Yeah, oh. He’d wanted to give Eve and himself some thinking time, too. So they could come to terms with the fooling around they’d done in Austin.
He expected Eve to launch into a discussion as to what he was feeling, et cetera, but she sat in silence as they drove to Heavenly Pastures. The silence ended, though, when she saw what someone had left by the gate. The pile of curled horns looked as if a bear had taken a dump.
“Tessie’s story will only make this sort of thing worse,” she muttered.
Lawson knocked some horns from the top of the security box and entered the code to open the gate only after he checked around to make sure there were no hornies or paparazzi. He didn’t see anyone, but with all the woods nearby, someone could be watching—that was likely how someone got that photo of Eve and Tessie. Just in case that someone tried to rush in and snap some more pictures, Lawson waited until the gate was fully closed behind them before he continued the drive to his house.
The first thing Lawson saw when he pulled into his driveway was something he didn’t want to see. Not a heap of horns or a Swaron trespasser. But rather Prissy Pants squawking and running around.
“Uh, what’s a chicken doing here?” Eve asked.
Lawson had no idea how the hen had gotten there. Vita didn’t have the security code for the gate unless the fates had revealed it to her. With the way his luck had been going, it was possible.
Lawson soon saw a clue as to the appearance of the chicken. A note was stuck in his door, and he immediately recognized the handwriting. It was Dylan’s.
“‘Saw Vita in town, and she insisted I bring this ugly chicken to you because she said you were in danger of being cursed again,’” Lawson read aloud. Dylan had triple underlined insisted. “‘FYI, you’re paying for the shit to be cleaned out of my truck. Dylan.’”
Lawson could only sigh. He wasn’t in danger of being cursed. The curse seemed to already be there.
Since he rarely locked his door, Lawson was cautious when he opened it, and he looked around for any other curse paraphernalia from Vita. Or for Darby naked beneath a raincoat. Nothing, thank God. Maybe the fates felt they’d already given him enough for one day.
At least he didn’t have ass stitches.
Not yet, anyway.
Eve took cautious steps when she walked in, too. She glanced at the binoculars by the front window and the bottle of whiskey on his coffee table.
“It’s been a rough couple of days,” he grumbled.
She went to the bottle and had a closer look. “It’s not open.”
“If it hadn’t been a rough time, I would have opened the bottle and had a shot or two.” Lawson fully expected to have to give her some kind of explanation to go with that, but Eve only nodded and made a sound of understanding.
“It’s like Ooey Gooey for me,” she said.
Lawson was sure he gave her a blank stare because now he was the one who needed the explanation.
“It’s ice cream,” she added. “Or guaranteed cellulite in every bite, as Cassidy likes to call it. I only eat it if I want it, not because I’m trying to choke down my sorrows.”
So, she did get it. More or less. He only hoped he didn’t have to explain their coping mechanisms to anyone else.
Eve went to the window and used the binoculars to look at her house. “Tessie’s car is still there, so no escape attempt yet.” Her back was to him now, but he had no trouble seeing her shoulders drop. “God, Lawson. What are we going to do?”
It was another tough question, but at least Eve had made it a “we” instead of an “I.” He’d been mulling over some possibilities in between tamping down the whole lust thing he had whenever Eve was around.
“Have you grounded her?” he asked.
She nodded. Sighed.
“Maybe we could arrange for her to see a counselor,” Lawson suggested. “Roman’s son, Tate, has been seeing one since he had some problems last year.”
Another nod. “She has an appointment day after tomorrow. Not sure she’ll go though. When I told her about it, she just grunted.”
If Lawson thought it would do any good, he’d volunteer to take Tessie. Heck, he’d go to the appointment with her.
Lawson made a third suggestion. “I could try to talk to Tessie if you think it’ll help.”
Judging from Eve’s even faster sigh, she’d already considered that, too. “She’s just so angry, and it might stir her up even more than she already is.”
He couldn’t believe he was even thinking this, but he was going to take a page from Kellan’s book on this. Right now, it could make things worse for him to be around his own child.
Even if that’s where he wanted to be.
Well, hell. Sometime in the past couple of days, the daddy switch had flipped inside him, and suddenly none of his other problems could hold a candle to what was going on with Tessie. Ironic that the biggest issue in his life was one that he couldn’t do anything to fix.
“I’ve even considered talking to Vita,” Eve went on. Not a sigh this time but a groan, and she quickly waved it off.
Obviously, this was eating away at Eve for her to have thought of something that extreme. “I could lend you the chicken.” It was a lousy joke, but Lawson was pleased when it earned him one of those half smiles from Eve.
With that half smile on her mouth and the weariness everywhere else on her face, Eve looked at him. Really looked. It was a connection that could only lead to trouble. Which was probably why she glanced away. She took her looks and glancing to his house, and it occurred to him this was the first time she’d been here.
“The place looks great,” she said, putting her hands on her hips. She probably didn’t know that the gesture stretched her shirt buttons to the max. It created a gap that allowed him a peek at her bra.
He felt his body clench, then beg.
She walked past him and to the kitchen, and her face twisted up a little when she saw the green granite. “I’m guessing this wasn’t your first choice,” she said, running her hand along the smooth surface.
“It wasn’t even my one-millionth choice.”
That brought back some of the smile, and she kept walking, going through the kitchen and to the wall of windows that faced the creek. “Now, this was your first choice for a view.”
Yeah, it was. And while he’d never actually imagined Eve standing there like that, she sure made a pretty picture with the light haloing all around her. Haloing through her thin top, too, since he could now see the outline of her body.
His body begged some more, but Lawson planted his feet and didn’t move.
She sighed again and mumbled something he didn’t catch. However, Lawson had no trouble hearing the rest of what she had to say. “This might be the only house in Wrangler’s Creek where we haven’t had sex.” And with that comment, she looked over her shoulder at him. “Did you bring me here for sex?”