on that word. “I mean, I was upset when she drove off like that last night, and that’s why I had to leave, too, and go home.”

  Yeah, Lawson had gotten that. He hadn’t been in much of a mood to stick around, either. He was about to ask her if she’d talked to Tessie since then, but when he went closer, he saw what she’d been looking at on his desk. Not mucking memos or deworming orders. But rather those damn tabloid magazines with Eve’s picture on the cover.

  “Tate’s girlfriend brought them over,” Lawson said as fast as he could manage.

  She nodded. “Sophie mentioned it. I’ll sign them for her before I leave.”

  Good. Then he could get them off his desk and not have daily visual reminders of one of the worst times of his life. Of course, he had no good explanation for why they were on his desk and not tucked away in a drawer where he couldn’t see them. He had tried to do that, but it hadn’t lasted more than a couple of minutes.

  “Was something wrong with them?” he asked. “You were looking at them pretty hard when I came in.”

  There was the traditional deer-in-the-headlights look, and then there was a deer-in-the-headlights look on steroids. Eve had the second one.

  “I, uh, just thought I saw fingerprints or something on the covers,” she muttered.

  On the surface that seemed a dumb thing to say. The magazines were old, had glossy finishes and had been handled by plenty of people. But then he remembered Sophie had seen him looking at, and touching, one of the covers.

  Hell.

  Had Sophie actually spilled the beans about it? Judging from Eve’s expression, Sophie had indeed done that, and he was going to take it up with Miss Tattletale the next time he saw her.

  Since Lawson wasn’t about to confess to picture fondling, he moved on to an even more uncomfortable topic. “Did Tessie call you after she saw us last night?”

  She shook her head. “You mean to talk about us kissing.” Eve didn’t wait for him to say no, that his question wasn’t about that. “Honestly, I was surprised, but she must have been upset to run off like that.”

  Lawson took a deep breath because he knew he was going to need it. He didn’t like applying the tattletale label here because this wasn’t something that should stay a secret. Still, it was going to feel pretty crappy to do this.

  He took Eve by the hand and led her to the sofa across from his desk. That alone let her know that something bad was up, but Lawson suspected he had a grim look on his face, too.

  “Remember when I went to Austin to try to talk to Tessie?” That was all he managed to say before the color drained from her face.

  “Oh, God.” And she repeated that a couple of times. “You saw her. And she saw you.” There went another round of the repeated Oh, God, and Lawson didn’t think it was part of some prayer, either.

  Lawson hated that she was having this kind of reaction when he hadn’t even gotten to the bad stuff yet, but there was no easy way to soften the blow.

  “Tessie was drunk when I got there. I stopped her two puking friends from taking her out of the building and then handed her off to her roommate when she came down the stairs. Her sober roommate,” he said, clarifying his last statement.

  Eve’s mouth dropped open, and while he was expecting it, Eve quit Oh, God-ing. In fact, she seemed a little relieved. For a few seconds, anyway.

  “Tessie was drunk?” she asked.

  “Yeah. Staggering, falling-down-on-her-ass drunk.” And he gave her a moment to absorb that.

  Eve didn’t absorb it well.

  Her mouth stayed open, tears sprang to her eyes, and she made a sound that only a really pissed-off mother could make. He knew about that sound because he’d heard his own mom make it a time or two.

  “What the heck was she thinking?” Eve blurted out. “Why would she do something that stupid?”

  That was just the start of Eve’s questions that he couldn’t answer, and he was feeling pissed off and emotional about it, too. Because it had indeed been a stupid thing for Tessie to do. Along with being downright dangerous, it had brought back the memories of Brett. Hell, it was still bringing them back.

  Eve continued asking a few more angry questions before she got to the one he’d been expecting. “Why didn’t you tell me this sooner?”

  He didn’t have to answer because he saw the light bulb go on in her eyes. “You didn’t know it was Tessie until last night.” And she filled in the rest of the blanks. “That’s why she drove off like that, because she was afraid you were going to tell me what happened.”

  The tears filled her eyes again, and this time they spilled down her cheeks. Lawson couldn’t do much to soothe this, but he pulled her into his arms and let her cry it out.

  “She knows how I feel about someone her age drinking,” Eve went on.

  Yes, and that might have been the reason Tessie had done it. Maybe this had been her way of getting back at her mom, or he could be just overthinking it. She could just have the wrong friends.

  “God, what am I going to do?” Eve sobbed. “She’s barely talking to me.” She lifted her head off his shoulder, and Lawson saw she’d moved past the shock and gone back to being pissed off. “Well, she’ll talk to me because I’m going up to Austin to have it out with her.”

  While Lawson thought that talking could be a good thing, he had to stop Eve from bolting for the door. “Best to think this through, and then if you still want to go, I’ll take you. We can even talk to her together if you want.”

  That put a new emotion in her eyes. Not so much anger but something else. Regret, maybe. Yeah, he had plenty of that, too.

  “Just take a deep breath,” he instructed. And he waited until she’d taken a couple of them. “If you go up there this mad, it’s only going to drive you two further apart. Plus, she’s in college, not exactly a kid.”

  In fact, now that he thought about it, Tessie might not even be underage. Still, she had done something stupid. Getting drunk and then leaving to go God knew where with God knew who. She could have gotten in a car accident or been a victim of date rape.

  Lawson put a stop to those thoughts because he was getting riled again. And he was thinking too much like a parent and not a “friend” of someone who was one—Eve. He took some deep breaths of his own before he continued.

  “Because of what happened to Brett, we automatically think the worst in situations like this,” he went on. He tried to keep his voice level. “We’ve got that holding us back from drinking too much. At least it’s held me back.”

  She nodded. “Yes, I just cry it out when things start to get to me. It’s hard to be drunk when you’re a mom.”

  True. And Eve had adopted Tessie around the time she’d been of actual legal drinking age, so there probably hadn’t been a lot of opportunities for that sort of thing.

  “Tessie was sort of your anchor,” he said.

  She looked up at him, opened her mouth again and then closed it as if she’d changed her mind abo
ut what she had been about to say. “You didn’t have an anchor.”

  That was true, as well. By the time Brett died, Lawson’s folks had long been divorced, and with both of them more in than out of Wrangler’s Creek, the housekeepers and Lucian had ended up raising him.

  Which meant there wasn’t much raising going on.

  It was the same for his brothers, Dylan and Reed. At least Lawson had had Garrett. Not exactly an anchor since they were close to the same age, but Garrett had kicked his butt when it needed kicking. Something he’d needed quite often.

  “What am I going to do?” Eve repeated, still looking up at him.

  “You’ll talk to Tessie once you’ve finished your cry.”

  But she seemed to have already finished that. And he wasn’t entirely sure she was just talking about Tessie here. Judging from the look in her eyes, he was part of that million-dollar question, too.

  Lawson knew it was a mistake for the long look she was giving him to continue. Especially since he was in the long-looking mode, too. However, he gathered up every ounce of willpower he had to make sure he didn’t kiss her. Apparently though, Eve hadn’t done any such gathering because she leaned in and kissed him.

  It was a struggle, but he didn’t take hold of her and pull her to him. Didn’t deepen the kiss, either. He just sat there while she pressed her lips to his and while he felt that willpower burning to ash.

  She lingered a little while with the kiss. Long enough for him to pick up her taste and scent. And plenty long enough for him to want a whole lot more.

  “What are we doing?” she whispered when she eased back and met his gaze.

  “To hell if I know.” He tipped his head to his desk. “See those reports and memo? They follow a thread of logic. Shit needs to be removed, so I assign the task and it gets done. All this kissing we’re doing isn’t logical.”