Texas-Sized Trouble

by Delores Fossen

  It did make sense though. Well, it did if he accepted lust as a sensible reason. Since they were no longer teenagers, that probably wasn’t an acceptable excuse.

  That didn’t stop him.

  Without any willpower to help him out, Lawson slid his hand around the back of her head and kissed her. And this time, there was indeed some deepening involved.

  It was as if he snapped. As if Eve snapped, too. All the lust and hunger hit them both like a scorcher heat wave that raced right through them. Not good. Because deep kisses led to jockeying for position so they could get closer to each other.

  Lawson fixed that problem by hauling Eve onto his lap.

  Since this was their third set of kissing as adults, Lawson couldn’t fix the problem of dismissing it. Nope. It seemed stupid not to admit that this attraction just wasn’t going away, and since it wasn’t, Lawson made the most of the kissing. And of his favorite part, the touching. Even though he knew this was going to lead to something much more that they’d likely end up regretting.

  Regrets aside for now, his hand ended up between them, which, all in all, was a good place for it to be, and she slid his hand around her back. Then to her butt. It not only gave him some premium touching, but it allowed him to align their lower bodies just right.

  Again, he was thankful for that blue dress because it just slid right up on her thighs, making room for the front of her panties to land against the front of his zipper.

  Definitely some premium touching now.

  And it would have continued if he hadn’t heard the sound of someone saying, “Am I interrupting anything, Baby-Cakes?”

  At this point, Lawson wouldn’t have wanted to hear anything other than Eve’s continuing purr, but this voice was one that was especially unwelcome.

  Because it was Kellan Carver’s. And the asshole was standing in the doorway, grinning at them.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  KELLAN FIGURED SOME men would have cared much seeing their baby mama on the verge of having sex with another man, but truth was, he just didn’t feel that way about Eve. Yeah, they’d been onetime lovers, but it wasn’t as if he was especially eager to get back in her pants.

  Unlike Lawson. The cowboy was clearly trying to do that.

  Clearly furious, too, at the interruption because he was scowling at Kellan the whole time that Eve was crawling off his lap.

  “What are you doing here?” Eve asked at the exact moment Lawson barked, “What the hell do you want?”

  “I’m here to talk to you,” he said to Lawson. “About a business proposition.”

  All right, that obviously didn’t go over well because Eve and Lawson gave him a blank look. Kellan tried again. “I have a movie-producer friend who wants to use some real cowboys as extras—”

  “No,” Lawson interrupted. He got to his feet, put his hands on his hips and generally looked as if he wanted to punch Kellan in the face.

  Kellan had seen that look on him before. That day Aiden was born, when he’d shown up at the hospital with the camera crew. Kellan had just smiled his way through that as he was doing right now.

  Actually, he’d found smiling helped him get through plenty of things.

  “This isn’t a business proposition for you but for some of your ranch hands,” Kellan went on. “It could earn them some extra money. The producer wants to use the Longhorn Bar, too, to film some scenes. Let me just go over the details with you.”

  Still no sign that Lawson was letting up on his desire to rearrange Kellan’s body parts. But Eve’s expression changed.

  “I should be going,” she said to Lawson after she sighed. She took a pen off his desk and signed a bunch of magazines. “Cassidy wanted to try to get some work done this afternoon, and I should be there in case Aiden gets fussy.” She headed for the door but then stopped when her eyes met Kellan’s. “Uh, will you be stopping by to see him?”

  “Of course.” Kellan intended to make this a “kill three birds with one stone” kind of trip. He could see his kid, talk to the owner of the Longhorn and have a heart-to-heart with Lawson. In reverse order since he had to deal with the still-scowling cowboy first.

  Eve’s mouth went in a straight line, maybe because she wasn’t enthusiastic about the visit to see Aiden, but Kellan would keep it short. He liked the kid well enough, but visiting him was more out of obligation. His publicist had said he’d been getting requests for pictures of him with his son, and he could get a few of those while he was there.

  That, of course, made him a shithead.

