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“My water broke,” she managed to say. “And my phone.” She’d dropped it when one of the contractions had hit, and the phone was now scattered all over the stone entryway and hardwood floor.
Eve wouldn’t mention that the reason her water had broken right by the door was because she’d been trying to hear who was talking outside the guesthouse. She’d thought it was another of her fans. Apparently not though.
“This is too soon,” she muttered. “I’m not due for three-and-a-half weeks. A baby shouldn’t come this soon, should it?” Eve knew she sounded frantic, perhaps even crazy, but she couldn’t make herself stop babbling. “Please tell me the baby will be all right.”
Lawson lifted his head, making eye contact with her. Yes, he possibly did have a head injury because he looked dazed.
Oh, God. There was blood.
It was on his head and on the butt of his jeans. Eve saw it while he was still on all fours and trying to get to his feet.
“You’re hurt,” she said, but it was garbled because another contraction hit her. For this one, King Kong had brought one of his friends to help him squeeze her belly. Because Eve had no choice, she dropped to the floor.
She was sinking onto her knees just as Lawson was getting to his. He caught onto the wall, and, grunting and making sounds of pain, he got to his feet. He glanced around as if trying to get his bearings, and he growled out more of that profanity. Some of it had her name in the mix. It definitely wasn’t the sweet tone he’d used when they’d been teenagers and he’d charmed her out of her underpants.
And speaking of underpants, hers were wet from where her water had broken. She was surprised she’d noticed something like that with the pain and with Lawson now looming over her. Since he seemed to have trouble figuring out what to do—possibly a result of his head injury—Eve spelled it out for him.
“Call a damn ambulance!” That was a lot louder and meaner than she’d planned, and she ended it with some of her own profanity. Eve also lay back on the floor.
Lawson shook his head as if to clear it, and he pulled out his phone. It took him a couple of tries to call 911. He poked at the numbers like a drunk man trying to hit a moving target, but he finally got through and requested an ambulance ASAP. When he’d finished that, he sank down next to her.
He did more cursing, followed by some wincing.
“I think you cut your butt,” she told him. “And your head. You might have a concussion.”
Considering that he’d seemed so dazed by everything else she’d said, it surprised Eve when that caused him to groan and mumble, “Vita.”
She knew that name. Vita Banchini. Hard to forget someone like that, but Eve had no idea what Vita had to do with what was going on now. Maybe the woman had put a pain curse on her and an injury curse on Lawson.
“You’re pregnant,” Lawson stated. Even though it was stating the obvious to an absurd degree, it was a good start. He was actually sounding somewhat coherent now, and he’d managed that comment without profanity.
“The baby’s coming, and he’s three-and-a-half weeks early,” she repeated. “How soon before the ambulance gets here?”
“Soon.” Lawson placed his hand on her belly. “How far apart are your contractions?”
She would have answered him if the contraction from Hades hadn’t hit her at the exact moment she opened her mouth. The sound that came out was nowhere recognizable as human speech.
“All right,” Lawson mumbled. “All right. Stay steady. Try to relax. And breathe. Don’t growl like a bear or it’ll make your throat sore.”
It was all stupid advice. She couldn’t do any of those things. But she could latch on to his hand since it was right there on her whale-sized stomach. Eve latched on and squeezed.
It helped.
Well, it helped her, anyway, but Lawson yelped in pain and cursed again. He worked his hand out of her grip—which she wanted to point out was mild compared to the contraction—and he shot her a look that could have frozen central Texas in August. That wasn’t his charming look, either, but it coordinated well with his noncharming tone and useless advice.
Over the past eighteen years, she’d fantasized about what it would be like to come home and see Lawson again, but never once had she thought it would be like this. Of course, she hadn’t expected him to welcome her back with open arms, either. Good thing, too, since he wouldn’t be able to get his arms around her right now.
How the heck had it come to this?
Here she was thirty-five, almost thirty-six, and was about to give birth to a baby she certainly hadn’t planned. A baby she loved and desperately wanted though. She just hadn’t wanted him to decide to come this early.
Added to that, she was without any medical help other than the man whose heart she’d crushed. Maybe this was some kind of karma playing out. If so, she wanted karma to know that she was really suffering. Maybe even dying.
