He swiveled toward her so fast that Tessie heard joints snap. “Don’t put this all on your mom.”
Great. He was defending her. That meant everybody who knew Eve was on her side when it came to this. Ironic, since it affected Tessie more than anyone else.
Tessie rolled her eyes at the same time he did, and she was reasonably sure the gesture was identical. It was creepy.
“You’re going to give her a free pass for keeping you in the dark about being a father,” Tessie said, tossing it out there.
“No. I’m not giving her a pass, but I’m sure as heck not giving you one, either. Yeah, she was wrong not to tell you the truth, but you’ll run into liars and worse in your life. That’s no excuse to act like a jackass.”
Well, she’d just gotten her first fatherly lecture, and she didn’t like it much. Of course, there wasn’t much she liked about this situation.
“I should have known it was you,” Tessie went on. “The only two guys she ever talked about were Brett and you.”
Oh, no. Lawson didn’t get teary-eyed, but he did go all gloom and doom on her. “What do you know about Brett?”
“More than Mom probably wants me to know. I read the newspaper articles about him on the internet. There was an inquest, and Mom, you and a whole bunch of other people were questioned.” She paused, wondering just how far she should push this. Tessie went for broke. “Was Mom responsible somehow for Brett dying?”
He stayed quiet so long that Tessie thought he might not answer. “No,” he finally said. “I was.”
Lawson stepped away from her, heading back into the living room. She followed to ask him more. Not just about Brett but also about, well, them. Maybe he wanted nothing more to do with her, but if so, Tessie needed to know, and it seemed as if Lawson would tell her the truth. No matter how much it stung.
But before she could ask him anything else, her mom came out of the room. She went straight to the kitchen, turned off all the noise-making devices, and then she whirled around to face Tessie. For a moment, Tessie was going to ask her what Lawson and she talked about. She didn’t.
“I’ve decided what’s going to happen,” her mom said, and it was definitely her mom tone, coupled with a mom look. “You’re moving to Wrangler’s Creek with me. You can commute to your classes, and I’ll hire a driver to take you back and forth. You’ll have no contact whatsoever with the girl who gave you that margarita. And you’ll go to counseling.”
Whoa.
Tessie had guessed that her mom would try to come down hard on her, but she hadn’t seen this coming. She wanted to ask and what if I don’t? In fact, the words nearly leaped right out of her mouth before Lawson shook his head. It seemed to be some kind of warning not to push this.
“Come on,” her mom said, grabbing her purse. “We’re leaving right now.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
EVE TRIED TO focus on the paperwork for her foundation for pregnant teens, but the spreadsheets were flurrying around like white noise in her head. The only thing that was mentally coming through with any urgency was Tessie.
Not a surprise because it’d been that way for the past two days since Eve had practically dragged Tessie to the house in Wrangler’s Creek.
Tessie had spent most of that forty-eight hours either sleeping or giving Eve the silent treatment. That was mixed in with an occasional grunt that was meant to be some kind of acknowledgment to whatever Eve had just told her. Of course, the sleeping, silence, grunts and, yes, even the occasional stink eye were preferable to her teenage daughter drinking and acting out.
As Eve herself had done when she was that age.
That made her feel like a hypocrite, but she’d do whatever it took to keep Tessie from going through what Brett had. One death from underage drinking was enough, and while Tessie might not have learned that lesson yet, it was one that stayed with Eve every single day of her life. It had cost her a dear friend. Her peace of mind.
And Lawson.
Eve frowned. Of course, she’d added to that cost by keeping Tessie a secret from him and keeping Lawson a secret from Tessie. While Lawson and she had nearly had sex in the Austin apartment, she doubted the near-sex came with a blanket forgiveness. No. Forgiveness couldn’t be tempered with lust.
Forgiveness might not be tempered with genetics, either. When she was finally able to talk to Tessie about Lawson being her father, it was possible that it would launch Tessie into another round of dangerous behavior. And that’s the justification Eve had used for waiting to tell her.
She picked up her phone to call Lawson so they could try to talk out what’d happened. Or talk about anything, for that matter. But as Eve had done for the past two days, she put the phone right back down. That’s because she didn’t know what to say to him. And it wasn’t as if he’d called her.
He hadn’t.
Thinking of that caused her to frown even more. Lawson hadn’t driven from Austin to Wrangler’s Creek with Tessie and her. Since his truck was there at the apartment building, he’d taken them to the sorority house where her car was parked, and then he’d come back on his own. He had texted, though, to make sure they arrived okay and had ended that text with Be in touch soon.
She wasn’t sure if he’d meant for her to be in touch or that he would take the initiative when he was good and ready. If it was the latter, there was no telling when good and ready would happen. If ever.
That was the reason for picking up the phone, thinking-rethinking and putting it back down again. However, this time Eve still had hold of the phone when Cassidy walked into the office. She had a baby monitor in one hand and a Coke in the other.
Cassidy took one look at the cell and grumbled something disparaging under her breath. “Last I heard, a woman can call a man without fear of tar and feathering. Especially a man who’s the father of her child.” She paused. “Of course, that doesn’t apply to Kellan. You’d risk tar and feathering by me if you took up with that asshat again.”
“There’s no chance of that,” Eve assured her. “And speaking of the children, how are they?”
“Both sacked out.”
Eve checked the time. Ten thirty in the morning. It was Aiden’s usual nap time, but Tessie was obviously sleeping in again. “Any communication from Tessie that wasn’t grunt-like? Shrugs don’t count, either.”
Cassidy had opened her mouth to answer until Eve added the last part. Then she lifted her shoulder. “No actual words, but last night her door was partially open, so I peeked in on her, and she was on the Wellsmore College website. It looked as if she was making arrangements to take some of her classes online for the rest of the semester.”
Eve stared at her. “You got all of that from peeking in on her?”