  Kellan was well aware of his shithead way of thinking, but he just didn’t feel the same connection to the kid as Eve obviously did. Still, he’d pay child support and stuff. He’d be there for anything that Eve asked him to be there for, but so far, she wasn’t putting out the welcome mat for him. Which was probably the best possible arrangement for both of them.

  Eve started out of the room, then stopped, and she looked at Lawson as if she should say or do something. Maybe kiss him goodbye. Kellan noticed that she dropped her gaze to the vicinity of his mouth. Yes, the same mouth that went in a straight line again when she glanced at Kellan.

  “I’ll call you later,” she said to Lawson. “We need to talk.”

  That didn’t please the cowboy, either, and his scowl stayed in place as she went out the door. A door that Kellan quickly closed. Best not to have anyone walking in on them for this part of the conversation.

  Lawson looked at him as if sizing him up. “Are you here to tell me not to dick around with Eve’s feelings?”

  Kellan pulled back his shoulders. It hadn’t even occurred to him to interfere in Eve’s private life. “No. She can dick around with whatever guy or cowboy she wants.” Obviously, he needed to get some things straight. “Look, it was a one-nighter between Eve and me. Nothing more.”

  “Nothing more except for the baby you created with her,” Lawson quickly pointed out.

  Great. This was going to be one of those lectures. He already got enough of them from some of his friends who had kids of their own. Apparently because they were into the whole daddy thing, they thought he should be, too. But he just wasn’t wired that way.

  “Yes, we created a kid together, but that doesn’t mean Eve and I have to be joined at the hip or anything.” And then he asked the question that usually got his friends to back off. “Do you really believe it would help Aiden or Eve if I were around them more often?”

  That at least untightened Lawson’s scowl a bit. “No. Because you’re an asshole.”

  No argument from Kellan on that. He was. And until someone gave him a good reason to change, he was keeping things as they were. It had worked well for him so far, and if it wasn’t broken, he wasn’t going to fix it.

  “For what it’s worth, Eve didn’t even want to be with me that night,” Kellan explained. “She was going on about you, mumbling stuff that didn’t make sense. She was upset, and that’s the only reason we had sex.”

  Lawson’s forehead bunched up. “She was going on about me?”

  The cowboy didn’t have much range in his tone. He barked or snarled everything. But maybe he only did that to Kellan.

  Kellan nodded. “She was talking about the past, and your name kept coming up. Other stuff, too, but remember I was a little drunk, too, so I don’t recall it all.” He snapped his fingers. “Oh, and she also mentioned Tessie a lot. And speaking of Tessie, she’s another of the reasons that I’m here,” Kellan said. Best to move this along so he could make it back to the airport in time. “Tessie called me late last night and gave me this sad spiel about her getting drunk and you seeing her and her not wanting her mom to know.”

  Lawson stayed frozen a moment as if absorbing that, and then he cursed. This time, though, his profanity didn’t seem to be aimed at Kellan. “I already told Eve, right before you showed up.”

  Well, obviou
sly Eve hadn’t taken it too hard if her go-to reaction was to kiss a cowboy. Kellan shrugged. “I’ll call Tessie and let her know.”

  “No.” Lawson squeezed his eyes shut a moment. “I’ll phone Tessie and tell her.”

  That sounded as if it was the last thing Lawson wanted to do, but Kellan was glad he’d volunteered. This seemed like a sticky situation he wanted to avoid.

  “What’d you say to Tessie when she told you she’d gotten drunk?” Lawson asked him.

  “At first, I said I couldn’t come see you, but that I’d call you instead. She insisted I had to come in person because I could convince you.” He smiled. “She has a lot of faith in my skills of persuasion.”

  Some of Lawson’s scowl returned. “What’d you say to her about the drinking? I hope you told her that it’d been a stupid thing for her to do since she’s underage or close to it.”