Oh, mercy.
Was she dying?
No, she couldn’t be. Not with so much unsettled in her life. But maybe that’s how most people felt. There hadn’t been nearly enough time for her to get her ducks in a row. Heck, she wasn’t even sure she had a row yet, and her main duck was missing.
“Tessie,” she sobbed.
That came through loud and clear, and it caused Lawson to stare at her. “Your daughter.”
Since it wasn’t a question, that meant Lawson knew some of what had gone on in her life since she’d left Wrangler’s Creek. Of course he did. Most of her adult life had been tabloid news even after she’d stopped acting. Entertainment. Well, it didn’t feel so blasted entertaining right now.
“If I don’t make it,” Eve said, “please call Tessie for me and tell her I love her.”
Again, she didn’t hear Lawson’s answer because the next contraction roared through her. Eve hadn’t timed them, but she was betting they were less than a nanosecond apart.
“What about the baby’s father?” Lawson asked. “You want me to call him, too?”
Her heartbeat was drumming in her ears, King Kong and his posse were squeezing, and she was about to explode. Yet she heard that. Heard the edge in his voice, as well. She’d managed to keep the baby daddy’s identity out of the press, but Lawson probably figured that it was no one he would approve of.
Well, neither did she.
But she couldn’t do anything about that right now other than give birth to this precious child and start putting the pieces of her life back together.
“How long before the ambulance gets here?” she asked again, this time through the grunts and groans.
Lawson might have given her the answer, but Eve didn’t hear it because another contraction came. She hadn’t thought the pain could get worse, but she’d been wrong about that. She nearly reached for Lawson’s hand again, but everything inside her was screaming to do something else.
“Help me get out of my panties,” she gritted through clenched teeth.
The words were very familiar. Probably because she’d said them, or something similar, to Lawson moments before he’d rid her of her virginity. There’d been pain that night, too, but it was a drop in the bucket compared to this. Medieval torture was nothing compared to this.
Lawson’s forehead bunched up. “Uh, maybe the medics can take them off. Or I could call Garrett. He’s in the house.”
“No. Not Garrett.” She didn’t want anyone other than the medics or a doctor seeing her like this. It was bad enough that Lawson was having to witness it. Plus, she didn’t want Garrett slipping in the puddle. “Just help me with the panties.”
Lawson was clearly uncomfortable getting her partially naked, but that screaming inside her was still going on. Along with another loud message for her to push. But she couldn’t do that, not until the medics came because it would make the baby come before they got there.
She pushed.
Eve couldn’t stop herself. She bore down, making that bear growl that Lawson had already warned her about, and since he wasn’t ridding her of her panties, she fought to get them off.
“Please don’t let me die,” she told him. “Please let my baby be all right.”
Lawson looked up at the ceiling as if searching for some kind of divine assistance. “You’re not dying. Both you and your baby will be fine.”
Oh, she wanted to latch on to that poorly attempted reassurance, but the craziness was building and building. “How do you know we’ll be fine? Have you ever delivered a baby before?”
“No. Just calves.” He shimmied the panties off her. “But I suspect it’s about the same.”
The horrified look on his face said otherwise.
“Is something wrong?” Eve asked.
“No, nothing’s wrong. But I see the top of a head.” The color drained from his face.
Eve was certain the color drained from her face, too, but it didn’t last because she had to push again. That no doubt put some color back in her cheeks since she was straining and grunting.
“Here.” Lawson thrust his left hand at her again, an invitation for her to squeeze the crap out of it.
So, that’s what Eve did. She squeezed, pushed, cursed and grunted. Lawson was doing some of those things, too, in addition to putting his right hand between her legs.
“You’re almost there,” he said. “One more push should do it.”
She honed in on the sound of his voice and pushed. Then, just like that, the pain vanished. Not just a little bit of it, either. It completely went away. She looked down to see if Lawson had worked some kind of magic. No magic though.
Lawson was holding her son in his lap.
There was a split second of stunned silence from all three of them, but it didn’t last. The baby started to cry, and Eve could tell from the loud wail that there was absolutely nothing wrong with his lungs. That nothing wrong applied to the rest of him, either.
He was perfect.
