Chapter 19
nineteen
Lachlan
“ H ey, Chief,” Davidson says as he enters my office.
“Hey, what’s up?”
“You have a visitor.”
That can only be one person. I’m smiling before I can even stop myself. Sure enough, Ainsley enters, carrying a bag. “Thanks, Davidson.”
He closes the door, and Ainsley places the bag on my desk. “Hello, Chief West.”
“Ms. MacKinley,” I say with a grin. “To what do I owe this honor?”
“I could say so many things, but I’m here for several reasons.”
“And they are?”
She sits in the seat and inhales deeply before blowing that breath out. “I need your help, Lach.”
Those four words tear at my heart. “With what?”
“I have a rough draft of the article, but it’s not good. I know good and I know bad, and this is just ... not good.”
“I see.”
“So I need your help. I want this to be something more than just a ‘where are you now.’ I want to talk about sports overall, the things it does for kids and adults. To do that, though, I need you. ”
I hate that I struggle with this. Talking and thinking about the past causes me stress that I’ve worked hard to avoid. It’s not that I regret any of it. I just don’t want to go back and remember the way it felt at that time, but then I look at Ainsley, and there’s no way I can deny her.
I will hurt myself a million times before I sit back and let her suffer.
So I’ll help her. I’ll give her the interview and make her happy. I’ll do whatever she needs because I want to be the man who makes her happy.
“Then you have me.”
Her eyes widen. “I do?”
“Yes, I’ll do the interview.”
She jumps up, rushing to me, and throws herself in my lap. Her lips find mine, and I sort of hate myself for not agreeing to this sooner if this was going to be the reaction. She pulls away much too quickly for my liking. “You mean it?”
“I mean it.” She squeezes my cheeks and then kisses me again, not a long, sexy kiss that I really want, but more of a long lip-slap kiss, and then she pushes herself off my lap. “Do you do that with all the people you interview?”
She giggles and goes back to her seat. “Since you’re my first assignment, I wouldn’t know.”
“What’s in the bag?”
She shifts in her seat a little. “I wasn’t sure you would say yes, so I came prepared with a bribe.”
“A bribe?”
“Listen, you haven’t been all that cooperative so far. I needed backup.”
I go to grab the bag, but she snatches it quickly. “No, sir. You don’t need the bribe now.”
“I’m not sure what’s in there, but if it’s food, I definitely need it.”
She lets out a long sigh. “It is food, but I think it’s better if I use it as leverage in case you become difficult. ”
“Me? Difficult? I’m a hero who saves children and puppies, remember?” I tease.
“Oh, now there are puppies?”
I shrug. “Rolls off the tongue easily.”
She bursts out laughing. “Who are you? You’re never in this good of a mood.”
“I’m always in a good mood.”
When I’m not pining after her. When she shows up here and kisses me. When I’m just near her, suddenly it’s like the sun peeking over the horizon.
Ainsley chases away that dark cloud that’s hung over my head for years.
“That is a lie, but I’ll allow it.”
“Thank you.”
Her eyes are bright with happiness, and I feel like a damn king, knowing I put it there. “All right, we should get down to it.”
“We’re doing this now?” I ask.
“Are you busy?”
I look at the stacks of paper on my desk and then back to her. I’m swimming in a never-ending sea of bureaucracy. My chief retired a year ago, and since then we haven’t had anyone permanent in this spot. The two other captains and I rotated, but no one ever handled anything fully before we had to pass it to the next guy.
Which means everything slipped through the cracks. Since I was appointed chief after that stupid fire, I’ve been doing nothing but cleaning up messes and finding new ones.
However, the way Ainsley is staring at me with pleading eyes, I know I’ll let it all build up to make her happy.
“You know, I was just thinking that it’s nice outside today and I should take a break,” I say as I get to my feet.
“You were?”
“Let’s go get lunch.”
She grabs the bag. “I have one better for you. Is there a park or somewhere close?”
“No park, but I have a good friend who owes me a favor. ”
Her brows lift. “Oh?”
I grab my phone and send a text to the group chat.
Killian, are you cool with me having a meeting at your ranch? I’d like to take the horses out for a ride.
Killian
Meeting with who?
