Vita.
Her bicycle was leaning against the fence, and she had a chicken tucked under her arm. A live, ugly one. Emphasis on ugly. Of course, he’d never actually seen what he’d call a pretty chicken, but this one was dingy mouse gray with sprigs of black feathers poking out in random spots—including on its head.
Lawson stopped and lowered his window. “Yeah, I know. There’s a curse on me the size of elephant balls.”
Vita stared at him as if he’d just said the most ridiculous thing possible. Since those were the very words she’d foretold six weeks ago, he just stared back at her.
“There’s no more curse—for the time being, anyway,” Vita finally said after the staring match went on for several seconds. She tried to hand him the chicken, but when he didn’t take it, she frowned again. “You want more stitches in your heinie, do you?”
Lawson wasn’t sure if that was a threat or if it was chicken related. “Not especially.”
“Then take the hen.” She practically tossed it onto his seat. “Her name is Prissy Pants, and she’ll make things play out the way they should.”
There were so many things wrong with that explanation. “Play out?” he repeated. “You mean, it’ll go the way you say it’ll go?”
She huffed. “Not me. The fates, of course.” She mumbled something, but the only word he caught was stupid. “Keep Prissy Pants with you for a month, and your life will be back on its right course. All your bad karma over breaking up with Darby will be fixed.”
Lawson had been about to hand the chicken back to Vita, but that stopped him. Vita had indeed been right about the horns-baby-concussion-stitches curse. And while he really didn’t want to believe in anything Vita said, he didn’t want another butt injury, either.
“Uh, does Prissy Pants need a cage or anything?” he asked. Yeah, he was apparently buying into this. With a chicken whose name he didn’t want to say aloud.
“No. Just let her roam around your yard. You got some low trees, and she can roost in one of them. She’ll eat bugs until you get a chance to buy her some chicken feed.”
Great. Now he would have to buy feed to keep this hope alive of righted fates and karma.
“I’ll be back for Prissy Pants in a month,” Vita called out to him as she went to her bike.
Feeling duped and oh-so skeptical, Lawson looked at the chicken, but he could have sworn that Prissy Pants was exhibiting some skepticism of her own.
“It’s just for a month,” he muttered. Then he cursed himself for talking to poultry before he pressed in the security numbers on the panel to open the gate.
The chicken squawked when Lawson released the brake and the truck lurched forward. And she just kept on squawking and flapping her wings around. The rest of her didn’t stay still, either, and Lawson damn near ran off the road when she flew right in his face.
This wasn’t a good start to karma-fixing.
Thankfully, his house wasn’t far from the gate, and the moment he pulled into his driveway, he threw open the passenger’s door so the chicken could jump out. She stayed put, and this time when she looked at Lawson, there appeared to be a smidge of stink eye. A sort of if you want me out of here, then move me yourself.
He’d already compromised enough of his dignity for one day, so he merely left the truck doors open, got out and hoped the hen would be able to find her own way into the yard.
As he always did when he went in the new place, he held his breath. There’d been so many hitches with the idiotic construction crew that he was never quite sure what he was going to face. And that’s why he was pleasantly surprised that nothing looked wrong. Just the opposite. It looked like, well, home.
Lawson dropped his keys on the foyer table, smiling at the fact there was not only a table but also a completed foyer. With flooring and painted walls. The flooring and paint carried through the rest of the house where he saw his furniture. Obviously, the hands had moved the things from his house in town, and even though there were still plenty of boxes that needed to be unpacked, he made a mental note to give them all big fat bonuses.
The smiling, however, stopped when he made it to the kitchen. The green countertop that he’d nixed several times was still in place, but it seemed to be the only screwup. Maybe he could learn to live with stone that looked like pond scum with dabs of yellow fungus in it. Someone had even stocked his fridge with beer and put a few groceries in his pantry. Hell, there were flowers on the breakfast table, and next to it was a big purple box.
He opened the card on the package and read the note. A housewarming gift. Go to your living room window and look out. Dylan.
The gift was a pair of binoculars, and Lawson didn’t intend to thank his brother for it. Because before he even took the binoculars to the specified location—his living room—he knew what he would see.
Eve’s house.
What Lawson hadn’t expected to see was Eve herself. But there she was. She was in the garden on the side of her house and appeared to be tending to the roses. Obviously, she hadn’t stayed in Austin very long if she was already back. Maybe that meant the reconciliation with Tessie had flopped.
He zoomed in to try to get a better look at Eve’s face and expression. Just to see if she was upset or something.
Hell.
The binoculars were good enough that he could see her crying. He doubted this was allergy related. No. He was betting this had to do with the problems she was having with Tessie. Issues that had nothing to do with him, he reminded himself, and that’s why he put the binoculars on the foyer table and turned away.
Not easily.
But he managed it.
Since he knew he should put some distance between the front window and him, Lawson grabbed a beer and headed out back and had a look around. No fence nor was there any landscaping as there was at Eve’s–his mom’s old house, and he intended to keep it that way.
He wanted the view of the creek even though it coiled around the very land that could ultimately fuel a feud. Lawson was hoping since he was smack-dab in the middle of that contentious land that both sides of the Grangers would eventually agree to sell him those acres.
By then, Eve would have probably moved on and gone back to California.
The idea of that didn’t settle as well in his gut as he’d thought it would. It especially didn’t settle well in a specific part of him. That brainless wonder behind the zipper of his jeans.
Well, crap.
Now his dick had apparently decided that he was going to be damned if Eve stayed or even more damned if she left.
He was still cursing himself and his idiotic body part when he heard the sound of a car engine, so Lawson made his way back through the house to the front door. He threw it open, definitely not expecting to see the person who was now on his front porch.