“Who was the cowboy cop who came to the sorority house last month?” Tessie asked.
Eve’s muscles went stiff because she doubted that Clay had gone there. “Do you mean Lawson Granger? If so, he’s not a cop. He’s a rancher. I went to high school with him.”
Because she was talking about him, Eve picked up the new binoculars and went to the window to have a look. Lawson was there all right. With Vita. They were in the yard and appeared to be trying to catch a chicken.
If she hadn’t been chatting with Tessie, that would have definitely held her attention and caused her to break her no-spying rule, but Eve also thought of something else. Something that sent her stomach to her kneecaps.
“Uh, I didn’t realize you’d seen Lawson that day,” Eve commented, and she tried not to sound panicked.
Silence. For a very long time. Oh, no. Had Tessie seen him and then noticed the resemblance between them?
“Why’d he come to Austin?” Tessie finally asked. What she hadn’t done was respond to Eve’s statement.
“He was traveling through on business, and his aunt asked him to check on you. She knew I was worried about you, and Lawson didn’t know I’d be there.” But Eve had certainly known about his visit, and that’s why she’d rushed there.
“So, you didn’t ask him to come?”
God, no. But Eve tamped down her emotions enough to give a hopefully calm answer. “I didn’t.”
“And he didn’t say anything about me?” Tessie quickly added.
Eve had to tamp down even more emotions. Mainly fear. This was what happened when you lived a lie. You were always afraid of being outed, which meant Lawson and Tessie needed to know the truth.
“Lawson was just worried about you,” Eve settled for saying. She took a deep breath, ready to insist that Tessie and she meet so they could talk. However, Tessie spoke before Eve had even finished her breath.
“Mom, I have to go. ’Bye.”
“Wait!” But she was talking to the air because Tessie had already ended the call.
Eve sighed. She really did need to practice exactly how she was going to tell Tessie the news. Also, since it was highly likely that Tessie wouldn’t see her anytime soon, Eve also needed to practice saying it very quickly to get it all out before another hang-up.
Frustrated, she scrubbed her hand over her face and peeked out through the binoculars again. The chicken-chase was still going on and had escalated. Lawson had taken off his shirt and appeared to be using it to try to grab the running chicken.
The chicken was winning.
It was like an old Keystone Cops scene playing out in front of her. Except that the cop had never looked that good. It was a reminder of why they’d become lovers in the first place. Lawson was still Hot Cowboy.
She watched as he lunged forward, causing all those muscles to respond to the movement. Eve responded, too, and she suddenly wished she were the chicken when Lawson scooped it up in his shirt and held it against his chest. Once, he’d held her that way. Well, not with her head wrapped in his shirt, but Eve remembered in complete detail what it was like to be in his arms.
Vita went to Lawson, extracted the chicken from the shirt and took it from him. That brought an end to the chase. And the peep show, because he put his shirt back on. With the chicken now tucked under her arm, Vita headed to her bicycle, which was leaning against Lawson’s truck.
He said something to the old woman, probably an offer to give her a ride, but Vita waved him off and peddled away, somehow managing to keep hold of both the chicken and the handlebars. Lawson watched her for a few seconds before he went to his porch. He stopped though, and with his back to Eve, he stayed there a few seconds before he glanced over his shoulder.
At her.
Or rather in her direction.
That sent Eve scurrying back in case he could see her. She doubted that he actually could, but her heart was sprinting as if she’d just gotten caught doing something she shouldn’t have been doing. Which she was.
Lawson didn’t make the glance a lingering one. Instead, he went inside. There was nothing particularly life-changing about the moment, but it hit Eve like a slam from a rodeo bull. She needed to amend her plan about telling Tessie and give the news to Lawson first. That way, maybe they could tell Tessie together. And there was no time better than the present to fill in Lawson, so before she could talk herself out of it, she pulled her phone from her pocket and called him.
She hadn’t thought it possible, but her heart rate went up a notch with the first ring. It went up even more with the second. By the fourth ring, Eve thought she might be about to go into cardiac arrest.
And then the call went to voice mail.
His recorded greeting was short and sweet. “This is Lawson Granger. Leave me a message.”
Eve didn’t do that. She would just call him back later. After the chicken-chase, he’d probably headed straight to the shower.
Or not.
She peered through the binoculars again and saw him at the back of his house. He was drinking a beer and looking out at the creek. Maybe he’d forgotten to take his phone outside with him.
At the exact moment she had that thought, he took his phone from his jeans pocket and glanced at it. Then he glanced in her direction again. A missed call with her name on it was likely on his screen. Eve kept watching, waiting to see what he was going to do, and she tried to steel herself for him to call her back. The steeling took a nosedive though when her phone rang, the sound causing her to shriek like a schoolgirl.
But it wasn’t Lawson. It was his cousin Sophie.
Since Sophie hadn’t called her in weeks, Eve answered as fast as she could get her fingers working. She hoped nothing had gone wrong.
“How many baby throw-up stains do you have on the shirt you’re wearing right now?” Sophie immediately asked.
It certainly wasn’t a question Eve got every day, but she knew where this was going since Sophie was the mom of toddler twins. “Only one. But you caught me on a good day.” Eve smiled. “How about you?”
“I’ve graduated from throw-up to food stains. My son can squish a pea between his index finger and thumb and then flick it in the same motion. My daughter pretends her mouth is the blowhole of a whale and spews out apple juice.”
Eve laughed. Sophie wasn’t making motherhood sound fun or sanitary, but she’d seen Sophie with the twins and knew that motherhood suited her.
“And that brings me to why I’m calling,” Sophie went on. “Want a girls’ night out, one where we can wear unstained clothes, speak in complete sentences and not have to change a diaper?”
“Does such a night exist?” Eve joked. “After three months, I can’t remember.”