Chapter 37 Lachlan
Lachlan
Lachlan tried to ignore the woman ruining his day.
Deli was perched on a rock, cheering on his friends.
Well, fine, Kevin wasn’t exactly his friend.
In fact, Lachlan had dedicated more than one wandering thought to being worried about what havoc Kevin might release on the world if given the chance, but Kevin was still his Kevin. In his world. Not hers.
Deli probably didn’t even have a Kevin.
“Hell yeah, Ilona!” Deli’s chin chattered. Her gloved hands made muffled poof sounds as she clapped. Ilona grinned and launched another hammer with dizzying strength. Deli whooped. “Divine! I’d sacrifice a virgin to you!”
Kevin’s neck sank into his body like a cartoon tortoise as he took a nervous step away.
Lachlan still felt something unnamable well up in his throat when he thought of the day they’d met as kids on the cliffside, and again at a train station—the wild flash of her smile, the stubborn courage in her eyes.
Deli was quick. She was warm. She was resilient and brave and the sort of person who notices the shapes of leaves on trees that pass by—but her compass was all wrong.
He felt a bit queasy over the comments about her mother.
Lachlan had never forgotten the sound of the woman screaming at a little girl from behind the red door of Mo’s home.
In any other situation, he would have already apologized profusely and tried to warm up her toes.
But being around Deli stoked a fire in his bones.
He was sure it wouldn’t die down until it had turned her presence in his life—his friends, his town, his family, his pub—into ash.
It didn’t matter that his mind had taken to wandering to Deli’s laugh or the crushed-bramble color of her lips.
It didn’t matter that he’d paced behind the bar in pajamas for hours, imagining a chance to speak to that absolute walloper, Trey Evans.
It certainly didn’t matter that Lachlan hadn’t been able to picture himself happy for years until she’d come.
Deli needed to go, and she was making it very clear that she did not intend to while she grew roots in the hearts of most of his patrons. His people. He was barely protecting his own. And she would leave them torn open when she uprooted and left.
He had to say what he did on the drive. It was for the greater good.
“Oi, Lachlan!” Graham beckoned. “Tug-o-war time!”
Lachlan coiled the thick rope and heaved it onto his shoulders while Deli fished mini bottles of sports drinks out of Graham’s cooler and passed them out like she had a child on the team.
Robert, one of the three middle-aged men who weren’t related despite passing as triplets, announced he had to sit out for a dodgy knee.
“That does leave us with odd numbers . . .” Graham glanced around the group.
“I’ll do it.”
Lachlan’s jaw dropped.
Deli clapped her hand against Graham’s back with more gusto than she probably would have naturally, mirroring the way Graham did it. “I’ll be on your team, Graham. We can take anyone down.”
Lachlan stepped forward. “She’s got an injured ankle. She can’t play.”
The look she gave him could have branded his skin. “Did I miss the part where I asked you?”
He ignored her. “She’s a liability.”
“I’m Fine.” Her volume wasn’t quite shouting, but it wasn’t quite not. She put her hands on her hips and did a borderline offensive imitation of an Irish jig. “If I was dreadfully injured, could I dance like an angel?”
Lachlan looked at Graham, pleading. “Graham, we don’t need her.”
Graham scratched his chin. “That’s not yours to decide, Lachlan. Deli, you’re in.”
Deli mouthed neener neener behind Graham’s back.
He arranged them so Lachlan and Deli were face to face on opposite teams. Lachlan flexed his fingers around the rope and rooted his boots into the mud. Deli glowered, with fingers so white they looked blue without her gloves.
Lachlan spoke quietly as they settled into their places. “You’re gonna hurt yourself.”
Deli made a pfft sound. “I’d be more worried about losing if I were you.”
“Your confidence is inspiring.”
“Thank you.”
“And delusional.”
“A woman beating a man in a show of strength is delusional? Hot take.”
“Ilona could beat me. You?” He looked her up and down. His heartbeat picked up. “I’ll take my chances.”
“Your hubris will see you smitten.”
“And your pride will see you fall.” He felt his ears turn a touch pink.
“TUG!” Graham shouted, and the rope snapped taut. He was pulled toward Deli as she and her team yanked backward.
She cheered. “That’s it, team! Tug, Kevin, tug!”
Kevin lit up at the sound of his name spoken in a positive context by a woman, and pulled with a fervor Lachlan didn’t know he had. It propelled Lachlan forward again just as he was getting his footing.
“Lachlan!” Ilona growled from behind him. “Get it together!”
Deli’s boot was perilously close to crossing over the stick that marked her team winning. She was the last who needed to cross. Lachlan was inches from losing.
He dug his heel into the mud and pulled with all his strength. Deli’s backward momentum vanished, and she stumbled toward him as his team gave another heave.
