That put a stop to the reining in, and the question caused Lawson to stare at him again. “Eve told you what was going on with Tessie?”
“No. But I’ve got eyes. When I saw Tessie the other night at the Longhorn, I figured she was yours.”
“Shit,” Lawson spit out. That was almost identical to what Roman had said. “Am I the only one who didn’t know?”
“Appears that way. You never were very bright about that sort of thing.”
Under normal circumstances, those would have been fighting words between brothers, but Lawson was beginning to think Dylan might have a point. He hadn’t noticed the resemblance between him and Tessie, and he hadn’t a clue that his mom had looked weak.
“Things with Tessie are screwed up,” Lawson told him. “Things with Eve and me, too.”
Lawson figured that would prompt Dylan to give another of those brotherly jabs. Something like You’re just spreading sunshine wherever you go. But Dylan didn’t head in that direction.
“Anything I can do to help?” Dylan asked. “I’ve talked to Tessie a couple of times on the phone, and I don’t think things are screwed up between me and her. I can try to have another chat with her.”
“You talked to Tessie? When?”
Dylan shrugged. “I called her a time or two after Eve moved back. Mom asked me to try to smooth things over between Eve and her.”
“And Tessie actually took your calls?”
“Yeah. I guess I’m sort of like Switzerland for her. Neutral ground.” Dylan paused. “What’s going on with Tessie, anyway? And don’t lie and say that nothing’s wrong because if someone painted a picture of a giant pulsing nerve, it’d have the expression you have right now.”
Yeah, he was right, and Lawson took a deep breath, ready to tell Dylan, but then he saw Darby making her way toward him.
Hell.
He hoped this wasn’t personal, and thankfully, it wasn’t.
“Your mom wants to see you. All of you,” Darby added to Lily Rose and Dylan. “But the doctor left orders for her to have only one visitor at a time. She asked to see you first.”
The you in this case was Lawson. A shocker. Lily Rose was her baby, and Dylan was the one who got along with everybody. Lucian was the one in charge, the boss, and Reed was the semiprodigal son who she would have welcomed back with open arms. If Reed were to ever come back, that is.
And then there was Lawson.
Smack in the middle of the five kids. A hell-raising teenager who cut school, drank and was so wrapped up in Eve that he hadn’t noticed his family for three or four years.
The last thing he’d expected to be was first in the visiting pecking order, but Lawson didn’t hesitate. When Darby motioned for him to follow her, he got right to his feet.
“What happened to my mother? Why did she collapse?” Lawson asked.
She opened her mouth, maybe some kind of rote reaction left over from when they’d been lovers. In those days, she wouldn’t have hidden anything from him.
Unlike what seemingly the rest of the world had done.
But Darby shook her head when she no doubt remembered that ex-lover status wouldn’t get you squat.
“I’m sure Regina will tell you everything she wants you to know,” Darby finally said. She stopped outside the ICU. “Just don’t upset her, and keep your visit short. I’ll be back in five minutes to bring in Lily Rose.”
Lawson nodded, stepped into the room and didn’t like anything he saw. His mom was hooked up to monitors and had an IV. And she was practically bald. He knew she wore wigs, of course, but he hadn’t known that beneath them were just sprigs and tufts of cottony white hair.
Speaking of white, now he saw the paleness that Lily Rose had mentioned. There was no color in his mom’s face, but she managed a smile when she saw him, and she waggled her fingers for him to come closer. He tried to steel himself for whatever she might say, and he prayed she hadn’t brought him there to say goodbye.
“You’re grounded,” she said, her voice surprisingly strong since she didn’t look as if she could have fought off a wet piece of paper.
“For what?” he snapped, and then he remembered he was no longer thirteen and acting out.
Since he was pretty sure it was a joke, he managed to lighten up his expression some, and he maneuvered around the machines so he could brush a kiss on her cheek.
“What’s wrong with you, Mom?” he asked.
Her breath was a little ragged. “I had an allergic reaction to my cancer meds. You know, the pharmacists read out all those possible scary symptoms, but apparently they weren’t kidding about the chance of sudden death. My heart stopped, but it’s nothing to worry about because I’m stable now.”
Lawson wanted to look around and make sure a Mack truck hadn’t just slammed into him. Considering he’d already been hit with stunner news, he wondered for a moment if his own heart might give out.
“Cancer,” he repeated. “Sudden death. What the heck are you talking about?” He thankfully remembered to omit any of the curse words that nearly got mixed into that.
“Breast cancer.” She patted his hand, which told him just how bad he must look right now for her to be comforting him. “I had the surgery about two months ago and went through chemo, but the latest meds they put me on really didn’t agree with my system.”
Obviously not, if a phrase like sudden death was getting bandied around. “You should have told me. You shouldn’t have kept something like that to yourself.”
Her right eyebrow winged up. “I’m not the only one keeping a secret. You didn’t tell me about Tessie.”
Lawson felt another slam of his heart but wondered why he was even surprised that she knew. Everyone else did.
“How long have you known?” he asked.
“For about four months. I was in California and ran into Eve.” She stopped a moment and dragged in a shallow breath. “I could see she was pregnant and having a hard time. We had coffee so we could catch up, and that’s when she showed me a picture of Tessie that she had on her phone. One look at her, and I knew she was my granddaughter.”
The events of the last three months suddenly became very clear. “And you talked Eve into moving here.”
“I didn’t have to do much talking. She was looking to make a change, and by then Tessie had already moved to Austin to go to school. Eve wanted to be close to her without being right on her doorstep.” She patted his hand again. “Don’t be cross with Eve about all of this. She was young and made a mistake.”
No, it was more than just a mistake, but he wasn’t going to upset his mom by verbally blasting Eve. He could do that later. But he could get something clarified right now.
“If you knew Tessie was my daughter, then why did you try to set Eve up with Dylan?” he asked. “And why’d you tell me that it wasn’t wise to get involved with Eve again?”
Darby came to the door and tapped her watch, indicating his time was up, but Lawson held up his finger in a “wait a sec” gesture.