Yes, perfect. Even with that squalling red face, balled-up fists and spindly legs. And huge feet. He was like a really pissed-off Hobbit. But he was her precious little Hobbit.
Lawson reached up on the kitchen counter, grabbed the roll of paper towels, and he coiled them around the baby like a hooded blanket. They certainly made a picture with him tending the baby like that. The boy she’d once loved holding the newborn boy she already loved with all her heart.
“No horns,” Lawson said.
She froze, blinked, but Eve quickly stopped the horrified look that was forming on her face when she realized he was joking. The corner of his mouth lifted into a smile, and he eased the baby into her arms.
Suddenly, her life didn’t seem like so much of a mess. All things seemed possible. But it didn’t last. It was gone in a flash—as was Lawson’s smile when his gaze connected with hers. Eve saw it then. The hurt she’d caused because of the choices she’d made.
No, not all things were possible.
“I’ll see what’s keeping the ambulance,” Lawson said, getting to his feet.
He was still bleeding, and limping, but Eve had never seen a man move so fast. At least until he reached the puddle, and his feet flew out from under him again. He dropped like a stone, his backside and head smacking the floor a second time.
Knocked out cold.
And that’s how the medics found Lawson when they came rushing through the door.
CHAPTER THREE
“YOU KNOW, MOST people don’t scowl when they look at newborns,” Lawson heard Garrett say.
His cousin was coming up the hall of the hospital toward him, and Garrett stopped shoulder to shoulder with Lawson outside the nursery viewing room. Lawson figured he was indeed scowling, and he was doing that while looking at the baby in the incubator on the other side of the glass.
Eve’s baby.
The scowl wasn’t for the newborn though. Nope. It wasn’t the kid’s fault that he’d been born three-and-a-half weeks early and that his mom was someplace she shouldn’t have been—the Granger Ranch.
“Most people don’t have a concussion and stitches on their ass,” Lawson grumbled. Or a wrecked image.
There was nothing left of his tough cowboy reputation. Lawson was certain of it. He knew both of the medics who’d come to the ranch, and they were blabbermouths. Blabbermouths who would embellish what they’d seen on the floor of the guesthouse, and pretty soon the gossip all over town would be about his ass stitches.
“I heard about the stitches,” Garrett confirmed. “Did a rhinestone from Eve’s phone really get embedded into your butt cheek?”
And that comment confirmed Lawson’s theory about the blabbermouths. Lawson certainly hadn’t called his cousin and told him what had gone on with him in the ER after the ambulance had brought Eve and the baby to the hospital.
“It wasn’t a rhinestone,” Lawson corrected him, and he was pretty sure it would be a correction he’d have to make a lot. “It was a jagged piece of her rhinestone phone case that broke when Eve dropped it.”
But yeah, the doctor had had to pluck out a rhinestone, too, that had been like a sparkly BB in his butt cheek.
Damn Vita, and damn her stupid foretellings.
“Are you okay?” Garrett asked.
“I’ll live.” With somewhat reduced dignity, but somehow he’d muster through.
Garrett tipped his head to the baby. “How about him? Is he okay, too?”
“Yeah,” Lawson said. “According to one of the docs, he’s in the incubator because he was a little premature, but he’s fine. I didn’t screw up anything when I delivered him.”
Garrett made a sound of approval. “And how about Eve? How is she?”
“Don’t know. I’ve been busy for the past hour, remember.” Lawson hiked his thumb to his right butt cheek, then his forehead. He could have kept “hiking” what with all his cuts and bruises, but Garrett had no doubt gotten the point.
Garrett smiled, though other than the healthy baby, Lawson couldn’t see much to smile about. “Not busy enough to find out about the newborn. But I guess you feel...vested in him since you’re the one who brought him into the world.”
Lawson scowled again. “No vestment. I just looked in on him while I was waiting for you.”
That was the partial truth. Garrett had followed the ambulance from the ranch to the hospital, but once Lawson realized he was going to need stitches and an X-ray, he’d sent Garrett home to deal with that horse seller. Lawson hadn’t called Garrett for a ride home until about ten minutes ago when he’d found out that the baby was okay. So yeah, he had a slight vested interest. But that interest only applied to the kid.