“Over my dead body,” she grunted, and resisted with renewed strength, pushing up mounds of wet soil around the soles of her boots.
A collective creaking, groaning sound came from the other team as they successfully slowed Lachlan’s momentum to a stop.
He could see beads of sweat on her lip. Then her face twitched with an unmistakable strike of pain.
His eyes snapped to her ankle as he remembered the state of her the night he’d held her in his arms. He eased a bit. She took a small step back.
She really was going to hurt herself. “Deli, this is a bad idea.”
“Cuz you’re losing?”
He wanted her to stop. “I know that has to hurt.”
“Why do you care, Lachlan?” Her voice was strained as her team claimed another few inches. Graham stepped back over the winner’s line. “You’re way too concerned with my joint health.”
“Believe it or not, I don’t want to see you hurt.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“I’m trying to help you!” Lachlan rooted his feet again and halted their progress.
“I didn’t ask for your help,” she growled, tugging against his weight. She was only a step from the finish line, and once she crossed it would be done.
“Fine.” He yanked Deli and her team forward. Graham swore as they nearly lost their footing. “Break it, for all I care.”
“I wi—”
Lachlan pulled. She gasped as her eyes widened in pain.
No.
Lachlan’s heart pounded through his chest as he abandoned the rope and reached for her.
Deli’s expression morphed from pain-stricken into triumph as she stepped backward over the finish line.
Lachlan didn’t have time to register that she’d been faking before the three grown adults who had been tugging behind him collided into his back with the momentum of a small rugby team.
Her face changed again as Lachlan was pitched toward her.
“No no no no n—OOF.”
They crashed to the ground. He caught himself on his hands on either side of her as best he could and felt his knee sink into the cold mud.
Deli lay with her eyes squeezed shut and her face turned away beneath him.
“Are you okay?” A cold, sharp grip of panic coursed through him. He searched her face for signs of pain, of a concussion, but she didn’t move. “Deli, are you okay?”
Deli slowly opened her eyes. Her chin tucked into the softness of her neck while she tried to take inventory at their strange angle. Her breathing was too shallow. A red flush crept into her face—the marks of some ache she couldn’t name.
Lachlan was frozen with fear. How could he have been so careless? Why did he have to play petty games with her? Why did he have to hurt people he didn’t want to?
“Deli?”
“I, uh”—she stopped to swallow—“I’m not sure. I can’t move.”
Dread tore through him. “What hurts? What did you hit?”
“No, Lachlan, you’re sort of on top of me.”
For the first time, Lachlan realized how close he was—how he could see the hazel starburst in her left eye he hadn’t noticed before.
He was hovering over her in a half push-up with their pelvises pressed together and his knee in the mud between her splayed legs.
The heat in Deli’s cheeks glowed warmer.
Despite the cold soaking through his clothes, his skin flushed, too.
“I’m sorry.” Lachlan walked himself backward until he was off of her. “I’m so sorry.”
Deli actually chuckled. “I’m fine, Lachlan, seriously.” She tried to sit up and winced as the mud made a sucking sound around her torso.
Lachlan had lifted her off the ground before he knew what he was doing.
“Holy jabeezus!” Deli wheezed as he sat her down on a boulder and knelt. “I’m okay!”
Lachlan cupped her bad ankle and flexed her foot. “Does it hurt when I do this?”
“No,” Deli began, but she hissed as her ankle jerked.
Lachlan’s father had been right: He broke everything he touched.
“I need to take you to a hospital—”
Static electricity danced across his skin where Deli’s hands suddenly cradled his face. She tilted his head up, but he kept his eyes trained on the ground. He couldn’t bear it.
“Lachlan?” She whispered his name with softness he didn’t deserve. “Hey, Lachlan, look at me.”
He forced himself.
“It’s not your fault.”
His breath halted.
“Lachlan, you didn’t do anything wrong. You didn’t hurt me. I’m okay.” She wiggled her foot between them. “See? The only thing wounded here is my pride—”
She was smiling. Deli was smiling.
“—and yours, I’m assuming, since you lost big-time.”
Somehow, Lachlan laughed, and a barb buried deep in his heart lost small but significant purchase. He smiled at Deli, so relieved he could have cried.
“Hey. You cheated.”
She raised a devious eyebrow. “I’m wily! And you bought it.”
As she pulled her hands from his face, she hooked a finger under the brim of his woolly hat and flipped it off his head. The cold rush against his damp hair sent goose pimples racing across his neck and arms, but Lachlan Scott didn’t feel the chill.
All he could feel was something close to daylight on his skin after a long, midnight storm. He wasn’t sure how, but somewhere, finally, the sun was rising.
And he was scared to death.