He definitely didn’t have time for Vita or the fates who’d cursed him—again. He was running late and had to pick up Eve for their date. A date he didn’t want her canceling, and that’s why when she’d called, he’d let it go to voice mail. If she was going to bail on him, she was going to have to do it to his face.
“I don’t have time to talk,” Lawson told Vita. He mumbled some profanity under his breath when he heard the rumble of thunder in the distance. Maybe the rain would at least hold off until he’d picked up Eve.
“Yeah, I know. You got a date at the high school gym. But this is serious. You want stitches in your heinie again?” Vita asked.
“Not especially.” But he’d take the stitches over being late for Eve. And lateness wouldn’t have been an issue if he hadn’t realized he had forgotten the envelope with the boxes in his desk. So much for all his careful planning.
Lawson threw open his truck door and tossed the envelope on the dash before he turned to Vita. “Mix up a potion to nix the curse. Then do whatever it is you need to do with it.”
The old woman eyed him with plenty of suspicion. Even though it was already dark, the backyard was well lit, so Lawson had no trouble seeing her face. The suspicion was likely because he’d never shown any faith whatsoever in her craft, and he didn’t have faith in it now, either.
“A potion like that could be expensive,” Vita said. “Maybe twenty or thirty bucks.”
“Good. Then make five or six of them to be sure it rids me of the curse and then send me a bill.”
Vita beamed with a smile. Hell, if he’d known it was this easy to get rid of her, he would have ordered potions earlier. A thousand of them.
“Don’t ride your bike home in the dark,” Lawson added. “It’s about to rain. Have one of the hands drive you back.”
That caused her to smile even more, and she patted his arm. “You’ve got a good heart, Lawson Granger. But I’m going to see Mila and Roman for a while. They can give me a ride.” She tipped her head to the envelope. “Is that for Eve?”
Since he doubted she had actual ESP, it meant she was guessing. Not even a good guess, either, since she must have known his date was with Eve. But yes, the envelope with the two boxes was for her.
Lawson nodded. Now he had to hope she’d choose the right box.
He was about to drive off when his phone rang, and Kellan’s name popped up. The only reason the idiot was in his contacts was because Lawson had called him multiple times when Tessie had gone missing. They hadn’t exactly been on friendly terms then, and it was a whole lot worse now.
“You dickhead,” Lawson said the moment he answered. He didn’t start driving because he didn’t think it was a good idea to be on the road while he gave this turd a piece of his mind.
“You know, you and Eve should really work on your greeting skills,” Kellan said. “She called me ‘worm shit.’”
“Good for her. I’m going to call you a lot worse, but hear this—you don’t dick around with my daughter, with Eve or with me. Have I made myself clear?”
“As clear as a picture.” And that was a little sarcastic. “I called to apologize and to ask you a favor.”
“Dickheads don’t deserve favors, and your apology isn’t accepted. I’ll beat you over the head with a shit-covered shovel if you tell another lie about Tessie.”
“Again, a very clear picture, but the favor isn’t for me. It’s for Aiden.”
That got Lawson’s attention. “You don’t dick with him, either,” Lawson warned him. “In fact, Aiden goes to the top of the list of things you can’t dick with, or I’ll beat you with two shovels.”
“Agreed, and even though I wish I could think of another word other than dick, it works here.” Kellan paused. “I’ll mess things up if I’m his dad. You know that. So does Eve. Hell, Aiden probably knows it, too.”
“I’m not disagreeing with you,” Lawson said when Kellan paused again.
“That’s why I’m passing the whole dad thing to you. I could say something cocky that’d make me sound like more of an ass than I am, but you seem like a solid guy. So, do Aiden a favor and make sure he doesn’t turn out like me.”
“Aiden could never turn out like you,” Lawson growled.
“And there we have the reason why you’d be a lot better at daddy-hood than I ever would be. Aiden is yours, you know. I mean, in every way that counts. You were with him right from the start, and you’d never let anyone, including me, dick around with him.”
“Damn straight,” Lawson snapped just as Kellan hung up.
Lawson sat there, replaying his own words and the words of the dickhead. Shit. He’d just agreed to help raise Aiden. Eve might have something to say about that, but he almost hoped she wouldn’t nix the idea. Because it felt...right.
With that confusing thought going through his head, he finally got his truck moving. But he’d barely made it to the end of the driveway when he saw the headlights of an approaching vehicle. A vehicle he instantly recognized.
Eve.
He doubted this was a good sign. Maybe since he hadn’t answered her call, she’d come over to cancel.
She pulled off the side of the driveway, turned off the engine and hurried to his truck. At least she was wearing the dress. Well, maybe she was. It was a dress, anyway, but she was clutching a wrap thingy around it, so it was hard to tell if it was the dress that Cassidy had described to him.
Cassidy certainly hadn’t described those heels though. They were a mile high, and Eve teetered on them as she made her way to his truck. She threw open the passenger door and got in. Not easily. Apparently, it wasn’t easy to maneuver in the dress, which made him feel guilty since he’d been the one to ask her to wear it. But Lawson had thought it was what she wanted since she’d kept it all this time.
“Did you really invite the whole town to our date?” she asked before he could bring up his conversation with Kellan.
“I did invite the whole town,” he confirmed. “Or rather my sister did. She’s the one who handled sending out the invites. According to the RSVPs, there’ll be about two hundred people. Not bad, considering it was short notice. I guess the lure of free food and a DJ had folks saying yes.”
Eve shook her head and stared at him. “Why?”
“You’ll see.” Lawson smiled and kissed her. Though the kiss was a mistake since it was a reminder that with Eve one kiss was never enough. Still, he forced himself to start driving.
“I don’t want to face a bunch of people,” she went on.
Good. They were on the same page. He wanted Eve alone. Preferably out of that dress. But that could wait because he really needed to do something he’d had on hold for the past eighteen years.
“You look really nice, by the way,” he told her.
She made a sound as if she didn’t agree with that. “Thanks, but I’m squeezed into this dress in a bad way. The seams might blow.”
He should be so lucky. But maybe those seams would hold a little longer.
“You look really nice, too,” she added.