  “Oh, she’s underage all right. Her eighteenth birthday isn’t until next month. I hadn’t actually remembered that on my own, but Tessie brought it up when she called last night. She said something about once she turned eighteen in three weeks, then maybe her mom would stop trying to coddle her. I told her good luck with that. Eve’ll still coddle her when she’s forty.”

  “Tessie’s seventeen?” This was less of a bark and more of a howl. “Hell’s fucking bells. I should have had her butt arrested. And how is she in college already if she’s so young?”

  “She’s smart, I guess, because she graduated from high school a year early and took some online college courses even before she moved to Texas.”

  “Well, she’s not very smart if she got drunk.” Lawson turned his glare back on Kellan. “And when you talked to her, you should have told her that drinking at her age was reckless and stupid.”

  “Uh, I don’t think so. Tessie treats me like a friend, and I want to keep it that way. Eve can bust her chops for shit like that.”

  Lawson’s index finger poked against his chest. “You should have busted her chops for it, too.”

  Kellan took the risk of pushing the poking finger away. “Hey, I’m not her father. And be thankful she has me for a sounding board after what Eve did to her.”

  Lawson’s shoulder went back. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “Duh. The rift between them. It’s all Eve’s fault. I’d be pissed, too, if my mom had lied to me like that, and I’m an adult. Imagine, having to hear something like that when you’re just a teenager. That rift happened a year ago, when Tessie was only sixteen.”

  Oops. He probably shouldn’t have mentioned that since Eve had sworn him to secrecy. But he’d been trying to make a point. Which Kellan thought he’d more or less succeeded in doing.

  “What the hell are you talking about?” Lawson repeated. Finally, there was a different tone that wasn’t barkish, snarlish or growlish. This one had a subdued edge to it.

  Since the cat was out of the bag, there was no use trying to put the kitty back in. “Tessie isn’t adopted. Eve gave birth while she was still filming Demon High. Last year, Tessie found her original birth certificate with Eve’s name on it.”

  Kellan was surprised at the relief he felt in getting that off his chest. But Lawson obviously wasn’t feeling any such relief at all. However, he was counting something on his fingers. The months. And he was going backward from October. When he made it to the ninth month, January, the growl was back. Again, with a different edge.

  A dangerous-sounding one.

  Lawson spit out a single word of profanity coupled with Eve’s name before he stormed out the door.

  * * *

  LAWSON CURSED THE whole way out of the house. Kept cursing when he reached the sunroom. And continued onto the porch. He could have kept it up, easily, all the way to his truck, but he ran into an obstacle—literally.

  Roman.

  Lawson smacked right into him as he was barreling down the steps. He cursed and apologized at the same time but kept moving. He had one goal now. To get in his truck, drive to Eve’s and demand to know why she’d done this. Of course, there was no explanation she could give him that would smooth this over, but damn it all to hell, she’d better have some kind of answer.

  “Wait up,” Roman called out to him.

  Lawson didn’t, but he’d forgotten just how dang fast Roman could run. He caught up with him and moved in front of his truck door. Maybe some attempt so that Lawson couldn’t get it open, but if necessary he’d kick Roman’s ass to do what needed to get done.

  “Is this about Eve?” Roman asked.

  “Yeah, and get the fuck out of my way.”

  Turns out that whipping Roman’s ass wasn’t easy. When Lawson went to shove him aside, Roman held his ground, and because he was bigger and stronger than Lawson, he managed that just fine.

  “What happened?” Roman pressed, and he sounded awfully calm for someone who had pinned a very pissed-off cousin against the side of his truck.

  “This is between Eve and me.” He rammed his elbow into Roman’s stomach, but that part of his cousin was obviously as hard as his head because Roman still didn’t budge.

  “Stop and think about this for a moment. You really believe you’ll accomplish anything with Eve when you’re seeing red like this? The veins are bulging in your neck, and your nostrils are puffed out so wide you look like a mutant cobra. Eve doesn’t need this shit from you.”

  “My shit?” Lawson yelled. “This is Eve’s shit!” His voice was a lot louder than he wanted it to be, but it was impossible to rein in anything right now. His voice, his temper and that fiery ball that was boiling up from his gut.