Everett
And since when do you have meetings in barns? That’s usually my gig.
It’s for an interview. I’d like to take Ainsley to see the horses and take her for a trail ride.
Everett:
Now it makes sense.
Miles
He needs a barn to show her the hayloft. You know what they do up there ...
Everett
Nothing says love like hay in the ass.
There’s something wrong with you.
Killian
We knew this. You’re welcome to ride any of the horses. I’m back in Boston for the week, but I’ll have the trainers saddle up two if that works.
Thanks, Killian, that’s perfect. At least someone in this chat is helpful.
Everett
I’m helpful. Listen, once you get her in the “saddle,” you want her to ride the ... horse ... in an up and down motion.
You like to play with the horses a lot, huh?
Miles
Fighting words there. So, you and Ainsley?
We’re doing an interview. That’s it.
Everett
Miles, is that what the kids are calling it these days? Hey, baby, come meet me for an interview at the barn, I’ll show you my stallion.
Killian
Ainsley is great, don’t fuck it up.
Thanks for the unsolicited advice.
Everett
It is you. The chances he’s going to fuck it up are pretty high.
Miles
This is true. You are a pretty big idiot.
I huff and put the phone away. “Okay, let’s go.”
“I take it the Frisbee team is involved in this?”
“Not even a little. Other than we’re going to Killian’s ranch.”
“There’s a park there?”
I grin. “Come on, I’ll show you.”
After we arrive, we go through the huge gates, and her eyes are like saucers. “This isn’t a ranch. This is like a compound for the rich.”
I snort a laugh. “You don’t even know the half of it.”
“Why did you bring me here?”
“Just let me surprise you for once.”
She sighs but doesn’t press me for more. I take her hand, pulling her back to the barn. The trainer exits. “Hey, Lachlan.”
“Good afternoon, Pete. This is Ainsley. ”
They shake hands. “It’s nice to meet you. Do you work here?”
He nods. “I’m the head trainer for Mr. Thorn.”
“Killian runs this ranch and boards his racehorses here,” I explain.
She looks to Pete. “You do? Wow. I love horses. I had one until I was in high school, but ... that was a long time ago.”
Until Peaches had to be sold because Ainsley was getting ready for college. The way she cried when the Admiral told her it was time to let her go. I remember the tears, the way she curled up in my mother’s garden and sobbed. Mom wouldn’t let me go out there, saying that sometimes girls need a real good cry and we needed to give her space to grieve.
I’d like to take that pain away, because as far as I know, she hasn’t ridden since.
“Pete, could you show us to the horses you saddled?”
Ainsley’s head whips to me. “What?”
I step closer, a smile on my face. “We’re going to ride.”
“But . . . you hate horses.”
“You love them.”
“I repeat, you hate horses.”
“I don’t hate them. I’ve learned how to ride since living here.”
“I ... didn’t know that. Wow. Lach, we don’t have to do this. I know you ...”
“I know that I want to take you riding. I know that you loved your horse when we were kids. That every Sunday you woke before the sun came up, dressed in your fancy riding gear. Mom used to say she thought you slept in it.” I chuckle.
“Well, she wasn’t wrong. I did sleep in it. When I was really young, I even slept with the helmet. I didn’t want to forget anything.” She steps closer, taking my hands in hers. “You remember that?”
I nod. “There are a few regrets I have in this world, Ainsley, and one is the day you had to let go of Peaches, that I didn’t come out to the garden.”
“You heard me?”
“Yes, and my mother told me to let you cry it out.” I shake my head. “I never should’ve let you cry alone. You wouldn’t have done that to me.”
She looks off to the side. “I would’ve soaked your shirt with the amount of tears I cried that day.”
“I wouldn’t have cared.”
Ainsley leans up on her toes, pressing her lips to mine. “Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me yet,” I joke. “For all I know, Killian put us on two crazy horses.”
She giggles. “I’ll protect you.”
I kiss her again, tugging her against my chest. She pulls away, resting her hand over my beating heart. “You stole my line.”
She shrugs and then walks toward the barn, turning before she enters. “You stole my heart, so it’s only fair.”
No, she stole mine, and we’re going to have two hearts broken when this ends.
