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 probably 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.