Yes, the rest would never fall into the easier category. “What about you?” She tipped her head to the bandage above his eye. “Are you all right?”
“I lost a battle of wills with an Appaloosa.”
She figured that had to sting—not just his ego but literally. At least it didn’t look serious.
Eve took a deep breath, prepared to tell him about Tessie, but Lawson spoke before she could say anything.
“Tessie came by the ranch a couple of hours ago. She rode Dylan’s horse there.”
Her first response was to groan. “She was grounded. She shouldn’t have gone there without permission.”
He acknowledged that with a nod. “I grounded her again. She’ll be tending the horses for me.”
Again, she wanted to groan. “You know that’s not much of a punishment for someone who’s horse crazy like she is?”
“No, but mucking out the stalls will be.” He paused. “I’ll lift the punishment if you want. Or if you’re leaving anytime soon.” Lawson hadn’t changed his tone with that last bit, but Eve knew it was a question.
A question she didn’t know how to answer. She wasn’t even sure where to start, but she went with the most obvious one. “If Tessie came to see you, then you must know she got kicked out of school.”
“She told me. I think she’s sorry it happened. Sorry for what she did.”
Yes, Eve thought that as well, but it didn’t mend things. And Tessie wasn’t the only issue here. “It’s all over the tabloids that I’m a liar. ‘Slut’ has been mentioned, too. It’s cost a lot of donations for my foundation for teen mothers.”
A muscle tightened in Lawson’s jaw. “How much has it cost you?”
She sighed. “You’re not going to try to fix this with Granger money.”
“I’ve got a trust fund I’m not using.”
“You’re not going to try to fix this with Granger money,” she repeated and hoped it got through. “But you can see the problem I’m having. I don’t especially want to go back to my old life, but I’m ruining things here. I’m creating a big distraction for you, your family and everybody else in town.”
She wasn’t sure how he was going to respond to that, but she wasn’t expecting him to do what he did. Lawson hooked his hand around her neck, dragged her to him and French-kissed her. It was scalding hot but caused Aiden to laugh and bop at them with his fist.
Even with the bopping, she could feel all the right things. The slight stubble on Lawson’s jaw. The gentle but firm grip on her neck. The way the left half of his body landed against hers. And that scent. Ah. Saddle leather and cowboy.
When Lawson had left her breathless, confused and giddy, he pulled back, met her eye to eye. “You’ve always been a distraction to me. As for everybody else, screw them. And notice, I didn’t use the f-word because of little ears.”
Eve had definitely noticed, and she smiled before she remembered there wasn’t anything to smile about. Well, other than that tingly feeling the kiss had given her.
“Things might not get better before they get worse,” she reminded him.
“Yeah. About that.” His forehead bunched up. “A Swaron named Todd trespassed onto the ranch and took a picture of Tessie and me together. I told him that Tessie was my daughter. By now, it’s probably been uploaded pretty much everywhere.”
She had no trouble getting rid of the smile when she heard that, but Eve did have some trouble talking. “Was Tessie okay with that? Were you okay with that?” And was she okay with it?
“Tessie’s fine. So am I. We knew that sooner or later the press would learn the truth. This way, the latest crap-storm should have blown over by the time Tessie starts back to school in January.”
He had a point, and it was a point that made Eve see she was okay with it. For this moment, anyway, but she really did need to sit down and work out what was best for everyone.
“I’ve got to go,” he said, passing Aiden back to her. “I need to sign for an order at the feed store.”
“I should get back home, too.” So that she could have a long talk with Tessie.
He kissed Aiden’s cheek, dropped a kiss on her mouth and got moving. He didn’t say anything else though until Eve and he started walking. “Will you go on a date with me Friday night? I can pick you up at eight at your house.”
Again, he’d surprised her, but that didn’t leave her nearly as tingly as the kiss. “A date?” she questioned.
“Not sex,” he clarified. “Though that’s always an option. I’m asking you out on a...dance date.”
Eve repeated that last part to herself to make sure she hadn’t misunderstood. “You don’t dance,” she reminded him. “Or at least you didn’t when we were teenagers.”
“I still don’t. That doesn’t mean we can’t go on a dance date.”
She wanted to point out that was exactly what it meant, but he just continued.
“I want you to wear the dress you bought eighteen years ago for the Sadie Hawkins dance,” he added when they made it to his truck. It was parked right next to her car, and she put Aiden in his seat in the back. “The dance we didn’t get to go to because you left town.”
There was no need for him to clarify that last part. “How’d you know I had a dress?” But then she huffed. “Cassidy blabbed. What else did she tell you?”
“That the dance meant a lot to you.”
It had. Oh, the hours she’d spent planning for that one night. There was no way the actual dance could have lived up to the hype she’d given it.
Lawson leaned down, forcing eye contact with her when she looked away. “Did Cassidy have it right? Did the dance mean a lot to you?”
She nodded. He was clearly waiting for her to add more. And she did. But she waited until she was behind the wheel of her car and ready to drive off. Because what she had to say was best said as an exit line.
“The dance was important,” she said, “because I was going to tell you that I loved you and that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with you.”
The exit line would have been a lot more effective if her car hadn’t stalled when she hit the accelerator. The engine bucked and died, which meant she couldn’t escape now that she’d said a word that would never set well with him.
Love.
Thankfully, Lawson didn’t say anything. Probably because she had stunned him into silence. He was almost certainly rethinking that dance date now. And with the confusion widening his eyes, Eve finally got her car started and drove away.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
“SUCK IN YOUR BREATH,” Cassidy instructed.
Eve was already doing that. She was also sucking in her stomach, her butt and anything else in or on her body that she could suck or clench.
It wasn’t helping.
The dress that she’d bought eighteen years ago for the Sadie Hawkins dance was meant for a teenager’s body, not the mother of two. In hindsight, she should have tried it on after Cassidy had had it dry-cleaned, but Eve had been so tied up in knots over Tessie and Lawson that it had slipped her mind. Plus, she had assumed that the corset bodice would be more accommodating to her “womanly” figure.