Chapter 29 Lachlan
Lachlan
Lachlan pulled up to the cottage.
Mo already had her keys out. “You get her inside. I’ll go start the hot water.”
“I don’t feel so good,” Deli mumbled with her face pressed against the window.
“Just hold on, I’m coming.” Lachlan’s boots crunched in the gravel. “Don’t you dare be sick in here.”
Deli had only been in Fearnhall for a week and was already becoming Mo’s crisis.
She looked pitiful as he opened her door. “Lachlan, I’m sorry. I’m sorry I fought your sink.”
He wanted to get her inside and leave. “It’s fine.”
Deli’s bottom lip stuck out. “He’s a nice sink. He didn’t deserve it.”
“Can you get out on your own?”
“I think so.” Deli shifted her weight to the foot on the ground, but she winced and sucked in her breath.
“Your ankle.” He reached for her. “It’s worse.”
“I just need to walk it off.” She took a limping step and pressed her hand to her head. “Ow.”
Lachlan sighed. She was stubborn, and someone was going to get hurt. He couldn’t allow that. “I’m going to pick you up now.”
Deli’s eyebrows shot up. “You’re going to pick me up?”
“Mmhmm.”
Her mouth turned to a flat line. “Nope.”
“Deli, you can’t walk. You might have a concussion—”
“I don’t have a concussion.”
“That’s not what my sink said.”
“Well, your sink is a dick. And you don’t get it.” Deli patted her hips. “I’m dense.”
“You’re what?”
She shifted her weight and winced again as her eyes brightened and she stuck a finger in the air. “Like a potato!”
He fought a laugh. “I can pick up a potato.”
“What about a sack of, like, a million potatoes?”
“Child’s play.” He moved to lift her.
“No!”
Lachlan straightened and looked her in the eye. “Deli, if you really don’t want me to help you, I won’t. But if this is pride or . . .” He paused, considering what she might truly be concerned about. “Just let me help you.”
“Ugh, fine!” She threw her arms up and let them fall.
He lifted her easily and carried her toward the door.
Deli’s puff of breath came out a small, “Oh.”
She was warm all over. She even smelled warm, and Lachlan felt warm, too. Her body relaxed in his arms. Lachlan glanced at her, and he regretted it.
A beam of light fell across her face as Mo opened the front door. “The bath is read—”
She stopped short as she registered Lachlan holding Deli in his arms on the doorstep. He felt suddenly mortified—a teenager again.
“Her ankle,” he said as heat flared in his cheeks.
“Sure,” Mo replied, stepping back to let them squeeze through.
“He made me,” Deli said from his arms. “I wanted to walk.”
“You wanted to die limping in the dark.”
Mo failed to hide a smirk. “Plenty of time to bicker tomorrow, kids.”
He set Deli down as Mo looped an arm around her waist.
She looked over her shoulder. “Can you take Deli early tomorrow? I’ve got the event, and Douggie said Cairn is in need of assistance.”
Deli hiccuped. “Tomorrow?”
Mo wiggled her eyebrows at Lachlan with a grin. “You’ve got a date at the farm.”
“Farm?” Deli said at the same time Lachlan said, “Yes.”
Mo winked as she helped Deli through the bathroom door.
It wasn’t until Mo called his name that he realized he was still standing in the doorway. He cleared his throat. “Yes?”
“Are you afraid to go home?”
“No.”
“Okay,” she said. “Because you were in quite the rush twenty minutes ago.”
“Right.”
“And you’re still standing in my living room.”
“Right,” he said, shifting from one foot to the other. “I’ll be off, then.”
“Thanks for helping me get her home.”
“Of course.”
“I’ve got her from here.”
“That’s not . . .” he began, but the look on Mo’s face stopped him short. “Good night.”
“Good night.”
She closed the bathroom door behind her, but Lachlan’s feet wouldn’t move.
He could hear Beans meowing happily. The damn cat hadn’t even tried to escape.
“Aunt Mo, help,” Deli said. “My shoe is giving me attitude.”
Mo laughed. Her real laugh, and Lachlan was flooded with such a surprising sense of contentment he almost felt drunk. Then he heard himself chuckling, and he heard his friend counting on the companionship of a woman who was bound to leave, and he sobered immediately.
Lachlan had work to do. He turned to leave, but the fireplace was cold.
First, he’d build a fire.
Then he had work to do.