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