  By now, they’d gotten the attention of some ranch hands who were gathering outside the barn. None of them were rushing to interfere or help though, probably because they didn’t want to incur the wrath of either Roman or Lawson. But there’d be talk and speculation about what had caused one of their bosses to act like this.

  “Use your inside voice and tell me what she did,” Roman insisted. “Does it have anything to do with the horn-boy actor who showed up?”

  It took Lawson a couple of seconds just to get enough control of his vocal cords so he could speak. “Sort of. He’s the one who spilled Eve’s shit.” And even with the rage he was feeling, he had to wince at the way he’d said that. Anger didn’t make him very articulate.

  Roman relaxed the grip he had on Lawson, and he stepped back enough that Lawson could have tried to punch him again. But the look that came over Roman’s face had him holding back on the punch. For now, anyway. But Roman was going to pay for this.

  Eve was really going to pay for it.

  “Is this about Tessie being your daughter?” Roman asked.

  That stopped any punching thoughts and had Lawson whipping up his head so he could look Roman in the eye. Lawson so didn’t like what he saw there. Of course, Roman’s question itself wasn’t high on Lawson’s likability scale.

  “You knew?” Lawson said.

  Roman lifted his shoulder. “I was in the doorway of the Longhorn last night when she was going to her car. I thought there was a family resemblance. She looks a lot like Sophie did at that age.”

  “Well, fuck me.” Lawson groaned, put his hands on the side of his head and groaned some more. Since someone had just pulled the ground out from beneath his feet, he leaned against his truck for support. When that didn’t help, he sank on his butt to the ground.

  “I take it you had no idea,” Roman added.

  That was the most understated statement Lawson had ever heard. “None. Because Eve would have told me something like that. Or at least I thought she would.” And then Lawson thought of something. “Those magazine covers—”

  “Probably Photoshopped.” Roman caught onto him and hauled him to his feet. “Are you feeling less pissed off now so we can talk with cooler heads?”

  “Hell, no.”

 
With as much anger as he was feeling, it might take light-years for him to stop feeling...well, whatever the hell he was feeling. The only emotion Lawson could latch on to was the anger, but he was certain there were other things lurking around. Feelings that would soon come to bite him in the ass.

  “Why wouldn’t Eve have told me?” Lawson grumbled.

  Roman blew out a long breath. “That’s something you’re going to need to ask her. But I can go with you to do that. You need something to drink before I drive you over there to see her?”

  It was tempting, both the liquor and Roman’s offer to go with him. The whiskey would smooth down some of the edges of this raw anger, but Lawson wasn’t sure smoothing was the way to go here. Eve needed to see his face. Needed to know that what she’d done was wrong in every way possible.

  “Thanks,” Lawson said, “but I’m doing this on my own.” He tried to sound as calm as he could manage. Which probably wasn’t very calm. But he didn’t need his cousin for support. “This is between Eve and me.”

  Roman stared at him, clearly debating if he was going to let a solo visit happen, but Lawson didn’t give him any more input on that. He was thankful that Roman had moved him from the stunned rage to the stunned anger stage, but Lawson didn’t want Roman there when he confronted Eve.

  Lawson got in his truck, and as soon as he got it started, he slammed his foot on the accelerator, leaving Roman scowling at him in his rearview mirror.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  EVE NORMALLY ENJOYED feeding Aiden his bottle, but her son was drinking at a snail’s pace. He was far more interested in playing with his toes and pinching her than he was finishing up so that Eve could make arrangements to go to Austin.

  Where she had to confront Tessie.

  Eve still wasn’t sure what she was going to say to her daughter about getting drunk, but Tessie clearly needed help. Counseling, for starters. She doubted Tessie would just agree to that, but Eve was going to have to put her foot down. Tessie was still a minor—for a few more weeks, anyway—and if necessary Eve would force her to talk to a therapist about what had made her do such a dangerous, irresponsible thing.