“Why didn’t your mom tell me that Eve was coming back to Wrangler’s Creek?” Lawson asked.
It was a question born out of frustration, and it only caused Garrett to give him a how the hell should I know? grunt. And Garrett truly wouldn’t have known what was going on in Belle’s often loony head. Belle was one of those oddball mysteries of life.
As was Eve.
Not once had there been a hint that she might want to come back. For that matter, Lawson hadn’t read anything about her being pregnant. Not that he’d looked for that kind of gossip about her, but as often enough as she still appeared on tawdry tabloid covers, it made him wonder why there hadn’t been a story about it—tawdry or otherwise.
Garrett moved closer to the glass, his attention on the baby. The kid was cocooned in a blue blanket and was sacked out. Occasionally, he would open his eyes, but the light must have bothered him because he would make a face and go back to sleep.
“It doesn’t seem right for him to be in there all alone,” Lawson muttered, and he immediately wished that he’d kept the thought in his head because it caused Garrett to look at him. Not just any old look, either. It was the slightly amused one that made Lawson want to punch him.
“I’m sure the nurses are watching him on a monitor,” Garrett said, tipping his head to a camera just over the incubator. “Look, there’s a nurse in that room.” A room that was right next to the nursery. “And we’re here, too.”
True, but they’d be leaving any minute now. Not that Lawson wanted to stay. He didn’t.
“Plus, they’ll probably take him to Eve soon,” Garrett went on. “She might plan to nurse him.”
Maybe. But Lawson didn’t like thinking of Eve’s breasts. Way too many memories of those since they’d been the first breasts he’d ever touched. Of course, he had the freshest memories of her nether regions when he’d been delivering the kid.
“I’m sure Eve will be getting visitors, too,” Garrett added. “And they’ll see the baby.”
Obviously, Garrett was still pleading his case about the baby not really being alone. But that only reminded Lawson of something else. “When Eve was in labor, she mentioned her adopted daughter, Tessie. You think Belle might know of a way to get in touch with the girl?”
“Possibly. Or you could just ask Eve.” But Garrett waved that off. “I’ll ask her if Belle doesn’t know. Are you about ready to go home now?” Garrett tacked on a moment later. But he didn’t budge. He just kept staring at the baby.
At first Lawson thought that was because this was bringing back bad memories for him. Four years ago, Garrett and his now ex-wife had had a stillborn daughter. It had crushed him, but lately there’d been some much better memories of this place. A year ago, Garrett’s sister had delivered her twins here, and just six months ago, Garrett’s wife, Nicky, had given birth to a healthy baby boy. Sometimes, though, the good stuff couldn’t outweigh the bad.
Lawson knew that firsthand.
And he got a jolt of his own memories. Oh, hell. Not now.
His best friend, Brett, had died in this hospital. Since at the moment he couldn’t deal with that, Lawson shoved it back in the little box he’d built in his head.
“There are reporters outside,” Garrett told him. “The security guard’s insisting he won’t let them in, but I figure they’ll sneak in first chance they get. Plus, there are a couple of people out there carrying horns.”
Lawson didn’t think that was horns of the musical variety. He didn’t want to face either the reporters or the lunatics. He added yet another person to that mental list.
Darby. His ex-girlfriend.
But he was apparently going to have to face her because she was headed their way. It wasn’t a shocker to see her, not the way it’d been for him at the guesthouse with Eve. After all, Darby was a nurse and worked here at the hospital. In fact, Lawson was surprised he hadn’t seen her sooner, but he’d just figured she was avoiding him.
The way he’d been avoiding her.
No chance of avoiding her right now though, because she stopped directly in front of him. She was wearing purple scrubs today, her favorite color, and she had some magazines clutched to her chest.
“I came on shift about an hour ago, just as the ambulance arrived with Eve and you,” Darby said. “I heard you needed stitches.”
She said it with concern, too. Of course, Garrett had been concerned as well, but his cousin had found the butt injury funny.
Lawson settled for saying, “I’m fine.”
Darby scrounged up a smile, and her gaze lingered on him a moment. As if she was waiting for him to return the smile.
He didn’t. Lawson had learned that Darby could interpret something as small as a smile as a sign of their reunion. She was a smart woman, but she hadn’t figured out yet that it was never going to work between them.