“That was the best ride ever. It’s been so long and ... it was just like riding a bike.”
I’m glad one of us is happy, because it sure as hell isn’t me. I may have learned how to ride in the last few years, but that wasn’t what I did.
She’s a goddamn maniac on a horse. She was going full speed and not having a care in the world.
It’s going to take me weeks to recover from this.
“It was something.”
She laughs. “You didn’t feel free? Like there was nothing that could touch you as we raced through the fields?”
“I felt like if we hit the ground, the only thing that was going to touch us was God.”
“For someone who literally walks into burning buildings for a living, you’re a chicken.”
“Completely different.”
Which to some might sound ridiculous, but it’s true. That’s my job. I am trained to go into that building and do what I can to save lives and property. This was for fun and was terrifying.
We walk the horses back to Pete, who informs Ainsley she’s welcome anytime to ride.
“Thank you for this, Lach. I didn’t realize how much I missed riding until I got on the horse. It was like a part of me returning.”
I throw my arm over her shoulder, tugging her to my side and kissing her temple. “I’m glad it made you happy.”
“It did. However ... I’m the one who planned to bribe you. How did I end up coming out on this side of the deal?”
“I’ll think of inventive ways to let you pay me back.”
She grins. “I bet you will.”
“You owe me nothing, sweetheart. This was because I wanted to see you smile.”
It’s what I always want. When Ainsley smiles, all the bad in the world disappears, leaving nothing but beauty and joy. She’s everything to me, and while we are in this arrangement, I want her happy.
“Well, I smiled a lot.”
“Good.”
“So where are you taking me now?”
“I’ll show you.” We walk down to Killian’s dock. He has incredible views from here, and you can almost hear the falls. It’s a great spot for fishing and hopefully a serene place to talk about some of my past.
“Wow, his views are spectacular,” Ainsley notes.
I try to look at it from her view—the river that runs from the mountains through the town, the way the mountain peaks look as though they can pierce the clouds, and the sun behind acting as a beacon on all the beauty of this area.
But then I look at her.
I no longer see any of it, just Ainsley.
“Yeah, the views are spectacular.”
She glances back at me, her lips tipping up as though she knows I’m not talking about the landscape. “Did you want to see what I brought for you? ”
That’s right, she has a small paper bag in that gargantuan purse of hers. We head over to the large Adirondack chairs, where we can look out at the river. She’s digging in her bag, and I lean back, hands laced behind my head.
“Since it was supposed to be a bribe, I’m hoping it’s good.”
Ainsley wiggles her brows. “Oh, it is.”
“I’m hoping it’s lingerie.”
“Uhh, no. Sorry to disappoint.”
“I’ll survive. You do go commando, and knowing you’re walking around with nothing under those leggings is good enough for me.”
“Glad to be of service.”
I jerk my head to the bag. “What’s in there then?”
She grins. “Something you love.”
“I love a lot of things, but most don’t fit in bags.”
“This does.”
“Okay, let me have it.”
“Close your eyes and put out your hands.” I do as she says, waiting for this gift I love, and it feels like a plastic container. “Okay, open them.”
When I do it’s a slice of cake, but not just any cake. It’s strawberry shortcake. The kind like my mother made for me every year. While the other kids wanted her strange blends, I just wanted this.
“I haven’t had this since she died,” I admit.
“I drove an hour and a half to find the bakery that Hazel said makes the absolute best pie. I called there first, and they said they didn’t have any of that this week, but I explained what I needed it for, and she specially made you a cake. The rest is at home.”
I glance up, my chest feeling as though someone is squeezing it, and I can’t breathe. “Ainsley, this is ...”
“Sometimes the past belongs behind us, and other times we need to visit because there’s a part of us that isn’t healed yet. While it’s not your birthday, and it’s not your mother’s baking, it’s a piece of our life that we can still enjoy. I know this article feels like we’re going back, and all those things are going to be opened again, but, Lachlan, you should know I would never do anything to hurt you.”
I lean forward, taking her hand in mine, and kiss her softly. “I’d break myself open for you. You’ve always been my weakness.”
“Let me be your strength.”
I kiss her again. “What do you want to know? I’m an open book.”
And then we have the longest interview of my life.