And that she was too good for him.
Darby gave a soft, frustrated sigh and turned to the baby. “Eve’s son,” she muttered. “I think he looks exactly like her.”
But again, she seemed to be waiting for something. Maybe she wanted confirmation of the gossip she’d no doubt already heard? Lawson kept watch of her from the corner of his eye, and he saw the slight tightening of her mouth and her bunched-up forehead.
“He’s not my kid,” Lawson growled. “Before today, I hadn’t seen Eve since she left town our senior year of high school.”
The next sigh Darby made seemed to be one of relief, and it caused Lawson to silently curse.
Crap.
Had people really thought he’d knocked up Eve? Apparently so. And the fact that he hadn’t seemed to put a sparkle of hope in Darby’s eyes since he’d just confirmed to her that he hadn’t been with Eve. The sparkle dimmed considerably when she looked at him again.
“I was just in Eve’s room,” Darby said. “I wasn’t snooping or anything. This is my floor, and it’s my job to check on patients, but a couple of the staff also wanted me to get her to sign these.” She shifted the magazines so he could see them. Well, he could see the one on top, anyway.
Damn. It was those tabloids and not a recent one, either. According to the date, it had come out about six months after Eve had left. It was also about the time Demon High had become a hit.
And there were the hit-makers on the cover.
Eve, aka Ulyana. She was wearing her body-hugging, red leather fighting costume complete with a sickle knife. Kellan Carver, aka Stavros, was in his body-hugging, black leather demon garb, and yeah, he had the horns. He also had Eve. His black leather garb wasn’t the only thing doing some hugging because Stavros was standing behind Eve, his arms coiled possessively around her.
The headline said it all: Stavros Is Demon Hot.
Lawson had the same reaction now as he had seventeen-and-a-half years ago. He threw up a little in his mouth. The only reason he didn’t throw up a lot was because Eve had indeed signed the cover—and her signature was right over Kellan–Stavros’s smug face.
“I know,” Darby went on. “I really didn’t want to bother Eve with these, but she said she didn’t mind.” Darby made eye contact with Lawson again. “Anyway, she wants to see you.”
“Why?” Lawson practically snapped.
Heck, that snap seemed to bring back the sparkle to Darby, too. “She mentioned something about wanting to thank you. You wouldn’t even have to go to her room because she’s insisting she’ll come down here to the nursery and stay until her baby is out of the incubator. She’ll probably be here any minute.”
“No thanks needed. I’m surprised she’s not here already,” he added without even pausing.
“Oh, she was until about thirty minutes ago, but the doctor made her get back in bed so he could examine her.”
Lawson had just missed her since that was about the time he’d arrived at the nursery window. Of course, if he’d seen Eve, he would have slipped out and not interrupted her time with her baby.
“Are you ready to go?” Lawson asked Garrett.
“Uh, sure, but if you want to pop in for a second and see Eve—”
“I don’t.” He wanted to get out of there—now. It was like being a contestant on a bad game show. Behind door number one was Eve—old memories and fresh butt-stitch humiliation. Behind door number two was Darby and her needy eyes.
“Tell Eve I’ll be by to see her later,” Garrett added to Darby, and he hurried to catch up with Lawson. “I guess it really is over between you two.”
Lawson glanced at him, trying to decide if his cousin was talking about Eve or Darby now. It didn’t matter. The answer to both was yes.
“I think I’ll leave early for that cattle auction in Amarillo,” Lawson said, throwing it out there. “I could be on the road in just a couple of hours.”
“The auction’s next week.” There was a reason for the skepticism in Garrett’s voice. Lawson didn’t like buying trips or hotels, and leaving today would mean a week and a half in a hotel.
“It’ll give my stitches time to heal,” Lawson reasoned.
It was stupid reasoning. His stitches would heal at the ranch, too. Plus, he probably shouldn’t be gone that long since his house was close to being finished. The contractor might have things to show him, questions to ask. But that could wait. He had to get out of there.
“We should go out the back,” Garrett said when they reached the main waiting room. “Remember, there are reporters out front.”
Lawson hadn’t forgotten about them, but the numbing meds were wearing off, and he didn’t want to take the long way around to get to the parking lot.